Facebook launched a redesign today (September 5, 2006) which changed the layout of the homepage and introduced a few new features. The Facebook redesign introduced, "News Feed" which on the surface appears to be an excellent feature. It leverages the users attention to show the most recent activity of the 9.5 million users in the community and displays it on the homepage. The "News Feed" display items in a feed reader like "river of news" stream of Facebook updates. The redesign enables Facebook to harness the attention of its users as TechCrunch highlighted by saying:
"It’s interesting because Facebook clearly gets the idea of an attention metastream, where page views aren’t the currency that matters but rather how effectively the service allows users to communicate. Facebook users will now have a much easier way of staying up to date on what their friends are up to."
Alternatively, the users, mostly undergraduate students around the country do not agree, as they find the "News Feed" feature (shown to the right) an invasion of their privacy and "basically creepy." Using the "groups" feature of Facebook to rally together, one user, Ben Parr of Northwestern University, created a group called "Students Against Facebook News Feed." The group's description reads as follows:
"We want to feel just a LITTLE bit of privacy, even if it is facebook. News Feed is just too creepy, too stalker-esque, and a feature that has to go."
Open since early this morning "Students Against Facebook News Feed" already has over 60,000 members and is growing literally by the minute (it was only 50,000 members when I started writing this article). Group members are pledging to stop updating their profiles until the new features are removed or altered. There is also a call to "boycott" Facebook on September 12th.
Will users grow more comfortable with the new design? Or will more of the 9.5 million Facebook users join the revolt? It will be interesting to see how Facebook handles the situation since privacy settings have remained the same yet students feel more exposed.
*Special thanks to LBJ for assisting with this article.
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woaah, am i delusional?
all of this information was avilable before, because of the fact that users MADE it available. if you don't want people that you have allowed to be in contact with you to have your information, here is how you can fix it:
DON'T POST IT
Posted by: the web guy | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 09:53 AM
I totally agree.. if they are so concerned about their privacy why post it in the first place. They still have features that can only allow your friends to see what you have posted. Of course when people invite people to be their friends just to see how many they can get from different universities guess they are SOL with that one.
Posted by: Rachel | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 10:29 AM
I think the main reason people don't like it is that before the feeds, changing something on your profile or your status did not leave behind the old information to compare it to. if a user changed their listed boyfriend, no one who hadn't seen the previous name would be know about the previous relationship. Now any change is listed in order and by the exact time it was made.
Posted by: gambit | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 10:51 AM
@ the web guy - it's not a matter of posting things, it's what you do. I don't think you are too familiar with the new facebook feeds feature so let me tell you more. For example, if I write on your wall, that action is visible in the feeds thing. If I friend someone, that is also visible. So it's clearly not directly related to posting information, it's about the interactions you make on Facebook, which were previously not-visible.
Posted by: Paul Stamatiou | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 10:56 AM
Yes this information was available before but it wasn't this easy to get it either! I don't want everyone on my friends list knowing what comment I left on someone's wall or picture, when I changed my status, etc. at any given time that they log on. Usually you'd have to go out of your way to check this stuff, which no one does. That's where privacy comes in. No one checks anyone's page like that because no one truly wants to put that much energy into it and I'm glad they don't. Facebook just made a lazy person's day by adding that. Michael is right, no new information is being made available, but no one goes searching for that stuff either. I personally don't want to know who my friends have befriended and who's wall they wrote on. It's ridiculous!
Posted by: Corvida | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 11:17 AM
webguy, that's like saying "if you don't want google knowing you look up porn, DON'T SEARCH FOR IT". well, as a guy, i'm gonna do it anyway, and i rely on the good graces of google to not release that information...at least not to the public. there is a HUGE difference between having the information and releasing the information to the public (in case you've been living under a rock, see AOL). that being said, this information isn't as sensitive as AOL's MOAFU blunder, but one of the attractive aspects of facebook was that it was not quite enough detail to completely stalk someone, yet discrete enough to where everyone did it to some extent. now, everyone's activity is out in the open, and people don't appreciate the level of detail their actions on the facebook are publicly tracked. it ain't cool. now everyone, not just big brother, is watching.
Posted by: Tofu | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 11:19 AM
I just wrote up a little script last night that transforms the 'News Feed' to RSS.
PHP and all the source is there: http://blog.nemik.net/2006/09/06/facebook-news-feed-rss/
Posted by: nemik | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 11:53 AM
Its a matter of letting users configure their page views as they want it. Don't force the news feeds, make them optional not inconfigurable views. Give the facebook users the choice and the problem is solved. No big deal.
Posted by: Jimbo | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 12:06 PM
190,000 at 12:34pm
Posted by: joe | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 12:33 PM
For non-facebook users who want to find discussion of this new feature (and can't look at the discussion in the facebook groups) there is activity at the Facebook discussion room www.talkface.com
Posted by: Richard Price | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 02:11 PM
"For example, if I write on your wall, that action is visible in the feeds thing. If I friend someone, that is also visible. So it's clearly not directly related to posting information, it's about the interactions you make on Facebook, which were previously not-visible."
