So I woke up this morning (and by morning I mean about noon), to several messages blinking on my computer. One was from my fellow Prison Break fan/crazy person Adrienne about the latest episode… the rest were about some new thing on facebook.

If you’ll recall I addressed the addition of facebook notes recently, and apparently have set the dangerous precedent that every time facebook farts, I’m expected to know and comment about it.

Here is how facebook describes it’s latest behemoth:

News Feed highlights what’s going on in and around your Facebook network by listing the latest stories about your friends on your Facebook home page. You will only be notified of actions that you would have been able to see by clicking around the site. We also display external news articles that might be of interest to you. It’s like we started delivering the mail to you instead of forcing you to pick it up on your own.

Thanks for that metaphor at the end, facebook team… I wouldn’t have been able to understand it without being talked to like a 4 year old otherwise.

This latest addition is just stupid to me: maybe a good idea, poor implementation. Why? Simple.

Class, do you know what a news feed is called on the internet? Anyone… anyone? That’s right, Nick Burns, it’s called an RSS feed. These are useful because you can import the data into virtually anything and get your information everywhere… kinda like how you would want the news.

Of course, facebook doesn’t do this. It doesn’t export the feed so I don’t even see the point of calling it a feed.

The FAQ on the site also says facebook will start automatically delivering news articles to your homepage, whether you’ve asked for them or not. Here is how this brilliant process is explained:

How does Facebook choose News Feed stories?
If I could explain the algorithm, I wouldn’t be writing the Help page.

Give me a break. If I want to get the news I’ll turn on the tv or type in CNN.com - which is better, faster, actually built for news consumption, and won’t treat me like a dumb downed mental patient.

All the profile pages on facebook have added a bloated ‘mini-feed’ of actions you have done around the site. For example, if you’ve RSVP’d to an event, commented on a photo, updated your statues, etc., facebook tells you and everyone else exactly what you did and when you did it. Yeah… that’s not creepy at all. Nor is the fact that facebook only gives you the option to turn the feature on (by clicking a button labeled ‘Awesome!’ no less). Don’t even get me started on the privacy concerns of all this nonsense.

Facebook, you need to calm the hell down and spend your time figuring out how I can order pizza from your website or something… one of the many more important things to a college student. Besides, based on my experience, most college students don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the news anyway.

Technorati Tags: facebook, privacy