
Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers - toffer
http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2009/03/21/FacebookStreamRedesignDisruptiveCompaniesDontListenToTheirCustomersMarkZuckerburg.aspx
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ChrisMac
I'm not a huge Facebook user, but I don't get what the big deal with the
change is. They just made the news feed a little more prominent. The older
design from a few weeks ago emphasized that already.

Whenever I logged on, that was the main thing I checked anyways - updates
about what my friends were up to.

If anything, I think it's good. It'll give me more opportunity to keep in
touch with people in little ways hear and there.

~~~
cos
They've done a lot more than that. Most significantly:

1\. There is no more news feed, they've eliminated it! What you now see on the
homepage is basically a "status update feed". While they've enhanced status
updates so that they now combine the former share/post functionality, every
other kind of action that used to go in the news feed is no longer there. This
has a lot of corrolaries. For example:

2\. Apps can no longer be viral. When you take an action in an app that causes
it to post to your profile wall, that action will not appear on your friends'
homepages, so they won't see it unless they go looking for it.

... the same is true for other things: For example, when someone tags a photo
of one of your friends, you'll no longer see that on your homepage. You'll
only be notified of the new photos if the person who _posted_ the photos is
your friend.

There are a lot of other bad changes and features removed, but that's probably
the biggest problem.

~~~
grag
#2 is not true. Stories posted automatically via the API won't show up in
friend's newsfeeds. But apps can popup a "feed form" which allows users to
preview the content the app wants to post to their wall (this can include an
image or embedded swf). If the users posts it then that content will show up
in all their friend's newsfeeds. I think this format is actually much better
for apps.

~~~
cos
It's possible (though not very likely IMO) that that could turn out to be
"much better" once app writers adapt their apps to it, and people get used to
it. In the meantime, though, the viral aspect of apps was based on publishing
actions people take, as a side-effect of people taking those actions, and that
just isn't happening now. You do NOT see this stuff on your homepage anymore.

As I pointed out, it's not just apps. Photo tagging, friending, and a host of
other Facebook actions that used to be viral aren't anymore.

~~~
blader
The implicit news feed stories were never really a strong source of virality.
Our current data is showing that the new stream is performing quite a bit
better for us, but YMMV.

~~~
cos
"performing" in what sense?

If someone joins a group, for example, I'm much less likely to see that,
whereas before I might've looked at the group based on the title. If someone
adds a friend who I know, I probably won't notice now, whereas before I
might've seen it and added that friend. These kinds of things are valuable for
social networking.

What kind of performance are you measuring, and why does it matter more than
other kinds?

~~~
blader
I was speaking as a Facebook application developer responding to the comment
about "applications can no longer be viral". I have no idea whether it's
working out for Facebook as a whole, but for our own purposes it's looking
very good across a whole range of metrics, mostly growth (user acquisition and
activation).

As a data point, these guys: <http://apps.facebook.com/livingsocial> managed
to get around 2 million uniques over the past couple of days, mostly from Feed
virality. Again I have no idea if it's good for Facebook as a whole (and the
only people who can say for sure are people with access to that data at
Facebook), but for application developers it's been great.

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ealar
I like the facebook redesign. I think it's snappy and I can still easily get
to all the information I need when looking up contact info. Further, the AJAX
loads pages considerably faster, and in many cases incrementally (e.g.
pictures), radically decreasing the effective "response time" of the site.

I really have to wonder why we're even talking about it in a controversial way
instead of an analysis of the technological changes and their effect on the
site. It seems this is the wrong site for a controversial facebook design
argument.

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vaksel
actually they do...they just don't listen to the 1% that bitches and moans.

~~~
SingAlong
Totally agree with your point. The new design is actually a lot better. In the
older design, I had to wade thru a lot of visual crap before I got to stuff
like news feed or my own wall. but the new design has made it easier.

~~~
cos
Are you really comparing the new design with what was the case a month ago?
You sound like you're comparing the previous design with the older 2006-2008
design.

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devicenull
Every time facebook makes a change, everyone whines about it for a month then
actually likes it. Why would this change be any different?

