Daily Bits

Social Networks

Expert Gives Facebook Only 5 More Years

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Facebook is on a roll, isn’t it? In the past month or so, we have been hearing about all sorts of new features from THE social network platform. Some of the more recent ones include the Friendship Pages and Groups. And, just the other day, we heard about their “Gmail Killer.” So one would think that Facebook is here to stay – at least for a very very long time, right?

Not according to Dr. Jeffrey Cole, a digital consumer expert. If you’re doubting his prediction, bear in mind that this is the guy who said that MySpace would suffer the same fate (decline) four years ago. While MySpace is still around – I just logged in earlier to listen to some indie music – no one can deny that it is but a shadow of what it used to be. Oh, and check out Dr. Cole’s other credentials: Director of the Centre for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California and a director of the World Internet Project.

So Dr. Cole said that in five years, Facebook is going to be what MySpace is today. However, he states one major difference: there will not be a single social networking platform anymore. Instead, we are going to have many smaller communities.

His predictions are not limited to social networking platforms. He also mentioned that the iPad will be the last man standing in the realm of tablets – mainly thanks to the Apple brand – and that it will change the face of traditional print.

If his track record is anything to go by, we might just see his words becoming reality sooner than we think. Let me ask you though, do you think Facebook will be “gone” in 5 years?

Guess What the Top 10 Most Popular Facebook Apps Are?

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Come on, give it your best shot! I am sure, though, that even without having to really think, most of you will get the answer correctly. That ubiquitous FarmVille is still the King of Facebook applications – no surprise about that! The real-time simulation game where anyone can pretend to be a farmer has made addicts of countless people around the world. Indeed, there was a point when it was said that the number of Farmville farmers exceeded the number of farmers in the entire United States! Zynga really did hit a goldmine in that app! Furthermore, other popular Zynga games are scattered all over the top 10 most popular Facebook apps list – Texas HoldEm Poker, FrontierVille and Café World.

Here is something that might surprise you, though. Would you believe that the second most popular Facebook application is Microsoft’s instant messenger app, Windows Live Messenger? To be honest, I didn’t even know that there was an app for this, but apparently, since its launch in August, more than 10 million people have connected Facebook to Windows Live. Pretty impressive!

ReadWriteWeb posted the full list of top 10 Facebook apps yesterday:

  1. FarmVille
  2. Windows Live Messenger
  3. Phrases
  4. FrontierVille
  5. Texas HoldEm Poker
  6. Bejeweled Blitz
  7. Cafe World
  8. Mafia Wars Game
  9. Birthday Calendar
  10. Treasure Isle

Now try “scoring” yourself.  How many of these apps do you use on a regular basis?  I currently use 1 out of 10, but I have to be honest and say that I used to be a slave to app number 7 and app number 8.  And, no, I don’t play FarmVille. 😉

Facebook Friendship Pages: The Magic of Friendship or a New Stalking Tool?

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Yesterday, I got a Facebook notification that my cousin had “liked” what I posted on her wall the other day. Naturally, I clicked on the notification to check her wall out. One thing stood out immediately – a new link labeled See Friendship. I think what used to be there was See Wall-to-Wall.

Curiosity got the better of me, so I went ahead and clicked on the link. I swear, despite the initial misgivings about the use of the term friendship, I kept an open mind. This is what greeted me, and I just didn’t like it.

I guess the guys at Facebook have been really busy in the past weeks, haven’t they?  For some reason – specific reasons, actually – this Friendship Page thing just rubs me the wrong way.  Before I go into those reasons, let’s hear it straight from Wayne Kao, the guy behind this feature.  In a blog post, he narrates how he came up with the idea:

One of my favorite Facebook moments is browsing photos from friends in the News Feed after they’ve begun a new relationship, gotten engaged or gotten married. It gives me a fun and meaningful glimpse of the friendship between two people I know.

I realized that a similarly magical experience was possible if all of the photos and posts between two friends were brought together. You’d remember that first Wall post with your best friend or the funny photo from a night out. You may even see that moment when your favorite couple met at a party you all attended.

