
Why Facebook Can’t Figure Out What to Do With Its Apps - moisy
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/zuckerbergs-app-struggle/
======
bsimpson
It seems like there are three obvious divisions of the Facebook product:

\- Chat

\- Shared content (news feed/photos/etc)

\- Events

I wonder what the world looks like in which each is treated as a separate
product with a common login. I imagine that the size of the user base goes up,
but total usage could go down.

I know many people who don't have Facebook because they don't like the
constant distraction of its shared content core, but would be open to using it
for chat and events (if only because everyone else is). At the same time,
there are probably existing users who haven't abandoned it yet because of
events/chat, but would like to be less distracted by the content stream. If
someone could install only Messenger and Events, effectively opting into those
two products and out of Paper, it's not hard to imagine a sizable subset of
the Facebook population doing exactly that.

~~~
a8000
I think a startup focussing on only events and doing them well could have some
potential.

~~~
buro9
[http://attending.io/](http://attending.io/) is doing this.

They're focusing on the market below EventBrite, small free events and small
venue (i.e. tech user talks) that may require a small fee.

It's really refreshing to be able to just say "I want to attend that event"
and for it to be a few clicks rather than an arduous check-out process.

Note: Whilst they have a "browse" button at the top, they've started by
providing stand-alone pages that act as a flyer and mini-promo site for the
event... this is a tool with great potential, not a fully mature product.
Example of an event page [http://attending.io/events/how-to-market-through-
influencers...](http://attending.io/events/how-to-market-through-influencers-
trends-tools-techniques)

~~~
debt
I feel like hosting events is trivial. It's _finding_ the events that is
difficult. It's trivial to get a stripped down ticketing system going, it's
much harder to get people to see those events.

I'm surprised there's still not a Google for events.

~~~
TillE
> I'm surprised there's still not a Google for events.

Absolutely. What's going on in Berlin next weekend? To answer that question
depending on my interests, I need to check half a dozen different sites, none
of them very good or filterable in useful ways.

I want to do more fun and interesting stuff, you want to promote your event.
It seems like an obvious opportunity for anyone who can at least improve upon
the clunky Web 1.0 interface of existing sites.

~~~
boomzilla
I've been mulling over this idea for a while now and actually have implemented
a prototype. The current roadblock I run into, as someone said earlier in the
thread, is the data sources. I've implemented a crawler that pulls from
roughly 10 different sites, but clearly the custom crawling doesn't scale:
there are just too many websites out there, and I don't have access to the
crawling infrastructure of the Google/Bing size (both machine power and
development effort).

I am thinking of making my prototype more human involved. For example, users
(like you) could list the sites they often check for events, and maybe give
the system some cue on how to extract the events from those sites. Another
approach is MTurk which is something I'll try next.

------
jeswin
On the contrary, I think this is about FaceBook knowing exactly what the
future holds.

\- FB probably recognizes that a Social Network is at its core a directory of
connections and the ability to message/talk to each other. Until now it took a
backseat to over-shared content, when it should have been the other way round.

\- This app could serve as the foundation for the next FaceBook. Once you
strip down an app to its essentials, you can very carefully add features based
on data and the lessons learned.

\- We are moving towards more selective, opt-in types of engagement, as
opposed to carpet bombing with the content feed. For example, there are only a
couple of dozen people whose feeds I care about. Those are most likely the
people who I interact with or message often. What I want is the ability to
mark certain people as "interesting" so that I see their statuses, instead of
having to "hide" everybody else. (add:) Same with groups, follows etc.

~~~
pekk
> FB probably recognizes that a Social Network is at its core a directory of
> connections and the ability to message/talk to each other

How many years of hype did it take to bring us to this moment, where we
realized we had reinvented ICQ/AIM?

I know, I know, I'm being reductive. There is also a sort of Geocities thing
bolted on. You know, like Friendster and Myspace

~~~
taiki
if ICQ was so wonderful to use then why did we flee to the next best thing to
come along? My feeling was that ICQ sucked in a very horrible way.

I was never around for the Friendster days(I was a Livejoural user through and
through, damn it), however the reason I suspect MySpace lost out is that they
did do the GeoCities thing. Everytime I see people complaining about a new
Facebook layout, I always think, "Is this worse than the best MySpace page?"
Answer is always no.

It's not that we're reinventing ICQ or AIM or MySpace or whatever, it's that
we're refining the, oh god I hate using this word, "experience" of using it.

Does Facebook have random flash things pegging my CPU to render a cube in 3D
with my friend's vacation photos on each face? Does Facebook have auto-playing
music? Does Facebook have the option of setting the page's colors to be
hideously garish?

I also think Facebook is realizing this, and they're trying to retool their
business away from Facebook this website you visit, to Facebook a thing where
all of these neat services are wired up to. I don't know if they'll succeed,
but at least they have the sense to know they're not going to be on top
forever.

