The New Form Of Communication Is Status

Last night I wrote an article which was critical of Facebook’s decision to eliminate page update notifications from the homepage. Since then I’ve spoken with Facebook and they made a couple of notes, one of which was that the focus of communication has been shifted and that the primary way of contacting users has not been cut off. Rather than contacting users through updates, Pages will contact users through status updates and other activities which will appear in the main feed.

What does this mean? Well it means that the new way of communicating with users is primarily through status in a model which is extremely similar to Twitter without the 140 character limit. When asked about the new form of communication, Ian Schafer of Deep Focus, said that status updates “can be a great tool for driving ‘instant’ traffic back to the page.”

I have to admit that perhaps the previous model of “updates” was not the most efficient. No, “updates” are not gone completely, but they remain a subsection of a user’s inbox (found here). For the time being, I’d assume that a user will not notice updates sent to their inbox since there is no notification pointing to it.

Also, the term “Pages” is about to be deprecated and will now become “Public Profiles”. So have Facebook Pages (or “Public Profiles”) been downgraded? Not really, they’ve just been shifted to a new model in which brands are now part of the conversation, as I highlighted yesterday. Apparently my frustration with the lack of an “updates” notification was related to my personal inability to let go of old model.

As Fred Wilson recently said, it has “always been about status”. This new model forces brands to join the conversation even more because conversation and participation are now the central forms of promotion, not messages (or “updates”).

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454920 CommentsThe+New+Form+Of+Communication+Is+Status2009-03-12+19%3A47%3A26Nick+O%27Neill »

can someone tell me how or why I can not ind this "new" facebook look?

Comment by Rolland Lawrenz — March 12, 2009 @ 12:57 pm
Complete the following short survey on social networking and you will be entered to win a new Flip Video Mino HD Camcorder! Participants will have a 1/400 or better chance of winning. http://www.polldaddy.com/s/3795D7AD401B4441/

Comment by BH — March 12, 2009 @ 1:24 pm
This hurts applications. Our about pages don't get the new layout (apparently?) and we now can't send out updates to our fans. I have over 46,000 fans and now have no way of contacting them.

Comment by Brad Dwyer — March 12, 2009 @ 1:52 pm
the big mistake of facebook is to follow twitter model !!

this new model looks like a stuff for teens !

Comment by byrsa — March 12, 2009 @ 5:13 pm
Everything’s all good but um, where’s the dynamic ajax powered news feed?

Sooner or later though, they have to come to a design that works and stick with it. All these updates are usually never demanded by users. Look at google’s regular homepage. Aside from occasional holiday logo renditions, it’s the same as it was years ago.

Comment by mojaam — March 12, 2009 @ 8:01 pm
Status updates say it all…..Don't they?

Comment by Michael McGimpsey — March 12, 2009 @ 10:47 pm
Im gonna leave it, I can feel it.

Comment by ML — March 13, 2009 @ 7:35 am
Prior to the change, my outside blog posts would show up on my company page – now they don't and I can't find the application to make that happen – where did it go and is it going to come back.

Comment by Paul Howard — March 13, 2009 @ 9:34 am
To me its taking on what people have accepted as normal. Many online have gone to micro blogging to me that is merely an extension. I find I keep up with my friends better this way so see it more as a positive change.

Comment by Lisa Lomas — March 13, 2009 @ 5:33 pm
Ok so I am all about Facebook’s revolution. As someone who’s actively involved in brands and their presence on Facebook, I understand the reason Facebook is doing what its doing.

I think the competition with Twitter is great – Facebook had this fight for a long time – I’m not sure why they took so long to move forward.

It’s not about ‘copying Twitter’, but it’s about revolutionizing the flow of information. As we progress towards a web which is constantly analyzed, tagged and linked together by human minds – it is only inevitable that Facebook takes advantage of this. Facebook already has tons of users – what better step than to facilitate the flow of information between millions of users and allow the thoughts of one person to reach others, of course with all the privacy and opt-in settings.

Status updates should remain status updates, because they infact represent a specific status. The twitter style feeds should be named something else. And also, we should have the option of categorizing these. I’m not saying Facebook needs to have an AI system which can catalog thoughts and conversations, but just an indexing system similar to Twitter.

For example, I could be on Facebook on my iphone in a mall, I see a great shirt, and I can instantly send out a ‘status update’ to my friends or whoever can view my feeds asking if I should buy this specific item. They can respond to me in real time. The more the opinions the merrier. Of course as we know it, Twitter is allowing you to connect with so many people whereas Facebook is limited to those you know. Also, twitter has a certain crowd-personality appeal that people like, especially cuz 80% use it for business (or it’s used 80% of the time for business use), just like how Myspace has the feel of gothic 35 yr olds (lol). facebook will cross that hurdle soon.

