I think there must be some keyword combination containing the words "facebook" and "login" that these people are putting into google to get to Facebook. That's how a lot of people seem to surf these days; if you want to go somewhere, type into the magical Google box.
edit: the best I can find is "facebook true login", I bet there's another combo that RWW is listing first for.
True. I've seen it way to many times - instead of just typing facebook.com (no http or www required!) they just type "facebook" in Google search in Firefox
That seems like a flaw in Google, to be honest. Surely Facebook.com must be one of the very highest pageranks possible.
So it's the preferential treatment Google gives to "news results" that moved this page to the top.
But how many people who google "facebook" are looking for anything other than facebook.com? I know that people like us it seems no one would logically go to the site that way, but those of us who watch people use the web know better.
So this seems like a case of Google returning results on what it imagines people want rather than what I'm willing to bet the statistics overwhelmingly indicate people want.
Personally, if I type "facebook" into Google I am probably not looking for Facebook itself. I'm aware, though, that that probably puts me in a small minority.
RWW Writer here: these people are all coming to our site by searching Google for "facebook login"
Very sad, but I guess it's really a good reminder that we live in a bubble. For a lot of people, the Internet is magic and they don't know what to do when something changes.
My wife is a theoretical physicist and she also types the names of sites into the search bar to get to them. The concept of a URL is so orthogonal to her reality that it just hasn't registered yet.
Not that I'm saying those commenters are theoretical physicists, but ... the bubble theory is a pretty strong one.
Beat me to it. That is precisely what it reminded me of. Most comments ever does not equal best comment thread ever. Of course, by the end of it, I'm pretty sure people were just trolling.
"Dear visitors from Google. This site is not Facebook. This is a website called ReadWriteWeb that reports on news about Facebook and other Internet services. You can however click here to become a Fan of ReadWriteWeb on Facebook, to receive our updates and learn more about the Internet. To access Facebook, please type "facebook.com" into your browser address bar or type "facebook" into Google and click on the first result."
We also just added a link directly to Facebook.com. I'm not sure how some of these people had the wherewithal to sign up for Facebook accounts in the first place.
These are people who installed IE from a disk their ISP gave them. Their homepage is comcast.net or something similar. And that homepage must have featured a headline for several hours that linked to this article. I bet the headline was truncated to "Facebook Log-in..." or something. I'm just waiting for my mom to call to ask what's wrong with Facebook.
Comment 103: "This reminds me of an article I read recently about the ever-escalating rate of illiteracy in America. It makes you wonder how these people ever make it down the street alive, much less how they are able to log into Facebook."
It's always good for us designers to get a reminder of the computer skills of the general public. People do not read: headers, urls, titles, or much of anything for that matter.
I think this situation illustrates perfectly that there's nothing you can do for some people. As they say, "Make it foolproof, and the world will come up with a better fool."
Sure, this is hilarious. Take a moment to think about what it means. We all live in a bubble where the web is easy, where we can always find what we're looking for.
I'm convinced that some people approach the internet like an angry driver gripping the wheel without any sense of reality. Things like this remind me who we're often designing for and has to be done to make our work usable.
If > 50 people can arrive at a page, completely disregard the logo and read not a single word in the body BUT still find the comment form, something is wrong.
"Especially in Silicon Valley, where it's easy for entrepreneurs to isolate themselves in circles with like-minded techies and fellow entrepreneurs, I feel that a huge amount of startup CEOs and designers... make product decisions that appeal to their own interaction behaviour with such applications or what they think their friends will find cool.
"Building for geeks makes for great customer immersion if you're building something like (the wonderfully useful) GitHub, but that same process doesn't work so hot if you're building a site for middle-aged moms."
"I'm convinced that some people approach the internet like an angry driver gripping the wheel without any sense of reality. Things like this remind me who we're often designing for and has to be done to make our work usable."
Now you got me thinking; the intersection of people who use the Internet and people who drive is a pretty large set.
Looking at that thread, I may never go on the road again.
On the one hand I do think that there is a long way to go in improving the usability of computer applications, and that "computer illiteracy" is to some extent merely a symptom of the fact that user interfaces aren't good enough yet.
On the other hand it would not shock me at all to learn that many of the confused commenters in this case are not just "computer illiterate", but illiterate sensu stricto, unable to (for example) parse the front page of a newspaper. Of course this is not to say that they can't learn - but user interface design can only go so far; at some point education is necessary.
Not just education, but actually _wanting_ to learn. This is what bothers me about the position that computers need to be made easier because people just want to get their work done, they don't want to use computers. Well, tough, you have to learn at least something about a tool in order to be effective at it, otherwise, you're going to have problems. So while it's good to work towards a usable interface that is straight forward, easy to use, doesn't get in the user's way and is easy to understand, there is a limit beyond which you have diminishing returns.
