writer. singer/songwriter. techie geek. princess of random.

Facebook Shifting Borders?

The other day my friend Ian and I were having a facebook wall conversation and it wasn’t until he commented on my message on his wall that I realized you could comment on that as well (hey…there’s some things I don’t pay attention to ).

As my friend Bobby just did the same thing earlier (commenting on my wall post), I write this post being all kinds of  divided.  Is this the end of the wall-to-wall?  It makes sense because then the conversation follows on your profile where it began and you can see the exchange of things.  But then, I feel that you miss that element of two people on different profiles talking to each other.

Twitter-like?

Is this another Twitter-like integration by facebook as well?  Essentially adding in comments to people’s wall posts allows for other people to make their own comments if they knew the person.  I’ve done this on twitter every once in awhile, but though I’ll occasionally throw in a “I don’t know you, but that’s awesome!” comment in a string related to a facebook status, I haven’t really felt the need to do it in facebook.  Or perhaps it’s because I’ve never had the option?

Facebook with Twitterish Features

I’ve not been too big a fan of Facebook’s obvious changes to deflect the Twitter craze, but obviously (sans the Facebook Governance), they are a business and they need to figure out how to combat the competition.  But as individual tools, I see Facebook and Twitter as not different players in the same game (“Social Media”), but rather different dialects of the same language.  Some of its changes, it’s as if Facebook is trying to forcibly integrate another dialect into its own…and well – it’s awkward.  Twitter’s recent changes to interface are more about how to improve itself for its users and I think that’s how it really should be.

Commenting on wall posts, however, I think is just another facebook habit this user has to acquire.

Screenshot: Facebook Sidebar (4/07/09)

Now added to my “Inefficient” Web Commentary* series is Facebook.  Facebook recently underwent a design change that caused quite the uproar with its users (not that it stops them from using the service, but like the current theme, we do somehow seem okay with living life with a marginal amount of dysfunction and a healthy dose of hope – or ability to complain).   In any case, this series will just be about things I think would make Facebook work more efficiently.  We will start with something I noted today about the Home Page.

I could go on about the insanity of the Friend Feed, but I’m not as bothered by it.  What I want to focus on is the sidebar.  See the screenshot to the left.  It’s a lot of stuff and I’ve even cut out like four boxes from my “highlights”.  I don’t really mind that they’re telling me all this stuff.  What I do mind is that I can’t tell them how important this stuff is to me.

If I had my way, I’d order it
1) Requests
2) Events
3) Highlights and
4) “People You May Know”.

I understand entirely not being able to move the advertisement (they have to make money, right?).

What bothers me a bit is that it’s not like Facebook doesn’t let me do this in other places:

Facebook Profile - Moving Boxes

For now, I guess setting the precedence of my Fluff Friend is about all the power I have.

Next Inefficient: Facebook?  Profile Feed.

-cct

*To be fair, I will have some “Efficient” posts up.  Found one I really liked today on facebook actually.