After spending much time thinking and talking about the necessity in getting user feedback before making UI re-design decisions, and giving users choices in implementing what you eventually come up with, there is one site that needed a redesign so badly that it almost didn't matter what was they did. Del.icio.us has long been one my favorite sites. It provides the ultimate balance between providing a utility that no one else does in quite the same way and giving me access to network information that is usually very interesting, if not incredibly relevant or really funny. There are VERY few sites that do that, where you get a needed function that is build into network communication. Of course, del.icio.us is interesting on so many different levels beyond this. I have often found it astounding that a user’s tags on the site can mimic their interests so exactly that you get an accurate sense of their personality. This shouldn’t be surprising given the utility of the tags, but it is one of the only sites I know of that compiles data that can be extrapolated to this personal of a level without directly asking users “so…tell us about yourself”. Perhaps any site that so deeply integrates tagging accomplishes something similar. So many incredibly interesting things have been done with Flickr tags as an example. But there is something about tagging information that is not inherently yours (i.e. your photos) that produces something a little different, perhaps even more accidentally personal. There is nothing I like more than happy accidents.

In any case, since del.icio.us was bought by Yahoo, everyone had been waiting for the time when the site would get a UI upgrade. I have to admit that my first awareness that it had actually happened was from Tikva Morowati on Twitter followed by Megan MacMurray a couple of hours later on gchat, unfortunately my RSS feeds took a back seat to lots of work and getting sick. When I finally got a chance to see it for myself, I was pleasantly surprised by its simplicity. It even looks a little Flickr-esque, which I guess shouldn’t be a big surprise, when you have a good thing that wins lots of awards it would be smart to copy it.

The first big change you see of course is that the site has a new sexy style, not over done, but enough to look a little less like the start-up it was three plus years ago. The navigation menus, which split the site into three main sections, bookmarks, people and tags, provide a nice organization of the top things that users would probably be looking for on their home page. The new search is also nicely designed, with the ability to search bookmarks in numerous different ways. The bookmarks are also organized in a much nicer way so that they are easier to read at a glance and easier to sort through. The best feature, however, is the new tag search bar, which allows you to quickly navigate bookmarks by using tags and tag combinations. It also auto-completes, a nice little touch. The only thing I could do without is the tag arrangement on the right hand side. As an obsessive lover of tag clouds, I always preferred to view my tags as a cloud, perhaps not the most efficient way to find something, but it was MY WAY. This function is still available, just not on the right, which is now organized by “Top 10”, “All Tags” and “Tag Bundles”. This is kind of annoying. Top 10 is not so useful for me and I have never really gotten into the habit of consistently using bundles, although I probably should. But, its only one extra step to get to my beloved cloud, which I suppose I can deal with.

All in all, it looks great, works better and seems to integrate a lot of features that users have been wanting for a really long time. Too bad it took half a century to get it done. Oh, and one more thing, I should no longer be calling it del.icio.us. The beloved play on the site name has now been replaced by delicious.com. That too I could do without, but it definitely makes more sense.

Posted by Cat at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the advantages of being sick, and thus forcing yourself to take a break from the millions of projects you are currently working on, is you finally get to write an entry in your blog without feeling enormously guilty!


Changing the UI of any site with a significant user base is always a big gamble, regardless of how much statistical analysis and user-centered data you have. However, larger social networking sites that many users have integrated into their daily online activities have unique and very specific challenges to overcome. Unlike a site that users visit on an intermittent basis or for a very defined and specific purpose, these platforms facilitate communication between many different kinds of people exchanging extreme levels of personal data. The usual gamble is multiplied by being forced to examine an increasingly diverse user base that is interacting with the site in different ways, for different purposes and with different goals in participation. This is true of any popular site with lots of content, but for a social networking platform there are often multiple points of entry, numerous types of tasks that users engage in many times a day and tons of information ranked at different levels of significance depending on numerous factors, from the specific patterns exhibited by a user’s core ‘friend group’ within the site to their own personal time commitment in being a user.

A change in UI for any popular site is not going to ever satisfy every user all of the time. However, an interesting trend appears to have begun in the way these kinds of sites have attempted to deal with the obvious need to release changes to their UI without confusing and angering loyal users. This approach focuses more on a healthy combination between usability and the interesting implementation of new technologies and functionality. The most important aspect of this switch in thinking about UI design is the desire to give users time to adjust to the switch by providing them with a choice. As an example, one of the largest sites to change its UI by this method in recent months was MySpace. Long regarded as the pinnacle of how not to design for the web, from information architecture mistakes to pure ugliness, it was an absolute necessity to make changes in their UI to accommodate new features sets due to launch to compete with the increasingly successful implementation of new features on Facebook. The big surprise in the UI was not that it actually made the site any more usable, I am not entirely sure how that is possible, but that MySpace wisely allowed its user base to decide whether to implement it or not. Although it is probably quite widely used now, for months after its launch many users refused to switch. Perhaps driven by force of habit or the lack of desire to figure out the placement of needed features, many users simply found no need to change their behavior and no time to learn the new configuration. It was only when the site launched the ability to customize a home page design that users begin to switch over in greater numbers, most likely fueled by friends who were early adopters. Given the nature of the site and what its users do there, this makes a lot of sense. But what is more interesting then the patterns of feature adoption of the MySpace user, is the fact that their new approach to a UI launch worked. Rather than discouraging users to switch over in great numbers, something that one might expect in giving users a choice between old and familiar and new and scary, it seemed to provide the ultimate buffer between habit and the necessity of change.

