"Apple is 'Evil' and Facebook is 'a Photo-sharing Site'"
-- Fred Wilson, VC (investor in Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga).
It's the ultimate form of respect when the competition vilifies and diminishes your accomplishments, so take respected VC and blogger Fred Wilson's comments in that light. After all, he's got investments in a number of companies that Facebook is a potential threat to.
But let's face some facts. Love or hate Facebook, you don't grow to 500 million users if you are not doing something incredibly right.
Moreover, you don't engage those same users to the point that 50 percent of the active user base logs in daily unless you have found a way to turn the social equivalent of lead into gold.
Mind you, this is a service legions diss, dismiss and outright distrust. A service with customer satisfaction levels that rank below the airline industry.
It begs the question: Why isn't this ship sinking, as opposed to being an unstoppable force that's swallowing up the web one 'Like' and Facebook Connect sign-on at a time?
Understanding Facebook Mountain
My take on this is that Facebook's success is a case of people generally not trusting Facebook, nor specifically wanting the company to push more and more of their "friends and family" content and conversations into the public bucket (as Facebook seems committed to getting them to do). Nonetheless people default to a simple truth. Namely, that no one else has matched Facebook's ability to seamlessly connecting the dots between content, conversations and social contexts -- wherever it promulgates.
Facebook, for all of its failings, is delivering the consummate 1 + 1 = 3 experience.
Think about it. Facebook Connect and the Like function is increasingly being hardwired into virtually every website. And because Facebook knows how to build a platform, they have facilitated better integration of the myriad popular services on the Internet within Facebook, such that your Facebook news feed is becoming a must-read, must-engage service.
No less, they are already mining the heck out of that data, such that you can already see how, despite Google being the one that taught us about contextual advertising, it's Facebook that will be the one to actually execute in delivering ads that users will actually want to click on. Maybe not today, but very soon.
Case in point: Facebook knows that I "Like" the band Rush and am a fan of the HBO series "True Blood" because, over time, I have fed it that information via profile, status and news feed updates. Facebook isn't shy about using that same information to recommend other shows, bands, fan pages and the like.
It's the same reason that in asking "Is Facebook a Brand that You Can Trust?" and knowing the answer (i.e., not really), my usage -- and that of the people I know -- is only on the upswing.
Consider the various ways that Facebook has inculcated itself into my daily online workflow:
- Sending/receiving Facebook feeds via the TweetDeck social dashboard client.
- Creating a Facebook fan page for my company.
- Building multiple iOS apps that integrate with Facebook feeds.
- Playing several iPad games that post to my Facebook feeds.
- Micro-posting via Posterous that "auto posts" into Facebook.
- Uploading of photos from my BlackBerry to my Facebook wall.
And for all of these reasons, liking, commenting and conversational back-and-forth actions are becoming more frictionless by the day.
Moreover, it's the same reason that when Facebook formally pursues the search engine play -- and they will, because they have an unbounded opportunity there -- Google, the king of all disruptors, will suddenly understand what it feels like to be on the disrupted side of the equation.
A final thought. It's a topic that's best saved for another post, but if Apple, the king of mobile, mobility and post-PC, and Facebook, the king of social, were ever to strategically align so as to orchestrate a frontal assault on Google's loosely coupled approach ... now, that would be a battle royal!
Related:
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000
- How to Raise Funds for Non-Profits (Joi Ichi) -- One organization sent a message to all of their donors during the Haiti crisis asking them to give to an NGO that they had vetted. They didn't ask for any money for themselves. This had a hugely positive effect and the donors trust in the group increased. Wallets aren't zero sum.
