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Honestly I still don't get the hubbub over this algorithm change by Facebook. It's a scaling issue Facebook is attempting to solve, in a dramatically different

Honestly I still don't get the hubbub over this algorithm change by Facebook. It's a scaling issue Facebook is attempting to solve, in a dramatically different (and IMHO superior) way than Twitter. On both networks, every time you look at your feed you'll only look at the top X items. On Twitter, that'll just be the X most recent items. On Facebook, those X items are picked algorithmically based on the degree of engagement. The latter seems 1000x better and more intelligent than Twitter, even though it technically means not every post I'm subscribed to will make it into my feed. As people spend more and more years on Facebook, we naturally accumulate more friends and pages (personally around 1200 friends and 200 pages). Thus, we're subscribed to more content. Far too much to reasonably make it into our feed. Given that X is fixed, the percentage of any particular source's posts which will make it into X should decline. It seems totally reasonable that which posts make it in are dictated by how much engagement those posts had.

sparkzilla 13y ago
No. Just no. Like many other small businesses, I paid thousands of dollars to Facebook for ads to create fan pages. People who were interested in what I was doing became fans (I had about 4000 in all). There was never any indication from Facebook that they would make it increasingly difficult to reach those people, and those fans were never told that they would not see my posts. Due to changes in their algorithm I watched the views for my posts drop from 1200 to less than 10. Then I was told I had to pay to reach my own fans. Businesses like ours helped grow Facebook by building fan pages but Facebook betrayed us and, more importantly, betrayed our fans. It's sick.
- morgante 13y ago
  Instead of resorting to emotion, can you explain a compelling alternative for how Facebook could actually solve this? Yes, you have 4000 fans. But I'm 99% sure you're not the only page they like. They probably like many other pages, and also have many other friends (2 numbers that increase over time). Do you not see how it's literally impossible for every post I'm subscribed to reach me? This is purely a problem of scale. Most of my friends don't see my updates, because they also have many other friends. But my mom sees every single update I have because I'm her only Facebook friend. Perhaps it's annoying/confusing that Facebook gave you the option to monetarily combat the effects of a growing network. But organic growth also still works.
  - sparkzilla 13y ago
    Facebook started to throttle response just over a year ago, well after most people already had all of their friends in their feed, and well after most people had joined most of the pages they like. It's no coincidence that Facebook told me I could get more views by spending money to reach the same people I had been reaching organically just a few weeks before. The solution is to stop trying to extort money from the businesses that helped them build their business and let the users decide what they want to see.
    - morgante 13y ago
      You're acting as though Facebook has somehow blocked fans from visiting your page. They're of course free to do so. Given that you accept it's a statistical impossibility for all content I'm subscribed to to reach my feed, what we're debating is priorities. Before this algorithm change, I fully believe it was tilted too far in terms of brands—I received way too many updates from brands and few from my friends. What you call extortion is what every sane person in the world calls advertising. If a magazine writes a story about my business (free advertising), that obviously doesn't entitle me to free advertising in all future issues. Neither does Facebook once giving you free reach.
      - sparkzilla 13y ago
        If your feed before was "tilted too fat in terms of brands" then you could easily have hidden them from the feed or unsubscribed. Your analogy is wrong. Facebook did not write a free story about my business. I paid them to help me gather a group of people who were interested in my business. They never at any point said that I would have to pay to access those users. Then, after I spent a lot of money, time and effort maintaining that group, they told me that I couldn't access them without paying them again and again. That's extortion, not advertising. As someone who has ran a business that has sold many millions of dollars of advertising you don't screw over your readers and advertisers to make an extra buck. It might work in the short term, but it's a failing business strategy.
        13y ago
- evgen 13y ago
  The fact that I liked your page last year does not mean that I stil want a constant stream of your store updates and coupons. The amount of stuff that can be put onto my Facebook news feed is finite, and the number of people who think they have some entitlement to that space because of a single action they convinced me to take in the distant past is constantly growing. You didn't do anything to grow Facebook other than try to use it as a cheap advertising channel and I would rather Facebook try to figure out wha I need/want than to have my news feed cluttered by everyone whose page I ever liked.
  - sparkzilla 13y ago
    So many things wrong with this post. Firstly, the system before was fine: For four years people voluntarily chose to engage with my fan page and receive posts from my business. If fans didn't like my posts they could block them or leave the page. Facebook never said at any time they would throttle fans' access to my content, so yes, it was a cheap advertising channel. That's why we used Facebook instead of some other social network. If you are happy to let your newsfeed be determined not by what you want but by who pays the most then good luck to you. It's bad for the fans and bad for us, and ultimately -- as you can see by the increasing number of anti-Facebook posts -- it's bad for Facebook.

