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Seems to me the much more likely scenario is that Timeline was created to give a better (and prettier) interface for users to access the information posted to f
by fossuser 15y ago
Seems to me the much more likely scenario is that Timeline was created to give a better (and prettier) interface for users to access the information posted to facebook - not some kind of secret psychological advertising conspiracy.
- Jimmy 15y agoBut it's not a better and prettier interface. It's just awful. Granted, the only ads that appear on a Timeline page are in a narrow column off to the side (I didn't even know there were any ads until I specifically checked for them after reading this article), so I'm not sure how valid this conspiracy theory is. But it doesn't change the fact that Timeline looks horrible.
- noodle 15y agoI think its interesting how mixed the response is. I'm rather indifferent on timeline, but I've talked to designer/UI/UX people who both love it and hate it, for various reasons. Apparently different people like different things.
- randomdata 15y agoIt is worth noting that every change Facebook has ever made has been deemed awful by a significant number of people. I'm not certain Facebook, or anyone for that matter, could make an update that satisfies everyone.
- alabut 15y agoYou're absolutely right and it's called Baby Duck Syndrome, which you can learn about after the blackout here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_duck_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_duck_syndrome
- fossuser 15y agoIt's important to keep in mind the scale of Facebook's user base. At nearly 900,000,000 users upsetting 1% of the users with a change creates 9,000,000 angry people.
- thejteam 15y agoMy thought when I first saw it: This is what a Fischer Price "My first Website" would look like.
- padrack 15y agoSponsored stories will begin appearing in the Timeline. That was the intent behind removing the straight chronological river (newsfeed), to be able to place ads into your stream in a way that looks more natural.
- fossuser 15y agoI think how it looks is subjective. I like the new look of it and how it's easy to see older content where before it was nearly impossible. I also think the idea of having these kind of communication records will be interesting later on when a younger generation can look back on someone's life experiences. Today we have very few of these kinds of records (outside of maybe some photos and letters) unless your family was very diligent about its history.
- stevecooperorg 15y agoThe new timeline is why I quit FaceBook in December. It creates a badly jumbled view of the information I was really hoping to see -- what's going on with me and my friends? I can handle a straight chronological list very easily. This is an interesting answer to the question 'why didn't they stick with the simplest approach?'
- AznHisoka 15y agoPerhaps they're running out of ways to innovate and worthwhile things to do? Facebook, in its core is a very simple product. Most of the work I imagine is in making sure the servers don't crash. Sure everyone and their mom uses it, and it sounds sexy to work there, but actual work you do? Doesn't sound that complicated, cutting-edge or innovative. It's not like they're doing genetic engineering, or self driving cars.
- res0nat0r 15y agoI'm sure there will always be interesting engineering problems somewhere to work with when you have a website with 600 million users.
- slig 15y agoFiguring out how to use the fuckloads of data that they get either explicitly or via their widgets to sell more ads. Seems rather complicated.
- Timothee 15y agoAs for not going with a straight chronological list, I think that really the idea behind Timeline is to take all the information that was put in Facebook and present it in something that is more akin to digital scrapbooking. They want you to have something more personal and emotional so that you're more attached to it. Their ad about it is clear about that: Facebook should be the place where you keep track of your life and expose it (a certain way) to and share it with your friends. For that, you want to highlight a specific picture or event, but still have little anecdotes sprinkled here and there. They want you to go through the Timeline like you'd go through a photo album where you'd have a mix of the big events (graduation, marriage, births, etc.) with the little things, so that you can hear "oh, remember that one? When we went to Disneyland and you fell in the pool…", "you were so mad at him that day! Look at what you wrote on your wall…", etc. Not having just a list makes it a bit more interesting to peruse. It's like going through a shoebox of photos and souvenirs, spread them out and you see some things, not others… I'm not saying they've nailed it, but it's a first version of it and it's an interesting experiment. It's hard to make an interesting photo album by hand, it's even harder to make something semi-automated. As as side-note: The new timeline is why I quit FaceBook in December. I find that interesting since I personally rarely see people's profiles or timelines.
- tylermenezes 15y agoI'm pretty sure someone actually just saw Path and thought "that's kind of cool". (And then decided to implement it only on the web and not on the mobile.)
- k-mcgrady 15y agoPath came after Timeline.
- Me1000 15y agoPath existed at least a year before timeline.
- k-mcgrady 15y agoSorry, I meant Path 2 which more closely resembles Timeline. I don't think there is much similarity between Path 1 and Timeline.
- tylermenezes 15y agoPath being popular ("popular"?) came after timeline. Path existed a long time before timeline.
- smackfu 15y agoFacebook Mobile has Timeline too, although only one column.
