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Robert Scoble
Robert Scoble
Facebook is unusable? That's what I'm reading here. Well, please explain how 300 million use it then. Including my wife, my son, me, and ALL of Maryam's elementary school friends from Iran.
August 11, 2009 - Comment - Share
I think most mean it's not as comfortable as FriendFeed. - Amit Morson
I think some of the stuff I'm reading about Facebook is laughable. Really? I went over and used it tonight and the news feed is very similar to FriendFeed. The technology from here will fit right in. - Robert Scoble
Actually, Robert's right. FriendFeed's basically a superior version of the Facebook news feed. - Dennis Jernberg
I wish Friend Feed was keyboard navigatable though. Google Reader and GMail have spoiled me; making me think that web apps can be usable as well. I don't like using the mouse so much. - Travis B. Hartwell
It's gotten a bit easier since they started copying Twitter/Friendfeed...but its the third-party silly stuff that puts me off. Serious stuff was always better here in Friendfeed. - George Hall (Australia)
George: I ignore all that stuff, it never bothered me. - Robert Scoble
When do do we get hear what the plan actually is? I have used the FF app in facebook from time to time. But the problem is facebook is clunky due to it's massive membership so I tend click back to here. Is FB really going to get faster? It be smart to have both running in tandem methinks no? - BairdWilliamson
Facebook is like the social housing estate next door. There are some decent people living there, and there are some pockets of nobs who will steal the hubcaps off your car and throw them through your windows while trying to sell some dodgy dvd's on the street corners. - Gilbert Harding
Almost everyone I know IRL uses Facebook, but increasingly grudgingly. - Tinfoil 2.0
I know millions of people who use four remote controls to watch TV. - Luca Sofri
It is not usable in the way that friendfeed is (I know there are problems) - Paul Kinlan
but facebook is soo complicated - Paul Kinlan
I'll go with the train. If the train heads to Facebook I suppose thats where I need to go as well :) I'm absolute certain that FF staff will have a great impact on the user experience of FB. Trying to be positive I also think it's a great thing that FB still strive to evolve. - Patrik Arwengrim
Facebook is ugly, looks like a corporate site and very slow and clunky, like a busy factory with adds at every corner - Thierry Lhôte
Baird: software takes months. Paul is right. But Paul, you can just ignore a lot of the complexity there. - Robert Scoble
hhahaha, sth. like that i thought this second too, Luca :) - Ronald
Facebook is unusable to do the things that FriendFeed can do - Anthony Feint
lol, the #1 excuse I hear for people migrating from FriendFeed to Facebook is the annoying applications on the home feed. You can edit those out of your view you know. Same for people you don't want to converse with (privacy settings). - Hugh Isaacs II
@Robert - I find Facebook extremely useful... for playing Mafia and FarmTown style games. Engagement is just difficult there. I'm not sure if it's the UI, the crowd I have there, or what, but I just don't get into a comfortable conversational groove there on FB the way I do on Twitter or here. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
in fact, the four founders of Friendfeed recieved a trader bonus, for doing real-time search on Facebook, not changing Facebook to become Friendfeed - Thierry Lhôte
Robert - you're confusing number of users with ease of use. Millions of people of all ages used to be happy with their cellphones, but it wasn't until the iPhone came along that those people saw how usable a phone *could* be. - Andrew Terry
Anthony: like start a mob war? :-) - Robert Scoble
robert: I think it is hard to ignore the complexity, it took me ages to upload a phote once (or even find where to do it) - Paul Kinlan
robert: and there is no discovery... I love ff for its friend of a friend features and best of the day.... oh and my discussions. - Paul Kinlan
I think someone hit the nail on the head. The one thing really missing from the Facebook experience is the sort of engagement we have here at Friendfeed. - George Hall (Australia)
robert: no sharing content is what im talking about. I actually don't personally know the people I follow on FriendFeed. many are influencers like yourself. This is where I get my news. On Facebook you have Friends not Followers - Anthony Feint
anyway, the key way to tell something is not friendly to someone, it is listening to that someone. That someone says it's not. You can't go and tell him he's wrong in what he doesn't like. - Luca Sofri
Anthony: that's changing and quickly. My Facebook looks exactly like FriendFeed. - Robert Scoble
Why are you using FF and Twitter and not FB then? Besides, they totally hid the applications so anything not out of the box is hard to get to. Advanced functionalities are hard to get to. It's the only site I can think of that I had to use the Help section to find stuff... - Eran Kampf from iPhone
@Anthony Actually Facebook has a following feature http://startupmeme.com/faceboo.... - Hugh Isaacs II
That and facebook is full of punk teenagers that I don't want to talk to ;) - Paul Kinlan
