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The Facebook experiment has failed

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Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#241

Post by boomlinde »

robomartin wrote: post #214
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #169

Facebook is performance art. It's a phonebook of people I lost contact with many years ago. It's also a quasi-broken emailing list program. It might be a decent advertising platform for small businesses. Don't know. It's not a news feed. It's not stories relevant to me. It's not a way to actually have friends. It's not a place where people create things and share (mostly). People might think it's those things. Hell,…

The only way a services can be non-intrusive is if you, the user, pay for it. If you paid for the full cost of developing and supporting a solution that did not require such things as advertising and social graph mining in order to build, grow and support a company you'd get a much better product. You'd probably get a product that is far more sensitive to the needs and wants of it's paying client user-base. That's on…

The real thieves are the people not visiting your website.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#242

Post by russell »

scholia wrote: post #194
austenallred wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google+ really was on to something with its circles: My friends are easily divisible into groups, and, apart from life events like getting engaged, what I want to share is only really relevant to a specific subset. I know Facebook has groups you can share specific things with, but it's not a feature Facebook has focused on, so even I don't really use it. I could use google +, but no one else does, and there's not muc…

> there's not much of a point to shouting into an empty room Spot on....

Primal Scream Therapy: it's quite prevalent in the Internet.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#243

Post by nahname »

austenallred wrote: post #175
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #169

Facebook is performance art. It's a phonebook of people I lost contact with many years ago. It's also a quasi-broken emailing list program. It might be a decent advertising platform for small businesses. Don't know. It's not a news feed. It's not stories relevant to me. It's not a way to actually have friends. It's not a place where people create things and share (mostly). People might think it's those things. Hell,…

Google+ really was on to something with its circles: My friends are easily divisible into groups, and, apart from life events like getting engaged, what I want to share is only really relevant to a specific subset. I know Facebook has groups you can share specific things with, but it's not a feature Facebook has focused on, so even I don't really use it. I could use google +, but no one else does, and there's not muc…

The problem with Google+ is that they are so terrified of the user seeing no content, it comes pre-loaded with... well crap. Friends list is empty? Let's import everyone you know, but create 5 separate contacts each. Then spam those people to join because they are not actually on G+. Send them a message? They are not actually there. You cannot hide that your social network is a ghost town by putting fake people in it.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#245

Post by ctdonath »

xtracto wrote: post #187
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #169

Facebook is performance art. It's a phonebook of people I lost contact with many years ago. It's also a quasi-broken emailing list program. It might be a decent advertising platform for small businesses. Don't know. It's not a news feed. It's not stories relevant to me. It's not a way to actually have friends. It's not a place where people create things and share (mostly). People might think it's those things. Hell,…

Facebook works very well for me: During my lifetime I've lived on 6 cities in 3 different countries. I've got friends (some of them, became very good friends) and people I know from all these places. Facebook allows me to stay in contact with them, and if I want, to peek at where are they know (and what are they doing). For me, it works as an "information push" platform, where sometimes I'll see an update from an old…

Put another way: Facebook is for friends outside arm's reach, people you don't want to forget but who are not part of your current "inner circle". Real current friends are not maintained via Facebook precisely because you do connect with them in other ways. It's for those you don't want to lose, but don't want to put much effort into either.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#246

Post by boomlinde »

robomartin wrote: post #214
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #169

Facebook is performance art. It's a phonebook of people I lost contact with many years ago. It's also a quasi-broken emailing list program. It might be a decent advertising platform for small businesses. Don't know. It's not a news feed. It's not stories relevant to me. It's not a way to actually have friends. It's not a place where people create things and share (mostly). People might think it's those things. Hell,…

The only way a services can be non-intrusive is if you, the user, pay for it. If you paid for the full cost of developing and supporting a solution that did not require such things as advertising and social graph mining in order to build, grow and support a company you'd get a much better product. You'd probably get a product that is far more sensitive to the needs and wants of it's paying client user-base. That's on…

Not to leave a perfectly valid point to argue to a joke, here's my stance on ad blocking: You don't get to decide what content recipients will fetch. Content is commonly split into multiple separate requests for data which some users and clients won't even have the means to turn into useful information. The interactivity and selectivity in receiving said content is inherent to the protocol, and by all means what makes it different from other mass media. You can't deny users the ability to "receive" whatever part of the content you want unless you are willing to deliver it in another, more intrusive way. What you are really saying is that people are "just short of thieves" for not requesting content that an HTML document merely presents to them as an available resource.

What's your stance on turning down the volume and preparing a sandwich during a TV commercial break? Would you be just short of a thief, or would you simply be doing what's reasonable when having the ability to opt out of information you are not interested in? Don't try and turn a flawed business model built on an infrastructure not meant to support it into a question of ethics.

Also, as some pointed out, to the user, free can really be free. Ever maintained a personal website? How did (or would) your visitors pay for it? Everyone with an internet connection has the option to deliver free services and content at no additional cost.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#247

Post by cmillard789 »

"Just like its features, Facebook algorithms are equally stupid. Share more, get noticed more. Originality be damned."

This isn't exactly true. The FB algorithm dictates that a post hits an average of 18% of your network for personal accounts (15% for businesses). It's an average, because if you frequently share content that has low engagement (likes, comments, shares) FB shows your content to a smaller % of your network.

On the other hand, if you produce content with high engagement, it will get a higher % share with your network.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#248

Post by manuela610 »

Recently, I've been treating Facebook the way Flipboard intends to be used. I use it for news directly relevant to me (because at some point I liked certain websites so that I would get their updates). I find that they provide more relevant content to me than my "friends" do. A brand that uses their Facebook well, with an interesting image and grabbing headline, is a link I will click on.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#249

Post by CyberDroiD »

Works great for me for all purposes required. I don't have any specific needs in this area, so it's a fun website for when I want a diversion. None of the author's complaints make sense to me, except yes, I do notice advertising.

The original post author seems to have specific interests and needs that are not being fulfilled? That sounds like a personal problem. My suggestion would be to move to another social media platform that better fits his needs.

But, in reality, I think the author's problem is PEBKAC. If he doesn't like the website, he should make one that he does like. Nobody is stopping him.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#250

Post by smith7018 »

saraid216 wrote: post #204
smith7018 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the only person out there who has used the "unfriend" button before. I've deleted hundreds of people; many of whom I only met for one night 5 years ago or didn't even talk to way back in high school. Now, my Facebook feed has content that only features people I care to hear from and "interest pages," which is sorta meh. It's really not this social media wasteland I keep readi…

I never friended people I didn't wish to hear from to begin with. I've only ever unfriended one person, and I've never broken the 200-friend threshold, so I can't claim to have unfriended hundreds.

Well, congratulations on Facebooking more intelligently than most, I guess?
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