It's time to just face the fact that people are just getting completely sick of posting. It's turned into basically a never ending homework assignment to keep up with it all. Closing my Facebook account last year was cathartic.
That's why Facebook bought Instagram and Whatsapp, and it seems to be working. Both seem to be popular with the younger generation (as far as I can tell) and both continue to grow, even under Facebook:
Instagram user stats (acquired around April 2012):
Given that Facebook makes "mistakes" in removing posts, like the one that happened to my friend John Dickson [1], is it any wonder folks aren't really using the platform as much as they used to?
Imagine someone said, "please go out and toil this field in exchange for some scraps". You'd certainly say no, but when Facebook makes the offer, its seems alright to many people.
We may be coming back to the "old internet" mentality where we don't write anything we wouldn't want on a poster stuck up in a public place.
I'm still astonished by those who use their full names and face pictures on Twitter, etc. Those opinions you've shared online are stuck to you forever now.
That is why I have a professional twitter account. I post interesting news and tech articles, I give my opinion on things in tech, and am careful about the language I use, even when being critical (no swearing, polite but firm, correct grammar, etc.) I use my full name on this account, and tie it to my LinkedIn and my website. This way, when employers or whomever are looking for me, they find my professional twitter that is relatively active.
I trim my Facebook friends once a year. If I wouldn't stop in the street and have a 5 minute conversation with you, you are not my friend on facebook. Yes, this means I can't spy on my old HS Quarterback, but I don't care. I also use facebook more as a way to see what is out there about me and to monitor that than to actively post content. The last 15 posts I have made have been "go team" or "we did this fun thing today."
My last rule is to avoid politics as much as possible on all platforms. The only political stuff I engage in is tech related, such as drones, encryption, etc. I won't touch on hot button issues that can burn me.
> "My last rule is to avoid politics as much as possible on all platforms. The only political stuff I engage in is tech related, such as drones, encryption, etc. I won't touch on hot button issues that can burn me."
I totally understand why you would do this, I try to limit what political news I share with those around me, even if it's what I spend a lot of my time reading and watching. However, isn't this a problem long term? How are we going to address the issues in our society if we're not prepared to discuss them? I find myself unsure about how to share important news without turning people off. Perhaps the best way in most (but not all) cases is to sugar coat it with humour.
I don't think many "left" that mentality, it's more that many new people entered the Internet without being properly drilled. In a way, it took society 20 years to learn what we already knew.
I also abide by it. It's just that I would want all of it on a poster stuck in a public place.
> When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose. If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course, you become dampers, mutes, and hooded executioners.
> As a practical matter, a mere failure to speak out upon occassions where no statement is asked or expected from you, and when the utterance of an uncalled for suspicion is odious, will often hold you to a concurrence in palpable iniquity. Try to raise a voice that will be heard from here to Albany and watch what comes forward to shut off the sound. It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your father's, offering you a place at his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if you any of young gentleman have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations, and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well.
> I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and wait. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard. "In a few years," reasons one of them, "I shall have gained a standing, and then I shall use my powers for good." Next year comes and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought, his ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say. I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time.
-- John J. Chapman, Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of Hobart College, 1900
I don't mean this to say you should spill out your heart on FB, there probably are better ways. But as a matter of principle, it's not you who should be afraid of your "peers" and "authorities", it should be the other way around. There are countries where speaking up for what is right and going to jail for that is the norm, and people still do it. We don't for fear of not getting our dream job instantly...?! Yeah, I exaggerate, and I don't want to shame anyone who doesn't "dare" to post certain things, or just doesn't want the hassle of dealing with the reactions of friends/relatives/bosses. Do what feels right for you, obviously.
But one thing is objectively true, a democracy however you understand it requires informed citizens, and so it can't be democracy to never talk about anything but then vote every X years. And if we "can't" talk about politics with our friends, online or offline, and can't be open about what we do and think (among other things to make NEW friends who might share some interests with us) because every boss and their dog thinks they're entitled to be a snoop that way, then we need to change that, not to stop talking. It's not us who are out of line for enjoying our human rights and citizenship, and it is not fit for a sovereign, which is a role citizens share with their fellow citizens, to be blackmailed into submission like that.
