Every few months your favorite social media service will make some changes to their service that will probably go completely unnoticed until people start whining about it on the the internet. These free services that provide so much value to us go through a lot of changes and are constantly evolving to better suit their users. It seems that lately the most popular services are the ones that aren’t playing it safe—making bold moves, drastic changes, adding or removing features that are a big deal, and genuinely trying to constantly add more value to your social online experience.
There are always going to be people that complain about these changes. Being the perpetual devil’s advocate that I am, I find it difficult to protest a lot of these changes, and I’m always skeptical of the backlash that I see. It’s a lot like the boy who cried wolf. People complain every time something changes in their online service, so the companies mostly ignore the negative chatter. They pretty much tell the haters to deal with it and move on.
Then there are times when a mistake is made by a large company, perhaps one that has gotten so big they don’t even really bother with having good tech support, but their products work very well. This company may or may not have misunderstood the purpose of a certain feature, and changed or removed it in a way that really inconveniences their users.
Yes, I’m talking about Google Reader
This happened to me recently with Google, and while the description above may seem obvious, I think there are other companies who have fallen into this very specific stereotype. Yesterday I received a notice that I was going to be receiving the new Google Reader. I was delighted because I like the new UI that Google has been rolling out to all their services, and find it very easy to read and use.
There are some great new features. For instance there is a way to show only unread articles in the reading pane, which makes it much easier to prioritize your reading. There is also a new way to tag articles with certain keywords to make it easier to file away and find articles that you would like to go back to reference.
I was very dismayed, however, to discover that the sharing system, the biggest reason why I used Google Reader for RSS feeds, had been removed, and I would no longer be able to show shared articles from the people I follow. I’m trying not to throw a fit, and be that guy about this issue, but it’s very important to me, and has become an integral part of my day as a writer.
Where is my share button?
Google’s reasoning for this seems to be that they are trying to push Google Reader users to share articles through Google+ and Twitter. By clicking the +1, the article is sent directly to your Google+ feed. While I see how many people might find that useful, including myself, it really seems that the good people at Google were out of touch with the way we were using the service.
Google Reader is a social media service in and of itself. I don’t want to post 40 articles a day on my Twitter feed, and I especially don’t want to do that on my Facebook or Google+ feeds. Reader gave me the ability to connect with other people who were interested in reading the same articles as I am. As I shared articles that I liked throughout my day, I would also get the articles that others were sharing. This had become the primary purpose of using Reader for many of my blogger friends. So far I have seen no effort on Google’s part to integrate that feature into Google+ or come up with some alternative.
OMG THEY CHANGED MY FACEBOOK
Facebook has been getting a lot of flack for the recent changes to their UI as well. They re-arranged the look and feel of the home page, and changed the way your news feed displays articles. They also added a real-time activity feed. These changes seemed to send a shockwave through the entire internet.
The new Facebook layout took some time to adjust to, but there was one positive thing that I noticed right away. My posts and status updates were getting more comments and likes, and triggering longer discussions. I take this to mean that the changes made to Facebook have either put my content in front of more faces, or optimized the exposure to more of the right people. Whatever they did, I am able to engage more people and do it more effectively, and that’s why I use social media in the first place.
Perhaps, much like I feel that many people judged the Facebook changes too quickly, maybe I am judging Google Reader too soon as well. Maybe there is a replacement for the Google Reader share feed on the way and it’s not quite ready yet. Maybe there is a better way to accomplish article sharing in Google+ that I don’t know about. I don’t mind having to learn something new all over again, but if I have to I want to know that I’m getting more value from the service because of the changes.
To bitch or not to bitch?
This presents a paradox that makes things very difficult. Should we complain less or should these companies listen more? The data that we’re giving these services is often more value than money itself, but is it worth it to be so insatiable? As consumers we should always demand more and stimulate competition, but at the same time we cannot get so demanding that we completely miss the point of what these tools are there for.
Let’s try not to be so quick to throw a fit every time a change is made. Take the time to understand it and recognize the hard work that these companies are putting into it just to satisfy us. Let the changes sink in for a couple of weeks and then, only when it’s absolutely necessary, raise your concerns and maybe next time they won’t fall on deaf ears… and I’ll get my Google Reader back.
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