Given the amount of cross platform copycat behavior that has become common place between many of these social software competitors, it shouldn’t have been surprising that Facebook would copy this approach when they decided to launch their new UI recently. The only reason why it raised my eyebrow was that Facebook has become rather well known for launching numerous new feature sets with little notification to or consultation with their user base. It is true that the recent tremendous success of the site has actually been largely dependent on their elaborate risk tasking, but we all remember the “mini feed, news feed” situation where users revolted at functionality change quite severely. The problem was not simply that users felt their privacy had been violated by the publication of their activities to their friends, but more importantly that they had not been properly consulted or informed regarding the new functionality and what affect it would have on their information. The fact that the developers ended up being right, and that this functionality became an incredibly important feature for the new direction of the platform, did not take away from the significance of the user back lash. This was direct evidence that people do not inherently like change, particularly when that change involves user trust. Perhaps it was thanks to this revolt that Facebook decided to play it safe this time around. More likely, they simply noticed a really good idea.

The new UI is, as promised, much more about functionality then actual new design choices. Ironically, it puts incredible emphasis on the once hated mini feed in a user’s profile, integrating it within the user’s wall and copying the recently popular “friend feed” by allowing users to comment on updates. In fact, the entire “first tab” of the new profile reads like a “lifestream”. Facebook says it implemented this strategy because it noticed that users were actually the most interested in recent updates. While this may be true for many users, the big issue is that this very specific view into one’s “life” on Facebook cannot be changed, a fact that seems to be in direct conflict with the old Facebook where configuration of one’s profile through drag and drop was incredibly intuitive.
In continuing with this new configuration strategy, the left hand sidebar has remained active for applications, albeit ones that seem to have been chosen at random, and additional tabs have been added for info, photos and boxes, with the additional ability to add other tabs as needed. The tabs definitely clean up the profile page, in danger of becoming as messy as a user-designed MySpace profile, and the ability to add as many as you want to accentuate applications you care about is quite nice. However, when attempting to add additional tabs I noticed that some applications were missing from the list of possible tabs I could add. Why can’t I add a tab for the groups I am in for example? Or pages? Perhaps these are simply bugs that will be addressed, but it was quite annoying because it hid many things from view completely and seemed to put emphasis on one’s I didn’t particularly care about.

Not having the time to investigate much further, I have actually switched back to the old Facebook temporarily. I am not sure that I will leave it that way in the long run, but my decision in doing so makes me realize how important their decision to keep both possibilities active was, and how important this decision should be for many sites to take note of before implementing a new UI. It is not necessarily the way to go in every case; it is true that users do not always know what they want until you give it to them. But I still believe that form should follow function (a little something I learned in photo school) and that the only way to learn about what form the function of something social should take is to ask those who use it.

Posted by Cat at 07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Several people have asked me recently about my thoughts on Google's recent release at the beginning of this month of Open Social, a set of common APIs for building social applications on the web. Since I have really been neglecting my blog over the last few months, I figured I would begin by discussing my (still quite undeveloped) thoughts on this project.

First, I think it is quite obvious that Open Social is an incredibly smart idea in theory. It is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks such as profile information, friends Information and social activities, things that would be found in Facebook's news feed for example. It also allows developers lots of latitude with respect to how their applications are created instead of relying on a proprietary mark-up language the way Facebook does. Developers can use normal javascript and html and can even embed Flash elements. But the advantage of this approach is really its ability to provide developers with one way to reach users across multiple different platforms. Initial partners include LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo and Friendster with developers like Flixster, iLike, RockYou and Slide already developing applications.

The problem is, however, that in order for Open Social to integrate into a platform, the platform itself has to become a 'host'. This means that instead of developers going where the critical mass of users are (i.e. facebook or myspace) they must wait for the platforms these users have already integrated their social activities into to come to them. This is not necessarily a problem if popular platforms open up to the project and many have. But what would be the advantage to the giants in social networking of doing so, particularly in the case of Facebook?

Since its release, many people have stated that this is a blatant attack on Facebook where it is the weakest, its quintessential closed nature. But it is its closed nature that has been attracting record numbers of users, particularly internationally. The integration of applications within this closed environment means that users have control over their information and social connections, while still bing able to easily utilize incredible amounts of functionality with a mouse click. And lets not forget that the adoption of applications is viral thanks to the news feed. Developers have the ability to tap into a huge user base that is already paying attention.

Now, I am not intending to sing Facebook's praises unconditionally. Any developer knows that, while creating an app for the platform is quite simple, its restrictions and limitations are incredibly frustrating at times. It has also become frustrating to attempt to reach users across multiple platforms, having to learn different APIs or method of creating applications that will work in different situations. Open Social gets rid of this problem. It also gets rid of the need for developers to find hosting solutions for their applications, something that many of the more popular Facebook apps, such as iLike, had to struggle with in the beginning when their user base shot up exponentially overnight. It also takes a lot of the strain off of the platforms themselves. Imagine, for instance, how much of a project the Facebook Developer platform was for the in-house developers.

All in all, I think where Open Social will initially have the most success is with the less popular social networks and smaller developers who have good reason to participate since Google will be doing all the heavy lifting. But I don't see this as being a Facebook killer, at least not in its present incarnation. While I am a firm believer that the future of social software is indeed moving towards a more open and less proprietary environment, Open Social is still relying on its success through integration with the proprietary. And the leaders in that field have very little incentive to join the band wagon. Developers of these kind of integrated applications, however, will naturally be excited to try out something new. But the bottom line is, developers flock to where the users are and the users are, for the time being, on Facebook and Myspace.

Posted by Cat at 09:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Although rumors have been floating around for a while abut flickr adding video, this post on TechCrunch seems to confirm that this is in fact the case. As much as I understand the progression to video, and the thought from users that it would be very convenient to be able to store and share multiple different kinds of media in one place, there is a part of me that wonders how successful flickr video will be. I think the only way to do it right is to have photos and videos in ONE place, rather then separating them into different streams for each user. Even still, I really do feel that the reason flickr has been so successful is because of their sole focus on photography. From the day I began using it, I thought it was the best photo sharing app on the web and possibly even one of the best social networking sites period, organizationally at least. This feeling hasn't changed despite all the copycats and my increased use of Facebook photos over the last few months, which is also designed and organized pretty well.

