Users not happy with new Facebook changes

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Glaucus said:
And yet, cell phone companies like Rogers and Telus are still in business. Go figure!
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Virtual monopoly. A low number of players in the market makes it possible to collude to offer the worst possible service at the highest possible price and pretend you are competitive by having different logos.

The problem with Hi5 is - nobody ever heard of them. 3rd place, behind MySpace!!! How obscure can you get?
And it sounds like they have been making changes but it hasn't helped.

The thing with social networks is that you want to be in the one with the most potential contacts. Otherwise it's pointless. Having a big base is what it's all about which means that over time more people gravitate to the site with the most users. You can change all sorts of things about but that's the underlying dynamic. The winners win. Migrating away just because the UI is crap or some features got moved off into an API so that third parties can recreate the old feature for their profit (or imagined future profit until they learn what FB already learned about how you can't make money off the feature) is not an option because you can't move the entire network and database of potential contacts over with you to a new service. FB can FU a lot because they have the monopoly over their database.

It would be really difficult for anyone to start a new competitor without huge investment with uncertain payoff sometime a decade away but an information warehouser with substantial infrastructure like google could pull it off because they have been incrementing towards it on the back of an already functioning related business.

Still, changing a tool for changes sake sucks because it isn't a hangout - it's a tool. If the users know how to use the tool and suddenly the tool is "improved" then millions of people may spend a few minutes longer in a day trying to figure out how the tool works now (and more minutes if you have to tweek scripts because stuff you automated starts failing - which, now that I think about it, is probably one reason that sites like to change things often).
That's millions of wasted man-minutes for a change.
 
What is this Facebook you speak of?
I thought Friendster or MySpace was the social networking place to be?
and why am I always getting email because I may know someone on Hi5?

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Ok, let me concede that for the most part change strictly for the sake of change sucks - at least when things are good. But then let me also say, that change for the sake of change doesn't happen often. Most of the time there's a reason for that change - even if it's not obvious to us mere mortal users. The recent changes to Facebook are certainly not for the sake of change. Like you mentioned, Facebook is getting some heat from Google+. Some of the good features of G+ have been stolen by Facebook recently. Did Facebook users need those G+ features? Who knows, but why take the chance? Now there's less reason to bother with Google+, and that's a big win for Facebook. Of course they added some other features, some of which seem popular, while others not. The obvious intent is to improve the product and letting the users decide what's good and what's not seems like a great idea. If they don't like it, Facebook will surely make another change.

As for re-learning how to use a tool, yes it's true, it can take time. But that time may be worth it. You could be very handy with that shovel, and it could take a few days to learn how to use a back end loader, but trust me, you'll be happy you did. But back to what I said earlier in the thread: what we need is constant change. What if a site like Facebook or Google Docs introduced just one slight change every week. Most users wouldn't even notice and those who do would not be required to take a huge break to master the new feature. Doing that with traditional software would be a pain because you'd need to constantly upgrade, but not so with cloud apps as you're always using the latest version and your data files are automatically upgraded too. Perhaps Facebook is only guilty of making too many changes at once.
 
Glaucus said:
Perhaps Facebook is only guilty of making too many changes at once.
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I can't speak top that directly because I don't use facebook but I know people who used to. Maybe facebook is guilty of doing what google has done on YouTube, i.e. roll out major features that are broken on delivery, or taking away popular but non revenue producing features in order to redirect users to things that pay them better - or keep changing how they deliver content so downloaders have to keep updating their scripts (but since most now use a service in the cloud - all downloaders get updates just about as soon as google tries to thwart downloading.
 
I understand your point, but it's worth mentioning that Google/YouTube never listed downloading (as opposed to streaming) videos as a feature, and in fact, frown upon it. If they wanted you to download it they would have provided a built-in feature to do so. However you provide your own example of how constant change is a great way to compensate for things you can't otherwise control. Surely you must agree that there are pros and cons.
 
Totally unrelated to the current discussion, but I think people who publish their geo-location on Facebook are kinda dumb. Last time we went on a trip I told my GF specifically NOT to mention anything about a trip until we got back. Why would you be so stupid as to publish to the net that your house is unoccupied and will be so for a few days. I just noticed a location update of one of my friends (he lives in Vancouver Fluffy, want his address? ;)) on vacation. Dumb dumb dumb. :rolleyes:
 
Glaucus said:
I just noticed a location update of one of my friends (he lives in Vancouver Fluffy, want his address? ;)) on vacation. Dumb dumb dumb. :rolleyes:
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Does his facebook mention if he made any recent large purchases?
 
Glaucus said:
I understand your point, but it's worth mentioning that Google/YouTube never listed downloading (as opposed to streaming) videos as a feature, and in fact, frown upon it.
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Which is OK for platforms that support flash, for example.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Forget about the Facebook UI because they are not facing you while they are screwing you.

Logging out doesn't mean Facebook isn't still following you.
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Yup, that's not good. It'll eventually make a big stinking mess. However, it does give me an idea for a firefox plugin; a tool that will automatically clear your FB cookies when you logout. Of course there's no money in that... Unless of course I collect user info and sell it to marketers... Hmmm... ;)
 
Glaucus said:
XP can run IE8 easily, but did you mean Google is canning IE8 as well? Not that I care as I use Firefox/Chrome.
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As a web app developer, I'd say IE should be illegal. The damn thing just doesn't give a crap about standards whatsoever. Haven't tried IE9 though, maybe that'll be acceptable.
 
Speelgoedmannetje said:
As a web app developer, I'd say IE should be illegal. The damn thing just doesn't give a crap about standards whatsoever. Haven't tried IE9 though, maybe that'll be acceptable.
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ie has always been crap. I seriously doubt that will ever change
 
cecilia said:
ie has always been crap. I seriously doubt that will ever change
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Well, lately, some of their products have become from total useless garbage to actually usable and not-that-bad. For sure, IE8 isn't the hell of IE6 anymore. And Visual Studio is IMHO a rather good and fast IDE.
 
Google recently stated they surpassed 800 million. Or the 3rd most populous country. I think they will be fine.
 
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