Computerworld - I had to laugh when I read about Facebook's latest effort to woo businesses. While Facebook wants to look like its well ahead of Google+ in the commercial uses of social networking, its track record of dealing with users suggests that businesses should not rely on it.
Of course, when you rely on a free service, you should expect to get what you pay for. But when the free service is provided by a highly profitable company like Facebook, you have to think that at least a modicum of customer service and responsiveness would be in its best interests, especially when it wants to convince people to choose its service over a fast-rising competitor.
I have run into the stone wall of Facebook "customer service" in the past, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating this time around. The current problem arose when I was asked to assist the administrator of a Facebook group for users of a home fitness program that I belong to. The group has more than 30,000 members.
It seems that Facebook is going to shut down groups that were formed under an "old" format. What is this old format and why is it so bad? The old, original format differs from the new format in look and feel, and it lacks an enhanced chat function. That's it. Some groups will be allowed to migrate, while others will not. The criteria used for this decision have not been disclosed. I was informed that the group will be "archived." This gives the admin two choices; 1) let the group be archived, and then "unarchive" the group, for lack of a better term, which reloads the thousands of pictures, discussion strings, posts, etc., but lose all of the 30,000 members, who will have to find the "new" group and rejoin, or 2) start a new group, notify all group members that they need to join the new group, and lose all of the hundreds of thousands of contributions that make the group so valuable.
I tried contacting Facebook, but couldn't find out how to do that as a group admin. Instead, I contacted Facebook through its press e-mail as a Computerworld columnist. The response, when it finally came, was that they would not answer any questions on the matter. The PR person did, however, provide me with a link for contacting Facebook as a regular user, but I never received a response, and neither did the many other people who tried to contact Facebook to support the group. Facebook's attitude appears to be that it can do whatever it wants with anything on its site and not have to explain itself to anyone. I suppose it has that right, but we all have the right in return to say, good luck with that attitude, we'll be going elsewhere.
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