Facebook doesn’t think a social network needs to have Network Pages. And maybe it doesn’t. I didn’t even know they existed until someone told me they are about to be killed.
When you join Facebook, you can also join certain sub-networks tied to where you live, went to school, or work. Those are being replaced by Groups, although any networks you already belong to will remain intact. You just won’t be able to see the activities on that network where members do so today, which is the Networks Page.
This appears to be part of Facebook’s planned site redesign that is meant to make it simpler to use. (A much bigger change is the way applications will be added in the future).
Maybe nobody was using the Networks Pages. Does this change bum anybody out?
It was sorta fun to see “What’s popular” at a network. I used to go to my school’s network page and see what video was popular, or which group was popular.
Lots of big changes at FB, including the open source platform http://www.congoo.com/news/200.....pen-Source
It was cool to see an overview of the Vancouver network and what events were going on but I rarely ever went. I did notice a lot of travelers trying to meet people posting on the wall etc.
Also, in case some people didn’t know, you can preview the new facebook at http://www.new.facebook.com
It depends on how the new groups feature is implemented - if groups around geographic areas are not created, then there may be a collective action problem where no one has the incentive to put in the work to start a group for a large geographic area. Having one official “Silicon Valley, CA” network is kind of nice, if not implemented terribly well right now.
I always find it confusing to figure out what content belongs to whom on FB and where and how I can join and share. Maybe this change will help. On the other hand I think a network should have it’s own page to post updates etc on. What makes it confusing is how this stuff is fed into my update stream.
It does bum me out that Facebook has discontinued the Network pages. Seeing the number of users in specific networks was a great tool used for pitching ideas to potential clients. It’s difficult to explain the significant number of people being reached via Facebook without those numbers.
These “Networks” were a nightmare because if you had default privacy settings and you joined one, everyone in that network could see your pictures. Note: lots and lots of people you don’t know.
Let’s hope they fix the privacy problem with profile photos with the redesign.
I hate Facebook and I hate reading about it 20 times a day on TC.
That said, I actually find this kind of interesting, because when FB started wasn’t this network feature the main thing? e.g. if you went to Stanford you would be in the Stanford group, and you couldn’t see anything else outside of that? You could of course create your own groups within it and that stuff, it just limited everything you could see to that network, right?
If I’m offbase, sorry, like I said I hate facebook and have never paid much attention to it. But, if I am right, it’s kind of interesting that they’re elimination something that was such a big deal way back in the day.
Sean, those features are still there, FB is just removing a page for each network that was being used for the same things that groups are used for.
It may well be that not enough people were using them, or maybe they’ll be converted into more group like pages instead of the format they are currently in.
I’m sure you already reported this as this change was announced weeks ago.
Networks were very useful if you work within an academic network and wanted to survey student involvement in facebook and general interests. Not that all the students want people to see their activity that way…
Networks have served a key role in confirming your actual identity since you had to have a network-approved e-mail address to join school ones (not so much with location networks, obviously). Removing them for groups makes it that much easier for people to falsify their identities, not that that was ever terribly difficult.
And for people in smaller schools, the idea of the network as a “safe hallway” worked ok, I think. I’m finding the privacy lists much bulkier and more difficult to sort through, perhaps I need to weed my friends list a bit.
The bigger problem is that now there is no authoritative “Brighton & Hove” network, but dozens user-created “Brighton & Hove” related groups that split the network’s former user base. (Also applies to any other location/university/etc.)
Not a deal-breaker at this point, it’s just making Facebook even more pointless.
I don’t believe they so blatantly took out Networks without a good/new replacement first. They better redesign Groups to make it similar to Networks, otherwise I’m gonna be pissed.
Networks give you updates on events, most popular items in maketplace, people in your geographic area, hottest groups, hottest topics, most discussed topics, and plenty whole lot of great stuff, which Groups have yet to have.
It’s kinda too bad they didn’t push this. I think if they focused on it people would use it as they use Plaxo and LinkedIn.
Isn’t the Marketplace tied to networks? Or will the networks remain, just without a network page?
This is month old news Mike
http://www.allfacebook.com/200.....ork-pages/
Guys, Facebook isn’t getting rid of networks, it’s getting rid of “network pages.” Those were pages that listed mostly useless things like the number of people in the network, upcoming events, popular groups, etc. Each network page had its own wall and discussion forum, too.
