Whoever Facebook got hold of to try and put out the fire they started with their new “stalker-style” RSS features has done a pretty good job, judging from the mea culpa that co-founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote on the Facebook blog. It had a considerably different tone to it than the one he wrote when the fuss first erupted, which was kind of condescending and pretty much belittled the privacy concerns of the social network’s users.
I though my friend Rick Segal the Canadian VC had a pretty good take on things right off the top, in his response to Zuckerberg’s initial post. Using the post as an example for other startups, Rick makes this point:
He starts off with the title: Calm down. Breathe. We Hear You. Hmm.. I’m at 7 out of 10 on the arrogance scale but I withhold the points award because this might be a fun, oops, aw shucks, sorree, type posting.
The first paragraph, the most important paragraph, falls flat on it’s face. Consider this sentence:
“We think they are great products, but we know that many of you are not immediate fans, and have found them overwhelming and cluttered. Other people are concerned that non-friends can see too much about them.”
Given that about 1000% of the concerns were all about privacy, all about stalking, etc, this type of dismissive, we like it lead off, with yeah some people are bitching, is not good.
Did you notice the same thing I noticed about Rick’s post? Yes, that’s right — in the phrase “flat on its face” the word “its” doesn’t take an apostrophe because it isn’t a contraction. (Just kidding Rick). But seriously, I think Rick makes a good point, which is “Lesson: Acknowledge and agree with the big concern. In this case, Privacy is a top priority/concern should have been the first words written.” Here’s his advice for startups if something like that happens to them:
When 200,000 people start bitching and complaing, you swan dive onto your sword. Don’t even attempt to rationalize, simply say, oops, here’s what we heard and what we are immediately doing about it, not hey dorks, learn how to use the privacy settings and keep the cards -n- letters coming. That’s what I (and others) read into Mark’s blog entry.
Rick is right, and obviously someone got through to the nice folks at Facebook and told them that, so Mark took another crack at his blog post — and is getting some props from users for being so up front. That’s the kind of response you want. And you don’t get all that many chances before people turn their back on you and go somewhere else.