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Facebook bends the rules of audience engagement to its advantage

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook bends the rules of audience engagement to its advantage

#31

Post by [deleted] »

tn13 wrote: post #17
arcticfox wrote: post #3

> As a company spokeswoman, Jessie Baker, told me: “The time people spend on our site is a good measure of whether we’re delivering value to them.” Eh, the same argument could be made by Philip Morris or a casino: "The time people spend using our products is a good measure of whether we're delivering value to them."

I think Philip Morris would not be wrong here. The problem here is the difference in values that individuals have. A lot of us might think of wasting time of Facebook or Casino is a bad idea but for many people it would not be the case. Facebook is essentially competing with Snapchat, Youtube, TV for time and if Facebook wins it means they are offering more value than others. People aren't going to read more books or…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook bends the rules of audience engagement to its advantage

#32

Post by Mendenhall »

brianstorms wrote: post #16

Facebook gets about 10 minutes of my time each day, thanks to heavily muting many friends' posts, FB Purity, and uBlock. Meanwhile, Tesla has 120 minutes of my time each day. I'm fine with that.

I am not someone who uses facebook, if you would not mind could you explain briefly what you mean by "muting friends posts"?

Re: Facebook bends the rules of audience engagement to its advantage

#33

Post by cb18 »

Aelinsaar wrote: post #9
arcticfox wrote: post #3

> As a company spokeswoman, Jessie Baker, told me: “The time people spend on our site is a good measure of whether we’re delivering value to them.” Eh, the same argument could be made by Philip Morris or a casino: "The time people spend using our products is a good measure of whether we're delivering value to them."

Exactly. Usage patterns and "deriving value" seem like very different beasts.

Well, value in sating a compulsive or addictive behavior, but not all values are equal.

Re: Facebook bends the rules of audience engagement to its advantage

#34

Post by ruffrey »

scoot wrote: post #30

"Facebook Has 50 Minutes of Your Time Each Day" FaceBook has none of my time ever. (Unless we're talking about their contributions to OSS.)

Considering the widespread use of their open source projects like react, I'd say we have 50 minutes of THEIR time each day

Re: Facebook bends the rules of audience engagement to its advantage

#35

Post by gumby »

arcticfox wrote: post #3

> As a company spokeswoman, Jessie Baker, told me: “The time people spend on our site is a good measure of whether we’re delivering value to them.” Eh, the same argument could be made by Philip Morris or a casino: "The time people spend using our products is a good measure of whether we're delivering value to them."

You have an excellent nose for appropriate metaphors. That's awesome!

Re: Facebook bends the rules of audience engagement to its advantage

#36

Post by jsm386 »

x0054 wrote: post #13

While people are spending more and more time on FB, I find it that there is less and less original content uploaded. It's all likes and re-shares.

Facebook is actively trying to deal with that truth: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-07/facebook-s...

Re: Facebook bends the rules of audience engagement to its advantage

#37

Post by koala_advert »

Mendenhall wrote: post #32
brianstorms wrote: post #16

Facebook gets about 10 minutes of my time each day, thanks to heavily muting many friends' posts, FB Purity, and uBlock. Meanwhile, Tesla has 120 minutes of my time each day. I'm fine with that.

I am not someone who uses facebook, if you would not mind could you explain briefly what you mean by "muting friends posts"?

You can "unfollow" people that you have added, so that their posts no longer show up on your news feed. You still have them added as a friend, you just don't see their posts without visiting their profile page.

Re: Facebook bends the rules of audience engagement to its advantage

#39

Post by zerotimer »

I don't think we should expect Facebook to change. We need better tools that allow people to stay away from it (and other such distractions in future). We need tools that help people understand how to manage their internet time better. They need to understand what kind of emotional costs (which will vary a lot) are associated with extended FB usage. And such tools will ideally be browser addons.

Imagine a browser that I can configure based on my weekly goals. There are domains I want to avoid. There are domains where I most want to be (for that week). And some neutral domains like search engines. Maybe assign weights to these. Then over the week, browser reminds or guides us towards most productive behaviors. If our behavior is inconsistent with our initial goals, it assigns heavier penalties (like block domain for a week) for those negative domains.

There are many interesting implications once someone starts thinking about some of these options. But at this point, I don't see exciting innovation on this.

Re: Facebook bends the rules of audience engagement to its advantage

#40

Post by arcticfox »

cb18 wrote: post #33
Aelinsaar wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Usage patterns and "deriving value" seem like very different beasts.

Well, value in sating a compulsive or addictive behavior, but not all values are equal.

Exactly, I agree. That's why I didn't disagree with the statement, just qualified it with more examples to illustrate your point.
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