Twitter is honest about it-- it's for public discourse. I wouldn't judge anybody for steering clear of it altogether, but if you keep it mind it's public, it's not bad.
Facebook occupies a no-mans-land, neither public nor private. I find it infinitely more troubling.
I think another thing that is a huge factor is the dilution effecting interaction. The spam from timeline advertising and the hundred different pages that everyone is subscribed to throughout the years, I barely see anything that anyone DOES post anymore. I have something like 175 people on my "Friends" list and, when I post something, I usually only get a like or two if that. I've stopped scrolling through my timeline because it's mostly filled with bull crap that I don't care about from random pages that paid to be in my face or random pages that I liked 5 years ago and would now rather they just shut up.
Why would anyone put effort into writing a post out? No one sees it and no one does anything with it if they do. It's pointless. Like @overcast said, people are just sick of posting. It used to have a purpose. 50 people would see it, they'd all like it and comment their opinions on it. Now nothing.
It's still Facebook's fault partially for laying out the groundwork for Facebook to become total garbage.
>It's still Facebook's fault partially for laying out the groundwork for Facebook to become total garbage.
The moment I stopped using Facebook - hell, the moment I stopped enjoying Facebook - was when they published their findings that they could manipulate people's moods by what they show them.
Ever since I've felt like a rat in a cage, being prodded and tested not as a human being, but as a user. And so if that is Facebook's way of looking at me, then as far as I am concerned, Facebook is just a website. A website I barely use.
Don't you feel that way on most sites? I mean, conceivably, HN could be manipulating your feelings as well by fingerprinting your browser and using a different ranking algorithm.
Precisely. It is unnerving how many websites and corporations try to "play God", so to speak. Any instance of manipulation makes me feel used, and that lack of trust never really goes away.
I get that services want me to see stuff that is "most relevant" to me, but there is no room in relevance for serendipity, and it brings to mind the line from Equilibrium:
"..The comfort of knowing your life has been lived before."
Personally, I try and trust most of these sites until they prove that they can not be trusted. Granted, it gets harder and harder to provide any level of trust, given how intrusive web sites become (with ads, trackers, dark patterns, etc).
Why? Wouldn't a more informed view be to assume that the sites (and companies, politicians, etc) will behave in the way that economics favors them to behave?
In this case, you're not paying, so you're not a customer and they don't really care about your needs as long as you stick around.
They make their money from the companies that the article goes on about, and they will do whatever they can to make more.
In short, wouldn't it be better to assume that if the NSA can listen to you, they will? And if a company can make money from your data, they will? And if a politician could be taking bribes, they are?
> I've stopped scrolling through my timeline because it's mostly filled with bull crap that I don't care about from random pages that paid to be in my face or random pages that I liked 5 years ago
You can unlike things, you know. You can also mute things.
It really isn't worth the effort. You need to manually unlike each page individually. There is no way to unsubscribe from multiple sources individually.
Once you have unsubscribed, your newsfeed will be wonderfully straightforward. After a few days it will be cluttered with sponsored likes. I assume this is however long the batch process takes to catch up.
I only go on Facebook to respond to invites at this point. I stopped going on because their mobile app is literally the worst software I've ever installed on my phone though. It's huge and bloated, and it doesn't even include messaging, which they broke out to another app for god-knows-what reason.
I've found that as long as I go to "I don't want to see posts from this page" on every single sponsored link, they stopped appearing at all fairly quickly. No defence of the app though - I strictly use the mobile website. The separate chat app is actually pretty useful for that reason
You get most of what's been described from social graph + location data + people pattern matching on positives & ignoring the vast number of negatives, so there's not much beyond conspiracy theories ATM.
Sorry, no. I've just read a couple anecdotes about it online recently. One was about a TV show in a foreign language playing in the background causing ads in that language. Another was about a guy talking to a friend about an upcoming trip to Vegas, then getting ads for Vegas. I've never wanted to install the app on my phone so I haven't been able to test it myself.
I started getting ads in Spanish recently and I was totally confused. I've been watching soccer on Telemundo Deportes recently. I wonder if an app was listening in. I'll have to see which apps of mine are using the microphone. I'm guessing it would have to be the standard Google app though, since I don't have Facebook installed on my phone.