@Paul, Then delete them from your friends list, or don't add them. - Hugh Isaacs II
You choose your own friends on facebook, right? - TobiasVerhoog.com
also I do believe the UI on Facebook is terrible. It took me 5 attempts to try and create a page on Facebook and I still have to do a search for it when I want to view it - Anthony Feint
Robert, its all the poking and quizzes and other jejune stuff on Facebook - Aaman (Clone of FF)
Of course Facebook is usable. The point is what do you want to use it for. It was the one place where I could have family and close friends in a CLOSED network. I don't want the world and his missus to see my birthday party - sorry. Friendfeed is a completely different thing. Use it as a lifestream - have all sorts of friends/ acquiaintances/ whatever on there. They are not one and the same and I don't see how they can be. - sofiagk
@Aaman, block the quizzes from your home feed. - Hugh Isaacs II
Aaman: I've been on Facebook for a long time and I just ignore that stuff. No harm to me. - Robert Scoble
Facebook is cluttered. It's not a platform for sharing information and discussion. They're intended for two entirely separate purposes. That being said, I definitely am looking forward to what the FriendFeed team can do with Facebook. If real-time search is where they stop, it'll be hell. - Adam Reyher from Alert Thingy
On Facebook you choose your friends, just like here. Some differences, plus over there you have to decide whether you're going to be public or private up front. - Robert Scoble
So why you were then one of the sincerest ambassadors for FF and NOT FB? But taste changes... - Ronald
@Hugh what I was implying was that FF is open participation, so I am talking to you, I might not be following you but I am still talking to you; FB is open to 300 million users most of which I couldn't stop talking to me even if I wanted. Usage wise (from my perception) FB is closed to your personal groups, FF is discovery, the twain shall never mesh - Paul Kinlan
Robert Scoble was more interesting when he actually had a defensible opinion, rather than just went along with whatever the industry seemed to be doing and worked to egg people on. We remember those times, don't we? - Andy Bakun
I always laugh at people saying "what's the problem? Just do this, and it is ok". But the reason we use computers and software is we don't want to do this. We want to have things exactly the way we need them, not the way we need them if we just do this and this. - Luca Sofri
Facebook is not designed to be a public tool - think back to its roots. It's more of a private thing. If I am forced to use it like Friendfeed then I am deleting at least 80% of my info - sofiagk
@Paul, I think that's going to change with the FriendFeed acquisition. Facebook's aiming more for the public stuff instead of only focusing on close relationships now. - Hugh Isaacs II
cool, I used the word twain (evern if it is wrong) - Paul Kinlan
@sofiagk, Everything on Facebook is choice, I doubt they'll force you to be public, it'll probably be very tightly controlled. - Hugh Isaacs II
Think of the privacy settings. - Hugh Isaacs II
@Hugh, I would love FB to change to be more like FF but I can't see it happening, I would love to get to see the real-time search (someone said they just released it). - Paul Kinlan
sofiagk: I completely agree - Facebook was built for closed and private networks. Which is the complete opposite of FF. I don't want to setup complex privacy settings becasue I don't want my family to be inundated with php and coding articles. - Anthony Feint
If we are talking about privacy settings you might want to check out my FB app http://www.knowyourprivacy.com - Paul Kinlan
FB's great strength was for the private stuff. If I'm forced to choose between public and private, I'm going to stay private, because that's where my IRL friends are. Sorry, FFers. - James Myatt
@Michael A. "Flynn" Volz +1 - sofiagk
@Paul, I don't think Facebook plans to continue as just a closed network anymore, I think their goal is to cover all types of social interactions on the web so it's very likely they'll have FriendFeed like features. - Hugh Isaacs II
We use each tool to our own purposes but that doesn't mean that each tool is not better suited to a type of use. - sofiagk
@sofiagk, What's to say Facebook can't act as two tools instead of one? - Hugh Isaacs II
@hugh, the had better change their API to support that type activity then. - Paul Kinlan
@Paul, They already did. - Hugh Isaacs II
Hugh, I'm sure it can, but it's going to be really awkward. Like using a Swiss army knife to put shelves together and then skin a rabbit. - James Myatt
@James, Yea, I can't defend that, lol. - Hugh Isaacs II
@Hugh Isaacs II well if they are planning to open up then half of the apps are more or less redundant I would guess. You spend all of your time becoming something and then strip down to become something else? What's the point? I'm sorry I just don't understand what is the point with competing with twitter. Facebook vs Twitter is just a silly question, how would you compare them? Using some ff feature to make the stream on facebook better - sure I get that. - sofiagk
I think Facebook really need to sketch out what they're going to do with Friendfeed, and that might help people adapt to the idea better. At the moment, too much speculation and people really have no idea what to expect of this. - George Hall (Australia)
