Well, FaceBook has made some changes to the way their site works, again. There’ve been a lot of complaints and threats made by patrons to take their social networking efforts to a different site. Let’s take a look at the most common complaints and the actual problems that the changes have caused.
- Who’s Important? A common complaint is that FaceBook is now deciding whose posts appear at the top of each person’s newsfeed page, based on criteria that may not fit each patron’s desire. FaceBook’s response is that there are ways to change settings to alleviate this complaint, but they haven’t actually made it clear to everyone how those changes are done.
- Missing Friends’ Updates. Another common complaint is that “I’m missing updates from people that I am interested in, because of all the other stuff that FaceBook brings up for me.” FaceBook has not, at the time of this writing, responded to this complaint.
- News Ticker Complaint #1. The scrolling real-time ticker along the right side of the newsfeed page, now shows both what your friends are currently posting on theirs or others’ walls, and what others are posting on your friends’ walls. This means that people with whom you are not connected can now follow someone else’s postings back to see what is happening on your wall. The complaint is that patrons now have little control over who sees their postings, because of this.
- News Ticker Complaint #2. Because the scrolling ticker shows everything that I do, people that are on my friends list now will be able to see what I’m doing any time I post on anyone’s wall, and will know when I’m on FaceBook. One person complained that she had told someone that she was shutting down and going to bed for the night, and then had to deal with being caught in a lie, when that person noticed she was still posting elsewhere.
- News Ticker Complaint #3. In addition to the above problems, I’ve seen several complaints mention that “People who I don’t even know are now commenting on posts on my wall. Why would I want a bunch of strangers making remarks and interrupting my conversations with people that I want to converse with?”
- Offsite Tracking. This is really not part of the recent changes that FaceBook has made, but it has come to light at the same time that these changes came along. It turns out that FaceBook has been installing cookies in their patrons’ browsers that allow them to see what patrons are doing, even when they are not on FaceBook. So, if you visit your FaceBook profile, and then go on to another website, FaceBook can see where you went and what you looked at on that site. This information then is used in the advertisements that you see while on FaceBook.
- Too Much Change. Another common complaint that I’ve run across sounds a bit like this: “All I asked for from them was for them to add an ‘unlike’ button. I didn’t ask for all of this other stuff!”
These 7 complaints cover the real issues that have been raised by the recent changes that FaceBook has made. Most of the other complaining appears to be based, not on real problems with FaceBook, but with the fact that people like for things to remain the same, once they’ve grown accustomed to them. Already, the volume of complaints is dropping drastically.
So, for the last 3 items on this list, we’ll keep it simple.
- Learning Curve. “I hate having to learn all of this new stuff! I just want to be able to do what I’ve always done.”
- Bad Day. “I’ve had a rotten day at the office, my drive home was stressful, and now I have to deal with a new facebook layout?”
- Not Broke. “It was just fine, exactly as it was. Why fix what isn’t broken?”
As I’ve seen on FaceBook and other social sites before, I suspect that it won’t be long until folks become used to the new look and features, and will just continue on, until the next time FaceBook makes some changes. At that point, they will then fill cyber space with complaints, until they once again become accustomed.
Taken From Internet Provider
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