Business Insider: Facebook Is A Fundamentally Broken Product That Is Collapsing Under Its Own Weight

[Poll_Blind]

I came across what I think is a fascinating little article posted yesterday by Business Insider entitled Facebook Is A Fundamentally Broken Product That Is Collapsing Under Its Own Weight.

From the article:

Specifically, Facebook is now trying to cram so much "sharing" through a single service that it is overwhelming many of its core users. Meanwhile, companies like Snapchat, WhatsApp, WeChat, Line, Twitter, and Instagram (which Facebook owns), are now cleaving off types of user-sharing that Facebook would like to have owned.

--snip--

Facebook started off as a place to keep track of what your friends are up to, but because there's so much stuff flowing through the News Feed, you could easily miss what your friends are doing. He points out that today, you could post that you're getting married, but only half of your friends might see that posting because of the News Feeds' algorithms.

"That’s a product problem," says Evans. "There's so much noise in the News Feed, they broke the product." Facebook can come up with algorithms to surface the best material, but Evans says it's just "a hack." The deeper problem is that the "underlying product is broken."

Essentially, and I think this is obvious to most Facebook users, the level of sharing went so overboard that the real spirit of what Facebook was all about (keeping track of what your friends are up to) gets lost under a mountain of data so granular that only the NSA would really care about it.

Anyway, an interesting read. IMO, it doesn't just apply to Facebook but to a lot of social sites out there.

PB

[geek tragedy]

1. And the real question: how to monetize that. How many 'sponsored' posts can they

cram in there before people just stop using it entirely, or use it less frequently.

[sendero]

4. I don't use FB much, but I do use it...

.. . to keep in touch with some old friends and coworkers.

I kept getting these "sponsored posts" from a certain politician whom I despise.

I found a nifty free product called FB Purity that filters all of this nonsense out seamlessly and with little work in setting up. I highly recommend it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. "I found a nifty free product called FB Purity"

THAT needs to be mentioned far and wide, for sure.
I do not Facebook, but do follow the issues about it.

[Jesus Malverde]

2. Big rec...nt

[hfojvt]

3. only half your friends will see it

because less than half of your friends now spend any significant time on FB.

It's like any other fad, when it was new everybody had, or got, a Rubik's cube. Two years later though, and almost nobody was doing it. Same with Guitar Hero. My nieces were all about Guitar Hero - for about six months. Then it went in the closet to gather dust.

People ran and tried FB as well when it was the "latest thing" and it was new and exciting for a while, but more and more people are dropping off of it. Perhaps trying another "latest thing" or perhaps going back to the other things in life that keep them busy.

[riderinthestorm]

11. +1. nt

[yurbud]

34. you really need it just once for every person you've lost touch with--a nostalgia innoculation

I've "reconnected" with people I lost touch with from high school and college only to find that we don't have much to say to each other, and the mystery of wondering what they're doing now was more captivating than the reality.

[hfojvt]

38. I find that most people are not very talkative

either that or they just are not reading posts.

It's worse than DU. You post stuff and nobody replies. You might as well be talking to the Grand Canyon. I tend to reply much more than others and don't let very many posts go by without making some funny comment or link to a youtube video or something.

But I am sort of a gabby, lonely, writer guy.

[yurbud]

40. I was tempted to not reply to prove your point.

[hfojvt]

44. you didn't have to

my point was already proven by the sheer vastness of the lack of response to my latest OP http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018537083

But I am saying that FB is even WORSE than DU when it comes to getting no replies.

At least on DU you can post something that questions some liberal shibboleth and then a half a dozen people will reply to tell you what an antidisestablishmentarianist turd you are in the human punchbowl.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

5. Yeah, I was just reading about their algorithms. What bullshit

I get updates on my feed from a third of my friends or less so Facebook can swamp me with ads. Tired of it. I go there less and less frequently.

[Puzzledtraveller]

6. bitstrips

[Poll_Blind]

9. The only upside to BitStrips is confirmation of my suspicion about how un-funny most people are.

I've seen a person use it as emotional therapy for a problem they're going through and blast it to everyone and it is the definition of cringe-worthy. Like three+ weeks of daily (or almost) bitstrips.

PB

[wildeyed]

13. You can hide the Bitstrips.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Well, THIS is not helping FB:

Facebook Starts Testing Video Advertisements in News Feed

The ads will automatically play in Facebook users’ news feeds, the newspaper said on its website. The social media company plans an announcement today and one of the first ads will be a made-for-Facebook trailer for the Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (LGF) film “Divergent,” according to the report.

The world’s largest social-networking site plans to offer 15-second spots, two people familiar with the plans said in July.
While the company already allows advertisers to upload videos to their Facebook page and then broadcast them to a user’s news feed, the new service would let marketers buy their way directly into a person’s feed, according to the people.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-17/facebook-to-start-showing-video-ads-this-week-journal-reports.html

As one commentator said:
On my mobile device, where I pay for bandwidth, you're going to stream video ads to me embedded in my feed after you remove 90% of what my "friends" post (unless they pay so I can see all of it unmolested?)

