Facebook's Big Blunder
In one day, Facebook's valuation has likely dropped 50%. Why, you ask? Because they created features which undermine the whole culture of Facebook.
Facebook unveiled a few huge new features yesterday morning called the "News Feed" and "Mini Feed," both of which are designed to help you keep track of the changes in your friend's lives. The idea is great...but I think that the Software Engineers let their enthusiasm get in the way of the reality of the user's needs.
I broached the subject last week when I described the odd phenomenon called Myspace. And I wondered why people loved a product that betrayed so much privacy. And as the Facebook saga unfolds, I am beginning to understand how the world views privacy.
Facebook was great because you could logon anonymously, check out your friends changes and check up on their lives. And likewise, you could update your profile and your friends could see the details, but none of the specifics...like, the date and time of each change to your profile. So instead of someone just updating their profile, the world now knows that they have updated the profile six times in the past two days, or that, in my case, the last 10 notes that I have sent have all been birthday greetings.
Before, the information was out there, but no one would have actually done the research to discover that.
The revolt is large and growing, and I wonder how long it will be before Facebook rolls back the changes. Michael Arrington at Techcrunch thinks the new features are good, but I don't think he understands the mindset behind Facebook users. Whenever your users are openly saying that a product is becoming a stalking tool, you have a huge problem.
Other sites have noted the revolt, and a new site is calling for a boycott of Facebook for a day. If Facebook doesn't act quickly, the site will die a quick and painful death...