If you are one of the thousands of people who are totally bemused by the popularity of Facebook given it’s current incarnation you are not alone. Unfocused, overwhelming and difficult to navigate are just some of it’s main and major flaws.
Even the social media experts at Mashable have gnashed their teeth at what they call ‘the bloat’.
So is their recent launch of pared down, stripped back version Facebook Lite a solution? Well, yes and no. In general the fact that a site has to create two version of itself is inherintly disturbing. While catering to the people who want a simpler more streamlined (and more mobile friendly, faster) site they have effectively split Facebook users into two camps: those who friend, fan and (as is the current craze) farm merrily away, navigating the features and maze intuitively due to their higher use of the site and those who just want to keep up with family and friends, share photos and then go and watch the X Factor.
The problem is that segregating your users isn’t that simple. In Facebook Lite there are several popular features missing, most notably Events. And opening up a Lite version of the site doesn’t address any of the usability issues of Facebook full-fat. If users get a bad taste in their mouths from the original Facebook are they going to bother to migrate to Lite or just shrug their shoulders and move onto the next emerging platform? (Although it may be hard to look beyond the iconic blue logo right now, a few years ago people couldn’t imagine a social media scene beyond MySpace which is now the slovenly down-on-his-luck child star left out in the cold with a small but hardy legion of fans while the rest of the world tries to ignore the desparate re-runs and comeback efforts.)
While FB Lite is a welcome rest for those burned out from over-exposure to ads, banners and annoying requests and is certainly a refreshing place to log in and quickly check updates and photos, it doesn’t ease my frustrations any when I log into FB Original to use pages, events or other features.
Why not just concentrate on improving the original, allowing users to decide what they do or do not want to see when they log in? This new version leaves me anxious that in creating a slimmer site they feel that they can shrug off the responsibility of getting the growing bloat of the original under control.
Is there a social media diet police out there somewhere?
