

What drugs is Facebook taking? - arturventura
http://www.surf-the-edge.com/2011/09/21/what_drugs_is_facebook_taking/

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Alexx
For some reason I've had the 'new style' facebook feeds and chat for a few
weeks already.

Usually when facebook releases updates and everyone has a little rant about it
I just sit back and roll my eyes. These things usually have a long term
advantage, and change is always a bit painful for users.

However I've had a list of about 25 friends in alphabetical order, from A
through to D, just stuck at the right side of my screen for about 6 weeks now.
I have no idea why they are there. They're not online. They're not people I
historically interact a lot with, I can't sort the list, or add favourites. I
can't hide it, because that also hides the people online I might want to chat
to.

I honestly would love to know the reasoning behind this. Someone, somewhere
sat through multiple planning sessions and laid out some kind of argument that
this delivers value _somewhere_ , either in some obscure way to facebook
themselves or somehow to the end user. The design doesn't bother me, but the
functionality does seem... arbitrary? What inherent interest could I possibly
have in my first few alphabetically sorted friends?

------
jarin
Cue the requisite 3 days of grousing about News Feed changes before everyone
gets used to it.

Remember when Facebook first introduced the News Feed and there were News Feed
protest groups with over a million users sperging out about it?

~~~
arturventura
Its not a new feature that people don't like, the interface is completely
diferent, and unsable!

~~~
jarin
That's exactly what people said about the news feed, and more recently the
chat sidebar (when your browser window is wide enough). I found the chat
sidebar annoying too, but after a few days it wasn't jarring at all.

People just use Facebook so much that even small changes trigger massive waves
of "OH GOD THIS IS COMPLETELY UNUSABLE" hysteria.

