On Aug 14, 2009, at 9:45 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> It is my impression that those who praise the spread of this
> technology tend to do so for populist and anti-elite sentiments
> (e.g. the old popular versus high culture divide) - but this is just
> an impression.
>
You are probably referring to left circles, but in a more general sense, the people gushing about this stuff are kool-aid drinkers or those whose activities/careers are tied to the success of these things -- TechCrunch, LifeHacker et al *have* to believe that these technologies are revolutionary (but perhaps only in a geek/pop sense) -- however, to give them their due, I think at least one among them (RWW?) has been sceptical regarding the cloud computing buzz. There is also, I think, in the USA, a general compulsion to be upbeat and optimistic (quite the opposite of the general attitude back in the old countries ;-), as you will no doubt agree).
The old-timer's disdain is equally exaggerated (as Carrol points out), conflating aesthetic displeasure and general irritation with more level-headed analysis. Take me: I hate FriendFeed with a passion because of how horrendously fugly it is, which almost prevents me from pondering on any benefits it might offer despite the UI.
> [WS:} May be or may be not. Perhaps media like twitter attracts
> predominantly those who do not much more to say than a 140 character
> line of text, while those who have more to say gravitate toward
> other media, like facebook or lbo-talk.
>
> The point is not really whether short-text-message media are good or
> bad (they are what they are, neither good not bad) but whether they
> are made into signifiers of something else that connote social
> status (or lack thereof) and desirability (or lack of it.)
I am sure this sort of thing (signification?) plays a part in the adoption and use, but really, to address the first paragraph above, it (Twitter, etc) draws users because IMHO its what people of that generation find handy. The 1/2 generation before mine uses the telephone. I don't like the telephone's interrupt driven, async communication model. Email is more polite, IM services let me denote my availability, etc. Skype or Gizmo offer a meld on one platform, while texting + mobile phones do the same on the other.
On Aug 13, 2009, at 11:49 PM, // ravi wrote:
> It's 11:50pm and I am going to dip into tomorrow's (or rather the
> day after's) quota and post just this one:
>
> On Aug 13, 2009, at 5:05 PM, Bob Morris wrote:
>> I frequently find more useful stuff to blog by doing a Twitter /
>> FriendFeed
>> search than on Google. And now Facebook will have a similar real
>> time search
>>
>> With Facebook buying Friendfeed for their development crew and
>> search (among
>> other things), things are going to get real interesting, Some uber-
>> geeks
>> think the real target is Google.
>>
>> http://www.steverubel.com/photo-facebook-search-social-news-search
>>
>> This, folks, is a very very big deal. And it's just the beginning.
>> If you
>> think about the number of sites that use Facebook Connect and
>> ponder whether
>> the crawl could span to those satellites as well, suddenly you can
>> see a new
>> era for search emerging. Google should be scared. Facebook may have
>> a leg in
>> here - if they can keep their community growing.
>>
>
> First of all who is this Rubel guy? Second, I am going to go out on
> a limb here and say, WTF? I mean, I know that in the tech blogistan
> (TechCrutch ;-), ReadWriteWeb, sites like that) there has been a lot
> of hand-wringing about why the god-awful FriendFeed isn't more
> popular. But really, don't you think you have to do a bit more work
> (no, I am not going to read Steve Rubel, so please do not point me
> back to the link), than a passing reference to Facebook Connect
> (what is the number of sites using FB connect anyway?), to explain
> how a social network site coupled with an aggregator of other
> assorted endearing inanities, is going to index the web in a manner
> that threatens Google?
>
I gave in and went and read the Steve Rubel piece. First a clarification: the part that omes after the URL in Bob Morris's post quoted above (the part that starts with "This, folks, is a very big deal."), is not Bob Morris speaking, as I had thought while writing my response, but is a quote from this dude Rubel. Bob unfortunately did not provide any indication of that fact.
Having read the short piece, I remain amused by the hype, but I want to throw in a charitable interpretation: as some like to see it, Google is in the targeted advertising business. Search (search terminology) is the blunt tool that enables them to target the advertisements, earning the billions that they distribute in free food and other amenities to disadvantaged geeks. Search is a bit blunt because it creates a profile of the target (the human-being doing the search) based merely on the terms he or she is searching for. Facebook, to which millions willingly surrender deep and fine information about themselves and their friends, under whose watch they carry out their day to day interactions, ostensibly offers advertisers a much better platform for targeting their ware. And Facebook Connect, a mechanism by which third-party services can hook into your Facebook persona also (thus) provides Facebook a way to track your activities even when you are off doing other things on the Internet.
Which is all very good on paper, and perhaps is what this chap Rubel meant -- I don't know, maybe he means something else that I don't get -- though it really doesn't pertain to search. But what does FriendFeed have to do with all this? Rubel or Morris are no doubt right in that the acquisition is partly about the development team -- Friendfeed has been providing, in the opinion of some, a better version of the life-stream that is Facebook's core product. But is there more to the acquisition? I suspect not. FriendFeed, founded by some ex-Googlers, is not I think the sort of group that would think of a $50 million buyout as payday. This, I doubt, is what they had in mind as an evaluation when they founded the company.
So, I googled the news a bit, and found this eminently sensible passage from the old media (PC World):
> Speculation that Facebook is on its way to becoming a full-fledged
> search engine is, well, odd. Merely buying four former top Google
> engineers whenacquiring FriendFeed does not a new search engine
> make. And it's a bad idea, besides.
> <...>
>
> Purchasing FriendFeed, which seemed to be going nowhere, seems like
> an enlightened act of charity. The four previously mentioned former
> Google stars that founded the company get a graceful exit from
> FriendFeed and an excuse when the service eventually shuts down.
>
Bob, your thoughts?
--ravi