When Facebook announced that they would launch a revamped homepage and upgrade the Facebook Pages product this week, many took it as a sign that Facebook was looking to make the platform more welcoming to businesses and brands. That’s partially how Facebook pitched the concept last week during their press conference.
Today, the homepage began rolling out and one of the first things I noticed was that there is no longer a link to the “Updates” area of the inbox. What is the “Updates” area exactly? Well, it’s the space where users can view messages sent from the Pages that they have become fans of. Yes, page activity will now be displayed within their fan’s feeds but it makes me wonder how the decision was made to roll out Pages today.
Was it just to make their deadline set via a press conference last week? Perhaps the decision was made because they knew that Google was going to launch their interests based advertising today and they needed something to counter the announcement. Whatever the reason was, there’s something which is just a little bit strange about the decision to go live today.
In a normal business, the customers would be considered when a change is made. When I spoke with Peter Deng today to discuss the upgrades he clarified a few confusions of mine. The primary clarification being why on earth Facebook decided to eliminate Page update notifications from the homepage. All he could say is that they “will add enhancements” to the homepage in the near future.
Let’s be honest, this is an extremely small flaw and not everybody has access to the new homepage yet. Most Facebook Page owners probably haven’t even noticed this minor adjustment yet, but that’s not what matters. It doesn’t send the right signal to businesses when their primary method of contacting customers is cut off (or impeded), even if it is temporary.
I continue to be a huge supporter of Facebook and I am actively developing new products that will emphasize my continued commitment. As one of the company’s biggest followers, I find myself somewhat frustrated when a decision is made to sacrifice value for businesses in exchange for new features and new channels. It just doesn’t make business sense.
I personally believe that Facebook Pages presents a huge opportunity for businesses. That’s why I took the time to write the Facebook Page strategy which I published this morning. The lack of access to Page updates is small but it makes me feel like I’m leading businesses blindly and that doesn’t make for a good business.
Update
See my recent post about Facebook as status for clarification on this.
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I understand your frustration in being a business, being affected by another's choice of operations; with no indication, forethought or respect.
One service my company offers is the service of creating "Pages" for clients and updating the content on their behalf. We were shocked (although I was smiling on the inside), when we logged in to find that the page structure had changed to be more like a profile than a page. This ruins the element of a "one page – grab your attention – or at least make us think we are – so we can continue to spend time on this" feeling. Yes, this is a down-fall for business, and I think this is the real reason for your stress. As the removal of the updates button is simply a part of this.
I think for businesses, this change is not favourable, however, outlets like Facebook were not built in favour of businesses – if that were the case, Facebook would not be where it is. This is a whole new platform, with it's own set of rules. The main rule is – the people rule. The people do not want a brand shoved down their throats. They want sincerity. If a brand sincerely wants to be involved with the people, they will – and they will win.
I think it is great that the page is now structured as a person, especially because it makes business advertising more challenging, as it represents an equal-ness (not a word I know) between people and businesses – which is how it shall be.
I now may not be able to sell a "Page" to a client any longer, but to be honest, I am happy for it, as I think that exact behaviour is what ruined the process in the first place. If I wanted a client to pay me for acting on their behalf, while sacrificing the transparency and best interest due to the public, I would have worked for a newspaper or television station. I want to protect my dear internet. I think if Facebook wants to survive and maintain the trust it has from so many, this move was necessary. And there is much more to work on while they're at it.
Comment by Christina — March 11, 2009 @ 9:16 pm
I continue to find working in FB simultaneously mindnumbingly boring and like punching my way out of a paper sack. Till FB has the functionality and intuitiveness of WordPress its "the new AOL" to me.
Comment by R. Richard Hobbs — March 11, 2009 @ 10:13 pm
how do I get to see this thing?
Comment by Rolland Lawrenz — March 11, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
Ugh, it hasn't launched for me yet.
Comment by Joseph Antley — March 11, 2009 @ 10:48 pm
I really really would love for those Page Updates to go directly into Facebook Inboxes. I do agree it sends the wrong message to just disappear the Updates link off the Home Page… I rarely click through to the Updates tab in my Inbox and I wonder how many peeps actually do read their Updates. Hmm, more evolutions to come from Facebook no doubt.
Comment by Mari Smith — March 12, 2009 @ 1:00 am
when could you see UPDATES from the homepage? The only way I was ever able to do so was go to the inbox, then click the updates tab. maybe i’m confused? but i know they are getting rid of “updates” because didn’t they say they plan on redoing the inbox and having those delivered to your inbox like messages from friends, just like page updates are now delivered to your stream as if they were friends?
they’re giving pages the same treatment friends have. minus the fact that pages can have more than 5000 friends.
Comment by Facebook User — March 12, 2009 @ 1:57 am
Not available here either, I thought that the emphasis was on real-time
Comment by Joe Dawson — March 12, 2009 @ 5:31 am
Terrible changes! The company I work for lost most of the content it had on the page, so did our rival companies. Now all the pages look the unsofisticated same, like any friend's page! Why didn't Facebook think about it first? They have to be more careful with business partners!
Comment by Pedro Guerreiro — March 12, 2009 @ 5:36 am
Not yet available for me too.
Comment by Joffrey — March 12, 2009 @ 7:38 am
The new pages are awful for my business. We share video content on Facebook. We don't care about status updates. We just want to show videos. Now users have to click to figure out where the videos are, and it isn't clear that we even
ARE a video-centric page. We just look like another status update. Lame.
Comment by sarah — March 12, 2009 @ 10:56 am
Hi Sarah,
While “updates” are gone I think you may misunderstand some of the changes. Users can easily access your videos directly from your stream. In other words those videos are going to now be MORE visible, not LESS visible. Shoot me an emaill via allfacebook@gmail.com if you are confused.
Best,
Nick
Comment by Nick ONeill — March 12, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
One note … “updates” aren’t gone … just not promoted in the same way as before.
Comment by Nick ONeill — March 12, 2009 @ 3:52 pm
Nick, okay, you can actualy make the things you want more visible, but the point is, Facebook shouldn't make this changes without any warning. It let us off guard for most of the day. Most companies still haven't updated their pages or changed preferences, some 36 hours later, because they haven't heard about it. This is not professional. Facebook needs to listen to people first, then act. Not the opposite, just like it happened with ToS.
PS: Excuse me for my English, I'm not a native speaker.
Comment by Pedro Guerreiro — March 12, 2009 @ 4:07 pm
Not available for me too.
Comment by Jose Rodriguez — March 13, 2009 @ 10:44 am
HOw does this work? I want to translant to French, but don't see anything that will let me. What is this site?
Comment by Facebook User — October 5, 2009 @ 5:47 am