2012 - Cool Wall - 5 - Facebook

[bsmooth]

Wait a minute, ya'll voted WoW seriously un-cool in 2010? What? I'm gonna have to go dig up this thread and check out the comments on that one. Ya'll are getting a downvote from me on that one.

FB is cool. Was very cool back when my kids were in college so that I could keep up with what was going on with their lives, but now that they are all out of school, I don't use it much.

I was a WOW player then, so do not blame me

[bsmooth]

I think that Facebook is becoming uncool...not because it is popular, but because it now connects with every other program under the sun to where it's so bloated that it's hard to use.

I really like playing Family Feud on my phone.  But I resent that I get notifications through Facebook on it.  I don't like to have to "like" things to unlock their content.  It pisses me off that I'm asked to "like" an article I haven't even read yet, in order to read it.  Facebook needs to clamp down on how free the platform is.  What made Facebook so great to begin with, unlike Myspace, is that it really limited what you can do.

Facebook is a great tool to keep people connected easily.  But it's way out of control.

I hate the new timeline thing. It makes loading pages longer and too cluttered. It is now like Myspace without all the gaudy, sparkly pages.

[Dave Gray]

^ That's my concern.

Watch the Social Network.  What made Facebook great was exclusivity, no (or at the very least, extremely limited and targeted) advertising, and a clean, uniform look.

1) Exclusivity - completely gone.  To be clear, I'm not suggesting that only college students should get a Facebook page.  But when people have multiple profiles, profiles for their cat, profiles for their young children, or personal profiles for their business, it's too much and clutters the space.

2) Advertising - dead.  It's not even Facebook driven ads that bother me, it's that everything is tied to coaxing you into "liking" something in order to deliver content.  Since I play Family Fued, it's going to post all of my stupid crap to everyone else's page, in a constant reminder for them to play too.  It's horrible.

3) Uniform look - Timelines are killing some of this, but it goes to advertising, too.  Too many groups, too much going on, too much sparkle and bling.

[Thundergod]

Agreed on the timeline crap. It's cluttered, unorganized and myspac'y'. Hearing that all profiles will default to it soon. Man that'll suck if it's true. Bleh

[Buddhagirl]

I can't figure out where anything is in Timeline. It SUCKS.

[Brian Fein]

I don't even know what you're talking about.  What's a Timeline?

Dave, I have seen a page someone made a profile for their unborn baby.  The sonogram was the profile picture.  The mom would post stuff there regularly, speaking from the baby's point of view.  Stuff like "I can't wait to be born, it sounds like fun out there" and "Too bad my dad is such a deadbeat"

Just weird.

[Dave Gray]

So, I've been re-tooling Facebook to try to make it useable.

(I think) I've managed to stop others from posting to my wall, creating awkward situations where sensitive information gets on the wrong eyes that complicates my life.  ...not big deal stuff, but if I have a party and someone writes on my wall to thank me, I don't want everyone else that I didn't invite seeing it, for example.

I've also (one by one) been changing which posts I want to see from people I know.  Unless I find them particularly interesting, I'm unsubscribing (though not un-friending) those that I don't know personally on a regular basis.  Those that I am very close with (like my wife), I changed to show every update.  And people that I know, but aren't really close with, I'm showing only "important updates".  At least now, the homepage isn't just a random smattering of useless info.

We'll see how that goes.  I'm also pairing down the things I "Like" (in terms of businesses and clubs) to only things that I'm interested in updates about.  I like Taco Bell, but I don't want to see their advertising about new tacos.  However, I want to get updates from certain musicians, so I don't miss out on concerts. Which brings me to this: Do you guys care about TDMMC on Facebook?  I try to put little info here and there, but most of the responses are from names that I don't recognize.  How do you feel about it?  Do you use it?  Ignore it?  Do you even "like it"?

[bsfins]

I saw this morning....I'm not on facebook,but Dave could something like this help you? (or other people that don't like the changes)
http://lifehacker.com/5892826/how-to-make-facebook-infinitely-better-with-one-browser-extension

[Phishfan]

This is a perfect example of why I think Facebook is uncool. Why would you need to get every facebook update from your wife? You speak with her daily, you sleep with her nightly. Why would even need Facebook to keep up with her life? I just hate the idea.

[Pappy13]

I see the updates, but don't comment on them on Facebook, rather I come to the forums to discuss them if I'm interested. So yes, I do like that I seeing those updates on Facebook, but no I don't really use Facebook to respond to them.

[Dave Gray]

This is a perfect example of why I think Facebook is uncool. Why would you need to get every facebook update from your wife? You speak with her daily, you sleep with her nightly. Why would even need Facebook to keep up with her life? I just hate the idea.

Facebook updates aren't necessarily what you're doing.  In fact, I'd argue that good Facebookers don't do that.  But, people post interesting links.  I want to see my wife's links and interests that she runs across during the day.

[Phishfan]

That makes some sense then. Not using the tool, I had something else in mind.