Of course it was. Anyone who viewed the wall would see you've posted there.
Nothing's changed, people! Get a grip!
Posted by: Dan G | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 02:12 PM
In essence, this feature is accelerating the degree to which students are having to grapple with the “rules of the attention economy” in social networks: your behavior records are your currency. More of my thoughts are at http://www.insidefacebook.com
By the way, the “Students Against Facebook News Feed” group on Facebook now has 225,000 members and is currently adding about 20,000 new members an hour.
Justin
Posted by: Justin Smith | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 02:25 PM
Frank, and others for that matter -
I just started a group called "Students *For* The New Facebook".
For one, as best I can tell, no one else has, which is surprising.
Secondly, I actually think, as you note here, that current facebookers just don't see how beneficial this can be on a site like Facebook.
Of course, I was only able to invite 60 people (I'm in no way an avid facebooker), so no telling if it'll spread.
Maybe you can help get the word out.
Posted by: Michael Haydel | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 04:54 PM
Here is a live counter of the number of people who have joined the "Students against Facebook News Feed" group on Facebook..... 300,000 and climbing
http://digg.com/tech_news/Facebook_Stalker_City_Includes_LIVE_Counter
Posted by: Steve | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 05:37 PM
"Anyone who viewed the wall would see you've posted there"
It tells someone EVERYONE's wall that you post on. That means someone previously UNABLE to view your comment on a different university wall will know you wrote on the wall. Additionally, when you have 400 friends, very few people will check each of 400 people's walls every day to see where you posted. Now, that information is easily accessible... That is very much unlike how it is now.
Posted by: Ron | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 05:49 PM
Mark Zuckerberg: Founder of Facebook Responds, read additional details at: http://techaddress.wordpress.com/2006/09/06/mark-zuckerberg-founder-of-facebook-responds/
Posted by: TechAddress | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 07:43 PM
the anti- news feed group has over 400,000 members now, including myself. I think that a reaction like that in over the course of less than two days shows a pretty strong representation of the comunity. Lets see if they could get that many to beg for the feeds to stay.
Posted by: Blake | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 09:20 PM
Frank,
It will be interesting to see where this goes. It seems to me that someone at Facebook totally missed the mark on what their users wanted and needed. Did they ever bother to ask their users? Or if they did, I wonder how they went about it. Something went wrong.
In related news, I just finished an extensive post (with visual) about creating compassionate designers. Sort of related to this.
http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2006/09/creating_compas.html
Posted by: David Armano | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 10:54 PM
Again, I am going to ask "What's the big deal?" The new feature on Facebook is a good thing. Not only do I not have to go out of my way to check up on the few friends who I really do want to know about on Facebook, now I don't have to go out of my way for anyone. I can see what over 200 people are up to by just logging on. It is convienent. As a Marketing major, this is a great thing! Now all I have to do for market research is go online and see what people are up to within my community. All of the information that you post on Facebook is public anyway, the secret stuff is still secret and doesen't show up on the newsfeed. People are just freaking out because the times are changing and things are being updated. If a new person came to Facebook and got a ton of friends, they wouldn't even question the newsfeed. Change freaks people out, it pops their bubble, and they don't know what to do so they lash out. That's all that's happening now, people are lashing out at something they don't understand by making new groups about it and trying to boycott it.
http://blog.myspace.com/aquarius8me
Posted by: Nate | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 11:49 PM
The "Students Against Facebook News Feed" members now total 520,103!
Ironically, I found out about the group throught the news feed.
Posted by: Donna Buckley | Thursday, September 07, 2006 at 04:09 AM
There are now almost 800,000 members in the "Students Against Facebook News Feed" group.
To the very first comment: certain things are visible, yes, but other things shouldn't be. When you comment on someone **else's** facebook, why should everyone be notified? It is an interesting feature, but ill-concieved.
Posted by: Jen | Sunday, September 10, 2006 at 01:40 AM
"Of course it was. Anyone who viewed the wall would see you've posted there."
Not true. Facebook is more secure then MySpace-- you can only view the profiles of people who add you as friends. So if I write on someone's wall... with the news feed, everyone can see it, even if they aren't that person's friend.
Plus, as someone else mentioned, all of your actions are logged- if I change my status, it keeps a record of my old status, etc.
Posted by: Jen | Sunday, September 10, 2006 at 01:44 AM
Heres a post on facebook's new look... http://www.technati.com/2007/04/11/facebook-get-a-new-look/
Posted by: Facebook Gets a New Look | Wednesday, April 11, 2007 at 02:47 PM
Forget Facebook. The new threat for MySpace is YUWIE.. you get paid when people view your profile. Clever idea, giving advertising revenue back to the user. You also get paid for the profile views of people you refer.
Posted by: Alan | Sunday, August 12, 2007 at 12:16 PM