Facebook rolled out Timeline to users yesterday. Here is why it’s cool
Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg own up to privacy mistakes
Anyone who has been online or on Facebook for a minute during the last few years will remember one thing. Facebook changes… a lot. Whether it’s tagging or photos or the newsfeed or privacy, there’s one thing Facebook does well and that’s change. The general public complains anytime there’s a change and then a few weeks later can’t remember what the old version looked like. The one area that seems to garner more complaints than others and the type that persist is privacy.
Privacy has been a big issue for a long time. People are sharing more and more and they are doing it faster. They rate at which they share and the amount they share is at the highest it has ever been and it’s increasing. It’s actually accelerating. And it will continue to with the advent of new technologies and the embedding of social networking into phones and tablets, etc. I know I’ve complained about it as well.
I use no privacy on my personal Facebook account - go look. It’s wide open. I have nothing to hide. Beyond that, I don’t trust Facebook to get it right (it’s not entirely their fault and I’ll explain why). Anyway, I am my own privacy. If I don’t want the world to know about it, I don’t say it. Plain and simple. Can’t break that privacy.
Facebook is at the forefront of this space - social networking. If you are leading the pack with no map, it’s easy to get lost. And they have. Mark Zuckerberg posted a blog today about how they always have been, are now, and will continue to be committed to privacy. He did, however, admit to making some mistakes along the way. That’s to be expected. They embrace every new technology and are quick to implement things to make their service better. There will be collateral damage along the way.
One shining example of a mistake was Beacon from a few years ago. It sent data from external websites to Facebook to target ads for people. Things you would do on some websites would appear in your Facebook newsfeed. It wasn’t malicious. It was a failed attempt to customize your experience. Today, Mark Zuckerberg said that Beacon was a mistake.
They have, in the last year to 18 months, given very granular control to individuals over privacy. They have made it easy to see what you are sharing and with whom and have total control over it. It’s different than it used to be and requires some work set it up initially, but once that is complete, it’s simple to continue the process and make minor changes to it. That doesn’t seem to be enough for people, or even for Facebook.
Today, they announced two new officer positions in the company. Chief Privacy Officer, Policy and Chief Privacy Officer, Products. These 2 people (good choices, by the way) will ensure that privacy and the ability to control it is baked into the product and all ensuing new products rather than added later in a way that is counterintuitive.
Facebook, like Twitter and Google, is also working with the Federal Trade Commission. They are working to establish agreements and standardize privacy efforts. This is not lip service from the Facebook team. They believe that if you offer people privacy and the ability to control it, then they will find comfort in the service and share more. It’s also not a bait and switch. People who feel unsafe will share nothing. People who do feel safe will share everything, specifically with who they choose to share it with.
I’ll share everything with everybody. My life is not exciting enough to be worth hiding in the first place.
Facebook makes the change everyone wants
When Facebook makes a change, the world loses its mind. The latest uproar happened just over a month ago when the newsfeed was altered. In the top right corner there is a small feed of everything your friends are doing. It annoys many people, but the point of it is that it finally takes the small, innocuous changes are out of the primary view, yet still available.
The biggest change was the primary newsfeed. It has always been set up chronologically. The change incorporated a sense of importance to certain posts and, subsequently, posts that were similar. The reason this upset users was because they were not happy having Facebook decide what was important and what was not, especially when people log in for just a few moments and don’t to sift through older, “more important” posts to get to the new stuff. On the top left corner of every post, is a small triangle that can be clicked to mark each posts as important or not. Facebook touted this as granular control, but users saw it as ahassle and an extra step to get thing back to the way they’ve always been anyway.
Facebook does listen to its users and makes changes to accomodate - where they can. Today they have included a new button at the top of the newsfeed. It is not up to each person how the stories in their feed are sorted. It can be left alone and be sorted by importance. That is the choice “Highlighted Stories First.” If you like if the old way, choose “Recent Stories First.” Things will be back to the way they were before the change.Like any other change on Facebook or other utility-like sites, we continue to use it despite our opinion of changes. We need the service more than we dislike the updates. Being out of touch and off the Facebook grid has a greater negative impact than mis-ordered posts. Eventually we adapt and, more often than not, forget what the old version even looked like anyway.
You can still highlight things and I strongly suggest you do. This serves 2 purposes. The first is you can find the important items by switching the setting. So, by changing to Highlighted Stories First you can see everything that’s important and then go back to recent. Also, there is no guarantee that this is forever (the choice I mean). Facebook may very well dump the ability to choose at some point. If you highlight all the things that are important, Facebook’s measurement algorithm will have a much clearer picture of what is important to you and be able to address that. You’ll get targeted posts instead of random ones. Take control and customize your experience.
I will be changing back to “Recent Stories First.” I liked the change and supported it, but given the choice, I like them sorted chronologically. For me it is about the fact that I’m in front of Facebook, literally, all day long. I see the important stories over and over again while scrolling to find new items. They were important in the morning, but don’t stay important all day long.
I like that they made the change and are showing an effort to take users’ concerns into consideration.
I found an issue in the much talked about Facebook for iPad app and show it here. It’s small, but exists nonetheless.
