Adweek has a pretty telling (though not too surprising) report today on the poor customer satisfaction with social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.

The social media sector’s average score of 70 out of 100 — calculated for the first time this year — is the lowest of any e-business category measured by The American Customer Satisfaction Index. Other categories included Internet News & Information (average score 74) and Internet Portals & Search Engines (average score 77).

Reporter Mark Dolliver explains:

Why the poor scores for Facebook (now on the threshold of enlisting its 500 millionth user) and MySpace? “Customers are not satisfied with their experience on these sites,” says the report. “When asked what they like least about Facebook, survey respondents gave answers including privacy and security concerns, the technology that controls news feeds, advertising, the constant and predictable interface changes, spam, navigation troubles, annoying applications with constant notifications, and functionality, to name a few.”

Facebook’s score of 64 puts it in the bottom 5 percent of industries measured by the study, right alongside airlines and cable providers.

One thing I would be sure to factor in, though, is the fact that social networks offer a far more complex service than other Internet businesses, such as news sites or search engines. You go to Google to search for things. If you find them, you like Google. You go to MSNBC for news updates. If you find them, you like MSNBC.

But the scope of social networking is something that changes by the month. A few years back, it was all about connecting with friends. Today, social networks have become comprehensive, multimedia hubs for our online lives.

Customer satisfaction seems destined to be low with sites like Facebook, which is constantly redefining what services it offers and how it makes those services available. But if Facebook decided to stop expanding and simply become better at what it already does, satisfaction would surely increase — at the cost of innovation and long-term viability.

So will we ever be able to truly love a site whose very nature requires that it constantly adapt with our culture and technology? Factor in an audience of half a billion and Silicon Valley’s skeleton-staffing approach to customer service, and it’s not hard to see why satisfaction is a goal that might never be achieved.

David Griner | E-mail | Twitter | LinkedIn | SlideShare