Comments on: Facebook’s Battle Against Chaos

By: Blog Headers Suck

Blog Headers Suck — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:41:14 +0000

Facebook launches Sneak Preview Group…

Facebook recently launched a new group called the Sneak Preview Group. Apparently, its a response to the backlash that occured last fall from the release of the news feed without pre-testing.
Its an interesting move by Facebook to allow users to see an…

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 07:18:44 +0000

Whatever happened to rolling out features in Beta?

I mean, this is nothing new…Google Labs, alpha testers, etc…Facebook has taken 3 years to roll something out like this, and so they spin it as some new innovative concept, but its really just some screenshots and PR.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:15:58 +0000

In the same regard as keeping things clean, Facebook also resisted advertising much as Google did in the early days (they’ve obviously changed their minds a bit).

By: GarnierA

GarnierA — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 07:34:03 +0000

At the bottom, 10 million users is weak in comparison with the potential size of the Web. The more so as on the Net one can have several identitities and thus expect 20 billion people living in the world!

By: Dead 3.0

Dead 3.0 — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:49:45 +0000

Facebook solicits user feedback…

Via the Facebook Blog, a “Sneak Preview” group has been setup to introduce upcoming design changes and features. Personally, the new design changes look great to me. The redesigned navigation sports an Inbox, replacing messages and shares. …

By: Dead 3.0

Dead 3.0 — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:20:52 +0000

I think this is a great way for Facebook to solicit feedback from its users. From a product development point of view they receive valuable input to design and feature proposals. From a PR point of view they don’t spring changes on users and have backlashes. I think Facebook is making some smart moves but I still don’t think they’re maximizing their potential. More about it at my blog http://foroobar.wordpress.com/.....-feedback/

By: Sam Jackson

Sam Jackson — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:00:34 +0000

This is not looking to be the best venue for the feedback facebook is asking for, since there is no search or easy way to manage the topic list. Which is itself degenerating into a mess of suggestions and complaints not only about the new design. A lot of better options–maybe a built in wiki, like the patent office? — might exist here for facebook to get feedback, but it is still a pretty poor effort where I’m concerned. They have set up a threaded area which is not adequately moderated and is not well patrolled, opened it up to everyone, and then act poorly when it goes out of control with user suggestions. Just not a very well thought out venture, where I’m concerned. The thought is a little bit nice but not impressive given their track record.

I have a transcript of a talk with Zuckerberg at my school, where I asked him a question and he was not able to justify facebook’s valuations or explain its business model : (

By: Denis Kolesnichenko

Denis Kolesnichenko — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 19:23:50 +0000

I absolutely cant see how a website with only 14 mln registered users (according to ‘Yahoo Fraternity’ docs) is sold at a higher valuation than YouTube.

Okay, Facebook’s usage patterns are more sensible to advertisers and the service at least manages to be profitable and the tech costs for user reach are lower. But the demographic of users is MUCH more narrow. And at the end of the day most big COs pay for the # of registered users

By: engtech

engtech — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 19:02:52 +0000

I’d love to see Facebook put in some sane default privacy settings:

- different levels between friend, family and contact (flickr got that right) instead of the stranger/network/friend/custom setting mess they have now
- don’t show last names if someone isn’t your friend
- prevent other people from tagging you in photos (I use a nickname rather than fullname on Facebook and I got the friggin idiot who started commenting on photos friends had posted with “hey, isn’t that real-name not nick-name?)
- prevent your Facebook profile from showing up in external search engines (they may do this, I know by default LinkedIn can show up)

A site redesign would be awesome as the privacy settings are all over the place and even if you know what you want to tweak it’s impossible to find half the time.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:22:27 +0000

I really don’t understand why everyone things Facebook’s valuation is even close to $1bb, or why companies would be willing to shell out that amount. Yahoo has a history of making somewhat asinine acquisitions and then failing to ever get any ROI from the deal, so I don’t personally take their offer to mean much externally. Facebook makes less than $100mm a year, and though the market they have is (or, used to be) a specific and intruiguing demographic, there aren’t any tremoundous ways to monetize it - at least with the features the Facebook team focuses on.

