F-Book: The 5 Biggest Missteps In Facebook History

Lead

Facebook is like a capricious lover: just when you think you've got the social network figured out, you can be sure it's going to change on you. Since it first launched in 2004, the site has gone through wave after wave of make-overs and re-make-overs, adding and dropping functionality and leaving its legions of users sea sick in the process.

Usually, as with the infamous News Feed rollout in 2006, a change on Facebook is initially met with groans from the vocal majority that just wants to gawk at their friends' photos in peace. Then, once the dust has settled, most users typically find a way to turn the new features to their advantage (or, alternatively, sulk alone in defeat before an unfeeling god).

But not always.

Sometimes Facebook really fucks up. In light of the company's most recent remodeling (Hello, "Ticker"), we decided to revist five such occasions. Not even Don Draper could put lipstick on these pigs.

Ticker

5. Ticker

The latest chapter in its ongoing obsession with Twitter, Facebook decided it would be a good idea to put a perpetually-updating, real-time stream of everything everyone of your friends ever does on the site — from adding a friend to commenting on a photo — right in the upper-right-hand corner of the home page. Nevermind that the News Feed, a better source of more pertinent information, is already right there on the same screen — ticker is simply an eyesore and a distraction. A distraction on top of a distraction.

Deals

4. Deals

One of Facebook's worst habits is playing copycat to whatever hot internet start-up becomes the talk of Silicon Valley. This April, the company announced "Deals," a new service to compete in the social discount terrain made white hot by Groupon and LivingSocial. As with many of Facebook's other also-ran products — including "Marketplace" as an answer to Craigslist and "Places" to counter Foursquare — Deals came off as half-assed, unnecessary and was not long for this world. The company quietly killed off the service in August, after having only rolled it out in a handful of cities. Lesson: Go with what you know.

Profiles Go Public

3. Profiles Go Public

It's one thing for Facebook to add functionality or make design changes, but messing with users' personal information is a clearly defined foul on the play. As part of a major overhaul of Facebook profiles in 2009, the company nixed much of the personalized information users had shared in the "Interests" section of their profiles since the site's inception, instead opting to force everyone to "like" public "Pages" in order to demonstrate their interests.

Naturally, plenty of folks freaked out and mounted protests on the site, arguing that Facebook had thrown them overboard in a push to make its Pages feature more valuable to marketers. The company ultimately declined to roll back Pages-based profiles, but responded by adding new privacy controls that let users opt out of having their interests displayed to the public.

Beacon

2. Beacon

One of Facebook's most serious blunders, Zuckerberg and Co. became the target of numerous lawsuits from privacy advocates when they launched the ominously-named "Beacon" in 2007. Beacon was a product of Facebook's then-nascent spread into the various parts of the Web that aren't Facebook. It transmitted information about activities users performed on participating sites back to Facebook, whether or not they chose to have that information shared with their friends. In some instances, Beacon would publish information to the News Feed without giving a clear warning, or allowing users the opportunity to decline.

Facebook apologized and tried making various modifications to Beacon to make it more palatable. But after a class action lawsuit and persistently negative press, the company terminated the service in 2009. Today, users can still choose to allow external sites to communicate with Facebook, but those sites must get express permission and provide a detailed list of how they will use your information beforehand.

App Invasion

1. App Invasion

Facebook introduced its "Open Graph" APIs in 2007 and became an invaluable platform overnight. Developers created innumerable apps and games that expanded the site's functionality with the hopes of reaching a built-in user base in the hundreds of millions. But giving users access to all the new apps initially created chaos. Facebook, which became a success due in large part to its clean, and controlled interface, suddenly became overrun with tacky animations, horoscopes, farmers and zombies. The old complaint that the social network was becoming more like its troubled old rival, MySpace, rang truer than ever.

Today, Facebook Apps are still big business, but the company has severely reigned-in the reach of third party products. Facebook redesigned profiles to marginalize apps, first relegating them to "boxes" and then giving them the boot altogether.