Is The New Facebook Ticker Too Intrusive? Facebook Scaling It Back Already

Although there was the usual uproar when Facebook introduced their changes last week most people seemed to be pretty fond of the new ticker and the enhanced user experience that it delivered. In the last day or two though I have been starting to see a lot of negative comments about it and there are some early signs that Facebook could even be toning it down a little. Facebook don’t usually take much notice of what their users think when they launch new features (rightly so as users also revolted against the likes of the news feed in the past) but they could already be making changes based on user behavior…

Users Noticing Privacy Concerns

I’ve seen multiple people in my feeds explaining the new features to each other and instructing one another on how to switch the ticker off (via browser plugins) or how to change your settings so only some of your information appears to friends. If anything the ticker has just surfaced the sheer volume of information that we are already sharing on Facebook and making us aware of how public our online lives now are. There are also already thousands of articles on how to remove the ticker with options for both Firefox and Chrome

Facebook Scaling Back Ticker?

When the ticker first launched it took up a large part of the upper right hand side of my screen and followed me around everywhere that I went on Facebook. Since yesterday Facebook seem to be testing a new version that is half the size and also only appears on my homepage and not on every single page that I visit. I’m guessing here that Facebook might be playing around and testing a couple of versions to track user engagement and see which one works best. The smaller version is more subtle and allows for more ads.

Unexpected Results

One of the things that people using the music apps have noticed is what horrendous taste in music some of their friends had. The fact that the ticker surfaces every single action from listening to songs to reading books and watching films as well as menial updates like comments and updating photos means that Facebook is getting some unexpected results. Facebook thinks that everything is for sharing but maybe not everything in the world is made for sharing. Maybe I want to listen to a corny music track that only I like? Maybe I’m reading about a competitor and don’t want all my friends to know that. The ticker is brand new and is changing what we know about our friends and family and Facebook are learning as much as we all are with this roll out. You can expect the ticker to evolve over time.