Posts with tag "Facebook"

Doing what is right for the larger community

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Posted 1326 days ago

I am torn about writing this post because of my loyalty to my boss, Duncan Riley, at The Inquisitr but as someone involved as I am in writing about the web there is also a greater loyalty to that web as a healthy whole. As a result I believe that when someone, regardless of personal or business differences, exposes something that is detrimental to the web – well they should be commended.

While the realist in me understands that a story about web companies making fortunes by scamming users is great for pageview counts there is also a part of me that wants to high-five authors willing to deal with these kinds of subjects.

Such is the case of two recent posts by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch where he exposes the sickening way that some web companies are scamming users on services like Facebook and Myspace. Through games like Farmville and Mobsters the companies behind them are making millions of dollars through lead-gen schemes utilizing in-game virtual purchases.

Dealing with the information glut the wrong way

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Posted 1355 days ago

The real-time web.

The harbinger of the future accessing of information that we are supposedly going to need every minute of the day just to stay current with what is going on. Erick Schonfeld wrote today on TechCrunch

The image reminded me of another screenshot (see below, click to enlarge) that I once took of an earlier Twitter client called Twhirl, which Seesmic bought before developing its current product. About a year and a half ago, I complained that Twhirl took over my desktop when I first installed it with a constant stream of pop-up messages. I wrote in that post:

This highlights a bigger problem with the Web today. There is too much to pay attention to and not enough ways to reduce the noise.

It’s 18 months later and the problem hasn’t been solved. The screenshot I took back then still resonates because the noise is worse than ever. Indeed, it is being magnified every day as more people pile onto Twitter and Facebook and new apps yet to crest like Google Wave. The data stream is growing stronger, but so too is the danger of drowning in all that information.

This is the screen capture he was referring to:

While this screenshot may be over 18 months old nothing as changed for the better. If anything the increase of data flowing at us in ever increasing speeds is getting worse. Anyone who wants to keep abreast of things as they are happening is faced with having to deal with a total inundation of news and information without any real way to control.

Oh sure we can create lists for this and lists for that but all that means is that we end up switching between even more screens instead of less. This was the argument put forth when Friendfeed turned on their version of real-time display. If it’s going by to fast just make yourself some lists to help slow it down. So you create one list and when you find that isn’t enough because you are missing stuff you create another one, and then another one etc etc etc.

Where Erick’s screen was from 18 months ago this next one is mine as about 10 minutes ago and I would wager I don’t cover the same amount of information that Erick does (click for full view).

That is my desktop spread across two monitors displaying the majority of programs I can have running at anyone time (minus a couple of IM windows and a browser window or two).

Some folks are claiming that Google’s Wave is going to be a game changer here in the way we deal with information. Well I will be surprised all to hell if it does. If anything all it is doing is adding yet another window of stream nonsense that we will have to find some way to filter so it becomes even bearably useful.

Information is coming at us fast than any human being short of maybe Robert Scoble can handle and nothing that has come along from the womb of Web 2.0 or social media has – or will – make dealing with this glut of garbage and occasional gems of information come even close to be being able to be dealt with without losing our collective minds.

We are being over run by information and rather than trying to clean it up – you know, like how newspapers use to- we are just being given more tools to bring even more noise and garbage our way.

Is Friendfeed still worth investing your time in?

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Posted 1367 days ago

Friendfeed is a social media service aggregator slash community made the news when it got snapped up by Facebook recently. Louis Gray and I got together on a podcast following the announcement to discuss our thoughts on the purchase.

Since that point it’s been pretty quiet on the Friendfeed front with it quietly motoring along. Most recently on a CobWEBs Daily Edition podcast Sean P. Aune and myself ended up talking about Friendfeed in relation to what Facebook had in mind for the service.

Interestingly enough Rob Diana had a post on September 11 that touched on one of the things that Sean and I talked about – the idea that Friendfeed is; or will be, the foundation on which Facebook Lite will grow. Then today I see Dan over at Techwag had a post that even though Friendfeed has quieted down development wise it has seen a spurt in user visits.

While it is nice to see people still using the site – which I still do even though not as much as before – and new people giving it a try I have to wonder why. After all for all intents and purposes Friendfeed is unlikely to see any further development regardless of what the founders might like us to believe.

