If I wanted Gizmodo, Y! News: Top Stories, or Y! News: Movie News, I would add them to my freakin’ My Yahoo! page!!!! I came to 360 to learn about what was going on with my friends, because I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about anything non-Howard Stern/CES/2006 Planning/Pan-Yahoo! Video Strategy in the last 2 weeks. Instead, I get 3 news stories (1 of them twice) that I didn’t want to read in the first place…which trigers so much displaced frustration that I spend my entire procrastination break ranting against feeds instead of reading about Ian’s latest claims to be the coolest man alive. It was kinda bad when it was just my stupid friends who had AP feeds on their 360 page, but since Favorites came online and my whole Messenger Friends List was added, it has gotten totally out of hand!
Isn’t something wrong with the design of a product when users have to resort to deleting their friends who don’t understand the proper use of a feature? I love the idea of feeds – it’s a great way to make 360 an open platform, which is the only way it can become a true personal portal. And, I know that it’s pretty easy to get for people who understand the distinctions between the proper use cases for Feeds, My Yahoo!, and a Blogroll. But, you can’t design a product that requires too much prerequisite knowledge in order to use it properly…especially when its a community product, and accidental misuse (as opposed to intentional abuse) diminishes the unser experience of other users.
I even went and read the copy on the 360 Feeds set-up page, which starts with “Set up feeds to share content you create elsewhere,” and even includes some good examples of personalized feeds (e.g. Netflix queue, My Web bookmarks, Upcoming.org events, etc). So, it’s not the 360 team’s fault that their users can’t read. But, it is their responsibility to come up with ways to drive people to the proper user behavior, otherwise the rest of the users suffer and no one will use this product. So, if the current user-base, a good portion of which works for Yahoo!, can’t figure it out, imagine what happens as even less savvy users join.
Obviously there is an unplanned usage pattern of adding non-personalized feeds to the Feeds section (instead of to the Blogroll or a user’s own My Yahoo! page). Without spending too much time thinking about it, I have come up with two potential fixes: 1) add a “Personalized” radio button to the Add a Feed page next to each Feed, and only share the feeds that have that button selected, or 2) aggregate the feed adding process for the three relevant products into one, so that when I go looking for a feed to add to My Yahoo!, my Blogroll, or my 360 Feeds, I am presented with the option of adding it to any of the three, which reminds users of the different use cases and gives a good opportunity to educate the less savvy users who didn’t know about the distinctions before.
An even simpler fix hit me after I wrote this: just give users the ability to control what updates show up on their 360 homepages. Duh!
So, I hope someone at 360 is working on some kind of fix to this…and I hope they have better ideas than mine. In the meantime, if you are reading this, TAKE THOSE F@#*KING STUPID FEEDS OFF YOUR 360 PAGES!!!! That means you George, Markov, Yam, Hubert, Graber, and Toby! Those of you with AP feeds on your pages, I’m going to shove a newspaper in your faces next time you come talk to me and see if you like it. And those of you with more eclectic stuff, yes you are so cool and tech-savvy! I’m totally impressed – oh, except that you don’t know how to use your freaking blogroll!
Ok, I think it is clear that the 8 hours of sleep I got last night was not nearly enough to make up for the week and a half of no sleep that preceeded it.
I HATE YOUR FEEDS!!!
ahahahahaha! thank you for my laugh of the day, jonathan.
rumor has it that yes, indeed, the 360 team has heard the gnashing of teeth and cries of anguish and dealing with Feeds is at the top of their fix list. but if they don’t get that change out the door, let’s start a vigilante posse. i get to wear a zorro mask!
Just got a message from a 360 team-member. Fixes in the works. There might be something to this bloging stuff! Who knew? (I guess maybe Russ.)
Ha, nice little rant you’ve got going there! I’m so with you.
it also means that even fewer users are active on 360, since they derive very little benefit (if any) from seeing their friends’ feeds. like most communities, there is a small portion of users who actually create content, which is OK and healthy. the fact that those “content creating” users are not surfaced due to improper use of feeds is completely frustrating. it makes discovery, exploration, and just FUN with the application very difficult.
Totally agree Carrie. When creating a community product, you have to take into account the fact that user behavior (or mis-behavior) will affect the quality of user experience delivered to other users.
PRAISE SOMETHING OR SOMEONE. I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE FEEDS TO DIE AND TO HAVE A PICTURE OF WHAT IS GOING ON IN MY COMMUNITY AGAIN.
Sorry for shouting. I hate it when things become MORE useless.
ian