For all its cool connectivity features and business tools, Facebook can still manage to piss users off even when it's trying to be helpful.
Whether it's new privacy features gone mad, or redesigns to the site itself, Facebook always seems to divide its userbase between good, non-chalant and hate. Now a new feature for Facebook Page admins - Getting Started - seems to be getting more criticism than praise.
I only noticed it when I jumped on to design the new Bonsai Interactive Facebook Page. Instead of the normal tabs along the menu like Wall, Info and Photos, there was also a new tab called Getting Started.
As it suggests, it offered some tips on how to set your Facebook Page up. Great - anything that helps new Page users get the best from their Page has to be great, right?
Hey, it's Facebook - so, no, is the short answer.
Since I already know how to set a Page up, I went to hide the tab. And found that I couldn't. There was no way for me to drag it into non-displayed tabs, nor was there an option for me to delete the tab either.
In fact, the only way I could get rid of the damn thing was to link my Twitter account to the Page, as well as my mobile phone.
Riiiiiight...
The social side of me wants to think that this is just a way to connect your accounts together and make it easy to populate your Facebook Page from either Twitter or your mobile phone.
The cynical side of me sees it as another way for Facebook to have more information about you, and then possibly open up that information (purposely or not) to mobile ad companies and Twitter spammers.
I opened up a Help Ticket on Facebook last Thursday, asking how to remove. As of writing this post, no-one from Facebook has actually answered.
But there are plenty of other frustrated users complaining about this "helpful" addition.
Like I say, I can see the benefit of having a Getting Started tab, especially for new Page users. But not having a way to delete or remove it manually, while it takes up a tab that could be used for something more beneficial to the Page, seems kinda lame to me (I had to link my Twitter and mobile accounts and then remove access to get rid of the tab).
What's your take on it? Have you seen this new feature yet, and is it useful or just another Facebook faux pas?