~~~
funkyy
MySpace lost because it lost war to spam. Majority of regular users were just
fed up with freaking spam. Tens of comments, invites, messages mass sent from
some unknown wannabes. Facebook offered more closed approach - focusing on
real life friends and trying to tackle the spam. Remember having 500 friends
on MySpace? How many of them have you EVER seen in real life? 10-20% ?

~~~
visakanv
It was also getting really tedious and laggy, and there were lots of fake
profiles. I used both MySpace (I played in a band) and Facebook in 2007, for
seemingly different reasons and different groups of friends... but eventually
everyone moved to Facebook and MySpace got really vacant.

~~~
saraid216
> and there were lots of fake profiles

FYI, this is a feature, not a bug. One of MySpace's early differentiators was
that it allowed fake profiles, unlike Friendster.

Another differentiator was the extreme level of customization available, which
as you note, resulted in a lot of lag because most people do not even realize
that could be an issue.

------
cliveowen
I think they may have finally found their path to irrelevance. I used to go to
Facebook (the website) everyday, multiple times a day. They changed it for
worse with every update, so I dropped the site and started using the app, but
even the app kept changing for the worse and it's now a total mess. Then this
morning I realized that it's been a week since I last used Facebook, and I'm
pretty sure that in a couple months I'll be ready to drop it completely.

~~~
Spooky23
I'm in the same place -- I think the company takes itself too seriously.

It's not fun to use anymore -- I'm always getting these stern warnings about
new privacy policies, and they are always screwing around with the timeline.

For example, now the Facebook gods have decreed that I will view the vapid
posts of acquaintances who insist on posting "look how happy my family is"
pictures, and buries posts from people whom I actually interact with on
Facebook.

~~~
AznHisoka
I think the media takes them too seriously as well. it's just a company that
facilitates the sharing of LOLCat photos. Yes, its big data hard technically
at that scale, but at the core, it's not a Google.

------
koko775
Disclaimer: ex-Facebooker.

> Similarly, there’s a logic to giving Paper some more features, or “bloat,”
> as engineers derisively call such additions. Although it’s awkward to cram
> more information into a hidden tab on Paper — if birthdays are so important,
> why aren’t they in Paper’s main news feed? — the additional information also
> helps Paper live up to its billing as a place for news and stories from your
> social graph. For some people, birthdays and invitations are a vital part of
> that news stream, even if, for others, such information is trivial or better
> placed in the core Facebook app.

1\. The Events and Birthday features were planned before Paper was announced.
It's not feature bloat, it's a "second release" feature planned ahead of time.

2\. Paper is optimized for a high-quality reading experience, especially
longer content, as evidenced by the meticulous attention to detail in the text
rendering and the horizontal scrolling. Birthdays would take up a lot of space
in the story stream for relatively little content (and how would you order it
within the feed, anyway?). Look at the birthday indicator on Facebook WWW, and
tell me a name and three words are worth a screen-sized card in the stream. I
would be very skeptical.

3\. Birthdays arrive regularly and in chronological order. The Notifications
jewel is the best place for these things - people also visit it regularly and
there's a chronological ordering to it.

As for Nearby, the argument is flimsy. Changing strategy doesn't have to mean
sabotaging in-flight development. Perhaps Nearby was developed before or
during planning for the shift to the new strategy.

~~~
lukasb
Am I the only person who thinks the body text on the shrunken preview cards
looks terrible?

edit: was reacting to "meticulous attention to detail in the text rendering"

------
the_watcher
I like that they've done with Messenger. All they did was make an app
specifically designed for messaging and remove the bolted on version from the
main app. You shouldn't notice any UX differences once you install the new
Messenger app thanks to the wonders of deeplinking.

~~~
ionforce
I guess this matters less and less as old phones get phased out, but I think
there is some memory overhead in having two apps rather than one. Like if you
switch apps and then the reaper elects to kill your first app, the switch back
isn't so nice. Whatever, edge case.

