I am getting half a dozen Facebook friend requests a day from people who claim not to remember friending me. When I complained in my status message, another Facebooker told me that the “Friend Finder” overrides user privacy settings and spams friend requests via users’ gmail contact lists. Between that and the really awful message board feature that renders groups near meaningless, I’m beginning to conclude that Facebook growth will start slowing, then stagnate, and eventually it will die a slow death. It’s too much work to respond to friend requests, too little ability to set my own boundaries, too many silly apps, and not enough return on the investment of my time. They seriously should have taken the big money when it was offered. If Facebook founders think they are going to be the “social operating system of the web,” they are delusional. They won’t even be AOL. It’s definitely an interesting fad at that moment, and if I ignore all demands on my attention, it can be a useful broadcast channel. But as an online social network, it’s sinking itself.
I am getting half a dozen Facebook friend requests a day from people who claim not to remember friending me. When I complained in my status message, another Facebooker told me that the “Friend Finder” overrides user privacy settings and spams friend requests via users’ gmail contact lists. Between that and the really awful message [...]
Comments
@ 00:54
The question maybe should be “What Shiny New Object(SNO) will replace it as SN du jour?” Because Facebook won’t die, just as MySpace, Friendster, Orkut, Ryze, Tribes didn’t die. But something will come along to challenge it.
Let’s hope that the next one is significantly more open, and plays better on the web. My bet is that one of the big players will use their My Page widget technology to get in the game instead of buying somebody else.
@ 04:56
Facebook, in its original form, as a tool for college student communities to connect and interact locally (then globally) remains solid as ever. The blunder, in my opinion, is that someone thought that model would work for the business community and/or the multitude of business social networks that are no more than ego-driven, ’see how many names I can collect’, online Rolodex files.
At least, in Facebook, you can ignore a spam-driven, ‘friending’ request. Not so in some business networks where the act of advising someone that you aren’t interested in connecting automatically adds a notch-in-the-belt connection.
Facebook isn’t going anywhere…it is simply the wrong tool for most businesses. As far as stagnating, you are way off base. Every year a new generation of college students joins the ranks of Facebook users in what has become a right-of-passage style initiation. Every year, alumni who connected in college discover that Facebook is the simplest way to remain connected following graduation. That model (assuming that Facebook can keep up with the demand for new/better apps) is more self-perpetuating than stagnating.
@ 07:23
I keep thinking about the way history might potentially be repeating itself with AOL and Facebook these days - how AOL’s walled garden policy and the way their proprietary software worked increasingly poorly with the rest of the Web circa 1998-99 wrecked their market dominance. Though as Julian Bond comments, Facebook (as with AOL) won’t go away. it’ll just have to move over.
@ 13:27
strong words. i agree totally.
silly apps. and no meaningful content whatsoever..
@ 06:05
[...] virtual communities and smart mobs probably carry a bit more weight than others, complained about “Facebook friending spam“, “the really awful message board” and [...]
@ 08:56
“My bet is that one of the big players will use their My Page widget technology to get in the game instead of buying somebody else.”
I agree. And I’d like to challenge all those open-source venture capitalist digerati out there to create the kind of SNS we all really need. One that is truly web2.0 (i.e, “user is king”).
But I disagree that current criticisms of facebook’s value stem from its inability to work for business users. I am not using facebook for business at all. I’m approaching it as most ordinary citizen users would - to connect, find old friends, share, etc. My problems with facebook have everything to do with the dodgy privacy setting. Mine have been overridden TWICE - once for Friend Finder (which bypasses user defined privacy settings to allow anyone to “add you” as a friend - even if you have selected “message” or “poke” only from the drop down of contact options (in addition, I made myself unsearchable). The second time occurred this past week when Facebook made its searches public. I had myself previously set as unsearchable (for a variety of reasons).
Quechup’s contact spam is a great example - exactly the same as Friend Finder.
So there are two primary problems right now:
1) Over automation for new apps/features
2) Total disregard for the user. Specifically:
- Lack of user controls, lack of granularity, developer (stakeholder) defined metadata choices (i.e., “politics” in Facebook, “is” for status updates, etc … ). Even AFTER vocal response from the user body to make specific changes.
- not asking our permission to use/add a new feature.
- automated apps overriding user-defined settings.
All users, including teenagers, want choices and control. Whether they are willing to fight for them is an entirely different matter.
I’d like to know who, among you, is interested in responding to the above user-unfriendly trends to build and deliver a networking service/community that defies top down arrogance provides us with the controls, privacy and granularity users want? Seems to me there’s a great opportunity here…
Corporate social networks are about CONTROL, not connection or community. What most of us really want is CHOICE + connection + community.
@ 15:18
[...] (Somebody who knows a little more about online community than I do has similar doubts.) [...]
@ 13:44
Well, bit of a paradox in my mind, here. I posted a negative piece on my blog about Facebook, but I’m here commenting because I accepted Julian Bond’s friend request today, and followed this trail. Whatever you think of Facebook, it can’t be ignored, at least yet….
@ 14:11
All facebook does is provide a means of maintaining contact with people you would never otherwise talk to. Sure, it’s great to stay in contact with your CLOSE friends and share pics/etc. — however, all the other clutter is ruining the experience. Some people from the past should be left there - in the PAST! I love technology but things like Facebook are making it harder for us all to maintain any level of privacy. (Don’t talk to me about privacy settings, it goes beyond that.)
Also — I’ve seen the ugly aftermath of what happens when a couple with many mutual facebook ‘friends’ heads for divorce/breakup. It is not a pretty sight — it makes the breakup ugly and it makes the recovery/’moving on’ even uglier. What do you do at that point? Delete them from your friends list? Delete all photos of you two together? Nooo some would say, that’s too harsh — but what happens 3/6/9/12 months down the line when one of them dates someone else and still has ALL the pics of them with the ex? Awkward to say the least!