Most of the recent changes at facebook are highly user unfriendly. Not sure why facebook is imposing these changes, whose inconvenience is obvious. May be they’re over confident that they’re popular enough to call a shot, or maybe they’ve decided to milk their inventory (we, the users) more, by forcing them to spend more and more time on facebook.
Listing some of the recent changes below, I am sure you have noticed/experienced most of them
1. Adding people to facebook groups without consent of individuals: Anyone can create any group and add their friends at will to this group. By default new member starts receiving an email alert for each and every update. While I don’t mind being part of some relevant groups, facebook or group owners are not paying me to spend all my time on group activities and have no right to flood me with notifications. My only option is to manually leave the group or edit settings not to receive any alerts. This is one of the most criticized facebook change of recent times.
2. Can’t reject a friend request: Facebook is no more giving an option to reject a friend request. It shows only 2 options-Confirm and NOT NOW, apparently declaring “you can confirm now or later, but can’t reject” Why is that? What makes facebook think users will eventually approve each and every friend invites? Couple of work-arounds are to completely ignore the request or accept and then remove the friend.
3. Deleting an update is a 3 step process: Earlier we could just directly remove an update, not it takes 3 mouse clicks- click on the x mark, select remove post and then confirm deletion. Is this not a measure to discourage people from deleting the updates?
4. Friendship pages: (They contain the public Wall posts and comments between two friends, photos in which both are tagged, Events they RSVP'd for together and more. You'll be able to see a friendship page if you are friends with one of the people and have permission to view both people's profiles. This new thing is a nice way to share mutual experiences of you and a friend, but has serious implications on privacy as it exhibits mutual information to general public
What’s your take? Are there some other changes/features that are annoying you? Any recent changes that you liked a lot?
Related: Notes from Facebook Developer's garage, Chennai * December 2006 post: Orkut & employee productivity * Jan 2007 post: orkut as a Marketing tool (these 2 posts are probably irrelevant now) * Email Superstitions *
Listing some of the recent changes below, I am sure you have noticed/experienced most of them
1. Adding people to facebook groups without consent of individuals: Anyone can create any group and add their friends at will to this group. By default new member starts receiving an email alert for each and every update. While I don’t mind being part of some relevant groups, facebook or group owners are not paying me to spend all my time on group activities and have no right to flood me with notifications. My only option is to manually leave the group or edit settings not to receive any alerts. This is one of the most criticized facebook change of recent times.
2. Can’t reject a friend request: Facebook is no more giving an option to reject a friend request. It shows only 2 options-Confirm and NOT NOW, apparently declaring “you can confirm now or later, but can’t reject” Why is that? What makes facebook think users will eventually approve each and every friend invites? Couple of work-arounds are to completely ignore the request or accept and then remove the friend.
3. Deleting an update is a 3 step process: Earlier we could just directly remove an update, not it takes 3 mouse clicks- click on the x mark, select remove post and then confirm deletion. Is this not a measure to discourage people from deleting the updates?
4. Friendship pages: (They contain the public Wall posts and comments between two friends, photos in which both are tagged, Events they RSVP'd for together and more. You'll be able to see a friendship page if you are friends with one of the people and have permission to view both people's profiles. This new thing is a nice way to share mutual experiences of you and a friend, but has serious implications on privacy as it exhibits mutual information to general public
What’s your take? Are there some other changes/features that are annoying you? Any recent changes that you liked a lot?
Related: Notes from Facebook Developer's garage, Chennai * December 2006 post: Orkut & employee productivity * Jan 2007 post: orkut as a Marketing tool (these 2 posts are probably irrelevant now) * Email Superstitions *
small correction on reg friendship request, FB gives two options, CONFIRM and IGNORE.
ReplyDeleteI guess that was earlier... Currently I see only 2 options- Confirm and Not Now..
ReplyDeletePls check again
Hmmmm ... did not notice this change yet... will take a look.
ReplyDelete[OT] - I used to read this blog as information is diverse and useful. However, it looks like full feeds have been disabled now. This blog us blocked at my primary source of internet access and hence feed readers (like google reader) was my only source. With that being disabled, you have lost one reader. This is sad fact, at least for me.
ReplyDeleteDear BRS,
ReplyDeleteI've enabled full feed now.
The reason behind half feed were 2: Lots of websites were duplicating my content, by simply copying them from the feed.
The other reason is that I also wish my readers to visit the actual blog once a while...
LR, ok, let us know once you experience them
ReplyDeleteI am particularly annoyed at the feature that allows people to bring you into a group against your consent. It's highly irritating and I am not sure what the angle for Facebook is
ReplyDeleteTrue! But, I guess I haven't thought much about this. May be, I need to give it some thought!
ReplyDeletefacebook has been always like this. they many times force changes on us!
ReplyDeletethe friendship button definitely and also the not now option! But you can still go in and delete the requests...
ReplyDeleteGo to friend request and select delete request option... thats what i do once i accumalate a few requests you also have a delete all option...
i jus find it a little tedious
NRI: What's more irritating is that by default facebook starts sending notification about every small activity in the group, as if we've no other work but to keep looking at facebook.
ReplyDeleteSankara, for a moment your comment sounded too generic... Do give it some thought, or may be you'll realize when someone adds you to the group.
Joshi
Yes, we're just an inventory for them, not customers.
Anu
Yes, there're a few work-arounds
I just opened my FB account to see me added in two groups .. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr... Annoying and overriding our privacy.
ReplyDelete