Facebook

In my last post, I wrote about how I think a content-centric Twitter-esque Facebook is a bad idea. I stick by this now that the layout has finally shown itself. The “what’s on your mind” box seems to discourage speaking in third person and tends toward Twitter-style micro-blogging. Bloggers, writers, journalists, and people whose career (or hobbies, like myself) centers around words and the manipulation thereof may welcome the new change, but it is not something the general public appreciates or, frankly, should have. The average Facebook user should not be allowed to divulge their stupid thoughts that easily. We saw how well that turned out with Xanga and Myspace blog posts.

With this in mind, however, it’s completely stupid to assume that Facebook gives two shits about what their users think about the direction they decide to take their website and its services. With the status posts being so central to the new home page layout, I can clearly see the dozens of people who vehemently declare their undying hatred for the new layout. This is all well and good; everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, when you go around to all of Mr. Zuckerberg’s groups, walls or any place you can post and type in all caps about how you “HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK SO MUCH CHANGE IT BACK PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!11″ then it starts to get a little old. Nobody freaking cares. They’re not going to change it back. How does it feel to know the internet hates you?

Especially annoying are the protest groups. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool when someone uses Facebook to draw attention to a legitimate cause, but when the entirety of the cause is in an angrily worded Facebook group, you need to relax and get a life. Why don’t you try voting for the next president by texting “PRESIDENT” to 25252? See how well that works out. We all know that the internet is SERIOUS BUSINESS, after all.

The point is, the new Facebook layout is a bad idea for the general user. I like it, but I don’t think the public at large wants, needs, or should have free rein over creativity and easy publishing on such an extremely public forum. That’s what changes the game: just how extraordinarily freaking public it all is. You can easily ignore someone on Youtube, or not visit a blog of an idiot who thinks the world cares, but Facebook is social by definition. With the increasingly stalkerish wall feed, we should periodically remind ourselves: nobody really cares.