With all the hoopla around Facebook's new "awesome" video chat announcement coupled with the fact that it has reached the 750 Million member milestone - my question may seem rather ridiculous.
But hang in there so I can explain.
I mean that Facebook is flat at its most basic, literal sense. I mean that Facebook's - "all friends are created equal" - design strategy reveals a glimpse into its most vulnerable underbelly - Facebook's usability.
To put this idea in context, let's compare how a twenty-five-year-old uses Facebook versus the 45-year-old woman. The younger person has lots of friends which they might organize into different lists. The 45-year-old doesn't use lists at all since to her Facebook is the list of her friends. This very distinctive divergent use patterns between the two groups was made startlingly clear at a recent conference where I posed the question to the audience. Even I was surprised at the consistency of the results but once you think about it - the results are not surprising at all.
In real life, as you begin your life' journey, all friends are equal as they largely comprise a homogenous, flat group of school friends. It's no accident that this model reflects the life stage of its 22-year-old creator. Yet as we mature, our social networks become more diverse, richer, and multilevel. We naturally organize these networks along distinct functional lines - kid's school network, business friends, hobby friends and so forth. We then shuffle these networks in real time as the need arises sometimes mixing it up to achieve a certain task.
But no such sensitivity is baked into Facebook. Facebook's environment funnels everybody into the same network with no accommodation for the necessary and useful ability to compartmentalize our "friends." This gap is irksome and one mentioned in this ABC News article from Jon Swartz : Facebook says membership has grown to 750 million.
One could argue that Facebook lists are a way to manage your friends. But I suggest that this feature is ill-conceived much in the same way a feather will eventually scratch an itch not because the feather worked but because the need passed.
The power of Facebook was that, initially, it was a "flat" communications platform for trusted friends. However, one would hope that Facebook's usability would begin to mature to reflect its users' evolution. Instead, again we see Facebook simply adding more features (e.g. video chat) to keep our attention much as one might throw more toys into a playpen to keep a young child distracted. Yet, as any experienced parent can tell you - this approach does not work for long. You have to keep it up with more and more toys which eventually won't work at all - no matter how glittery.
Distracting us with video chat toys does not obscure the reality. Our networks are not flat but Facebook is. How EXACTLY is that supposed to work?