(no subject)
I was reading on TechCrunch that 94% of (polled) users don't like the new facebook layout. There's some serious flaws with the polling method--they're simply counting all the people who've added a certain application to vote on the layout...there's going to be bias there that people who dislike the layout are going to be significantly more motivated to add the app to vote to express their displeasure, its probably not a random sampling.
That said, the result is still quite significant if you ask me. Unscientific examination of my friend feed on facebook indicates consistent dislike for the new feed format, and very little (if any) consolation of "its not so bad"... Okay, I have over 400 friends, I REALLY don't want to see every single update from every single person on my friends list. I know you can filter out certain people, but sometimes its enjoyable to hear an *occasional* update from someone who isn't one of your best friends. You can't filter out dumb application updates (eg: if you don't like quizzes or super-pokes or care who's playing mob wars). You can't say "show me less about this person" and still get occasional infrequent updates about that person. I don't like that when you say show me more a few times you don't get a new URL...you click a link on accident, and then hit back and now all the "show me more" you clicked to see more than two hours ago are gone and you have to re-click show me more, scroll down repeat till you're at the "page number" you should have been.
Anyway, enough griping about its dysfunction, the point I wanted to make was more about wondering how Facebook will respond to this unpopular redesign. One person I know wrote in to facebook (user support?) and they heard back that facebook had no plans to add/restore/allow per-application filtering of the friends feed. Wonder how much criticism and heat they'd have to take before they change their mind? It kind of reminds me of when Netflix was going to remove profiles from accounts...yep, that was a real hit with users, myself included...Yes, there may be good engineering reasons they want parts of this new redesign, and whatnot, but... perceived loss of functionality for users and perceived loss of value...not so well taken ;-)
That said, the result is still quite significant if you ask me. Unscientific examination of my friend feed on facebook indicates consistent dislike for the new feed format, and very little (if any) consolation of "its not so bad"... Okay, I have over 400 friends, I REALLY don't want to see every single update from every single person on my friends list. I know you can filter out certain people, but sometimes its enjoyable to hear an *occasional* update from someone who isn't one of your best friends. You can't filter out dumb application updates (eg: if you don't like quizzes or super-pokes or care who's playing mob wars). You can't say "show me less about this person" and still get occasional infrequent updates about that person. I don't like that when you say show me more a few times you don't get a new URL...you click a link on accident, and then hit back and now all the "show me more" you clicked to see more than two hours ago are gone and you have to re-click show me more, scroll down repeat till you're at the "page number" you should have been.
Anyway, enough griping about its dysfunction, the point I wanted to make was more about wondering how Facebook will respond to this unpopular redesign. One person I know wrote in to facebook (user support?) and they heard back that facebook had no plans to add/restore/allow per-application filtering of the friends feed. Wonder how much criticism and heat they'd have to take before they change their mind? It kind of reminds me of when Netflix was going to remove profiles from accounts...yep, that was a real hit with users, myself included...Yes, there may be good engineering reasons they want parts of this new redesign, and whatnot, but... perceived loss of functionality for users and perceived loss of value...not so well taken ;-)