6 ms·

I think the Facebook site will be _very_ different in the next few years than what we're traditionally used to. The strategy that Facebook has been pivoting to

I think the Facebook site will be _very_ different in the next few years than what we're traditionally used to. The strategy that Facebook has been pivoting towards is in favor of smaller community building, rather than the "mass market square" approach, which is why: 1) Groups have been more prominent and getting quite a bit of promotion 2) Messenger has gotten quite a bit of UX improvements 3) New features like "Rooms," which favor small / intimate video conversations 4) Investments in hardware experiences like Portal, which have been heavily marketed towards family communication thus far (successfully it seems, looking at their last revenue #'s.) 5) Facebook Workplace, which was a smart B2B play anyway, but also aligns with their "micro-community" approach Zuck messaged this new pivot IIRC around the last US presidential election, but it may have started before that. Therefore I would expect to see more of these types of experiences: "Facebook Campus" - "Facebook Workplace" - "Facebook [TBD]"

gwbas1c 6y ago
What's interesting about your comment is how Facebook, as an online community, has lost all context that other online communities had. Think about people griping about work. You could do that in older online communities, but now that everyone knows everyone on Facebook, a gripe about work is probably going to be seen by your colleagues and potential employers and... Basically, the concept of an online community that has boundaries away from your IRL (in real life) community is gone. (Or, everyone's mother and kids have Facebook accounts.)
- asdff 6y ago
  I remember that fateful day in highschool where the parents volte-faced and joined facebook, and the site was ruined forever. then came the aunts and uncles and grandma and your boss from two jobs ago. eternal september, but the influx didn't ever stop and here we are with billions of users and a mess.
ianhawes 6y ago
You can't forget about Facebook Marketplace, which is arguably more successful than Groups.
- typon 6y ago
  Marketplace is practically killing Cragslist and Kijiji where I am (Toronto area)
  - carldaddy 6y ago
    My wife started selling stuff on Marketplace for fun and it's basically become a side business for her. It's crazy how successful it's become.
  - BitwiseFool 6y ago
    I guess I'll have to try it out. Craigslist has an abysmal user experience and I can't believe they haven't implemented a way to remove duplicate posts and spammy listings on just about every keyword.
  - cvhashim 6y ago
    My friend buys and flips used exercise equipment on FB Marketplace. Craiglist can be a bit shady as you don't really have name or face to the seller/buyer. On one hand, the anonymity on Craigslist is nice for either party but on the other, it can lead to a dangerous situation. With FB Marketplace, you can quickly glance at their profile and have atleast a name and face to the individual buyer/seller.
systemvoltage 6y ago
I have an unsettling feeling that this will accelerate the cohesion in fringe groups such as QAnon, Boogaloo, Antifa, etc.
- bhupy 6y ago
  In other words, technology that makes our lives easier can be used by people we don't like to make their lives easier also.
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    Your argument is valid, however, when it comes to social media - I really believe that the world would be a better place without social media. Compared to the downsides of Facebook, the upsides are very little. People used to connect to their loved ones through email and other means before Facebook. It has definitely brought some upsides, but the given what it did in 2016 election (cambridge analytica), how it has sucked in a whole generation of people into constant attention seeking behavior, and ofcourse the emergence of fringe groups which had no real voice before social media. Before facebook, these groups did not have a widespread influence - they would have to recruit people in person. Your argument is totally valid - we can make knives for cooking and they can be used for killing people as well. I just feel like its more like a poison laden dagger that's masquerading as a cooking knife when it comes to social media.
    - bhupy 6y ago
      But we're not talking about "social media" in broad terms, we're talking specifically about Facebook's pivot towards smaller community and group building, per: > The strategy that Facebook has been pivoting towards is in favor of smaller community building, rather than the "mass market square" approach, which is why: It's great that people have the ability to form groups with like-minded people, that's how the Internet worked before Facebook, and it sounds like there's some reversion to that. The fact that it can also be used by "fringe groups", is just another way of saying "I don't want normal people to have nice things because people I don't like also have those nice things", but the world has always worked that way (see: Nazis and the radio). Bad people have existed for forever, and it's up to the laws we make that protect life & liberty to ensure that their impact on the world is limited, not limiting our our communication tools and hope that by 2nd order effect we prevent the people we don't like from having a voice (which is itself pretty dystopian).
bastardoperator 6y ago
But who likes this stuff? Who really wants to use it? I don't know anyone especially the younger crowd as I have teenagers, that want anything to do with facebook
- pavlov 6y ago
  I don't know about those specific features, but I'm always surprised how people make assumptions about a global service with over two billion users based on an extremely local sample of anecdotes. "I don't think anybody in the world buys fish because I live in Montana and my kids hate it"
  - bastardoperator 6y ago
    You assume I assume. This is well documented and highly reported on. "According to a recent study by Edison Research, Facebook is hemorrhaging users in the US, losing about 15 million people since 2017. The largest drop is among teen users and millennials." "As of February 2019, 62% of 12-34 year olds in the US log into Facebook. This is down from 79% in 2017, and represents about 11 million of of the overall decrease" "Senior citizens in the US are the fastest growing group of Facebook users, nearly doubling in numbers between 2012 and 2019, a vast shift from the platform’s beginnings as a service for college students." Hearing younger folks say the same thing first hand only validates the research and the numerous articles. All of the statistical data can be skewed and I imagine any small study (pew, edison) is going to have different results. So where does that leave me? We'll when you have backyard full of teenagers that are all well off with mobile devices and all of them tell you facebook is for boomers and talking to grandma, that tends to hold a little weight coupled with some of the statistical data. Interestingly enough we can find data that makes the opposite claim so what does one do when presented with competing data? They use the data they have which in this case is directly from a reputable demographic/source.
  - alikim 6y ago
    https://xkcd.com/2357/ https://xkcd.com/2357/
- opportune 6y ago
omnibrain 6y ago
> Groups have been more prominent and getting quite a bit of promotion But they made them worse with the new look. You can‘t see the number of new posts anymore so if you are in slow moving groups you have to click on them to check for new posts. So instead of checking FB several times a day to see if there is a significant count of new posts in one of my groups I switched to checking once a day and just looking into my favourite groups.
all_usernames 6y ago
Facebook Dystopia - An online meeting place for your side, after the collective national identity is no longer viable.
alangibson 6y ago
Amongst other things, I think they're trying to keep from being unbundled. Right now they're vulnerable to someone else doing what they did to Myspace et. al., having college students peeled off into some other more targeted service.