Part of the reason I have such loving feelings towards flickr is because of their sole focus on one thing, making it really easy to upload, organize, find and share photos, without the added burden of lengthy personal profiles and silly fringe features. I am not necessarily saying that video fits into the category of being an irrelevant step to take, but I worry about what the inclusion of video may turn flickr into. Unlike many of the commenters on the TechCrunch post, I for one, do not want flickr to turn into YouTube AT ALL. Why should they try to revival a site that has simply become a myspace-like marketing tool? (and a highly unsearchable at that) Although I doubt that the intention of flickr's developers is to become the next YouTube, I am almost ready to say, 'why bother doing it at all?' But then again, it may turn out to be perfectly integrated and very useful....I guess we'll have to see.

Posted by Cat at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just now I noticed, and subsequently read, a response by danah boyd on her blog to the critics of her recent essay that talks about class divisions that can be viewed by observing Myspace and Facebook. I was actually looking forward to reading this for a while, as the post stirred up a lot of interest and criticism and I wanted to see what she would say. The response was rather long but I still find that some of my personal questions were left unanswered. Here is what I thought in general:

First, Boyd goes into detail about the difference between her academic research papers and her blog, describing how she writes her blog in a much looser way and that therefor the post should have not been interpreted as an actual research study. She talks about the idea of the death of the author and how "the weird thing about blogging is that the author is pretty darn present. I'm here." Personally, I think its true that many personal blogs, and blogs in general, are meant to serve as a way to present and discuss ideas, rather then as a formal declaration of research. The problem is, when you become a well-respected voice in a particular field, people want to hear what you have to say. Perhaps that means that you are held to a higher standard, even as far as your writings on your blog. It doesn't mean that people were correct to represent this post as anything more then ideas and thoughts, but people are morons, its just a basic fact of life. If you put it out there and people consider you an important voice in a particular field, thats what will happen.

She also seemed surprised to see that so many people took the time to respond to her post. I don't see why this should be so surprising. There have been 1000s of blog posts in recent months concerning Facebook and the comparison's between it and MySpace, ranging from which site is better to predictions about their directions in the future. Even though all of this attention may seem unnecessary and ridiculous to some, it is the topic of the moment. People are interested because Facebook was the first social networking site positioned to rival MySpace that decided to open their platform so dramatically. Whether you think this is revolutionary or not, it did change the game, evidenced by every site from LinkedIn to the new Pownce to MySpace itself announcing similar strategies. People wanted to write it about and discuss it, and most of the posts were stupid. Boyd's was one of the few I have read that discusses something that is actually thought provoking, which is why it received so much attention. Plus, whenever you talk about class divisions people's ears perk up, thats just the nature of the beast.

I did fully respect her section discussing the fact that she had been referring to teenagers and how she was surprised that people refuted her opinions by talking about themselves or their friends. Valid point. But I think what some people were referring to regarding twenty somethings etc could apply to teenagers as well. My sister, for instance, is thirteen and lived on myspace until I invited her to facebook (she is white, quite mainstream in terms of her interests, middle class, living in suburban NY and not gay...just to provide the background). Although Facebook initially stirred her interest, she is still very much on myspace. Her friends on each are the same, minus the bands of course and those friends who are just not interested in social networking enough to join another site (yes there are still some of those under 18). She's thirteen and really only associates, as I imagine many teenagers do, particularly those who live in the suburbs, with people she goes to school with or who live in close proximity. Her picture is usually the same on each. And sure she communicates differently, on Facebook she throws sheep at people while on Myspace she sends out silly question and answer bulletins every day. If anything her Facebook is now more cluttered with stuff then her Myspace, which she had a friend redesign to eliminate the top friends, comment section and a lot of other things. In fact, where I have seen the most difference in the way people utilize their profiles is among the twenty-something crowd.

Now one person is not the whole world. But the example of my sister is relevant to me because her trend in using social networking sites is supported by recent statistics about the growth of Facebook since the developer's platform was released. Of course non-college bound teens would have not known anything about Facebook a year ago...that is a big 'duh'. But that has changed. And the developer's platform has given everyone some interesting things to play with that have made it desirable to many different groups...especially those who formerly loved MySpace and found Facebook useless because there was nothing to do. On this topic, I am still very confused as to why Boyd has not addressed what the developer's platform has done for Facebook or what the numbers concerning Facebook's growth mean in relationship to her ideas. I think that is a BIG oversight.

In addition, I still found no evidence or discussion to support her original claims that Facebook is 'seen' as a place for 'good kids' while MySpace is not. This, to me, was a point in her original essay that I wanted more clarification and proof of because the idea of perception is an interesting one. The fact that she readily admits in this essay that kids have profiles on both seems to refute this point. And the fact that certain teenagers somewhere don't know about Facebook or don't want to use it, to me, does not automatically mean that it is SEEN as a place for 'the good kids' or that teenagers anywhere are even looking at it that way. Anyone who remembers being a teenager knows that the culture leads teens (whether they claim to be against the mainstream or not) to flock to the newest coolest thing, whatever that means to their particular group of friends. If its not Facebook it will be something else. I personally believe that MySpace, between the spam, operational problems and lack of utility is losing its cool for everyone. And despite what you may believe about this silly MSNBC article that Boyd references in her response, the writer's point concerning adults on MySpace is completely true. I have seen many a person's mom on there. It has become a catch-all place...how does that affect an accurate assessment of class divisions? Another point that Boyd never really addressed.

