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Read it, comment, and share it with your friendsTo everyone interested in the social networking sphere, take note
If you haven’t heard of Facebook feeds yet, read my previous entry.
I finally came across the Facebook group “Students against Facebook News Feed (Official Petition to Facebook).” This group has, at the time of this writing, over 370,000 members. A few hours ago it was gaining 1,000 members each minute… that’s not an exaggeration, it’s fact. I counted 1 minute and refreshed the page. The group has been around for less than 2 days (it started after the new feature launched) and it has already reached a significant portion of Facebook’s user base. This is serious.
It is very important that Facebook act quickly to deal with this. Read the text from the front page of this group to see just how serious these users are:
This IS the largest facebook group dedicated to changing the News Feed Feature. Please help us consolidate the resistance so they get the message.
Time to complain, people.
Step 1) INVITE YOUR FRIENDS TO THIS GROUP! EVERYONE YOU KNOW!
Step 2) Go to http://www.facebook.com/help.php?tab=suggest AND COMPLAIN!
Step 3) ???
Step 4) Profit!
Oh, and it’s tough adding admins when there’s 11,000 members. No more requests, please. And despite how much joy I get from seeing my messages box get swamped with congratulatory notes, you don’t have to send them. I got the message, and I’m sure facebook will get it, too.
Update: If you feel so inclined, sign a petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/faceb00k/petition.html*****Wednesday Morning Update:*****
They got the message, and the message is that we’re not happy. But they have to know we don’t want to simply wait it out, we want something far more sustantial than “oh, privacy’s fine.”
We understand that they want to hold dear their new feature, and we respect that. But there are thousands of us, hundreds of thousands, who want either one of two things
1) Removal of the news feed program
2) A simple, one-click way to remove our presence COMPLETELY from News Feed. Not clicking x every time we have an action, but an easy option that will make it so that others, yes, even our friends, don’t see what irrelevant thing we posted on someone else’s wall.
Now’s the time to give them constructive criticism and to let them know that we’re not going to go quietly in the night.
We’re here to stay, we want significant change.
Let’s work!
**2:00 PM Central Update**
1) Almost all media requests I will handle tonight.
2) Please, no more messages, I can’t keep up!
3) Please, no more friendings, I’m only going to disappoint you when I deny them.
I have to congratulate Ben Parr of Northwestern University for starting this group, since it will probably go down in Facebook history. It’s a really great example of how strongly users feel about the things they want from sites like Facebook, and how important it is to constantly seek user Feedback when considering changes. Facebook’s biggest mistake was that they never did any user testing for their new feature; it was launched as a complete surprise to the entire Facebook community. Here’s a lesson: don’t do this. Beta-test new features. Get a focus group and let them try out your ideas before you unleash them on everyone. Take their feedback seriously because they are the ones who will decide whether your ideas are good or not. Here’s a little example from my personal experience of how effective focus groups can be:
When I was 19, I was in a teen survey group called Tremor. One day they had this new movie they wanted us to vote on. They wanted us to pick the name of the movie. The movie was to be about a group of american students taking a road trip through Europe. They had 4 options for the name that the production company had chosen, and we had to pick one. The 4 options they gave us were all terrible. One of them was something like, “pocket full of euros” or something. These names were rock-bottom. Unanimously, the members of Tremor all responded with, “all of these names are garbage, we were picking the lesser of evils, please try to come up with a new, different name for this movie.”
The production company listened to us teens and went back to the drawing board. In the end they came up with a much better name, and the rest was history for… “EuroTrip.”
So listen up Facebook, and anyone else in the social networking sphere: user testing is always priceless. Don’t skip it.
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Responses to my articlelike when friendster started deleting made up profiles;] big mistake don’t mess with your people, if everythings working and growing why shake em up, whats next? Tom Anderson sells America’s youth to Fox News’ I heard McDonalds is starting a new social network called McMongul “where friends are mice tracked by media dollars in our advertisers vice” The internet is like the only hope for something better, it proves how small this world is, and how we have allowed larger media in the past to pave our future.. sorry to rant.. i guess this was more of a complaint about myspace.. maybe i just need some juice, water and coffee’ yea i’m outa here;]
oh yea’ my plug metroproper.com is being developed out of my coffee house dollopcoffee.com it’s the best HQ and we are taking this chicago land community and offering smart tools for people in a social network that make sense in the virtual world, i need a productive social network and lets’ face it’ we like the pictures.. so… my version is coming soon > for an invite go to metroproper.com thanks=)
I don’t get it.
300,000 members protesting within a community of what, 9 or 10 million? What’s more, they’re protesting by… using the site. Surely there are better ways of going about it than giving Facebook a huge traffic push. You know, like not using it.
That said, it is an incredible response. It’s nice when a community really gets behind something.
True also
Rich: There are thousands in a group that promises to leave Facebook by Oct. 1 if changes aren’t made, and there are probably thousands more who have already deactivated their account. Not that this is anything worth getting worked up over, but users are really attached to their Facebook accounts; it would take a long time to start over for all the people who deactivate their accounts.
I don’t like the new Facebook either, but it’s pathetic that hundreds of thousands are getting worked up about this (even if it’s just through the internets) when government-sponsored privacy invasion has not even received a single criticism from these people.
FoxyLady, looks like ya gotta start promoting more, in general what ever is your fighting for. I think it supports the fact that we can’t be mislead by whatsnotso important, only in comparison to the other, whoeversother ofcourse, so yea. i’m glad were talking about it, you are doing something;)
Who Knows,
Back To Work
I agree with Rich — community action rules.
Phil — I actually saw an early Beta of metroProper.com and it seemed pretty cool. I think it might be worth keeping track of. I think I heard that it’s going live next week, but maybe that’s just a rumor.
Foxy — Thumbs down for FaceBook — I agree with you.
Peace-out
I agree Chris. User testing would have been priceless. If they begin a beta group to test out their new features they’ll get suggestions and improvements on their features before it’s consumed by the masses. With the feeds, a beta user might have suggested that a privacy feature be added enabling users to decide if their actions are displayed on the feeds. One feature on top of another and we all get a better facebook!
i started metroproper 7 months ago lots of good people are involved now’ i wanna keep opening up to it cause things are really starting to make sense.. and we all mean well are taking a balanced approach to the social network interacting with a neighborhoods potential in productivity adding the social network charm and open forums of media, in a week we will announce the first 10 cities proper. I can’t wait, but we have to keep getting it right’
philiptadros.com dollopcoffee.com metroproper.com
ChicagoProper Motorola sponsored event: http://vimeo.com/clip:95221
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