Zuckerberg: We really messed this one up.

The controversy over Facebook’s new features has been bouncing around the blogosphere for a number of days now. Even Robert Scoble–who doesn’t use the service–felt compelled to throw in his two cents.

Now Facebook has responded to their critics, posting an open letter from creator Mark Zuckerberg on their blog and adding privacy features that make the News Feed and Mini-Feed features more customizable.

What I really liked was Facebook’s willingness to admit that they’d screwed up, apologize, fix the problem, and learn from their mistakes. As Facebook, Inc. spokeswoman Melanie Deitch told Wired, the company has “learned the importance of better explaining and testing new features.”

One of my favorite bloggers, danah boyd compared the current Facebook crisis to that time when Six Apart really pissed off users, then apologized and changed.

There are three big takeaway lessons here for businesses. Two I’ve mentioned before:

• Ask what your customers want and then listen to them. To paraphrase danah, you should configure your product to match your users, don’t try to configure your users to match your product.
• Admit when you screw up. Then communicate frequently and consistently about what measures you are taking to solve the problem.
• And finally, even after you’ve corrected the big issue, continue to respond to feedback from your audience.

Obviously recoding the privacy settings was a big step in the right direction for the Facebook team, but their task will never be over. They should continue to communicate with their users about their product and the direction they want to take it. They should also reopen comments on their blog, as this is a key channel for communication that they have effectively shut down.

In his open letter, Mark Zuckerberg encourages students to support free flow of information on the Internet. He has started a Facebook group for that reason and will be answering questions in the group’s forum tomorrow. I plan to join that discussion and ask him why exactly the Facebook blog doesn’t have a comments feature if he supports free flow of information. If they’re not going to open comments again, they should at least say why.