Facebook gets redesigned • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook gets redesigned

#21

Post by primigenus » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 5:11 PM UTC

jfruh wrote: post #17

I hate to be one of those people constantly whinging about Facebook redesigns, but ... can someone explain why Facebook seems to intent on "curating" your stream for you, based on priorities that aren't clear? I know a lot of people probably enjoy having some definition of "highlights" stuck at top, but many of us like going through the whole thing to see what all our friends are up to, until you get to a status upda…

My interpretation is that Facebook is more valuable if the content you see when you interact with it is more useful to you. Facebook is about connecting you with family and friends, and that's easier to do if you see valuable content more frequently than low-value content (which might pop up in a simple chronological stream).

I think this way they're trying to improve the "keep-alive" of relationships between you and people on your friend lists by showing you more valuable content, which in turn will lead to higher engagement (eg. likes/comments/etc), which in turns keeps relationships going through interactions, which in turn keeps you coming back to Facebook. And that obviously is a good thing for Facebook.

Re: Facebook gets redesigned

#22

Post by fsniper » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 5:11 PM UTC

These new changes have made Facebook an unbearable platform for application developers. Firing ajax requests in a constant and fast pace is making the platform unmanageable. Combined with buggy and incomplete apis debugging and managing canvas apps are nearly impossible. I really hate building applications for the platform now.

Re: Facebook gets redesigned

#23

Post by jackseviltwin » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 5:12 PM UTC

jfruh wrote: post #17

I hate to be one of those people constantly whinging about Facebook redesigns, but ... can someone explain why Facebook seems to intent on "curating" your stream for you, based on priorities that aren't clear? I know a lot of people probably enjoy having some definition of "highlights" stuck at top, but many of us like going through the whole thing to see what all our friends are up to, until you get to a status upda…

The problem is people with many hundreds or thousands of friends. At that point, your feed gets too unwieldy to read chronologically, or it might scroll by so quickly that in the time you catch up, dozens more have been fed in at the top. Facebook is trying to just show you what they think you're interested in the most. Sadly, they aren't doing a great job of it. I agree that they should at bring back the "Most Recent" feed for those of us who have a manageable friend count.

Re: Facebook gets redesigned

#24

Post by algorithms » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 5:12 PM UTC

It's such a shame. G+ has so much potential but unless everyone joins the game it won't succeed. Facebook really has a TERRIBLE User Experience compared to G+ Let's hope it won't end in a new Bing vs. Google situation

Re: Facebook gets redesigned

#25

Post by gfodor » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 5:12 PM UTC

jfruh wrote: post #17

I hate to be one of those people constantly whinging about Facebook redesigns, but ... can someone explain why Facebook seems to intent on "curating" your stream for you, based on priorities that aren't clear? I know a lot of people probably enjoy having some definition of "highlights" stuck at top, but many of us like going through the whole thing to see what all our friends are up to, until you get to a status upda…

Because 'going through the whole thing' is nearly impossible for some people, who either log on spargingly or have a lot of friends. Additionally, since Facebook is full of relationships that are less than actual 'friends', a lot of people have complained for years about the quality of the posts. I think they must have realized their algorithms needed a stronger signal than what they had, and this UI is a way to get that data.

Re: Facebook gets redesigned

#26

Post by primigenus » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 5:12 PM UTC

The right-hand bar feels very "app" like. I wonder if their intention is to transition, through many iterations, Facebook into more of an "app-like" design and less of a "website"?

Re: Facebook gets redesigned

#27

Post by fsniper » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 5:14 PM UTC

This is why I still enjoy using FriendFeed. No fuss no confusions. A working social environment.

Re: Facebook gets redesigned

#28

Post by madiator » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 5:14 PM UTC

Clutter++

Re: Facebook gets redesigned

#29

Post by helipad » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 5:14 PM UTC

With only ~300 friends, it seems sort of pointless to curate my feed into 'Top Stories'. Over the course of a day, there are only a couple of things that get my friends commenting or clicking 'like', and they don't get lost because there is no noise.

It's as if Facebook thinks we're all Power Users (TM) with 1,000+ friends who cannot possibly keep up with the demands of 'real-time' updates.

Re: Facebook gets redesigned

#30

Post by danso » Wed, Sep 21, 2011, 5:18 PM UTC

jfruh wrote: post #17

I hate to be one of those people constantly whinging about Facebook redesigns, but ... can someone explain why Facebook seems to intent on "curating" your stream for you, based on priorities that aren't clear? I know a lot of people probably enjoy having some definition of "highlights" stuck at top, but many of us like going through the whole thing to see what all our friends are up to, until you get to a status upda…

I often wonder the opposite: why do FB users care about seeing the updates of just anyone in their friend list?

But I'm thinking along the lines of a more cynical user, as in, I realize FB is a huge timesuck, I've probably friended more people than I consider friends in real life, I should get off the computer more, etc etc., and so I appreciate the way that FB shows me the updates of people who I'm most interested in.

Does it bother me that I don't know the criteria? Not really, in the same way that I'm not bothered that I don't know the details of PageRank. But I'm guessing FB makes its judgment based on how much I chat with a certain person, interact with their updates and walls, and browse/stalk their profile. If that's the case, their "Top Updates" has been right on the mark.

I end up spending less time than I have to to see the "news" that I'm most interested in. If I log onto FB later and see that the Top UPdates largely remain the same, then I am satisfied to log back out for the day. At the same time, I'm more engaged with Facebook as a user because I'm always seeing things that I care about, even if some of them are half a day old. Strangely, this curation saves me time from FB yet fulfills FB's mission to keep me on its site, as I'd be less enthusiastic in coming back of 7 out of 10 items in my default news feed were drek.

And yes, you can say that I should maintain my friend list better and silence/unfriend the users that I don't care about...but if FB does a good job of that (the silencing part) without me needing to go through another options menu, I don't have any complaints.