What drugs is Facebook taking?

http://www.surf-the-edge.com/2011/09/21/what_drugs_is_facebook_taking/

by arturventura • 15 years ago

9 6 15 years ago

jarin2• 15 years ago

Cue the requisite 3 days of grousing about News Feed changes before everyone gets used to it.

Remember when Facebook first introduced the News Feed and there were News Feed protest groups with over a million users sperging out about it?

arturventura2• 15 years ago

Its not a new feature that people don't like, the interface is completely diferent, and unsable!

jarin2• 15 years ago

That's exactly what people said about the news feed, and more recently the chat sidebar (when your browser window is wide enough). I found the chat sidebar annoying too, but after a few days it wasn't jarring at all.

People just use Facebook so much that even small changes trigger massive waves of "OH GOD THIS IS COMPLETELY UNUSABLE" hysteria.

mevans• 15 years ago

I wouldn't call it completely different, nor 'unsable'. It's a little different, and people don't like change.

arturventura2• 15 years ago

They removed "Most Recent". That's the only thing that I use, and most people use on facebook.

I don't like the change, but if they are competing with google by making drastic changes to their interface, then they have a problem.

Alexx• 15 years ago

For some reason I've had the 'new style' facebook feeds and chat for a few weeks already.

Usually when facebook releases updates and everyone has a little rant about it I just sit back and roll my eyes. These things usually have a long term advantage, and change is always a bit painful for users.

However I've had a list of about 25 friends in alphabetical order, from A through to D, just stuck at the right side of my screen for about 6 weeks now. I have no idea why they are there. They're not online. They're not people I historically interact a lot with, I can't sort the list, or add favourites. I can't hide it, because that also hides the people online I might want to chat to.

I honestly would love to know the reasoning behind this. Someone, somewhere sat through multiple planning sessions and laid out some kind of argument that this delivers value somewhere, either in some obscure way to facebook themselves or somehow to the end user. The design doesn't bother me, but the functionality does seem... arbitrary? What inherent interest could I possibly have in my first few alphabetically sorted friends?

What drugs is Facebook taking?

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