I saw someone comment on this today and decided to check it out. Facebook is beta testing English (Pirate) as a language. Playing with it for just a few minuets I cannot help but laugh every so often when I see something funny. See what I am talking about for yourself enjoy!
Want to enjoy some of this fun… Scroll down to the bottom of your Facebook page, click on English (US). A dialogue box will prompt you with a list of languages. You are then just 2 clicks away from Facebook being fun again via Pirate!
Today at the facebook conference F8 an attempt to take over the world went on display. Today it became crystal clear that Facebook doesn’t just want to dominate social they want to dominate the web!
It seems like Facebook wants a like on every web page… personally I cant help but wonder how the IRS will fair on that front.
Facebook wants to eliminate Google as a search tool. This probably indicates a consumer e-mail format in the near future.
Facebook announced a very interesting collaborative effort with Microsoft… Docs.com. This is a full attack on Google docs. Offering real time collaboration and document sharing online, the age of the cloud is very close.
Facebook connect is gone… now you just sign in with Facebook, and this has been extended to much smaller sites.
The days of being a fan are over…now everyone just likes stuff. As a result I will have a hard time following celeb pages. I can see it now “Mike likes Kobe Bryant” awkward….
If you paid attention a few months ago Facebook signed a partnership with Paypal… which will likely make them a huge player in the e-commerce biz.
The current make up of the digital landscape feels like this
Facebook V Google ::Google V Apple :: Microsoft V Apple
Apple V Amazon :: Microsoft V Google :: Google V Yahoo
Microsoft V Yahoo :: Yahoo V Facebook
Making Twitter::
This could be World War 3 depending on where you stand!
I’m going to repost something I put on my personal Tumblr…I’ve been trying experiments with my personal (not affiliated with Nostrum) blogs to see which I liked better, Tumblr or Wordpress or what, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far, for my needs as an individual blogger. For Nostrum and our purposes as a multi-writer blog, I definitely like our current system of a WordPress blog with all of us writing and a Twitter feed for the little spur-of-the-moment things. For individuals, however, I’m thinking Tumblr will come to play an increasingly useful role, although for the moment the point is kind of moot since so few of my friends are on the site!
Repost starts now:
“Okay, I’ve tried it. I’ve decided to stop linking my Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr feeds. It’s waaaay too crowded. What feels like a totally normal amount of communication on Twitter seems excessive (embarrassingly excessive) on Tumblr, and just AWFUL on Facebook. Some people may be all about the integration and the one-stop-shop publishing, but it seems to me to be completely redundant. Why would a reader go to 3-10 different platforms to read the same information? A little cross promotion to alert followers form different venues that one platform has been updated is one thing…the same thing all over is just lazy.
I guess this makes sense considering what I use each service for. Wordpress is for really long, drawn-out, detailed posts. Tumblr is for medium-sized notes. Facebook is for communicating ONLY with people I know in real life. Twitter is for stream of consciousness posting of things I find interesting, fan-girl worship of authors and comedians, and Etsy/craft madness. It comes as no surprise to me that Twitter is still the one I like best. Call it a symptom of modern ADD or whatever you like, but I like being able to catalog the things that strike my fancy at a particular moment. Honestly, I sometimes find it the most useful to go back and read what the hell I was thinking about this morning at 10am.”
In essence, what I’ve discovered (I always knew it intellectually but actually remembering NOT TO DO IT is a totally different thing) is that publishing the same content across every single one of your platforms is a BAD IDEA. Cross promotion is good and useful, but the same content on every site makes it pointless for a user/follower/friend to go to more than one platform, and therefore you’re likely to cause your readers to miss something when you DO post something new on one site and not the others. In other words, keep it fresh. Don’t be redundant.
Following up on Mike’s previous post about Google Buzz, I totally get the furor about it. The service definitely needs work, and Google has definitely made a whole lot of big mistakes.
But hey, it’s new. That’s the downside of a service being released by such a huge, publicly visible company. Twitter and Facebook were NOT famous when they were released. They weren’t globally famous for years after they were founded. They had plenty of time to make changes, fixes, and tweaks based on quiet user feedback. Google Buzz had the disadvantage of going very public, very quickly. It wasn’t finished. And it got slammed. Now I wonder whether Google will have enough time to fix it and realize its potential before it gets laughed out of existence.
I think it would be nice if Buzz went back to beta. Google definitely needs more time to tweak it, and they need a setting to get real constructive criticism instead of media snarking. I still think the service has a lot of potential. I like Pete Cashmore’s take on it. If you insist on using an analogy to define Buzz, try this one. Think of Facebook as the local bar, where you go to hang out with your friends, play some games, and just shoot the breeze. Think of Twitter as the village square where you get all the news and have public conversations. It’s a public forum. Then you have Buzz, which SHOULD eventually become a place to focus detailed conversations on IDEAS. Not news, not people, not “what are you doing” or those awesome photos you took on your trip to Cabo this spring, man. It’s a platform to talk about content and have major brainstorming sessions about concepts and projects.
If Facebook is the local bar and Twitter is the town square, Google Buzz (I hope) will be the local college campus.