I've never beeon a big user of FF. I still don't quite get it. I use FB to keep in touch with people I know. As far as I can see FF is more for discovering stuff and discussing it with people I don't. Or have I missed the point? - Marc A. Price
@sofiagk, When you look at what Facebooks done so far, it seems like they just want all of the internets social interactions in one place. I mean it does sound silly but sticking to one thing is what killed off Friendster, Classmates, MySpace and so on. - Hugh Isaacs II
Marc, I think that is exactly the point - James Myatt
Being on FF is like publishing only things you want. With advanced privacy settings, you can just filter what to share on FB. BUT (a big but) I don't trust Facebook and I've seen it enabling stuff like alerts and configuration settings just because they had some error in their system. I don't share my private life on FF but I share family pictures, my personal details like my cell phone because I only allow people I know personally on FB. - Burak "cyrus" Bayburtlu
My biggest problems with using Facebook like Friendfeed are lack of friend-of-friend content (if someone else likes / comments on something, I don't get that in my feed), barriers to engagement (subscribing to someone you don't really "know" on FF is fine; sending a friend request to someone you don't really "know" on FB is not cool), and the fact that stuff falls down the feed too quickly because likes / comments don't bump it to the top again. - Tristan Seligmann
@hugh, they haven't changed their api at all, the status stream is a bit of a joke. - Paul Kinlan
@Hugh Isaacs II if they want to get all of social interaction in one place they have grossly misunderstood the nature of social interaction generally. People do not have ONE identity which they use to interact with EVERYONE. Rather we have MULTIPLE. I don't talk to my boss the same way as I talk to my friend. That's why I need multiple tools. So if there is only one on offer I will not use it. - sofiagk
@sofiagk, that's what the privacy settings are for. In real life you don't take on multiple personas (well at least I don't think you do) so why do it on the internet? And in real life certain conversations are private, kept from others. You shouldn't require separate identities for that. - Hugh Isaacs II
And you can't expect them to know the perfect network for human interaction. The fact that they're trying gives me confidence though. It's like Googles goal to store all of the worlds information in one place, it won't happen but it definitely made some great products. - Hugh Isaacs II
@Hugh Isaacs II do you really trust facebook with the complicated settings and permissions and groups. I don't. I will agree with what @Burak "cyrus" Bayburtlu said above. I get what you are saying about trying. But at the end of the day Google has multiple product offerings. Facebook doesn't (for now). - sofiagk
Hugh, you do need separate places for that so that there's no risk of being overheard accidentally. - James Myatt
@sofiagk, I don't honestly. I'm defending them based off of idealism not favoritism. And yea, handling all of that stuff will probably end up in a million mistakes but it's a product, that happens. Also what's to say Facebook can't have multiple products? (That could be apart of this whole FriendFeed thing) - Hugh Isaacs II
@Hugh Isaacs II well - let's see what's gonna happen. Btw thanks for the lively chat a blog post is being drafted in my head as I type :-) - sofiagk
Your welcome, also if it's of any help, the maker of FriendFeed posted up something of reassurance http://friendfeed.com/paul... - Hugh Isaacs II
I think it makes more sense to have multiple "spaces" (work / private / whatever) in the same tool than arbitrarily dividing those up across multiple tools. - Tristan Seligmann
For example, most people would probably not create a Yahoo email account for emailing some people, and a GMail account for emailing others; they would just create two GMail accounts. - Tristan Seligmann
@Tristan, It's funny alot of people on FriendFeed are talking about migrating to Google Wave because of the whole Facebook thing, and in reality that's what Wave is going to do. - Hugh Isaacs II
All of the big companies whether open or not are aiming at owning your internet identity, they don't want separate identities because it doesn't define everything correctly. That's why Google has their profiles feature, why so many companies support OpenID, etc... It may not be something you're used to but over time it will just be one account per person, based on how social networking evolves. - Hugh Isaacs II
I bet even FriendFeed had that idea (Hint: Google, Facebook and Twitter log in feature). - Hugh Isaacs II
Carefully observe how someone communicates on phone call versus a face-to-face conversation. It's different—for one thing speaking in a louder volume on the phone. The medium influences the communication itself (but don't get me started on McLuhan ;) So multiple tools can help achieve a certain dynamic that would not have happened just by using another feature inside a single service/construct. That's certainly been my experience on FriendFeed. - Micah
@Micah Wittman +1 - sofiagk
