Tag: Facebook

  • Connecting people

    It might be time for Nokia to rethink that line, thanks to the following recent launches- Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect, both of which offer data portability across sites which have implemented the services. It got me thinking about online identities. Before we get to that, a bit of introduction.

    Facebook Connect, when implemented on a website allows any user to log in using their Facebook credentials and use that identity to comment etc, and also transmits these activities back to Facebook. FB seems to have focused on popular web services like Digg, Hulu, among others, and a couple of entities that got me interested in the deal – Disqus (soon) and Twitter. It perhaps hopes to use their massive user base, to popularise itself. On the other hand, Google  seems to be have the average blogger in mind, and has tied up with Yahoo, AIM, Open Id and now Twitter to have a common login across websites that have implemented Google Friend Connect. A good comparison can be found here.

    As a blogger, Facebook Connect seems to be a more difficult thing to set up, but implementation in individual blogs will be helped by the plugins (esp on WordPress). I’m wondering whether FB will try to seed this service through the Blog Networks app that’s quite popular there. FB Connect does offer great advantages thanks to the social connect that is brought about by the usage details being transmitted back to Facebook.   So if I had installed FB Connect on this site, and you had used your FB id to login and comment, the fact that you’d commented would be shown on your newsfeed on FB, thereby giving that extra exposure to this site. Although Facebook assures data security and privacy, it does seem a little like opening your FB account to the world, since a lot of profile details will get displayed when you use the FB Connect service. The other question I have is whether these activities become the property of Facebook by virtue of appearing in the newsfeed? (I remember the old controversy on ownership of content uploaded on FB)

    Google Friend Connect seems to be quite easy to set up, and in that sense makes it simpler for a regular blogger to adopt it. The snag is that inspite of the Invite option, I don’t get much additional exposure since the usage information doesn’t get reflected anywhere (not even Orkut). I wonder if Google will have a one click installation of the service in the next version of Blogger. I am also thinking about where Ad Sense will be made to fit into all this.

    And now to the identity part. I blog as manuscrypts, a handle that I have used for more than 5.5 years now. For most of those years, the real me could only be pieced together from various posts I’d written. With the increasing usage of social/business networking services like Facebook and LinkedIn, my real world identity is not exactly a secret now. If i choose to comment on any blog using FB/Google Friend Connect, it has to be using the ‘real identity’, unless I create profiles only for my virtual self. 🙂

    On one hand, a portable identity across the web, and the advantages it offers are tempting, on the other hand I’m not sure whether I want all these networks to be talking to each other – when I comment on a social media site, I wouldn’t want the other users of the site to see my tagged photos on FB.  So far, I’d controlled what information about me goes to a contact, depending on his/her relationship with me. Different amounts of data for different levels of friendship. Yes, my profile is open on FB, but I don’t advertise it outside. That will not be the case if I use FB Connect. More importantly, I don’t want an entity like Google (which invokes paranoia in me) to know everything about me. The sad part is that I dont think an increase in transparency will improve personal integrity, tolerance etc, but that’s a different debate altogether.

    Me? I’ll wait a while before I encourage the use of either service on this site, who knows, maybe a LinkedIn Connect might come about. For now, let me try this app, that adds a twitter identity to my commenting system. 🙂

    until next time, connect 🙂

  • Local Social Networks

    I’m guessing most of you reading this use GTalk. Recently, a new service called GTalk Profile was launched. While, so far, you could add people only via their email ids, GTalk Profile helps you find other people using your location as a common point. (via RWW) For example, Bangalore, (though claimed to be in Andhra Pradesh) has about 63 profiles.