If we can have multiple status messages going out and being received and responded to by relevant people across the globe – then the flow of information will become rapid. Conversation-routes (flow of conversations) can become saved and reused as pathways for documenting searches. If one conversation between 2 people, assuming starting at point 0, progresses towards one person answering the other person’s question, then the same flow can be used by others. This is obviously a long way from now but will be very important. If someone can figure out the best place to buy Obama gear, then others should be able to benefit from that.

Everyone’s accumulated knowledge is now an asset and part of a global brain. We are uploading our knowledge and our interactions that lead to further synaptic connections within the global brain. Sorry I’ve been up too long and I feel like I’m rambling. Anyways, the potential now is amazing. The potential for brands is great, we have just begin to see the tip of the iceberg my friends.

Comment by Azam Khan — March 13, 2009 @ 8:07 pm
I like this change, but I’m not seeing updates from the majority of the Public Profiles that I am a fan of. In fact, If I click the “Public Profiles” filter on my news feed, I see updates from only ONE of the brands. I am a fan of 17 different brands — one of them is my own brand, so this makes me a little nervous that my brand’s posts aren’t showing up for my fans. Is anyone else noticing this behavior? Is there any kind of setting I need to change as a page admin in order to get my posts published to fans on this new facebook?? (Yes, my profile and public and published to all countries and ages.)

Comment by Andrew — March 14, 2009 @ 12:01 pm
Sorry I just don’t get it. Your going to take a picture of a shirt, and wait for your friends to send status updates back about whether you should buy it or not? Besides being idiotic, why couldn’t you do that before, or was this impossible with the ‘lite’ version of facebook on your iphone?

This is exactly what I was afraid of, instead of remaining
‘different’ from annoying twitter, facebook tries to copy their model, and alienate it’s huge fanbase. If I wanted to be annoyed by twitter posts, I’d sign up for twitter.

The old facebook was just about perfect, and to change it so soon after the last ‘update’ seems like a crime. There just seems to be a huge chunk of information removed from my page, and no way to get it back. The home page is organized like a 3rd grader designed it, and it just sits there like a slug now.

And why the hell is everything so huge now? I used to see 20-30 items on my live feed, now I can see 6. And I really like the random crap on the right panel, a true cluster-F smorgasbord of stuff I do not care about, and I can’t get rid of. Who cares about brands, what about the users?

Comment by Michael Sansig — March 14, 2009 @ 7:39 pm
I think that new facebook is like Twitter.

Comment by Facebook User — March 15, 2009 @ 7:07 am
The new home page is crap. Absolute crap. It doesn't work. Nothing happens in "real time" or a "stream". You have to hit refresh to see any new updates. But when I hit refresh, I LOSE INFORMATION and can't see it all again unless I log on/off. Also, friends have posted pictures since they switched over and I never saw a news feed about it. They had to write and tell me themselves. And in their instruction manual, they say there is an event/birthday box in the right hand column, under "more". Nope. Not there. And I'm not the only person who's starting to hate their FAcebook experience.

Comment by Harry — March 15, 2009 @ 5:55 pm
I want a way to trim down the stuff in the right hand sidebar, who cares about most of that and I can't see any (real old skool) pokes easily anymore.

The middle updating part seems broken: I can see more recent updates when i log out then log back in; when I refresh my browser, I lose some of the more recent ones. They need to fix that bug and get it updating in real time again.

I'd also like an option to restrict the middle part to one liners — I'd prefer to see many more at once than the few now.

I do like the left sidebar.

Close, but no cigar, is my current verdict.

Comment by anon — March 15, 2009 @ 9:19 pm
I hate the new facebook. I liked seeing the live feed, who was adding who to their friends, pokes, blogs, photos. It seems like I have to go to individual profiles to see anything other than “What’s on your mind?” Frustrating and annoying

Comment by Karen — March 16, 2009 @ 8:45 am
What about targeted updates?

With the Fan updates you have the ability to single out Fans by country, age, sex. If this option is taken away, it’ll be hard for brands with large Fan bases to reach out to relevant audiences. All Fans would receive every new update, whether it’s relevant to them or not. I think Facebook need to think about this since many major brands are creating a presence on Facebook via the new Public Profiles.

Comment by Kristoffer Ekman — March 16, 2009 @ 11:22 am
I run the Facebook Fan Page for an English football league team (see the website link) and have been using the option to send an "Update" as a handy way of sending out links a few times a week to fans of our page. What's the point of doing this now our "fans" aren't even notified of this update unless they click on inbox and then updatse (and let's be honest, the vast majority of people never have and never will do this). I hope facebook have a serious rethink about this change in particular.

