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Facebook Home over a week later: only 500K installs with a two-star user rating

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Re: Facebook Home over a week later: only 500K installs with a two-star user rating

#41
post #35

The title feels clickbait-y. It should be pretty obvious why there were only 500K downloads- it's only available on around three devices. I'm interested to at least take a look at it, but I can't. As for the reviews, many of them are of the "I hate Facebook" variety, but others seem to state (correctly) that it need some work. Given Facebook have committed to monthly releases, I don't think this is the end of Faceboo…

>It should be pretty obvious why there were only 500K downloads- it's only available on around three devices.

Good point.

I was a bit surprised to see that it isn't available to any of my half dozen devices.

Re: Facebook Home over a week later: only 500K installs with a two-star user rating

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it occurred to you that there might be a use-case mismatch between treating a social network as a source of always-on, in-your-face infotainment and a communications vehicle with imperfect yet valued human beings you know and care about? Or do you expect everyone you know to be excellent, always-interesting, content curators?

I expect users of a social network service to understand the most basic details of how such a service works. Slamming the service because you don't like the postings of people you chose to subscribe to is just a little bit ridiculous. It would be like subscribing to political blogs on $rssApp and then leaving bad ratings for the app because your news stream is filled with political news. Facebook's tools have been pr…

>So i'll say it again. You, the user, is ultimately responsible for what comes up in your stream.

I think this is a very outdated and anti-user way to approach the Facebook service, and I hope your idea of how these services work will be overthrown by better startups or a better Facebook.

I see it as simply:

* A failure of Facebook to figure out what I like seeing, which is shocking seeing as I literally "Like" the things I like seeing!

* A failure of Facebook to categorize input properly at the time of input.

If Facebook properly understood input, and properly understood what I like seeing, then "curation" wouldn't be an issue.

In light of those user experience failures on the part of Facebook, your opinion is "curate it yourself" but my opinion is "Facebook has failed when I curate it myself".

If I want to curate it myself, I won't use a walled garden feed system like Facebook...

Re: Facebook Home over a week later: only 500K installs with a two-star user rating

#43
post #35

The title feels clickbait-y. It should be pretty obvious why there were only 500K downloads- it's only available on around three devices. I'm interested to at least take a look at it, but I can't. As for the reviews, many of them are of the "I hate Facebook" variety, but others seem to state (correctly) that it need some work. Given Facebook have committed to monthly releases, I don't think this is the end of Faceboo…

real number is likely much less than 500K seeing as how most people report immediately uninstalling it

Re: Facebook Home over a week later: only 500K installs with a two-star user rating

#44
post #4

I tried it out but I found it too suffocating -- Facebook, like Google, wants their "feed" to be your main IV-line of info-tainment but in practice the vapid updates of friends mixed in with poorly constructed advertisements isn't very engaging. If someone makes Facebook Home for aggregated RSS feeds, than they've invented mobile crack and I will never be able to put it down. So maybe don't do that. Also, Chat Heads…

vapid updates of friends Don't friend people on Facebook who post garbage. Any social service (Facebook, Twitter, etc) is only as good as the effort you put into curating the experience. Oh, and if you feel you must friend someone, you can just hide everything they post from your news feed.

my life is about finding interesting work to do, and sharing experiences with my friends and family - I don't have time to waste "curating" my life.

Re: Facebook Home over a week later: only 500K installs with a two-star user rating

#45
post #4

I tried it out but I found it too suffocating -- Facebook, like Google, wants their "feed" to be your main IV-line of info-tainment but in practice the vapid updates of friends mixed in with poorly constructed advertisements isn't very engaging. If someone makes Facebook Home for aggregated RSS feeds, than they've invented mobile crack and I will never be able to put it down. So maybe don't do that. Also, Chat Heads…

> the vapid updates of friends mixed in with poorly constructed advertisements isn't very engaging

Did you really expect prolific and intense discussion? This is Facebook we're talking about here...

If there were an HN Home I would download it without even thinking.

Re: Facebook Home over a week later: only 500K installs with a two-star user rating

#46
I'm pretty sure a lot of developers would be more than happy with "only" 500K downloads ... especially with only a few supported devices like this. Makes me wonder if a lot of negative ratings is just another marketing strategy. "You have to see how crappy this app is"

Re: Facebook Home over a week later: only 500K installs with a two-star user rating

#47
post #4

I tried it out but I found it too suffocating -- Facebook, like Google, wants their "feed" to be your main IV-line of info-tainment but in practice the vapid updates of friends mixed in with poorly constructed advertisements isn't very engaging. If someone makes Facebook Home for aggregated RSS feeds, than they've invented mobile crack and I will never be able to put it down. So maybe don't do that. Also, Chat Heads…

There are no ads currently in Home. Are you sure you really paid attention?

Just because there's no Facebook advertising itself doesn't mean there's no advertising.

Facebook seems to be a crazy mix of "share and like and win" advertising, "share and like and win" like farming, floods of bait advertising from games, and any other number of bizarre scams their users get mixed up in.

Re: Facebook Home over a week later: only 500K installs with a two-star user rating

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it occurred to you that there might be a use-case mismatch between treating a social network as a source of always-on, in-your-face infotainment and a communications vehicle with imperfect yet valued human beings you know and care about? Or do you expect everyone you know to be excellent, always-interesting, content curators?

I expect users of a social network service to understand the most basic details of how such a service works. Slamming the service because you don't like the postings of people you chose to subscribe to is just a little bit ridiculous. It would be like subscribing to political blogs on $rssApp and then leaving bad ratings for the app because your news stream is filled with political news. Facebook's tools have been pr…

>> Slamming the service because you don't like the postings of people you chose to subscribe to is just a little bit ridiculous.

It appears you are viewing Facebook as some kind of alternative to Google+, or as a news feed where you can 'subscribe to interesting people' or something like that. That's one way of using Facebook, but I'd estimate the vast majority of people use it more like a network of friends, relatives, close or distant acquaintances, famous people/companies/products you they like, etc. The idea behind Facebook Home is to put information originating from this network in your face, all the time. Just saying you should simply block updates from anyone who isn't interesting enough to randomly show up on your home screen, kind of defeats the purpose of the feature.

Re: Facebook Home over a week later: only 500K installs with a two-star user rating

#50
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect users of a social network service to understand the most basic details of how such a service works. Slamming the service because you don't like the postings of people you chose to subscribe to is just a little bit ridiculous. It would be like subscribing to political blogs on $rssApp and then leaving bad ratings for the app because your news stream is filled with political news. Facebook's tools have been pr…

>So i'll say it again. You, the user, is ultimately responsible for what comes up in your stream. I think this is a very outdated and anti-user way to approach the Facebook service, and I hope your idea of how these services work will be overthrown by better startups or a better Facebook. I see it as simply: * A failure of Facebook to figure out what I like seeing, which is shocking seeing as I literally "Like" the t…

I can only imagine the shitstorm that will happen when Facebook starts actively curating content for you...
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