Facebook’s Facelift: The Bad and the Good

Last week, I complained about Facebook’s new blog and their conspicuous lack of an RSS feed. Then I commented on the blog to let them know that they needed to incorporate RSS.

Did they listen? Not yet. Did they shut down comments? Absolutely.

What is with them? They didn’t like what their users were asking for, so they took away our ability to speak.

They did, however, integrate an internal “news feed” that allows users who are logged into the system to see what their friends have recently done (thumbnail at left). Unfortunately, that “news feed” doesn’t syndicate anywhere outside the Facebook walled garden. I wish I could put it into my news reader, but as-is, I still need to go to the site to see what my friends are up to.

I have a feeling that Facebook wants to keep people coming to the site to look at their advertising. But why does that prevent them from sending out a partial feed that only includes some of the content? If anything, an RSS feed would probably bring more people back to the Facebook content more often because they’d be reminded more often.

I have a feeling that these features are coming, they just need to be “poked” a bit more.

On the upside, Facebook has given a number of political candidates and initiative campaigns a space to reach educated potential volunteers and supporters on the Facebook network. This really adds value for us politically excitable youngsters.