The Facebook Feed, which is the home page of all users when they log into Facebook, was ( before the redesign) usually a random collection of “actions” by friends over the course of a day. It would show about 20 friends’ actions ( such as attending events, posting music, writing on friends’ wall etc. ), and it would give the option of showing a “live feed”, which would show all the actions of your friends live ( an equivalent to the blog feed on Wefeelfine.org ).

The “new” Facebook, as everyone is calling, changes this system by automatically giving you the recent actions of all your friends. It is different from the former live feed since it only placces all the actions that have happened ( where the live feed would post an action on the screen while you are looking at it ). So pretty much, whenever your friend does something on Facebook ( that would be essentially public, such as speaking to another friend etc. ), it will be post to the feed.

As well, the Facebook walls of users ( where people can post messages and media onto it; essentially your profile ) has changed, and the design looks bigger and neater.

The Angry Mob Arrives, Pitchforks and Torches In Hand

Many people are outraged over the change, and I for one have something to say on the matter: WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH PEOPLE BITCHING ABOUT FACEBOOK?!?

I love the change that they have done. It isn’t really anything special ( I am ambivalent about the features, but sometimes it is cool to see a friend’s message about a sports game or a funny YouTube video ), except that they aggregate a live feed of your friends. They also make it that they can consolidate your stream based on your friends’ area.

The woe-is-me response to the Facebook change is nothing short of drama-queen whining. Some messages about the new Facebook on an anti- New Facebook group:

“NO SHIT!!! This changing shit needs to stop. It’s stupid. WHY!?”

“I HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK ITS GAY”

“I feel like a stalker with new facebook“

Huffin’ & Puffin’ against Facebook at Arianna’s

1. Facebook vs. Twitter for Popularity/ Traffic Argument Viability: Lol

Facebook’s demographic began with the college domain, and over time extended under ( to high-schoolers and tweeners ) and over ( to college grads, Facebook veterans, older people, family affiliates. ) and has a popularity that would destroy Twitter. Twitter has a huge professional following, and its utility has been more of a very useful mailing lists of important people and cliques of friends. This feature, by no means, has anything close to matching what Facebook can offer its users.

What is funnier, is that Facebook has a very popular Twitter plugin that already has 200,000 users. Not only does Facebook trounce Twitter, but nearly 20% of Twitter’s users utilize the Twitter within Facebook.

2. Multiple Uses vs. Single Use Function: Google’ Schmidt Lays Down Hammer

Here is Google CEO’ Eric Schmidt’s thoughts on Twitter:

“Speaking as a computer scientist, I view all of these as sort of poor man’s email systems.”

“In other words, they have aspects of an email system, but they don’t have a full offering. To me, the question about companies like Twitter is: Do they fundamentally evolve as sort of a note phenomenon, or do they fundamentally evolve to have storage, revocation, identity, and all the other aspects that traditional email systems have? Or do email systems themselves broaden what they do to take on some of that characteristic?”

Facebook doesn’t necessarily have all the tools of a full-fledged email system as well. But its function not only surpasses what Twitter does, but Facebook has its own update feed, which they can separate into its own feed at any time they choose. If they were ever to do that, there would never then need be a need for Twitter ( although, the adding friend and privacy content functions would have to be tweaked ).

Stopping Twitter Digression Here

Chris Willman does write about some concerns of functions that no longer exists ( such as the real-time live feed ) and some bad quirks ( images are placed on feeds individually so there were many pictures clogging up the screen, but most of the user gripes were based on issues that could not be helped anyway.

He talks of one example of someone who has to be more disciplined on writing on someone’s wall because it automatically gets placed in the feed. This type of statement only casts a spotlight on the stupidity of some users because if you write something on someone’s wall, and someone can see it publicly, then your friends have the means to look at the wall postings. It is the equivalent of stripping in front of a hotel window, and getting angry because you were videotaped with a hi-definition camera and not a cellular phone. Here is the quote:

“Previously, you had to go to a person’s page to see something else someone posted on their wall, building in a level of semi-privacy. Now it’s all part of the same grabbag feed. I am now disinclined to post any status updates or write on anyone’s wall.”

What is more illogical about the this statement is that anyone at anytime could access information from someone’s wall if their information was public or they were friends with the person searching for the information. The fact that stories of people’s Facbook thoughts were being posted publicly way before the change should be enough evidence that the feed isn’t hurting anyone’s privacy any more relative to how people have originally “stalked” people’s profiles.

If you are writing something on someone’s wall that you don’t want someone else to see, you should be disciplined not to put your information in a public domain ( or in this instance, a domain where a “friend” has the ability to access it ). If this information is sensitive or harmful, you should be wary of writing this type of content on Facebook regardless of how the company designs the website. In fact, you should watch what you say whenever you deliver a message, whether it be on any website or even in real-life interactions.

Overall, this rowdy pitchfork-and-torch mob is just a butterskin reaction to a positive reconstruction of a popular website trying to make the content better. Yes, it is a little tougher to get around. And yes, some functions can’t be found. But these tweaks will be fixed in the coming months, and everything will be back to the “new” normal.

