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FACEBOOK
FRUSTRATIONS
by
Phil Staudt
Oct 26, 2009
A few days ago Facebook changed the main page that everybody logs in to, with no notice. Even going to Facebook's own pages, the explanations they put up were not very explanatory. That is because Facebook allows 25 year old geniuses to make all their policies and decide what everybody in the world wants. My criticism is not of the 25 year old geniuses at Facebook, but the fact that they think that they would not be better off having some people with real business experience on board.
When you look at your home page, make sure you are looking at "Live Feed". If you see "View Live Feed" then you are viewing "News Feed" and if you see "View News Feed" you are viewing "Live Feed". Live Feed is just like before, except that they added more info in the feed. News Feed is a new thing that Facebook created so that they can pick things that they think that you want to view, based on comments and popularity, and topics they want people to see so that they vote according to Facebook in the next elections.
The new "News Feed" is useless and stupid, but it is easy to
ignore.
The good thing is that when you go to "All Friends" you see a box that says "Create New List", which lets you label a new feed and create a new feed with only the friends you pick to be in that feed. That works great for me, and I think it is a good feature, because I have now created different feeds for my Las Vegas friends, Portland friends, marketing, news, and a family + friends feed for people I really do know.
Facebook could tell people about this feature and warn them that they need to watch and see if they are viewing the feed that they want, but that would be good customer service and good business, which are things that Facebook seems to be
adamantly opposed to.
In the case of the latest Facebook changes on their home page feeds, the technology and ingenuity that they put into it is brilliant and very innovative, and I like it. I am
a "fan" of the Facebook fan page, so I see their posts in my feed, so that is where I found out that there were new changes. On Friday night I was reading comments from people who read the post on the Facebook fan page titled "New Views For Your Home Page", by Raylene Yung, and noticed that 98% of the comments were very negative, to say the least. People do not like change, especially without warning. Taking something that they do every day, and enjoy, and then turning it upside down without any warning or detailed description or explanation, is bad public relations.
That is why I maintain a few websites and blogs myself, and I own the domain names to them, even though they are not fancy like these social networking sites, because I have had experience being kicked off of AOL, Twitter, and Google search, and have had lots of problems with services like Facebook who hire 25 year old geniuses, and people my age to manage them, and then they are afraid to death to apply common sense that their parents tried to teach them, because they don't want to be labeled as old fashioned fuddy duddies.
Facebook is frustrating. They don't want to do too much helping. I am currently trying to figure out how to change what shows up in the Facebook search results for me, from Portland, Oregon to Las Vegas, even though every option they give me, that I have found to pick a location, says that I am in Las Vegas. My profile says I am in Las Vegas, but if you search for "Staudt" on facebook, you will find that there are only a few Staudts, and Facebook says that Phil Staudt is in Portland, Oregon. When I first set up my Facebook account earlier this year, I was in the Las Vegas network. But the reason I joined Facebook was because my relatives and their friends are on Facebook, and most of them are in Portland, Oregon, which is the area where I grew up. So I thought it would be cool to also be in the Portland, Oregon network on Facebook. When I joined that network, I found that it kicked me off of the Las Vegas, Nevada network. So, I tried to change it back. But it told me I had to wait for a few months, until September 28, to make another change. (Too much
moving, I guess???)
Since I realized that my search results made people think that I was in Portland, Oregon instead of Las Vegas, I decided to wait to look for people or request new friends until Facebook allowed me to get rid of Portland, OR in my search results. Since September 28, I tried several times to go through every place on Facebook possible to find somewhere to get myself back in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to Facebook. Because my time is limited, and because I was tricked and fooled by Facebook into sabotaging my own URL address permanently (see story below), I just let it slide. But since I am pressured into using Facebook, not because I like it, but because it is the most popular social media website in the world, I have to keep up on it. So today I found a little more info.