I'm really trying to give the commenters the benefit of the doubt. In their defense, Facebook was gradually rolling out a new design that its users seem to despise. That, combined with a usage spike from massive snowstorms (school/work closings, closed roads), explains some of the desperation. I hope.
This is also exposes a massive downside to implementing Facebook connect.
RWW is really pushing against HN, huh? First they tried to get high-karma members of the site to link to them (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1103021). Now, they are posting themselves really cheap links, to things that really don't matter.
I work at RWW, and I just thought the thread was too funny to not share. Sorry your comment got voted down =/
Also, about the earlier "incident," we've discussed it internally and with the HN dude who was involved, and it's sorted. Our writer didn't know she was crossing a line.
Ultimately, we like the interaction here, and we try to post stuff on HN that the developer/startup community might find interesting, amusing, and informative.
I have a pretty popular Facebook app. Since the redesign I've been flooded with complaint emails: "Bring back the old Facebook!!!!", "Why did you change it your !@#*&@#ing idiot?!", etc.
I blame Google for this, not the users. Google knows a large portion of its users use the "search" box for navigation. They should do a better job of accommodating that use case. It should be fairly easy to tell that a search for "facebook login" is likely a navigation query, and display a huge "Login to Facebook" button at the top.
it seems like what is happening is they are typing, "facebook login" into google, then they click the first link, which is "news results for facebook login", the first link on that page is the RWW article.
To keep the entertainment going, lets all do our part and promote the article's link up in google's search results for 'facebook' and 'facebook login' :)
To post a comment the first option you can select is "Optional: Sign in with Facebook" which opens a Facebook login window. Which is why most of those commenters had that [f] in their comments.
So perhaps they thought they were somehow logging into Facebook but while they were really doing some kind of remote authentication.
66 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 69.1 ms ] threadedit: the best I can find is "facebook true login", I bet there's another combo that RWW is listing first for.
Author Mike Melanson, Inadvertent SEO Superstar
[1] http://www.google.com/trends?q=facebook%2C+facebook+login
So it's the preferential treatment Google gives to "news results" that moved this page to the top.
But how many people who google "facebook" are looking for anything other than facebook.com? I know that people like us it seems no one would logically go to the site that way, but those of us who watch people use the web know better.
So this seems like a case of Google returning results on what it imagines people want rather than what I'm willing to bet the statistics overwhelmingly indicate people want.
Interesting.
Very sad, but I guess it's really a good reminder that we live in a bubble. For a lot of people, the Internet is magic and they don't know what to do when something changes.
Not that I'm saying those commenters are theoretical physicists, but ... the bubble theory is a pretty strong one.
"Dear visitors from Google. This site is not Facebook. This is a website called ReadWriteWeb that reports on news about Facebook and other Internet services. You can however click here to become a Fan of ReadWriteWeb on Facebook, to receive our updates and learn more about the Internet. To access Facebook, please type "facebook.com" into your browser address bar or type "facebook" into Google and click on the first result."
I'm convinced that some people approach the internet like an angry driver gripping the wheel without any sense of reality. Things like this remind me who we're often designing for and has to be done to make our work usable.
If > 50 people can arrive at a page, completely disregard the logo and read not a single word in the body BUT still find the comment form, something is wrong.
People are stupid. They are also our customers.
"Especially in Silicon Valley, where it's easy for entrepreneurs to isolate themselves in circles with like-minded techies and fellow entrepreneurs, I feel that a huge amount of startup CEOs and designers... make product decisions that appeal to their own interaction behaviour with such applications or what they think their friends will find cool.
"Building for geeks makes for great customer immersion if you're building something like (the wonderfully useful) GitHub, but that same process doesn't work so hot if you're building a site for middle-aged moms."
via http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2009/09/design-for-startup...
Now you got me thinking; the intersection of people who use the Internet and people who drive is a pretty large set.
Looking at that thread, I may never go on the road again.
Yes, something is wrong, but in this case I wouldn't blame the website.
On the other hand it would not shock me at all to learn that many of the confused commenters in this case are not just "computer illiterate", but illiterate sensu stricto, unable to (for example) parse the front page of a newspaper. Of course this is not to say that they can't learn - but user interface design can only go so far; at some point education is necessary.
This is also exposes a massive downside to implementing Facebook connect.
RWW is really pushing against HN, huh? First they tried to get high-karma members of the site to link to them (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1103021). Now, they are posting themselves really cheap links, to things that really don't matter.
Also, about the earlier "incident," we've discussed it internally and with the HN dude who was involved, and it's sorted. Our writer didn't know she was crossing a line.
Ultimately, we like the interaction here, and we try to post stuff on HN that the developer/startup community might find interesting, amusing, and informative.
Pretty funny.
That looks like a task an automated filter could do.
Oh wow, thats even worse then the RWW thread.
This was the first profile I clicked on. I am speechless.
So perhaps they thought they were somehow logging into Facebook but while they were really doing some kind of remote authentication.