and explain that I never delete fan posts unless they contain hate speech or are obviously spam, that Facebook probably had swallowed up their posts temporarily, and they should be patient. But this happened so often that it became impossible for me to respond to each distraught fan, and so I endured post after tearful post from disenchanted fans.
The problem became acute enough that I actively had to monitor how my own posts were faring to determine whether there was an issue with any given one. In a particularly troubling week, it seemed every post I made failed to make it on to anyone’s newsfeed. I could tell something was wrong because the number of likes and shares would mysteriously drop to negligible numbers, or simply stop rising altogether — meaning they had vanished off of everyone’s feeds. Brad, of course, thought I was being paranoid, but the numbers spoke for themselves.
So I did what any customer would do. I complained.
“Fans,” I asked, “Facebook appears to be acting up today. Could you do me a favor and visit my wall, and let me know whether you saw my two posts from earlier today?”
Hundreds of fans responded that they indeed had not seen my posts. Many assumed I had taken a mysterious hiatus from my daily Facefix. Others asked how they could ensure that they saw all my posts (there is no real way to ensure this, as I explain in a later chapter).
After I posted my alert, imagine my surprise when I received wall posts from members of the Facebook Engineering team, alerting me, in turn, that they were investigating the issue. The nerd in me thrilled. One engineer, Mark Callaghan, blogged about the experience:
GEORGE TAKEI HAS A LOT OF FANS WITH US AND SINCE WE’VE ALL LIKED HIS PAGE, A WHILE BACK SOME OF US SAW AN UPDATE FROM HIM ABOUT AN INCONSISTENCY IN HIS FACEBOOK EXPERIENCE. WE REALIZED WHAT HE WAS EXPERIENCING WAS AN ISSUE WE WERE ALREADY TRYING TO FIX ON THE DATABASE SIDE, SO WHEN WE SAW HIM POST, IT GAVE US MORE INFORMATION THAT HELPED US GET CLOSER TO RESOLVING THE ISSUE. THIS ALLOWED US TO IMPROVE HIS EXPERIENCE, AND IN TURN, THE EXPERIENCE OF EVERYONE ELSE ON FACEBOOK.
In “tech speak,” on his blog, Callaghan was providing technical insight into challenges of scalability with MySQL on Facebook’s multi-core servers. Truthfully, I don’t understand this, but in plain English, it would appear my post had assisted their team with some real world troubleshooting.
Reading this, I suddenly realized what Dorothy must have felt like when meeting The Wizard. These are the live folks behind what happens on Facebook! I had peeked behind the curtain.
At times, I’ve come to the defense of Facebook, as when it rolled out its new Timeline user interface. The Internet was so abuzz with dire warnings and predictions, one would think a cataclysmic event had occurred, rather than an honest attempt to improve the product. So I did what came naturally: I spoofed it in a brief video. In it, I advised that the future of humanity was not threatened by the Timeline change itself, but by the possibility that one could go back in time to change one’s status. Metaphysical purists no doubt will point out here that the concept of backward time travel is theoretically problematic because of the temporal paradox, but that’s another book, probably in another parallel lifetime.
In my spoof video ( youtube.com/watch?v=1kNs4pxhRvc ) I had a great deal of fun imagining what my own Timeline would look like in the year 2293, with the help of some creative staff members. I’m sure it did little to quell rumors of a feud between Bill Shatner and myself.
Now, on the flip side, I haven’t always been a complete fan of what Facebook is up to. In June of 2012, I saw an advertisement for “promoted posts” and read some articles about how Facebook was planning to make more money by implementing them. Promoted posts, as I understand them, are a way to charge pages and brands to reach more of their
The problem became acute enough that I actively had to monitor how my own posts were faring to determine whether there was an issue with any given one. In a particularly troubling week, it seemed every post I made failed to make it on to anyone’s newsfeed. I could tell something was wrong because the number of likes and shares would mysteriously drop to negligible numbers, or simply stop rising altogether — meaning they had vanished off of everyone’s feeds. Brad, of course, thought I was being paranoid, but the numbers spoke for themselves.
So I did what any customer would do. I complained.
“Fans,” I asked, “Facebook appears to be acting up today. Could you do me a favor and visit my wall, and let me know whether you saw my two posts from earlier today?”
Hundreds of fans responded that they indeed had not seen my posts. Many assumed I had taken a mysterious hiatus from my daily Facefix. Others asked how they could ensure that they saw all my posts (there is no real way to ensure this, as I explain in a later chapter).
After I posted my alert, imagine my surprise when I received wall posts from members of the Facebook Engineering team, alerting me, in turn, that they were investigating the issue. The nerd in me thrilled. One engineer, Mark Callaghan, blogged about the experience:
GEORGE TAKEI HAS A LOT OF FANS WITH US AND SINCE WE’VE ALL LIKED HIS PAGE, A WHILE BACK SOME OF US SAW AN UPDATE FROM HIM ABOUT AN INCONSISTENCY IN HIS FACEBOOK EXPERIENCE. WE REALIZED WHAT HE WAS EXPERIENCING WAS AN ISSUE WE WERE ALREADY TRYING TO FIX ON THE DATABASE SIDE, SO WHEN WE SAW HIM POST, IT GAVE US MORE INFORMATION THAT HELPED US GET CLOSER TO RESOLVING THE ISSUE. THIS ALLOWED US TO IMPROVE HIS EXPERIENCE, AND IN TURN, THE EXPERIENCE OF EVERYONE ELSE ON FACEBOOK.
In “tech speak,” on his blog, Callaghan was providing technical insight into challenges of scalability with MySQL on Facebook’s multi-core servers. Truthfully, I don’t understand this, but in plain English, it would appear my post had assisted their team with some real world troubleshooting.
Reading this, I suddenly realized what Dorothy must have felt like when meeting The Wizard. These are the live folks behind what happens on Facebook! I had peeked behind the curtain.
At times, I’ve come to the defense of Facebook, as when it rolled out its new Timeline user interface. The Internet was so abuzz with dire warnings and predictions, one would think a cataclysmic event had occurred, rather than an honest attempt to improve the product. So I did what came naturally: I spoofed it in a brief video. In it, I advised that the future of humanity was not threatened by the Timeline change itself, but by the possibility that one could go back in time to change one’s status. Metaphysical purists no doubt will point out here that the concept of backward time travel is theoretically problematic because of the temporal paradox, but that’s another book, probably in another parallel lifetime.
In my spoof video ( youtube.com/watch?v=1kNs4pxhRvc ) I had a great deal of fun imagining what my own Timeline would look like in the year 2293, with the help of some creative staff members. I’m sure it did little to quell rumors of a feud between Bill Shatner and myself.
Now, on the flip side, I haven’t always been a complete fan of what Facebook is up to. In June of 2012, I saw an advertisement for “promoted posts” and read some articles about how Facebook was planning to make more money by implementing them. Promoted posts, as I understand them, are a way to charge pages and brands to reach more of their
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