When I checked my networks, Facebook says I am not in a network, but in Facebook search it says I am in the Las Vegas network. So then I wasted some more time (believe it or not, facebook, my time is important also, even though I am not running one of the busiest websites in the world, and if you irritate enough small potatos like me, somebody better and newer, who actually cares about me, will knock you off of your throne). I went to the help area in Facebook for another time, and after muddling through all kinds of unrelated nonsense, I found the answer to my question, which convinces me further that the gurus running this company are lost. Here is what I found:
Where did my regional network go?
Though cities and regions are no longer considered networks, they still appear in your profile. If you were previously affiliated with a regional network, this location is now listed in the "Current City" or "Current Region" field of your profile. You can edit this information by hovering over the "Contact Information" section and clicking "Edit."
If you restricted any of your privacy settings to "My Networks and Friends," then only confirmed friends and people that are in shared networks (high school, college, or work) can see this content. If you’d like to open your content to a broader audience, you can always edit your settings from the Privacy page. |
So, Facebook decided to keep on showing network information they would not allow me to change, even though that network no longer exists, and there is nothing to replace it. Facebook couldn't have explained they changed that in the networks area; that would make sense and be courteous. I had to dig around, and find out for myself, that the reason I could not find it is because it doesn't exist any more, doesn't work, and is totally dysfunctional. In other words, I guess I am permanently listed in Facebook search as belonging to a network that they would not let me out of >>> Thanks Facebook!!! When their shift is over, they close the shop and go home, while fools like me are searching and scratching our heads to find out what they messed up since the last time I was there.
Have you ever tried to find somebody on Facebook that you lost track of 25 years ago (before the Facebook employees were born)? If there is name is Phil Staudt, they are easy to find. But if their name is Greg Johnson or Mike Brown, and you have no idea what they look like after 25 years, or where they live, forget about it. I can appreciate Facebook protecting people who do not want to be found by stalkers or exes, but what about the people who want people to be able to find them?
In another case, that is even more frustrating, Facebook changed the URL address for my personal page from my name to facebook.com/vegastaxidriver when I was setting up my first fan page for Vegas Taxi Driver, so I can link it to my website at VegasTaxiDriver.com. When I went FROM MY NEW FAN PAGE, that I had just created, and clicked on "settings", and selected a URL, they changed my personal page URL instead of my fan page, even though I was ON MY FAN PAGE when I went to settings. Then I find out that it is a permanent change and there are no do-overs. Of course, because the 25 year old geniuses in charge of their business feels it is okay to not allow anybody to have a complaint.
More and more companies are being run that way, not because there is anything wrong with hiring 25 year old geniuses, but now the bosses my age are from my generation and they are lazy and don't have enough sense to over-ride the mistakes of the 25 year old geniuses. Facebook has been criticized for their policies, and facebook says that they do them for security reasons, and good security is what has made facebook so popular.
I fear that in 10 years that airlines will have the same policies, and we will be on planes that take us to Mexico and tell us we can't come back because we hit the wrong button on a computer at the airport; and the fire departments will tell us that we told the computer the wrong apartment number the first time so they can't help us because their computer won't allow them.
When I was in high school, I looked at people my age and said to myself that when these people get in charge of things we are in trouble. Well, people my age are running the country and car companies and insurance companies and Wall Street, and it is a mess. Hopefully, the next generation will rebel against this kind of stupidity and end up being sensible and smart.
One time I had an office in Denver, about 25 years ago (before the Facebook employees were born), and the only phone company that I was allowed to use to have phone service, was Mountain Bell. I ordered two phone lines, and I had to stay at my office all day and wait for a guy to hook up a line that was already hooked up, and they charged me $200 for the hook-up. I remember thinking that some day somebody will do something that takes away the power from the almighty Bell System, which had a monopoly on phone service, and customers will have a choice, and most people will not choose the abusive company that ripped them off before. I was right. And some day, if Facebook keeps up this pattern, somebody will offer a social network that will blow Facebook away by using some common courtesy and appreciation for users.
BTW - have you checked out ning.com? It looks interesting.
by
Phil Staudt
October 26, 2009
The
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