10 FACEBOOK mistakes

With more than 1.23 billion users, the social network invented by Mark Zuckerberg 10 years ago has many reasons to celebrate. But the rapid success it has achieved has also been accompanied by scandals, controversies, and questions about its policies. Journalist Rosa Jiménez Cano, from the Spanish newspaper El País, took it upon herself to list the 10 mistakes that, in her opinion, Facebook has made and continues to make. These are: Mobile: People connect from their phones, and it has yet to achieve a satisfactory experience. The web version takes a while to load and does not always adapt to the device correctly. The official app has limitations. Apps: plural, because there are many. From Poke to the official one, another for managing pages, and now Paper is added, a great promise, but they still lack clear unity. Creating an app in order to limit it makes little sense; however, once a tag is placed on a photo, it cannot be removed from mobile, but rather you have to go to the desktop. The same happens with notifications. The most criticized, without a doubt, is Messenger. Messaging: They failed to buy Snapchat. The rise of WhatsApp and Line caught them off guard in the world of instant messaging. Their Messenger, filled with stickers of all kinds, tries to win followers in a field where the cards have already been dealt. It is very strange to receive a notification on your phone, in the main app, open the message, and have to jump to the Messenger app to reply. Not to mention the banner at the top urging you to invite friends to install it. Perhaps too insistent and aggressive. Privacy: You can limit the reach of a post, decide who sees it or not, but it is somewhat cumbersome to change it with every publication. In addition, it still has a big hole: in the left sidebar, from the computer, the activity tab invites you to see someone's latest actions. They would not matter much, if they did not display data such as the latest songs listened to on Spotify, the Candy Crush level just beaten, or the wall on which the comment was posted. It is part of the social network, but it is overly indiscreet. Surprise changes: Just when it seems to be under control, a new change arrives. It happened with posts sponsored by individuals, which will soon disappear, with the new cover that included a banner with a landscape photograph, and caused a great uproar when Timeline was introduced. Facebook doesn't quite know how to communicate changes. The big fire was, precisely, when the ability to easily go back to the past exposed conversations that, although they were public, had fallen into oblivion. In September 2013 the discontent was huge. Those who leave: Facebook does not make it easy to leave and disappear completely. The process is cumbersome, full of questions. The profile is deactivated, but not deleted. If you decide to return, everything you did can be reactivated. The argument they use is that more and more users take a temporary break, but later appreciate staying where they were. Those who leave forever: When someone dies, the profile usually remains inactive. If notified, it can be converted into a ‘memorial,’ or a place to pay tribute and remember the deceased friend. It is little known and it is necessary to show a high degree of closeness to activate it. The consequence is that dead friends reappear on nearby birthdays. Strange feeling... Difficult cleanup: It is very easy to click and say we like the neighborhood shoe store, the village grocery store, or the music group that was in fashion too long ago to remember their melodies. The difficult part is, later on, to take stock and clean up the profile. This also happens with friend tags, event invitations, or participation in groups. Buy and close: When necessary, Zuckerberg has pulled out the checkbook to acquire technology and services. This happened with Push Pop Press, Mike Matas's company, and the same with Friend Feed, Friendster, or Snaptu. It is a good way to acquire creative workers and patents, but also to annihilate the competition or close services that could overshadow it. Unclear universal login: The idea of using Facebook as a login for apps and services sounds good, it is convenient and saves time. Not so much when nobody is very clear on how much and what information is taken from the profile and contacts, or what the related app does with it.