    I wonder if this kind of a network has scope, since people are very finicky about who they add, but yes, I do agree that Twitter is an exception, and this could be broadly comparable. Also, this service allows you to create profile pages, which allow descriptions, photos etc. The fun part is that Google has its own Profiles, and even a verification process, though this is used for a completely different purpose now. But I wonder if GTalk Profile will inspire Google to officially proceed along similar lines with their Profiles. A better integration of Google Talk in Orkut, with a facility for local profile search, would provide the same result. Perhaps better results, since Orkut profiles are very detailed, and users could invite others to GTalk, and provide their Orkut profile as a ‘verification’.

    While the net has seen several local social networks popping up, the mobile seems to be an equally (if not better) platform for this purpose. This is perhaps the reason we’re seeing a lot of apps that aggregate IM services on the mobile – Xumii is one such I read about recently. There are also GPS based social networks like iPoki that are being developed.

    In India, I’ve come across mobile specific social network apps, like Qeep. I’m still a little unclear about whether Trackut is into location based social networking. Meanwhile, mobile services, as well as manufacturers, are adding/preloading social networking apps. At&T ‘s My Communities, and LG’s association with Rocketalk, in India, are examples.

    Of course, the regular social networks we’re used to like Facebook, My Space happen to be the ones with the strongest internet presence. Understandable, since there’s a familiarity factor, after all, its only the platform that changes. But they’d do well to add apps that help localise the experience a bit. I wonder, though, whether this trend will replicate itself in India, or whether the disparity between mobile and internet penetration will reflect in this too. I’m thinking about a Big Adda app being preloaded into Reliance mobiles.

    Sometime back, I read about a service called belysio, a social mapping service that uses location based technologies, which notifies you when your contact is near. Now Nokia has come out with Friend View, an experimental location and micro-blogging service. After the recent Orkut-Talk integration, I wonder if Google has plans of moving into local social networking. With the mobile versions of (originally) net based social networks, mobile based social networks, manufacturers’ preloaded apps, this should be an interesting space. What I’d really love to see though is our very dear micro blogging service, Twitter make some rapid advances in local social networking.

    until next time, and then, location based dating? 🙂

  • Hail Whale

    …and as the world watched with bated breath, Twitter said ‘no deal‘ to Facebook. The primary reasons cited were the worth of Facebook stock (which was a key component in the payment) and the fact that Twitter wanted a shot at building revenues. Now that the deal is off, Mashable has a take on who Facebook should actually be looking to acquire. Among the lot, my picks would be Imeem and Jaxtr.

    Technically, Facebook also has a status updating mechanism built into its new design, but despite its massive popularity as a social network it hasn’t come close to the popularity that Twitter has managed to gain – a whopping 343% YOY as on Sep 2008. More than a billion tweets have been tweeted so far. The fun part is that both these popular entities have been struggling for revenues. So, what makes Twitter so popular? I think the one key factor is the simplicity. Although we’ve gone beyond the ‘what are you doing’ part, whatever has to be done has to be still within 140 characters. But there’s no limit to the number of characters you can find there. 😉 One more factor is the amazing army of twitter based apps that seem to increase in leaps and bounds daily. While Facebook has apps that are (in general) what could be termed as frivolous, the majority of Twitter apps (there are exceptions)  either enhance the service or utilise the service to provide a new dimension altogether.

    I saw a couple of interesting posts on how Twitter could develop further. The first, an article on Business Week, took examples of other microblogging services, and the second, on TechCrunchIT, wtites about how Twitter can become the single post office of the variety of services that we use on the net – the aggregator + conversation model that seems to be working well for Friendfeed.

    Meanwhile, after some consideration on the deal, I think I might have liked to see my facebook updates automatically sent to twitter, and the comments on them shown on FB too. I’d have liked to see the follow function used on Facebook, so that I can have some level of filtration before being friends. In fact Twitter already does that for me already, a kind of filtration, a sort of checking the person out for shared interests, wavelength etc before adding on FB. After all, Twitter is ‘permission based stalking‘, and fast paced tweet streaming of many to many. Facebook would complement that perfectly by being there for one to one interactions.

