Over the past week there has been a significant increase in backlash against the new Facebook design. Two groups in particular are rapidly nearing the 1 million user mark: Petition Against the “New Facebook” and I Hate the New Facebook. The groups have 800,000 and 700,000 respectively and they are both growing extremely fast. So how does this compare to the news feed backlash a few years back?
At the time, Facebook still had around 15 million users and more than 750,000 joined a group which protested the news feed launch. Given that it was a much larger fraction of the site, Facebook decided to implement more controls for users to manage what types of stories would show up in their friends’ feeds. This time around Facebook has learned about managing user backlash.
The reason for the sudden surge in members protesting the new design was last week’s announcement by Facebook to transfer all of the users over to the new profile. While it appears that these groups continue to grow, they will surely need to surpass the multiple millions before Facebook starts to pay attention. It’s pretty clear that Facebook has no intention of switching back to the old design.
Facebook hopes that users will simply get used to the new design. We’ll have to wait and see if the backlash quiets down or if we see a continued surge in the number of users in the groups.
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Bunch of whingers.
Comment by robbie — September 9, 2008 @ 6:12 am
I'm not sure that simply joining a Facebook group is a good indicator of…well, anything except willingness to join a particular Facebook group. It doesn't really indicate any commitment, strength of emotion, or willingness to work for anything. I'm sure that some of those joining these groups are committed to changing this decision, feel very strongly about it, and are willing to work hard. But just joining a group doesn't tell us any of those things.
Comment by Kevin R. Guidry — September 9, 2008 @ 8:50 am
We haven't joined any of those groups because we just don't see the point. Facebook has been announcing this for a while and as users, we do not pay a dime. Yeah, some features aren't included in the newer Facebook but if you take a few moments out to adjust to it, the new one isn't half bad.
Comment by Nick Stamoulis — September 9, 2008 @ 11:53 am
[...] an option to switch back to the old design. Look for a sharp increase in membership of the groups I mentioned yesterday. One of those groups is rapidly approaching 1 million users and as the shift moves into full swing [...]
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