gwbas1c 6y ago

What's interesting about your comment is how Facebook, as an online community, has lost all context that other online communities had. Think about people griping about work. You could do that in older online communities, but now that everyone knows everyone on Facebook, a gripe about work is probably going to be seen by your colleagues and potential employers and... Basically, the concept of an online community that has boundaries away from your IRL (in real life) community is gone. (Or, everyone's mother and kids have Facebook accounts.)

asdff 6y ago
I remember that fateful day in highschool where the parents volte-faced and joined facebook, and the site was ruined forever. then came the aunts and uncles and grandma and your boss from two jobs ago. eternal september, but the influx didn't ever stop and here we are with billions of users and a mess.

ianhawes 6y ago

You can't forget about Facebook Marketplace, which is arguably more successful than Groups.

typon 6y ago
Marketplace is practically killing Cragslist and Kijiji where I am (Toronto area)
- carldaddy 6y ago
  My wife started selling stuff on Marketplace for fun and it's basically become a side business for her. It's crazy how successful it's become.
- BitwiseFool 6y ago
  I guess I'll have to try it out. Craigslist has an abysmal user experience and I can't believe they haven't implemented a way to remove duplicate posts and spammy listings on just about every keyword.
- cvhashim 6y ago
  My friend buys and flips used exercise equipment on FB Marketplace. Craiglist can be a bit shady as you don't really have name or face to the seller/buyer. On one hand, the anonymity on Craigslist is nice for either party but on the other, it can lead to a dangerous situation. With FB Marketplace, you can quickly glance at their profile and have atleast a name and face to the individual buyer/seller.