The Facebook change: I love it. For all of you that don’t, there are other alternatives that you can use. Oh, there aren’t any as good as Facebook? Yea, I thought so.

ps: Definition of butterskin: Something that is shallow or isn’t concrete, usually to describe an argument, opinion, ideology, stance, or thought.

CNN also published a story that talked about Zuckerberg’s uncomfortability with the public sphere, and this appearance on Oprah. Overall, he has been pretty good about being low-key and keeping his private life out of the limelight. He had his Facebook images hacked, and it might’ve been the blandest assortment of pictures ever assembled by a wealthy young upstart.

But their current product, although very powerful in its options, lacks a lot when it comes to value and creativity. That is another matter for another day. But the title of this post was written due to my rage upon seeing a proliferation of very shitty ads. Don’t mean to abuse the French, but there is no alternative for the mess of promotions that have been popping up on the right side of my screen.

I decided to showcase them each, why they suck ( or why they are good if one comes up ), and why it negatively affects Facebook’s revenue stream as a whole.

Play This Quiz. Sign up For $100 ringtone membership!

Its hard not to get excited seeing anything Family Guy. And when you combine the word “quiz” and any pop culture TV show of the last decade, you are bound to run up contestants.

I took the plunge, and intentionally got every question wrong. It was by far the easiest quiz anyone can take for anything. If you gave me a quiz that only told me to spell the word spoon, which would be already printed on my quiz, I would reply that the Family Guy quiz put more sweat on my brow.

I am transferred to a page where I have to sign-up for a monthly subscription of ringtones. Since there is no contract, I could end up with months of a service my Samsung phone from the 20th century would be unable to use. I fail the quiz, and they still try to lure into something I don’t want.

Here ye Here ye! The Google Money System!

This ad just plain reeks of “click me and you’ll be sorry”. I usually click these knowing I am spending someones money for wasting my precious Facebook time. Off we go into the one-page infomercial land!

And in this webpage, it speaks of a laid-off accountant named Kevin ( who happens to live in the city next to me? Better luck next time, IP-locating robot! ) who has found a great way making money with Google money system. For some odd reason, I have never found this feature in their Google labs. Hmmm.

The kicker to this whole crack-pot scheme is this quote, hopefully to someday make someone else- other than me- spit out their coffee in fantastical laughter:

Google – How can you go wrong with a company that is publicly traded on the stock market with record stock prices even right now.

Yes. How can anyone go wrong with record stock prices? Especially when to whole sentence is poppycock madness AND doesn’t have a question mark at the end of it.

This is the picture of the douchebag who is posting the crap ad on Facebook. His name is Kevin. And he is a douche. I know this is probably not him, but someone has to pay!

Fluid Consulting

The company put out a decent ad. They are a business looking to develop websites and web solutions. When I clicked and went to the site, I was highly disappointed, but not because it was a scam or misleading.

Overall, the company lacks 21st century. For a site that is promoting websites, its own website is lacking a lot in terms of design and information. The header image looks like a blog graphic from 2001. They have no portfolio, but an email that implies that I must request one. At the same time, they talk about working with over 200 businesses. It isn’t that I don’t trust them, it is that I have no clue what their work is. Their whole website setup is pretty shabby, and their asking price for a “simple” website is $1,500.

From there, you can say they are doing something wrong, choosing the direction of overpricing the hell out of their clients, or taking the Robert Frost road of re-inventing the wheel on these designs. Their footer has a copyright ending in 2007. They haven’t updated their site! Sound the alarm! Man the hatches!

I give them props for being an actual company with an actual product on Facebook.

Why Facebook Will Lose Revenue From this Measure

Facebook’s system of adspace is very similar to Google’s. They also have a better framework developed for promoting to localized areas ( such as cities and colleges ). But they still have many problems ( even problems in their emulation of Google, but that is for another post ).

These ads are destroying their ability to make money. The CTR for many of these ads are already low because of the social networking paradigm. They only will go lower as the quality of ads decreases. As this decreases, it will do two things that will really hurt the revenue stream.

The first is that the inverse of a low CTR is a higher CPC. As many advertisers, old and new, come back to use the solution, more and more will be turned off be the suggested and minimum bid amounts to keep their product showcase afloat. As this occurs, the people who can least afford the constant Facebook campaign will slowly drop out the revenue stream. Considering that Shoemoney talked about the future use of Facebook for more localized advertising, there has to be greater importance of keeping some type of quality on the right side so the traffic drive can be constant.

The 2nd thing is the dulling, or saturation, of bad advertising material. Quizzes, bait-and-switch programs, making money schemes. Individually, or as controlled campaigns, individual marketers do well in gaining an audience. But proliferated onto specific adspaces or within specific websites, and the user will ignore any message from that area.

This is more dangerous to Facebook’s future for if they have trouble keeping people interested in their ads, then their adspace becomes less valuable. They lose money, and would probably have to concede even more quality for some revenue. The spiraling down continues, and their advantage of having valuable adspace is forever gone.

Facebook needs to overhaul their entire means of creating revenue, and getting local businesses on the scene. they have to mitigate some of these scurvy ads mentioned above, and probably on occasion pause their ads and give some white space for the user. Get the quality of ads back on Facebook, and advitisers like me will continue to pay the premium.