- legislation.gov.uk -- very elegant legislation system for the UK. Check out the annual analysis, for example. (via rchards on Twitter)
- The Great WebKit Comparison Table -- So far I’ve tested 14 different mobile WebKits, and they are all slightly different. You can find the details below. (via Andrew Savikas)
- Node and Scaling in the Small vs Scaling in the Large (al3x) -- In a system of no significant scale, basically anything works. The power of today’s hardware is such that, for example, you can build a web application that supports thousands of users using one of the slowest available programming languages, brutally inefficient datastore access and storage patterns, zero caching, no sensible distribution of work, no attention to locality, etc. etc. Basically, you can apply every available anti-pattern and still come out the other end with a workable system, simply because the hardware can move faster than your bad decision-making.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:00:00 +0000
"In Google we trust." That may very well be the motto of today's young online users, a demographic group often dubbed the "digital natives" due their apparent tech-savvy. Having been born into a world where personal computers were not a revolution, but merely existed alongside air conditioning, microwaves and other appliances, there has been (a perhaps misguided) perception that the young are more digitally in-tune with the ways of the Web than others.
That may not be true, as it turns out. A new study coming out of Northwestern University, discovered that college students have a decided lack of Web savvy, especially when it comes to search engines and the ability to determine the credibility of search results. Apparently, the students favor search engine rankings above all other factors. The only thing that matters is that something is the top search result, not that it's legit.
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"I Googled It"
During the study, one of the researchers asked a study participant, "What is this website?" The student answered, "Oh, I don't know. The first thing that came up."
That exchange sums up the overall results from this study: many students trusted in rankings above all else. In fact, a quarter of the students, when assign information-seeking tasks, said they chose a website because - and only because - it was the first search result.
Only 10% of the students made mention of the site's author or that author's credentials while completing tasks. However, in reviewing the screen-capture footage of those respondents, the researchers found that even in this supposedly savvy minority, none actually followed through to verify the identification or qualifications of the site's authors.
Google was not the only search engine used in the study, but it was one in which the students put a lot of trust. The students felt emotionally tied to the service in some cases, noting how much they loved it and depended on it. (Those who used Yahoo! said they merely "liked" it.)
Regardless the choice of search engine, though, the first step in information-seeking was always the use of such a service, which was typically referred to as a verb. And yes, in addition to "google it," some even said they would "yahoo it."
Wikipedia Not Trusted as Much
Another interesting finding from the study involved the use of Wikipedia. Perhaps because of teachers' insistence over the years that the user-generated encyclopedia is not a credible source of information, only a third of the students used Wikipedia to search for answers when given particular tasks. This is a drop from earlier studies (like Raine & Tancer, 2007) which showed Wikipedia use at 46% among students.
Other popular trusted sources included SparkNotes (a study guide site), WedMD, Planned Parenthood, CNN, BBC, Microsoft (specifically Encarta and Office-related resources) and those sites with a .gov or .edu extension. Some students even thought that .org domain name meant a site was inherently trustworthy - they weren't aware that the .org extension can be freely registered just like .com and is not for nonprofit use only, as may have originally been intended.
Students Need Media Literacy Education
While the size of the study was only 102 students, the demographics of the group were both ethnically and racially diverse, reaching a representative sample of first-year college students at the University of Chicago.
In summary, the findings showed that students are not always turning to the most relevant clues to determine the credibility of online content, said the researchers Eszter Hargittai, Lindsay Fullerton, Ericka Menchen-Trevino and Kristen Yates Thomas. Further initiatives that help educate people in this domain are needed, they claim.
Image credit in original article: flickr user Paulo Fehlauer
Discuss
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:14:06 +0000
MobileCrunch reports that Research in Motion has purchased the domain name blackpad.com, fueling speculation that RIM's long rumored enterprise tablet will be called the BlackPad. Others suggest it is merely a codename. One commenter at MobileCrunch notes the domain name was on sale at BuyDomains for $1,788. The domain blackpad.com doesn't revolve to any address at this time.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that RIM is likely to announce the launch of the BlackBerry Torch 9800, a device RIM hopes will compete with the iPhone, at an event with AT&T on Tuesday New York City.
