Facebook – now rated next to telecos and airlines in customer satisfaction

Back in May I posted about how Facebook’s treatment of users amounted to spam. In response to Zuckerberg’s opt-ed on Facebook’s commitment to privacy I noted that their attitude towards their users is that they know best, and that users can opt-out of information sharing instead of having users opt-in. I stated that Facebook’s users had had enough.

Facebook supporters online have stated that despite this you’re not seeing mass migration away from Facebook, though I wonder how much of that is due to the difficulty of deleting your Facebook account.

Well today I was vindicated.

The recently released American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business Report for 2010 has scored Facebook alongside airlines and cable companies as one of the most hated companies in America, sitting within the bottom 5 percentile. Ouch.

Myspace didn’t do much better, though, coming in one point below Facebook.

Apparently a combination including interface changes, spam, advertising, and privacy issues have driven users to dislike the sites.

Of course that hasn’t affected Facebook’s monumental growth in visits, with a lions share (9%) of visits.

The report also points out that older people tend to be more irritated with Facebook, while making up a smaller audience.

So why is it so hard for social media sites to make it? With so many sites available, how come the two leaders score so lowly in customer satisfaction? Is network size alone enough to fend off the power of targeting niche markets? Or is it simply that niche social networks have been built too specifically to expand, focused too much on their niche market to appeal to wider demographics?