A Letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO

Dear Mark Zuckerberg and co,

I admit- I have a problem with Facebook. As a regular amateur writer I spend a lot of time on the computer, tapping out wordage and researching. While using the net to find info, and with the speed of broadband, Facebook is only ever a click away. The draw of seeing what my friends are doing is still strong, even though I know everyone's doing pretty much the same thing (“My Friday's are gettin so boring.....lol.x”; “the bodyguard and ben & jerrys...”; “Lookin forward to havin a night out tomoz for abbies birthday!! best dig out my dancin shoes! haha x”; “i am now watching the game beer in hand bosh”; “Session Weekend with the Irish boys”... ad infinitum.

Facebook still needs tweaking, however, just so that it's a) easier to use and b) even more addictive and takes up even more of my precious time.

Facebook Chat has been making communication easier since its introduction about a year ago. It's a shame it rarely works, and people seem to disappear offline when they are apparently still tapping away (according to the little three-dot typing icon at the bottom of the screen). Also, I'm sure I'm not the only person to say that, when someone sends you a chat message, the little “pop” noise you hear isn't loud enough. Lets have a nice big “BING” noise, ala MSN Messenger.

Your rival social network site MySpace (remember this site? No?) has a series of chatrooms available 24/7, based on location and hobbies. Facebook had one room for a short while, but it was removed. Why?

Another of your competitors, Twitter, allows users to “retweet”- to repost updates from other users so that it can be shared between more people. Facebook only seems to allow us to do this with links like Youtube videos, as far as I can see. The function of reposting status updates could be handy for people and for businesses, who may want to share info- “Betty's Bakery is opening an hour earlier next Monday!”- a mundane but fitting example.

I suppose the next step would be to incorporate webcams, taking the name “Facebook” to a more literal level and taking on webcam-based sites like http://camfrog.com/. Why not let us sit and watch each other, not just read about our e-friends?

Chew it over, Mr. Zuckerberg. I'm quite sure you'll take over the world soon, and not just the html world either. Please give me credit for these ideas when your dictatorship is complete.

Thanks,
Matt Tuckey
Social Media Pimp Extrodinaire

Blog readers- is there anything else you'd like me to add to this letter? Any other changes you'd like to make to Facebook?