Is this on Android or iOS? Their iOS mobile app does not even ask for permission for microphone. Messenger does, but then I did disable that. Also note that the moment an application on iOS starts using the microphone you have a huge flashing red banner on the top of your screen so they would get caught quite quickly.
If you're in any kind of a music/art type of scene, invites become completely useless as well. I originally joined FB just to promote my music and organize my contacts in the industry. Now I get 50-100 invites per week to events on continents I've never even visited.
Sounds like FB isn't the platform for the people you interact with, then. As per another poster's comments, I just keep people I actually give a shit about unhidden. I care about what they're up to, so their content matters to me. Your point feels like it boils down to "There's no one in my life that's also on facebook that makes a post that matters to me, nor are there any special interests or groups that are worth following".
And at that point I'm not really sure it's a problem with facebook, or a problem at all, but moreso you not being the target user.
It's not just one sided - it's not just him who isn't getting updates because of the spam, it's everybody else who also isn't getting his updates because of the spam.
I'm not sure how it's meant to work, but muting doesn't seem to work properly for me at all, which is really annoying because the huge amount of stuff I've muted in the past is the only reason my timeline is ever remotely usable.
But recently, crap app of the day pops up, a few people share it, I ask them to hide all from that app, and I see it again the next day or so. The cynic in me thinks they might be doing some kind of test to see how long they actually need to hide something before it can be dropped back into the timeline, instead of just hiding it like I asked.
I counted almost 10% of my friends list posting either an update or a photo yesterday. Given that I have a few people hidden for prolific boring posts it's likely closer to 15%. There were also posts from half a dozen organizations I'm interested to hear about. On the other hand, I've very actively hidden/unliked pages I wasn't interested in, and shares from a whole bunch of viral "news" sources, and the interesting stuff was still less than half of the total. I'm still fighting the fight, but between the remaining boring shares, people clicking that they are attending events (which they probably won't go to), liking or commenting on stuff from people I don't know and whatever ads I haven't rejected yet it's really not a good hit rate.
I think this is a lesson in how optimizing for short term metrics can hurt long term engagement when you forget your core product value. I signed up for FB in 2004 and would have been classified as a core user since I would check the site frequently to see what people were up to and would often post updates myself.
However over the past 5 years FB has been trying to drive up engagement off the News Feed through allowing apps to publish to timeline, and encouraging people to post links to articles and videos, etc. For me, Facebook today fundamentally is no longer fulfilling its core product value of helping me stay connected to what is going on in my friends lives. Apps like Snapchat have now taken that role because they are able to deliver on that value in a way Facebook is no longer able to.
I solve that by ruthlessly unfollowing people. Just briefly met at some random event and have't talked to you since? Unfollowed. Friend-ish I haven't seen in 4 years? Unfollowed (unless you're really close). Friend who posts too damn much? Unfollowed (or filtered with FBPurity). Group List (unfollowed or unjoined the list).
I've got 3x/4x more people on my friend list but I mostly only see stuff I want to see. I've also quite often picked "hide post" and then when it asks why I pick "see less of so-and-so".
I'm also annoyed by the nature of the ads on Facebook. A whole lot of them seem to be for quack medical products... I mean we're talking stuff that Deepak Chopra would roll his eyes at.
Facebook's main advertising niches seem to be "spammy" things.
Absolutely. I've gone as far as using extensions [1] to disable the timeline altogether so I'm not tempted to waste my life scrolling through mindless shared drivel.
You can control which pages (or people) can put content on your timeline. I felt the same way and actually deactivated account for nearly three years before I came back, cleaned house, and now actually enjoy my feed.
What I've noticed is that if I do not touch facebook for a month, when I come back ALL I see are personal mostly text, sometimes photos posts from people doing actual updates of their lives. Gone is the absolute DELUGE of clickspam, shared political links, quick videos and ads.
But spend more than a day on it and it all comes back. Its /r/all or imgur. Its unusable again for the prime reason I have a facebook account, keeping up with friends and family.
