Facebook and Extraordinary Popular Delusions

bobreb — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 20:37:29 GMT

I've been experimenting with Facebook -- like some 18.5 million others. My four main conclusions (and an observation) follow:

It has personal social value -- that is, I enjoy keeping up with my friends, and almost friends.
At the moment, it's not much good for anything else.
That's good enough for Facebook
There's more to life.

Personal Social Value: I do enjoy the richer personal social dimension online social networking has added to my life. No doubt about it. Facebook's activity focus has made them the social computing mind share leaders. Most other players are just collections of personal expression features. (As an aside, "almost friends" is an interesting dimension. I have to believe that having hundreds of almost friends cuts back on the time you can devote to actual friends. Not a trade-off I want to make, not to mention an unfortunate message to send to everyone on your list.)

Not good for anything else: I've tried, but (speaking only for myself of course) I can't find another redeeming value. There are examples outside of Facebook for every more specialized app I've tried that are superior in every way. Moving between tabs on my browser is not sufficiently difficult for me to consider putting up with second class services. Facebook as one-stop social computing shopping is, for me -- so far -- nonsense.

That's good enough: At least for them, and in fact for me -- for those things I use it for. They're serving a need nearly as fundamental as food and shelter and doing a fine job of it.

There's more to life: So much more, in fact, that I lack the words to describe it.

For example, in my own information worker world my simple RSS reader continues to deliver more value than Facebook and all its apps combined. The gap is dramatic. I could go on and on about how weak FB is in terms of association management, and how limited in terms of association type. I'll save that observation, and the opportunities it makes clear, for another post.

I'm not in any way suggesting Facebook is vulnerable because it doesn't do all things for all people. Assuming nothing dramatic happens, ridicules as that assumption is, I think they can look forward to open road ahead. On top of that, if they open their API and data stores further, we all could end up with a free jumpstart on more focused social computing experiences. (With all that said, I'd love the opportunity to compete with them. Note: that would be compete, not copy, and not race.)

What I am saying is that with or without Facebook there remain enormous opportunities in the social computing space. FB is only social computing of the (relatively) strong tie kind: cool, but not the end of the story.

I recently asked a Facebook question regarding the perceptions my friends have of the value of Facebook for the information worker in terms of capturing and managing information. Not one of my friends answered that Facebook had any significant value today in that regard. However every one that responded (so far) has said it would, or could, someday deliver said value. To what extent do we permit the idea that someday FB could do something to impact our decisions today?

Yesterday came across the following quote. I think it's relevant.

"Have you ever seen in some wood, on a sunny quiet day, a cloud of flying midges -- thousands of them -- hovering, apparently motionless, in a sunbeam? ...Yes? ...Well, did you ever see the whole flight -- each mite apparently preserving its distance from all others -- suddenly move, say three feet, to one side or the other? Well, what made them do that? A breeze? I said a quiet day. But try to recall -- did you ever see them move directly back again in the same unison? Well, what made them do that? Great human mass movements are slower of inception but much more effective."

Facebook observation

bobreb — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 01:46:08 GMT

My experience with Facebook has been great. I'm somehow engaged with Facebook nearly every day -- sometimes multiple times a day.

Of course I'm there not only as a participant, but as an analyst. That changes the experience. Think of it this way -- if you read several books on the subject of writing books, then your book reading experience changes. You no longer simply enjoy the story, you find yourself studying the techniques the author has employed to impart life to the characters, develop the plot, maintain through-line, manage tension, build a believable world, and more.

So, as a social computing person, I find much to study in Facebook. Consider this: Facebook, through the use of shared applications, allows friend networks to define their own fluid identity. Put another way, affiliations are defined not only by friend status and group memberships, but by the applications people share. Facebook apps are introduced by any member, then compete in what I suspect could be drawn as a classic fitness landscape. Usage equals survival.

I believe "ownership" of the apps in play at any time, across an affiliated network of friends, is a key ingredient contributing to the stickiness of the experience. That leads to the following social computing design principle: users own the experience. Give them building blocks, not finished experiences.

Of course, many of these general purpose social services give users control over their UI -- over presentation. Interestingly, Facebook doesn't do as much of that (wall, superwall, html widget, and some other examples, aside). Clearly not like MySpace (or Piczo, which I think has a great UI for simple customization). With Facebook, identity is defined through a different balance of expression and affiliation.

Imagination exercise: consider the tier-three design model I proposed earlier (as an essential reframing -- broadening -- of the social computing phenomenon). Next, superimpose clouds of shared social apps on top of and relating the connected people icons -- indistinct edges and all. You might start by imagining one app at a time. Now maybe you're seeing what I'm seeing. Don't let that worry you, it's not permanent. You'll feel fine in the morning.

What I find curious is that the Facebook experience designers (if they even have roles of that sort) haven't attempted to reinforce the shared spaces visually. Wouldn't it be interesting to experiment with ways of adding, to the individual's UI (opt in, of course, and with tools to customize), attributes that depict the affiliations in play?

Process of Change : facebook

Facebook and Extraordinary Popular Delusions

Facebook observation