Is Facebook right to not listen to its employees?

Since Facebook’s redesign of its layout, users and employees of the company have been up on arms to protest the new design. Rightfully so. After all, do you really want to know how ‘Hokkien’ your primary school classmate from 4B, who always seem to win you at ‘rubbers’, really is? Or how many kids your ex girlfriend will have (probably without you)?

Facebook appears to be trying too hard to replicate Twitter, with its modified newsfeed that broadcasts everything that your friends are doing, but in the first place, why should they?

Facebook acts like a giant phonebook that keeps you updated about your friends’ lives in a macro ‘big picture’ level while Twitter works on the micro-level, capturing your friends’ daily thoughts. By trying to minimic Twitter and letting users know the most mundane of activities, Facebook seem to have taken the wrong turn and if it doesn’t find its way back, it might never be able to come home.

To compound on that are rumours that 24-year old CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote in an memo to employees in response to the latest furore over the redesign, that “the most disruptive companies don’t listen to their customer”. This is the kind of stuff that gives nightmares to PR staffs. To users, its like being given a backhand slap to the face. Why would Zuckerberg say such a thing to the very people that collectively made him a billionaire?

I just don’t see how this redesign is ‘disruptive’. If anything, its like Facebook has become a spoiled kid doing everything it can to become the center of attraction again.

What do you guys think? Is Facebook doing the right thing by insisting that its right, despite what 338,848 people think?

Asia One

Just caught this over my twitter feed. Did you know that by paying for goods over the MRT gantry, you will be liable for a $2000 fine? Now this is something new.

The New Paper found out that under SMRT regulations, it is an offence to conduct a business transaction over a fare gate.

On 18 Jan this year, the 43-year-old was waiting for a friend at the Tampines MRT station when he saw a middle-aged man pass some pastries over the fare gate to some people on the other side.

‘The man was carrying a basket with some Chinese New Year pastries inside,’ Mr Gan told to The New Paper.

‘Some people were buying the pastries from him, and they had planned to meet there.’

Mr Gan said the man was inside the paid area of the MRT station, while the buyers were on the other side.

He saw the man hand over a box of pastries to a buyer who then paid him.

At this point, two SMRT employees approached the man. Mr Gan said he overheard them telling the man that he was not allowed to sell items over the fare gate.

So the man tapped his ez-link card and went out into the station’s unpaid area.

There, he continued his dealing with his buyers.

Again, another two SMRT employees approached him, Mr Gan claimed.

‘They looked like they were going to chase him away, so he quickly finished what he was doing and went back into the (paid area of the) MRT station.’

Curious, Mr Gan approached the man to find out more. The man told him he had done transactions over the fare gate before, but that was the first time he had been warned by SMRT staff.

When contacted, an SMRT spokesman confirmed it is indeed against their regulations to conduct business transactions over the fare gate.

The spokesman said the maximum penalty for such an offence is a $2,000 fine.

As someone who occasionally sells used items over forums, this is a very common scene in the local online 2nd hand market. Usually, when meeting a buyer, we don’t travel out just to meet them at the station and then head on home. We usually arrange our meeting timing such that we can just pass the goods over the gantry to the buyer at a MRT stop that is along the way of our destination. That way we don’t have to get out of the gantry, and then walk in again, 30 seconds later.

I’m quite curious though to find out how SMRT plans to enforce this rule and if their own staffs are aware of this rule. If this wasn’t even reported in the news, would you had known about it?

Here’s a question for you, would you still continue to make this kind of transaction, or would you get out of the gantry and pay an extra $0.70 to re-enter?

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Crisisofcredit

Are you still unsure about the current credit crisis and how did it come about? Johnathan Jarvis has created a nicely animated visual explaination of the crisis as part of his thesis work in Media Design.

Even if you’re not interested in the cause behind the current economic crisis, it still makes an entertaining visual feast for the eyes.

Looks like the economy is going nowhere now. Embattled bank, American Insurance Group (AIG) yesterday posted a $62 billion quarterly loss, just after receiving a $30 billion bailout from the U.S Treasury ontop of its $150 billion it has already received.

This pushed the Dow Jones to fall below its 12-year low of 7000 points and KBW financial sector index to fall by 5.4%. The bleak news couldn’t come at a worst time as even legendary Omaha investor, Warren Buffet’s highly conservative Berkshire Hathaway posted a 98% decrease in fourth-quarter net income to $117 million and a 9.6% drop in Book value per share.

The continuous stream of bad news begs the question, “So how far will the rabbit hole go?”