Neat comic book generator from Marvel.

About a week or so ago, Facebook began rolling out its new interface design. Almost immediately, anuses* around the internet started clenching. “Facebook should die!” or “The new design cures cancer!” and everything between became the status update du jour. Personally, I like the new design, but for the auspices of this post it’s irrelevant. Every time Facebook updates its interface, users go nuts. Finally, I think I know why: These interface updates represent the worst kind of improvement. All form, no function. To put it another way, Facebook is asking its users to adapt to a new visual experience without adding any value of any kind.

Typically, users are fine with adopting new systems or interfaces if they feel the bother will make their lives or the experience of using products better. But Facebook seems to be moving things around simply for the sake of doing so; sometimes, building in critical user experience errors in the process.

Lately, I started realizing I’ve been really kind of “meh” about Facebook for a while now. Maybe it’s because I work in communications and use social tools all the time, but that I think is only exacerbating the issue, not causing it. It was only after I read Dan Lyons article on Newsweek, that my feelings started to crystallize.

“…in general Facebook is becoming so overwhelmed with spam and useless junk that the noise-to-signal ratio is about 100 to 1.”

Bingo. Facebook is becoming polluted with noise. I don’t care how many herds of future veal parm sandwiches you raised in Farmville, or how many hookers you raped in Mafia Wars. Why would I? Have you ever sat and watched someone play a video game? It’s boring. This is worse. It’s like cleaning up after a party without actually having been there.

I joined Facebook to keep in touch with friends, to see what they were up to, to chat. But wading trough the endless swamp of activity-spam is really killing the vibe.

I admit that this is a fine line for me to walk. Facebook is one of the largest social networks in the U.S. and a big part of my job is helping brands find a way to be relevant and make money in the space. For a while this was all well and good as consumers, in every piece of research I have read, found social networks far more trustworthy than websites. Partly this was because they leaned on their own friends and networks for advice, and partly because advertising wasn’t as common or as prevalent as other places on the web. For the first time in a while, that credibility and trust has declined, and I think this is why.

As more and more brands drop their adverteasing into your news feed, the less and less tuned in you become. More noise = less signal. Less attention = less trust. Say what you want about Twitter but its very simplicity makes it an infinitely more valuable tool. Brands can’t simply clog my feed with crap unless I tell them to. It doesn’t matter what any of my friends do online, that activity won’t make its way to me unless I allow it. I would think most users prefer this. Some people complain about the minutia that gets tweeted, but at least they opted into that data stream. If you want to play an online game, fine. I don’t need to read about it. My attention span is short, my time is limited and my patience is thin.

All of which brings us back to our friends at Facebook. I realize you need to make money; we all do. But heck, it was only about 10 minutes ago you turned profitable. You seem to have no problems re-engineering the design on a whim, so how about we try some value added fixes for a change? Here goes:

• Give me a user experience I can love. With all the recent hullabaloo about your redesigned interface, something got lost. Instead of providing me with a better core experience, or one that’s more flexible to my needs, you’ve simply moved the furniture around. How about giving me the flexibility to segment my news feed, say, by friends only? Now I simply have 2 options: ‘top news’ (anyone have any idea how this is determined?) and ‘most recent.’ Even better, give me the option to customize the layout as I see fit, sort of like the widgets screen on a mac. Do I really need my chat list in 2 places? How about allowing me different layouts if use more games and apps than the news feed? How about better more customizable notification settings? Can’t I just pick?
• Find the next PayPal. Everyone is trying to figure out how to monetize social and drive sales through your site. Build or buy something please. (See the previous bullet). Or better yet, allow me to put some functional code inside your site. This seems to be a hit or miss proposition at the moment.
• Give me better metrics tools. Let’s face it, and I can say this because we’re friends. Your metrics tools suck. As a brand marketer you’re not helping me bring more of my clients to the table, which in turn would bring you more money. Right now if I want to have anything even approximating a decent analysis I need to roll my own tools into your system. You’re an internet company, please report out like one. Plus, better more robust ways for me to measure would allow mw to rely less on dumping content into your users feeds. This would make the core experience better as well.
• Focus, focus and for crying out loud, focus. One thing that Apple does very well is focusing on it’s core value proposition and only deviating from that when they thing it’s worthwhile. It’s fine to offer a lot of varying features, but your core is interpersonal connections, not becoming a activity notification system. Concentrate on the people more than the stuff.

So Facebook, if you’re listening… it’s time for an intervention. My fear is that one morning you’ll roll out of bed, splash some cold water on your face and realize you became the one thing you never wanted to be.

Friendster.

*Editors note: How many of you have actually ever typed “the plural of anus” into Google? None of you? I thought not. Well then move along, nothing to see here.