Facebook launched a redesign today (September 5, 2006) which changed the layout of the homepage and introduced a few new features. The Facebook redesign introduced, "News Feed" which on the surface appears to be an excellent feature. It leverages the users attention to show the most recent activity of the 9.5 million users in the community and displays it on the homepage. The "News Feed" display items in a feed reader like "river of news" stream of Facebook updates. The redesign enables Facebook to harness the attention of its users.
Alternatively, the users, mostly undergraduate students around the country do not agree, as they find the "News Feed" feature an invasion of their privacy and "basically creepy." Using the "groups" feature of Facebook to rally together, one user, Ben Parr of Northwestern University, created a group called "Students Against Facebook News Feed." The group's description reads as follows:
"We want to feel just a LITTLE bit of privacy, even if it is facebook. News Feed
is just too creepy, too stalker-esque, and a feature that has to go."
Open since early this morning "Students Against Facebook News Feed" already has over 60,000 members and is growing literally by the minute (it was only 50,000 members when I started writing this article). Group members are pledging to stop updating their profiles until the new features are removed or altered. There is also a call to "boycott" Facebook on September 12th.
Will users grow more comfortable with the new design? Or will more of the 9.5 million Facebook users join the revolt? It will be interesting to see how Facebook handles the situation since privacy settings have remained the same yet students feel more exposed.
Here is a message from Mark himself, the founder of Facebook:
We’ve been getting a lot of feedback about Mini-Feed and News Feed. We
think they are great products, but we know that many of you are not immediate
fans, and have found them overwhelming and cluttered. Other people are concerned
that non-friends can see too much about them. We are listening to all your
suggestions about how to improve the product; it’s brand new and still
evolving.We’re not oblivious of the Facebook groups popping up about this (by
the way, Ruchi is not the devil). And we agree, stalking isn’t cool; but being
able to know what’s going on in your friends’ lives is. This is information
people used to dig for on a daily basis, nicely reorganized and summarized so
people can learn about the people they care about. You don’t miss the photo
album about your friend’s trip to Nepal. Maybe if your friends are all going to
a party, you want to know so you can go too. Facebook is about real connections
to actual friends, so the stories coming in are of interest to the people
receiving them, since they are significant to the person creating them. We
didn’t take away any privacy options. [Your privacy options remain the same.]
The privacy rules haven’t changed. None of your information is visible to anyone
who couldn’t see it before the changes. If you turned off your wall to
non-friends, no one who is not your friend will be able to see a post on your
wall. Your friends can still see it; it hasn’t changed. Secret groups and secret
events remain secret from other people. Pokes and messages remain as private
interactions. Nothing you do is being broadcast; rather, it is being shared with
people who care about what you do—your friends. We’re going to continue to
improve Facebook, and we want you to be part of that process. Test out the
products and continue to provide us feedback. Use your privacy settings so you
can feel most comfortable using the site. We hear you, and we appreciate the
feedback.Stay tuned... Mark
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