The human condition is such that people are more likely to voice distain, dissent or dissatsifaction than they are to compliment or rave; and that is very much what I expected when Facebook launched its new release. What did surprise me was the number of people who were moaning not about the changes but simply about the people moaning. One of the captions to an image that wormed its way around the internet was:
I'm appalled that the free service that I am in no way obligated to use keeps making changes that mildly inconvenience me.
Anyway, Facebook certainly could have handled things better:
Forced migration
In the past Facebook has introduced changes gradually by encouragement and volunteer. It has made them available, suggested people use them, and early adopters then encourage others to use them by peer pressure. Once a tipping point is achieved where substantially more people use the new format than the old, the old users are forced over. This inconveniences far fewer people, and the vocal dissent is substantially less. It is a method very greatly employed - see how Microsoft do not immediately force all users of a Windows system onto the most recent release (currently Windows 7). Instead they issue the new release and then start withdrawing support for the old systems, encouraging developers to only develop new programs for the newest system, and eventually people move over.
There are a couple of issues with drip-migration though. It does mean that you have to support a range of systems for a while, rather than one. And, of course, there is the cost - by offering an updated product you get to charge again; whereas if you forced this charge onto people they would immediately seek an alternative who did not operate such draconian and blatantly profiteering practices. And Facebook isn't an operating system which people install and have to update; it is in 'the cloud', and you direct to it. Whilst it would be possible to operate a number of different interfaces, it would be incredibly costly and complicated. So I do understand; I just think they could have better explained why it was that it was done. Human nature is such that people accept change much more readily when they are offered it, and react resistively when it is enforced.
The actual changes
Most of the changes are seen - certainly by techies - simply as a direct assault on rivals Google+ and Twitter. Take the new 'feed' in the top right-hand corner. Twitter by any other name. The 'friend list' has Google+ written all over it. And I would be very surprised if they actually succeed in providing anything valuable to people. Yes, one of the benefits of Google+ is that you can share your status only amongst those friends in any particular circle; but does Facebook (nay should Facebook) seek to do the same? There has long been the ability to hide statuses from certain individuals, or to customise who you share it with. And people are so established on Facebook that the friend list will require people to scour through hundreds of friends to ensure they are in the correct friend lists to fully facitilitate the functionality. It simply requires too much involvement. Yes, Facebook has tried to make it easier by automatically assigning lists and putting people in lists; but after seeing what it did with the facial recognition in photographs, I'm really not sure I would trust it.
But, aside from the tech-side; again - people don't like changes that are seen purely as an attempt to stiffle competition. Google+ and Twitter had different, innovative developments: let the strongest survive. And, moreover, they were not simply attacking Facebook - they were offering things differently. Twitter, for example, was a public forum where people regularly, briefly, aired their thoughts to the entire world, anonymously if they so sought. Facebook - with the new 'subscribe' option - seeks to do the same; but it risks alienating the people on their (the vast majority) who want to see occasional, specific statuses clearly witten for the benefit of their defined group of friends. Simply mashing together different components does not necessarily make a good fit - ask the chef who has thrown together a dozen or so ingredients from different recipes whether the meal was any better for it; or whether, in fact, the skeptical public saw a very scheming and calculated attempt to "do a Ramsey...with a bit of Blumenthal." One of the very keys to the success of Facebook is its simplicity and ease of use: you don't need a degree in software engineering to understand what is going on, and you don't need to sift through a clutter of applications to see what your brother thinks about X-Factor.
The presentation - the surprise
"Could do better."
There were a number of problems with the presentation of the changes; other than them simply being imposed upon people.
Firstly, Facebook has to realise that not all of their users are techies; and the majority of people will not have been aware of the F8 conference at all. Now, whilst this is practically the only method Facebook has to get the news of the changes into the media; it has to realise it already has a captive audience who are the direct subject of the changes anyway. They need to do more to flag up the changes to users before they impose them. With most of the recent raft, the only way you found out was by logging on and screeching "who the hell vomitted on my news feed?" At which point little annoying bubbles started popping up all over the place at once, flagging up the changes which if - like me - you were just popping on very very briefly, you did the best to dismiss as rapidly as possible and get back to finding out how your next-door-neighbour's cat's operation went; or whether your work colleague across the desk from you had enjoyed the egg-and-cress sandwich they uploaded a photo of. Now, they can do this properly and better - like I say, on previous occasions they have offered you to try out the new interface and switch between the two for a few weeks. And take the announcement of the Timeline - they haven't imposed this yet; they have announced it and given a look around, and if you go on the Facebook profile page there is a lovely little video explaining it. So people can find out about the change before it happens and then they have a few days or weeks to prepare their "I don't like these changes" statuses.
The presentation - the lie
It was presented as if the changes were an entire sea-change in the way Facebook operates. They aren't. Take Timeline for example - and this was supposed to be the 'major' announcement of the conference. Your profile already shows things in a timeline. All you need to do is scroll back far enough, or click-through enough pages of photos to get there. Timeline doesn't actually change what is out there at all, it just makes it easier/harder to find what you want to - depending on your point of view. I don't know what it will do - at the moment someone's info is really easy to find in a tab: you can find out pretty much their entire employment history if they are willing to tell you. If it gets mangled into a timeline you may only be able to find out who their previous employer was by knowing what date they started there. But, people like drip-change; imperceptible, unnoticeable change. Presenting it as an entirely new perspective is wrong, and is simply inflamatory. But then maybe that is a way to get the presentation out further than just tech media.
The presentation - the shock
Again, it may simply have been a way to try to get front-page headlines to get the message to as many people as possible; but telling people that their entire life is going to be online pressed the panic button in any normal human. We are inherently private by nature; so exposing our nude avatars like this is bound to get many people scrabbling round for any respect, decency and those damned privacy settings. The thing is; it isn't going to be any more of your life than you are already putting online. Facebook has been incredibly successful in insipidly infecting our lives, breaking down that desire for privacy and quietly encouraging us to share everything from our lunch to the death of someone close. It hasn't done this by massive announcements and conferences and front-page shock tactics: it has done it without even telling you. And this is the best way. Obviously not when they are changing anything to do with privacy - some clever dick will find out what has happened and before you know it you have a PR storm on your hands as you have to explain why your privacy policy is longer that US constitution.
But, to a great degree Facebook is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. It has to continue to develop and innovate, and therefore it does have to change; and some of this is going to be a major release rather than the simple insipid, imperceptible drip-feed of changes and tweaks. Otherwise it risks getting left behind as a dinosaur of internet 2.0.
The old adage really is correct: you can't please all of the people, all of the time. Particularly when there are 600million of them.
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