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How About We Don't Delete Newsfeeds
Replies
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KickassAmazon76 wrote: »It is clear that the decision makers at mfp don't care. Sad, but clear.
But did we honestly think they would? Maybe I'm just jaded, but they are in the business of making money, actual people aren't part of the equation.
I expect them to care as long as doing so can make them money. I'm struggling to see how this change will make them money.
Sure, removing the Newsfeed instead of updating the code reduces a cost they needed to spend, I suppose. But from the reaction here getting rid of the Newsfeed will reduce the number of premium users they have and as it stands will definitely cut any ad revenue from us freebie users. That does not sound like it will net them any more profit overall.
Makes me wonder what they have coming down the pipeline.
Tax Write-off.0 -
Why are some newsfeeds disappearing? When the community side isn't at all user friendly! I don't even get notifications on the app, I have to go on the PC version to see community notifications. I can't utilize my own activity feed in community on the app! They have completely messed up a good thing! KEEP THE NEWSFEED!3
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KickassAmazon76 wrote: »It is clear that the decision makers at mfp don't care. Sad, but clear.
But did we honestly think they would? Maybe I'm just jaded, but they are in the business of making money, actual people aren't part of the equation.
I expect them to care as long as doing so can make them money. I'm struggling to see how this change will make them money.
Sure, removing the Newsfeed instead of updating the code reduces a cost they needed to spend, I suppose. But from the reaction here getting rid of the Newsfeed will reduce the number of premium users they have and as it stands will definitely cut any ad revenue from us freebie users. That does not sound like it will net them any more profit overall.
Makes me wonder what they have coming down the pipeline.
Tax Write-off.
That sounds extremely short-sighted.
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I love the newsfeed! It's been such a help with motivation, being able to see friends activities, being able to comment and boost each other has been the main reason for me staying with mfp. Please reconsider keeping the newsfeed6
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KickassAmazon76 wrote: »It is clear that the decision makers at mfp don't care. Sad, but clear.
But did we honestly think they would? Maybe I'm just jaded, but they are in the business of making money, actual people aren't part of the equation.
I expect them to care as long as doing so can make them money. I'm struggling to see how this change will make them money.
Sure, removing the Newsfeed instead of updating the code reduces a cost they needed to spend, I suppose. But from the reaction here getting rid of the Newsfeed will reduce the number of premium users they have and as it stands will definitely cut any ad revenue from us freebie users. That does not sound like it will net them any more profit overall.
Makes me wonder what they have coming down the pipeline.
Tax Write-off.
That sounds extremely short-sighted.
Not at all.
Francisco Partners owns a plethora of businesses, many of which are likely doing really well. The company was worth 41.9 billion last year.
MFP was losing money, and FP bought it for $100 million less than what Under Armor paid for it. Compared to other purchases FP has made, MFP was relatively inexpensive at about $345 million or so.
It's not inconceivable that a reason FP was interested in MFP is because it loses money ... while their billion+ dollar purchases may make money.
Just a thought.4 -
I love the newsfeed! It's been such a help with motivation, being able to see friends activities, being able to comment and boost each other has been the main reason for me staying with mfp. Please reconsider keeping the newsfeed
See above letter from mfp...they are not changing their minds 😪2 -
I miss it terribly. It is still on the web version. It was great to see how people are doing. Very sad. The app has been going down hill very quickly since Under Armour sold it. A lot of features don’t work and they continue to deprecate features with nothing overly appealing being added. I have been on for over 10 years now.
Do you remember when they had challenges too? Use to be a really cool app.
I hope the board is reading and hearing. I keep questioning the premium fees I pay. This adds one more reason to stop and find a new platform.3 -
My personal feed hasn’t updated in just about a month. Is this why? I’ve been trying to trouble shoot it all morning.1
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Dropping a feature that will apparently cost the app customers instead of improving the coding to be more up to date and provide a better experience for a tax write-off would be incredibly short sighted and shareholders tend to not enjoy seeing any sort of drop off in usage numbers. It’s still early but it’s reminding me of Blockbuster and Borders.
We obviously have differing opinions. I very much dislike the forum setup on mobile so unless they have some vast improvements coming? I’m going to be researching other options as well.4 -
The Premium version adds no value to my use of MFP but I'd pay a fee to keep my Newsfeed. And it was an opportunity to hit me with at least one ad so there's potential for revenue there.3
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MAWaugh924 wrote: »My personal feed hasn’t updated in just about a month. Is this why? I’ve been trying to trouble shoot it all morning.
Yes!! It won't be fixed1 -
I joined Lose It! today. Definitely a little different than MFP and going to need to figure out how to navigate it better. I can't adjust calories for manually added workouts. I can however change the "intensity level" until it more closely matches my Garmin stats. Thankfully it does integrate with Garmin, GoogleFit, Apple, etc.
