Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetHaven't been able to check it out yet, but if Google doesn't give you the option explicitly, you could always create a mail filter to archive the buzz notifications and label them.
Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetThanks Waleed! It’s working great with Ubiquity 0.5.x now!
Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetHi Waleed,
I use your Pingfm ubiquity command set, and it’s really great. I just upgraded to the new beta (0.5) of Ubiquity, and unfortunately the commands no longer work. Do you have plans to update these commands for the new version? Thanks! Keep up the great work.
-Andrew
Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetI like the idea in principle, but I think FB needs to be careful how it is implemented. Consider how this might change your profile or page's "public search listing" (the version you make available to search engines and others who are not logged into FB). Currently the URL for this page includes a virtual directory with your full name ...facebook.com/people/Joe-Schmo/11223344. This is actually a good idea: with your full name in the url, the page is more likely to rank highly when people search for your name. But if Facebook changes this public url to your "username" vanity url instead, you may not rank as highly if you could only get the username "jschmo82." This doesn't need to be a problem, but to avoid it, FB needs to give people lots of control over how they package up and publicize their profiles.
Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetI don't know if the page admin commenting issue is really fixed. My personal avatar has always showed up when I go to write a comment, but it changes to the page avatar/name when I actually post it. It still does that. Does this happen to you, or does it really post as your personal acct?
Plus, to really "fix" this issue, facebook needs to give admins the *choice* of how they want to post (personal or as page), since that preference varies widely. People know you as one of the faces of Mashable, but they don't know most admins by name (nor should they). In fact, I think they really need a third option in the mix--a page moderator, so that some pages can choose to have a moderator speaking on behalf of the page, not *as* the page (e.g., for celebs and public figures), but without giving away their personal info.
Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetCarrie, I don't think this is working on fan Pages (yet?) -- see comment thread by @KateNonymous above. It's not working on the one I administer anyway. Any luck on yours?
Reply | Original | Permalink | Tweet@aj_robins: This explanation is interesting because I never realized that my messages would be interpreted by some recipients' clients with this 'on behalf of' language in the first place.
So by "twiddle the headers" do you mean they have removed the "Sender:" line altogether? I've noticed that most of mail mail headers don't have that line in there anyway. Is it required? If not, I think Google's decision to remove it from the web client sounds like a good idea for users.
Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetAs a page admin, I share your frustration (see my comment further down). If you haven't already, definitely make sure you report this bug to facebook so that they make this priority. There's a discussion thread and links to the bug report here: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=103814695...
Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetAll updates are hidden: every status update, link, photo, etc. posted through the page's "write something" publisher. It is unclear how many brands this is affecting--since Facebook has so far not commented on the issue at all, despite the pleas in its official forums. You'll be happy to hear that Mashable was the ONLY brand that was not automatically hidden from my personal feed when they did the upgrade. It seems the New York Times also managed to get special treatment (according to some people's reports -- I wasn't a fan of their page prior to the upgrade). But all 16 of my other "fan" pages were automatically hidden, and I had to unhide them manually. This has turned out to be the case for every other existing fan that I've been able to contact.
The issue has been reported by lots of page admins in the official Facebook Pages discussion: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=103814695...
Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetI agree there is *potential* here for facebook to be good for brands, but there are some pitfalls in the current setup. First, as Jenny points out in these comments, Facebook totally screwed the pooch for most brands when they did the upgrade: for some unbelievably dumb reason (perhaps out of error) they set most brands to be HIDDEN from user's news feeds. It took me several days to figure out why I couldn't see posts from my favorite brands (including one I administer), and I had to search the discussion boards to finally find someone who discovered that Facebook had hidden these by default. So basically, every *existing* fan I had before the upgrade will probably never realize that they should be seeing posts from my brand. (New fans curiously get the posts *shown* by default.) Since I'm hidden from their feed, there is no way to tell these fans to unhide my brand (since "updates" are now also tucked away on the Inbox page where nobody will ever see them). Upshot: Facebook effectively *removed* the ability of most pages to communicate with their previous fans. (On your $5-10/fan investment, how much money did FB just cost me??)
