Categories
Facebook

New Facebook ‘Pages Feed’ is bad news for business.

Facebook have now launched the new ‘Pages feed’, allegedly as a response from businesses who were unhappy that not all of their pages posts were appearing on their fan’s news feeds. Facebook uses a complex EdgeRanking algorithm to determine which page posts are relevent, and when to display them to users. Historically only a percentage of posts get displayed due to the sheer number of pages the average user ‘Likes’. To display them all, at all times, would completely fill user’s news feed on a daily basis. In that sense, I’m sort of on Facebook’s side in wanting some method to filter them down.

Critics have accused Facebook of profiteering on this practice, claiming that it is compelling businesses to pay to promote their posts in order to ensure they’re seen by fans. As posts are typically only seen by 20-30% of a page’s fanbase, there is some merit to this argument.

And so we have Facebook’s new ‘Pages Feed’, which shows all posts by all pages that you’re a fan of. Great! Except it’s not great. The knock-on effect is that even fewer posts from pages are now being seen on the regular News Feed. By my estimate, my page posts are now only seen by 10-15% of fans. Not surpringly, Facebook users aren’t particularly motivated to click on a seperate feed in the sure knowledge that a majority of posts will be promotions or basic spam. So rather being being good for business and page owners, this is actually bad. Very bad.

The pressure is now on businesses to promote all of their posts if they want any significant number of their fans to see them. In my initial tests I need to promote posts for at least $5 or $10 to ensure they’re seen by as many users as they previously used to for free.

Yes, Facebook still need to implement monetisation methods to become truly profitable, but we’re not so stupid that we’re going to be sold a new ‘feature’ as a benefit when it’s actually quite the opposite.

Categories
Facebook

As soon as you “like” this you will yawn

This is yet another test of how stupid people can be on Facebook. This is a picture of a woman, one side blurred, the other side not. The image implores you to ‘Like’ and then ‘Comment 55’ and ‘See the magic’.

There is no magic. What do you think will actually happen? This is Facebook. If you click like, it will like something. If you comment, it will comment. NOTHING ELSE WILL HAPPEN.

This is a viral test to see how many fucking moronic people will follow instructions and expect something to happen. It won’t. If you do actually yawn it’s because your brain is susceptable to the suggestion of yawning simply at the mention of it. Liking an image, commenting an arbitrary number, is not ‘magical’ behavior.

It’s not magic, it’s not mystical, you’re just stupid.

Categories
Facebook

Thank you Morissons, Thank you Tesco, Voucher FACEBOOK SCAM

These scam posts are doing the rounds again. They say ‘Thank you[Tesco] [Morissons] [other supermarket]’, pretending to offer you a free £175 or £250 voucher, accompanied by the words ‘Claim your free voucher, only a few left!’.

Same kind of deal as always here. As soon as you stupidly click the link and go to the page, you get linkjacked and it reposts the scammy spam to your Facebook.

As always you’re an idiot if you click such links. It’s _always_ too good to be true and blindly following links posted on Facebook is risky. Without adequate virus protection you’re likely to be installed with some form of virus or malware that’ll either fuck up your computer or steal your personal details. Don’t click it.

Categories
Facebook Thoughts

George Takei’s “Day After the Future” Hoax

George Takei, legendary on Facebook for sharing amusing images on his page which are then liked and shared by thousands of fans, posted this today, along with the caption “We are now the day AFTER the future. LIKE and SHARE if you get this.”

Referencing, of course, Back to the Future. Unfortunately though this is just another variation of a hoax that has been done several times already. The image of the time circuit has been photoshopped to a modern date along with some quip about the future being here now.

The correct date originally set in the film was, and always shall be, Oct 21st 2015.

Categories
Facebook Humour Internet Thoughts

Woman Claims watching 3D film made her pregnant: HOAX

Except she didn’t, because it’s a hoax. This has been posted on Facebook a lot today despite being back from mid-2010. For some reason it’s doing the rounds again, along with a load of people posting ‘LOL I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE ARE SO STUPID HAHAHA’, etc.

See confirmation here: http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/3dfilm.asp

The only stupid people here are those that believe something is true because it’s posted on Facebook. Seriously, before you re-post, do some utterly basic fact-checking or risk looking like an idiot.