The only way to find other users you know appears to be through email address, and from what I can tell, there's is a 7 day free trial, but no free version. However, it's a lot cheaper than MFP. Only about 1/3 of the price at $39/year.
So far I haven't found a way to interact with friends either. I can't even like their updates.3 -
I am like most everyone else. I'm bothered by the soon to be removed news feed. I took started a lose it account. Uniquely I did it some time ago and socially it was hard to figure out. Due to the current situation I fought with it. I even made an MFP EXODUS GROUP there.8
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Joined the MFP EXODUS Group!3
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Just stopping by to say that my newsfeed and my friends here were the only reason I stick with MFP.
I log food in another app.
Having my cheering squad of friends, some I’ve known for years, being inspired by them, being there to support others… I’m so sad to lose my friends and support group.
if you’re listening, developers, please consider bringing some form of the newsfeed back.4 -
LadyInTheArena wrote: »I will be completely frank- my fitfam here is the entire reason I use this app. There are many trackers out there now, most of which have better functionality, but my social support system is not there, it’s here. It is the one thing that sets MFP apart from others, without them, it is functionally much more like my smart scale app, which I use 1x per day to record my weight. Essentially making something that is priceless…into something that has little value at all.
This!! ^ Well said.2 -
Great post!SafariGalNYC wrote: »For some psychological reason, you take pleasure in voicing your contrary opinion everytime someone says they are saddened by this current turn of events.
This from someone who continually says they have no friends in their newsfeed and who has a thread on bicycling that
This just ad hominem junk that does help make your point.
But your clarity on business and finance is important, thank you.2 -
sunrise611 wrote: »To be fare it didn’t have a newsfeed 12’years ago when I first joined and it was fine
It's "fair", not "fare". And they always had a newsfeed. The original creators were talented programmers that knew what they were doing. I was fortunate to be a member then.
Plus, they had a ton of other fun features in the early days that were stripped away by corporate acquisitions.
Jeeeeezus don’t start correcting my predict text on my phone or it will take the preverbial pee and start using big words most don’t understand 😁
Yea whatever.. it didn’t 12 years ago and I must be a talented programmer too then because I built and designed ones like this over 20years ago..1 -
AnneGenevieveS wrote: »I joined Lose It! today. Definitely a little different than MFP and going to need to figure out how to navigate it better. I can't adjust calories for manually added workouts. I can however change the "intensity level" until it more closely matches my Garmin stats. Thankfully it does integrate with Garmin, GoogleFit, Apple, etc.
The only way to find other users you know appears to be through email address, and from what I can tell, there's is a 7 day free trial, but no free version. However, it's a lot cheaper than MFP. Only about 1/3 of the price at $39/year.
So far I haven't found a way to interact with friends either. I can't even like their updates.
I'm at Loseit too!! I paid $15 for the year in Toronto. Depending on your friends settings will determine if you can comment. Just play around with it with them That's what I'm doing 😁😁 Good luck on your fitness journey at Loseit2 -
SafariGalNYC wrote: »This from someone who continually says they have no friends in their newsfeed and who has a thread on bicycling that no one engages in - Alternatively - there exist people who have formed bonds with others and have immense personal support on their journey.
You keep mentioning Francisco partners but it seems you don’t know how Private equity firms work. Yes, they are there to capitalize - they also have nonstop “exits” - these are the businesses they ditch constantly when they are no longer considered an asset. They take a bet on which will perform and when they don’t- they get auctioned off.
If you read the Wall St Journal… it’s chock full of exited businesses that FP decides to offload.
I’d be interested to see if MFP is offloaded in a few years - but at least it’s a comfort to FP for them to know they have you to constantly voice your pleasure at other’s displeasure.
Cheers.🥂
I think it's actually you who doesn't see other perspectives. I'm the one trying to present other possible perspectives.
I suggested the tax write-off possibility as that ... maybe it's a possibility.
You may be right ... MFP may very well be offloaded in a few years. I'm glad you brought up the points you did. Thank you.
I don't think I've ever said I had no friends in my newsfeed. I had to go look just now, but I've got 87 friends, but my newsfeed is full of automatic posts which suggests to me that hardly any of them actually use the newsfeed.
Not sure where this thread on bicycling that no one engages in is, but I stopped creating or engaging in "Challenges" threads here a long time ago. Life moves on. Changes happen.
I'm sorry that you're losing something that meant something to you. But that is the "danger" of online sites and forums. I've been through it with other sites and forums, some of which ended up closing down entirely without much notice. We don't own them. We have very little say in what happens to them. And they're temporary. Temporary because they are based on software that changes. Temporary because they get passed around from owner to owner.
