Archive for the 'Facebook' Category

Mea Culpa: Facebook Chat Is, In Fact, Useless

Published
by
Jarred
on July 1, 2008
in Facebook, Social Networks and Web 2.0
. 10 Comments

faceplant-dive.jpgWell, it’s been over two months since Facebook integrated chat into its offerings.  In my preview post, I said that Facebook Chat “will probably have the most significant impact on the user experience since the introduction of the News Feed” and that it would “revolutionize the social networking experience.”  Harping on the real-time notification feature rolled out with Facebook Chat, I wrote:

This is but one example of how Facebook wants to turn your asynchronous social networking experience into a synchronous one.  By being able to instantly notify you of changes in and updates to your social graph, they give you the feeling that you are actively engaging and interacting with your friends.  Your graph is no longer a snapshot, but a moving, fluid web of connections and content.  Of course, by giving you that feeling they also want to attract you to stay online longer to see more ads.  Genius.

Boy, did I have it wrong.

Continue reading ‘Mea Culpa: Facebook Chat Is, In Fact, Useless’

Annonymity and Secrets Online: Postsecret on Facebook

Published
by
Taylor
on June 8, 2008
in Facebook, Privacy and Social Networks
. 2 Comments

I’ve been reading Postsecret regularly for a few years now. I always get excited when a new batch of secrets pops up in my Google Reader window on Sundays. For those who don’t know, Postsecret is a community art project of sorts consisting of anonymous postcards mailed to the curator (for lack of a better term), Frank Warren. Warren picks out about 20 postcards from the week’s mail and posts scanned images onto the Postsecret site every Sunday. The postcards detail secrets ranging from hysterical to neurotic; tragic to troubling. Warren has produced a series of books filled with Postsecret postcards, and regularly speaks at college campuses about the unique project.

Recently, Warren started a Facebook page for the Postsecret project. Every week, he posts a photo album full of new secrets (beyond what’s posted on the blog), and (unlike on the Postsecret blog, where commenting is disabled) many Facebook users comment on the postcards.

This week on Facebook, Warren posted a single secret–one anonymous contributor’s list of “Secrets I Have Never Told To Men I Know.” He then challenged Facebook users: “What are your secrets? Write your list here [...]” Many comments followed, and things got pretty interesting.

One of the constant characteristics of Postsecret has always been the anonymity of submitted secrets. Part of why Postsecret is compelling is that readers generally know nothing about the source of wild or painful secrets. And yet, on Facebook, many readers chose to share secrets with their name and affiliation (High School/University, or location) in the open. I was surprised by what I read in the 2,100+ comments (2,141 as I’m writing this) that accompanied the original secret.

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Is FriendFeed Doomed?: Jarred Guest Posts at SarahInTampa.com

Published
by
Jarred
on May 20, 2008
in Blogging, Computing, Data Portability, Facebook, Google, Social Networks, Tropophilia and Web 2.0
. 2 Comments

Jealous of Taylor’s recent gig as a guest poster, I decided to accept an open call for contributors made by Sarah Perez for her excellent blog sarahintampa.com. Sarah regularly blogs for ReadWriteWeb — one of the preeminent resources for technology news and analysis on the web . Thanks to Sarah for letting me jump in!

My guest post talks about how FriendFeed is going to encounter enormous, if not deadly, pressure from the recently launched Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect initiatives.

Facebook and Google realize that people are tired of filling out profile after profile, uploading user picture after user picture, connecting to friend after friend… on site after site after site. In “the real world”, we have one social graph of our friends and one identity. Both are centrally located in our brain. We block and expose different facets of our identity to different parts of our graph. This is how the web should, and will, work. Google and Facebook want to be our digital, social brains. [...] When you visit a website, you’ll no longer have to create your identity — Facebook or Google will load it for you. You’ll be able to concentrate on leveraging your identity in the context of the website you’re visiting and the services it provides.

What does that have to do with FriendFeed? Well you’ll have to head to Sarah’s blog to find out!