[Dawson Leery]

8. Reject Facebook.

[Romulox]

10. But AOL can never die!

I mean *Facebook* can never die! It's the youth-oriented social marketing tool that big corporations and your grandma loves. What could be cooler than that???

[paulkienitz]

20. the grandma problem

The difficulty is that no matter how much you dislike facebook, it's where the people you know have established themselves, so you're stuck with it, like MS Windows and Office.

You know what I miss? Livejournal. You could blog properly with it -- it supported thoughtful writing in a way that Facebook and its successors do not -- and at the same time it had solid social connection features. In fact, it was better than Facebook or G+ for conversations, just because post comments could be viewed as a thread tree rather than as an undifferentiated heap. But just as you can't get rid of Facebook while your grandma is on it, you can't resurrect a network that your friends have abandoned.

[groundloop]

12. One more thing killing it..... I DON'T CARE what you fed your cat for lunch today!!!!!

Facebook is useful for keeping up with a handful of close friends. Unfortunately it seems that there's always someone who gets the idea that all of her friends give a shit about every tiny little detail of her day. I don't really want to waste my time reading that you fed your cat raisin bran for lunch today, and I don't really care that you had lightly buttered popcorn last night while watching a rerun of Mork & Mindy.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. Needs to be re-named

LookAtMeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

[Luminous Animal]

43. I fed my cat raisin brand today.

[MyNameGoesHere]

15. Well when you stack poop too high

it does tend to collapse under its own weight.

[KurtNYC]

16. The fundamental flaw in FB is not allowing users to compartmentalize their posts

Most people keep their work, family and friends somewhat separated by FB makes no provisions for that. Your employer gets to see your politics, your religion and your relative who posts embarrassing stuff while drunk. Kids left FB about 5 years ago because their parents got accounts. Some tried to open second accounts and friend only other kids to create the compartmentalization that gives them space but ultimately most have left FB for services their parents aren't likely to join or be able to find them on. Adults are having similar issues as other sites increasingly want you to post about sex, politics and the like, ONLY while logged into FB.

In the big picture, people love the active nature of the internet. You actively search out what you want to see and read. But increasingly sites like Facebook have tried to hybridize the active searching with the old passive model of television advertising, pushing content in front of you. Interrupting your exchanges and research with ads.

The "product" Facebook is a for advertisers. The users are not the customer -- they are what is being sold to the real customer so by design their concerns are secondary to FB.

[seabeckind]

19. Too true

Their categories are lacking.

Oh, and the profit model...

When I send opinion to my rep (pretending she really is), I'm more than happy to identify myself -- to her. But I don't want every yahoo teanut guy in her base to see it.

[cags]

21. Not true, I've got my work, family and friends separated on Facebook using lists

Only the people I want to see certain things can see them

[seabeckind]

23. I'm aware of the lists

tho I've never explored them. I think what we are seeing with FB is the basic deevolution of computer systems. Something which was implemented cleanly in the first iteration has been found to be lacking. But the effort involved in the revision is too great (and oftentimes causes excess work in the client) so the change is made by using a kludge.

The nxt problem I see with FB is that it is trying to be everything to everybody and is rapidly becoming nothing for anybody.

It doesn't have a good thread management system for forums. But there's too much installed base to change it. So it will die.

Sorry for the typos. This dam keyboard security drops my characters if I try t type faster than it can ead.

Then again, as I read my post...too many points, not enough connections.

[seabeckind]

17. And yet so many public forums

are adopting FB as their comment streams. And the interface sucks. Whether you see some comments or not depends on whether you have an active FB login running. And just about universally the posting count is way off.

Add that to the identity insistence on so many of these sites...not so much to provide credence to posts but IMHO to provide a vehicle for intimidation.

Pretty much a waste of time.

Oh, and someone I didn't care for in high school hasn't made my heart grow fonder. If I didn't like them then it's very unlikely I would like them now or care how many grandkids they have.

But back to FB...yep, just like high school.

So what will these forums do as their attendance falls off? If they didn't maintain a separate system and especially an admin to handle it...

[cags]

22. You all don't know how to use Facebook apparently

I only see posts from people that I want to see. You can easily set it up to not show games, or ads that you don't want clogging up your feed. You can set up lists to separate friends, good friends, family or politics even. You can choose who sees what you post. You can block people from inviting you to play their games without blocking them.

I really like Facebook, especially because I can customize it so much to my preferences.

[KittyWampus]

24. Same here. You can categorize things on Facebook …. BUT, the UI isn't intuitive

In fact, it sucks.