In closing, I am sure that many people were careless in reading Boyd's essay and simply honed in on certain points for their own self-interest, I read some of them. But I don't think it is ever acceptable to refute criticism by saying that you hope readers will be less careless in the future simply because they discuss and/or refute your ideas or findings. Without concrete numbers, clearly articulated studies and research that is verifiable, thats what people are going to do, based on their own, however inaccurate, observations. People will actually do it anyway, but casual thoughts or ideas encourage that kind of analysis more so. Bottom line is, this topic is interesting and something that should be looked into further, which is why its important that Boyd raised the topic. But she shouldn't have been so quick to discredit her opponents and her overall response didn't change my mind at all about what I was thinking in the first place. Which is often the way it is. Its hard enough to change people's minds when you have verifiable evidence. When its just ideas...good luck!

Posted by Cat at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had certainly heard the buzz about myspace's plan to release an API similar to the Facebook developer's platform, but I had not expected to find this little box on my home page when I signed in today:

Apparently, this new feature was released yesterday but was immediately broken and thus was only seen by a small percentage of users. I find it interesting that a site that continues to boast about being the largest social networking site around, and with the numbers to prove it, still feels the need to play copycat. Some people may say that it is smart for MySpace to release such functionality in response to all the Facebook buzz, and I certainly don't disagree that they should have responded with something. But this, quite frankly, is a little ridiculous. Forget the fact that many Facebook converts that i know find the news feed and status updates to be the most annoying aspect of Facebook, this particular feature in its MySpace iteration is completely irrelevant, at least so far.

Posted by Cat at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I finally got a chance to check out Pownce, thanks to an invite from Pollie. Although I am still not so sure I get what all the hype is about, I have to admit that my first impression is...its pretty cool. The desktop application is written in Flex for Adobe's new AIR platform and allows you to communicate with groups of friends, individual friends or publicly by sending messages, posting links and events, replying to posted messages or uploading files (you can do this all from the website of course but its very cool to be able to do it from the desktop app). Publicly posted messages from you and your contacts are available via RSS and you can group your friends into contact groups in order to easily send information to only a select group of people.

While I think Pownce is so far a very interestingly different kind of lifestreaming platform, there were a couple of things I had to question. The first is that the desktop app is begging to feel more like a chat application, with more automatic feedback instead of reliance on the refresh button. Plus, when replying to messages or viewing files, you are still directed to the website, which in most cases is fine, but not so much when the image appears all by its lonesome...without even a background. Also, and perhaps this is because so many other applications have jumped on the band wagon, where is the mobile support?

Still, I am intrigued and have thus invited several friends...we'll see.

Posted by Cat at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I wish I had known about these statistics when I wrote my previous blog post about whether class divisions can really be viewed through MySpace and Facebook. These statistics seem to suggest what I had suspected about that particular issue.

Posted by Cat at 01:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had to laugh a bit when I read this post on Rev2.org about 'angry facbookers' and the author's particular disdain with Facebook's choice to enroll every user in the new platform. It is amazing to me that people will really complain about everything.

First of all, did they have a choice? As it is the platform and its associated applications are somewhat difficult to navigate and get used to for first time users and the less tech-savvy. Had Facebook made the introduction of the new applications an option, few would have opted in as they didn't really do very good advertising of the new functionality in a way that was directed at actual users. Beyond that, I think the solution to this is simple, don't add the applications if you don't want them. As far as friends profiles...well..,tough. Adding an option to have them not visible is silly. Personally, I found Facebook useless before the new applications and I really can't imagine how anyone could not see the utility in adding at least one. And I can't believe there is a firefox extension to block them! People have too much time on their hands. But I guess each to their own, change is not for everyone even if its for the better.

Posted by Cat at 02:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I finally got a chance to read Danah Boyd’s very interesting essay called “Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace” the other day and have been thinking for a while about some of the points she raised. I have recently been very intrigued by the number of conversations, arguments and blog posts surrounding the comparison between the two social networking sites, particularly since Facebook received an enormous amount of new attention from the release of their developer’s platform. However, much of the discussion in this space seemed to revert to unsubstantiated predictions and meaningless bickering, rather than an actual well-thought-out analysis. Boyd has attempted to do this on some level in her essay by actually bringing to the forefront a topic of conversation that, whether you agree with her or not, encourages a more meaningful discussion. She has received a lot of buzz thanks to the article, and apparently a considerable amount of negative opinion as she here attempts to clarify the nature of the essay by specifying that it is not in fact a fully executed paper or finished research study. Regardless, I think the attention called to the subject is indicative of the importance of attempting to understand what patterns and trends, if any, we can view within social networking platforms and if in fact the analyzation of these platforms can provide us with a more complete understanding of social norms that extend beyond the virtual.
Although I have by no means had the opportunity to research as extensively as Boyd into the various ideas that she is presenting, I do have my own thoughts after reading the essay. For those of you who care to read on, here they are:

Continue reading "Thoughts on Class Divisions on Facebook and Myspace" »

Posted by Cat at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As reported on TechCrunch, LinkedIn has plans to launch open API's that will allow developers similar access to what is currently available via the Facebook Platform. It was expected that at least one social networking site would be smart and follow in Facebook's footsteps. But, while this news is certainly a move in the right direction for LinkedIn, I wonder what kind of applications could actually make the site more useful. As I have mentioned before, short of forming connections with my friends and colleagues I admire in my specific industry, I have yet to find any use for LinkedIn. In short, it doesn't seem to work, at least not among most people I know. It is unclear to me if allowing developer access will really change this. I suppose it depends on what developers create.

Posted by Cat at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was actually a pretty informative meeting as far as finding out more about Facebook's mission in creating the developer's platform and their stance on advertising and revenue generation by third party applications (and there was free beer and sushi courtesy of Facebook, which is always good). Basically, everything is wide open. Several issues and questions were brought up by attendees, the most interesting of which was whether or not Facebook's future plan includes developer access to group functionality that could produce more collaborative applications. The response from Dave Morin, Director of Platform at Facebook, who was available from San Francisco via video iChat, was sort of expected - that something was 'in the works' etc.

