Facebook

So, yesterday facebook changed everything again. Annoying. Most of my friends reacted negatively too. Couldn't find things I normally scanned in the morning, lost the train of the feed on several occasions etc.

Interestingly my college aged son wondered what the big deal was. He has the updated feed but didn't care about it. My high school daughter didn't even notice, but then again she only uses FB on a mobile device.

Which got me to thinking. Why was I so annoyed and they so unaffected? My guess would be that they share everything with their friends. I don't.

I started sorting into two main groups over a year ago, people I actually know and acquaintances. The acquaintances got sorted into a group that locked them out of the details of my life. We could message one another, we can play games together, they can invite me to their events, but they couldn't see the pictures of my kids. I also used the lists option to sort my feed, my preferred method was to view status updates and I hid the feeds of many of the games, groups I was asked to like etc. When it was time to play Cafe World or Mafia Wars (yes, I got sucked into those games by my kids and I still play) I could sort the feed for game updates and send gifts etc. I was very happy.

Now, facebook has sorted all my friends for me and the feed lists option appears to be gone. If I click the FB games list, I don't see my friends there who play games with me, only the acquaintances. I have to click several places now to see the info that used to be at my fingertips. From a work perspective, I am concerned that the pages I promote will get buried... that we won't be "top news" cause we publish in waves of info and our fans might not see the info we do share.

This afternoon there was a press conference explaining why all of this is so great. Honestly, it just feels like a targeted advertising demographic grab. If I am forced to sort all of my friends into all the categories in which I hold them, Facebook learns a little bit more about my likes. And someday the ads will be more personalized. Honestly, if I wanted to sort everyone into groups I could use google plus :)

So, if you are as fed up with facebook as I am, come find me on google plus. I've already got the circles started over there. I won't leave facebook, too many friends and family there, but I don't think I'll spend the time curating my peeps the way FB wants. I'll just figure out how to view the basics and play the games. And continue to try to keep my private life private.