I am rolling! The ironic public outcry about Facebook, using Facebook.
I think it is so freaking funny and flat out ironic the vast public out-cry surrounding the changes on Facebook today. Here I list the reasons…
1) Facebook is a free outlet that allows people to connect…AT NO COST! ***But this is not the reason for this post. We know it is free, so what.
2) This public outcry is happening on Facebook. Ok…think for a second. People are complaining about the changes made on the Facebook interface, using Facebook to publish their complaints, connect with others with similar feelings about how much they hate the changes on Facebook, connect with new people in comment areas making new friends where people are complaining about the changes in Facebook, creating a PR machine online so people can search how to deal with the changes on Facebook. This is so brilliant!
Ok…as of July 2011 Facebook is the number one visited web property internationally! Yes…check it out here:
http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/
So what has changed…well, let us look for a second. Not much…just more traffic and PR maybe?
Well, another brilliant PR effort for Facebook today. All it took is for Facebook to publish the changes last night, and in the last twenty-four hours more online news outlets have written about the changes including CNET, Baltimore Sun, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Mashable, even the Christian Science Monitor. Yes, just by making a few user-experience changes, a public outcry turned into a media circus providing tons of coverage about the complaints and how it really effects the end-user. All of the reactions, write-ups, and blog posts led to interpretations of how to deal with the changes.
What is so great about this…the absolute irony, so many business and individuals depend on Facebook for daily communication. Companies invest tons of money on their Facebook pages, consultants, campaigns, all to capitalize from the rich traffic and communities based in this online community portal. Since Facebook is so rich in human capital…average users which are Facebook’s human capital…any changes create the feedback loop for Facebook, communicating how the changes effect the user base. FREE RESEARCH!
So a few changes have yielded free PR, free research, and a massive uprising that is really a bunch of petty complaints because you can’t find someone’s pictures fast enough. And then you fuss about it on the mere social network that made you mad. This circle…this feedback loop is the mere reason why Facebook is the number one social network in 2011. If it really made you mad, and you really did not like the updates, and you really want to make a statement…then do what you did with MySpace – QUIT USING IT. Then Facebook will get the message. But, complaining about small changes socially on a social network only reinforces what they do so well…connect people with a common cause. It just so happened to be Facebook today.
***Image from SomeEcard.com
Yes, it’s ironic for all the reasons you mention, although some of the issues are non-trivial interface changes, like Docs not being viewable… at all – basically invisible – but, yes, I agree with your overall statement.
However, I have a question – not about Facebook, but about the adplanner link. Why the heck is Google not on it? At all? (and no, this has nothing to do with G+ vs. Facebook, etc.) I’m just curious. After all, google.com is still the _actual_ number 1 most visited site on the web (according to Alexa, 50.7% of ALL internet users in the entire world visited the site *yesterday*)
Interestingly, to me, the number 1 site clicked *from* to get to google.com and the number 1 site clicked *to* from google.com are both facebook.com.
Anyway, their absence on their own list made me wonder. I mean, even if facebook.com was the #1 most visited site (and yes, they are by far the #1 most visited social site), I’d still expect google.com to rank at least above alot.com at #100.