My suspicion is that since their feed algorithm tracks how long you look over things, and HIGHLY prefers videos and click links over text or photos. If you spend a few more seconds over a gif thats pretty much designed to grab your attention than grandma's witty comment about the old days you're doomed to never see grandma again, unless you comment, like or otherwise engage with the grandma post in a metric-capturable way.
This is the problem with social media - the more you try to monetize it via advertising the less you succeed at your core value proposition. If not for the network effect I suspect people would have moved on a long time ago.
I think a significant amount of interaction has shifted to Instagram and Snapchat. There is little reason to share anything other than a random political post on facebook. The only places on facebook where sharing actually helps, are Open/Semi-open/private groups.
There are too many niche social networks these days. Aside from those you mentioned, you have Subreddits and Stack Exchanges for pretty much everything you could form a community around.
Actually, I think that's Facebook's problem. It's not a community. It's an interactive contact book. You're expected to add everybody and the conversation turns to mush.
As the Roman philosopher Seneca said: "To be everywhere is to be nowhere."
"You have one identity," he emphasized three times in a single interview with David Kirkpatrick in his book, "The Facebook Effect." "The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly." He adds: "Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity."
That is a troubling quote. Having compartmentalized identities is part of the human condition, and social websites can't ignore that. It raises questions about Zuckerberg's own mental state, if he believes it.
This is also what troubles me about anything that requires a 'real name'. I also don't understand why, E.G. Google, or companies like Google would be against this; I'm effectively telling them how to target ads by the context I use.
Exactly! Man imagine parenting the next generation. Advising the children will be so hard, since many key advices that he/she gained via their own mistakes. Game less read more. Party less study more. Whatever it is.
"Who are you to tell me to avoid partying!? I ran a deep internet search on you dad. I saw how you lived college! Why cant I do the same!? What kind of hypocrisy is this?!"
This mindset is one we are all familiar with. Its part of youth. Its going to be very challenging to parent in the future where people can find out everything about each other with simple searches.
Zuckerberg is hardly one to point the finger when it comes to lack of integrity! This is the guy who allowed a massive social "experiment" in mood changes, and who attempted to astroturf Free Basics into India!
I've been using the News Feed Eradicator for Chrome for a while now so I can still get event invites without getting sucked in to mindlessly surfing the newsfeed. It's been pretty helpful. I'll still check the feed on the mobile site on my phone sometimes, but much less than I used to.
At some point it just became people sharing articles so that everyone could agree with them. There's also a lot of people being outraged about things and demanding that I also feel outraged about whatever the injustice of the day is. It gets very tiresome and is mostly a waste of time IMO.
That's not even talking about the clickbait, which I started resolutely blocking. Whenever a post has a clickbait title I'll choose "Don't show me posts from this page / site anymore". It cleaned up a lot, but even what's left just isn't that great in terms of content.
The attitudes of this company and its founder are becoming more and more irritating. The other day he started getting more political about immigration and open boarders [1]. I get it, he's a globalist proposing his own self-interests. But it doesn't take a genius to see his hypocricy, living in a gated fortress with private security, being shuttled around various places occupied exclusively with the 1%.
I predict that Facebook is pretty fucked in about a decade from now. I already see the demographics tipping - all the younger girls I've dated prefer Snapchat, and use FB only as a force of habit, and even that's waning. People closer to my age group don't want to post anything that could possibly damage their real identity's reputation in anyone's eyes: goodbye interesting content. Older people who used the internet before 2000 really do see the value in anonymity and alternate identities and don't see it as "a lack of integrity" [2]. And let's not forget about clickfarms [3].
It's not going to die like MySpace, but it's not going to be anything special, either.
Yes, I can easily see Facebook declining as far as a general social network goes, unless something changes. Zuckerberg's attitude about not keeping your public and private life separate really needs to change in this regard -- one of the big reasons I hear people avoid Facebook is the lack of privacy. Kind of fitting that Snapchat is the new rising star.
Having said that, right now, Facebook still seems to be one of the dominant tools for business to consumer communication. (In particular, many small businesses survive with an online presence of a minimal web page and a Facebook site for day-to-day updates.) You never know, but unless something rises to challenge that angle of Facebook, I don't see them going away anytime soon.
