Facebook pivots on what he wants – TechCrunch

In Facebook's dreamsit's a clean, private place. People spend their time seriously discussing in "meaningful" groups, planning offline meetings with events or laughing together on Facebook. Watch the party.

In fact, Facebook is a clutter cluttered with features that seem to constantly leak data from users. People are wasting their time viewing unseen messages in the "friends" news thread they never talk to, eagerly tracking through peer-to-peer photos or singling out on items that rely on click bait. and viral videos. Facebook will never be shaken by this reputation as it continues to hone its old features.

That's why Facebook is rolling out what could be called an "ambitious overhaul" called FB5. Rather than tweaking what was Facebook, it tries to highlight what it wants to be. "This is the biggest change we've made to the app and the Facebook site in five years," said CEO Mark Zuckerberg. said open Facebook F8 conference yesterday.

The new Facebook

In particular, it begins by sucking much of the blue interface of Facebook to appear sparse and soothing – despite the More button that reveals the clutter of the social network in dozens of features rarely used. A new logo features a brighter blue bubble around Facebook's distinctive white logo, which attempts to give a more edifying twist to a bruised brand.

Functionally, FB5 involves placing groups near the center of a freshly tabbed interface for the Facebook website and application, and suggesting new people to join in the service. "Wherever there are friends, there should be groups," said the Facebook application manager Fiji Simo. Groups already have 1 billion monthly users, so Facebook follows the pattern of behavior and doubles. But Facebook's goal is not just to use 2.38 billion people using the feature – the same number as the full application – but to bring them all into meaningful groups that symbolize their identity. 400 million already are. And now, groups with specific interests like gaming or health support will have special features, and experienced users will have a dashboard of updates in all their communities.

The groups will be accompanied by Marketplace, perhaps the Facebook feature with the most latent potential. This is a rapidly emerging use case that Facebook wants to feed. A year and a half after its launch, Marketplace had 800 million monthly users. Zuckerberg took Craigslist, added a real identity to counteract bad behavior, and now locks it into the navigation bar of the world's most used application. The result is a place where it's easy to put things up for sale and attract tons of viewers. Once, I sold a sofa on the Marketplace in 20 minutes. Vendors can now receive payments directly in the app rather than in cash or with Venmo, and they can also ship items anywhere at the buyer's expense. By following Zuckerberg's 2019 trade-focused mandate, Facebook has become a viable competitor of Shopify.

If Groups is what already works for the future of Facebook, Watch is the opposite. It is a product designed to capture video by viewing bonanza Facebook observes on Netflix and YouTube. But without tent pole content like a "Game Of Thrones" or "Stranger Things", it did not have an impact on the cultural spirit. The closest thing that you need to see is the video is Buffy The Vampire Slayer and a compendium on NBA star Steph Curry. Facebook says that 75 million people now watch at least a minute a day, even though these 60 seconds do not have to be sequential. This still represents only 4% of its users. And a Diffusion study revealed that 50% of adult Facebook users on Facebook had never heard of Watch. Putting it in the foreground shows Facebook's commitment to making Watch a success, even if it's going to get us down the throat.

Not the old Facebook

The products of the past have little love on stage at the F8. Nothing new for News Feed, the mint of Facebook, but also the source of his misinformation problems. In the era of Snapchat and Zuckerberg's new insistence on the ephemeral to avoid embarrassment, the Timeline profile telling you all your life on Facebook was never mentioned. And the business pages that were central to its monetization strategy a few years ago did not find a place in the keynote speech, which is comparable to how they were removed from the news feed by competition and philosophical transformation of Facebook from public content to friends and family.

The only thing we've heard a lot about but have not really seen is privacy. Mr. Zuckerberg began the conference by stating that "the future is private!" He explained how Facebook planned to encrypt its messaging applications, wanted to become a living room and not a city hall, and how to track the change in behavior of users. broadcasting. But we have not seen any new privacy protection for the developer platform, a replacement for its vacant security executive for nine months, or the Clear History feature announced last year by Zuckerberg.

"I understand that many people are not sure we are serious about it. I know we do not have the strongest privacy reputation yet, to say things lightly, "joked Zuckerberg without seeming to generate a single laugh. Combined with the few things to show to improve privacy, mocking such a situation does not give much self-confidence. When Zuckerberg takes things seriously, he shows up quickly in the product, as with Facebook's move to Facebook in 2012, or in society as with the doubling of the security workforce in 2018. He knew that chess mobile moderation and content could kill his network. But someone who told Time magazine in 2010 that "What people want, it's not a complete privacy", does he really see a vague position on privacy as an existential threat ?

Encrypted and interoperable messaging will enhance privacy, but it's also good business logic, given Zuckerberg's intention to have instant messaging in the middle of your phone. Facebook's goosebumps come from the fact that it sucks up data to optimize the targeting of ads. Nothing new has been announced to remedy this. Despite his words, Zuckerberg may not have the ambition to make Facebook as private as possible, but also to make it mobile and secure.

Wired said Zuckerberg had written a strategy book given to all employees prior to the IPO, in which it said "If we do not create what kills Facebook, someone else will do it" . But F8 has proposed a new interpretation. Perhaps given the lack of direct competitors in his league, and the absence of a mass exodus following his privacy scandals, it is the outdated product himself that kills Facebook . The permanent Facebook. Facebook to do everything. Facebook bored-of-my-friends. Users were neglected rather than repulsed or stolen. By ignoring the past and emphasizing the products it aspires to dominate tomorrow – Groups, Marketplace, Watch – Facebook can begin to break free of the toxic mark that plagues its potential.