I have always been taught that if something isn’t broken, one shouldn’t attempt to fix it.
Nobody, it would seem, felt it was their responsibility to mention that to Mark Zuckerburg and Co., who yet again rolled out even more changes to the most-popular site ever, Facebook. Apparently the golden eggs that goose was laying weren’t golden enough. Either that or they felt it should excrete diamonds as well.
Regardless, that’s not where my issue exists. My problem is with the gazillion Facebook users who treat every update like it’s the impending apocalypse. The last thing I expected when I logged on this morning was to be met by a mob of my own friends and family flooding my (updated) News Feed, equipped with their torches of fury and pitchforks of opinion, chanting in unison about how much Facebook sucks.
These are the people that don’t understand the ever-changing landscape of the web. These are also the people that are offended that something they consider a part of their everyday lives would force them to actually take some time out of their day and learn something new. Most of them aren’t on the other social networks and have no idea what Facebook’s major competitors are up to. I, personally, commend Facebook for sticking to their guns and keeping things fresh. They see something that can be done differently (and perhaps better), and they go for it.
When Myspace was in their prime they hardly rolled out any changes. Then along came Facebook, with it’s superior use of the color blue, and Myspace was left in the dust. If Myspace had been smart, they would have measured up their competition as soon as it showed up. They would have analyzed everything Facebook did that they couldn’t do, and then they would have brought it to it’s users before Facebook had a chance to. If Myspace had only been as proactive as Facebook is today, I would be pimping this blog post in a bulletin instead of posting it to my wall.
The moral of the story is this – the web changes. It is a living breathing organism composed of more molecules than you could ever imagine, each working in tandem with the others. To not evolve is to doom yourself to an eternity of mediocrity, while your competitors pass you by without even a second thought.
If you’d like some official explanation of the changes implemented by Facebook, follow the links below:
