Has Facebook degraded itself to MySpace’s level?
Facebook had a little nip, tuck, and lift today with a few subtle changes that are designed to enhance users’ experiences and make networking a little easier (what other changes are there for a social networking site?); however, are there any changes that can be made to patch the image of Facebook to its original user group: college students?
For the sake of news, I feel compelled to report today’s changes; to Facebook’s credit, the structure and layout of their site is just short of perfect. Today’s modifications:
1. Updated menu system for navigating groups, events, friends, and profiles.
2. A really really good menu system..the same one as above..but the changes are great.
As simple as a menu drop-down navigation system is, implementation had been a long time comin’.
As lovely as format and structural changes are, they aren’t necessary. Facebook, until late, had a few key strengths that set it apart from other social networking sites, specifically, Myspace:
1. Uniformity of navigation and profile presentation – The beauty of Facebook is the simplicity. There are no difficult user-uploaded images or annoying videos no one but you wants to watch to wait to finish loading. Everything is clean, neat, and easily recognizable.
When you’re viewing someone’s profile, you know where to look to find the information you seek. Posting on walls, sending messages, etc. are all very simple because profile lengths are standardized, text can be clearly read, and there aren’t overtly cheesy backround images composed of your favorite pictures no one cares to see interfering with your reading.
2. Users can control who sees their information and what they see – this caused a huge backlash last year when Facebook released a surprise update that opened up literally all users’ activities for the world to see.
Though Facebook quickly added features to hide specific actions, the fallout was unsettling. The privacy users thought they had was momentarily compromised, and trust in Facebook was lost to many.
Regardless, Facebook has some great privacy settings, and options are always better than no options. With MySpace, you either see a profile or you don’t.
3. The final benefit to Facebook (which was stripped away a while back) was exclusiveness to the collegiate community. Now, to those of you out of college, not in college, or not planning on ever attending, this might seem a bit haughty and stuck up; in a way, you’re right.
You see, to college students, there is safety in a place designed specifically for college students. You know what you’re getting into, and you know (generally) who else uses the site. In essence, you know you’re NOT on MySpace.
What’s wrong with another MySpace? The problem with Facebook working hard to become or best MySpace is that MySpace is open to the good, the bad, and the ugly. When’s the last time you heard of Facebook being a venue for child abuse?
Furthermore, how safe do you really feel as a user of MySpace? I can tell you, I don’t feel particularly warm and fuzzy. I’m constantly barraged by message viruses, pornographic invitations, and friend requests from uber-shady looking characters.
What Facebook was, prior to allowing anyone and everyone to join, was a safe haven to network with your friends. Now that Facebook is completely open to the public, users have to worry about potential employers investigating their personal lives, those same creepy old guys soliciting them for “friendship” from MySpace, and having their personal information used to negative ends.
Now, we all understand why Mr. Zuckerman and Facebook moved to open Facebook to everyone: its very hard to be considered a competitor in the social networking arena when your venue is exclusive to one target group. More users mean more visitors, and more visitors mean more revenue from ads and marketing.
However, by selling out to the corporate devil, Facebook destroyed the safe haven and ideal networking site to the collegiate community across the US. I’m not speaking for myself; if you peruse Facebook you will find plenty of groups based on the dislike of Facebook being open to the public.
Pretty menus and dropdowns aside, we’re left with a prettier, more organized MySpace. That leaves my heart a little sad. Mr. Zuckerman, was it worth it?
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April 12th, 2007
Social networking irritations are everywhere…what widgets you can use, whether you can get paid for the eyeballs you bring, who can see your personal content (bosses/predators/recruiters?), moving friends and content between sites, and some sites (Facebook) don’t even let you put HTML on your profile.
Minggl solves all of these problems TODAY and Facebook cannot block the content it serves—check it out!!