YouTube has some extremely interesting revenue models that can be implemented in line with the content they distribute. I’m not convinced the same is true of Facebook. Most of Facebook’s ad content is peripheral and useless.

By: einar

einar — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:03:10 +0000

“Why would Google buy Facebook when they have the megapopular Orkut”

because they want US users?

By: oldster

oldster — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:41:44 +0000

heck, majority of the people on the internet dont understand the Tech side of it, which explains a lot…

By: bookman

bookman — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:20:57 +0000

the majority of the people on facebook dont understand the Tech side of it, this is why they hate the new features.

By: Carson

Carson — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:18:01 +0000

i F***ing love facebook

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:37:28 +0000

Personally, I think Facebook is going to be one of the first Web 2.0 IPOs…I think they’re playing to win in this sector and have the niche sites scrambling after them.

By: Thomas Barker

Thomas Barker — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:36:46 +0000

Even $800m is a hard valution to justify for a ad-based site, but people actually do say things like “I just got a text, Mel’s status is ‘It’s complicated’. Not looking good for those two”. And “I’m going on Facebook to see what I’m doing tomorrow”. It’s a big part of some [middle-class graduates/students in big cities] people’s lives.

Being semi-protected by using uni email addresses, starts people off trusting the site. It’s a communication tool like chat, rather than a place for publishing like MySpace, so I don’t think there’s any real competition there. Lots of people use MySpace, DeviantArt, Facebook, YouTube as *they* find convenient, then cross-link their pages. Everything’s a click-apart on the web, you can pick&mix…

(Oh and Facebook’s design is incredible. Someone designed that as an application, not just a bunch of screens in Powerpoint. )

By: N.Cauldwell

N.Cauldwell — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:27:24 +0000

If Zuckerberg does sell - which I don’t think he wants to considering the rumours of $1billion of Yahoo! cash being turned down (does the sum matter after this point?) - expect it to be between $2b - $4b.

Facebook has a great future, and it’ll continue to grow at a ridiculous pace for quite sometime. It’s the usable social network, an antidote to the MySpace 404 - and it just keeps you coming back because of it. And unless you use Facebook with all your friends as I do, you just won’t get it.

By: Ben Bakhshi

Ben Bakhshi — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 07:10:13 +0000

Anyone know what the ownership of facebook current stands at? Have they taken in much venture capital as of yet?

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 04:28:09 +0000

Not a bad idea on their part. They really got burned a few months back - especially on Digg.

By: MG Siegler

MG Siegler — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 03:26:57 +0000

I completely agree, Facebook and Google seem a much better fit at this point. And how about Facebook coming after new hotshot Twitter with the prominent placement of Status…

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 03:08:11 +0000

Huh. 37 Signals’ blog had a Facebook post just the other day, about the contoversial changes they made. In particular, they thought the design needed to be simplified, which it looks like it’s going to be.

If Facebook goes to Google, it’ll be interesting to see if it goes for enough that Zuckerberg doesn’t look like a jerk for not taking the billion-dollar offer.

By: Anshul

Anshul — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 02:53:30 +0000

Cool way to demo new designs/features. Atleast I like that facebook is open to user comments unlike myspace which does things on random.

By: vslog

vslog — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 02:34:11 +0000

If simplicity of the site was a rationale to acquire a business, then google should first sell orkut to AOL and then buy facebook

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 01:44:47 +0000

I mean, he has a very particular style of doing things that is somewhat different to what you usually see - this latest news is further testiment to that. He seems kind of Jobs-like in that he is more concerned about the product than the profit margin.

By: responder

responder — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 01:32:02 +0000

to #15

jamie, what do you mean by ‘it has zuckerberg’ stamped all over it?
i can’t tell if you’re comming from a pro or con

you mean on the footer is has “a mark zuckerberg production”?