Another UX edge case is when you hit Messenger directly, there's no backlink
to Facebook. That's kind of blah.

~~~
the_watcher
Yeah, that is irritating, but when the deeplinking to Messenger first started,
there was never a backlink to the Facebook app. That's changed, and I bet
Messenger will too.

------
lettergram
To be honest, once Facebook strips the messenger app from the main app I'm
done using Facebook. I don't want to agree to the new terms and conditions.

~~~
griffinmb
I may be wrong, but I think you misunderstood the 'stripping the messenger
app' bit. It's not referring to the web app, just the ios app. Facebook
stripped the messenger app from the main iPhone app a few months ago. I don't
think there are any additional TOS.

~~~
wlesieutre
Messaging is definitely still in the main iOS app. They advertise "The new
Messenger" with banners to get you to switch, but I haven't bothered.

I tried it out briefly, and IIRC had some trouble with chat notifications
still coming from the main Facebook app. I could turn off notifications for
it, but that'd kill all of the other notifications too. Making chat _only_ in
Messenger would solve this, if they haven't fixed it already.

~~~
griffinmb
Interesting. Maybe Facebook is doing some kind of rollout, because I didn't
feel like making the switch but eventually I was forced to.

I still get the notifications in my original FB app, but when I press
"messages," I'm taken to the Messenger app.

~~~
wlesieutre
Just tried again, it looks like once you have Messenger installed it gets
disabled in the main app. And this time my message notifications are coming
from the actual app that I can read messages in, so I'll stick with it.

------
d1str0
If Facebook strips the ability to message from the main app, I will no longer
use Facebook for messaging. As an adroid user, Google's Hangouts is way better
at connecting my gchat and sms and I will then have no use for another
standalone messaging app.

------
evanmoran
In my view Facebook separating out Chat from its core Facebook app was a
brilliant move. It simplifies its core UI, yes, but even more makes the
integration of WhatsApp into something that might actually make sense. Imagine
WhatsApp built into the FB chat app... That's a huge, extremely active user
base.

Lastly, if the worst happens and the core FB popularity declines, this new app
could live a VERY long time. The only thing close in competition is GChat, but
considering how popular WhatsApp is and its powerful reach into mobile, this
could be the dominant chat platform going forward.

~~~
griffinmb
Just to add to this... I was reluctant to migrate to the Messenger app, but,
since being forced to change, I can see the benefits. Though I don't use it
very much, my girlfriend prefers it over any other messaging service (SMS,
email, etc).

I think it was a smart move.

------
frade33
They actually don't want to do anything with them. And I don't even get, how
they would keep grabbing their rivals without triggering anti-trust
investigation.

As soon as any social startup rises to the sky, they would grab it. Since the
social itself is worthless in terms of making money, so anyone would easily
get acquired, because they don't have any other choice, and definitely
acquisition by Facebook, Apple, Google or Microsoft is and was their only
business model.

------
the_watcher
Bundling information and bundling of functionality are being mixed up with
this article. Facebook doesn't care about bundling information differently
between apps, they care about narrowly designed functionality for each app.

~~~
samstave
FB is a culture of vertical scrolling silos.

------
ganessh
Who knows. In their dataware house all they need is email id to link data from
different apps to have a great knowledge about you and send more targeted ads.

------
chris_wot
Nice. I'm glad their splitting these apps out, because I'll be able to ignore
them as I always did.

------
Killswitch
Man, why the heck are they trying to split everything off into their own apps?
If I am using the main app to browse my feed and I get a message, why the heck
do I want to swap to another app to answer it?

~~~
rkuykendall-com
You don't. Just like when you're browsing HN and you get a message you don't
want to swap to another app to answer it. That's why the separated Facebook
chat app uses message bubbles that you can answer in any app:

[http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/04/Screen-S...](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/04/Screen-Shot-2013-04-16-at-1.47.25-PM.jpg)

Honestly, it's brilliant, and the sole reason I use Facebook chat for most of
my communications.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I had no idea they'd managed to make that work for iOS, that's awesome.
Definitely agree, FB chat bubbles for Android are one of the best user
experiences I've seen.

~~~
aianus
AFAIK, on iOS it only works within Facebook's apps. Pretty lame experience
compared to the Android version.

~~~
rkuykendall-com
Oh wow, it never occurred to me that it would be Android only. iOS users are
REALLY missing out. It's the best mobile chat experience I've ever had.

