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Facebook More Hated Than Banks, Utilities
jfruhlinger writes "According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook raises a lot of ire among its customers — more than Bank of America or AT&T Mobility. This bodes ill for the company — as blogger Chris Nerney points out, many of the others on the most-hated list are utilities and other companies with monopolies, which can hold customers despite bad service. At least Facebook edged out MySpace." Unsurprisingly, the most important thing about Google+ is that it's not Facebook.
Never underestimate the ability of people to hate something that didn't exist a few years ago and they get for free.
That's the real significant fact about it. Facebook's UI is a gargantuan POS. G+ has a vastly better UI and functionality that is clearly more useful for what it is intended to do. I don't understand what it is about sites like Facebook, but these services just seem to be incapable of not turning themselves into crap. Hopefully G+ will just stick to doing what it does now and doing it better. I don't understand why I should need to be able to run 'applications' in a social networking site, I can go to Popcap and do that if I want, etc.
So yeah, G+ isn't Facebook, and that's a good thing.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
It may not be Facebook, but it's still Google, and Google is still a company whose entire business model revolves around mining user data and using it to sell advertising. Google also shares Facebook's general disdain for privacy.
As long as we depend on single monolithic sites run by for-profit entities for social networking, we'll continue to have the same problems we do with Facebook. The whole social networking model is based around providing the service for free while making money from targeted advertising. As long as that's the case, the companies running the social networks will do whatever they can to try and entice people to reveal more information about themselves. Switching from Facebook to Google isn't going to change that.
I always wonder about the people who hate something, and despite quite some competition, continue to use it. Do your friends really stop talking to you if you leave facebook? Then look for other friends.
The big draw of Facebook in its early years was "It's not MySpace". What makes anybody think that the story of G+ is going to be any different than the story of MySpace and Facebook?
I am officially gone from
He's a known troll. He is neither a chiropractor nor a doctor, nor in fact does he care about the subjects in question in the slightest. He only posts in every thread he can shoehorn alt med crap into for the sole purpose of generating flamewars. Stop feeding him.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
You are Facebook's PRODUCT... not their customer. Their customer is the advertisers. Their only motive is to not piss you off enough to go away.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
i dont want to lump everyone i am acquainted with in the same group, and have to choose from sharing or not sharing something with all of them. Thats not what we do in real life. Someone way past from elementary school doesnt need to see what i share with my gaming circle. Or, someone from professional circle doesnt have to see something i shared with gamers. And i dont need to be thinking about whether sharing something will be appropriate because all parties will see it.
facebook does not have this differentiation. you can change privacy settings to allow/disallow people from seeing, yet it is a 1 vs 0 boolean choice. you cant differentiate in groups. and even these settings are buried deep, problematic to do (you have to manually eliminate 140 people from seeing your updates down to 14 people), and facebook is constantly changing these settings so that they will be able to snag and sell more data to their corporate customers.
it has really become a steaming pile of shit.
i am on it, because of a few valued people are still on it, and not technically affluent to be on anything else. but, they could easily use google+, and when google+ comes, i am going to encourage them to sign up.
Read radical news here
...and the axe of many of my friends, is that Facebook keeps changing their layout, users find out when they log in and are like "...what's going on?" since they can't find whatever it is they're looking for, and there's no way to change it back. I'm certain that Farmville users can find their farms, but it's getting more and more distilled into a platform where the communication aspects are less useful.
While yes, 99% of the groups were "1,000,000 strong for not clubbing baby seals" and "I hate it when people text me 'k'", there were a few groups that I was a part of that were genuine groups with active discussion boards. All of the discussion threads turned into wall posts with massive amounts of comments...and to someone, that made sense.
There's more and more spam happening. While admittedly they're doing much more to mitigate it than Myspace ever did, filtering out the malicious links is still ultimately a manual job. Even the nonmalicious stuff that's still unwanted takes a ridiculous amount of time to do right. While I blocked Mafia Wars, *ville, etc., my block list is a mile long because of it. The only one that was actually fun to me was Superpoke (there is, in fact, an odd humor to be found in throwing a virtual sheep at a friend), but the first time there was an official "new facebook", Superpoke got ditched in the process, so plug-ins became less useful unless you were someone like Zynga.
I was a fan of the 'old' messaging system, where it was effectively an e-mail. it made a lot of sense, since it was much easier to scroll the address book (i.e. my friend list), my friends frequently set up SMS notifiations so they could respond in a timely manner, and read receipts were automatic. When they asked if I wanted to change to the 'new message' system, I was like, "yeah, I'll try it out", silly me thinking they would allow me to go back if I didn't like it. Naturally, it was a one-way street.
At this point, Facebook to me is just another e-mail account, with a 'public message' view, a 'private message' view, and a game view (along with questionable privacy practices). Some of my friends are holdouts and still don't have a Facebook. While I used to be all "zomg you need one", I'm finding myself now saying "don't sweat it - is e-mail or cell better for you?" This usually provides me at least one - usually two - explicit means of contacting them. Facebook is relevant and useful, but I feel that there's a distinct possibility that it's in a position where its best days are behind it. If Zuckerburg is smart, he'll cash out now.
You're paying by your personal data, which are then made available to FB's customers (e.g. advertisers). Also, FB can use anything you upload there as it sees fit ("irrevocable license blah blah blah"). Go read their ToS, you may be *slightly* surprised what you're giving them - it's certainly not free, not even as in beer.
There are many people that despise Facebook, but begrudgingly go along with it, at least in a limited fashion, because it's adoption rate has become so great that it has become more difficult to maintain a social life, or to date, without some use of Facebook.
The problem with the social network concept is that even if you developed the finest social network that you can imagine, that it won't matter unless the people are there. There are already alternatives to Facebook that I'd much prefer to use, but nobody that I know uses them.