Second, as many people have pointed out here, there is a serious peril for brands here of over-spamming people's feeds. With the new system, you don't exactly get access to fans "for life" as you say in the post: you get them until they hide you. In fact, I have to confess that Mashable was the first brand I decided to hide on the new facebook (sorry) because you guys post WAY too much to my feed. Now, I should say that part of the reason I hid Mashable is that I already read your RSS feed every day, so I had no need to see your posts twice. But this is a warning to brands: that little "x" button is very easy to click if users feel like they're seeing way too much of you in proportion to updates from their "real" friends. And unless a user really cares, are they ever going to bother to "unhide" you?
What facebook really needs here is a smarter system of filters so that I can control how many brand updates I see (or in what view), rather than simply turning them on or off. I could go on all day about the improvements facebook needs to make in order to make these new system serviceable, but I'll leave it at my verdict: this is probably a good step in the right direction for brands and for users, but only if FB (and the brands that use it) continues to tread very cautiously and wisely.
Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetNice assessment. I, too, have been trying to give the new FB the benefit of the double for a few days. Until I read your post I hadn't been able to put my finger on exactly what it felt like was missing. The new news feed does feel much more conversational -- I find myself commenting and reading comments more than I did on the old FB. And the FB model that clusters replies together under the item is MUCH more intuitive than the basic Twitter interface (I've never found twitter that interesting).
In fact there's so much conversation activity on the news feed that I hardly noticed that all of my friends' other activities were completely missing! I think you are absolutely right about how the old mixture of posts and activities gave you a richer idea of what your friends were doing, and I think Facebook has become less interesting and engaging for having done away with it. I see some of this content in RHS "Highlights" section, but it is far too static and non-narrative sitting over there -- plus I don't have any control over the mix of what appears there.
I'm okay with Facebook being a little more like Twitter (in fact, better than twitter in key ways as I've mentioned), but it should not sacrifice the aspects that made it like friendfeed. Speaking for myself, I don't have a critical mass of friends on either friendfeed or twitter to make either worth my time (I have largely dormant accounts on both), but facebook always seemed a great mix of the two. The mix is what always kept it engaging -- it would be a mistake to swing the pendulum too far away from this happy middle.
Reply | Original | Permalink | TweetLovely, I love ya, but I was totally disappointed when I heard about this decision. I come in for long mornings sometimes to work in a more pleasant atmosphere than my home office. I try to be a good citizen--buy a small breakfast along with my bottomless coffee, buy soup or a snack if I stay longer than a couple hours, etc. I would love to keep coming down to work at the cafe occasionally, but my laptop battery only lasts about an hour and a half if I'm lucky. It takes me about 15 minutes to walk to the cafe, so it really makes less sense now to try to get in a substantial chunk of work there.
Maybe I'm the kind of customer you were trying to get rid of with this decision. If so, I'm sorry to hear that. I've always tried to be conscientious about supporting the cafe with purchases while I'm there, tipping generously, and I'll often think to take some pies or pastries with me toward the end of the week. I always thought that this was the reason you made Lovely so work-friendly (free wifi, lots of tables, access to electricity-!) -- the idea being that it's good to have a place full of people who feel welcome and want to patronize the business, leading to customer loyalty and ultimately more sales, etc. But maybe that strategy wasn't working out for you. It's kind of a shame, because I'm really mourning the loss of such a nice place to take my work for a few hours.
Maybe I'm not the kind of customer you hoped to get rid of -- I'd like to think that's true. Maybe there are other people who take advantage, drinking the same bottomless cup all day long, never buying lunch or pastries to go, etc. I wish there were some middle ground here. Maybe you could post some "house rules," or make the bottomless cup more expensive (I'd gladly pay -- I've always thought it was too good a deal anyway!) -- or heck, even sell daily or hourly "passes" for the outlets. I don't know. I just know that, if given the option, I would pay a reasonable amount in order to be able to spend a morning working at Lovely. But I can't work there without electricity. And for someone in my situation, that ends up meaning that I don't really have a reason to go there at all.
I hope you'll find a way to welcome us back.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Tweet@Twinnie: It will be interesting to see if google eventually adds a "flag as spam" button, too.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Tweet@garbanzo-bean: Same here -- the searchwiki functions show up even though I have web history deactivated.
