Once upon a time, in the tiny hamlet of Menlo Park, California, there was a company called Facebook.
This company was unlike any other (sorry, make that ‘like MANY others’) in that it connected people from around world through a magical and glorious technical achievement called the Internet.
Everyone loved Facebook:
“Oh my God, it is so easy to upload pictures of my baby!”
“I can’t believe I found all my old high school and college friends so easily!”
“Hey everyone, I’m off to get a coffee – can’t start my day without coffee!”
People from around the world chatted, and shared, and reconnected. There was something really exciting going on in the tiny hamlet of Menlo Park.
But then, one day, because Facebook was growing so so so very large – and its bills were growing so so so much – it needed to somehow make money.
Facebook was so kind that they didn’t want to charge people for the privilege of using its service – so it added advertising. Advertising so tiny that the people of the world didn’t even noticed the ads were there.
“There are ads on Facebook? You know, I’ve never seen one – and I certainly have never clicked on one! Good for them.”
Perhaps Mean Old Mr. Advertiser started to realize that no one was clicking or even noticing his ads.
But little Facebook still needed to get paid – I mean, even a whore has to eat – so they decided to work something out with Mean Old Mr. Advertiser.
Maybe they could somehow leverage their size and sell the personal information of their 900 million users. Would that keep Mean Old Mr. Advertiser off their backs so they could resume their happy life of connecting the world and bringing nothing but joy?
Facebook was so kind to its users that they even added a “Like” button (because “Like” is much nicer than “Dislike” and Coca-Cola doesn’t want to see how many people “Dislike” Coke Zero).
It was so simple, users could either “Like” something or choose not to hit the “Like” button. It was up to the user.
That worked for awhile until the users of the world started to realize what was happening. Many users got angry and felt their privacy was being invaded.
About 15 people actually quit Facebook (while another 100 million signed up).
After a few months, things calmed in the tiny hamlet of Menlo Park and the people on Facebook – to a lesser degree – felt fairly happy again.
But then, one day, Facebook decided that the users of the world needed to share every bit of information about their lives – from birth to even death – and put it all into a very conforming and dizzying glop of data called Timeline.
Mean Old Mr. Advertiser LOVED the idea of Timeline.
Finally, Facebook was thinking like him. Now they got the idea. Mean Old Mr. Advertiser could scour the lives of the people of the world and target them with goods and services that they may or may not enjoy.
And somehow, in just a brief eight years of existence – little Facebook grew and grew and grew and became worth $100 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS! Oh, goodness, pardon me. (An IPO last year would been insane! What a missed opportunity!… but I digress.)
Well, from here the story gets a little tragic.
The beaten down people of the world and users of Facebook grew so exhausted from the daily overhauls of the site (which were necessary to maximize revenue) that they actually stopped spending time on Facebook – instead reading real books to their children and enjoying the outside world.
Comments started to appear on other websites (yes, there are actually other websites) saying they hate Facebook, are never going back and are quitting.
Poor little Facebook. They just wanted to HELP the world – not FUCK OVER the world.
How could a crappy redesign and a selling of their soul piss people off so much?
It’s just a website after all (one that is on its way to becoming WORTHLESS and must be STOPPED for the good of the world!… one more digression).
I mean, why do the people of the world care so much?
Well, we all know how the story ends.
Disgruntled engineers (and let’s assume an MBA or two) who helped create the chaos from the direction of Uncle Mark and Aunt Sheryl, began grumbling about their need to become millionaires and billionaires like so many of their friends.
The only way to stop them from leaving the tiny hamlet of Menlo Park – and going to, oh, say, the dangerous crack alleys of Mountain View and Cupertino to seek their fortune – was to take the company public.
By selling $5 or $10 billion dollars in stock to the ‘public’ (at a BULLSHIT valuation of $100 billion!) everyone could become rich and (yes) happy.
So at least the employees of Facebook will now be happy. The people of the world, who are seriously beginning to hate Facebook and are either leaving or staying away in droves, are less and less happy every day.
But Mean Old Mr. Facebook couldn’t care less – the users can go fuck themselves.
“Just put your freakin’ family photos in the template we have provided, “Like” the new Coke Zero, play the stupid Zynga games, pay for a movie rental, pay for a music subscription, and keep your stupid mouth shut. We’re not getting to a trillion dollar valuation from pictures of your goddamned baby!”