Google is among a small number of companies that has the reputation and brand recognition to really have a chance of creating an upset.
Besides, if you have trouble getting people to believe that you are truly following, "don't be evil", then at least put yourself into the position where you will be contrasted against someone even more evil to help you look better in comparison. ;-)
Why have I never heard anyone actually say a disparaging word about it?.
You must be new here...
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
And...
So the story planting begins.
You'd think they would at least try a new strategy.
Er, wasn't it the other way around? The big story a few months back was how Facebook had hired a company to run an astroturfing smear campaign against Google, accusing them of antitrust and privacy violations (and then, "coincidentally" enough, the FTC opens an investigation a few months later).
On top of that, the information a bank knows about you is, by default, private Your neighbour cannot get your banking information from $BIGBANK without a court order or a certified letter stating that he is now the executor of your estate. Facebook is, and always has been, by default as public as possible. By default, almost every app someone installs has access to all the information found in their profile and the profiles of their friends. Facebook makes it very easy for it's users to remain unaware that their privacy is subject to the decisions made by their friends.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
So does this mean that FB isn't worth the $50 Billion or what ever inflated to the bursting point price the banks were trying to offer only their most valued customers?
Why does it have to be just one way? Clearly they are going to smear each other as much as possible. With Zuckerberg involved, this is going to get very dirty very fast. I for one welcome my new Google+ overlord. I trust Google more than Facebook. By a mile.
Currently hooked on AMP
MS has repeatedly shown that they can not be trusted, more to the point was the backroom deals they made with hardware manufacturers. And though Google doesn't have as nearly as bad a track record, the Law (US & EU) is beginning to take notice of them specifically for anti-competitive behavior. But don't take my word for it, ask them yourself ;-)
You know? It's funny. MS was sued for "monopolic practices" for including Internet Explorer as their default option.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. And in this case, you either have too little knowledge, or are simply trolling.
MS was sued for a variety of reasons; the browser issue was only one small part (which got a lot of airtime). The per-processor licensing agreements that required OEM's to pay Microsoft for both a DOS and Windows license for every computer they shipped, even if it didn't include DOS or Windows was a significant part of that suit (as it made any computers that shipped with any other OS's much more expensive, as they had to pay for DOS, Windows, and the alternate OS, passing those extra costs on to the customer, who didn't get the or license to use DOS or Windows, even though they had paid for it), as was Microsoft's breaking of their licensing agreement with Sun over Java.
But as to the IE issue, the problem wasn't that Microsoft bundled a browser. The problem was that Microsoft bundled a browser that was bolted into the OS in such a way that it was impossible to remove, and required (via licensing terms) OEMs to ship Windows with IE, and the IE icon on the desktop. Thus, even if an OEM wanted to install Netscape as the default browser, even if to fulfil customer demand they also had to include IE, and make it prominent by including it on the desktop. What's more, not only did they bolt it into the OS to make it difficult to remove, the court found that they specifically scattered IE functionality into unrelated libraries, including the core Win32 DLL's, to make it virtually impossible for anyone to remove.
But you know what really did them in? Their own internal e-mails and memos, which specifically showed that they did these things with the intent to put the competition completely out of business. They wielded their monopoly in Operating Systems to put companies in a completely different market out of business, and the e-mails and memos presented to the court bear this out. That is why they got into trouble.
If you want to read up on this (including quotes from their internal messages that show they specifically took actions that hurt browser developers, OEMs, and Windows users in general), why not go right to the source? Courts Findings of Fact ss 3.F. Now that you have a lot of knowledge at your disposal, you can avoid being incorrect in the future. You're welcome.
Yaz
The problem is you don't WANT to get it: google *is* a monopoly as much as Microsoft is. While there are search alternatives (like Bing, cause Yahoo uses Google anyway), they're not as good as Google, or don't have the brainpower (or money) to compete with Google. Just like Windows in the OS world. We can avoid the flamewar and just accept that Windows is the dominating desktop OS (either cause it's good, preinstalled, or any other reason).
Google is adding a "+1" button. Google NEVER ADDED a "Like in Facebook" button. Why? Everyone else seems to do it. Except google, who is trying really hard to create their own social network. And if they succeed, and destroy facebook, wouldn't that be a monopoly? I fail to see how it's not. Google uses their dominant position to shove their product down your throat. But it's OK, because Google and Apple have a license to do whatever the fuck they want, because they're geek-friendly and cool. If Microsoft and HP show you a cute girl shopping for a $200 laptop, you all laugh at her, and at microsoft and HP. But when Apple sells the same machine for 3x the price, It's ok because Apple means higher quality. Never mind the MBPs that overheated and froze, or the loose connectors, it's apple and we forgive them.
But I don't expect slasdotters to understand it. Forget that: I don't expect slashdotters to ACCEPT it. Deep down you all know how it goes, you just never want to accept it. You're all happy to call a "religious nut" to anyone who says he believes in God, but you're all blinded by your own gods Google and Apple. How many Apple news do we get about apple screwing developers over and the Cool Kids at slashdot just go "oh it's your fault, Apple is a company and it works for THEIR best interest, not you, get over it". But when Microsoft decides to phase out .NET (WHICH DOESN'T MEAN IT DISAPPEARS OVERNIGHT!!!!!!!!), people go OH FUCK MICROSOFT I HATE YOU SCREWING ALL THESE POOR DEVS.
What the fuck is wrong with you all? Oh yes I'll have to repost this message a few times because a butthurt fanboi will mod me down as soon as he reads this.
FANBOI: DON'T WASTE MOD POINTS, I WILL KEEP POSTING THIS MESSAGE, I HAVE KARMA TO BURN.