Interesting stuff on Facebook AND on Twitter and YouTube
Some time ago, I wrote about the usability issues related to a large amount of Facebook group memberships.
Roughly similar usability problems exist on many other social websites, too, and I’ve created two more lists. Here are all my lists so far:
You can also follow me on Twitter, or check out my playlists or favorites on YouTube.
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Do ads on Facebook irritate the sh*t out of you? Don’t freak out just yet. There are ways to reduce the clutter.
If you’re a Windows user, follow these easy steps to make a significant portion of the ads invisible:
1. Use the Firefox browser
http://www.mozilla.com/
(If you’re still using Firefox 2.*, don’t delete the self-extracting archive from which you installed it! Just in case you dislike Firefox 3.* as much as I did…)
2. Install the Adblock Plus plugin for Firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/fi/firefox/addon/1865
This plugin improves your user experience on other websites, too. It doesn’t eliminate Facebook text ads, though; some more tricks are needed:
3a. Install the Greasemonkey plugin for Firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/fi/firefox/addon/748
3b. Install the Remove All Facebook Ads script for Greasemonkey
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13787
Check out for possible improved scripts at http://userscripts.org/scripts/search?q=facebook
Also, remember the built-in feature in Firefox that allows you to block images by their source domain! The option is available in the browser’s context-specific menu (right-click with your mouse).
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My way of dealing with 300+ Facebook Groups
Facebook lets users create Groups freely, for practically any possible topic. In a way, it’s a reincarnation of Usenet, including that group discussions may be disappointing in their quality, and that there’s a spam problem that is yet to be solved in a satisfying manner. On the funnier side, some Groups have very clever and humoristic names (and even content). Not uncommonly, the mere formal membership is the whole point of being a member of a Group. Group names and memberships are statements. Group membership is one of the easiest forms of self-expression on Facebook.
Except that there are limits.
Currently, Facebook users are allowed to be members of just 300 Groups at a time. If you try to join more, you get the disturbing and disheartening error message “You have too many groups. You must leave one to join this one.” Too many, they say?! I must say that three hundred is not nearly enough!
Another serious flaw in Facebook Groups is that members can’t opt out of mass mail: Either you stay and receive every message from admins to all members, or you leave the Group entirely. How unfortunate to so many basically attractive Groups, that even occasional mass mails can be a major annoyance without it being their own fault. Group mass mails are a problem essentially because the usability of Facebook Messages (an equivalent to web mail) is really poor: users can’t create folders or filters for their incoming messages.
So, how do I deal with my “too many” favourite Facebook Groups?
I’ve created a separate web page, titled “Examples of Facebook Groups“. This page gives me a quick big picture of my personal favourites, and also solves another cluster of usability issues on Facebook, namely the way that Groups are categoricized there. Their way is just as bad and idiosyncratic as any other linear and static classification system. And as if that weren’t bad enough, users can’t even browse their own Groups by category.
In an ideal environment, entities like Facebook Groups might be classified further by admin-assigned tags and dynamic clouds of significant words derived from the content of the Group…
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