As Facebook's year of woe comes to a close one thing is clear, the year is being extended and only by their own doing. 'The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons,' springs to mind as the latest round of bombshells is topped off by a bizarrely worded and timed letter from CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. The post almost read like thanks were in order. Proud? Altered DNA? Bizarre.
The biggest issue with the post is the list of work Facebook has done and still that have yet to yield any major impact. When read as a whole, the post simply confirms one thing about Facebook. No change has affected (or is designed to affect) the leading cause of Facebook's problems - the business model. Without this, Facebook is doomed to become irrelevant to other platforms or become extremely dangerous and be broken up. The latter is unlikely to change much other than slow growth, but maybe that's enough? TechCrunch picks apart the issues of the post in detail.
So what could Facebook do in 2019 to make some changes that affect the users and don't destroy the model?
- Atomic bomb the newsfeed - start again, you know what works and you can keep ads in, just cut the trash.
- Get a Chief Security Officer. Jesus.
- Made ads 100% transparent - this shouldn't freak you out unless an awful lot of shady people are doing shady things.
- Ban political ads - it's your platform, and this is causing you issues - make the decision.
- Verify all news sources - it'll take time, it'll cost you, but it'll clean out the trash - you just have to want it. A free media is the bastion of society and any social network.
- Mark needs to go dark. Take a back seat and wait to be called back. No-one is desperate to hear more from you without real fixes.
- Do less and show people more progress. Recent announcements have been underwhelming, and you need a public win.
- Make some real progress on new revenue streams.
- Promise Facebook won't make the same mistakes again on other platforms. Currently, it seems the sins of the past are building the future...
Facebook's issues are no longer just PR issues; these are older, more fundamental issues that are being leaked and brought to life. More will undoubtedly come in 2019 ( Zuckerberg's post almost promises it). There are core issues that Facebook was built on and grew through. The issue? The active role Facebook thinks it is taking isn't translating. Usage isn't changing (see below) so why would Facebook break something that is not yet broken? Others will need to do it for them; that's the governments around the world or the people that use it. In fact, people have put a price on what it would take to cure them of their Facebook usage, $1000. Expect that number to go down not up as scandals rise and utility flags.