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BlackBerry Cool provides a scan of an invitation to the event:
Engadget released images of 9800 in June. The new device will run the BlackBerry6 OS we covered here previously.
The 9800 is expected to be released exclusively by AT&T - an odd move for a device competing with the iPhone, considering the the iPhone's exclusivity to AT&T has long been considered a major detriment to Apple's device. However, Verizon, RIM's partner for its previous iPhone competitor,The Storm, has hitched its wagon to the success of Android. The Storm's sales were reportedly lackluster. Reuters, citing RIM's declining market share, this week suggested the end of the BlackBerry era may be upon us.
Even in the area of enterprise security, where RIM has dominated Apple and Google, RIM is slipping in influence. Both companies have rolled out improved security features in recent months, and enterprises are accepting the devices. In an interview with InfoWorld, Intel CIO Diane Bryant says there are 9,000 employee-owned phones now in use at Intel, and the vast majority of them are iPhones.
The BlackBerry tablet, called BlackPad or not, will like enter a competitive enterprise marketplace. The iPad already had a respectable showing in the enterprise, and Cisco and HP have both announced enterprise-centric tablets.
Discuss
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:07:00 +0000
Amazon announced
the Kindle 3 last night, and it doesn’t look too shabby at all. The most important part is the inclusion of
the next-generation E-Ink display, previously only found in the too-big-for-casual-use
Kindle DX. (The low price, $139 for the Wi-Fi version, certainly doesn’t hurt.) Immediately following the announcement, I saw something that confused me. For whatever reason, it seems plenty of people are comparing the Kindle to
the iPad, almost as if these people want the Kindle
to be the iPad. Why is that?
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:03:35 +0000
How's this for absolutely dominating an increasingly lucrative and fast-growing segment? Google currently boasts a mobile search market share of
98.29%, with it closest competitor Yahoo taking up just over 0.8% of market share and Bing barely touching even half that, according to
just released figures from
StatCounter as relayed by
Pingdom.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:02:00 +0000
The American Museum of Natural History today unveiled the American Museum of Natural History Explorer app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, designed to help users better navigate through the Museum’s various exhibitions.
The Museum has been…
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:59:43 +0000
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has said that the company's ability to offer more content through its Watch Instantly service was limited only by its ability to write big checks. Now it's doing just that, with its spend on streaming titles increasing sevenfold over the past year.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:45:23 +0000
Groupon’s model has always been to serve to up a single daily deal per city, per day. Yesterday, the company nearly reinvented itself when it kicked off its Personalized Deals initiative.
With Personalized Deals, Groupon subscribers in…
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:42:38 +0000
Maria Ogneva is the Director of Social Media at Attensity, a social media engagement and voice-of-customer platform that helps the social enterprise serve and collaborate with the social customer. You can follow her on Twitter at …
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:20:18 +0000
App store analytics provider
Distimo in its
latest report once
again focuses on in-app purchases across a variety of mobile application stores, Apple's App Store in particular. According to Distimo, the percentage of applications with in-app purchases is significantly higher in the App Store for iPad (10%) compared to that for the iPhone (2%).
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:16:39 +0000
A mobile application which connects Android phone owners to their representatives in the U.S. Congress has just been released by the non-profit, non-partisan organization Sunlight Labs, a group dedicated to government transparency. After months of public beta testing, the newly finished application is now a comprehensive toolset that helps you stay on top of congressional activity, voting records, new bills and laws, and more. It even provides one-touch access to your Congressional representatives, allowing to you to call their office directly from within the application, watch their YouTube videos or read their latest updates on the microblogging social network, Twitter.
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Different from the iPhone Version
The Android application is similar in some ways to its iPhone counterpart, Real Time Congress, released at the beginning of the year. Like the the Apple version, the Android app makes it easy to see what's happening inside Congress in a timely fashion.
However, unlike the iPhone app, the Android version offers a greater focus on your representatives and their activity. This is something which iPhone users already had access to, explained Sunlight Lab's Clay Johnson back in January: there are "at least a half-dozen" third party applications for iPhone that do the same, he said . But in the Android Marketplace, there's only the one: Congress.