I do get it. You're all grieving the loss of something that was important to you.
Now you'll need to figure out a Plan B.
Life is full of Plan Bs, Cs, Ds ...
Personally, I hope that they develop the new profile area more. It's clearly still in development ... so hopefully they'll make something nice of it.3 -
Why not just make the Newsfeed a premium feature? Frankly, that would be more valuable than most of the premium features....and I say that as a premium user.
I pay because it helps me psychologically to make that investment in myself, but otherwise, the difference between premium and free never seemed that much to me. I like the lack of ads and that I can adjust my macros, but that's it.
Meanwhile, the Newsfeed adds real community in a way the forums can't. My friends are varied. They're not going to consolidate into one group even if most of them were willing to stay on MFP after this debacle.
Honestly, I can understand why you might need to discontinue the feed for technical reasons, but killing it without a viable alternative is insane!!
Whoever made this decision probably doesn't want to admit a mistake. But, everyone makes mistakes, and the best leaders are people who are willing to reconsider and change course. Therefore, I urge the powers that be to humble themselves and be willing to consider other options.
Yes, people always hate change, but the outcry about this decision runs much deeper. I truly hope the decision-makers will see that and respond before something precious is lost.2 -
I too am a premium member that did not see much value in the premium membership benefits, but I truly felt that I wanted to support the site, as I valued it. My MFP community is important to me. I belong to 2 groups, am a leader on one, but the Newsfeed is something different altogether - friends I have made from all corners of the forum. Hardly any of them are also in my groups or post on threads I frequent.
A viable alternative please before retiring Newsfeed!2 -
I am reminded of the old expression "read the room."
If you believe what you have written here, is it the place for your gimlet eyed objective business-case analysis?I do get it. You're all grieving the loss of something that was important to you.
Sure grandma was old and sick, but explaining to her loved ones how death is inevitable and grieving is irrational, is having seriously lost the plot. Read the room.11 -
Workoutahloic50 wrote: »The family we have created through newsfeed is extremely important and we use newsfeed Every day!!Ive emailed several people at Francisco partners and haven’t heard back from anyone.But it’s obvious WE don’t matter,we don’t have any say in what we want as the users of mfp.Im sure it’s more to do with money.
Kudos!
If you haven't done so already, try here: https://www.franciscopartners.com/investments/myfitnesspal0 -
https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/26953529858317-Retiring-the-Newsfeed-feature-by-the-end-of-June-2024
We're losing the Newsfeed which is all right because not many of us used it. It has always been kind of a duplicate of the Community Forum, and mine is full of automatic posts when someone closed their diary for the day or did some exercise.
But more importantly, will we still have access to the Food Diary, Exercise Log, Reports, etc.?
Also, will our new profiles have a Goals area?
That's something I'd like to see ... Food and Exercise Goals. Whether the goal is to lose a certain amount of weight, or drink a certain amount of water in a day, or consume a certain number of carbs, or cycle a certain distance or whatever.
I'd like to see reports and progress bars as we move toward our goal.
I'd like to see challenges similar to what Strava has ... some exercise ones like walking 50 km in a month, or exercising 15 minutes a day each day of a month, etc., and some diet ones like logging each day of a month.
These things would make MFP more interactive and motivational.
Sorry for the delay @Machka9, I've been trying to get caught up on tags.- You will still have access to the Food Diary, Exercise Log, Reports, etc.
- We do have the option to add some fields to the Community Profiles (like goals or other freeform about me fields). I'll make it an action item to create poll to see if there is interest in that and what y'all would like to see.
- As for things like new or updated reports and progress bars, I think that's a great idea and will pass it along to the product teams.
- I think challenges are fun too and can also pass along that suggestion.
@Betty ... Thank you very much!!
It would be great if we could be a bit more interactive with our new profiles with the goals, reports, progress bars, and challenges.
Regarding the About Me field, it appears on the new profile, but I haven't figured out how to do anything with it yet.
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@betty and all, It's good to finally be able to find more information about what will/won't be possible after this downgrade. When a big change like this is made, it's important that communication be clear between the support team and the user base and I've been sadly disappointed by the way this was handled. I still miss the blogs, they were one third of the reason why I joined MFP.
Once the blogs were gone, I had two reasons to stay - the logging feature, and the personal interaction. With the news feed going away with no valid replacement, that greatly reduces the utility of this site. It'll be harder to interact with the few people here I still talk to, and the forums are nice but there is something special about the ability to just give a quick note of support to your friends or share how the day is going.
I do understand the difficulty of keeping a legacy feature that has many bugs and flaws. It still means that I don't have as many reasons to keep coming back to MFP and for me it'll likely be simpler to just log with good old fashioned pen and paper. Considering that I currently moderate a group, that will mean one less person to offer free support, one less person to think about buying merchandise, one less person to provide ad revenue.
