Hi Nancy, I'm not sure this qualifies as "more thought out" but I think you've on to something. Yesterday my colleague Cliff Lampe and I spoke with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115759058710755893.html?mod=technology_main _promo_left) and this was a slant to the story they wrote: the fact that facebook users were upset not only about the feature itself, but also the fact that it seemed to be implemented without any feedback from users. Which seems to be the case, as this quote from the article suggests: "Ms. Deitch said Facebook's feedback from users comes in the form of emails to its customer-service email address, which the company's product-development team reviews weekly. But the company typically doesn't solicit feedback by showing features to users before launching them." Because these social network sites are built on user-supplied content, users feel more ownership over the site as a whole (compared to, say, a news portal or e-commerce site). It may be that the reaction to this change might prompt deeper, better user research on the part of these sites (which I agree is needed). Following up on the earlier conversation: My sense from speaking with students is that they dislike the feature not because it is pulling already available information, but because it is displaying profile changes that otherwise would be hard to identify. If I have 150 friends on the site, I won't typically notice when someone de-friends me. But this feature puts this info in my face, so to speak. As the old saying goes: there are some things better left unsaid. This feature is articulating information we don't necessarily want to hear. N. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Nicole Ellison, PhD Dept. of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media Michigan State University nellison@msu.edu