    Twitter is a trust economy, where one person judges another’s credibility and expertise over a period of time through his tweets. And this one to one relationship then replicates itself over and over. The wisdom of crowds makes it easy for a bluff to be called. This is the basis of twitter’s community. Yesterday’s Twitterstream of Mumbai’s events made me realise a few things. Rather, it reaffirmed a couple of notions, and made me question my faith on twitterati, much to my grief. It reaffirmed that while Twitter is great for breaking news, it is extremely difficult to filter out the ‘noise’ and get ready information. It reaffirmed that traditional media, especially television channels, have a powerful tool in twitter, but they need to step out of broadcasting and develop a unique mechanism for twitterverse. Lastly it reaffirmed that inspite of the fail wails when the fail whale appears,  Twitter is loved and respected as a news source enormously. The uncomfortable part, I realised that a ‘dark side’ beckons even on twitter, tweople are people after all (duh), and are not incorruptible when it comes to using a situation (however tragic it might be) to divert some attention to themselves.

    until next time, any system that humans create is fallible ?

    PS. a round of applause for @vinu & @dina some priceless work on a dark, crazy night…and day!!

    PPS. A few interesting Twitter based services I’ve come across recently. In addition to this amazing laundry list, there’s TweetBeep, TweetScribe ( mechanisms similar to Google Alerts), Tweader (that threads Twitter conversations), TwitteRel, JustTweetIt (find users with similar interests), Twitrratr (a grading system that helps the + and – tweets on a person, topic etc, though the system is very simplistic), TwitWall (to share videos, mp3, photos etc), Splitweet (handle multiple twitter accounts and brand monitorizing) Tweeple Twak (in addition to the Qwitter and CityTweets type of data, it tells you how your followers have expanded over time and geography). In fact, as this post shows, you can pretty much link everything using Twitter. In fact, Twitter could even become your virtual personal assistant. 🙂

  • Twitt…er, pay?

    Would you pay for Twitter?’, a very good question, asked by Walt Ribeiro, at his blog. It made me think, and I came to the conclusion that I’d pay (though it all depends on the price). Apparently, I’m in a majority. There’s possibly no ‘pain’ that Twitter is addressing in my case, unless I count the need for every human being to communicate. But I can do that on Facebook, and if its streaming conversation I want, there’s friendfeed, or Kwippy. But yes, twitter has a charm of its own, especially when you start with so many interesting people who share different interests of yours.

    The revenue model for Twitter is something that has caught the imagination of a whole load of people, since everyone, I think, is keen to prevent an ad based model. (yes, including me). The Twitter CEO also agrees. And in a lesser way, there have been discussions on the revenue models of Facebook and Friendfeed as well. A good read on this here. Meanwhile, I read an excellent article, which had a P&G digital guru stating that marketers don’t belong to Facebook. In his own words,

    “What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?”…. … We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.”

    A superb perspective, I thought. He goes on to wonder who said this (user generated media in general) was media, since all consumers were doing were trying to talk to each other. Its a wonderful line of thought, and when I think about it, I’d have to agree with him. But it makes me wonder about the nice folk who built Twitter and Facebook and Friendfeed. While they are nice people, I doubt if they had such massive charity in mind. They build the infrastructure, they bear the costs, I’m happy using it…for free. I go into a coffee shop, and pay money for the coffee, that’s the basic service, I never wonder if they work on a freemium model. I watch a movie in a theatre, pay money for it, and only grumble when they show ads. I suffer both kinds of monetisation, and still go back. But when the Fail whale happens, i rant, and threaten not to go back. Thankfully, I do go back.  I wonder if there’s something wrong with this scenario.

    So, monetising FB, Friendfeed, Twitter – why is it such a difficult thing? Is it because there’s no tangible value in them? But there must be, considering that millions use them everyday. In fact, I read a post yesterday that shows an example of tangible value created by Twitter. But then, the moment there’s a payment mechanism or an ad model discussed, there’s usually a user revolt. I still remember the extreme reactions to magpie.

