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★ The Crowded Facebook Party

Mark Evans asks: can 600m people be wrong about Facebook?

Of course, millions of people continue to storm onto Facebook every week, and there are some people who believe Facebook will have one billion users by year-end. The thing about Facebook is it’s like a red-hot party – no matter crowded and uncomfortable, people keep on coming because it’s the place to be. But at some point, people may start to think there has to be another place with good music but room to move and hear yourself talk.

I couldn’t agree more, although it may be a bit strong to say they’re “wrong”. I’d say they’re just hanging out, and waiting for the next party to start.

So what’s happening? Well, Facebook is getting crowded in three ways:

1. Crowded with people: it no longer has this exclusiveness that drove its growth. That’s not new, but it makes the Facebook party vulnerable to the next cooler one. Kind of like the “going mainstream” issue that Quora is facing (although at a very different level of course).
2. Crowded with content. It might just be me, but the few times per week I look at it, my News Feed is now basically a social photosharing app where a little talent is sunk between party pics. Facebook can tell which pics my friends (and their friends) are discussing and liking. If Facebook has to be about pictures, then I wish it would tell me which ones are the most aesthetic instead… Or which ones I will find more interesting.
3. Crowded with Apps. Both Facebook ones and 3rd-party apps, all competing to grab your attention and make you spend more time (and soon, money) on Facebook. Facebook has tighter integration than Google between its products, in part thanks to the News Feed, but that also creates more distraction, clutter, and complexity.

This is what makes me use Facebook a lot less these days. It is simply too inefficient to learn about what my close friends are up to, about news, and discover new things.

Sure, it looks nicer than Google Mail or Reader, and has more visible conversations than Twitter. But in the end, we’re all looking to save our precious time. Google specifically innovates on that, for example with Priority Inbox in Gmail and Sort by Magic in Reader. Twitter is built with that in mind, with its 140-char limit.

I wish Facebook would grow its “utility” side more. By that, I mean, become a more efficient way to stay up to date with what my friends have been up to. Remove the clutter, help me focus on what’s important. Hide the crowd.

In my view, that would make our partying more enjoyable, because we’d have more time for real partying instead of spending time on sifting through our overcrowded Facebook homepage.

Do you notice the same effects? Are they detracting from your experience on Facebook?

12. February 2011 by Jean Friesewinkel
Categories: Interface Design, Social | 4 comments

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