The interesting thing that came to my mind, particularly after reading this blog post by Marc Andreessen while riding the train home, which quite accurately addresses both the innovative nature of Facebook's decisions and possible problems moving forward, was how Facebook is going to maintain user satisfaction and platform consistency by addressing the problems that may arise from third party services whose servers are not up to the challenge of accommodating such a spike in users from Facebook. Maybe its enough to assume that most users will only add applications that have passed the test or that they won't be too discouraged if something doesn't work and will simply remove it, but I think that really remains to be seen, especially since, as Mark Zuckerberg (who stopped by for a question and answer session) stated, even Facebook itself did not anticipate such an incredible and fast response to their new platform. With some applications growing to 3 million users in just three weeks, it is unlikely that every developer will accurately be able to estimate user response.

Another interesting aspect of the meeting was an application demo by one of the founders and developers from Cruxy , an online service that allows users to share films, music and other forms of digital media in customizable flash players. Their application, which he stated took about a week to build, is scheduled for public release next week. He provided an interesting overview into the development process and problems they ran into along the way. The largest problem he reported was issues with allowing the widget inside a user's profile to update automatically without having to refresh the content. I imagine that this is a significant problem as I have seen many applications use the manual refresh method, including all of the flickr apps i have added and the del.icio.us app (not actually created by flickr or del.icio.us themselves). Perhaps laziness and the desire to just push an application out fast fueled this problem, but I think it was smart of cruxy to fix it before releasing. Now what I want to see is the killer music app! As I mentioned while talking to Amit Gupta, one of the organizers of the Meetup event, a killer music application is what Facebook may need to compete for users with Myspace. Personally, I think they should try to develop one themselves. As Mark Zuckerberg stated, they still are planning to develop their own applications in competition with applications developed outside the platform. On that note, the funniest response of the night came when someone asked Dave Morin if Facebook would have a problem with other social networks developing applications. His response, "We have no problem with that. We hope Myspace makes an app." It will never happen but the challenge has been thrown down nonetheless.

Posted by Cat at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Along with support for seven new languages (launched this morning), Flickr's front page has had somewhat of a face-lift. They seem to be trying to appeal to a larger and different audience, especially with rumors of video coming soon to the site. Other then the floating logo embedded in the picture, it looks pretty nice. Although I still preferred the old simplistic style.

Posted by Cat at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had meaning to check out jaiku for a while after reading about it on several blogs and hearing that it was a much prettier and more functional alternative to twitter. So today I got an account and I have to say, I like it, at least as far as the idea. jaiku is based in Helsinki, Finland (you should definitely check it out Nanna) so unfortunately the North American text messaging component will only be working upon activation of their shortcode. This means that currently it is not really a twitter competitor here yet, but I emphasize yet. The user interface of the site is so much nicer and the service has loads more functionality.

First, the sites developers seem particularly interested in presence, so you add your location to a map. It didn't seem to work when I added thornwood, ny however. Maybe I should have added US? But I like the idea of visualization, even though I have become wary of map interfaces as a way to do this. Jaiku also allows you to add feeds from any site that has one, like your blog, flickr and del.icio.us. They do this by scanning the page for the actual feed rather then logging into your account using a username and password that you provide. This could be more attractive to users that are not comfortable with providing third party companies personal information, but I wonder if they have anticipated people submitting feeds that don't actually belong to them and what they would do if this causes a problem. The nice thing is, any page, site, topic, tag etc that has a feed you can add, which means you are not limited to just providing your own del.icio.us feed for example, but you can actually add the feed for a particular tag. I added the freeFormed RSS for the ITP circle page (YAY!).

Jaiku also has a mobile application for Nokia phones (pretty sure its a python app) and a java app in private beta. I am planning to download the app to my N80, although it is unclear if the service will work in the US right now.

The service also has some pretty cool flash based badges that you can add to other sites (website/blog/msypace/etc...although they don't seem to have a facebook app- perhaps they should look into that):

The site also has channels that users can post to from their phone. The channels don't seem as developed as the rest of the site, however, as I couldn't find any way to create one but they say that they are in alpha so perhaps more functionality is coming.

All in all, I think this site makes much more sense to me then twitter and feels much easier to use for some reason, at least from the web interface. Which is not necessarily the most important thing, as it is obviously a service designed around the mobile phone. But I like their concept of incorporating mobile functionality into a site that also has other functions/purposes and a lifestreaming component. It remains to be seen if it will catch on significantly here, as I'm sure they will not gain many users until their short code is functional. Thumbs up though!

Add me as a contact if you like!

Posted by Cat at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Today I received an API key from Facebook in order to design a freeFormed application for the Facebook platform. Despite my initial skepticism about the new Facebook, the documentation about how to create a Facebook app is so simple, I figured 'why not'. I am still on the fence about if we will actually release this some time soon and must consult other members the team to make sure they are on board. But I imagine if we do decide to do it, our app will be released within the next month.

