Facebook Makes Itself Useful

by David Evans on September 5, 2006 · 4 comments

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Key differences between Myspace and Facebook. Myspace is busy adding areas to the site that assuage advertisers while Facebook adds features and functionality that makes it a better service for users. Liz at GigaOM says:

Sometimes Mark Zuckerberg and his crew of big-picture thinkers try too hard to separate themselves, calling a blogging tool “notes�? or adding a company blog without a feed. But other times they seem to really get it — for instance, today’s new features: news feeds that show, chronologically, your friends’ most recent activities across the site, and your own most recent activities across the site. In 30 seconds, I can find out what my family, my college friends, my current friends, and even some of my work contacts have been doing. If I think my own “mini-feed�? has too much information in it, I can adjust it item-by-item to leave no trace.

More at the Facebook blog.

I was reading someone over the weekend saying they were enjoying tracking their friend’s via SMS messages on Dodgeball. I’ve started doing that at heyletsgo. Then I read about a guy who thinks Google Calendar makes it too easy to rob people.

Technorati Tags: facebook, features, myspace

Tagged as: Innovation, social-networking

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

Clay 09.05.06 at 2:53 pm: The new facebook is an invasion of privacy because there are things on there that people don’t want to be displayed and it is WAY too much work to go and delete every item because, frankly, half the fun of facebook was hunting for what people changed. A lot of people doesn’t want everyone to know at once that their relationship status changed or that they wrote on their crush’s wall AGAIN. The News Feeds and Mini feeds are unacceptable.

–clay
Jon 09.05.06 at 6:49 pm: While this may seem useful, the powers-that-be at facebook would do well to make it an optional feature that can be turned off. In the first day of operation countless groups opposed to the change have been formed, and they are spreading like wildfire. One I created has grown to over 300 members–many of whom I don’t know–in a matter of around 4 hours. (And yes, I appreciate the irony that the new format is partly to thank for this.)

Facebook’s users have spoken, and an overwhelming number range anywhere from annoyed to frightened by this new feature.
LC 09.05.06 at 6:53 pm: I have to agree with Clay. It’s a “neat” feature, but it’s too hard/time-consuming to delete items you don’t want others to find so easily (and impossible, at least to my searching, to disable the feature, which is a major option to lack).
Jessica 09.06.06 at 2:57 pm: The news feed on facebook was an idea that went wrong! They need to give us the option to TURN IT OFF!!!! Just because we have a facebook, doesn’t mean we want our friends we know from middle school to know when we added skiing as an interest.

Get real!

Facebook Makes Itself Useful

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