Network pages were sometimes interesting (maybe I’m weird, but I’m curious about how many people are in a given network), but never important. The biggest problems were the walls and message boards — they tended to fill up with really lame work-at-home spam (more so on the geographic networks than school networks).
Still, a lot of the things Facebook is doing to make things simpler (deemphasizing networks, getting rid of “looking for” and “how do you know” options) are also Facebook more boring. Lots of small, pointless changes that suggest somebody at Facebook is obsessed with being more “grown-up.” It makes them look lame and corporate. Not sure that’s what the people want, myself.
An aside to Erick: Seriously, you didn’t know they were there? There would have been links to all your network’s pages right in the “Networks” section of your profile. You’ve got to learn to explore a little more.
The whole point of the networks was:
A) Privacy - if you don’t belong to a certain network, you can’t view certain people’s profiles. Whether or not this is a good thing is up to the community to decide.
B) Socialize - you’re able to connect with people near you (state, city, region, company, etc).
I think removing Networks from their platform is an incorrect move, but oh well.
it looks like they want to grow their group business but how does one associate themselves to a particular geographic location or a company now. If I want to get all company A employees together communicating via their email sys, discussion boards, marketplace, etc…I’ll have to send them a group invite which would happen after creation of employee A facebook profile and less likely for them to opt-in. I really like the current sign-up process when you are associating with a “network” or company in the first few steps of your profile creation. Hmmm..I’m sure they’ve done some focus groups to figure it out but would be nice for a blog post from them discussing their reasoning.
Ughh it says they are still keeping networks just not the pages. So you can still have a work, college or geographical location but you just won’t have the page that aggregates.
I used it all the time. It was a good place to find out what was going on, club wise, events, etc.
Take gun, insert bullet, pull trigger, and shoot yourself in the foot.
The big draw to Facebook was to gather alumni in a network. It did it automagically keyed to the email address. And by virtue of that email address, it was authenticated. That was a unique feature that differentiated in from MySpace or that ilk.
A bad misstep imho.
I understand that networks will remain - but Facebook definitely could have built more functionality into the networks. First step would be to create more (an obvious one for me would be one for my yacht club), the next would be to make them more useful - eg customised pages (integrating applications anyone? or mini-intranets on Facebook?)
It’s difficult to put down - but I’ve found myself thinking those pages could have so much more potential…
I never used it… so… it’s a small thnk for me…
This is news? They took them off the header nav eons ago (probably why you never knew they existed), just before they introduced pages…hmm, yep, sure hard to keep track these illogical moves.
For me and my company (www.serena.com), this is a real pain. We built our corporate intranet around Facebook recently and had more than 750 people (more than 90% of the company) using our network page.
And now they shut it off? It was a great rallying point for all of our employees and gave them an easy way to locate their colleagues and post group messages without using the dreaded all company email address or overusing :cc.
Our email traffic had been dying down consistently, and then our logs picked up again recently. It paralleled the timing of Facebook closing down their network pages.
It’s really unfortunate and certainly hope that Facebook changes their mind yet again. We were just getting started and we’re really looking forward to building out our network even more.
I work on this feature at Facebook, and just wanted to make a couple things clear:
As people have stated above, we are not removing Networks; we are simply phasing out the current version of Network Pages. And this is not part of the larger profile redesign going on, but rather is its own thing - as others mentioned, this phase-out started several weeks ago.
We are still considering ways of improving the functionality around networks and giving communities useful tools and spaces on the site. However the current implementation wasn’t satisfactory in our mind, so we decided to put the feature aside for the time being.
I think Facebook is suffering from what I call “Obsessive-Compulsive ” disorder. I still don’t believe they remove network pages, given the network (Malaysia) I’m has over 300,000 members with very active participation and usage.
It’s a big mistake. I can’t even find way to add/search for other networks anymore. What a lame excuse of:
“However the current implementation wasn’t satisfactory in our mind, so we decided to put the feature aside for the time being”
Given there are millions of people in hundreds of networks, this is absolutely inconsiderate of the feeling of some many members.
I thought the network area was nice–until it got run over by spam and porn. When that occurred, a normal post would disappear. I reported each one, and they kept coming.
I liked the network page, though I admit I didn’t visit often. I want to a small college and live in a small city, so the pages served as a somewhat meaningful snapshot of what people were up to. My networks are small enough that spam hasn’t become an issue like it seems to have for others.
