So, I look at my newsfeed. Status update from a “friend” I haven’t hung out with once, a company page trying to sell its product, a distant acquaintance becoming friends with people I don’t know, more updates from more companies, a string of wall to wall posts between two people I barely know but met a few months back …and I’ve had enough so I log out hoping that the next time I log in, someone I’m actually interested in knowing about posts a photo or an update. I think I’ve made myself clear. I don’t want to know who my acquaintances are becoming friends with. I don’t want to know that someone I barely know just woke up. I don’t want to see an advertisement disguised as a link or video post from a company. I don’t want to see that my “friend” checked into a restaurant a few hours ago. I don’t care about these things. And maybe you don’t either.
A Little History
Let’s go back to 2006. I got invited to join Facebook by a friend. Because my high school didn’t have a network, I got on through my friend’s school network, ironically an all-girls Toronto school, Havergal College. I didn’t care because at that point there was barely anyone I knew on Facebook. And then I discovered status updates, and the Wall. Writing on someone’s wall felt like talking to them in public. It was like others were in vicinity and were aware that I’m talking to someone. That summer, I instantly felt more social. Friendships flourished.
Signal vs. Noise
Back to 2011. Facebook is busier than ever, and due to the huge number of updates from a significant number of people I don’t know too well, and certain types of updates I don’t care about (“John Doe is now friends with …”), it’s not as inviting to log-in as it once was. The experience is nowhere as much fun and the audience is nowhere as much closely-knit as it once was. It seems some of us are approaching “Facebook fatigue”. And Facebook engineers are faced by a challenging question: how to reduce the noise and amp up the signal in someone’s newsfeed?
In the past, they’ve have addressed this question with variety of approaches: friend lists, grouping of similar posts, grouping of posts about to a particular event, smarter friend lists, and their most recent and significant innovation: the Subscribe button.
With the Subscribe button, Facebook has really hit on something big. You can unsubscribe people you don’t want to hear from without defriending them. This is a much needed innovation that took way too long to come out. But will it really solve the problem of not being able to only connect with your real friends (in the truest definition of the word)? It’s too early to predict, considering that this latest newsfeed innovation just arrived today, and probably hasn’t been rolled out to most people yet.
Moving Forward
As an early adopter, I’m still left evaluating options to make my Facebook experience as much fun and addicting as it was back when I started. Another friend clean up? With 500+ friends, it would be a gargantuan task, so I’m not really sure how I would go about it. Unsubscribing from a lot of people? Yeah, maybe, but “unsubscribing” updates from 200 of my 500 odd friends? Really? That seems a bit ridiculous. In fact, it begs an important question: Has Facebook has turned into something so crowded that will deter a big chunk of its old users away in the long run?
Not easy to say. It all really depends on what the Facebook engineers churn out, and how other Facebook-like services on the web get more popular. One thing is obvious – that, we will definitely be spending more time on the internet talking to people. But hopefully, the value of the time we put into a social life digitally will be recognized through some innovation within Facebook or outside of it that’s just around the corner. What I need is something that lets me connect more quickly to my real friends, something that’s private within my friend’s circle to some degree. Something that makes the social network experience fun. Something that’s not cluttered with updates from people who aren’t my real friends. And, you never know, this new thing called Path might just be on the verge of becoming what I’m looking for.