Why Facebook will Go the Way of the Dodo

This is a post I’ve had rolling around in my head for several weeks now, and while it may be a little behind the times I’m going to get it out of my system anyway.

On May 24th of this year, the social network sensation Facebook introduced the ability to create applications for use on on the site. They range from useful things like a feed to del.icio.us links, to pointless, fun things like gifts, plants, pets, and one of my favourites, The Honesty Box. (“What do you really think of me? Answers are completely anonymous!”)

At first these things seemed like a fun way to jazz up the uniform Facebook UI and give each profile its own unique look, as well as provide a way, if you’re a developer, to share your creativity with your friends. That’s all fine and good, until the sheer amount of clutter starts to overwhelm the core features of the site.

I’ve seen quite a few complaints about “application invite/request spam”. A good example, large screenshot included, is a recent post from Paul S’s blog. It clearly demonstrates how out of hand things can get when you have a lot of friends enthusiastically using and sharing their favourite applications. Personally, I don’t have this problem – I guess because a lot of my closest friends are of the same mind as me, and maybe partly because I’ve never replied or sent requests to anyone else.

While I’m sure application spam is a legitimate concern for a lot of people, my main beef comes from a design perspective. (Not that I have any sort of qualification, other than being a 12-year-or-so veteran of internet browsing.) To put it simply, a lot of people’s Facebook profiles are ugly now. Myspace-ugly. The reason a lot of college/university students embraced Facebook in the beginning was because it was a welcome change from the loud, obnoxious Myspace pages with background music and colour schemes that look like my sister’s bedroom in the early 90’s. Let’s compare, shall we? Here’s what profile pages looked like back in the day; ie. when I joined about 14 months ago:

By the way, I don’t know this guy. The image is from Google. But it demonstrates how nice and clean things used to be. Nowadays you’re more likely to see something like this:

It’s not that I have some grudge against colours. This particular example isn’t really too bad. (Again, from Google.) None of the apps pictured here are stupid or pointless, nor do they even look that bad. With this guy we’d be looking at a functionality issue, where the information you’re looking for could easily get lost in all the other data that’s there.

Here are two beliefs that I hold:

Number One: Mainstream trends are leaning more and more toward sleekness and minimalism. I’m sure we can all agree that Apple has been at the forefront of this revolution. Just look at the iPhone or the iPod Touch to witness the ultimate example of minimalist design in consumer electronics. It’s what appeals to people these days. We see the same abstract themes in the design of cars and other material things. This might be a bit of a stretch for some people, but if you think about it, the same or similar elements of design are often present in everything from web browsers to electric shavers. (You may snicker at me for putting so much emphasis on fashion, but I would challenge you to provide a convincing argument that aesthetics aren’t an enormous part of secular culture.)

Number Two: Convenience is a hugely important factor in our day to day lives, especially when it comes to computer usage. Well-designed websites make data access as easy as possible, with more information readily available. It’s organized and uncluttered. Period.

Facebook is moving away from both these things. It has taken two steps backward in allowing users to transform its look into something reminiscent of the chaotic Myspace era, while simultaneously making it harder to access information. Which leads me to my next point: Facebook also gives users a huge amount of privacy settings, so that they can modify their page in almost any way imaginable to hide or limit certain aspects from the world, or just certain people – like parents. Maybe it’s because I’m more willing to police my own content, but I can’t identify with people who feel that they need to block access to their profile page from folks they don’t have listed as friends. While it’s possible that there are some people who only want their friends to know that they like watching The Hills, (understandable) I think the major concern is with items like contact information and Wall posts.

I say, if it’s something you’d be worried about somebody knowing, then don’t post it at all. If your friend needs your new address, that’s what private messages are for. Back in April, the cover story from Wired magazine talked about how transparency is the best policy for business and social interaction these days, and increasingly so in the coming years. I won’t spend time going into that, but in a nut shell, just think of it in terms of: “Nothing To Hide = Trust”. Make sense? I think so. It’s a better idea to not publicly share things in the first place and be prepared to put forward the tiny bit of effort required to moderate content, rather than bluntly hide information and make people wonder.

So, in the end, what we’re seeing is Facebook making 3 major mistakes. Still, its popularity is on the rise even now, and I’m sure its success isn’t near its end yet. I’m just saying we’ve seen the beginning of the end. I think Google’s on the same page as me, considering that some information’s recently leaked about a few web apps they’ll be putting out that will challenge Facebook head-on.

Anyhoo. Time will tell. Right now time’s telling me it’s time to pack up and book it to Zoology.

Anyone Want 20 Million Bucks?

Google has put out a challenge to send a robot to the moon, have it travel around taking pictures and video, and then beam the media back to Earth. The first person to pull this off wins twenty million dollars, or up to thirty million if they pull off some extra stuff like lasting longer. The whole story is here from Wired.

Upon first reading this, I was like WOW COOL!!!! And I guess I’m still saying that. In addition, as part of a fundraising campaign, the NPO X Prize Foundation is initiating something called the Lunar Legacy Program. Anyone who donates 10 dollars to the program can upload a photograph to the X Prize Foundation’s website, along with a message. The money is being used to fund the project, which I’m guessing involves paying the international panel of judges that are watching for under-the-table government handouts.

