Got a suggestion on how to improve MyFitnessPal? Share it in this category or vote to tell us what you think of other people’s suggestions. Please be sure to review the Feature Suggestion submissions guidelines.
How About We Don't Delete Newsfeeds
Options
Replies
-
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 -
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 -
@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.
15 -
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
-
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.
3 -
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.
The majority of people who utilized the newsfeed did so because they wanted to stay away from the toxic community forums. Like I said in my previous post the newsfeed was a place where we could “hang out” with only those who fit into our worlds.
The “newsfeed was old, out dated and hard to keep up with” is a poor reason for getting rid of it. If anything it was a key part/selling point of the app. If all the of the smaller fitness apps are capable of having/managing personal newsfeeds I’m kinda shocked a big site like mfp isn’t
9 -
BriansTrident wrote: »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.
The majority of people who utilized the newsfeed did so because they wanted to stay away from the toxic community forums. Like I said in my previous post the newsfeed was a place where we could “hang out” with only those who fit into our worlds.
The “newsfeed was old, out dated and hard to keep up with” is a poor reason for getting rid of it. If anything it was a key part/selling point of the app. If all the of the smaller fitness apps are capable of having/managing personal newsfeeds I’m kinda shocked a big site like mfp isn’t
Don't tell me. I can't do anything about it. Email the Francisco Partners.2 -
So now that there’s no newsfeed what’s the point in adding friends? The profile feed thing looks like it was designed by a 13 yr old in 1995.6
-
I've been here since 2012, lost weight, maintained weight, gained weight and have been cheered on throughout to keep going by people in similar positions who I could open up to about binge eating in a way I can't to friends and family IRL who don't really understand and it's a space where you can feel comfortable discussing health, fitness and wellbeing in a way you can't on traditional social media.
MFP has given me such a good support system in that respect that even though I don't use the logging side anymore I still check in on my newsfeed from time to time and do for others what they have done for me. UA and the subsequent owners are ripping away at the lifeblood of MFP, goodbye unique selling point.
This change was snuck in more or less unannounced to the masses (ironically I learned about it from someone posting about it on my newsfeed).
I call bs on this "little-used" justification, it's clearly just looking at ad revenue over user experience yet again.
If it's little used why do so many people come to the Introduction category looking for friends?
6 -
sunrise611 wrote: »@tinkerbellang83, it was an unwelcome surprise that was sprung on us and a rug that was ripped out from underneath us.
This is not the fault of Under Armour. They quietly sold the company to Francisco Partners, a private investment firm located in California years ago. So, FP is the one that are running this formerly successful app/site to the ground.
It's tragic when you started off when it was great as I did and many others and witnessed the decline after the corporate acquisitions. I didn't like UA, but it was better than FP, which seems bent on destroying it with their narrow-minded "we know what is best so screw the prols" attitude.
I had already edited my post to reflect that UA had sold off to even more useless owners after realising they no longer own it. Thanks2 -
Many peeps have joined Lose It. Let’s go to Lose It and push mfp to permanent failure6
-
This will actually get quite messy if they get rid of the news feed without any adequate replacement. When the majority people are unable to access what they do on a daily basis as routine, there will be significant vitriol that we haven't seen yet.4
-
Spadesheart wrote: »This will actually get quite messy if they get rid of the news feed without any adequate replacement. When the majority people are unable to access what they do on a daily basis as routine, there will be significant vitriol that we haven't seen yet.
What do you suppose the majority of people will not be able to access?0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392K Introduce Yourself
- 43.6K Getting Started
- 259.8K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.7K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 402 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.8K Motivation and Support
- 7.9K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 997 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.4K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions