It looks like Facebook will have to go back to the drawing board on its ‘what’s on your mind’ redesign, with an overwhelming majority of users – some 94pc – in a poll giving it the thumbs down.
While this writer is among the very few 54,214 voters who likes the new approach, an overwhelming 895,254 (at the time of writing) Facebook friends were unimpressed.
Facebook’s approach of turning status updates into a feed enables it to do exactly what Twitter has been doing over the past two years, allowing people to keep each other abreast of what they’re doing.
But, it has transpired that since Facebook has gone with the new-look system, rival Twitter has emerged as a possible leader in the search arena, enabling individuals, market researchers and even the media to get an instant vibe on popular zeitgeist and sentiment.
From reading the Facebook posts on the poll page, it seems people just don’t like it.
“Do not like the minutiae and full disclosure of EVERYTHING,” wrote a Karryanne Wheat. “Who needs to know that your buddy ‘Jo’ was so bored he just took like 20 quizzes in the past half hour and now dominates the home page? I don’t want to know that ‘Mandy’ sent 20 people 20 roses … It’s unnecessary, makes for a boring homepage and it’s invasive.”
Or, as Areem Clarke wrote: “Change really isn’t always good.”
By John Kennedy