It would seem people are just perpetually afraid of any sort of change at all

~~~
cos
You're making a mistake in not looking at the substance of what people have
said and are saying, and collapsing several very different episodes into
"every time facebook makes a change". Reactions to Facebook changes, and
results, have actually been quite different.

The first big outcry was about the introduction of newsfeeds. People were
upset because Facebook sprang it on them by surprise, and suddenly information
was being shared in new ways that people weren't used to, hadn't expected, and
had no control over. In the long run, newsfeeds turned out to be one of
Facebook's most useful and visionary features, but they _did_ make two
mistakes: 1\. Surprising people, causing them to realize after the fact that
they'd shared information in ways they hadn't intended 2\. Providing no
control. Facebook's success owes a lot to the way it offers people very
granular control over their privacy and sharing.

Facebook fixed #2 by adding granular privacy controls for newsfeeds, and #1
just naturally fixed itself once people figured out the new system.

A couple of later episodes of "everyone whines" were different: Facebook made
a big mistake, everyone complained, and Facebook backed down completely, thus
quieting the criticism:

1\. "Beacon", which let partners' web sites post to people's feeds (for
example, you buy a book at Amazon and it appears on your feed). Facebook
pulled Beacon. They later began reintroducing some of the more useful aspects
of Beacon in limited ways, with better user control, and this has been useful.

2\. The change to Terms of Service a few months ago. Huge outcry, Facebook
admitted their error, backed out the changes, and started work on a new terms
of service to fix problems in public view with public comment.

Another case, and probably the one you're thinking of, was last year's profile
redesign. That time, Facebook did things right: They informed people early,
and opened a group where they posted weekly mock-ups of what they were
thinking and asked for comments in a managed way, and responded to the
previous week's comments. The process went for several months, and I followed
it and could see how it improved the design significantly.

When the new design came out, some people did indeed object vocally. But a lot
of other people (me included) saw the value of it because we'd been included
during the design process, and because the new design really did have a lot of
advantages, which we could articulate. This outcry took a different path than
previous ones: Facebook did not have to make any changes, and instead,
proponents of the new design eventually converted most of the opponents.

When Pages were overhauled recently in the same way as the Profile redesign
from last year, there was no major outcry.

And now we come to this new Facebook redesign: It really is AWFUL. They threw
away all that they learned last time. They took out most of the advantages of
last year's redesign, eliminated many of the most useful features, and
actually went back even further, effectively eliminating the newsfeed. They
did not include users in the redesign process, and they did not give previews
or warning.

Your analysis is much too simplistic, and misses almost everything significant
about the differences between these episodes of Facebook changes followed by
objections from users, and therefore misses all of the factors that make each
episode _different_ from some of the others.

~~~
phoxix2
Thank you for nailing it.

While its true that Facebook users always bitch and moan about changes. This
time they're bitchin' and moanin' annnddd using a very key word: confusing.

I fail to see why A) Web developers need to put down their users constantly,
instead of working with them. B) Why web developers think that Twitter can do
no wrong.

The elitist holier-than-thou web developer herd mentality is mind-boggling.

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zandorg
I just saw a video of Zuckerberg on Google Video (NYC Facebook developers
meeting in Dec 2007).

He predicted accurately where they'd be by now in terms of numbers.

But I got this impression: He listens to his (outside) developers.

[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8966315003179793637...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8966315003179793637&ei=eqjGSevcM9CF-
AbPs8GLBQ&q=zuckerberg+nyc)

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rfunduk
Two words: __Vocal Minority __

This happens _every time_ Facebook (or any other major site for that matter)
makes a change. A few months from now everyone will forget about it and get on
with their lives. At least until they change it again, when everyone flips out
and wants the 'old' layout back (eg, the one they're complaining about today).

~~~
cos
Your analysis is much too simplistic, and lumps a number of very different
episodes of Facebook change into one common pattern when in fact they differed
significantly, and what happened after was different.

See my comment in reply to devicenull for more detail.

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chiffonade
The real question is: who has nothing else better going on in their life that
they must complain about a FB redesign?

~~~
cos
... or that they must comment about a discussion of it on a hacker news
posting of a blog post discussing it? Yup, that's the real question, I'm sure.

~~~
chiffonade
I'm talking about the users who deem it a major event in their lives that
their social portal changed layouts, not the entrepreneurial hackers
discussing how this has implications for future profits for their own
projects.

Think more meta, man.

