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Not to mention the erosion of the idea that it is default-safe to share your social experiences with your group of "friends." Adoption by colleagues and family

by btown 9y ago

Not to mention the erosion of the idea that it is default-safe to share your social experiences with your group of "friends." Adoption by colleagues and family shifts the tone considerably towards LinkedIn, where one's professional image is paramount - and all that does is make the platform more stressful to use. Facebook does provide tools to segment one's friends into groups to whom content can be privately posted, but from a UX perspective they're deemphasized. I see a lot more social conversations moving to group chats (some on Facebook Messenger, some on GroupMe/WhatsApp and the like), because membership is determinate, you make the choice of target audience before being prompted to make a post, and the context into which you post is not a newsfeed (which we've been trained to think is global to an entire circle of friends) but just that specific chat history. (I'm sure there's some psychology/UX research in that people don't intuit that a "posting destination" can be distinct from the list of content you're viewing.) Chats are just a "safer space" to be oneself. And if Facebook wants to capture one's true self and preferences, it will need to evolve beyond the idea that a single newsfeed is the place people want to do that.

Pigo 9y ago
I know this is one tiny use case, but it's one that's bothered me for some time. I can't change my profile picture without it becoming a huge news story for family and "friends" to comment on. I change a little picture of me, remove the event from my timeline, and I still get hokey comments or messages reminding me how bored and lonely everyone I know must be. I severely miss when it was just a place to chat up a cute girl you seen in college, or find out who's going to see NIN, etc.
- dieterrams 9y ago
  I can’t remember if this still works, but you used to be able to set the privacy of your profile photo to “only me”, which would prevent it from appearing in friends’ news feeds. After a few days or so you could safely set the privacy back to friends or public and be reasonably assured it wouldn’t be seen as its own post. It is completely silly that you have to jump through these hoops, though, assuming it’s even still an option. Btw, hiding something from your timeline has absolutely no effect on whether it appears in friends’ feeds or not. It’s purely about whether people can see if it they go to your timeline. Which is pretty unintuitive and anti-user: if I don’t want something in my timeline, why would I want it showing up in people’s news feeds?
- zem 9y ago
  I can't comment on a friend's public post without it being broadcast to my timeline! this is the one dark feature that has most affected any good feelings I might have had towards facebook and my usage thereof
  - graeme 9y ago
    This has seriously reduced my willingness to comment on posts. Terrible feature.
    - tgb 9y ago
      Absolutely. I don't care if they stumble across it but I never want to broadcast a comment, at least not to people who wouldn't already have seen the post. The worst is when public groups use Facebook as the only way to contact them - I once posted a question about leaving a coat at an event and then got a message from a friend suggesting that I hadn't invited him to the event (it wasn't the kind of thing he thought it was, though). Why. Same for the profile picture change. I accidently put my profile picture to the wrong one of two and haven't changed it since I noticed a few days later that it was wrong and was embarrassed to broadcast this fact to everyone not once but twice.
      - ryandrake 9y ago
        Wouldn't it make more sense to simply assume that anything one posts to the Internet could potentially be broadcast to everyone they know and published on the front page of the New York Times? I don't understand why people think the content they post to a website will be kept private, especially if not keeping it private maximizes shareholder value.
        tgb 9y ago
        But the thing is, I don't think it maximizes shareholder value. I would engage more with Facebook if my actions were quieter than if not. I don't really care that anyone can see it but broadcasting it is just crazy.
        9y ago
