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Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#121

Post by DashRattlesnake »

freehunter wrote: post #100
dboreham wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, essentially, is Facebook's business model.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing... I pay to get access to my audience. I wish I only paid to get access to a new expanded audience, but I understand the reality of business. My main complaint is, people explicitly chose to follow my content and got used to seeing it... and now it's all gone. They still follow, but they don't see. Even if I pay, it's not guaranteed to hit the same audience I had before.

> My main complaint is, people explicitly chose to follow my content and got used to seeing it... and now it's all gone. They still follow, but they don't see.

They're the product, so it doesn't matter if they get what they want or not, so long as they come back.

> Even if I pay, it's not guaranteed to hit the same audience I had before.

If it was guaranteed, what incentive would you have to pay Facebook more?

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#122

Post by dragonwriter »

crorella wrote: post #120
untog wrote: post #35

I very much hope this isn't just words. The core problem, IMO, is that content that makes us angry, anxious or jealous is a much better driver of clicks than content that makes us happy. I'm sure Facebook knows this. If they really mean it, they'll accept that they will make less money as a result of this change. It would be the right decision in the long term, but the short term will hurt.

They mention this quite explicitly: "As we make these updates, Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. The impact will vary from Page to Page, driven by factors including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it." I think it's bold but good for the long term.

Every Facebook change seems to reduce Page basic reach, probably in order to increase the pressure to pay for additional reach.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#123

Post by crorella »

abritinthebay wrote: post #49
george3383 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's bad for journalists and advertisers then it's good for users.

It's only bad for media companies who use pretty awful tactics to get eyeballs. The trick is really to stop worrying about clicks to your site and focus on good content that people will engage with (share, comment, like, whatever). If it's good content people respond well to it and will seek out your brand. You see the same thing with the savvy companies on Instagram/Snapchat/etc It's only bad if you're essentially a…

THIS ^ If you are good generating good quality content that engages in a meaningful way, then you have nothing to worry about.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#124

Post by DashRattlesnake »

freehunter wrote: post #92
eckza wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just... get your real friends to text you. If they won't text you, they're not your real friends. (This isn't always true, but I'd say that it's 95% accurate.) I'm not being condescending or pretentious. I have done this, over the last few months, and it's helped me to realize who's really worth having in my life on a daily basis, and who's not.

I don't want my friends texting me everything. That's far more disruptive than a passive feed I can glance at. And I don't want to text my friends everything either. One of the great things about Facebook is the unexpected social interactions. I post a picture and someone I haven't talked to in a while comments something really great on it and sparks a conversation and rekindles the friendship. That's not going to ha…

> I don't want my friends texting me everything. That's far more disruptive than a passive feed I can glance at. And I don't want to text my friends everything either.

Real friendships aren't passive.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#125

Post by thinkloop »

lbotos wrote: post #107
thinkloop wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because unlike a dictator Facebook has zero real power over your life? It's a site of puppies and horoscopes, you think we should be dealing with them like we do Kim Jong Un? How have we moved so far on the personal responsibility scale. Why aren't people partly responsible for not making better use of their time? Facebook is an "evil echo chamber", "wasting people's lives", "catering to business", etc - ALL THEY DO…

> ALL THEY DO IS HOST YOUR FRIENDS' PHOTOS This is like saying a Tesla car is just a machine that generates heat. Facebook has built an algorithmically optimized list of content that they believe will drive you back to the site to consume more. They also have insane amounts of usage data which they are testing for sentiment analysis [0] They've also run tests on content to provoke emotion as far back as 2014.[1] It's…

> This is like saying a Tesla car is just a machine that generates heat.

Not to that degree but I admit that I used a hyperbolic devise to try and pull back the implied necessity of Facebook.

> does not mean that others cannot be easily swayed by dopamine release

Facebook should be regulated as a narcotic :-P

Jokes aside, FB does have lots of ability to influence, and they shouldn't be able to operate with impunity, but that's a far cry from where we are now:

- Facebook is too fun (because AI!!) and my work is suffering!

- Facebook keeps giving me what I'm interested and engaged in!! (echo chamber)

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#126

Post by [deleted] »

DashRattlesnake wrote: post #117
thinkloop wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is regulated (everything is regulated to some degree either directly or indirectly). Is there a specific regulation you mean? Perhaps traditional media should be less regulated? I personally really like the way the internet is.