Really interesting read. I thought myself recently that it would be nice to have a place where you could read only your friends' updates, but that's not FB anymore (and hasn't been for a long time).
Then I guess it's more profitable for them to be "the Internet" for as many people as possible.
Wonder what will be the alternative? Many fragmented social networks? Or one that's open and does not have commercial interests?
It is something of a noticeable absence that I'm not "Friends" with my boss and coworkers, but at the same time, I'm not willing to risk sharing aspects of my personal life with them. If Facebook would add context, I'd share more. Otherwise I'd need two separate accounts and I can't be arsed.
The problem with Facebook is the same feeling I get when any random store, event or web form asks for an E-mail address: “oh great, what unsolicited crap will you start sending me?”. And it is the same mentality that led to ad-blocking.
If entities could be trusted not to be total jerks with over-marketing, maybe people would share and Like things more.
Instead, a simple “Like” is virtually guaranteed to result in new spam.
A very simple thing Facebook could do: mandate that each Page (and even itself) may not send more than one message per MONTH. Period. And set a maximum length. Hire some editing people if you must, and make that message count. Don’t just assume you can send hourly updates to all your “followers” as if they care more about you than their own families.
I've been surprised that Facebook never did anything like Google+ Circles. People in your family don't need to see everything that your coworkers see, and your coworkers don't have to see who you are dating.
If Facebook had circles, I'd share more. The fact that they don't makes me believe that either there's a patent in place, or Facebook has an ideological position. Something like "we're making the world better by making more connections and interactions transparent." If that's the case it's both sad and doomed to failure as "context collapse" shows.
Facebook's "Circles" are called "Lists", and UX aside, I think Facebook's Lists are a lot better than Google+'s Circles. I actually got a chance to talk with some Google+ folks at an event while the beta was still going on, and asked why I couldn't say "share this post with all the people in my 'friends' Circle but not with anyone in my 'coworkers' Circle", which is something Facebook's lists allow you to do quite easily. Their response was that this wasn't a feature they wanted to add because it didn't serve most people's use cases.
I think its pretty obvious that the majority of users are burned out on "publishing" their own content and are more than happy to slide back into a re-professionalized world of super-users and regular consumers.
Where they do want to create their own content is in chat. I dont think this is a great mystery and FB is very aware of it. Its why Mark kept saying "The best way to privately share" instead of "Chat" when referring to messenger.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] threadInstagram user stats (acquired around April 2012):
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Whatsapp user stats (acquired around Oct 2014):
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1. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/facebook-un...
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I'm still astonished by those who use their full names and face pictures on Twitter, etc. Those opinions you've shared online are stuck to you forever now.
I trim my Facebook friends once a year. If I wouldn't stop in the street and have a 5 minute conversation with you, you are not my friend on facebook. Yes, this means I can't spy on my old HS Quarterback, but I don't care. I also use facebook more as a way to see what is out there about me and to monitor that than to actively post content. The last 15 posts I have made have been "go team" or "we did this fun thing today."
My last rule is to avoid politics as much as possible on all platforms. The only political stuff I engage in is tech related, such as drones, encryption, etc. I won't touch on hot button issues that can burn me.
I totally understand why you would do this, I try to limit what political news I share with those around me, even if it's what I spend a lot of my time reading and watching. However, isn't this a problem long term? How are we going to address the issues in our society if we're not prepared to discuss them? I find myself unsure about how to share important news without turning people off. Perhaps the best way in most (but not all) cases is to sugar coat it with humour.
I'm perplexed that anyone ever left that mentality. As an internet user in the 1990s, that was drilled into me pretty hard.
> When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose. If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course, you become dampers, mutes, and hooded executioners.
> As a practical matter, a mere failure to speak out upon occassions where no statement is asked or expected from you, and when the utterance of an uncalled for suspicion is odious, will often hold you to a concurrence in palpable iniquity. Try to raise a voice that will be heard from here to Albany and watch what comes forward to shut off the sound. It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your father's, offering you a place at his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if you any of young gentleman have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations, and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well.