Mean Old Mr. Facebook is right. The User is wrong.
The moral of the story: Don’t screw your users. They’re the ones that built you up and they’re the ones that will bring you down.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
oh, and by the way… the proper saying is “couldn’t care less” not “could care less”.
Thanks. I knew that one sounded wrong.
Too many people use facebook to search out old loves and end up causing divorces. I think people have too much of an interest in others lives.
I adore your posts about Facebook and other internet insanity. Thanks!
Great line.
“It was so simple, they could either “Like” something or not hit the “Like” button. It was up to the user to choose.”
how to do facebook settings which will also explain about timeline feature (there were few things i posted above so starting with facebook features,settings,etc):
Mobile more than a trillion $ industry due to music, gaming, news, television, advertising, etc including money. 5.2 billion subscribers for mobiles where 3.7 billion are unique mobile phone users and 4.3 billion phones are in use. Mobiles replaces watches, alarms, MP3 players etc including the various other apps. The services side of mobile is nearing the Trillion-dollar milestone itself, hitting 928 billion dollars in value in 2010-mobile phone data revenues alone are now bigger than the total ‘internet’ industry on the personal computers, including all internet content revenues, all internet advertising revenues, and even all the subscription fees, broadband and dial-up-Where do we spend all that? We watch television and video content on the phones, and we vote on TV shows. We download music including ringing tones, and subscribe to music services including ringback tones. We play games from Tetris to Angry Birds. We use SOCIAL NETWORKING SERVICES, buy virtual goods, and send flirting gifts to our friends and lovers-the outline and detailed part can be checked under http://consultantvalueadded.com/2011/03/07/mobile-as-a-trillion-dollar-industry-check-this/.
Facebook is into books, news, films, etc including symbol pics (can be seen even under groups-each feature/function has a symbol pic) – this can be checked under http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2040876/Facebook-Likes-music-films-books-Site-transforms-entertainment-hub–500-million-people-log-try-out.html and connected to http://semanticweb.com/the-next-open-graph-changing-apps-and-changing-industries_b23429.
It’s a web of apps out there and it’s early days – there are 600,000 iOS(Apple) applications and nearly 400,000 on Android (Google’s) itself – http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/30/a-web-of-apps/ being the source. The apps market maybe saturated as there are many apps though many are doing well as start-ups currently and will do so in future also (can check under Google as sources are there)(connect to this video under http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/12/max-levchin-and-peter-thiel-innovation-in-the-world-today-is-between-dire-straits-and-dead/ as innovation nowadays is more into technology and that too apps). ALL THESE THINGS ARE INTO DIFFERENT ARENAS WHETHER IT’S SOCIAL NETWORKING, PUBLISHING, MARKETING, HEALTH, FINANCE, EDUCATION, ETC
Again, change settings first else any tom, dick and harry can see stuff. Under privacy settings, can edit Who can look up your timeline by name or contact info or Who can see posts by others on your timeline, etc. Then, try to use lists including default lists given by facebook-family, close friends, acquaintances (any other not needed-can archive). The advantage of this is, when you the person are updating your status under that particular list, people from other lists can’t see your updates (people who can see the posts made by others for each list will depend upon the settings done as mentioned above). Another advantage of having lists is for notes as can set privacy to that particular list though there are other settings under privacy for notes also. Currently those 2 are the main advantages of having lists (think it can be used for privacy under pages created though don’t think it can be used for groups created at the moment). The easiest way to go about creating those lists will be to open a new tab that contains all the friends while under 2nd tab, add the members under the default lists given by facebook-family, close friends and acquaintances. By default which facebook has given, close friends will be subscribed to all the updates while family will be subscribed to most updates and acquaintances will be subscribed to only important updates (facebook decides which updates are important, most, etc). Can change the settings for subscribed to people but currently tedious-can only do individually-like before have 2 tabs-1 tab having subscriptions page (under timeline feature, can find the subscriptions page under own profile which will come after likes and even for THIS or ANY OTHER FEATURE-can change privacy as to who sees what) where all those to whom 1 is subscribed will be shown and click on each individual under that tab/page into a separate tab so that can get the individual’s page where the subscribed setting can be changed where can have it as all updates/most updates/important updates or even change what type of updates like life events, status updates, games, photos, etc or even