Wednesday, September 21, 2011

We're From Facebook and We Are Here to Help You

One of the most chilling introductions you can hear is "Hi, my name is (fill-in-the-blank) and I'm from the government. We are here to help you."

So when I read this morning that not only has Facebook substantially changed the way we consume information from their service, you get this explanation of what a "top story" will be for your new combined news-most recent feed:

We determine whether something is a top story based on lots of factors, including your relationship to the person who posted the story, how many comments and likes it got, what type of story it is, etc.

I'm calling myself -- BS, that is -- on that. ANYTIME a single authority decides for you, well, you know, that's not exactly the egalitarian social media, we the people way.

Call me over-reacting if you like, but in 15 minutes, the social media group here at Northwestern is going to begin earnest efforts to figure out how we can insure that our information remains "top story."

That I promise is pro-active, not reactive. Remember, whole companies are devoted to "SEO" -- search engine optimization -- the euphemistic scientific term for "gaming the Google".

Maybe the Facebook change could be cast as the "social media expert full employment act."

1 comment:

Chris Syme said...

I am losing my desire to be on Facebook personally. Either that, or I am going to hide everyone but my kids--it is becoming a full time, and frustrating job to keep up. I hate the new format, and am not willing to put in the gazillion hours needed to figure out how to get rid of that stupid newsfeed format by doing some backwoods, backend work-around. Ugh. I'm with you.