Facebook has finally started integrating its new redesign into its main site. The company is betting that what users want to do is publish more information about themselves, and see more about their friends activities. The thing is, do most Facebook users actually want to do those things?
There’s a large school of thought in the Facebook application developer community that believes the majority of Facebook users actually like to do what most MySpace users also do — express themselves. And by that I mean decorate their user profiles with glittery slideshows, quizzes, lists of favorite bands, and plenty of other features that both MySpace and the old Facebook profile offered, that the new Facebook design de-emphasizes. Developer Stanislav Shalunov wrote perhaps the best thought piece on this reality, a month ago. As he puts, it there are two types of users:
Giggly 75% like pokes, quizzes, pic forwarding, fun games, selling friends, glitter on profiles. They express themselves through style and interact with friends using the mouse
Serious 25% like bookmark import, utility apps, discussions. They express themselves with text and pictures containing them and interact with friends using the keyboard. Because you’re reading this, and made it this far, you’re serious. (Giggly users tend to not read much at all, certainly not blobs of text, and quite certainly not my blog)
Facebook’s new design, as many of us have been noting since the company began testing it months ago, seems to emphasis features also seen in trendy new web services favored by us self-styled “early adopter” types. While Facebook offered status updates before messaging service Twitter existed, Facebook now features a box at the top of its users’ profile pages that asks each user to broadcast what they’re doing — similar to Twitter. Facebook also just launched an iPhone application built around its status message service, not its more general profile features.
In fact, many “early adopters” have been gleefully speculating that Twitter and Friendfeed will eventually kill Facebook because those services more openly enable the flow of information between other sites and their own.
Maybe Facebook employees should stop reading us Silicon Valley blogs, and our constant chatter about Twitter and Friendfeed.
Facebook employees have been pondering why only a fraction of its users don’t seem to actually share that many links to other web sites using its “share” feature. The new profile seems to confront this perceived problem.
The new profile emphasizes sharing by making the options to share photos, videos, notes and links really obvious — at the top of “news” feeds and right above the Twitter-like status update box on the profile mini-feeds.
Clearly, Facebook thinks that if it forces users to share stuff, then they’ll really start sharing stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook product managers are thinking “phew, now we’ve cut off the threat of Twitter and Friendfeed taking our users!”
So where does this leave us? I’ve long argued that the value of Facebook is in the fact that it has convinced millions to share real information about themselves — versus the fake information you see on MySpace and many other social networks. But the thing is, it seems Facebook users want to share real information along the lines of glittery photos.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Facebook sees a sustained protest from millions of users who don’t care about publishing, in the first place, who just want to decorate their profiles to show off to their friends. After all, the redesign seems to require a tour for many people, as Svetlana Gladkova notes over at Profy. Maybe, though, Facebook can educate the masses on the joys of publishing.
2:01 pm
Facebook’s Attack On Bling | Lonely CEO Media - Facebook Application Development and Consulting said:
[...] Eric Eldon has penned a surprisingly open-minded piece at Venture Beat about Facebook’s profile redesign. The piece is unusual in that it pops through the Silicon Valley bubble and asks one key question: What do users really want to do on social networks? [...]
5:10 pm
Facebook Main Refresh - Give Them a Break « Furrier.org - Business & Technology Blog said:
[...] Refresh - Give Them a Break July 22, 2008 Posted by John Furrier in Technology. trackback Eric Eldon writes a good post on Facebook’s new design. One thing that I think he’s on to with this post is that Facebook is targeting Silicon Valley [...]
8:53 pm
All of Facebook’s a stage, and its users merely players? » VentureBeat said:
[...] Eric is rather skeptical about how the new Facebook redesign will appeal to most users, I quite like it. Of course, I also live in the Bay Area and am a “minimalist snob about [...]
12:00 am
Is Facebook’s Redesign Aimed at Silicon Valley, Not Everywhere Else? | Eric Eldon | Voices | AllThingsD said:
[...] Read the rest of this post Print all_things_di220:http://voices.allthingsd.com/20080722/eldon/ Sphere Comment Tagged: Eric Eldon, Facebook, VentureBeat, Voices | permalink [...]
12:33 am
links for 2008-07-22 | Yostivanich.com said:
[...] Is Facebook’s redesign aimed at Silicon Valley, not everywhere else? » VentureBeat I like Facebook’s redesign at the same time Facebook should focus on their core audience outside of Silicon Valley and the tech world. (tags: facebook webdesign myspace web2.0 technology) [...]
5:21 pm
Live-blogging Facebook’s f8 developer conference: Translations, Connect, fundings, and more » VentureBeat said:
[...] Now talking about site design. Talking about wall+mini feed in new user profile page. Apps that keep people sharing will be rewarded, not about apps that let users stick static stuff on profiles. [Launched on Monday, we have more thoughts on it here.] [...]
4:55 pm
Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: July 24, 2008 said:
[...] Redesign, Developer Program Perhaps the most important info of the week is the newly launched redesign, which some feel isn’t aimed at mainstream, which some suggest looks like Friendfeed, as well [...]
10:36 am
What is Facebook for? « Jacob Kramer-Duffield thinks said:
[...] 25, 2008 by jkd Alice Marwick directed me to an interesting analysis on Facebook’s redesign, which posits that, Facebook’s new design, as many of us have been [...]
3:44 am
The New Facebook: ein gelungener Relaunch auf datenschmutz.net said:
[...] Venturebeats findet allerdings, dass sich das neue Design zu sehr an “Early Web 2.0 Adopters” richtet (die deren Meinung nach *nur* in Silicon Valley zuhause sind) [...]
9:34 pm
tiara.org » Link roundup for July 24, 2008 said:
[...] roundup for July 24, 2008 July 24, 2008 on 1:30 am | In delicious | Is Facebook’s redesign aimed at Silicon Valley, not everywhere else? » VentureBeat Nice article about how FB is retooling to aim to “serious” users rather than those who [...]
11:15 am
Facebook news feeds get more useful through new filtering options » VentureBeat said:
[...] — how many people sort their Facebook friends into lists, by the way? — or the redesign in general. But that’s Facebook’s problem; personally, I’m happy with the [...]
5:54 pm
Facebook’s forthcoming iPhone app to be more like its web site; that site redesign was no coincidence » VentureBeat said:
[...] to launch a new version of its iPhone application in September, that will make the app more like the newly-redesigned web site. So, the deeper rationale for the site redesign, maybe, was to make it easier to replicate on [...]
10:28 am
The Facebook redesign is slowly being accepted as it slowly rolls out » VentureBeat said:
[...] through related third-party reports (redesign is good for sharing information), anecdotal evidence (redesign is confusing) and my own opinion (redesign is the [...]
6:17 pm
As Facebook rolls out new redesign, 2.5 million users are already protesting » VentureBeat said:
[...] While I’ve personally really liked the new profile — it helps me find interesting information faster, as it intends to do — I’ve also been concerned that this is not what most people care about. Most people seem to care about looking at profile pages, playing with apps, etc. As I wrote in June: “Is Facebook’s redesign aimed at Silicon Valley, not everywhere else?” [...]