I’ve said before that I like Google Wave as a productivity tool–an easy way to keep work projects neat, tidy, and collaborative at the office. I don’t find much utility for connecting with friends about random things. It’s a business thing, and I like it that way. I think Buzz will end up being sort of similar in market, although I hope more concept-oriented and less business-y.
If you don’t get Google Buzz that’s ok because most people don’t. The network has merit and is important but you have to know what to expect.
Below is a list of things Google Buzz is not.. (Even though everyone is trying to say it is)
Buzz is not…
If you think you are joining another twitter you might be disappointed. Twitter is great for engaging on conversations. On buzz conversations happen but in a different way. I have read the hundreds of blogs that say Buzz is Twitter+FriendFeed but they are wrong. I understand how the mistake can be made. To be honest I made the mistake and I was wrong. Twitter is about short quick conversations happening at a rapid pace, it is a much different experience than having long engaged posts about content.
Buzz is not…
Facebook is a network that is locked down tighter than your grandmas lawn chair. Facebook is all about Privacy privacy privacy and more privacy! If you want to be found by only people that know you than this is the network for you. There are almost never any surprises on this network. You have your people that play games, the people that use it to post links only, the people who engage in conversations about how much they like sunglasses. Its a network of people who share stuff going on in their lives… that you know!
Buzz is not…
Sorry everyone that would declare buzz and friendfeed the same thing… they are not. Buzz may share some elements but it is something different. If you don’t use Google reader often/ don’t share stuff on it than this knock might not make sense. Google reader is what sets Google buzz apart. Google buzz has the best RSS integration ever. I can literally see the best of what people are reading in their RSS readers because they share it. I don’t have to find the links or blogs they are come to me.
Dont get me wrong buzz shares elements with these networks…
Open searches like Twitter
Full comment threads like Facebook
Buzz can even be a hub of Social media like Friendfeed
But to say one is like the other isnt really fair… In time people will figure out that Buzz is different… sadly that will take some time. If I were to point to any social network that buzz would be closest too I’d have to pick…
Google buzz is out! It was out yesterday however I didn’t have access until today. As with any new social network buzz is going to take time for it to find its place and function. Keep in mind that Google buzz is still a very young network (like 2 days old) clearly this means that it is not the final product. After using the product for about 15 minutes I think there is huge opportunity for business. However buzz is going to require engagement on the next level! Without a search feature you are going to need to be interesting to gain a following.
Some notes on Google Buzz
1. Google buzz does feature twitter “integration”. I put that in quotes because it will post your tweets to your buzz account. However buzz doesn’t use the O-auth or function like an API. Im not a fan of this because I always have and always will dream of the world when everything I want is on one dashboard… (I know there are a few sites that try but they are laggy and frustrating).
2. As far as I can tell google buzz lacks a searching feature … like twitter searchwhich is ironic Apparently buzz does offer a twitter search look in comments blow great tip..
3. This is a network that will take some time to generate momentum… while this point may seem obvious… Google has millions of gmail accounts so some might assume an instant hit. However when you look at the bell curve gmail is nearing the laggard phase of adoption. That means many users are going to ignore it until everyone else figures it out.
4. Some evidence suggests that the product might be getting released a little ahead of schedule because of the so called “Facebook Titan project”. (Gmail v Facebook) This could be the reason why google buzz noticeably ignores Facebook as a social component.
5. There are many people suggesting that Google buzz will turn into a Digg or Reddit personally I cant imagine that google would have made such a large investment if that was the goal. The digg conclusion doesn’t seem logical because Google probably would have just purchased a company like it… (hipstr has been toying with selling for a while now)
If you are still wondering what the heck Im talking about here is a quick video about Google buzz…
My wife and I weren’t going to watch the Grammys, neither of us ever have. In general we are not huge fans of award shows and our dial rarely ever goes below Channel 4. However last night something happened. As we were on twitter and Facebook we took notice of all the post’s talking about how crazy this Gaga person looked. Other posts were highlighting how amazing the Black Eyed Peas did, and still others that poked fun at every opportunity. It was at that moment we realized we had a choice watch the Grammys or find ourselves irrelevant.
Last night CBS added eyes via Social media are you?
There’s been a lot of talk about what Facebook is intending to do with Facebook Lite. Is it intended to allow users in countries with sporadic internet connectivity to access Facebook? Is it intended to compete with Twitter? Probably yes to both. But that’s not why I like it.
*I* like Facebook Lite because it removes distractions like apps, notifications, and “Highlights” (which I always found particularly obnoxious) and scales Facebook back to the way it looked five years ago, when I was a freshman in college. Ah, it was a simpler time. Maybe not so flashy-looking, not so completely-involved-in-every-moment-of-your-life…but nice. Easy to navigate. Clean. If only it were still open to users with a valid .edu email address, it’d be just like the good ol’ days.
Yes, that’s right. The reason I like Facebook Lite is nostalgia. Pure and simple. Incidentally, Tanya, I always liked Keropi.
Anyway, tangled, incoherent, 5pm on Friday waffle aside, the point is that I think it’s a great idea for a company that has overexposed itself to go back to its roots, its one core product, and start fresh.
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