Tuesday, November 29, 2011

View From the Phlipside Radio - Annoying Facebook

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

I swear there are days when I’m positive that Facebook must have tucked away in its corporate structure somewhere a “Department of Annoying Our Users”.  Even as I have been critical of Facebook users who want to complain about everything that the world’s leading social network does it must be said that it’s not as if Facebook doesn’t give people plenty of reason to complain.

For example just recently Facebook announced that they were discontinuing the process that allows users to link content directly from non-Facebook locations.  Now original content created by Facebook users is called “organic” content in the language of the social network.  So if I wanted to link my blog to my Facebook page I used to be able to do it.  Which was great when I posted things like the scripts for these programs.  It was a very efficient and convenient.  And apparently that’s not what Facebook wants.  To be fair I have to note that the function didn’t always work real well.  But it brought original content to the network.  I can still do it but it’s less efficient and decidedly less convenient.

Add to that that they have also announced the addition of sponsored stories on the annoying news ticker function over on the right hand side of your page.  Sponsored stories.  You know.  Advertising.  I’m not sure how this is going to work.  To be honest I no longer even notice the ticker.  It’s filled with useless stuff that I don’t care about so I ignore it.  So the reality is that Facebook added as silly, pointless function to our online world, that no one seems to really want.  And now they are “improving” it by adding advertising.  Which nobody wants.  While at the same time they’ve decided to make the process more complicated and less efficient for creators of original content who foolishly are  not interested in doing everything originally on Facebook itself.

Now if that isn’t sure evidence of a “Department of Annoying Our Users” I don’t know what is.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

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