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  "I severely miss when it was just a place to chat up a cute girl" This was the golden ticket, along with FB wasen't creepy. It was "business" focused, and hell, even for family. You were considered antisocial for not being on the rediculious site. Now the cut girl/guy is fish mouthing, begging for likes, has way too many friends, ridiculous "sheep" mouthing off on whatever brings in likes, and those over used thoughts of the day, "Life is difficult on Mooondays"; and the magic is gone. I know now there're really no cute people anymore. They played their cards, for all to see, and it wasen't cute. It was just pathetic. I don't belive the ads, or restrictive user interface caused a few people, in the right demographics, leave. FB, and maybe most social sites will get big, and then die. It's like the popular bar. It's a neat place for 10 years, then slowly dies. There's probally some business law that explains what I have noticed for ever? There's an expiration date on most business that don't keep innovating. Innovating is not just buying competition.
beamatronic 9y ago
Hmm. Most folks I know address the colleague issue with a "no current coworkers" policy. (Not to imply you should immediately add newly-former coworkers).
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  That's what I've done. Professional contacts/co-workers on LinkedIn (not that I use it all that much anyway), and family on FB (since I don't live in the same state I can use it to still see pictures my sister posts).
- mysterypie 9y ago
  > a "no current coworkers" policy So if someone asks, Can you add me on FB? Would you reply?: No, I have a no current coworkers policy. Is there a way to do this without hurting people's feelings?
  - rocky1138 9y ago
    What you wrote is pretty good. To wrap it up, you can offer an alternative, like "let's do LinkedIn instead" so they know it's not just them you say no to and that you are actually interested in connecting with them not just blowing them off.
    - prawn 9y ago
      "I use Facebook for mostly family stuff. Are you on LinkedIn?"
  - toomanybeersies 9y ago
    That's exactly how you do it without hurting their feelings. It's an impersonal blanket rule.
  - kaosjester 9y ago
    When I was a TA, I'd have students constantly try to add me on Facebook. The conversation would go nearly exactly like you'd describe: > Are you on Facebook? Is this your profile? > Yes, but I'm not gonna accept your friend request. The reply was usually a bit snarky with a bit of a chuckle, and that did it for most college-aged people. The few times someone persisted, I explained that Facebook is an aspect of my social life, not my professional life, and I intended to keep it that way.
ghrifter 9y ago
I made the mistake of adding all my coworkers to my Facebook, even though I never use facebook. I loved the snarky comment coming into work over the weekend of "Hey did you see my invite for donation request for the XYZ cause??? Man..sure could use more donations" Few weeks ago I deactivated it. Fuck it, I havent used Facebook since Highschool which was 8 years ago. I only left it on so that girls could add me, and I could maybe add them essentially.
rowyourboat 9y ago
Exactly. Due to the ever-increasing friend list, I now consider posting to facebook effectively the same as posting something publicly and non-anonymously. Which I never do.
pmart123 9y ago
I think Linkedin has the long tail advantage here in that since it was setup as a professional network, it tends to stay that way in regards to typical interactions and people will continue to build their network on Linkedin over their career. Additionally, Linkedin has the benefit that younger people will signup to CONNECT WITH OLDER PEOPLE as networking with those senior people might help them in their career. Facebook suffers from people assuming "hidden landmines" could exist from something they posted or wrote when they were in college, which disincentives someone to maintain and enhance new social or professional connections. So it is interesting to think about what happens when you lose young users, while simultaneously you have mature users no longer keeping their social network up-to-date on Facebook? A long time ago (in tech years), it seemed like part of Facebook's moat was that the switching costs would be high on a social network. Is this still the case? Would a reasonable analogy be what if Netflix stopped creating new content and expected continued viewership relying on only existing content? How long of a lead/lad would there be until a large drop in viewership? Facebook does owns Whatsapp and Instagram though, which provides an argument that the company is well positioned from the prospective of offering the platform for targeting group chats, and still being the epicenter of most people's social experience.