Congress: App Details
From the app's main screen, Android users can enter in their location, either by tapping into the phone's GPS or by manually entering a State or zip code. Search functions for finding a particular representative or committee are also present and, at the top, there are sections for tracking votes and nominations.
Each representative has an easy-to-use profile page where their office's phone number is prominently featured. Here, you're also one tap away from voting records, sponsored bills, committee details, news articles, Twitter updates and YouTube videos, assuming your rep participates on social media. The rep's own webpage is also linked by way of an icon found next to their profile picture.
Government in Your Pocket
For mainstream users who don't try software in beta (aka "we're still testing it") format, Congress for Android may be their first peek into the power of mobile combined with the power of open data, specifically open governmental data. The application was built using the Sunlight Congress API and GovTrack.us, the former a tool to programmatically access basic information on members of Congress, and the latter a civic project for tracking Congressional activity.
Like all Sunlight projects, Congress is open source software, meaning other developers can view and reuse the code, stored here on Github.
Since the app's launch into public beta late last year, over 250,000 Android owners have downloaded it. Now that the app has officially and publicly launched, that number is sure to rise.
In the future, the app will be updated to support real-time notifications and other "exciting features," says Sunlight Labs. Those interested in downloading the app can do so now from the Android Market: just search for "Congress."
Discuss
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:01:27 +0000
Amazon predicts that it will sell more e-books than paperbacks by the end of next year, and that they will eclipse both paperback and hardcover sales combined shortly thereafter.
“I predict we will surpass paperback sales sometime in the next…
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:56:01 +0000
Motorola posted its financial results for the second quarter of 2010, reporting solid overall results and smartphone sales that hint at better times ahead. Motorola’s sales in Q2 were $5.4 billion, while earnings were $162 million, up from…
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:37:45 +0000
“All I've done is compile public information into a nice format for statistical analysis.” So says the man who is being called the Facebook hacker. Ron Bowes, a security consultant who’s also an nmap developer, is under fire from certain sections of the Internet
for creating and uploading a torrent that contains more than 100 million Facebook users’ information. The thing is, all of this information was already publicly available in the Facebook directory. So to call him a “hacker,” well, would be incorrect.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:33:02 +0000
GetJar, a San Mateo, Calif.-based company, today announced it is delivering over 3 million downloads a day to more than 2,000 different phone models. Thanks to the wide range of supported devices, developers can use GetJar to target their software for specific models and geographic regions.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:30:14 +0000
Elon Musk certainly hasn't been on the down-low lately. Well, with the
Tesla's IPO and then Toyota huge investment and
manufacturing deals. Then there's the
lawsuits and his
devoice. So yeah, it's no wonder that Jon Favreau modeled his Tony Stark character after Elon --
or so says Wikipedia. But last night he had a friendly fireside chat with Stephen Colbert, where it was really nothing more than reading of the man's resume and talking about his ventures. Of course Colbert talked circles around the PayPal co-founder as he tends to do. It's not like
The Colbert Report is known as a hard-hitting news program anyway. That's more the style of
The Daily Show. Click through for the video.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:10:25 +0000
Social-game maker Zynga has signed a joint-venture deal with venture fund Softbank Capital to bring its casual-gaming services to Japan, and Softbank has also invested $150 million in the company, whose Farmville and Mafia Wars games are among the most popular on Facebook.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:41:38 +0000
This series is brought to you by HTC EVO 4G, America's first 4G phone. Only from Sprint. The "First to Know" series keeps you in the know on what's happening now in the world of social media and technology.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:26:36 +0000
Amazon is riding the wave created by high Kindle e-book sales by releasing two new Kindle readers. The new readers offer the same size screen, while reducing the physical size and weight of the devices. They start shipping on Aug. 27, and pricing starts at $139.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:24:24 +0000
