Facebook’s good show

The elite startups are the ones who can turn a negative into a positive and Facebook revealed its elite status this week via its lightning-quick response to user criticism. Techcrunch has a nice write up of the whole situation here. Basically, Facebook added some cool features that let friends keep track of each other more efficiently. Unfortunately, these new features were interpreted by many as an invasion of privacy, and over the course of two days 700,000 people, or 8% of Facebook’s user base, joined a group in protest. Facebook coded for two days solid to make these features optional, and the CEO even apologized personally. By responding so quickly and honestly Facebook showed that they really care. Indeed, they’ve come out looking better than ever. Charlie is right, “when your users start feeling like they own what you built, you’ve really got something.” Good show Facebook, good show.