Wednesday, November 17, 2010

You've got Fail



In the news today Facebook announces a new email/ messaging service.
...Wait what?

Facebook seriously? That's like the last company on earth that I want to be in charge of my email. No really, I don't trust those people one bit. And I certainly wouldn't trust them to be in charge of my email.
First there is the whole Facebook chat thing. It's perhaps the worst chat service ever created. It bugs me to no end. It's buggy, and it's not easy to use, I do like that I finally found a way to access my "friends" through a different IM service, but on a scale from 1 to 10, I'd probably give them a 3. Now maybe... this is what they are fixing, and more power to them, but probably at the least there will still be some pretty serious issues.

Like Privacy.
Yeah Facebook hates your privacy.
I even heard it in an interview. If they were starting the company today they would totally do it differently, they would make it so everything about everyone was "open" (paraphrased).

And have you noticed how they always opt you into to their "special" new "features." Yeah like the ones that sell your information to advertisers so FB
can make more money. In fact every time they make a change, it seems like I have less control over my information (unless you search for their secret undo buttons... which fortunately they now at least give you).

Also I don't think I've ever seen a change on Facebook that I actually liked.
No, I take that back I did see one just the other day. They made the find friends pretty amazing (of course just a few weeks ago it was practically not even useable). But then just when I thought they had actually fixed it, they went and changed it on me AGAIN. Now its kind of a combination of the old and the new, and while it is still better than the old system, they got rid of some of the good features from both the old one and the new one. But at least now I don't only get suggestions to be friends with people who live nowhere near me, but with whom
I share a mutual friend (yes one mutual friend). The worst part was that it would suggest these people and ignore the people that I might actually know, like my friends.

And then there's that whole security thing. Facebook does not equal secure. In fact there are "facebook leaks" all the time. You've probably already been a part of one. This is the last place that I want my email kept, and quite honestly the last way that I want I kept.

So in summary here's what I think about facebook:
It's buggy, it's invasive, it's not secure, it's not consistent/ reliable, it's a huge time waster (yeah I just through that one in, but if I start getting farmville stuff in my new improved FB mail, I may just go ballistic. Ü) And I don't trust them... not even a little bit.

But even still I felt like creating them a logo, and Mark if you're reading this, I'll let you have it for a really good price.
Enjoy.