I say this strictly on the fact that they now work for Facebook and Friendfeed is owned by Facebook. Given those two facts plus the reality that it makes no sense for Facebook to split its attention between to different types of users. Even the people who use Facebook will tell you that while they may use Facebook they use it for totally different reasons than they do Friendfeed.

At some point Facebook is going to pull the plug on Friendfeed – it’s inevitable in my opinion. If that is indeed what is in the cards for Friendfeed one has to ask the simple question – is it still worth spending all that time on a service we all know is going to go away at some point?

Facebook is really beginning to worry me

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Posted 1370 days ago

In a roomful 800-pound gorillas Facebook is probably the smallest one but that hasn’t slowed down any aspirations it might have to become one of the biggest. As it sets to pass the 300 million plus active users Facebook is setting its sights on some goals for the future especially now that they apparently have gotten over their Twitter fascination.

While part of this plan is obviously to try and surpass companies like Google and Microsoft they also apparently want to get involved with things like user health services and financial information. This is according to a post by Kim-Mai Cutler at VentureBeat quoting Facebook’s vice president of growth, mobile and international expansion – Chamath Palihapitya:

Palihapitya said that he and Zuckerberg have tossed around ideas like offering online health services, and a way to transfer financial information back and forth between users, he said.

This is the part that I am having a big problem with. Yes some will say that we already share financial information over the web so how would it be any different if it is Facebook or a financial institution providing your online service?

First off Facebook is in business for one reason only and that is to make massive amounts of money. There is nothing wrong with that but they do it by making all our activity and data available to advertisers to place ads against. They are not a benevolent company. They are company in the business of providing companies with one of the largest databases of consumer data.

Now this is the same company that wants to be responsible for handling our information when it comes to our health and finances. Sorry but this is not a good idea especially given the fact that Facebook’s handling of user privacy has been questionable at best (Beacon anyone?). In this regard the social media company has been told by Canada, and a growing number of European countries, that their handling of user data and information is problematic at best or even breaks laws at the worst.

The moment millions of dollars are stake consumers always seem to get the short end of the stick and Facebook is no different. To think that Facebook would have access to things like our medical information, no matter how slight, or that they want to be a pipeline for our financial information scares the shit out of me.

This is going to be one of the biggest companies in the world at some point with one of the biggest databases of consumer information that they have no qualms about letting other companies data mine. I have never been a big fan of Facebook and while I have been concerned in the past by the things that the company does this idea really concerns me.

Sorry but this will not end well.

Yay! no more Friendfeed counts cluttering up my Feedburner numbers

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Posted 1380 days ago

Back in June anyone who was on Friendfeed and had a blog that they fed their RSS feed through Feedburner suddenly found their subscriber numbers shoot up through the roof. At the time I expressed my displeasure with the idea and my opinion hasn’t changed one iota since.

So it was nice to see yesterday that our Feedburner numbers have returned to representing what they should be representing – the number of people who are subscribed to the RSS feeds for our blogs. I hadn’t realized that the change had taken place until catching a post by Boris over at The Next Web Blog outlining the sudden change.

Now Boris rightfully so is questioning why this has happened especially in light of the fact that everything was working as our counts were bloated by Friendfeed numbers – then Facebook buys Friendfeed and our numbers return to what I consider to be normal.

Personally I don’t care why or how it happened. I don’t care if Google, who owns Feedburner, decided they didn’t like the idea anymore of Friendfeed inflating people subscriber counts.

I’m just glad that those Feedburner numbers, as bad or as good as they may be, are now a truer reflection of who is subscribed the my blogs feeds. I just hope it stays that way.

More thoughts on RSS, Twitter, and Social Media

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Posted 1392 days ago

Since I wrote yesterday about the silliness surrounding the thought that RSS is something that is dying in our brave new world of the real time Web I thought some more about it as well as reading an excellent post by Kent Newsome. Like myself Kent doesn’t believe that RSS is going anywhere. He does point out the one major failing that RSS has – that being that unless you are some geek type person no-one has the first clue about what RSS is.

In this he is absolutely right. To the average person on the street you mention Facebook and they know instantly what you are talking about. Mention Twitter and fewer people will know what you are talking about but that too is changing. Now bring up RSS and you will see the blank stare telling you that they have no idea what you are talking about.