Will Facebook’s AutoPlay Videos Alienate Users?

Doesn’t it seem like every time Facebook makes a big change or announcement, people are up in arms about it? 

Well this week's news is no different!

Facebook confirmed Tuesday that it is rolling out video advertisements within users' News Feeds that will auto play on desktop and mobile.  

Yeah, kinda weird right?  So all of a sudden you are getting your daily updates from friend statuses and pics and then a random ad starts playing in your News Feed.  

It sounds annoying to me, and not what I want in my News Feed.  And I’m not alone.  Mashable has put out a flash poll and found 90% of people dissatisfied with this announcement.  Even more suprising is that almost 60% of people claim to hate it so much they would be willing to leave Facebook!

Now I highly doubt Facebook is going to lose that many of its users, but this certainly will change up your typical Facebook experience.  The company has been trying all different kinds of things to generate revenue through the otherwise free site.  Anything from paying for “stickers”, gifting to friends and the ever popular Facebook Ad.  These auto-play videos, though, are certainly the most aggressive of all the attempts.  

Do you think the ads will alienate Facebook users?  What do you think of them?

Is Facebook's New 'Graph Search' Built For Users or Marketers?

It sounds exciting.  Truth be told, I AM excited.  Facebook announced its new feature today, Graph Search, that will make searching the site much more intuitive.  

With Graph Search, instead of just typing in a friend's name and getting their profile, you'll be able to type in things like "Who do I know in New York", or "Friends in LA who like tennis".

Cool, right?  This will be super helpful and I can already think of a bunch of applications for it.  But the idea has been getting quite a bit of skeptical feedback.  

Is this feature made for us, the end users, or to help Facebook sell more targeted advertising?

And if I let my eagerness to try it out calm down a bit (which I will have to do anyway, because right now you have to get on a waiting list to even try the beta test) then I can see the skeptic's point. 

Does this really just make Facebook a better search engine of our likes, hobbies and statistics so that marketers can better reach us with their paid advertising?

Only time, and getting to use the new tool, will tell how well it works and how useful it is.  For now I will remain the ever-hopeful optimist.  Bring it on Graph Search!

What do you think about Facebook's announcement?  Are you Team Graph Search or Team Skeptic??