So I was wasting my life away on Facebook the other day. Innocently enough, I clicked ‘refresh’ like I sometimes do (hey, Facebook ain’t Gmail, after all), and I was greeted by possibly the most unexpected (or expected, depending on what way you slice it) interface ever.
I guess it was only a matter of time – Facebook is now basically Twitter, but with pictures and videos and all those other ’social networking’ features that people need to feel like they are truly and fully expressing themselves. Unfortunately, now those features are all incredibly easy to ignore.
My hatred for Twitter aside, that is fine. I am totally cool with letting all of you Twitter people hang out on Twitter. That is why I have Facebook, not Twitter. To me, Twitter just seems like Facebook, minus everything neat. But guess what? Now Facebook is almost entirely status updates. Fuck you, Facebook.
Twitter’s slogan, “What are you doing?” can be answered simply with “Who cares?” Honestly.
Like a good little journalist, I decided to conduct a few interviews to gauge the public’s reaction to the new Facebook interface. My curiosity was met with the insightful and somewhat cryptic “It’s lame. It’s like… the same, but different. Changed for no reason. Useless.”
Thanks to the new Facebook’s emphasis on useless status updates, I eventually realized, you know what, fuck interviews. With all these status updates flowing before me like some huge ass flood, I don’t even need to ask people – they’ve already (perhaps unwittingly) told me:
“What is with this? Not liking it at all.”
“Hate the new Facebook layout. Dear Mark Zuckerberg: Twitter is stupid, stop trying to be Twitter.”
“Ugly layout. Large fonts that make one feel dumb. Stuff everywhere. Our own page looks like shit. I think it is the worst change thus far.”
So what is this new emphasis on status updates good for? Making my job a bit easier, for one – and somehow certain people end up looking like self-important failed English majors. Which is always awesome (hey, I need to get my free entertainment somewhere).
At any rate, is this a phase? Will the world (Facebook) one day realize that Twitter is super useless and revert back to its regular state? I’m not a Luddite, I swear, I just like technological alterations to suggest progress rather than intellectual recession.
One of the attractive qualities of Facebook was its uniqueness, its ability to synthesize a lot of different aspects of internet culture and meld it into one supreme social networking site. Other sites have succeeded due to pimping out a certain niche (for instance, Twitter digs the status updates, Last.fm digs the musics, OkCupid digs the quizzes) – when one tries to morph into another, the results are never good, and the site loses what once made it popular. Is this going to turn into another Myspace-type situation where everyone emigrates from one social networking site to another?
I doubt people will – I already have like 3 years of my life documented photographically on Facebook, and I really don’t feel like re-uploading any of that. Facebook will still be able to brag of a huge populace, despite that the majority of the aforementioned user base will be increasingly frustrated with each interface change. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it! Hot damn.
16 Comments
1 snark in the dark wrote:
well who died and named you queen of social meia commentary
2 Michael wrote:
yeah. wtf mark the layout is absolute shit. facebook went down hill fast.
3 sydney wrote:
i totally agree. Facebook should probably change its name to Twitbook. i hate the new interface. fucking fuckbook.
4 Jae wrote:
Amen.
5 5H3L7R0N wrote:
word.
6 Christopher wrote:
Zackly… it’ BS.
7 HiMY SYeD wrote:
Facebook is feeling and behaving more and more like AOL did just before it purchased ICQ.
Facebook, like AOL, was a walled garden.
ICQ had grown its (free non paying) userbase larger than all the AOL (paying) userbase in a few short months.
AOL panicked and made Mirabilus, (ICQ’s owners), an offer they couldn’t refuse and bought ICQ.
Twitter won’t sell to facebook so facebook is panicking and doing such moves you just blogged about.
Excuse me while I go update my friendster profile.
8 Lee Rendleman wrote:
Couldn’t agree more!!
9 Thomas wrote:
Yeah, I hate the changes too, and I hate twitter. I liked facebook because sharing links was more important than “is digging on stupid shit that doesn’t concern anyone else…” I have always updated my status whenever I get on, but I pay more attention to the videos and links people post than anything. I guess everything must have an arc, look what happened to myspace.
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12 mark wrote:
Very interesting site, Hope it will always be alive!
13 Christian Mockery wrote:
Facebook should be called douchebook, because it is full of douches.
I mean really, even narcissists need some stimulation.
Douchebook! Yay! Gimme some of that massingill douch!
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16 Sam Hamilton wrote:
If you are tired of facebook but want a way to connect with artists and musicians then you should check out http://www.putiton.com
If you are tired of facebook but still want to connect with your friends then pick up the phone…
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