Why I Hate Facebook's Email Alerts

I’ve raised this issue with Facebook twice now and they’ve not responded, so I’m blogging it.

The crux of the matter, I think, is that Facebook wants me to see it as an entity in its own right, whereas I want it to be a tool. It’s arguably a meaningless distinction, but it can make a big difference to attitude. The email alerts are a big part of this. Because here is what happens when someone sends me a Facebook message:

Facebook emails me to tell me I've got a Facebook message from my friend.
I visit Facebook to read the message.

Here is what I want to happen:

Facebook forwards the message to me as an email from my friend.

Now again, this is a small distinction, but under my sytem I might get this email:

From: Clare Hunter <message1083610240352@facebook.com>

To: Andrew Taylor <taylor.andrew+facebook@gmail.com>

Subject: Stuff to do

How about going to see a film tonight?

View message in Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/n/?inbox/readmessage.php&t=1083610240352&mid=ee5fa4G3a92783G34fb8cdG0

Alter alert settings: http://www.facebook.com/account

And, if I replied to that email, I'd expect my reply to be sent to my Facebook contacts. Under the present system, I get this email:

From: Facebook <notification+5euiut_h_@facebookmail.com>

To: Andrew Taylor <taylor.andrew@gmail.com>

Subject: Clare Hunter replied to a thread on Facebook...
Clare sent a message in reply to a thread. Re: Stuff To Do "How about going to see a film tonight?" To reply to this message, follow the link below: http://www.facebook.com/n/?inbox/readmessage.php&t=1083610240352&mid=ee5fa4G3a92783G34fb8cdG0 ___ This message was intended for taylor.andrew@gmail.com Want to control which emails you receive from Facebook? Go to: http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php?notifications&md=bXNnO2zME0Zy5MjcMDMbODg0O3Q9MTA209NjM1zYxMDMjt0bz02MTQxNzM0Nw==&mid=ee5fa4G3a92783G34fb8cdG0 Facebook's offices are located at 1601 S. California Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304

Firstly, almost the whole of that email (including the entire first paragraph) is non-message related, which is to say, wasted space. But worse than that, I’ve got an email from Facebook instead of a message from my friend. My email software (in this case, GMail’s web interface) knows how to file messages. They’re from someone, to someone, and on a subject. So, if I want to search for messages from Clare about stuff to do, I can do that. Except I won’t find it, because this email is from “Facebook” and is about “Clare has sent you a message on Facebook”. It appears in my inbox as a generic Facebook message and I have to read it to see which it is. It threads with other messages Clare has sent me instead of other messages in the same conversation, and the whole thing just isn’t satisfactory. This sort of thing was fine in 2001. Now, it’s not good enough. The web has matured and Facebook hasn’t done well at keeping up.

Now I realise that the email above does include my friend’s message in its entirety, so you’d be forgiven for thinking that I’ve no reason to actually visit Facebook unless I want to reply. But if someone replies to a message before I’ve read it in Facebook, I don’t get another email. Facebook reasons, in the manner of those quaintly archaic ‘forums’ that just about still exist, that once I’ve got one message I’m committed to visiting Facebook to read it. So there’s no need to keep me posted. Here, again, Facebook is acting as if it is a website I actively want to interact with. It isn’t. I want it to be transparent to the point of being invisible.

It’s no longer good enough to import. It’s no longer good enough to be an application. Facebook has to become a server that I can use however I like. That is how it will survive. Twitter’s massive growth has been mostly put down to its excellent API that allows people to use it however they like. Facebook can import my Google Reader items and blog posts, but its outgoing RSS support is patchy at best. It can import my tweets, but it can’t tweet my statuses. It can email me when I have a friend’s birthday coming, but it can’t export them to iCal format (although someone made an app that does). Facebook has two RSS feeds and an impenetrable and limited pseudo-API that’s mostly used to annoy users with shitty quizzes. Recently I’ve been discussing with a professional network administrator who can’t figure out how to synchronise a Facebook page and an external website, because it doesn’t occur to Facebook that anyone would want to.

Facebook has ideas well above its station and needs taking down a few notches. Then it can focus on actually doing what users want it to do instead of what it would like to do.