After much hype, speculation and resistance from users, Facebook will today reveal its latest updates.
Users are already struggling to adjust to the updated News Feed, ticker, subscribe feature and friend lists. Reports from those who have seen today's updates prior to their release indicate that Facebook users should brace themselves to have the rug pulled out from under them.
According to Mashable's Ben Parr, the new updates will “profoundly change social media”. Today's event has also been pegged as the biggest thing to come from Facebook since the launch of the platform.
While few things are certain, the unveiling of Facebook's music service is a given. A leaked tweet from Facebook's creative director, Ji Lee, said: “The 'Listen with your friend' feature in ticker is blowing my mind. Listen to what your friends are listening. LIVE.”
The tweet was quickly removed.
One-stop shop
Other expected updates include new buttons to give more depth to the “Like” functionality, with buttons designed specifically for interaction with different types of media - such as “Read,” “Listened” and “Watched”.
It is clear, however, that Facebook is aiming to become a one-stop shop for media consumption. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated earlier this year, the social network is no longer measuring itself by numbers of users.
Zuckerberg says the metrics to watch now are those that better reflect the idea of “social as a platform” - such as the number of items being shared.
Resistance ahead
Yesterday's changes to the News Feed have already sparked resistance from users.
“This is total garbage. I'm closer and closer to ditching to G+ where they ACTUALLY listen to user feedback!”
“Facebook, you're not near as smart as you think you are. Your algorithms for deciding what I want to see, who I want to talk to or what I think is important are 99.999% of the time the exact polar opposite of what I want. Everything you do to try to simplify things only complicates things more.”
“I hate the new layout. I hate that you have turned what I see into a popularity contest.”
Previous pitfalls
In the past, Zuckerberg has responded to the manner in which users typically resist changes on Facebook, saying: “Any change can be a big deal to our users, because this is how they connect with their family and friends. So when you move things around, it can be perceived as being not a positive thing even when it's a positive change.”
In 2006, when the rollout of the News Feed and Mini-Feed resulted in an uproar over privacy settings, Zuckerberg responded saying: “Somehow we missed the point of the News Feed and Mini-Feed and we didn't build in the proper privacy controls right away. This was a big mistake on our part, and I'm sorry for it.”
The company then re-coded better privacy controls as a result. The launch of an advertising tool called Beacon in 2007 was also met with resounding negativity from users. Again Zuckerberg responded to complaints admitting the mistakes they had made in building and handling the feature, and improving it as a result.
* Follow @ITWeb on Twitter for live tweets during the f8 conference this evening. The presentations will also be live-streamed on Facebook. The keynote address will start at 7pm SA time.
Share