Comment by Lee Rooney — March 16, 2009 @ 4:51 pm
Ugh, I hate the new updates. With myspace implementing all of facebook's revolutionary ideas, myspace is now better than facebook… I never thought I'd see the day.

Comment by brian — March 16, 2009 @ 10:25 pm
I'm not happy with the new facebook either. I hate how your pages sends the updates. And I agree, no one goes into inbox and clicks on the update, infact i didn't even know it was there until today. Plus I like targetting and with this you cannot target, the status messege gets sent to everyone .. bad move facebook bad move.

Comment by Sarabjit 'sarb& — March 17, 2009 @ 9:42 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

can someone tell me how or why I can not ind this "new" facebook look?

Comment by Rolland Lawrenz — March 12, 2009 @ 12:57 pm

Complete the following short survey on social networking and you will be entered to win a new Flip Video Mino HD Camcorder! Participants will have a 1/400 or better chance of winning. http://www.polldaddy.com/s/3795D7AD401B4441/

Comment by BH — March 12, 2009 @ 1:24 pm

This hurts applications. Our about pages don't get the new layout (apparently?) and we now can't send out updates to our fans. I have over 46,000 fans and now have no way of contacting them.

Comment by Brad Dwyer — March 12, 2009 @ 1:52 pm

the big mistake of facebook is to follow twitter model !!

this new model looks like a stuff for teens !

Comment by byrsa — March 12, 2009 @ 5:13 pm

Everything’s all good but um, where’s the dynamic ajax powered news feed?

Sooner or later though, they have to come to a design that works and stick with it. All these updates are usually never demanded by users. Look at google’s regular homepage. Aside from occasional holiday logo renditions, it’s the same as it was years ago.

Comment by mojaam — March 12, 2009 @ 8:01 pm

Status updates say it all…..Don't they?

Comment by Michael McGimpsey — March 12, 2009 @ 10:47 pm

Im gonna leave it, I can feel it.

Comment by ML — March 13, 2009 @ 7:35 am

Prior to the change, my outside blog posts would show up on my company page – now they don't and I can't find the application to make that happen – where did it go and is it going to come back.

Comment by Paul Howard — March 13, 2009 @ 9:34 am

To me its taking on what people have accepted as normal. Many online have gone to micro blogging to me that is merely an extension. I find I keep up with my friends better this way so see it more as a positive change.

Comment by Lisa Lomas — March 13, 2009 @ 5:33 pm

Ok so I am all about Facebook’s revolution. As someone who’s actively involved in brands and their presence on Facebook, I understand the reason Facebook is doing what its doing.

I think the competition with Twitter is great – Facebook had this fight for a long time – I’m not sure why they took so long to move forward.

It’s not about ‘copying Twitter’, but it’s about revolutionizing the flow of information. As we progress towards a web which is constantly analyzed, tagged and linked together by human minds – it is only inevitable that Facebook takes advantage of this. Facebook already has tons of users – what better step than to facilitate the flow of information between millions of users and allow the thoughts of one person to reach others, of course with all the privacy and opt-in settings.

Status updates should remain status updates, because they infact represent a specific status. The twitter style feeds should be named something else. And also, we should have the option of categorizing these. I’m not saying Facebook needs to have an AI system which can catalog thoughts and conversations, but just an indexing system similar to Twitter.

For example, I could be on Facebook on my iphone in a mall, I see a great shirt, and I can instantly send out a ‘status update’ to my friends or whoever can view my feeds asking if I should buy this specific item. They can respond to me in real time. The more the opinions the merrier. Of course as we know it, Twitter is allowing you to connect with so many people whereas Facebook is limited to those you know. Also, twitter has a certain crowd-personality appeal that people like, especially cuz 80% use it for business (or it’s used 80% of the time for business use), just like how Myspace has the feel of gothic 35 yr olds (lol). facebook will cross that hurdle soon.

If we can have multiple status messages going out and being received and responded to by relevant people across the globe – then the flow of information will become rapid. Conversation-routes (flow of conversations) can become saved and reused as pathways for documenting searches. If one conversation between 2 people, assuming starting at point 0, progresses towards one person answering the other person’s question, then the same flow can be used by others. This is obviously a long way from now but will be very important. If someone can figure out the best place to buy Obama gear, then others should be able to benefit from that.

Everyone’s accumulated knowledge is now an asset and part of a global brain. We are uploading our knowledge and our interactions that lead to further synaptic connections within the global brain. Sorry I’ve been up too long and I feel like I’m rambling. Anyways, the potential now is amazing. The potential for brands is great, we have just begin to see the tip of the iceberg my friends.