All those photos and messages are being put on DVDs and rocketed to the moon to be left as artifacts of human exploration. Pretty cool, actually. I think I’ll do it. Here’s the Wired article with more info.

However, after that “Wow Cool!” factor subsides a bit, I start thinking to myself, “wouldn’t a more productive use of Google’s money be some kind of donation to refugees out of Darfur or something?” Truthfully, being the world issues-ignorant son of a gun that I am, I don’t even know if there are Darfurian refugees. But my point is hopefully clear: how important is this robotic space race? They say they hope to ignite innovation through holding the contest – innovation whose results will hopefully benefit humankind…somehow. Any ideas on how this might lead up to something beneficial? I’m worn out from a full day of school.

Oh, and for past 20 minutes or so, this random asian girl a few feet away from me has been snapping photo after photo of pages from a huge book. I can’t be sure from this distance, but I think that camera is a Sony. She is taking some high quality pictures. Is that even legal? Maybe it is. I should read up on this stuff. For now I have to get back home because my buddy Stefan is coming over tonight to help me move furniture. Hey Google dudes, can I have 20 million if I get a chest of drawers down two flights of stairs without scratching anything? Please?

Aloha Mahalo: Man vs. Algorithm

Today was the launch date for the Alpha version of one of the most interesting web startups I’ve seen in a while. It’s called Mahalo.

Mahalo is designed to be a search engine to rival Google and Yahoo. The main thing it does differently is power itself with people instead of algorithms. In this sense, many people are saying it’s more like a wiki than a search engine. An information directory. If that’s all Mahalo will ever be, let it be known that it’s probably the most attractive one out there. I mean – that’s got to count for something, right? Nevertheless, it’s been met with a waterfall of dogged criticism from pretty much the entire Interweb. I wonder if the venture capitalists are sweating yet. Apparently it’s got some impressive financial backing.

But you know what? I tried Mahalo out, and I happened to like it. In all fairness, even if the new search engine on the block’s not going to dethrone anyone, I think the creators deserve a lot of credit. The query results page is nicely done, and little details and features are well thought-out. The amount of information on each result page is plentiful but not overwhelming.

To show you how it works, I slapped down a quick search for the movie Knocked Up, which premiers tomorrow in theatres. Here’s what the results page looks like:

As you can see, the first portion of results are the top 7 most relevant links. In this case, they give you the film’s official site, its Wikipedia entry, IMDb profile, and so on. After that they divvy up the results by categories such as Photo and Video. A sidebar gives you the most basic and probably most sought-after information, such as the fact that it stars Seth Rogan and the lovely Katherine Heigl of Grey’s Anatomy prestige. Mahalo also places little icons next to some links, which are explained in a legend at the bottom. Hovering over one of the little yellow exlclamation icons will give you a little warning like, “this site is Flash-heavy” or “incoming popup!” This is what I was referring to earlier as “well-thought out details”. Features like this are fairly common, but often more obtrusive. Another fun little addition is the inclusion of credit to the page’s creator. (Amusing aside: The guy who wrote the result for Knocked Up is an actor. An actor working for a web startup. Here I thought I was one of a kind.)

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention is the fact that, since it’s really new, there are plenty of things Mahalo doesn’t have a hand-written page for yet. A search for “Muse”, (whom I’ve been listening to pretty well non-stop all day today) yielded an apology for incompleteness, followed by some of the top Google results they throw in for you. Anyhow, who knows if this thing will ever fly, but I think it’s pretty neat. I’ll be watching its career with great interest. (First person to identify the reference gets a cookie.)

In other nooz, signups for the muchly anticipated MMO Warhammer Online’s Closed Beta opened today. I applied, although I doubt they’d grant me access seeing as I have no prior experience with beta testing. Come to think of it, I could have just lied my head off and they’d probably have been none the wiser. Oh well.

Another random note, I have a whole whack of Joost invites now if anyone’s interested. If you’d like one, just drop me a comment and I’ll hook you up. Though, interestingly, when I was perusing Digg today I found something that could conceivably be a superior alternative to Joost. It’s called MyEasyTV.com and it lets you stream content from a myriad of popular television channels…supposedly. I haven’t had a lot of time to fool around with it yet, but I tried getting Fox Soccer without any luck or explanation of error.

And remember my big exodus from Firefox to everything else under the sun, and how I eventually settled on Camino? Well, I’ve actually had no end of problems with Camino as well recently – problems that I’d dub even worse than those that plagued me with Firefox. For instance, I almost lost this entire entry while writing it, just a couple paragraphs ago, for reasons I can’t explain. Fortunately Blogger’s new Auto-save feature saved me from going completely bananas from losing so much writing. If I had to be descriptive about the problems I’ve been having, I’d say it crashes all the time like Firefox did and also screws up web pages, especially when dealing with input fields. My diagnosis? Time for a new browser. Again. God help me.