systemvoltage 6y ago

I have an unsettling feeling that this will accelerate the cohesion in fringe groups such as QAnon, Boogaloo, Antifa, etc.

bhupy 6y ago
In other words, technology that makes our lives easier can be used by people we don't like to make their lives easier also.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  Your argument is valid, however, when it comes to social media - I really believe that the world would be a better place without social media. Compared to the downsides of Facebook, the upsides are very little. People used to connect to their loved ones through email and other means before Facebook. It has definitely brought some upsides, but the given what it did in 2016 election (cambridge analytica), how it has sucked in a whole generation of people into constant attention seeking behavior, and ofcourse the emergence of fringe groups which had no real voice before social media. Before facebook, these groups did not have a widespread influence - they would have to recruit people in person. Your argument is totally valid - we can make knives for cooking and they can be used for killing people as well. I just feel like its more like a poison laden dagger that's masquerading as a cooking knife when it comes to social media.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    But we're not talking about "social media" in broad terms, we're talking specifically about Facebook's pivot towards smaller community and group building, per: > The strategy that Facebook has been pivoting towards is in favor of smaller community building, rather than the "mass market square" approach, which is why: It's great that people have the ability to form groups with like-minded people, that's how the Internet worked before Facebook, and it sounds like there's some reversion to that. The fact that it can also be used by "fringe groups", is just another way of saying "I don't want normal people to have nice things because people I don't like also have those nice things", but the world has always worked that way (see: Nazis and the radio). Bad people have existed for forever, and it's up to the laws we make that protect life & liberty to ensure that their impact on the world is limited, not limiting our our communication tools and hope that by 2nd order effect we prevent the people we don't like from having a voice (which is itself pretty dystopian).

bastardoperator 6y ago

But who likes this stuff? Who really wants to use it? I don't know anyone especially the younger crowd as I have teenagers, that want anything to do with facebook

pavlov 6y ago
I don't know about those specific features, but I'm always surprised how people make assumptions about a global service with over two billion users based on an extremely local sample of anecdotes. "I don't think anybody in the world buys fish because I live in Montana and my kids hate it"
- bastardoperator 6y ago
  You assume I assume. This is well documented and highly reported on. "According to a recent study by Edison Research, Facebook is hemorrhaging users in the US, losing about 15 million people since 2017. The largest drop is among teen users and millennials." "As of February 2019, 62% of 12-34 year olds in the US log into Facebook. This is down from 79% in 2017, and represents about 11 million of of the overall decrease" "Senior citizens in the US are the fastest growing group of Facebook users, nearly doubling in numbers between 2012 and 2019, a vast shift from the platform’s beginnings as a service for college students." Hearing younger folks say the same thing first hand only validates the research and the numerous articles. All of the statistical data can be skewed and I imagine any small study (pew, edison) is going to have different results. So where does that leave me? We'll when you have backyard full of teenagers that are all well off with mobile devices and all of them tell you facebook is for boomers and talking to grandma, that tends to hold a little weight coupled with some of the statistical data. Interestingly enough we can find data that makes the opposite claim so what does one do when presented with competing data? They use the data they have which in this case is directly from a reputable demographic/source.
- alikim 6y ago
  https://xkcd.com/2357/ https://xkcd.com/2357/
opportune 6y ago

omnibrain 6y ago

> Groups have been more prominent and getting quite a bit of promotion But they made them worse with the new look. You can‘t see the number of new posts anymore so if you are in slow moving groups you have to click on them to check for new posts. So instead of checking FB several times a day to see if there is a significant count of new posts in one of my groups I switched to checking once a day and just looking into my favourite groups.

all_usernames 6y ago

Facebook Dystopia - An online meeting place for your side, after the collective national identity is no longer viable.

alangibson 6y ago

Amongst other things, I think they're trying to keep from being unbundled. Right now they're vulnerable to someone else doing what they did to Myspace et. al., having college students peeled off into some other more targeted service.