More on Facebook's News Feed and Mini Feed
I worked at Blockbuster Video for three months in Spring 2005, followed by three months of work for Hollywood Video that Summer. At both organizations our movie shipments came in both DVD and VHS formats. Most shipments were 95% DVD and 5% VHS, some titles didn’t have VHS copies and at the time I left the movie rental industry it was planned that VHS would be completely phased out by the beginning of 2006.
Every once in a while The Advocate would come into the store to rent a movie. The Advocate is always upset because the movie they want to rent is only available on DVD and you know what? They aren’t going to let the powers that be force them to buy a DVD player because their VHS player has worked just fine since the dawn of time. And the powers that be, they just want us to upgrade and upgrade and upgrade until we end up on the streets living in boxes with our newfangled DVD players.
In reality, these people are afraid of change. VHS was the standard for years and now there’s is something new. The superior quality of the DVD over the VHS isn’t really up for debate so The Advocate assembles an argument that really doesn’t make sense and prepares for battle.
Facebook has found an incredibly innovative and groundbreaking way for users to keep up to date with their friends. This new Facebook is easier, requiring far less digging to get to the information the user desires. This new Facebook, like the DVD over the VHS, is simply superior.
The Facebook Group Students against Facebook News Feed, now at over 100,000 members, says “News Feed is just too creepy, too stalker-esque, and a feature that has to go.” This argument really has no standing since each user has complete control over what updates their friends receive and not a single privacy setting on Facebook has been changed. Yet, when faced with this fact people remain adamantly opposed to the News Feed and Mini Feed. So what’s going on?
These users are The Advocate of Facebook, rooted in the traditional Facebook, the way it worked and the way they used it and refusing to acknowledge the benefits of the News Feed and Mini Feed, which are the Facebook of the future. But, with time, the News Feed will gain popularity and The Advocate view will go the way of the VHS.