Posted by Cat at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the last week, I have been reading about, observing and attempting to use the new third party applications now offered by Facebook, developed in an obvious attempt to compete for users and relevance with MySpace and ultimately position Facebook as a super platform and one-stop shop for all of your social software needs. While some of the applications simply mimic functionality that has been afforded to MySpace users for a long time, such as top eight friends, slideshows, html decorating, adding music to your profile and video skins, many of the new applications extend or incorporate functionality from other already widely used services such as del.icio.us, twitter, YouTube, digg, veoh, radar and netflix. Still others are cute little add-ons that allow users to waste even more time, my personal favorites so far are the trips application, locations application and the graffiti on your wall option. Facebook has even attempted to become more socially relevant by adding various political applications, like the one for Obama, and a Causes application that allows users to add causes they support and donate money to them (damn, they stole my idea). While the decision to open up their software to third party applications was a smart move, as opposed to the MySpace strategy of buying up sites like photobucket to make them more proprietary, the question still remains, will this give Facebook the edge to seriously compete against the social networking giant and, more importantly, does the added functionality make Facebook more relevant and situate them as the first real super platform? Certainly the buzz about the new applications has and will continue to increase Facebook’s user base initially, and it has undoubtedly excited those users who already have made Facebook their main social networking platform, but will the buzz continue past the initial stage of discovery?

As someone who previously never really used Facebook, I have found myself signing on a lot more since the applications were released. But my initial distaste for the site has made me skeptical about their overall mission to become a super platform. Sure many of the applications are cool and, setting aside the small amounts of trouble I had using some of them which is to be expected in the first few weeks of launching any new feature, I think that a few of them could actually be useful. But I wonder if the ones that most people are adding are in fact those that simply make their Facebook look more like MySpace. I also wonder if the inclusion of so many third party sites that already have successful platforms of their own is actually helpful, or just increases the noise that one must filter through when signing on. Is it really helpful to add del.icio.us to my profile when I am already very comfortable with the user-interface of the del.icio.us site, as an example? The fact that these applications are add-ons and not actually fully integrated into Facebook is part of the problem. Facebook is still built on the traditional social networking structure; find friends, upload pictures, post comments about your friends etc. This is not to say that this structure is not a popular one. However, I have my own personal doubts about how long this kind of structure will be interesting, particularly among older users. The inclusion of so many different ways to communicate or stream your life on the site does temporarily quench the boredom that I think many MySpace users have begun to feel for instance. But I am not convinced that this structure makes it easier to find out what your friends are doing or find and view all the relevant information your friends are posting elsewhere, particularly for me when they have (for obvious reasons) not included access to my favorite site flickr. (yes, not a big deal, but it still bothers me)

I am also not convinced that the new socially relevant applications will work well in this environment. It is hard enough to get people honestly interested in a particular cause, especially when desired interest is equal to more than a mouse click. As an example, there are 27 thousand members of the Global Warming because I recently added but only $386 dollars in donations. Money, however, is not the only important thing. People need to truly feel like part of a group in order for simple acknowledgement of theoretical support can actually translate into social action. There has also already been the suggestion on the causes comment section that the entire app may in fact be a scam. While I personally don’t think it is, I think this remark suggests that the prefabricated structure, which doesn’t seem to allow users to add their own causes (in the way change.org does), is not really allowing people to actually feel like part of a community working towards a goal. Short of giving money, there seems to be no way to communicate or interact with members of your particular cause. Still, I suppose you can’t blame Facebook for trying.

All in all, I think the addition of the new functionality was a wise competitive decision, but I don’t think it will make Facebook a super platform. It may in fact be true that people want all of their social software needs to be met in one place. I admit that I too am sick of joining so many sites, and remembering my various passwords. But what I have found is that I generally check out everything and then only really use what works for me, something that is usually defined by whether my friends are there, how interesting and useful the site is or whether or not it is fun. Governed by this rule, MySpace, flickr, del.icio.us and iminlikewithyou have won out thus far and, despite the fact that I subscribe to a lot of other services, none of the others have been able to sustain my interest. In addition, I find that, as we all do in the real world, I communicate differently and am represented differently depending on what platform I am using. For instance, I rarely send messages on flickr, rarely comment on photos on MySpace and probably wouldn’t bookmark a stupid cartoon or picture on del.icio.us unless it was really funny. I also don’t know that I would want the same people viewing my LinkedIn to see my MySpace and I think it would be very weird if every stalker friend requesting me on MySpace or flirting with me on iminlikewithyou could have instant access to my flickr. But then again, maybe I’m just old. Ultimately, however, regardless of the different ways we may use different platforms, I think for those who really want it (and I’m sure a lot of people do), the concept of life streaming and the aggregation of information will be best served at a place similar to Wink, which provides third party access to all the places you and your information are, and not through the inclusion of third party services on an already populated and established platform like Facebook. But who knows, I could be wrong.

Posted by Cat at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After reading this article on Lifestream Blog, I decided to sign up for an account on correlate.us, a lifestreaming application that allows you to input feeds from del.icio.us, flickr, lastfm and twitter and has also created an application available on facebook. You can check out my profile here. So far, i am not particularly impressed with the user interface and the graphing feature does not seem to work, as the last time I looked it showed that all of my information was coming from del.icio.us and nothing from flickr. It also seems that the representation of tags is not accurate. Despite these problems (to be expected as this seems to be a side project) the idea is interesting. However, there seems to be no social aspect to the service yet besides using it on facebook, which makes it really not useful to me right now. I clicked on 'my friends' and it gave me no option to invite or find friends.

I have my own opinions on lifestreaming in general, which I will not get into here. But, unless they are planning to do an overhaul of the design and social functionality, I don't think I would use this particular site in its current state.

Posted by Cat at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Megan MacMurray recently invited me to I'm In Like With You , a social networking site emphasizing flirting as a way to, well, be 'in like with someone'. Basically you form connections with other users by posting games and having other people bid on them or by bidding on other people's games. What I am most interested in, though, is the phone component. Apparently, after a game is over, the host and the winner can communicate through sms and call each other without revealing their phone numbers. I don't know if this is a working feature as I currently have a game that is only over tomorrow. But we'll see. Seems like this could be fun. I wonder if it will sustain my interest.

