Facebook, I want my friends back • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook, I want my friends back

#181

Post by prof_hobart » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 11:25 AM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #56

afterburner wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And, still, every couple of days Facebook forgets that I've set my sort to "Most Recent" and goes back to "Top Stories"" This is by far the most annoying thing for me. That and the likelihood that most people don't realize that setting is there, and assume they're getting posts in chronological order. EDIT: my solution, btw, is to make a bunch of my friends "close friends" and set Facebook to send me email notificat…

After college, I gave all my Facebook "friends" the grocery store test. If I would avoid them if I saw them in a grocery store before they saw me, I deleted them as a friend. Keeps my "top" and "most recent" stories pretty equal, tbh. And if any brand is overwhelming the newsfeed, it becomes pretty easy to make the decision to unlike their page

Just curious - why did you add people you'd actively avoid in real life as friends on Facebook? I don't think I have, or have ever had, anyone in that category in my FB list.

Re: Facebook, I want my friends back

#182

Post by dcminter » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 11:33 AM UTC

Anecdatapoint: I've seen a handful of people post this link on Facebook. All of them are promoting something. So far I've seen no other users post it.

FB's job is to keep the average user (who won't put much effort into sanitizing their wall whatever they clicked on in the past) happy while getting enough money out of their userbase as a whole to stay in business and keep the stockholders happy. It's not their job to keep the promotors who use FB as a tool happy.

Re: Facebook, I want my friends back

#183

Post by crucialfelix » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 11:37 AM UTC

Another factor to include is that as time goes on everybody adds more friends and more likes so the available consumable stream space is divided among more posts. So this also contributes significantly to lessening the number of people who see your posts.

But who knows what special sauce is in FB algos. If I were them I would certainly distinguish between companies, news/blogging, musician/art and image macro posters. Those all have very different usages and annoyance levels.

Probably the interaction rate is factored in, but that also gets spread thinner and thinner. Obviously God and George Takei are winning the game, so the game isn't unwinnable.

Re: Facebook, I want my friends back

#184

Post by lmm » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 12:28 PM UTC

tomasien wrote: post #11

jonknee wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only right you have is to control content on your own pages, for the most part, not what other people see in their Newsfeeds Unless you pay the vig. Spam away as long as Zuck gets a taste.

Wait, so it's spam if you want all your followers or friends to see it but before when that was the default it wasn't spam? You can't have it both ways.

Sometimes it's spam, sometimes it isn't. The point is that changing the default hasn't made it any less spammy, it just means more revenue for FB.

Re: Facebook, I want my friends back

#185

Post by lmm » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 12:42 PM UTC

tensor wrote: post #105

reinhardt wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In particular, the best restaurants in the world are small. So are the worst.

Sure, and the market won't likely be kind to them. My point is that it's illogical to "think most [small businesses] should be out of business". By their continued existence and success we can see first hand that they deserve to be in business. There are even really high end and successful places that ban cell phones and still do well. Sometimes places do well because of quirks like these. Other times not. There are…

>By their continued existence and success we can see first hand that they deserve to be in business.

Or they're being given unbalanced treatment. The market is not perfectly rational; many people (whether customers, suppliers or employees) seem willing to give more to small businesses and expect less in return.

Re: Facebook, I want my friends back

#186

Post by lmm » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 12:46 PM UTC

code_duck wrote: post #87

DanBC wrote: post #19

> At Dangerous Minds, we post anywhere from 10 to 16 items per day, fewer on the weekends. This is why I don't like many pages, and it's why FB needs clear and easy to use controls for what does or doesn't show up on my wall.

I think you mean 'News Feed', not 'wall'. Wall is the old name for your page. They are now called Timelines.

And Eurasia has always been at war with Eastasia? I really see no need to let facebook control language like this.

Re: Facebook, I want my friends back

#187

Post by code_duck » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 1:02 PM UTC

fotoblur wrote: post #34

sequoia wrote: post #24

The whole premise of this article is "Facebook gave me this access to their platform for free hitherto, so I'm entitled to this access on those same terms in perpetuity; it's unfair for them to start charging for it." I don't see the author explaini why s/he is entitled to these same terms forever.

Its a funny thing. When I read your comment I remember it saying exactly that on the Facebook Sign up page. Something along the lines of "Its free (and always will be)".

Right, the basic version I guess. It's free and always will be.

Re: Facebook, I want my friends back

#188

Post by code_duck » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 1:03 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #63

bennyg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but it's a little bit trickier than that. If Facebook does things that alienate users, then those products will walk off the shelf - and not into someone's shopping cart.

> If Facebook does things that alienate users, then those products will walk off the shelf Hasn't happened yet, from what I can see.

Not yet, but one only has to look at the history of just about every widely popular digital offering to see that it is coming eventually. And, making decisions which alienate your users and make your service less enjoyable is a great way to speed that process along.

Re: Facebook, I want my friends back

#189

Post by padobson » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 1:48 PM UTC

alexkus wrote: post #119

padobson wrote: post #74

User: Oh, hello Facebook. Can you help me find out what my friends are doing? Facebook: Oh, definitely. Just have a look at your NewsFeed and see what they're doing. User: Wait, I've got 2000 friends. Why am I only getting a NewsFeed post twice an hour? Facebook: Because we decided that's the information that you're most likely to want. User: But what if I want to know what everyone's doing at any specific moment? Tw…

For now yes, but Twitter could do exactly the same thing at some point in the future; they need money too. Whatever rug you get comfy on can be pulled from under you at a moment's notice. IPOs/monetization/capitalism has far more power than the user-base. I'd love to see a bunch of not-for-profit[1] startups to come along to replace the likes of paypal/twitter/stripe/etc. 1. For example, supported by just enough inje…

I couldn't agree more that these companies need to find better ways to monetize. Watching Zynga slow to a crawl at the same time they represent 14% of Facebook's revenues is proving we haven't found the best business model for social media yet.

My point, though, was that they're making the product worse. The lack of a creative business model to monetize a user base while keeping the quality of the product high is disheartening. These are some of the best minds in consumer internet - which doesn't give me high hopes for consumer internet.

Re: Facebook, I want my friends back

#190

Post by obiefernandez » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 2:12 PM UTC

Facebook already touts the benefits of paid media over "organic audience" for marketers, so I fail to see how this is a huge difference from what they've been doing. For example, see the case study information presented at http://allfacebook.com/understanding-paid-and-earned-reach-o...