“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” ~Arnold Bennett
After logging into Facebook this morning, I realized that the world as we know it is going to collapse in on itself. Facebook changing something fundamental like how you view your news feeds? Blasphemy! In case you hadn’t seen them yet here’s a quick run down on everything that Facebook changed:
What changed?
According to the Facebook blog the news feed is now your own personal newspaper, showing you relevant content based off the last time you logged in. What do I mean? Rather than allow you to sort your news feed by your Most Recent, it combines your top stories and most recent into your main feed. Has it been 10 hours since you last logged into Facebook? Your news feed will show you Top Stories from the past 10 hours. Been a week? You will get a rehash of the past week in your Top Stories section. This will save time as you don’t have to rummage through tons of “Went to the doctors again for my stubbed toe.” or “The barn door is open.” posts.
The one thing people are forgetting in their freak out statuses from this morning is that as you log into Facebook more it will put your newest posts towards the top in your Recent Stories section. This is a big point to keep in mind.
Why Marketers will love it. Any content you posted 10 hours ago has another shot at being seen again. People won’t have to scroll through tons of content to find your post and that’s a good thing. Remember that your posts will need to be relevant or Facebook won’t show them again. Having good content continues to be key here.
News Ticker is the bomb.
The news ticker now on display in the top right corner is an awesome feature. It borrows heavily from Google Plus’s notifications. The news ticker shows you all of the latest activity from everyone in your network. What’s so great here is this activity doesn’t include just interactions with you! If you click an item in the ticker it will allow you to interact with that post there rather than get redirected. Also very cool. Within a few minutes of using this ticker you’ll understand why I’m a big fan. As a caveat, it’s important that you make sure your sharing settings are how you want them. You can do that here.
Why the uproar? What’s the real problem?
One word: Change. People are creatures of habit; we get locked into routines. As the programmer for Maryland Management I do things like this all the time. You must adapt to the changing climates and evolve. To do that you must cut people off from old ways. How many people do you think would undo the changes to their news feed if they could? Everyone?
Facebook is trying to become a hybrid of our social media services like Google Plus and Twitter. Facebook subscriptions smell a lot like a Twitter follower. Facebook lists stink like Google Circles. Facebook is evolving… get over it.
The real problem is that people like Facebook for what they can do already – socially share things and engage with friends. They don’t care that this network wants to let you do all these other things. “Stop adding layers of crap I don’t want.” people would say. What do you say? Do you hate the new changes? Do you see the possibilities? Let’s talk about it.