Scaled Automation: Google and Facebook Start To Connect Your Dots

Published
by
Jarred
on May 12, 2008
in Data Portability, Facebook, Google, Privacy, Social Networks and Web 2.0
. 2 Comments

A few weeks ago I wrote about Google’s baby step into the social networking game, when it announced it was testing social features in its branded start-page, iGoogle. In an attempt to be a blogger rock star (hah!), I coined the term “scaled automation” to describe the web giant’s approach to this arena. In a nutshell, it combines Google’s penchant for automatically interpreting your social graph (”automation”) with its “long-tail” philosophy of breaking down barriers to the flow of information across the entire web (”scaled”).

To its credit, Facebook — the reigning champion of social networking — picked up on the “scaled” trend and announced Facebook Connect last week. This new feature will serve as a gateway to Facebook’s so-called “walled garden” of social graphs. Websites external to Facebook will be able to offer users the option of logging in using their Facebook credentials. Additionally, users can port some of their social graph data (friend connections, photos, etc.) to those external websites. From the Facebook Developers’ Blog:

Developers will be able to add rich social context to their websites. Developers will even be able to dynamically show which of their Facebook friends already have accounts on their sites. [...] As a user moves around the open Web, their privacy settings will follow, ensuring that users’ information and privacy rules are always up-to-date. For example, if a user changes their profile picture, or removes a friend connection, this will be automatically updated in the external website.

While Facebook will begin scaling across the web, however, it has not embraced the “automation” side of Google’s philosophy. Indeed, in response to Facebook Connect, Google revealed the rest of their social networking plans today with the announcement of the similarly-named Google Friend Connect. Google’s VP of Engineering describes his company’s vision of the social web, and you can instantly see how it differs from Facebook’s:

The distributed model has worked well for the Web. That is what the Web does–many points of light loosely coupled and massively distributed, allowing users to connect to pages of information. [...] Now it is working to connect people to other people.

Google is basically launching the same initiative as Facebook, but the spirit behind the implementation is different. Google wants to connect you everywhere, just like Facebook; however, Google also wants to connect you to everyone.

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Monday Links: May 12, 2008

Published
by
Taylor
on May 11, 2008
in Apple, Energy, Environment, Facebook, Monday Links, Politics, Social Networks and Sustainability
. 0 Comments

Since I was so focused on philanthropy blogging last week, I have a backlog of environmental and web 2.0 news to share. This could be a long list of links, but it should keep you busy for a while.

Social networking? Despite all of the attention paid to it in (occasionally breathless) media coverage . . . Facebook, MySpace, et al have not proven to be terribly effective tools for campaigns. Does anyone really think that the fact that Obama has five times as many Facebook friends as Hillary Clinton has turned out to be significant? Demographically interesting and revealing, sure, but actually relevant to how the Democratic primary process has gone so far?

  • Treehugger highlights a really simple, useful, accurate biofuels comparison chart from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I don’t mean to be a constant cheerleader for algae but…geewillikers, Batman, switch grass and algae look like the best possibilities in that graphic.

[Obama's] response to Clinton’s gas tax proposal was to reject it as a Washington gimmick that would . . . do nothing to address long-term energy issues. That rejection was coupled with a principled energy platform that would address those issues.

Why not try the same thing in WV and KY? Start by telling the truth: as president, he would stop the expansion of dirty coal. [...]

Of course, it’s crucial to couple this with a positive message . . . that means “green jobs,” but more than just that. It means stimulating the development of other industries and revenue sources by spending on infrastructure, education, public works programs, and a decent social safety net. An Obama administration will try to pay these areas back for the sacrifices they’ve made in the name of providing the country with cheap electricity.

It probably wouldn’t help him win WV or KY . . . [but] [m]aybe he could defy conventional wisdom by treating rural white voters like adults, helping them plan a real path to economic health and sustainability rather than telling them fairy tales about the continuing viability of earth’s dirtiest fuel.

  • The Library of Congress has a Flickr account. From what I can tell, there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the photos (relatively modest in number) that they post. Case in point, “Auto Polo.” Like polo only using early automobiles in place of horses…Jesus.

    • auto polo

After the auto polo photo, I don’t really have anything else to say. Happy Monday.