@Micah, Wouldn't Facebook count as multiple tools in itself. You can have a toolbox, that doesn't mean all of it's contents equal one tool. - Hugh Isaacs II
Well, I guess this is more of a Swiss Army knife, but the analogy still applies. - Hugh Isaacs II
Hugh, typically, the same culture/available resources produce stuff under a certain paradigm. - Micah
@Micah, I doubt they'd just stuff all of your social interactions under one blanket. - Hugh Isaacs II
They've already separated all of my friends by relation. - Hugh Isaacs II
I mean, look at FriendFeed, I used the Facebook Connect feature to log in, but I don't interact on here as I would with my friends - Hugh Isaacs II
Facebook is just really cluttered, and it's UI looses focus on so many fronts. Take the start page - i've missed events, birthdays and other stuff because its burried with a million things on one page. But that's where the people are. I - Shawn Roos
Or you are SO wrong here. People pretend they are using it - then their wife asks - btw, honey, how did you create that fan page about me? And he says - WTF? :) - Sasha Kovaliov
Apostol, lol :) The idea is that usability could have been much-much better! Right now it's a total mess and there is a lot of room for improvement. Yes, people use it everyday, but do they use all of it? - Sasha Kovaliov
@Sasha, do you use all of FriendFeed? (Example: Last.Fm, Brightkite, desktop notifications, google talk integration, etc...) - Hugh Isaacs II
Then why use people not using all of Facebook as an argument? - Hugh Isaacs II from iPod
FB is not unusable, but it is bloated. Tough to set things up the way that I want. Too many new toys/apps popping up almost in every second. I'm tired of hiding this, hiding that from the feeds - ilterocktive
It's still pretty simple and pleasant to use provided you don't install any applications IMO :P. - James Stephenson
James: what about not being able to stop some favorite friends from installing any applications? :) - ilterocktive
ilter: Ummm ... I guess you could start selecting your friends based on their Facebook Applications :P? That would be a sad, sad day... - James Stephenson
Maybe we need a seperate facebook application. Wait... are there ANY facebook desktop applications? AIR-free preferred (for now) :) - ilterocktive
Throws a sheep at Robert. - Mark Davidson from BuddyFeed
Hat tip to this discussion and to @Hugh Isaacs II - I explain my point on facents and identities better here http://www.digital-era.org/renditi... (I know this is a shameless plug - Robert fee free to delete, I just thought it is relevant) - sofiagk
@sofiagk, I read your blog post and understand your argument but the same rule still stands. You only have one body. As with the friend list feature on Facebook you have social barriers that keep some people away from what others may see. I know it sounds foolish to push all of your social interactions under one service, but if that service can recreate the same personas you use in real life, the only argument against it would be ease of use, comfort and bugs. - Hugh Isaacs II
@Hugh Isaacs II with you all the way if we can find some way to meaningfuly separate functions and feeds - to actually control what info we send to whom. - sofiagk
@sofiagk, that's what I've been getting at this whole time. I mean I know Facebook in it's current state doesn't do a great job of controlling who sees what, but I'm sure they've been working on that. The FriendFeed acquisition is probably to cater to that. - Hugh Isaacs II
Facebook has lots of usability issue. For example, they hid all the apps in that ridiculous bottom toolbar making them less accessible. It took me a while to find that my events are now there... If you want to do anything a bit more advanced than the basic functions then you'll probably lost without their help site (took me a while to figure out how to set permissions to different groups... ). Facebook should be way easier to use... - Eran Kampf
@Eran, Windows does the same thing. Hides all of the apps in that ridiculous bottom toolbar. ^_^ - Hugh Isaacs II
scobble: it's close to unusable. - Gal Granov גל גרנוב
If its so good and usable... why do you use FriendFeed\Twitter? - Eran Kampf
@Eran, Facebook doesn't let me hold public conversations like the one we're currently having (which I think is bound to change). - Hugh Isaacs II
It's not unusable... it's TOO usable. Too easily gamed by spam apps, too visible to employers who want to block it, too easy for advertisers to target your feed and use your stuff. And way, way too cluttered. It's like the boardwalk in Atlantic City... I avoid it if I can but every so often I make the mistake of going and find that it hasn't changed. Friendfeed on the other hand has none of the crap, while it does have a boatload of interesting, engaged people. - Vicarbott
well said Jim.... +1 - Kim
++++jim - BEX from iPhone
I totally (!) agree with Jim *thumbs up* - Ronald
@Jim, you know you can actually filter out the applications from your view, even keep them from posting on your wall. - Hugh Isaacs II
You are spot on, Robert. The proof is in the pudding. - thinkQuick
Hugh... yes, I know. But while facebook is very easy to begin using it requires a fair amount of effort to set up all that stuff and get the look/feel you want. For all the talk I've heard about how Friendfeed is difficult to figure out, I've never had that problem here. - Vicarbott