unsubscribed. When creating new lists other than the default lists provided by facebook, default for subscription is most updates. All the subscribed stuff comes under Home Page of Facebook (now known as News Feeds-which appears in centre of home-page) as well as within the lists. So, try to keep subscribed to a minimum else cluttering/untidiness/crowdedness can occur when use news and other apps or its related stories on facebook (depending on the individual, can select if want news and other apps or its related stories on facebook-when it appears under news feeds, click on its top right and can hide the story or even the app from appearing within the news feeds or can even highlight the story…..by default, some of the news and other apps or its related stories and even subscribed people’s updates/posts will be highlighted in grey on left hand side and some won’t be-click on it to unhighlight it or to highlight it-if highlighted, such news can be seen under news feeds which appears in centre of home-page). There’s also the sort feature that is used within news feeds and elsewhere within homepage-it’s on top of news feeds-can change to recent posts or highlighted posts. Also while doing close friends list, there’s the NOTIFICATIONS BUTTON-click on it and can be shown whether want to be notified via facebook and email or just facebook or none at all and notification under facebook appears on top left hand corner of facebook – way above the cloumns including news feeds. The notifications for features and all is under the Accounts settings. Now, I’ve got 4 lists-3 default and 1 created-close friends, family, acquaintances and another list. Just subscribed to few people under family and another list which appears under news feeds while close friends have no subscriptions though have notifications which will give the updates under notifications though not under news feed. And lastly acquaintances-no subscriptions and doesn’t appear on news feeds. Any person not subscribed nor notification appears-can check individually. This way the news feeds is not cluttered/untidy/crowded while using news or other apps.
There are 3 ways to create groups under Facebook:
a) Open where anyone can see the group, who’s in it and what members post
b) Closed where anyone can see the group and who’s in it though only members can see the post
c) Secret where only members can see the group, the members and posts
Also, when posting under a group, better to use doc when talking about a subject like this or even previous one where can use title to show what the subject is (after writing the subject within doc, click/press enter key at the end of the title of the doc for the doc to be created). Docs not needed when communicating about happenings or updates or even linking to videos or sites though if connected to a subject using docs, link it. Events is the other main thing that can be created within the group-click on the button next to notifications under the group and under the drop-down menu, it will have events (more features there under groups).
Lastly, few books uploaded are (settings for books can be changed again under DOCS APP):
An Introduction to Information Retrieval (under https://docs.com/H0WO)
Global Strategy (under https://docs.com/H0WK)
Mining The Social Web (https://docs.com/H0WF)
Jill, you were right: it is “couldn’t care less”. If you could care less, that means you care. If you can’t care less, that means you do not care at all. You were right. Stick to your guns.
Timeline is neat but facebook shouldnt be mandating standards like that.
They have a powerful platform concept so use it.
If some people hate timeline and others love it, have options for both.
People add that aspect on to their personal setup if they want, or not. They should do this with other ‘improvements’ as well.
The ones that should be mandated to all users related to security, privacy, and such.
Anything that is a system upgrade to correct an know issue to close a possible loophole. Beyond that do over cook it.
Facebook wants to go public, thats fine but dont change the sauce. Keep it simple Stupid. KISS
Allow people to:
-Connect with other users and interact
-Give you information/ share information with others.
– change the nature and efficiency with which the private individual is able to communicate in a modern age
-Leverage that information for targeted advertising on the site
you can develop profile groups for selling the ads, but never ever give out information on individual users.
– keep it clutter free and easy for me as a user to get in quickly and do what I want to do. Sure I might not stay as long short term, but this will add to loyalty long term
– Dont over look the birthday reminders and the event planning aspects
-Continue to innovate but make it optional to use
If the value of innovative ideas is great enough to the end users look at creating additional revenue streams from them either through subscription options or more precise and targeted subsets of data.
– Look to organize subsets of users and like content to potentially encourage introductions beyond your network if interested
-Continue to drive the loyalty and ask yourself about end users and what do they want and why and how can me make this better for them.
Unlike Groupon, Facebook is the real deal. They have value and growth. If you can’t get in what can you do. Rich get richer.
