What’s a good example of a disruptive company? Why, Twitter, which Zuckerberg tried to buy for $500 million in cash and stock. Having failed to grab Twitter, Zuckerberg has redesigned his website in its image — a steady stream of real-time updates which are impossible to follow unless you stay on the website all day long. Which sounds great, unless you have a job, a family, or a life.
my ambivalence about this subject is slowly turning into an opinion that is falling on the side of the masses: that this re-design wasn’t a good idea.
i work in digital media and frequent facebook but there are many times where i don’t have it open and am actually doing work. the beauty of its previous design was its curation abilities. i was able to define whom i wanted to see information about, the kinds of information i wanted to see about them and even the frequency. this let me ignore facebook all day and then check it during the evenings, picking up where i left off and systematically looking at different sections i cared about. i can’t do this anymore and therefore facebook isn’t as valuable to me.
editing, curation, etc. are all finer design points that are trying, desperately, to tone the constant information overload of this digital age. some get it, most don’t. although, people are starting to see the value. why do you think facebook was so popular to begin with? it had perfected the art of helping anyone manage their network efficiently.
update: this post gives some good insight on ways to manage the home page better. whenever i take the time, i’ll probably be able to get things back to how they were in terms of the news feed actually being useful. however, net net, it’s a regressive design choice by facebook. when you’re designing for singular use (as in facebook isn’t a “group” activity), information overload should be carefully tempered.
