4 Things Facebook Should Improve in 2017
What can Facebook change over the course of 2017 that won’t jeopardise its 10-year roadmap?
By Simão Pires
Facebook is at the verge to reach 2 Billions of Daily Unique Users [WOW], basically the biggest country on earth. This conveys a greater responsibility to Facebook’s Board and especially to Mark Zuckerberg, the face of the company than to some Presidents.
Mark Zuckerberg a.k.a Facebook tries, by all means, to keep a dictatorship as democratic as it can be. Facebook, due to its strong value proposition, organically grew its base and Mark became the leader of that country called Facebook where 2B people live online.
Given this, there are a few things I’d think Facebook should improve in 2017 without compromising their 10-year roadmap [Connectivity, AI and VR/AR]. Some should be “mandatory” to strengthen its influence on its users’ daily lives, having a positive impact on businesses and users [win-win], while others are just wishes from a business and recreative user perspective.
1. Fix Fake News
The US elections that are long gone, however fake news are still a thing. Solving this will contribute to a better-informed society therefore to better decisions. For instance, we already have verified pages why not have verified news? Applying the same icon, in green, on each shared news article will allow people to clearly distinguish them. Another option would be to place this badge on trustworthy news pages, instead of applying it to every article.
Another way to contribute to a better-informed society could be to suggest articles that have different points of view from the ones the user just clicked on. This way Facebook would be giving a variety of means for people to get informed. They would be less likely to be blindsided by their own bubble which can happen when only related articles are shown. In the end, as always, it is their choice to know more if they wish.
[UPDATE] Facebook is rolling out ways to flag Fake News and to make people aware of them.
2. Enhance Sound and Live Videos
Once you have 2B people on your platform everything you do will soon or later become the norm. Back in 2013, Facebook launched autoplay videos in order to push video content, and with that, videos without sound became the norm!
“80% of the videos on Facebook are played without sound” they say.
Let’s get this straight, they are not played they are autoplayed without sound. If you autoplay videos with no sound (and most of the users do not turn off autoplay), the majority of these videos will naturally be played with no sound, at least until they click on them. If videos start to autoplay with sound as stated in recent news these stats are likely to change completely. The use of captions in every video is being pushed by these stats but are they really needed?
This could be supported with some more detailed data in the analytics section of the videos with new columns such as:
- Number of videos views without sound
- % of video watched without sound
- Average video watched without sound
In 2017 Facebook will be pushing even more Live videos. Ads promoting it can already be seen in major cities across the World, and these do not autoplay nor have captions. Since more than 60% are mobile-only users, how can this type of videos strive and stand out? If videos don’t work without captions, how can these succeed?
3. Give Free Wi-Fi
The latest news confirms developments on this topic, however, there are still only a few thoughts on this. These are the screenshots that prove there are current developments in place to ease access to public Wi-Fi networks.
“Without a strong internet connection, people have pretty shoddy results when trying to film live video.” in TNW
This solution would be a start to solve existing connectivity issues and a step towards the 10-year roadmap.
However, how many of you ask for the Wi-Fi password every time you go to a new place? Restaurant, Bar or Hostel? For this Facebook’s solution would fall short once it only gives you access to public hotspots.
Why not partner or even acquire WiFi Map?
They already have more than 100 Million hotspots on their database, which would mean that you as a tourist walking around New York, London or Paris could be anchored on different Wi-Fi networks and be always Online.
Facebook’s goal is to connect people and make them share as much as they can. What better way to do that than giving them free internet access?
4. Update “Save For Later”
Save for Later is one of the best features Facebook has for people like me, who use Facebook as a news aggregator.
But this is killing me!
I have more than 700 articles/webpages/videos saved for later but I have no idea when that later will be. Yes, there are tons of apps that allow me to save articles that I want to read later like Pocket or Instapaper but none of them includes articles from Facebook. Being Facebook my primary news aggregator, any of those other options are real options.
There are some reminders of your “Save for Later”, either along the newsfeed or when you save another article but seriously there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Just have a few updates on this with some simple “new” features such as:
- Read Offline [for Instant Articles at least]
- Have a search bar for the articles [There is no real use for archived articles if I cannot search for its topic or keyword. Once you saved hundreds of articles it’s impossible to find the one you are looking for.]
- Send me push notifications as a reminder [Allow to set a timer so I remember to read it later?]
[UPDATE] Facebook just launched the new “Save for Later” button on mobile, right next to the articles’ title, and updated Instagram with the same feature which makes the rollout of these suggestions even more important for 2017.
Bonus: Merge WhatsApp and Messenger
More than two years after WhatsApp’s acquisition and tremendous growth in Instant Messaging (IM) it’s time to move on and start thinking about the actual merge. Here are 5 reasons to move towards one IM platform:
- Both are IM apps that belong to Facebook
- Both have around 1B users in each month and its overlap is insanely high
- The features are similar in each platform [Messenger wins here]
- An actual merge will aid in building an even stronger network, hooking up the users and starting to offer more value-added services to their daily lives as WeChat does in China.
- Back in 2014 when Facebook bought WhatsApp I bet with a friend that before April 2017 they would become one messaging app. Whoever loses has to pay a meal at the closest Burger King but since he moved to Australia and I’m in Portugal it seems that this is going to be the most expensive burger ever.
Mark, help me out here! you don’t want to merge these two IM apps but you want Messenger to become the “only” app on your phone?
💭 I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic! Drop me a line in the comment section below.
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