> I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and wait. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard. "In a few years," reasons one of them, "I shall have gained a standing, and then I shall use my powers for good." Next year comes and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought, his ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say. I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time.
-- John J. Chapman, Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of Hobart College, 1900
I don't mean this to say you should spill out your heart on FB, there probably are better ways. But as a matter of principle, it's not you who should be afraid of your "peers" and "authorities", it should be the other way around. There are countries where speaking up for what is right and going to jail for that is the norm, and people still do it. We don't for fear of not getting our dream job instantly...?! Yeah, I exaggerate, and I don't want to shame anyone who doesn't "dare" to post certain things, or just doesn't want the hassle of dealing with the reactions of friends/relatives/bosses. Do what feels right for you, obviously.
But one thing is objectively true, a democracy however you understand it requires informed citizens, and so it can't be democracy to never talk about anything but then vote every X years. And if we "can't" talk about politics with our friends, online or offline, and can't be open about what we do and think (among other things to make NEW friends who might share some interests with us) because every boss and their dog thinks they're entitled to be a snoop that way, then we need to change that, not to stop talking. It's not us who are out of line for enjoying our human rights and citizenship, and it is not fit for a sovereign, which is a role citizens share with their fellow citizens, to be blackmailed into submission like that.
Facebook occupies a no-mans-land, neither public nor private. I find it infinitely more troubling.
Why would anyone put effort into writing a post out? No one sees it and no one does anything with it if they do. It's pointless. Like @overcast said, people are just sick of posting. It used to have a purpose. 50 people would see it, they'd all like it and comment their opinions on it. Now nothing.
It's still Facebook's fault partially for laying out the groundwork for Facebook to become total garbage.
The moment I stopped using Facebook - hell, the moment I stopped enjoying Facebook - was when they published their findings that they could manipulate people's moods by what they show them.
Ever since I've felt like a rat in a cage, being prodded and tested not as a human being, but as a user. And so if that is Facebook's way of looking at me, then as far as I am concerned, Facebook is just a website. A website I barely use.
I get that services want me to see stuff that is "most relevant" to me, but there is no room in relevance for serendipity, and it brings to mind the line from Equilibrium:
"..The comfort of knowing your life has been lived before."
In this case, you're not paying, so you're not a customer and they don't really care about your needs as long as you stick around.
They make their money from the companies that the article goes on about, and they will do whatever they can to make more.
In short, wouldn't it be better to assume that if the NSA can listen to you, they will? And if a company can make money from your data, they will? And if a politician could be taking bribes, they are?
You can unlike things, you know. You can also mute things.
Then, what would be on my feed?
No I'm clear that you can but it's still a lot of effort that isn't worth the lack luster content that still remains.
Once you have unsubscribed, your newsfeed will be wonderfully straightforward. After a few days it will be cluttered with sponsored likes. I assume this is however long the batch process takes to catch up.
I only go on Facebook to respond to invites at this point. I stopped going on because their mobile app is literally the worst software I've ever installed on my phone though. It's huge and bloated, and it doesn't even include messaging, which they broke out to another app for god-knows-what reason.
Guess what was advertised in my feed later that day?
Note: I hadn't so much as googled Roombas before this - it was a totally off hand remark during a call.
And at that point I'm not really sure it's a problem with facebook, or a problem at all, but moreso you not being the target user.
But recently, crap app of the day pops up, a few people share it, I ask them to hide all from that app, and I see it again the next day or so. The cynic in me thinks they might be doing some kind of test to see how long they actually need to hide something before it can be dropped back into the timeline, instead of just hiding it like I asked.
However over the past 5 years FB has been trying to drive up engagement off the News Feed through allowing apps to publish to timeline, and encouraging people to post links to articles and videos, etc. For me, Facebook today fundamentally is no longer fulfilling its core product value of helping me stay connected to what is going on in my friends lives. Apps like Snapchat have now taken that role because they are able to deliver on that value in a way Facebook is no longer able to.
I've got 3x/4x more people on my friend list but I mostly only see stuff I want to see. I've also quite often picked "hide post" and then when it asks why I pick "see less of so-and-so".
Facebook's main advertising niches seem to be "spammy" things.
[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...
