He's Almost Right
He won't be clogging my news feed any time soon. There's an easy answer, Don't use Backside Book!
Facebook has warned marketing types who use the free-content ad network to tout brands through so-called "promotional Page posts" that they will soon be extirpated. The Mark Zuckerberg-run company put admen on notice yesterday in a blog post that made it clear that Facebook will only allow brands to promote their own gear if …
In my non representative (i.e. non IT pros) Facebook is used by 'hip' over 50s/parents of teenagers. Me , I looked at it when it first started:didn't care what it offered and could see the way it could go: stayed out.
Have not changed my view and more and more people I know are coming round to my opinion.
My wife is on / has an account - all it seems to do is cause her Nexus phone and tablet grind to a halt. Everything to be resolved if I uninstll the app...
"Is Facebook still around?"
Actually it is, but it's turning into what MySpace is for music, but for advertisements! Apparently they are realizing this, so it's time to cash in. So, you can read this next line...
"Facebook is clamping down on advertisers..."
as this...
"Facebook is clamping down on most of its account profiles..."
MySpace still exists because music itself has a draw on humans, however advertisements have a push. Of course don't let this affect stock prices, FaceB0rk! is for life!
@Jean Le PHARMACIEN
"...all it seems to do is cause her Nexus phone and tablet grind to a halt." <- Don't forget the sounds and beeps...all through the NIGHT!
"CammyTheCat Likes Cheese!" +1 Like - 03:54 A.M.
Yup - my 16 yo and all her friends dumped Facebook for Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr last year. At this point Tumblr seems to be the big winner for them. She who must be obeyed still uses it to swap cat pictures and stay in touch with family.
Facebook is on the way to becoming myspace for cat pictures - perhaps they'll launch a bid for FARK and the rights to Caturday?
The problem with all social media is the young. If the young could be contained in the non-adult online world, we could evaluate these entities without having all their infantile shite all over social media.
All social media have pros and cons. And are all abused and misused by little turds.
A method that would require everyone to physically prove they are over 16 before allowing any adult social media account creation would be a godsend.
Well my Router blocks all dns requests for anything to do with Facebook, Twitter and the worst parts of Google (addwords etc) as well as about a hundred tracking sites.
My Grandkids don't like it (and they are coming for Christmas) but their parents are threatening to do the same at their house.
What we say "...to enhance the user experience..."
What we mean:
A) "We are making changes that enable us to screw someone for more money".
OR
B) You are doing something we didn't anticipate and we don't like it (probably because we're missing out on an opportunity to screw someone for more money).
OR
C) Both of the above.
So what you're saying is that companies should provide services for free I mean, businesses making money is ridiculous. although I can see how this might upset the Lazy man's marketing peep (google ads, SEO, PPC, Social marketing).
Facebook of course want to be profitable and also appear lucrative to it's open market so they can keep developing it's platform across the globe. I think this is a smart move regardless of its motivation.
Maybe people should develop better brand strategies, this way they wouldn't be so reliant on the presentation platform. I think social brand sharing is a good thing but should not be free and rammed down everyones throats until the value of content is completely demolished. people leave facebook because of strategies where ads are all we see ridiculous and shitty strategies of assumption and recommend rewards forcing the users to do the jobs of the marketeers.
I welcome what facebook are doing, which is primarily inspired by powerful start ups like medium and the grid which empower the content creators not the facilitators.
Also to every other post not anonymous coward, if you're not on facebook why comment? have you become so hipster that you have actually imploded into your pretentiousness.
Everyone is different some people use twitter, some facebook who are you to impart your opinion like the activities of others should be the same as you. How about this if you don't have anything useful to say or anything which might add value why not keep your mouths shut.
It is Facebook's policy to convince us the entire world is using it and love it.
To allow Facebook to go unchallenged on its marketing output wouldn't be right.
Hearing how many have left Facebook or chose to never go their is just as relevant as those who shout it's praises every ten minutes.
My friend's on Facebook. He's not a hipster but is 50. It gets a bit silly...
He complains about how 'they' keep spying on Facbeook. I point out, info posted on someone's wall is 100% public, and reading info posted online for everyone on the planet to read is in no way "spying". (The complaint about "spying" never relates to something even remotely questionable like someone's private posts being handed over.)
