

What Mark Cuban Really Thinks About Facebook - inshane
http://blogmaverick.com/2012/11/19/what-i-really-think-about-facebook/

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hayksaakian
Facebook is fully entitled to enforce edgerank. People consume content
differently on FB than say twitter. Since twitter is more of a firehouse, its
OK to simply sort by date since newness has much more value in that ecosystem.
This is socially acknowledged given that tweets are firstly public. In
contrast Facebook presents itself as a local social network. As such, your
relationships on FB carry more weight. Social pressure nudges us to 'friend'
mere acquaintances and 'like' things that are mildly amusing. You're expected
to acknowledge important news in your social circles. Edgerank reinforces this
behavior. If something is deemed 'like'able by your 'friends' you're
encouraged to also like it, both by the algorithm and social influences, thus
perpetuating the cycle to your own network.

Brands don't fit into this picture. You don't 'like' a picture of coca cola
from a crazy party at mcdonalds' house. Your interactions on the comments of
posts by a brand are probably one way, and with predominantly strangers. The
rest of your personal network is unrelated.

Thus, sponsored posts work against edge rank. There are two big examples of
sponsored posts. First is say, promoting a personal story or life event (it's
a boy!). Second is corporate to consumer say, Best Buy is having a huge sale
on something. In the first case if a story is truly important it would have
been picked up by the algorithm and social forces alike. In the second, most
people don't believe corporations are people, and their social interactions
with them are typically unwelcome to their personal network. There's no social
pressure to like a picture of Jones soda's new flavor as opposed to Jenny's
new baby.

All in all, I think mark is right for the wrong reasons. FB's business model
runs counter to its primary product offering. They're still experimenting and
I hope they end up with something that makes sense to a social network.

~~~
Swizec
The situation changes when a lot of your friends are from the startup
ecosystem.

Suddenly that new product launch is as important as a new baby. And that new
feature is something you're expected to like etc. etc.

How does that fit? They usually still advertise these things through a
"corporate" page ...

~~~
hayksaakian
I'd say at that point you're an outlier. Of the FB population who is really
involved in the 'scene'.

------
jjb123
>Doesn’t FB realize that is far easier for a user to opt-out of a feed by
unliking a brand/person/page that has done a poor job of communication than it
is to mess with all the account settings or for them to try to tweak their
algorithm all the time to try to guess what people want?

Cuban's doubts of the efficacy of edgerank (or perhaps his doubts stemming
from not knowing the purpose of edgerank) comes from him not really knowing
facebook from the perspective of a consumer/user and only knowing it primarily
as a broadcast tool (I've seen his posts - he's only there to broadcast). But
before, I defend edgerank/facebook on this, it should be acknowledged that
this guy and many like him (broadcaster for their brands) are the ones that
pay the bills - and it will be interesting to see who Facebook begins to cater
more to over the next few years... because advertisers' and users' interests,
despite what facebook wants us to believe, will likely always be at odds with
each other.

~~~
cbs
>him not really knowing facebook from the perspective of a consumer/user and
only knowing it primarily as a broadcast tool

That's funny, because as a "regular user" he perfectly voiced my opinion of
(what I now know to be called) edgerank. I see and feel the facebook
filterbubble quite frequently, its much easier to notice and more annoying
than google's. I just don't voice my distaste for it very much because people
just write off my opinion as being a "hater".

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guelo
Its been several years since FB changed the default sort order from 'Recent'
to 'Top'. They made the change gently, first letting angry users change the
default back to 'Recent'. In typical FB fashion the setting would randomly
switch back to 'Top' if you weren't vigilant, and then after a while after
angry users got tired of fighting it and others forgot how it used to be they
took the setting away.

My point being that this has been in the works for a long time and is part of
their long term strategy. They will continue to tweak their algorithm causing
the occasional outrage, backing off, then coming back even more forcefully.

Remember, Zuck has stated that his mission is to train people how to share
their info publicly. Expect that "training" to continue, including for
advertisers.

~~~
fnayr
My FB still lets me change the sort order but randomly changes it back to top.

~~~
brudgers
As does mine. When it changes to "Top" it's glaringly obvious, too.

Perhaps the option persists because I use Facebook in a limited way, always
through a dedicated device - primarily, through its own virtual machine,
occasionally on an old smartphone with no SIM over WiFi, never via my primary
browser or active cellphone.

In my case, Facebook's data mining only sees a reflection of my Facebook
related activities. It is tempting to share more, but I have better places to
subject people to what's on my mind.

------
joelrunyon
I don't see why facebook absolutely refuses to make it simple to unfriend or
unlike something or something.

Let me rephrase that, I know _why_ they make it difficult (more connection =
more data), but it really detracts from the experience. I don't want to spend
3 hours clicking on individuals profiles and clicking 4 different times to do
one action (the "friends link", individual profile page, the "unlike" and the
confirm button).

I know, speaking for myself, I use facebook drastically different than I did a
few years ago, and I would love to clean up some of the friend list I've
accumulated over the years.

------
digitalengineer
Make sure you read comment #3 by former Facebook (now twitter) employee
"derrick503" [http://blogmaverick.com/2012/11/19/what-i-really-think-
about...](http://blogmaverick.com/2012/11/19/what-i-really-think-about-
facebook/#comment-78985)

~~~
gfosco
It's this comment, by Amar Anand, that is from a former Facebook (now twitter)
employee. [http://blogmaverick.com/2012/11/19/what-i-really-think-
about...](http://blogmaverick.com/2012/11/19/what-i-really-think-about-
facebook/#comment-78986)

Seeing all of the word choice and grammar mistakes by derrick503 made me
cringe.

------
gfodor
One has to assume Facebook (the company) has thought of these questions, and
as usual, decided to see what Facebook (the site) thought about it. While
Facebook has a history of trying to force things onto new users, they're also
a data-driven company, so if things are not working, they are going to back
out. I don't think Facebook risks hurting itself, since it can see itself
doing so by measuring the effects of the changes they make. What Facebook
risks is someone else replacing them or popular culture moving on to the next
thing, which is outside of their control.