- DevX101 15y agoIt's hard to say what facebook's intentions here without inside knowledge, but I wouldn't discount it. The founder of modern propaganda and advertising, Edward Bernays, performed many extremely subtle experiments that had dramatic shifts in how Americans behave to this day. (By the way, Bernays coined the phrase 'public relations' to replace 'propaganda' after it had been co-opted by the Nazis). He got women to smoke by calling them 'freedom torches' and orchestrating high society women to light cigarettes in a demonstration for suffrage. He facilitated the modern retail industry by shifting American behavior from a 'need-based' consumer to a 'want-based' consumer. There are billions of dollars being spent to increase the effectiveness of advertising and I wouldn't be surprised if one of the world's biggest advertiser used subtle tactics to achieve this aim.
- adamio 15y agoGoogle spends dollars to increase the relevance of advertising. Relevance is a means to effectiveness. Some of Google's most effective ads are relevant, text only, in the margins of pages. Propaganda and changing behaviors is a leap away from ad placement and layout online.
- gabaix 15y agoFacebook released Timeline so people want to publicize more of their life. More data = more advertising. I think business people use simple equations to justify their decisions.
- mcphilip 15y agoThe Century of The Self, a 4 part documentary by Adam Curtis, covers exactly what you just mentioned. Fascinating stuff, and available in its entirety on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyPzGUsYyKM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyPzGUsYyKM
- JonnieCache 15y agoSurely the entire of facebook constitutes one big "secret psychological advertising conspiracy." That sounds like a perfect description to me, if you discount the alarmist, x-files connotations of "conspiracy." Neuromarketing is a pretty standard practice now, I don't think any of this is controversial.
- dkarl 15y agoI agree. I can't see how anyone would imagine that Facebook aren't working hard at their job, which is, in fact, delivering ads and making people click on them. Or that all that investment is spent paying smart people to have fun and sow the seeds of happiness worldwide, and every once in a while pay a little attention to the business model as an afterthought. I would really, really appreciate it if someone could explain to me why we ever applied the term "conspiracy theory" to the common-sense assumption that a for-profit company's business decisions are motivated by (gasp, shock) profit.
- fossuser 15y agoBy making your users your priority you create an environment where they want to be and will continue to use your platform. Putting your users first allows you to continue to profit through means like advertisements. If you put your users second to profits you'll quickly alienate them. I tend to think consumer facing companies like Facebook and Google really do think of their users first, but perhaps I'm just naive.
- gnaritas 15y agoFacebooks customers are the advertisers, users are just bait. If they're putting anyone first, it's the advertisers.
- dkarl 15y agoI think you're contradicting yourself by saying their concern for users derives from profit and then saying they put their users "first." If acquiring and keeping users is a means to an end, namely advertising revenue, then users are secondary to advertising revenue. Is there some other dynamic in the corporation (other than profit) that drives Facebook and Google to value users? If the answer is human good will, then I can believe it has some influence in some cases, but not that it ever overrides profit. Good will can be influential where there is a sincere belief that it is the best guide to long-term profit, and I think Google's founders were fairly successful in instilling that belief in their corporate culture, but in a mass consumer business that belief will be worn down through the process of making many small decisions where the two priorities conflict.
- jdietrich 15y agoWe need to ask a simple question - what are the metrics that Facebook seek to optimise? I can't imagine a universe in which they aren't placing at least some weight on the standard suite of "engagement" metrics. If that is the case, then they're seeking to increase the amount of time you spend on the site, the number of pages you view, the number of ads you see (and click), the frequency with which you scroll below the cut and so on. Creating an interface that provides fast, easy access to the most relevant information means that most of your core metrics get worse. Facebook would have to be exceptionally smart and exceptionally far-sighted for their interface to do anything but get worse. They would need a corporate culture that is either centralised and vision-led, or utterly indifferent to short-term measures of engagement and profitability. Zuckerberg is a smart man, but he's not a Steve Jobs or a Larry Page.
- fossuser 15y agoThis reminds of a story mentioned in Steven Levy's "In The Plex". Larry and Sergey are showing off their page rank algorithm to a search engine company early on showing how much better and faster it is. The person they're showing it to is upset at how fast it is saying, "it's too good". He wanted the search to be slow so that users would be stuck on the search engine page longer and view more ads. Larry and Sergey left thinking the guy was an idiot. I don't think it takes that much intuition to realize that treating your users well and building something for them will be better in the long run.
- dustingetz 15y agobig companies are good at executing established business models, and bad at discovering new ones. small companies, the opposite. it could never be any other way.
- teja1990 15y agoI don't about the conspiracy behind timeline , but timeline just made it difficult for em to read through my posts , some stay on left some on left. It would be good , if they keep whole month's content on 1side and next on other . It helps me viewing .
- quattrofan 15y agoBut its not better and its not prettier, its a mess and one I generally completely avoid. I used to occasionally click on peoples profiles especially if I was considering connecting, now its such an assault on the senses I don't bother. My FB useage as a result is probably declining...