He complains about Facebook "banning" various things and complains this is a freedom of speech issue. I point out, this is a corporate run web site, and they can allow or disallow anything they want, and that there ARE sites that are essentially "anything goes".
He complains about the advertising. Again, nobody's forcing anyone to use FB, I wouldn't use a site with ads thrown in all over the way FB does either.
I've seen this in people young and old, they act like they are forced into using it and seem to pretend it's a public utility like power or water instead of an ad-laden but popular web site.
Oh well.
My mum, in her 70s now, uses Facebook, but she doesn't realise how it works. That means she thinks anything that shows up on her wall is aimed at her directly,like email, so she responds to it. Worse yet, she doesn't realise the essentially public nature of anything posted, and so lets everyone know when she is going on holiday - or, more galling, that I am going away. Nothing I say seems to get through, so, even though I don't have an active Facebook account,* all sorts of people know my movements.
*I know all this because Mrs IP does have an account, and sees a fair amount of the gibberish mum pollutes the interwebs with.
My favourite is Warburton's who ask me to Like them on Facebook when I personally detest their bread as representing all that is wrong with Chorleywood Process loaves that were invented to make more bread out of less wheat during WW2 and have somehow become the default.
Theirs (and many similar promotional Facebook pages) is pure advertising and I can see why Zuck would reckon they should pay for the privilege. Trust that policy doesn't extend to Customer Support pages run by various utilities, mobile phone cos etc. which can actually be useful to users.
No, anything vaguely useful like "Customer Support pages run by various utilities, mobile phone cos etc." needs to get the hell off facebook, so I can use it, as it'll be a very cold day in hell before I unblock them at my router.
They need to man up, grab a pair, and get real hosting.
"...when I personally detest their bread as representing all that is wrong with Chorleywood Process loaves..."
Commercial bread in this country is going downhill so fast it could probably compete in the winter olympics, and since its more or less done for small bakeries, we're fucked, although I hold out some hope that bakeries north or the border are still as good as I recall.
You can add Warburtons to Kingsmills particular Axis of Evil - don't ever make the error of trying their potato scones, which seem to contain something that can only be politely described as 'perfumed'. You'll remember the experience for a long time, for all the wrong reasons.
I remember reading something a while back about everyone being 'gluten intolerant' or something, and after further testing they found the biggest issue wasn't actually gluten, but the way in which factory bread is produced, if the people who were 'slightly gluten intolerant' were switched from mass produced bread to proper bread, they were perfectly fine.
As a note, I dislike mass produced bread, it's just tasteless fluff. Sadly even the freshly baked stuff in supermarkets lacks any real taste. Gotta either make it yourself, or find a real baker, which is becoming more and more difficult these days.
The only Ad's I see are for Sunglasses, trainers and 'computer dating'.
And that's ony when a group I'm in is spammed.
AdBlock and Social Fixer -- why grumble when you can actually wrestle the thing in to submission without breraking in to a sweat?
But where will the 'FB is shite' people go now that Twitter is becoming passe?
Back to Hotmail chat?
Well, things keep progressing to the simpler and simpler.
First it was myspace where you could customize your page, pretty much write blog posts etc as statuses and nobody minded.
Then facebook where you couldn't customize, and the blog sized posts are frowned on by people.
Then twitter where you get 140 characters.
Now we have Tumblr and Instagram, which are basically just photos with a couple words as a caption.
The next logical step is a social network that just measures your brainwaves and posts on your behalf.
7:00 "Feeling sleepy"
9:00 "Feeling hungry"
10:00 "Feeling sleepy"
12:30 "Feeling hungry"
13:00 "Feeling sleepy"
Would effectively by my daily posts on such a network.
Nice to see FB accelerating its own demise. The offering was thin enough to start with and it simply has no natural direction for growth that could vaguely be considered useful or compelling. Probably not a coincidence that most announcements these days don't concern users, but ways to turn the screws with/on advertising, and that itself is self limiting judging by changing attitudes.
Without some absolute miracle of reinvention, I'd imagine their valuation doing a myspace if shareholders ever wake up long enough to smell the coffee.
And I never use it, I just connected up my PSN account so everyone who follows me or whatever the **** it is called knows when I get a trophy.
Oh and that share feature is so usefull for filling faceache up. I use it on Destiny while waiting for public events. So you get a nice view of the Mothyards.
I checked it recently some unread messages from last Christmas!!!!!!