– “given Google’s history with privacy, data mining, and Fed cooperation”
2006: Google refuses to comply with a subpoena from the US government to hand over a sample of people’s searches: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june06/google_1-20.html
2008: Google launches Chrome with incognito browsing, which does not store browsing/downloading history, and deletes all cookies.
2012: Google publishes its privacy policy on its homepage.
– “overseas where Google is known to Cave at the drop of a hat”
2010: Google refuses to censor its results anymore in China (prior to that, Google censored, but also told its users about it). The move was apparently sparked by Google’s discovery that gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents had been hacked into:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#China
Either you are confusing Google with Yahoo (which did hand over private info to the Chinese government: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/business/worldbusiness/07iht-yahoo.html), or you are ill-intentioned.
You can look at financial metrics all you want, but the plain fact is that Google is a useful tool for navigating the web, whereas FB is simply a semi-interesting diversion (as was MySpace a short while ago), that has only advertising leverage to create revenue. The public has a very short memory; remember the dot-com bust of the late 90′s? Get rich quick selling vaporware…Only those investors who can benefit from the rise and then find the liquidity to sell their position quickly (or the balls to go short) will win the game. The true believers? Toast. The emperor has no clothes.
Thanks Jill. Yes, it’s true. My heartfelt sympathies to all the suckers who are making Zuckerburg an overnight billionaire. FB will blow up just like its predecessor, MySpace, sooner than later, but not before Zuckerburg and his associates cash in their billions.
Sad thing is, someone will be making real money off this. Even when it goes belly up those people will still have their millions.
I believe that “I could care less” is more of a Southernism. It’s meant to be a nonsense phrase, rather like “I got nothin but time” or “I don’t need this town of yours more than I never needed nothin else.” (A line from a Kris Kristofferson song.) Anyway, it’s always been my impression that you hear “I couldn’t care less” more in the North and “I could care less” more in the South, where those sorts of clever nonsensicalisms are more of a cultural norm.
As far as tech IPOs go, I think tech investing is a crap shoot even when you’re talking about a really solid, practical product with a long life ahead of it. Sun Microsystems comes to mind.
Thanks for your delightful little allegory, Jill. I feel like I understand the facebook phenomenon a little better now.
Yeah, Facebook is TRENDING in the same way as America Online did after Time Warner was stupid enough to acquire it and watch its subscribers run away — greatly devaluating the one-time “AOL-Time Warner” stock ticker! Pretty much, Facebook is being run just like AOL — another kind of “utility”-like monopoly mindset both going into their mature lifespans.
Now, look at Facebook with its BROADBAND-HOGGING “Ticker” and FLEA MARKET-LOOKING “Timeline” programming architectures — it’s getting so badly cumbersome and bug-ridden. God knows Facebook could not even DARE lower itself to enlisting a “Developers Group” and “Beta Testing” to get the bugs out and actually get feedback from users — and how to avoid that brief lawsuit and holding pattern because “Timeline” was trademarked name used by another company (which I’m sure got a fat out-of-court settlement recently!). When you get a Facebook (or AOL before them) utterly committed to blind arrogance, stupidity and disregard for their USERS, then you know the writing is on the wall.
But I guess Jeff Zuckerberg could give diddly squat because he’ll even cash out some more in BILLION$ in stock options and periodic sales after the beloved IPO and said done! Ms. Kennedy, I have to agree that $100 billion is way overvalued for Facebook because Zuckerberg has found SUCKERS among the Vegas Casino Players on Wall $treet — and FB is nowhere near run and managed with the kind of vision, true utility, functionality and smarts as say Google and Yahoo.
So, I hope Zuckerberg and the rest of the shoddy, arrogant management of Facebook enjoy their temporary Wall $treet gorgefe$t from the big institutional investors, because the track is only going to be DOWNWARD after that! But Zuckerberg could join Steve Case and most of the flesh peddling brokers at Morgan Stanley in sucking down some pina coladas in Barbados and laugh at the SUCKER SHARHOLDERS taking the fall! ;-D
Without looking further into their depicted rosy future: here is one bottomline question each potential investor need to ask: 800 MM user base, it is already jaw-dropping high, how higher can it further go?