Comment by Azam Khan — March 13, 2009 @ 8:07 pm

I like this change, but I’m not seeing updates from the majority of the Public Profiles that I am a fan of. In fact, If I click the “Public Profiles” filter on my news feed, I see updates from only ONE of the brands. I am a fan of 17 different brands — one of them is my own brand, so this makes me a little nervous that my brand’s posts aren’t showing up for my fans. Is anyone else noticing this behavior? Is there any kind of setting I need to change as a page admin in order to get my posts published to fans on this new facebook?? (Yes, my profile and public and published to all countries and ages.)

Comment by Andrew — March 14, 2009 @ 12:01 pm

Sorry I just don’t get it. Your going to take a picture of a shirt, and wait for your friends to send status updates back about whether you should buy it or not? Besides being idiotic, why couldn’t you do that before, or was this impossible with the ‘lite’ version of facebook on your iphone?

This is exactly what I was afraid of, instead of remaining
‘different’ from annoying twitter, facebook tries to copy their model, and alienate it’s huge fanbase. If I wanted to be annoyed by twitter posts, I’d sign up for twitter.

The old facebook was just about perfect, and to change it so soon after the last ‘update’ seems like a crime. There just seems to be a huge chunk of information removed from my page, and no way to get it back. The home page is organized like a 3rd grader designed it, and it just sits there like a slug now.

And why the hell is everything so huge now? I used to see 20-30 items on my live feed, now I can see 6. And I really like the random crap on the right panel, a true cluster-F smorgasbord of stuff I do not care about, and I can’t get rid of. Who cares about brands, what about the users?

Comment by Michael Sansig — March 14, 2009 @ 7:39 pm

I think that new facebook is like Twitter.

Comment by Facebook User — March 15, 2009 @ 7:07 am

The new home page is crap. Absolute crap. It doesn't work. Nothing happens in "real time" or a "stream". You have to hit refresh to see any new updates. But when I hit refresh, I LOSE INFORMATION and can't see it all again unless I log on/off. Also, friends have posted pictures since they switched over and I never saw a news feed about it. They had to write and tell me themselves. And in their instruction manual, they say there is an event/birthday box in the right hand column, under "more". Nope. Not there. And I'm not the only person who's starting to hate their FAcebook experience.

Comment by Harry — March 15, 2009 @ 5:55 pm

I want a way to trim down the stuff in the right hand sidebar, who cares about most of that and I can't see any (real old skool) pokes easily anymore.

The middle updating part seems broken: I can see more recent updates when i log out then log back in; when I refresh my browser, I lose some of the more recent ones. They need to fix that bug and get it updating in real time again.

I'd also like an option to restrict the middle part to one liners — I'd prefer to see many more at once than the few now.

I do like the left sidebar.

Close, but no cigar, is my current verdict.

Comment by anon — March 15, 2009 @ 9:19 pm

I hate the new facebook. I liked seeing the live feed, who was adding who to their friends, pokes, blogs, photos. It seems like I have to go to individual profiles to see anything other than “What’s on your mind?” Frustrating and annoying

Comment by Karen — March 16, 2009 @ 8:45 am

What about targeted updates?

With the Fan updates you have the ability to single out Fans by country, age, sex. If this option is taken away, it’ll be hard for brands with large Fan bases to reach out to relevant audiences. All Fans would receive every new update, whether it’s relevant to them or not. I think Facebook need to think about this since many major brands are creating a presence on Facebook via the new Public Profiles.

Comment by Kristoffer Ekman — March 16, 2009 @ 11:22 am

I run the Facebook Fan Page for an English football league team (see the website link) and have been using the option to send an "Update" as a handy way of sending out links a few times a week to fans of our page. What's the point of doing this now our "fans" aren't even notified of this update unless they click on inbox and then updatse (and let's be honest, the vast majority of people never have and never will do this). I hope facebook have a serious rethink about this change in particular.

Comment by Lee Rooney — March 16, 2009 @ 4:51 pm

Ugh, I hate the new updates. With myspace implementing all of facebook's revolutionary ideas, myspace is now better than facebook… I never thought I'd see the day.

Comment by brian — March 16, 2009 @ 10:25 pm

I'm not happy with the new facebook either. I hate how your pages sends the updates. And I agree, no one goes into inbox and clicks on the update, infact i didn't even know it was there until today. Plus I like targetting and with this you cannot target, the status messege gets sent to everyone .. bad move facebook bad move.

Comment by Sarabjit 'sarb& — March 17, 2009 @ 9:42 pm

The New Form Of Communication Is Status

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Follow AllFacebook

Send us a Tip

Social Media Jobs

Let your next job find you!

Featured Company

Jobs of the Day

3D Artist

Healthcare Editor

UX Artist

See all jobs

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