Facebook to show less from publishers and brands

It appears that Mark thinks that Facebook is broken and needs to be fixed

[mcneely]

It appears that Mark thinks that Facebook is broken and needs to be fixed -- Appears that brands might be taking a hit as a result

Facebook to show more content from friends, less from publishers and brands

Now the Facebook CEO is kicking off the effort with a move he says is intended to boost the well-being of users, possibly at the expense of the well-being of publishers and other businesses

[money.cnn.com...]

[henry0]

It's on the NY Times this morning, I would like to know how this won't impact on FB revenues?

[engine]

I'm sure it will impact FB, somehow.

It's a fine line of too many ads, and i've seen a number of ads over, and over, and over again. I deliberately left it to see how many times i'd see the same ads, and it's constant. If I wasn't doing the research it'd be ad blindness that causes it to fail.

Added
Here's the link to Facebook's comments [newsroom.fb.com...]

[edited by: engine at 10:37 am (utc) on Jan 12, 2018]

[JonathanEdmonton]

Facebook was built to bring people closer together and build relationships.

I was so wrong.

Lol.

[mcneely]

IMO Facebook has had issues for a while now

They tried this whole getting rid of fake news deal, and the news feeds ended up having more fake news than ever before - They are trying to eliminate non paid ads in the news feed, and that's not going very well. You pay 3 bucks to promote a post and you end up with a ton of non-relevant traffic from Indonesia, Borneo, and India -- and it just goes and goes and goes.

Now you can't even mute groups like you used to do - Snooze for 30 days doesn't sound much at all like that's going to work, because upon after choosing to snooze a group, here you are, with group post after group post in your feed. It would have been better to have just left the settings alone in the first place.

I think Facebook is still having trouble monetizing and the investors are hungry. You can't "force" people to interact -- Human interaction comes naturally. But for Facebook, there's no money in organic or natural interaction.

[MayankParmar]

I'm sure Facebook stock will sank anytime.

[mcneely]

The co-founder of the world’s largest social-media business saw his fortune fall US$2.9 billion Friday after he posted plans to shift users’ news feeds toward content from family and friends at the expense of material from media outlets and businesses.

[business.financialpost.com...]

So the speculation of loss was only confirmed within 24 short hours -- Wonder how it will all play out in the coming months.

Personally I think it's a little late to put the cat back into the bag. Though in the beginning, Facebook's noble cause was to bring people together, it has done a pretty good job of driving people apart.

Facebook's 'personal' agenda has caused quite a bit of undue polarising amongst the masses over the years as it tried to inject it's own social platitudes on to the unsuspecting masses ... Human interaction has to be a natural thing if platforms like Facebook are going to work as intended.

When you try to manipulate the masses for the sake of a buck, you'll end up with what Facebook has become today.

Mark's plan for 2018 is a good one, but for as far down the rabbit hole Facebook has gone, I doubt that plan will work,

[tangor]

The people are beginning to take notice of the SM engineering intensity. This might be the year of the User Revolt.

[mack]

I think a big problem with Facebook is the sheer number of different types of page one can create. Profiles, pages, groups etc. A lot of people simply don't see the difference and end up having businesses with personal profiles. I'm sick of getting friend requests from businesses.

If people were all using the correct type of profile, it would be simple to control via an algo how much you see from pages, brands groups etc. As it stands user "error" (probably intentional to exploit additional exposure) is making it very difficult for FB to know what is a person and what is a commercial interest.

Mack.

[tangor]

On one side there are the bean counters (think adverts/biz) which we can relate to and then there's that new breed of FB (social engineering) which has no monetization but rules the roost. FB (and twit and g) are conflicted platforms and businesses are left flapping in the wind...

Work with what it is (krap) and clinch tight on the nares and do what you can. There will be a reformation. Maybe this year, maybe next. Just not right now.

[graeme_p]

A lot of people simply don't see the difference and end up having businesses with personal profiles. I'm sick of getting friend requests from businesses.

It may be the smart thing to do - when FB makes changes to reduce pages or to make businesses pay having a personal profile for a business skirts around this. Of course there is the risk they may delete it for breaking the rules.... but for now the difficulty they have telling people from businesses may benefit small businesses that can get away with using personal profiles.

@tangor, can you explain what you mean about the conflict.

[engine]

One of the big issues around this is the psychological aspect. Many people, especially the young, are hung up on social media, in general, and FB being the biggest is the target of all the issues.
This has been going on for some time, and now the research is being published, it's becoming evident that people are struggling with a number of aspects around FB. For example, people have been posting less for sometime and are logging on to "like" and react to what the prolific posters are saying.
Politics has become far higher profile, and some people just have to push their politics onto others. It's one of the main reason i shut people off. It may/is also be being used to promote political ambitions.
There's the privacy issue that many are slowly waking up to.
Yes, promoted material just keeps coming, but i've become adept at skipping it.

These are just some of the other challenges FB and other social networks face.

[RhinoFish]

Idiots are also blocking brands owned by friends, they don't understand relationships at all. Dorks.

[keyplyr]

It all started with the [like] button.

[graeme_p]

@engine, It looks to me, from both things I have read and people I know that young people are moving away from FB. Its what their parents use....

You are right about politics. However, FB is becoming more about politics, and changing in other ways. I used to use it to keep in touch with friends, now my main use is local groups for specific info I need.

[buckworks]

seen a number of ads over, and over, and over again

It has been a while since I set up any Facebook ads, but at the time there was no way to set impression limits. Is that still the case?

As an advertiser I had no control over whether my ad was seen once each by 500 people or 500 times by one person.

The ability to set impression limits for ads would improve life for both users and advertisers.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Also interesting in today's news, Facebook plans to hold polls to see which sources they will favor and which they will throttle. Seems highly political to me.

[daniel160]

Now facebook appears it shows more traffics on group than few years ago, but it's hard to keep longtime to track or follow 1 topic