Changing Facebooks

Checking Facebook on my mobile over the weekend I couldn't help but notice a common theme in status updates, along the lines of "what happened to Facebook?" and "why can't they just leave it alone?"

The funny thing about social networking* is that the users, the people behind the profile pictures, think they own it - because they've made it what it is. So any change to that service drives 'em mad! But rightly so, I can't make head nor tail of my home page now.

Most of us knew this change was coming. Twitter has been grabbing so many headlines of late, and now everyone who is anyone is on there telling us they're about to make a cup of tea. But all this attention seems to have put the willies up Facebooks' arsebook, with reports saying Facebook was going to revamp to look more like Twitter, which seems to have just wound people up. Last time they revamped was summer '08, and the people were livid! And so taking on board that feedback, they've done it again!

What's interesting is this desire to be more like Twitter. But the two are very different beasts, with users looking to get very different things from each.

I very rarely trawl through the archives of Twitter to find out what inane comments have been made by the people I follow, however I will take time to peruse Facebook, catch up on photos of parties that I couldn't go to, fast forward through holiday snaps and see who's broken up with who (mainly gloating at ex-boyfriends' misery...). It's a catch up tool, a place to reconnect with old friends (without paying the fiver Friends Reunited once extorted out of me to email back someone I didn't even like in the first place), but Twitter is an immediate micro-blog feed, some useful tidbits some drivel. I don't get the same interaction through Twitter, and I'm also more exposed.

So why compete? Because you're jealous that your day in the sun seems to be over and Twitter is getting all the headlines?

Companies remain successful when they listen to what the customer wants, learn from how the customer uses their product or service and then adapt around that. Text messaging is a fine example of something that turned out to be a huge boost for mobile operators who originally thought "no-one will want to send a message of only 160 characters, but we can do it...f*ck it, stick it on the phone and see what happens."

Listening to feedback is even more more important when you rely on the interaction of your customers. So like crossing the road, look right, look left, look right again**, then when you're sure it's safe, make your move.

*I really hate this phrase, all networking is social, both online and off, but I guess in terms of the computer world the geeks might think it's the top trumps site for Ethernet cables...

**If you're in a country that drives on the right hand side, look left, look right, look left again...and if you're in India, you're safer not crossing.