Read Write Web reports the 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index found Facebook in the bottom 5% of trusted US companies. The article goes on to quote Larry Freed, CEO of ForSee Results, as saying “it’s clear that while innovation is critical, sometimes consumers prefer evolution to revolution”.
There’s no doubt Facebook’s many user interface and privacy changes have upset consumers however can this be blamed on “innovation”?
Perhaps Facebook’s problems were because those “innovations” largely didn’t benefit the site’s users and the few that did were poorly communicated.
For innovations to be accepted by the market they have to provide some benefit; generally people don’t like change and the old saw “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applies. If something is working fine, then why make a change that isn’t going to benefit the people who use it?
An overlooked angle with social media platforms like LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook is how their business model is more like a free to air commercial TV station where the users, or viewers, are not the customers; the advertisers are.
So to put Facebook’s recent mistakes in context perhaps we should be looking at how their innovations were aimed at improving things for their customers, the advertisers, but had the unfortunate effect of upsetting users who are the reason advertisers buy space on the site.
Perhaps Facebook’s changes didn’t upset their customers and, given users have stuck with Facebook despite their fall in reputation, it shows their innovations have actually delivered.