> I personally really like the way the internet is. Giant monopolies that control most of it for most users?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#127

Post by tinymollusk »

rdiddly wrote: post #118

Oh brother... the quote at the end there? "It’s important to me that when Max and August grow up that they feel like what their father built was good for the world." Why does it bother me? Let me analyze. OK 1) There are people out there who live their whole lives according to good values pretty much the whole time, and don't need the shock of parenthood to finally make them care about acting like a decent human bein…

I like to apply a test to myself, which I fail every time. Goes as follows:

Can I literally write down a statement that would have changed my perspective on this statement/issue/perspective?

Most things that I'm against, I cannot imagine myself not being against. One possible explanation is Zuckerberg is evil incarnate, but I believe the world is much more nuanced than that. If I cannot bring to life (and even metaphorically "try on" the other perspective), there is a high probability that I am too biased to offer a fair judgement.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#128

Post by adventured »

Avshalom wrote: post #116
jp555 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are clicks the majority of revenue for FB? An ad unit that fills a users screen for a few second as they scroll throughout the day every day is super super valuable to brand advertising. I think that’s ~$450 billion of the total ~$500 billion total annual global ad spend. To me browsing the fb feed is a lot like like flipping through tv channels used to be. Brand advertising loved that too. I’d think the More people…

Right I mean, driving a click through to a website due to rage has to be less profitable than driving a click through to say DeWalt power tools due to delight. Right? I mean some fraction of a fraction of of an ad for DeWalt must be worth less than keeping your friends pro DeWalt status update on top. (This is not a paid ad for DeWalt but seriously, fucking DeWalt. Them and Stihl: just gorgeous power tools)

No question. The value of sales engines - driving sales referrals - as ecommerce in the US doubles over the next ~10 years (and in many developed economies), is extraordinary. If you want to make a billion dollars, build the next generation of sale referral monsters (RetailMeNot or Coupons.com being a primitive, unsophisticated first generation version; Groupon & Co were/are also primitive early sales referral engines).

A catalog is a concept, rather than a pile of printed paper as perhaps most people would think of it (ie thinking that catalogs died out with the rise of the Web). Historically catalogs pushed sales in all sorts of ways for all sorts of things, for eg the last 150 years in the US (and much longer elsewhere). As a concept, it's a sales referral system; it can either be internally owned (Sears Catalog) to drive content within eg a retailer's selection, or it can drive sales for external stray objects (whether tchotchkes or otherwise). The catalog business in the US was massive for a century. It's being rebuilt online right now. Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. are in part sales referral engines, there will be dozens of major platforms that perform that role, as it spreads to fill in every possible ecommerce niche.

All of these shops/brands/products coming online or being started from day one online, need a way to drive sales online (the more cost effectively the better). Taking a cut of that sales referral action will be dramatically more valuable than rage clicks for content on a random buzzfeed article or a paid click over to low value content on boredpanda and similar.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#129

Post by freehunter »

DashRattlesnake wrote: post #124
freehunter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want my friends texting me everything. That's far more disruptive than a passive feed I can glance at. And I don't want to text my friends everything either. One of the great things about Facebook is the unexpected social interactions. I post a picture and someone I haven't talked to in a while comments something really great on it and sparks a conversation and rekindles the friendship. That's not going to ha…

> I don't want my friends texting me everything. That's far more disruptive than a passive feed I can glance at. And I don't want to text my friends everything either. Real friendships aren't passive.

You have a very restrictive view of what a real friendship is. I'm sorry, but you don't get to define my relationships, that is not your right.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#130

Post by DashRattlesnake »

jcadam wrote: post #40
taurath wrote: post #31

Wait, Facebook cares about engagement between people instead of between people and ad-supported lowest common demoninator content? Could have fooled me over the past several years. I’m really cynical about FB but it really has earned it. I hope it becomes more useful, because for me their original value proposition to users was great but has totally lost its way as they’ve monetized.

Yea, at this point I'd be willing to pay $10/month for a social network that respected my privacy, didn't bombard me with ads, and just generally treated me as a customer , rather than product . The trick of course is convincing anyone who isn't me to pay :) Heck, maybe it should be a non-profit.

> The trick of course is convincing anyone who isn't me to pay :)

Honestly, maybe invites/sponsorships? One person who care's enough to pay $10 can bring his "social graph" (or a subset) with him.

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