3 ms·

What is it that facebook employess work on daily? I see release of new features fairly often for something like G+ but rarely see anything from FB short of redo

What is it that facebook employess work on daily? I see release of new features fairly often for something like G+ but rarely see anything from FB short of redoing what they've already done. Is this accurate or am I just unaware of a release blog?

chucknthem 14y ago
You can follow the facebook engineering page to see updates on what engineers get up to https://www.facebook.com/Engineering https://www.facebook.com/Engineering
smackfu 14y ago
Their news page gives a good sense of the major new features: http://newsroom.fb.com/News http://newsroom.fb.com/News In general, I don't think they announce minor new features at all, they just deploy them slowly.
- methodin 14y ago
  That would make sense but I wonder why. It is the minor updates that might be more interesting than "we've redone X".
  - smackfu 14y ago
    Two reasons I can think of: Facebook does incremental rollouts, so they don't want to announce features that everyone doesn't have, plus Facebook users are extremely hostile to change (that they know about) so providing a list of changes is counter productive.
    - methodin 14y ago
      That might be true but I do recall that last "cover" update was announced to all but rolled out incrementally as well. The mentality issue might be the true root cause but perhaps if they did more announcements people might get more used to the idea of things changing.
ianstormtaylor 14y ago
Don't know where you got that idea from. For Facebook's size I think they move incredibly quickly. Also "short of redoing what they've already done" is actually the kind of crappy thinking that leads to a feature-bloated, never-launched, generally-crappy product.
- methodin 14y ago
  I am interested to know what makes you believe they move quickly. Do you follow an internal blog or know engineers? From the items the two other people posted it does seem that they post quite a bit but most of it seems to be about how facebook works internally or items their employees are doing for other people (AMAs). I'm not sure I agree with your second statement in this context but I do agree with it generally in the sense that it is harmful. Obviously if one never releases a product but runs through the rolling internal releases of redoing items they've already done, then that can lead to an terrible negative-feedback loop. For a company that is well-established, however, I'm not sure the same rules apply. You don't maintain success by iterating on your existing product offering and instead need to rely on either simplifying, speeding up or offering new products/features to your clients. One could argue that they are attempting to find alternative revenue source in these rewrites, which would be a valid argument and one I could understand, unfortunately I am not able to either confirm or quell that suggestion.

chucknthem 14y ago

You can follow the facebook engineering page to see updates on what engineers get up to https://www.facebook.com/Engineering https://www.facebook.com/Engineering

smackfu 14y ago

Their news page gives a good sense of the major new features: http://newsroom.fb.com/News http://newsroom.fb.com/News In general, I don't think they announce minor new features at all, they just deploy them slowly.

methodin 14y ago
That would make sense but I wonder why. It is the minor updates that might be more interesting than "we've redone X".
- smackfu 14y ago
  Two reasons I can think of: Facebook does incremental rollouts, so they don't want to announce features that everyone doesn't have, plus Facebook users are extremely hostile to change (that they know about) so providing a list of changes is counter productive.
  - methodin 14y ago
    That might be true but I do recall that last "cover" update was announced to all but rolled out incrementally as well. The mentality issue might be the true root cause but perhaps if they did more announcements people might get more used to the idea of things changing.

ianstormtaylor 14y ago

Don't know where you got that idea from. For Facebook's size I think they move incredibly quickly. Also "short of redoing what they've already done" is actually the kind of crappy thinking that leads to a feature-bloated, never-launched, generally-crappy product.

methodin 14y ago
I am interested to know what makes you believe they move quickly. Do you follow an internal blog or know engineers? From the items the two other people posted it does seem that they post quite a bit but most of it seems to be about how facebook works internally or items their employees are doing for other people (AMAs). I'm not sure I agree with your second statement in this context but I do agree with it generally in the sense that it is harmful. Obviously if one never releases a product but runs through the rolling internal releases of redoing items they've already done, then that can lead to an terrible negative-feedback loop. For a company that is well-established, however, I'm not sure the same rules apply. You don't maintain success by iterating on your existing product offering and instead need to rely on either simplifying, speeding up or offering new products/features to your clients. One could argue that they are attempting to find alternative revenue source in these rewrites, which would be a valid argument and one I could understand, unfortunately I am not able to either confirm or quell that suggestion.