by btown 9y ago

Pigo 9y ago

I know this is one tiny use case, but it's one that's bothered me for some time. I can't change my profile picture without it becoming a huge news story for family and "friends" to comment on. I change a little picture of me, remove the event from my timeline, and I still get hokey comments or messages reminding me how bored and lonely everyone I know must be. I severely miss when it was just a place to chat up a cute girl you seen in college, or find out who's going to see NIN, etc.

dieterrams 9y ago
I can’t remember if this still works, but you used to be able to set the privacy of your profile photo to “only me”, which would prevent it from appearing in friends’ news feeds. After a few days or so you could safely set the privacy back to friends or public and be reasonably assured it wouldn’t be seen as its own post. It is completely silly that you have to jump through these hoops, though, assuming it’s even still an option. Btw, hiding something from your timeline has absolutely no effect on whether it appears in friends’ feeds or not. It’s purely about whether people can see if it they go to your timeline. Which is pretty unintuitive and anti-user: if I don’t want something in my timeline, why would I want it showing up in people’s news feeds?
zem 9y ago
I can't comment on a friend's public post without it being broadcast to my timeline! this is the one dark feature that has most affected any good feelings I might have had towards facebook and my usage thereof
- graeme 9y ago
  This has seriously reduced my willingness to comment on posts. Terrible feature.
  - tgb 9y ago
    Absolutely. I don't care if they stumble across it but I never want to broadcast a comment, at least not to people who wouldn't already have seen the post. The worst is when public groups use Facebook as the only way to contact them - I once posted a question about leaving a coat at an event and then got a message from a friend suggesting that I hadn't invited him to the event (it wasn't the kind of thing he thought it was, though). Why. Same for the profile picture change. I accidently put my profile picture to the wrong one of two and haven't changed it since I noticed a few days later that it was wrong and was embarrassed to broadcast this fact to everyone not once but twice.
    - ryandrake 9y ago
      Wouldn't it make more sense to simply assume that anything one posts to the Internet could potentially be broadcast to everyone they know and published on the front page of the New York Times? I don't understand why people think the content they post to a website will be kept private, especially if not keeping it private maximizes shareholder value.
      - tgb 9y ago
        But the thing is, I don't think it maximizes shareholder value. I would engage more with Facebook if my actions were quieter than if not. I don't really care that anyone can see it but broadcasting it is just crazy.
      - 9y ago
icantdrive55 9y ago
"I severely miss when it was just a place to chat up a cute girl" This was the golden ticket, along with FB wasen't creepy. It was "business" focused, and hell, even for family. You were considered antisocial for not being on the rediculious site. Now the cut girl/guy is fish mouthing, begging for likes, has way too many friends, ridiculous "sheep" mouthing off on whatever brings in likes, and those over used thoughts of the day, "Life is difficult on Mooondays"; and the magic is gone. I know now there're really no cute people anymore. They played their cards, for all to see, and it wasen't cute. It was just pathetic. I don't belive the ads, or restrictive user interface caused a few people, in the right demographics, leave. FB, and maybe most social sites will get big, and then die. It's like the popular bar. It's a neat place for 10 years, then slowly dies. There's probally some business law that explains what I have noticed for ever? There's an expiration date on most business that don't keep innovating. Innovating is not just buying competition.

beamatronic 9y ago

Hmm. Most folks I know address the colleague issue with a "no current coworkers" policy. (Not to imply you should immediately add newly-former coworkers).

Caveman_Coder 9y ago
That's what I've done. Professional contacts/co-workers on LinkedIn (not that I use it all that much anyway), and family on FB (since I don't live in the same state I can use it to still see pictures my sister posts).
mysterypie 9y ago
> a "no current coworkers" policy So if someone asks, Can you add me on FB? Would you reply?: No, I have a no current coworkers policy. Is there a way to do this without hurting people's feelings?
- rocky1138 9y ago
  What you wrote is pretty good. To wrap it up, you can offer an alternative, like "let's do LinkedIn instead" so they know it's not just them you say no to and that you are actually interested in connecting with them not just blowing them off.
  - prawn 9y ago
    "I use Facebook for mostly family stuff. Are you on LinkedIn?"
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  That's exactly how you do it without hurting their feelings. It's an impersonal blanket rule.
- kaosjester 9y ago
  When I was a TA, I'd have students constantly try to add me on Facebook. The conversation would go nearly exactly like you'd describe: > Are you on Facebook? Is this your profile? > Yes, but I'm not gonna accept your friend request. The reply was usually a bit snarky with a bit of a chuckle, and that did it for most college-aged people. The few times someone persisted, I explained that Facebook is an aspect of my social life, not my professional life, and I intended to keep it that way.

ghrifter 9y ago

I made the mistake of adding all my coworkers to my Facebook, even though I never use facebook. I loved the snarky comment coming into work over the weekend of "Hey did you see my invite for donation request for the XYZ cause??? Man..sure could use more donations" Few weeks ago I deactivated it. Fuck it, I havent used Facebook since Highschool which was 8 years ago. I only left it on so that girls could add me, and I could maybe add them essentially.

rowyourboat 9y ago

Exactly. Due to the ever-increasing friend list, I now consider posting to facebook effectively the same as posting something publicly and non-anonymously. Which I never do.

pmart123 9y ago

I think Linkedin has the long tail advantage here in that since it was setup as a professional network, it tends to stay that way in regards to typical interactions and people will continue to build their network on Linkedin over their career. Additionally, Linkedin has the benefit that younger people will signup to CONNECT WITH OLDER PEOPLE as networking with those senior people might help them in their career. Facebook suffers from people assuming "hidden landmines" could exist from something they posted or wrote when they were in college, which disincentives someone to maintain and enhance new social or professional connections. So it is interesting to think about what happens when you lose young users, while simultaneously you have mature users no longer keeping their social network up-to-date on Facebook? A long time ago (in tech years), it seemed like part of Facebook's moat was that the switching costs would be high on a social network. Is this still the case? Would a reasonable analogy be what if Netflix stopped creating new content and expected continued viewership relying on only existing content? How long of a lead/lad would there be until a large drop in viewership? Facebook does owns Whatsapp and Instagram though, which provides an argument that the company is well positioned from the prospective of offering the platform for targeting group chats, and still being the epicenter of most people's social experience.