I fully understand that whether or not I go or stay doesn't matter to MFP as a whole. After all I'm a small drop in a very large bucket. Over time though, if MFP is less useful to enough people, they'll just move on to other platforms that value the user base more, and that will hurt the bottom line. If this has already happened and eliminating the news feed is just a cost cutting measure, perhaps it's a sign that MFP needs to listen more to the user base so more people want to stay and use/pay for the service? I'm not blaming you, Betty, but this is literally the only way I have of making my thoughts seen at all. I appreciate your interaction with us.8 -
SafariGalNYC wrote: »By the way — that link about MFP having 200 M users - is self reported from MFP.
“MyFitnessPal said it had 200 million users when it was sold by Under Armour to Francisco Partners.”
What constitutes a user? A download? Does it matter if the person is active?
—> How many people are active on the community boards of those millions?
It is also a fraction.. are the community boards being retired next since by the same logic - it’s a small number of users compared to the supposed # of millions?
I've been wondering that too. Has anyone else noticed that the bots that used to come through the Feature Suggestions and Tech Support boards don't seem to be around lately? None of the "Great idea! I'll pass it on to the team!" and the "Apologies, please contact support" messages are popping up like they usually do. Makes you wonder if MFP is in the process of shutting the boards down as well.
Just wanted to clarify that we aren't bots- every post you see from a staff member is a real person- and we have no plans or intention of removing our community forums.
Then it’s even more telling that you’ve all disappeared from posting.3 -
SafariGalNYC wrote: »This from someone who continually says they have no friends in their newsfeed and who has a thread on bicycling that no one engages in - Alternatively - there exist people who have formed bonds with others and have immense personal support on their journey.
You keep mentioning Francisco partners but it seems you don’t know how Private equity firms work. Yes, they are there to capitalize - they also have nonstop “exits” - these are the businesses they ditch constantly when they are no longer considered an asset. They take a bet on which will perform and when they don’t- they get auctioned off.
If you read the Wall St Journal… it’s chock full of exited businesses that FP decides to offload.
I’d be interested to see if MFP is offloaded in a few years - but at least it’s a comfort to FP for them to know they have you to constantly voice your pleasure at other’s displeasure.
Cheers.🥂
I think it's actually you who doesn't see other perspectives. I'm the one trying to present other possible perspectives. I suggested the tax write-off possibility as that ... maybe it's a possibility.
You may be right ... MFP may very well be offloaded in a few years. I'm glad you brought up the points you did. Thank you.
I don't think I've ever said I had no friends in my newsfeed. I had to go look just now, but I've got 87 friends, but my newsfeed is full of automatic posts which suggests to me that hardly any of them actually use the newsfeed.
Not sure where this thread on bicycling that no one engages in is, but I stopped creating or engaging in "Challenges" threads here a long time ago. Life moves on. Changes happen.
I'm sorry that you're losing something that meant something to you. But that is the "danger" of online sites and forums. I've been through it with other sites and forums, some of which ended up closing down entirely without much notice. We don't own them. We have very little say in what happens to them. And they're temporary. Temporary because they are based on software that changes. Temporary because they get passed around from owner to owner.
I do get it. You're all grieving the loss of something that was important to you.
Now you'll need to figure out a Plan B.
Life is full of Plan Bs, Cs, Ds ...
Personally, I hope that they develop the new profile area more. It's clearly still in development ... so hopefully they'll make something nice of it.
@Machka9 You do you. My energy regarding MFP and the newsfeed is contained to this thread, no grief or plan b needed. This exchange did however highlight to me how unhealthy the public forums can be, which coincidentally is why people liked the private newsfeed. Noted again.
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Keep the newsfeed. I’m not interested in making friends on the app, there’s other apps for that. I’m interested in how much calories I’ve burned or what I’m eating, not going public with all my info. I’ve used MFP for over ten years and managed just fine without having to do this.2
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Keep the newsfeed. I’m not interested in making friends on the app, there’s other apps for that. I’m interested in how much calories I’ve burned or what I’m eating, not going public with all my info. I’ve used MFP for over ten years and managed just fine without having to do this.
Don't worry, they are keeping the food diary and exercise log and might even be enhancing those features to connect them up with your new profile and activity feed. They are, after all, the core of MFP. At its core, MFP is a calorie tracking tool.
Right @Betty
They are just removing the section where all the auto-posts go. "So-and-so has burned 112 calories walking". That sort of thing.
@Betty could a more thorough announcement be made ... outside this thread .... regarding what exactly is being removed (because it is unsupported technology) and what is staying and any new features. Unfortunately this hasn't been well announced and so I think some might misunderstand what's going and what is staying.
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