    A very long time back, someone thought of leveraging the audience that uses content, that became the fundamental way of running media businesses. Newspaper, television, radio businessses have not been built on content, they have been built on monetising the audience that uses the content. Then, a long time back, the web came into being, and someone started a price war that started at zero. So we had free content, free mail, free IM and we were generally happy. Over a period of time, some learnt to monetise, and Google learnt it so well (hell, without content!!), that it built a Google economy, which I agree, might be an inevitable future. But while the ‘customers get everything for free and advertisers pay for Ad Sense’ model is great for Google, I wonder if it’s fair to demand the same of other services that subsidise our conversations with each other.

    Every UGC driven medium – Flickr, You Tube, Twitter, Facebook etc needs to find its own way of leveraging the audience. Template solutions might be a thing of the past.  Like I replied  to a comment on an earlier post of mine, I know quite a few twitter clients, while i know only one for FB. Facebook ‘s services compels users to visit the site, Twitter’s simplicity doesn’t. Every service is different. Ads are obviously not the greatest of solutions though both Facebook, and You Tube are increasingly going along that path. (Here’s an excellent read on Facebook monetisation) Twitter should find its own way of leveraging the audience its gaining daily. I personally thought the research based model that has been started by SocialToo is worth a shot, as one source of revenue. LinkedIn is already doing it. I also saw Twitpay today, and think there’s potential in it.

    Meanwhile, I feel quite like a hypocrite when i consider services like Twitter Image, which is based on Twitter and charges $100 for a customised Twitter background, while Twitter doesn’t have a business model as far as we can see. I desperately want Twitter to crack their model soon, after all with 2500 plus tweets, there’s a lot of me in Twitter. If Twitter dies, a part of me dies too.

    until next time, a sharing caring world, reluctant to share costs?

  • Life…streaming

    I always wonder what the ‘hard disk’ capacity of the human brain is… maybe we’ve or will figure out ways to quantify it, but unlike the mechanical one, or even ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’, it will be a long while before we can get to choose what the brain keeps and what it send to the recycle bin. Maybe, by that time, they will also figure out how to ‘upgrade’ the human brain’s capacity.

    In terms of memories, we’ve been doing it forever, from clay tablets to computers, the aim has always been to store information, though processing and artifical intelligence did get into the picture later. But having notepad and word documents with dates and activities seems a strange way of documenting life.

    Which, i am guessing, is the reasons I stick to Twitter, but am always on the lookout for lifestreaming tools, like the one I have installed here. Its quite twitter heavy but also pulls information from my blogs, and a few other online accounts. I am also hoping to add Facebook status messages to it soon, since that’s also a good chronicler of happenings. This one does that too, but I’m yet to find a way to integrate it here.

    In case you’re wondering why this fascination for lifestreaming, think about how you feel when you see an old photograph, hear an old song, meet an old friend.. there are so many associations it throws up.. I bet you can recollect most of these associations now – the dress you were wearing in the photo, where you got it from, where its journey with you ended, why were you looking happy or sad; where you heard that song first, the mood change it causes in you and why, what was generally happening in your life then; under what circumstances you became friends, the fun you used to have together, shared incidents and so on…. Well, I, for one, am not sure, how far back I will be able to remember, what I’ll be able to remember, and for how long… and these things are important to me because together they are what is known as my life.. and it’d be sad if I couldn’t remember the details of my own life, through my own mind or its accessories… thats the reason behind this fascination for lifestreams… maybe its to do with being a sucker for nostalgia..maybe its the way I am built…

    I think it would be quite soothing at a later date, to sit back and read up the stuff that brought me to where I’d be then.. to better understand who I was, and perhaps figure out why I did what I did, why things happened to me, and so on..in essence, hunting for a pattern in the chronicle of a human life…

    until next time, the sum of our lives….