‘We really messed this one up’

Cory Bergman September 8th, 2006

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has responded to all the criticism with a post on his blog. “We really messed this one up,” he writes. “Somehow we missed this point with (News Feed) and we didn’t build in the proper privacy controls right away. This was a big mistake on our part, and I’m sorry for it.” So Zuckerberg says the Facebook team has been “coding nonstop for two days” to build better privacy controls that allow users wide control to decide what information makes the News Feed. “This may sound silly, but I want to thank all of you who have written in and created groups and protested. Even though I wish I hadn’t made so many of you angry, I am glad we got to hear you,” he writes. As I mentioned yesterday, it’s a big learning experience for any social network or predominately user-generated content site: listen and collaborate with your users BEFORE you launch new stuff. (Thanks for the tip Dave!)