[seabeckind]

26. I don't think the complaint so much is about FB itself

but more the interfaces and what you don't control once it has left your domain.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

27. teach me cags!

how do I block the game invites?

[cags]

30. Somewhere in settings and security it says block app invites...

And you just type in all of the known offenders... and no more Farmville!

[Viva_La_Revolution]

35. Thanks! nt

[redgreenandblue]

25. Translation: Too much damn spam on Facebook.

Dear Facebook users: Stop posting pictures of food, pictures of cats and pictures of your kids wearing funny hats. Also stop posting updates on your bowel movements and the ball game you are watching. Also, stop inviting people to play these damn games.

[cags]

31. Or you can stop looking at it... just saying

[redgreenandblue]

32. I have to sift through it if I want to look for the meaningful stuff.

[BrainDrain]

28. I gave up on facebook when

they went public.

IT was an IPO without value on a product with no worth beyond the advertising revenue. Essentially worthless.

[corkhead]

29. Business model FAIL

too many ads required to keep the stock holders happy and rich

[ut oh]

33. It's been going this way for quite some time... even pre-Insta-gram

I've gotten to the point where I don't even bother reading the news feed, because it's so much garbage... Just try to look at my friend's pages when I can.

[starroute]

36. Here's another interesting take on the Facebook problem

http://takeaswig.com/the-end-of-the-facebook-era

Now that social networking has become universal, we’ve become increasingly sensitive to what we share on Facebook. Speaking on a stage in front of a mixed audience of family, friends, and acquaintances makes it hard for most of us to be our genuine and authentic selves. As a result, we tend to see people sharing only their proudest moments in an attempt to portray their best selves. We filter too much, and with that, we lose real human connection. . . .

Facebook is a public company now, which means it has to operate like a business. Their decisions will be in favor of maximizing shareholder value in order to succeed as a publicly traded company. Thus far, their monetization strategies have been contradictory to the essence of a social network by infringing on the virtue of social interaction. The passion is no longer about how can we connect the world, but how can we get people to spend money. If you can’t hang out with your friends without being bombarded by promotions, you’re going to go somewhere else that’s free, easy, and trendy. . . .

What was cool in the 70s wasn’t cool in the 80s. What became cool in the 80s was no longer cool in the 90s. Social networks are susceptible to the same shift in trends and fashion that we’ve witnessed in society before our social lives extended into the digital world. This is why social networks, like Google+ (where I worked for one year), are struggling even more than Facebook to get a foothold in the future of social networking. They are betting on last year’s fashion – they’re fighting Facebook for the last available room on the Titanic when they should be looking at all of the other ships leaving the marina.

[Danascot]

42. Excellent article

Ads are a problem but it's not just the ads. Here's another article whose points somewhat overlap the one you identified - http://chillopedia.com/all-new/7-reasons-why-teenagers-are-leaving-facebook/

[AtheistCrusader]

37. Their advertising algorithms are WAY off too.

Showing me shit that I cannot use, would not purchase, or worse, already own. I try to give it feedback, block some ads, but they come back. It's 'push' advertising that is NOT contextually based on whatever insight they could gain from my posts, into my NEEDS or WANTS as a consumer.

It's push, in that it goes the other way, forcing advertising AT me, based on whatever some company will pay FB to promote. That's a dumb advertising model.

I've been using FB for two years, I post all the time. There's TONS of info that FB could use, in my posts and my profile, to show me advertising for things I might actually buy, and they have yet to connect the dots.

So yes, I suspect FB is someday doomed. Unless they get kickbacks from the NRO, FBI or some other black budget agency, just for keeping tabs on us sheep.

[SheilaT]

39. I find Facebook to be of extremely limited use.

I really don't want to know too many details of others' lives, and I'm not willing to share very much stuff with the world at large. Consequently, I basically never post anything to my own FB page, and very rarely comment on anyone else's.

I do mainly use it to keep track of what certain other people are up to, such as my sons.

[napkinz]

41. this ---->

Facebook is not letting people see the content that they have chosen to "follow". Rather, facebook is letting pages like ours reach only 2% of the people that follow us--unless we fork over cash. Which makes no sense since we provide this content for free.

But that isn't a concern for Cottonelle toilet paper. They can pay a ton of money to force their way into our feeds--even though we don't want to see it. Toilet paper? Really?

If you would rather see our content than toilet paper ads, make your voice be heard! Tell Facebook that you want to see the pages that you have LIKED and NOT ADS, that you don't like.

https://www.facebook.com/TheEverlastingGopStoppers

[KG]

45. well, it's free.

i signed up and didn't have to give my CC, my real name, phone #, or birthday. i set things up so only my freinds see what i post. and it's free

i get to joke around with a few folks far and near, and follow my fave musical artists and a few other interests. and, it's free.

have a sock page for my weirder side. and, it's free.

so i have to scroll through a few ads. did i mention, it's free?