Let me explain, some parts of this, I have been working mostly as a UX strategist and growth hacker for a lot of startups and somehow I ended up leading a small social media consultancy and helping a lot of brands. (Don't ask me why - I have no idea - it just happened).
Facebook has always been a very weird communication medium, it's the only algorithmic communication medium that people actually use. One truth about this is, that 99% of all brands and companies are not able to use this, because optimizing your communication and ads for an algorithmic model is too complex. Brand Communication has always been quite simple: Find some values you want to attach to your brand, find something creative that sticks and mix these values and your brand... then publish.
Facebook is insanely complex, because you have a third layer: find something users want to interact with. Now you have three layers and those three are mutually exclusive for many brands. A Toilet paper company may find some ideas people want to interact with, but those ideas will probably not match their idea for their brand or values. And even if a brand finds a sweet spot between those three coordinates, they have to use right technique and be insanely creative to stay in that spot.
This is something brands and companies are learning very very slowly, so Facebook is not really changing anything in a way, it's just adapting to the situation.
>Facebook is insanely complex... they have to use right technique and be insanely creative to stay in that spot.
Inevitably when one of these articles crops up, someone "in the business" comes out of the woodwork to say, "Everything is fine, these brands just don't know what they're doing."
I'm not sure I buy it. I dabbled in the space a few years ago, so spent more time than I ever intended reading about FB advertising. It seems to me that a long predicted issue is slowly developing: ad space and eyeball time are limited, so as people "like" more and more material over time, Facebook will have to cull and restrict to keep the news feed relevant to its users, most of which don't really want advertising.
Facebook is not really changing? Am I to assume that with another year experience these social media teams got worse at doing the things you suggest? That's hard to believe.
Sure, I'll bet that these teams can be doing some things better. On the other hand, how many brands are going to continue to spend money on a constantly evolving, unpredictable advertising platform that requires outside consultants to navigate properly?
I actually think that the way the game works. Throwing you back to the home screen every time you loose, makes it more likely that users write a review. They are already outside of the game.
Sorry, totally wrong. I'm in Germany I know at least 20 people who read HN. I know a lot more who have heard of Dustin Curtis and the AA redesign. You don't understand the global impact of HN and a networked society.
The alternative and far more logical explanation, of course, is that you surround yourself with and network with the kind of people who read HN. I do understand the global impact of a forum such as this, and I certainly understand the ramifications of a networked society. I suggest, however, that the network in this case is far smaller than supposed.
The next example is dangerous to pull off as the topic is polarizing: there is another forum called Stormfront which is the site to be a part of if you are a white supremacist (don't Google if you're at work). There are millions of posts and, I'm sure, millions of eyeballs consuming that site. If I were to ask a supporting member of Stormfront how Stormfront affects the world, they'd probably spend hours telling me about the epic discussions and hundreds of people that they know worldwide, and give me a similar answer as you -- you don't understand the global impact of what we're doing nor the network of people that Stormfront has built.
However, you and I, rational people who think that sort of shit is outer space bananas, can quickly trivialize that community because we're detached from it. Does it matter to the (much larger) community of non-white-supremacists if someone has a name in that community? Not really. So it is with Hacker News; those who think the discussions here are outer space bananas don't care about Dustin Curtis, or the flavor of the week in startups. Within a community, it is easy to start thinking that community is all-consuming and, I am here to tell you, it isn't. I think being inside Hacker News distorts views on what it actually does in the world, and what its reach is.
(Stop. Before you say what you're thinking, I'm not comparing Hacker News to Stormfront beyond that they're both forums with audiences.)
Since you qualified with familiarity with Dustin Curtis:
Before some of his posts began making the front page, I had no idea who Dustin Curtis is. I still don't, really, and my gut says he's just some UI designer slash neuroscientist who got lucky with a Hacker News audience from the AA thing, and is now considered some kind of influential voice on startups and business. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry, but I dug deep in his site looking for a clue about his career or qualifications to be a pundit on modern startups and came up pretty much dry. So I hold his opinions in the same regard as most pundits, that of immediate suspicion. That isn't a reflection on him as a person, either.
I think that people can get a sense of 'touching greatness' because there are a lot of people that show up on HN that are 'movers and shakers' in the tech world. It can really be a thrill to see a posting about some really popular site/webapp/software, and have the original creator of the software pop on and resolve issues on the spot.
That being said, the effect is not as great as some people presume that it is.
Quietly ignoring the final two paragraphs of my original comment since you have nothing to contribute, and are instead attempting to undermine my contribution with a pithy, underhanded dose of snark, aren't you? (The irony is that you unintentionally reinforced my point, so, thanks!)
Hacker News is far too full of comments such as these, and I can loosely translate them all:
I'm completely unprepared for this conversation and have nothing to contribute (or it blew over my head), and that makes me feel inferior, so I'll make myself feel better by culling some cheap upvotes from a few people who I got a rise out of at the expense of actual, interesting conversation.
You do a great job of undermining your own point. "Hacker News is so full of bullshit! It sucks! Let me spend 4500 calories and six hours trying to convince you of this!"
Why criticize someone for putting time and effort into communicating a message on a forum that thrives on people putting time and effort into communicating messages?
There are actually a lot of companies with more than 100.000 employees... I think it's just natural that there aren't more... you need a very big market for them
Are you talking in absolute terms or in % ? In % of total companies worlwide, companies with more than 100 000 are clear, small minority. Of course you can probably find a hundred of them or more worldwide, it still does not make them "common" versus the hundred of millions of small-sized companies around.
Now that's only an option, if users understand what will happen and why they should change this setting. "Manage Back Button" is not an understandable option. So instead of solving the problem you just defered to the user. That's not design, that's just lazy.
You could try mood based ads. Very difficult to sell to an advertiser, but it could have some interesting applications. I wonder if depressed or happy people buy more.
Facebook has always been a very weird communication medium, it's the only algorithmic communication medium that people actually use. One truth about this is, that 99% of all brands and companies are not able to use this, because optimizing your communication and ads for an algorithmic model is too complex. Brand Communication has always been quite simple: Find some values you want to attach to your brand, find something creative that sticks and mix these values and your brand... then publish.
Facebook is insanely complex, because you have a third layer: find something users want to interact with. Now you have three layers and those three are mutually exclusive for many brands. A Toilet paper company may find some ideas people want to interact with, but those ideas will probably not match their idea for their brand or values. And even if a brand finds a sweet spot between those three coordinates, they have to use right technique and be insanely creative to stay in that spot.
This is something brands and companies are learning very very slowly, so Facebook is not really changing anything in a way, it's just adapting to the situation.