The Facebook “Unlike” Syndrome

Just last week Facebook started rolling out its latest redesign and for all it’s worth I like it. I think it’s more intuitive and it’s definitely a better and a smarter layout.

However I seem to be in the minority among my non-geek Facebook friends.

As we all know by now; every time (and I mean every time) Facebook releases a new layout or a feature change, a small but very loud minority whine and complain about how they hate it. Let’s be clear, hate is a huge word and I don’t think it applies here.

Over the last two years, Facebook has become a hyper personal experience for most of its users and I believe these users are very attached to it – perhaps too much. Hence all the negative emotional outpouring and haters when something changes.

Here’s what I think. people are reacting in a negative manner to the displacement of “their” buttons and re-arrangement of “their” layout.

“How dare you change my Facebook – Put it back the way it was – Now!”

I believe that most people have trained themselves to use Facebook in a certain way (their way) and now their “work flow” isn’t like it was a week ago. Cue the hater mode. And the whole thing is suddenly turned to crap. It’s as if they shut down and their brain can’t handle the extra pressure of The Unknown. When the reality is that all they’ve got to do is look around and explore. This should be fun and it just isn’t and that’s really too bad.

At the same time we all should realize that life and goodness knows, the internet, goes through constant change everyday and if it didn’t it wouldn’t follow its true organic nature. I use the words “organic nature” here because the Internet is an living and evolving extension of our selves. I like to think we’ve come a long way from Geocities.

If Facebook didn’t change it would be… MySpace.  Sure there are still many MySpace users (about about 125 million) but it’s no secret users have been leaving the site over the last few years because it just doesn’t change at least it didn’t change enough. Ironic, eh?

Facebook, as I have noticed, is always setting us up for the next development phase. They aren’t dumb. They know that in order not to become the next MySpace, they need to aim ahead (way ahead) and towards their next development plateau.  They, as with all businesses, know they cannot rest on their laurels and remain satisfied with the status quo. They are building and when you build you often reinforce, restructure and rearrange. Facebook equally knows that if they don’t do it – someone else will and better. In fact, that lesson isn’t only reserved for businesses (at least is shouldn’t be), as human beings we should also seek (want to seek) to be better than we are today.

Maybe the bigger question is not why do you hate the new Facebook so much as why do you become a hater when things change and that’s a question I can’t answer.

What are your thoughts on this?