Posted by Cat at 04:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just read this post on Smart Mobs that talks about one of my particular pet peeves with most social networking sites, the inability to contextualize relationships with 'friends'. Although I agree with the general idea that the aggregation of information by those you 'invite' into your 'community' (this post was specifically talking about Twitter, which I obviously have just begun using) is important, so is specificity. The things I want to share with certain 'friends' are not the same things I may want to share with others. Part of the problem with the current architecture of these sites is that everything is public. This creates an atmosphere where the more friends I have, the more I am bombarded with irrelevant information or the more I am unable to sift through relevant or interesting information. This also makes these sites (specifically myspace for example) less relevant in maintaining communication with the people I care about or about interests I care about because there is no way I can address specific things to groups of people.

Obviously, we have tried to address this specific issue with freeFormed. Personally I think its more relevant to have the ability to specify community and then see how these communities create networks within and between each other, rather then making all my individual connections exist on one plane.

Posted by Cat at 04:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Finally got around to posting my final paper for the Social Facts Class. The title of the paper is:

Creating Connections for Disaster Relief in New Orleans
Looking at Social Software and Community Groups

The paper came out of observing community groups working within the city of New Orleans, research that I have done through the class on the ways that groups maintain effectiveness and translate their activities to online environments and thoughts I have had about facilitating social action through social networking.

Here is the PDF.

Posted by Cat at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

freeFormed has submitted a paper for inclusion in I-Media 2007, which will be held in Austria in September of this year. From the Rhizome.org Call for Papers:

I-MEDIA will bring together
traditional media companies, new media start-ups and academics to shape
the future of media technology, and to make the most of distributed text,
audio and video resources.

Beginning in 2007, I-MEDIA will complement I-KNOW (www.i-know.at), the
largest conference on knowledge management of its kind in Europe. This
extension reflects the increasing importance and convergence of knowledge
management and new media technologies. This lets participants of both
conferences benefit from the synergies of both events, in particular from
the presence of different yet related expertise at the same place and
time.

Our paper is called New Architectures for Social Networking: Bridging the Gap with freeFormed.net. Read the PDF here

Posted by Cat at 02:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have become very obsessed recently with StumbleUpon, a firefox add-on that allows you to find websites that match your interests and are well review by other StumbleUpon users. It also allows you to add comments and search comments for whatever website you are on. I know there are other add-ons and plug-ins that allow you to find sites and communicate socially through your browser, but I think I really like this because it is easy, quick, not confusing and it seems to consistently find things that are either interesting or that I would not have searched for myself. If it works for you just beware.... its addicting.

Posted by Cat at 04:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I would've thought, given that the initial motivation behind myspace was to promote bands and music, that this would've happened a long time ago. I know of several sites that have popped up over the last few years that allow unsigned artists to market their music, but this has been non-existant on the social networking giant...at least until now. I was alerted to this phenomenon through a bulletin from my friend's band Next Tribe in which they state that they will now be able to sell downloads of their songs for $1.44. Apparently this is possible due to a partnership between myspace and Snocap, a website that has been offering artists this service since 2005.

The player looks like this:

Interesting. I wonder if it will catch on.

Posted by Cat at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

FreeFormed will be officially launching in alpha testing mode on October 20th. We pushed back the date in order to go live with the most cohesive project possible. All those who signed up for our intial testing phase last semester will still have access to their media through their original usernames and passwords. However, in order to get in initially, you will have to send a text message to join@freeformed.org. Until the date aforementioned, the freeformed site will be inaccessible and redirect to the freeformed blog. This blog will be a portal where we will discuss new features, functionality and problems. It will also be a better way for us to inform users about everything freeformed. Information relevant to other classes/subjects, I will continue to post here, but please visit the freeformed blog for more freeformed specific information.

Tomorrow we will be at the Indentity and Identification in a Networked World Graduate Student Symposium. Please feel free to come by and check us out.

Posted by Cat at 03:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I signed on to Facebook this morning I was greeted (in my news feed) with a message that Facebook will now be open to everyone, allowing those who did not go to college or graduated before facebook was in existence to join regional networks. Facebook insists that this does not effect current users' privacy because unless you add a regional network, your profile will still only be available for viewing by people in your college, high school or work networks. Most interesting about this open wall policy is the following statement on new users signing up, "If new regional users cannot authenticate through an email address, we prompt them to authenticate through a mobile phone number. This makes sure that they are real people.". Interesting.

It is obvious that Facebook is desperately trying to extend its popularity and relevance. While I am definitely of the opinion that an effective social network should let users decide what their networks are and not be exclusionary, I doubt that this decision by Facebook will necessarily bring large numbers of new users. It seems, from my limited exploring of Facebook, that the site has primarily been a place for people who go to the same school to find each other and keep in contact. I don't know that it is going to be so easy for the site to redefine itself in a 'myspace' sort of way and I'm not completely convinced that its relevant for them to try.

Posted by Cat at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I thought this was funny. Okay, no more facebook postings I promise.

Posted by Cat at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Thanks to Yonatan for the link to this article on techcrunch. I think the author is missing the point. While many users may be revolting because of privacy issues, I think my largest problem is the fact that the information provided is haphazardly arranged and some of it is completely irrelevant. And to say that these 'feeds' will prevent users from visiting their friends' pages I think is very inaccurate.

Posted by Cat at 07:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I became a new user of Facebook over the summer, mostly because I was talked into it by a certain friend of mine. Having already fully integrated by life into myspace and flickr (the only two media/social networking sites that I had ever really developed any interest in) I have to admit that my first impressions of Facebook were somewhat negative. It also didn't help that a search for people from both of my high schools and my undergrad major at NYU yeilded only two results!!! (both of whom I was not friends with) I'm sure part of it is an age thing, at 26 perhaps I'm a social-networking-site-old-fart. It was also somewhat disappointing when I eventually learned that a good portion of my friends, most of whom either never went to college, no longer have their college email addresses or don't work for large enough companies to be represented on Facebook, could not join the site even if they wanted to. In addition, for the friends of mine from undergrad who still have their nyu emails, their appeared to be no incentive to join. What was the point of getting a profile if they were both no longer in school and not able to find/reconnect with many people from school because they simply weren't on Facebook, especially when most of them were already on myspace? Isn't the point of any online network supposed to be to find and invite people that you would actually WANT to reconnect with, keep up with and speak to!