As long as I can still search single females by age within my networks, I don’t care
Does this mean there is no longer a notion of local? I used the SF network for local listings, etc. Maybe Facebook didn’t want to compete with Craig’s List. Seems like they might be missing an opportunity here for local hubs that are created naturally and not “joined”. It will be interesting to see if they choose to do anything in the local or hyper-local space. Seems counter-intuitive that you’d have to join your local surrounding network (like your neighborhood or city).
Ezra: It’s nice to see that somebody from Facebook pays attention. Now, on to the criticism:
The current implementation of Network Pages may have been unsatisfactory in the developers minds, but the developers aren’t the ones who use the pages, are they? The developers seem to be substituting their judgment for the actual users. (Which, as I mentioned in my earlier post, they seem to do a lot.)
Maybe you’ll come up with something better than Network Pages, but deleting a feature (some) people actually use without having a clear replacement plan ins anti-user. Facebook keeps claiming to “fix” things that nobody was complaining about.
If you look at the posts here, the only serious complaint about the utility of pages was the spamming of network walls. Removing network walls would be less disruptive than getting rid of Network Pages altogether, and would inconvenience fewer users.
Of course, getting a real handle on spam would be even better. Currently, it’s too much damn work reporting spam. I have to click “Report,” then I have to click a checkbox for “spam” or “attack” AND I have to fill out a text box. (Frankly, I shouldn’t have to give a long explanation for a work-at-home or porn site spam. If the people working in Facebook’s abuse department can’t recognize spam when I flag it, you need new people.) And still, the spam sticks around for a few days. Spammers don’t seem to get their accounts deleted very quickly, either.
Deleting Network Pages looks like you’re throwing the baby out with the bath water, and feeding a vague promise of a new baby. Facebook needs to get a handle on spam, and pay more attention to what users want to do with the site. Friendster ignored everything its users wanted, and look what happened (or didn’t happen) to them.
I could go on, but I know you’re not going to reply, because Facebook developers never take criticism seriously enough to reply.
Killing network pages will kill facebook. The entire *point* of facebook is to be local. I don’t want to have to go and join the 40 city groups that are going to pop up now, just to keep up with my city! I feel the same way about my university. Congratulations, facebook: you have made your website 100% useless. No networks, and a crapload of work I now need to do to install an application and get it putting things in my news feed (before, I had no need for friendfeed; everything…twitter, bookmarks, youtube, everything went in my FB feed). If facebook gave a damn about users, FB chat would have been launched with jabber/xmpp (and what ever happened to *that* promise?) and none of this crap would be happening. Seriously, I wish all the facebook devs had just dropped dead one week before the abortion that is facebook chat launched; then facebook would stay exactly the way it was at that point, without out-of-touch morons monkeying with it. I don’t resist change just because it’s something new…but if facebook as a company can’t figure out what *users* (not developers!) want, maybe they should jjust leave things the hell alone until they can start communicating with the users. Users do not want this. Application authors do not want this. Pages do not want this. Networks do not want this. Who in the name of God wants this? *NOBODY!* So why is facebook doing this? The only conclusion I can come to is because they hate users and want to lose as many as they can to the next social network startup.
I liked the network pages as a way to easily see who’s in that network. Alas.
I hioe facebook becomes a little more user friendly. New invited members and friends always seem to get confused with the layout of facebook.
I live in Vietnam, part of the expat community. Using the Networks page has been a great way to find out what’s happening in Vietnam and i totally fail to understand how making facebook a little less good by taking away something people use every day will improve it.
At first I thought it was the government of VN that had taken down the Vietnam Network page, not facebook itself.
i was disappointed when they took this down. I am involved in a lot of groups in my community so I used the network page to announce events so people who haven’t joined any of the groups hosting the event can be informed.
It was a more visually stimulating craigslist in a way.
Yeah….. Facebook is changing big time….
Network Pages are being replaced with Network Groups…
Visit http://regionalnetworks.net/ to learn more
These new ‘network groups’ are just that…groups
There’s already a load of perfectly good ‘local’ groups on facebook that do the job. These ‘Regional Network’ groups are a waste of time, and interestingly enough, run by the same bunch of people.
Do yourself a favour, just join one of the local groups run by locals themselves.
FYI: All RN Network Groups are ran by locals themselves