Facebook is bloated.
Over the past few years, Facebook has been adding more and more features that make no sense in regards to how people actually use the social network. Additionally, while it keeps adding things, it doesn’t adjust or take away anything that isn’t being used or fix the crap that’s busted.
Here are 6 features that I think need to be heavily tweaked or just need to go. I’d rather be spending time talking about my friend’s cat than dealing with these useless features.
- Events – Events are like the appendix of Facebook. They’ve hung on from the early college days of Facebook, but now we all get so many invites from people who have no filters in place that Events are completely useless. Read Scott Stratten’s How We Are Killing Facebook to understand how useless this feature has become, and stop inviting me to see your crappy band playing halfway across the US.
- Notes - I’ve only seen notes used successfully by one person – Sarah Palin. I don’t know about you, but I typically don’t measure the success of a Facebook feature on the use of half-term governor who was a failed vice-presidential candidate and now a reality TV star. Normal people aren’t using notes except for the occaissional meme every blue moon, and they just need to go away before I get another quiz asking what my top 25 albums are.
- New Photos Interface - The new Facebook photos effect is the most jarring effect I’ve ever seen on the site. Changing instantly from the cold and clinical white and blue to the black-like-my-soul interface, who thought this would be a good way to browse photos? Don’t they want us to actually be distracted by all the other things on Facebook?
- Groups – These things have been launched for months, and I’m only part of one that is actually posted to regularly, and that’s because it’s basically a place where people post jobs. Groups are another feature that sounds good, but no one actually uses because they don’t benefit people on a daily basis.
- Questions – Facebook Questions are like Yahoo! Answers and Quora got even dumber, and someone allowed brands to throw their stupid questions into the mix. I don’t know who was asking for this feature, but it is completely useless, and I don’t need AMC’s The Walking Dead asking me how I’d survive the Zombie Apocalypse.
- Posting as Pages - Last week, with the switch to the new Facebook Pages gave page admins the ability to post as a page on another public page. This is going to make Facebook marketing spam and badvertising central. I haven’t seen this happen yet, but I know it will be coming once the full switch to the new pages is turned on and some idiot realizes he can go post as Coca-Cola in a desperate attempt to get more fans. On the bright side though, we’ll hopefully see more weird and crazy fuck ups as more pages start #gettingslizzerd.
What Facebook feature drives you nuts the most? Do you think they’ll drop any of these? Or will they linger on like the walking dead until we get another pointless, opt-out feature added on?
Have to say I disagree on two points. Groups - I am a member of a 'mommy' group and I've found it to be the most useful facility on Facebook. Basically it's a private group with 11 members. We all know each other IRL, we all have toddlers the same age, and we use the group to arrange meet-ups, discuss local childcare facilities, ask for advice from trusted friends, share photos, etc. It has been, and continues to be, an excellent way to organise playdates and nights out. Posting as pages = My blog has it's own Facebook page and I often post under the page ID. For instance, I like to post on other groups that are related to my blog's content (parenting, breastfeeding, that kind of jazz). Not only does this get my blog's name out there, it also lets prospective readers know the opinions and general approach taken by my blog so they can sense if my blog would be interesting/useful to them. Have to agree on events & notes. Complete trash.
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