However, I quickly realized that something interesting WAS going on here, something that was very different from the 'anything goes, everyone can join' aspect of myspace. Current friends of mine that had been hesitant about even joining Flickr, seemed to be much more comfortable with the Facebook format. Perhaps the element of exclusivity and privacy within networks made them feel safer then the ultra-public quality of some of the other more popular sites. It seems that the structure of Facebook gave off a more mature vibe then the cluttered profiles of myspace and people felt less likely to be compromising their privacy. I also found that some of the features on Facebook, such as the mobile posting component and the ability to have unlimited photographs and albums gave the site a slight 'media' edge to the myspace '16 photo limit'.

However, the new re-design of Facebook appears to be taking the site in a direction that is much more similar to that of myspace and, besides its random and irrelevant feel, may scare off certain users who considered the site to be less about stalking and developing an online persona and more about communicating. Undoubtedly, within the larger networks of people, their would be many that one would not know, and so the ability or tendency to look at the profiles of strangers or spy on friends of friends within your network could exist. But for the most part, because the profiles of users are not visible to those outside their network and because the former format of Facebook seemed to encourage conversation between people who already know eachother, the stalker-component, present very much on sites like myspace and even flickr where one can get added as a contact and have their photos viewed by complete strangers, seemed to not be as present. With the new format, however, the minute you are logged in you are presented with a 'feed' that includes all of the changes and additions that your 'friends' have made, including it seems, the adding of people to a friend's contacts that you yourself are not friends with. While at first this may seem interesting or relevant, it really isn't. First of all, when someone writes on your wall, comments on one of your pictures or otherwise interacts with your Facebook page, you are sent an email (with the exclusion of the 'poking' which I still do not fully understand). Why the minute that I am logged to do I need to be informed about all of the many actions my friends have taken within the last month on the site? More then that, however, the information appears to be randomly arranged in a way that doesn't even make any sense. Presumably, if I am interested in what one of friends is doing, or what pictures they have uploaded recently etc., I will visit their profile. I DO NOT need to be made immediately aware that some person I don't know commented on one of their pictures or that they became friends with so-and-so five minutes ago. Also, when I visit my profile, I do not need a list of all of the things I have 'done' on the site recently, arranged haphazardly. I am me, I know what I said, whose wall I commented on, etc. Perhaps a link, as what flickr does, to 'things I've done recently' would be better, or maybe not. In short, these 'feeds' feel very much like an encouragement of stalking behavior.

I think the other reason I feel somewhat negative about the new design is because I HATE it when any website tries to throw in your face what the creators think is important information. Many people disagree with me on this, but I feel that when creating any sort of platform that encourages users to communicate online, either with words or media, it is more valuable to allow the users to determine the information THEY feel is important. I don't like being told what my 'network' is, for instance, because real relationships in the real world that are important to people do not neceesarily fall within the category of a particular network that is defined around school or work or any other completely measurable parameter. On myspace, for example, I HATE it that I can't categorize my 'friends' into groups of people that better reflect my actual relationship with them, short of listing those who I feel are my 'top 8', which often has more to do with inter-friendship politics then actual feelings. Why would this be important? Maybe its not. But for instance, if I send out a bulletin, it goes to everyone when only a handful of the people in my 'friends' may actually be interested in that particular event/comment/story or whatever. I also get incredibly frustrated with flickr's 'interestingness' category. Supposedly, it is determined by a bunch of factors yada-yada-yade, but in reality my most interesting pictures of those of me in bathing suit. Hmm, wonder why that is!

In short, the new re-design of Facebook sucks and seems to be motivated by a less used and less valuable platform's desire to become more 'interesting'. In reality, it makes it that much more annoying.

Posted by Cat at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Perhaps this is evidence that myspace is good for something (research), or perhaps not...in any case, from someone's myspace profile I found this site which gives you a voice record module that allows people to leave you voice messages online:

You call the number specified and leave a message entering in the code provided and then it comes up online. Problems? Well, first, it seems that the number is long distance, which I suppose is fine since most cell phones have free long distance, but it would be nice if it was an 800 number. Second, the player is sort of ugly. And third, the comments are really in response to nothing in particular and there appears to be no way to control who leaves you comments (no filtering system). Still, its kind of interesting. Try it out, leave me a message...for no apparent reason.

Posted by Cat at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few months ago, Jadie Oh did a presentation of her Cyworld page for the freeFormed crew. I had heard of Cyworld before, and had read about it its alarming popularity in Korea. However, since the whole site is in Korean, I had never really been able to ascertain exactly what they were doing or how people were using the site. Jadie showed us her personal Cyworld, describing the various components of one's profile and the clubs she belonged to etc. It looked, at first, like an ingenious idea. She had her own miniroom, which could be decorated with 'furniture' bought from Cyworld's online store using the site's currency 'acorns'. Apparently, in Korea, the purchases are automatically changed to your mobile phone bill, as SK Telecom, one of Korea's largest telecommunication companies own Cyworld. In your profile you could also upload pictures, write journal entries, display comments from friends, make sketches, have photo albums and decorate your very own minime. On the technology side, the profiles are designed in Flash so that it is relatively easy to place and drag purchased items for your miniroom to their desired locations. At the time when were all reviewing the site, Jadie told us that it would eventually be coming to the US. I had no idea it would happen this quickly, but apparently Cyworld is now