@Jim, yea but FriendFeed is a very young website. I'm not content just knowing that I can't filter out which of my friends can see what. If FriendFeed lasted longer it would've probably gotten more complex and you would've lost interest, or it would've stayed the same and you would've lost interest. Either way judging from your comment I think you would've moved on to something new at some point (this is Facebooks attempt at being relevant to you). - Hugh Isaacs II
Hugh... I guess you missed the part of my comment that spoke about interesting, engaged people. I will not be losing interest in them anytime soon. In fact, I've been (and still am) on facebook longer than I've been here. I've never been that interested in facebook and still am not. It was just the opposite on FF. I was skeptical and used it very little at first but as the service (for lack of a better word) matured, it got more interesting, not less. Of course, you're right about one thing. Now that this has happened I will definitely be moving on to something new at some point... not facebook or friendfeed! - Vicarbott
Slow... Bogged down with apps... And who wants to refresh a page or discussion manually? Although it does allow me to stay connected with people I would have otherwise lost touch with. - JR from iPhone
@Walt, Facebook + Realtime experts = Facebook in Realtime. It's an assumption but not one without merit. - Hugh Isaacs II
Good to connect with friends of friends but do not like the stupid apps - Randy Allen Bishop
people who barely know the net are ALL on facebook. you know what i would like? friend group settings. think about it. post photos to your personal group, your online friends or something else entirely. and WHO KNOWS - with the smart people working for the boogie men, it might happen too! - Terry O'Fee
@Hugh yes I know it is coming... Just wanted to share my top three issues with #facebook and why I use it to help this wonderful R&D discussion... :) - JR from iPhone
I think Facebook is perfectly usable. I just can't use it for the same sort of things. Honestly, most people think Facebook is unusable because of all the applications that their friends use, and which those people are too lazy to block. There are some legit problems though, like the quiz applications which, literally, make new applications, so that they show up and you have to block each and every individual one of them. But for the most part, Facebook is perfectly usable, for sharing between me *and my friends*. The people I follow on FriendFeed are not "my friends". - Otto
Logging into Facebook means a 10-12 minute commitment just to catch up on a half-day's worth of communication. By contrast, I can get in and out of Twitter or Friendfeed in a minute or two if that's all I have. Facebook is just...heavy. - Ed Moltzen
I know people that work at Facebook. They're good people. But I have serious doubts about their abilities to make an interface that doesn't totally suck. Face facts, Facebook's interface absolutely blows. It is very difficult to do anything that you actually need to do. A good friend of mine is a teacher, and she stopped using Facebook because she didn't want to reject her students on it, but at the same time didn't want them to see things she posted. Understandable, but she did not know that a) FB doesn't send "rejections" to people when you ignore their friend requests and b) FB has very detailed privacy controls, hidden away in the interface. She was basically not using FB because the interface was completely opaque to her. 300 million people do NOT use Facebook. About 3 million people use it, everybody else just signed up for it and then couldn't figure it out properly. - Otto
I think FB is/has reached a level of importance as SOFTWARE that there needs to be detailed guides/documentation/tutorials. Think about it, most of FB's functionality is simply put out there for people to discover. When you sign up you aren't introduced to a 1/4 of what is available or provided any kind of best practices guidance. Software we buy for our systems generally comes with some type of manual or instruction. Most webapps like FB do not, you have to go to the community or hunt through the interface - Martin Johnson
It's not unusable but it is quite a challenge to new users. I wrote this post about how Twitter is the gateway drug to social networking. http://blog.adam-jackson.net/2009... - Adam Jackson
It might come as a shock to the designers out there but usability is not the most important aspect of an application. Facebook's success in the face of its sucky usability proves that. People are on facebook, and other on-line social networks, because they want to interact with the other members, not because of usability. - sjjh
Unnecessary to chew gum. But it's called billion dolar industry. - Burçak Çubukçu
there are more stranger things that people do, not everything could be explained, asked a wrong question. like say if there aren't any ghosts why more than half the world believe, if there is any god or isn't why are people theist/atheist. why men cut their hair both head/facial when they are there for sexual and heat exchange purposes at first places, you asked it out of your sentiment for facebook and i wrote it because i don't like facebook ;) - testbeta