sparkzilla 13y ago

No. Just no. Like many other small businesses, I paid thousands of dollars to Facebook for ads to create fan pages. People who were interested in what I was doing became fans (I had about 4000 in all). There was never any indication from Facebook that they would make it increasingly difficult to reach those people, and those fans were never told that they would not see my posts. Due to changes in their algorithm I watched the views for my posts drop from 1200 to less than 10. Then I was told I had to pay to reach my own fans. Businesses like ours helped grow Facebook by building fan pages but Facebook betrayed us and, more importantly, betrayed our fans. It's sick.

morgante 13y ago
Instead of resorting to emotion, can you explain a compelling alternative for how Facebook could actually solve this? Yes, you have 4000 fans. But I'm 99% sure you're not the only page they like. They probably like many other pages, and also have many other friends (2 numbers that increase over time). Do you not see how it's literally impossible for every post I'm subscribed to reach me? This is purely a problem of scale. Most of my friends don't see my updates, because they also have many other friends. But my mom sees every single update I have because I'm her only Facebook friend. Perhaps it's annoying/confusing that Facebook gave you the option to monetarily combat the effects of a growing network. But organic growth also still works.
- sparkzilla 13y ago
  Facebook started to throttle response just over a year ago, well after most people already had all of their friends in their feed, and well after most people had joined most of the pages they like. It's no coincidence that Facebook told me I could get more views by spending money to reach the same people I had been reaching organically just a few weeks before. The solution is to stop trying to extort money from the businesses that helped them build their business and let the users decide what they want to see.
  - morgante 13y ago
    You're acting as though Facebook has somehow blocked fans from visiting your page. They're of course free to do so. Given that you accept it's a statistical impossibility for all content I'm subscribed to to reach my feed, what we're debating is priorities. Before this algorithm change, I fully believe it was tilted too far in terms of brands—I received way too many updates from brands and few from my friends. What you call extortion is what every sane person in the world calls advertising. If a magazine writes a story about my business (free advertising), that obviously doesn't entitle me to free advertising in all future issues. Neither does Facebook once giving you free reach.
    - sparkzilla 13y ago
      If your feed before was "tilted too fat in terms of brands" then you could easily have hidden them from the feed or unsubscribed. Your analogy is wrong. Facebook did not write a free story about my business. I paid them to help me gather a group of people who were interested in my business. They never at any point said that I would have to pay to access those users. Then, after I spent a lot of money, time and effort maintaining that group, they told me that I couldn't access them without paying them again and again. That's extortion, not advertising. As someone who has ran a business that has sold many millions of dollars of advertising you don't screw over your readers and advertisers to make an extra buck. It might work in the short term, but it's a failing business strategy.
      - 13y ago
evgen 13y ago
The fact that I liked your page last year does not mean that I stil want a constant stream of your store updates and coupons. The amount of stuff that can be put onto my Facebook news feed is finite, and the number of people who think they have some entitlement to that space because of a single action they convinced me to take in the distant past is constantly growing. You didn't do anything to grow Facebook other than try to use it as a cheap advertising channel and I would rather Facebook try to figure out wha I need/want than to have my news feed cluttered by everyone whose page I ever liked.
- sparkzilla 13y ago
  So many things wrong with this post. Firstly, the system before was fine: For four years people voluntarily chose to engage with my fan page and receive posts from my business. If fans didn't like my posts they could block them or leave the page. Facebook never said at any time they would throttle fans' access to my content, so yes, it was a cheap advertising channel. That's why we used Facebook instead of some other social network. If you are happy to let your newsfeed be determined not by what you want but by who pays the most then good luck to you. It's bad for the fans and bad for us, and ultimately -- as you can see by the increasing number of anti-Facebook posts -- it's bad for Facebook.