Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Loses Users, Satisfaction Higher at Google+
benfrog writes "Facebook has lost what (by the standards of their userbase) is a modest number of users over the last six months, which is perhaps one of the causes of a fall in their stock price. In the meantime, a study shows that Google+ users are more satisfied with the site than Facebook users, who are (understandably) upset about the number of recent UI changes, the amount of advertising, and other elements, according to a statement accompanying the study. Figures also show dramatic growth in Google+ usage."
.... what actual revenue can do for morale.
Facebook screws with actual settings all the time, which goes well beyond UI changes
There was a recent email replacement issue. And logging in today I realized that my facebook chat now shows my online status, even though I explicitly disabled it a couple of months ago.
Keeping your settings on Facebook where you want them (if that is even feasible) is a full time job.
I remember when "everyone" was on MySpace, "Everyone" was there and nobody used "Facebook". Until one day ... Nobody used MySpace and everyone was on Facebook.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Android is the only market that matters as far as their leverage goes. Everyone on android has gmail, and everyone on gmail has Google+. My family suddenly realized that everyone had a video chat app installed on their phones, imagine their shock! But how to organize it so the whole family can be on together? Oh wait, Google+ supports events now. And sharing pictures and video is about 2 taps on the screen? Oh, but my friends don't want to see yet another picture of my daughter doing something adorable, luckily it's about 2 more screen presses to only share it with my family then. The Google+ app has a remarkable amount of functionality, Google has been putting a lot of effort into getting it right because they know that mobile is where Facebook stumbles.
FB's failing is due to it's users, mostly. About 3-6 months ago, everyone decided that pictures with text on them is all they were going to post. Or food pictures, or Spotify playlists.
Facebook was never awesome, but it did have a lot of my friends and family posting interesting discussions and information. Then everyone ran out of things to say, so now they just post funny pictures.
A lot of this isn't just users fault though, many issues arise out of the lack of Grouping, which is something G+ fixes and is awesome at. I don't want my pictures of partying being shown to employers, or my neices and nephews which causes issues with my conservative siblings. Sorting what information I want to send to select groups easily is the main reason I wish people were using G+.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
This is one of my pet peeves in websites today. It's not just FB that does this.
Attention web developers: PLEASE STOP forcing us to the mobile versions of your sites. Just stop it.
There's also the fact that a number of people (including me) only use Facebook because they feel "forced" to do so. Friends or family members they want to keep in touch with only use Facebook, or events they want to be notified of are only announced on Facebook, or some game or website or something forces people to use Facebook to participate.
That "forcing" is part of what keeps Facebook's numbers so high, but it also leads to discontent. No one likes being forced into something, and it tends to aggravate any negative feelings they already have. On the other hand no one (except possibly Google employees =) feels forced to use G+. If you're there, it's because you want to be there.
I have noticed some swings in G+ activity, at least amongst the people i follow. Sometimes it slows down to four or five dedicated people/groups posting on a somewhat regular basis, sometimes it swings up. Currently it seems to be in a bit of an upswing with about a dozen "regular" posters, but that's a _very_ small and biased bit of anecdotal data.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
... and that sounds like it is exactly as it should be.
The problem with facebook is not really facebook per-se—some people like it, it serves their needs, good for them.
The problem is when facebook becomes so overwhelmingly dominant that they are essentially the only viable choice for most people, meaning that people who don't like it (and they are legion) are basically goaded into using it anyway.
Ideally, there would be a range of services that are all popular, maybe even with content-transfer between them (I know, FB would royally freak, but ... from a user's point of view, this is ideal ... and the user's content does belong to the user, doesn't it ...?), allowing people to use the one they like best, and avoiding any one service from becoming too powerful.
Diversity is a good thing!
We live, as we dream -- alone....