Is Facebook’s Spam Creating an Exodus?
Posted by Nick O'Neill on February 22nd, 2008 11:10 AMSo there is continued discussion about the Facebook “adults” leaving Facebook behind because it’s making them batty (or at least they’re getting bitten by vampires and zombies which isn’t good). Rory Cellan-Jones uses yesterday’s statistics from the U.K. that Facebook has suffered its first monthly decline since becoming the largest social network in the U.K. as evidence to support his argument of an adult exodus.
In a lunch meeting yesterday, I listened to one tech luminary explain the challenge of maintaining a Facebook profile due to an massive influx of friend requests and application invitations. Facebook has added a number of tools but for many it has been too little, too late. Honestly, adults that spend hours on Facebook are probably not making the best use of their time. I myself have tried to reduce my total Facebook usage but as the primary writer of this blog it has become increasing difficult.
While sitting at lunch yesterday I began to wonder if all these new spam measures being enacted by Faebook are reactionary as well as protection against this proclaimed exodus. Does Facebook have access to early warning signs that we haven’t seen? Perhaps the naysayers are right and last month’s decline in the U.K. is going to be continued into February in March. For the time being, I’m going to continue cheering Facebook and I am still bullish on the company. Do you think Facebook’s on the decline?
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
Yes, yes it is…if I wanted to be a zombie pirate ninja with a funwall, superwall, megawall and an ubermegasuperwall I’d ask.
It ia amazing how ‘right’ they’ve got that site and how ‘wrong’ they are letting it become via these apps etc
It’s just making people less likely to invest their time in it and ultimately that was what originally made it so much fun and so useful.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:58 am
I think there’s something too that, the block app function is great but it took far too long for them to add it.
I started with FB in October 2006 because it was so easy to use, had a clean simple look but then the F8 came and basically turned into a MySpace wannabe much to its detriment…
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Changes at Facebook and the New Landscape of Applications…
Recently, Facebook instituted new policies to crack down on the rampant spam that has plagued their platform since it launched. At the heart of the problem are “forced invites” and “passive news feeds”. The former are applicatio…
February 22nd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
You make a good point.
I know that most of my college friends have become more annoyed with facebook due to all of the spam they have to deal with.
They say things like…”Facebook has gotten more annoying as the years have gone on” and “I don’t like how facebook has become commercialized.”
I remember when facebook first released the news feed….How much of a ruckus it caused…maybe that was the tipping point to the “New Age” of facebook.
After the social networking bubble bursts…what do you think will be the next wave on the internet Nick?
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:34 pm
No way Facebook is on the decline. Many of my peers (30-50 something professionals) and I feel as though Facebook is similar to back when AOL would announce “you’ve got mail!” There’s still a big fun factor in just connecting with people, nevermind all the frivolous games.
I think the big challenge with users choosing to leave Facebook, is they haven’t educated themselves as to how to use this platform effectively for business relationship building.
Since the day I joined (summer ‘07), I’ve been able to reach out and connect with TOP internet marketers, speakers, authors, actors, singers - all of whom I would’ve had difficulty reaching any other way. To me, this is still one of the *best* aspects of Facebook: the fact people respond!
As more of a business than personal user, I simply keep my activities focused on specific strategic moves. And, I ignore 99% of all app invites (thanks to ignoreall.com)!!
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Maybe it comes down to you can’t please everyone all of the time. What it did best was being a great student site, but then it opened to all to boost the numbers, & then it used to be a clean, simple site but it had to please the monetizers so now it’s as cluttered as hell.
In these ways, it lost what it had, but I thinkit’s way too early to decide whether that’s been a good thing for F/Book or not. Maybe only the next few years can tell us.
February 24th, 2008 at 12:56 am
I’ve written a desktop app that lets users receive and send Facebook messages from a regular email client (www.fblocalmail.com); handling messages in this way would also let users leverage whatever tools they have for spam filtering and information management. I’m yet to include notifications (I’m developing it in my spare time), but support will be there eventually.