But spend more than a day on it and it all comes back. Its /r/all or imgur. Its unusable again for the prime reason I have a facebook account, keeping up with friends and family.
My suspicion is that since their feed algorithm tracks how long you look over things, and HIGHLY prefers videos and click links over text or photos. If you spend a few more seconds over a gif thats pretty much designed to grab your attention than grandma's witty comment about the old days you're doomed to never see grandma again, unless you comment, like or otherwise engage with the grandma post in a metric-capturable way.
This is the problem with social media - the more you try to monetize it via advertising the less you succeed at your core value proposition. If not for the network effect I suspect people would have moved on a long time ago.
Actually, I think that's Facebook's problem. It's not a community. It's an interactive contact book. You're expected to add everybody and the conversation turns to mush.
As the Roman philosopher Seneca said: "To be everywhere is to be nowhere."
source: http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/13/zuckerberg-privacy/
Most substantive Facebook activity I've seen lately takes place in groups.
You could do vaguely similar things on FB by defining who your close friends are, bu I doubt many people do that.
"Who are you to tell me to avoid partying!? I ran a deep internet search on you dad. I saw how you lived college! Why cant I do the same!? What kind of hypocrisy is this?!"
This mindset is one we are all familiar with. Its part of youth. Its going to be very challenging to parent in the future where people can find out everything about each other with simple searches.
At some point it just became people sharing articles so that everyone could agree with them. There's also a lot of people being outraged about things and demanding that I also feel outraged about whatever the injustice of the day is. It gets very tiresome and is mostly a waste of time IMO.
That's not even talking about the clickbait, which I started resolutely blocking. Whenever a post has a clickbait title I'll choose "Don't show me posts from this page / site anymore". It cleaned up a lot, but even what's left just isn't that great in terms of content.
I predict that Facebook is pretty fucked in about a decade from now. I already see the demographics tipping - all the younger girls I've dated prefer Snapchat, and use FB only as a force of habit, and even that's waning. People closer to my age group don't want to post anything that could possibly damage their real identity's reputation in anyone's eyes: goodbye interesting content. Older people who used the internet before 2000 really do see the value in anonymity and alternate identities and don't see it as "a lack of integrity" [2]. And let's not forget about clickfarms [3].
It's not going to die like MySpace, but it's not going to be anything special, either.
[1] - http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/telecom/intern...
[2] - http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/13/zuckerberg-privacy/
[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag
Having said that, right now, Facebook still seems to be one of the dominant tools for business to consumer communication. (In particular, many small businesses survive with an online presence of a minimal web page and a Facebook site for day-to-day updates.) You never know, but unless something rises to challenge that angle of Facebook, I don't see them going away anytime soon.
Then I guess it's more profitable for them to be "the Internet" for as many people as possible.
Wonder what will be the alternative? Many fragmented social networks? Or one that's open and does not have commercial interests?
If entities could be trusted not to be total jerks with over-marketing, maybe people would share and Like things more.
Instead, a simple “Like” is virtually guaranteed to result in new spam.
A very simple thing Facebook could do: mandate that each Page (and even itself) may not send more than one message per MONTH. Period. And set a maximum length. Hire some editing people if you must, and make that message count. Don’t just assume you can send hourly updates to all your “followers” as if they care more about you than their own families.
If Facebook had circles, I'd share more. The fact that they don't makes me believe that either there's a patent in place, or Facebook has an ideological position. Something like "we're making the world better by making more connections and interactions transparent." If that's the case it's both sad and doomed to failure as "context collapse" shows.
I'd like to see posts only, and not see "sharing" at all. You can block sharing on a per-user basis, and I do a lot of that.
Where they do want to create their own content is in chat. I dont think this is a great mystery and FB is very aware of it. Its why Mark kept saying "The best way to privately share" instead of "Chat" when referring to messenger.
- Most of my feed is links to stuff elsewhere on the Internet.
- If I post, I have no idea whether their algorithm will actually show it to my friends.
- I get the feeling their algorithm prioritizes posts with images or video over pure text.
- Hard to post to subsets of friends. I know you can manage lists, but the UI is clunky. (And I don't trust their privacy settings.)