Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
theatlanticwire.com
Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
1–10 of 61 posts
Re: Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
#2"Yahoo has no vision. It has no purpose. It's dispensable."
Facebook may have no vision. (I actually think they do. Even if it's not very clear or savory.) But facebook certainly isn't dispensable. The analogy would be much more complete if you imagined that Yahoo was the only main email provider, emails didn't get exchanged between servers and in order to get an email to yahoo mail users you had to go to Yahoo to mail them. That's about how dispensable Facebook is to a lot of people's private lives.
Re: Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
#3Facebook smart lists are not a copy of circles. Circles were an improvement on Facebook's lists, that they've had for years. Smart lists are an improvement on lists.
Facebook's messaging has effectively killed AIM at least for me and everyone I know. Huge failure...
Re: Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
#4"Yahoo has no vision. It has no purpose. It's dispensable." Facebook may have no vision. (I actually think they do. Even if it's not very clear or savory.) But facebook certainly isn't dispensable. The analogy would be much more complete if you imagined that Yahoo was the only main email provider, emails didn't get exchanged between servers and in order to get an email to yahoo mail users you had to go to Yahoo to ma…
Yeah I think Facebook has a vision which is plain to see if you look for it, they are working very hard on unified messaging/communication system. Which in its current state isn't interesting, and if successful probably won't be interesting, instead it will be subtle and invasive into my daily routine.
I for one haven't noticed a change at all on my Facebook... I think the "boring" aspect maybe a tech related issue where people expect to see something crazing happening every week. I know I often open up Hacker news and go "ooohhhh nothing to see here today", which is more a sign of my indulgence in news as opposed to article nothing happening out there.
Re: Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
#5The article claims that Facebook's messaging features are a failure. I disagree; they have massive potential.
Facebook chat is the primary real time chat system that I use these days and has replaced MSN for me and my friends. I recently installed the Messenger app on my iPhone and it certainly has the potential to kill off whatsapp and similar apps due two reasons: all my contacts are already available, and that I can use either my laptop or phone, depending on whichever is available to me when I need to communicate.
Unfortunately I doubt that this potential will be realised. Why? Because I haven't seen Facebook advertise the app AT ALL. (I heard about the app through HN.) None of my friends are aware the app exists and it's such a shame. It wouldn't be hard for Facebook to push their chat service as an alternative to txt/bbm/whatsapp, they already have an ad network in place that they can use for free.
I really hope to see Facebook push their messaging service as a way to communicate not just when you are browsing facebook.com but instead as an alternative to text-based communication methods on phones.
Re: Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
#6I don't buy it. Before anything else, Yahoo was a combination search engine and indexer. Google trounced them. There was just no way they could continue to compete. So then they branched out into becoming a "media company," and lost all direction. There is nothing they excel at.
Until someone is a better social networking site than Facebook, they are in no danger of "becoming Yahoo." And I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon - and maybe not ever. Facebook may become "boring," but only in the sense that all of your utilities are boring. You rely on them, but they cease to be exciting, and instead just become part of the background of things that you take for granted. This is very different from Yahoo, which is boring because it's irrelevant.
Re: Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
#7Are people excited by search?
Re: Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
#8Yeah I think its doomed, too. I mean just look at it. Everybody and their dog is on Facebook, with status updates and comments quickly approaching the niveau of Youtube comments. Meanwhile marketing firms are vigorously trying to get as much attention as possible in more or less shady ways, which is getting increasingly annoying. A large portion of the userbase is so annoyed, bored or has serious privacy concerns, that they stopped submitting altogether already.
The main reason a lot of people are much more happier with Google+ and Twitter nowadays is not because some features are marginally better - it's because the atmosphere is so much nicer there.
Re: Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
#9Facebook jumped the shark when all those horrible, ugly apps started polluting the thing with idiocy. The editorial incompetence and general awfulness of the ecosystem was astonishing. Farmville was the end of the beginning of the end.
In 2004, Facebook wasn't garbage. It was simple, it served a purpose very well. It changed the social experience of being in college, a sharp contrast against "social" today which is largely irrelevant to having real social experiences. Facebook is what it is today because of the momentum it established while a social networking site for colleges, in a time when it actually served its purpose very well.
At any rate, I agree that "social" is a very boring space right now. I find most of it anti-social. It's an excuse for not being social: if you put everyone you meet in your Facebook "friends" list, you have an excuse for not keeping in touch with people.
Re: Facebook's Newest Problem: Being Boring
#10This is a poorly researched article that takes a few anecdotes from him, his observations about his friends, and choice quotes from random articles that support his viewpoint.
I would wager that from a data point of view, facebook page views and retention is likely to be stronger than ever.