Showing posts with label re-invent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label re-invent. Show all posts

Sep 22, 2011

Facebook is re-inventing itself (again)

Writing this partly when watching the live broadcast by Zuckerberg from the F8 conference.

First thing that came to mind (and I wasn't the only one) when seeing the new Timeline was MySpace. Many boxes, long pages and lot of images. Quoting myself, it might be awesome or confusing, or both, but the advertisers will love the data. According to Zuckerberg you can put your while life there - no word on what data will be shared with who. The Timeline will make your profile long. I remember that being a problem some years ago, when there was just too much stuff there.
One thing I also started wondering, how many people really want to check their friends' profiles daily, and how many do? Most just check the front page and only go to profiles when they need specific information.

The big theme on these new features seems to be sorting data, patterns on what you do and finding the highlights. Mostly of course done automatically by Facebook with Graph Rank. It will be interesting to see how much control the user will actually have. All this data will be turned into yearly reports on your life. Facebook will also let you see more about what you have done in the past.That will be interesting.

Spotify is getting a big shout out. What they show of how Facebook and Spotify work together looks pretty good. Not sure though if I really want everyone to see what I listen to (or watch, if the Netflix part will work the same way). I'm not sure if I really want to use the catalog Spotify has either, which is pretty limited for my taste, but that's another matter.

Will all the features server international customers? I know Hulu doesn't like non-US customers. Same goes for the new texts like "X is listening to Y". Those will be very difficult to translate to all languages. Then again Facebook has a record of not thinking of international users who don't use the English interface....

The social news might be interesting. It's how Fark.com got big.

And the more I see, the more stalkerish the new Facebook looks. They will know what you are listening, what you are watching, what games you are playing, what news you are reading, what you are eating, where and how long you ran... It still seems like they just can't grasp the idea that not everyone will want to share everything they do, and even less share it with strangers.

Graph Rank seems too good to be true. Will it really understand what I think is important? And how long until it will find Sarah Connor?

New features will launch between now and next two weeks.

For more info, check out the official Facebook page 

Feb 10, 2011

Re-inventing the social media wheel

Yesterday I read VentureBeat's story about Convore (article here), and it reminded me how most of "new and innovative" social media applications are just recycled versions of older ideas. Some get it right (Facebook and Skype), some don't (Convore, Diaspora and Google's Buzz).
Convore is apparently meant to be an improved version of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) with public and private chatrooms. Instead it seems like another version of a traditional online discussion forum, only more confusing. The basis of IRC is the ability to create chatrooms (channels) by just joining them and the real-time discussions either in the channel or in private. In most discussion forums the admins have created a few areas, where users can post their discussions. In Convore, the users can create these areas by themselves resulting in a mess with many similar areas. The users also create chatrooms in each area, so finding an appropriate place for discussion can be difficult. There is also no private messaging system in place, which exists in some form in almost all discussion forums. Convore does offer message archives, which IRC doesn't include as default, but which discussion forums have. In short, Convore takes features from IRC and discussion forums, smashes them up, and creates a mess.
Diaspora and Buzz try to copy the success of Facebook. Buzz came around first, and the whole idea is to share links with friends and then comment on them. It came around a year ago, and it still hasn't caught on even it's available to everyone with a Google account. The friend-system has had a lot of problems (connecting you automatically to nearly everyone, want it or not) and the whole thing has been complicated to use, even it has gotten better from the first few weeks. Diaspora on the other hand is supposed to be the real alternative to Facebook, and it promises not to share your information with anyone without your permission. It is still work in progress, but at least now it seems to lack the fun part of Facebook. Not just the (usually annoying) games and apps, but also the groups, pages and photo albums. I have a few friends there, all social media pros, and most have just stopped using it after a day.
Of those who have recycled old ideas and got them to work, Facebook is one of the obvious ones. It's just a step up from Friendster and MySpace. Another success is Skype. Voice-chats are nothing new, since we did it with friends in 1998, but the technology behind it has changed. Webcams have also been available long before Skype. One can argue though if plain chatting is considered social media...


Convore

Buzz
Diaspora