I guess there’s nothing really wrong with that. Maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s kind of cheesy! Still, some people wouldn’t mind having this kind of information accessible to them.

The use of the term friendship also doesn’t sit well with me. It’s a personal thing, so I really shouldn’t gripe about it, but couldn’t they have found another word?

What really bothers me is this: “You’ll be able to see a friendship page if you are friends with one of the people and have permission to view both people’s profiles.”

If you take a look at the right side of that screenshot, you can see Browse Friendships.  In short, you can view other Friendship Pages of people in your circle.

What this tells me is that they seem to have taken the compilation of information to a whole new level!  It freaks me out, even though I make it a point NOT to post anything on Facebook that I don’t mind anyone else seeing/knowing about.  Still, you never know.  Indeed, I am not the only one reacting this way – there is already a Facebook Page dubbed Opt Out of the FB Friendship Feature.  I am pretty sure there is a group that love the feature already, but I wish that we had the option to disable it as well.

Yeah, Facebook Friendship Pages can either showcase the magic that you call your friendship, or it can be one of the most convenient stalking tools online.  As for me, I don’t need Facebook to make me appreciate the magic in my friendships.  Please give us the opt out feature?

My Facebook Groups Experience: Head’s a-Spinning

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A week or so ago, we heard about Facebook Groups, one of the new features rolled out by the social network.  Some people were excited, some were skeptical, while others simply didn’t care.  To be honest, I read a bit about it and then totally threw the idea out of the window. I just couldn’t be bothered.

Over the weekend, I received two notifications that caught my eye – I was added to groups by friends.  I didn’t really pay any attention until this morning, and I what I experienced made my head spin.  Seriously.

This is one of the groups I was added to:

So what’s up with the “Secret Group” tag?  When someone creates a Group, he or she can set it to secret so as to hide it from everyone else. Duh. Seriously, though, this setting is perfect for those who are really careful about their privacy.  People who are not in the group cannot “see” it anywhere, and they have to be invited by someone else who is already in that group.  This brings up an interesting flaw: if anyone can add friends to the group, doesn’t this defeat the purpose of keeping security tight?  I think that to make this more efficient, only administrators/creators should be able to “approve” membership.

Another thing that made me go “wut?” was the way people in groups can interact.  The Group’s page is pretty much like any other page or wall on Facebook, but when posting comments, there does not seem to be a button to click – just hit ENTER.  More so, there isn’t a way to delete your comment.  What if you made a grammar mistake??? Seriously, what if you want to change what you just posted?  You can, however, unsubscribe to a specific post if you don’t want to receive notifications regarding it anymore.

Last thing I tried was the chat.  It’s basically a group chat, with all the online members receiving the messages.  I think it is still buggy (when is Facebook Chat not buggy anyway) as it does not show the members who are online.  When I sent a message, though, they received it and a chat session was begun. (Bear with me with all those black boxes, please.)

So why is my head spinning?  I guess because no one in the Group really understood what it was for.  We do have a binding factor, but as of the moment, no one can figure out what we can use the Group for.  We will figure this out somehow, but I don’t see the need for it right now.

Anyone care to share their Facebook Groups experience?  Is it working out for you guys?

Skype and Facebook to Merge?

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Got the new Skype for Windows yet?  If so, you probably have noticed that there is a new tab – a Facebook tab.  This is the result of a collaboration between the two companies.  The presence of a Facebook tab in Skype 5 for Windows implies a lot of things.

One, Skype users will be able to interact with their Facebook friends directly from Skype.  This can be done in a variety of ways – updating of status messages, commenting on other people’s status messages, and “liking” other people’s status messages and posts.  They can also see the news feed directly from Skype.

Two, there is a Facebook phonebook feature in the new Skype that will allow users to directly call – and send text messages – to their contacts from Skype.  If anything, that should be a more convenient way of getting in touch with one’s friends.

Three, group video calling is also available in beta version.  As of now, this is available on a free trial basis.

Experts have noted that this collaboration has been in the stars for a while and that it is but a logical turn of things.  Skype and Facebook have been at the forefront of their respective fields and putting their resources together is the only way to go forward.

For now, only Windows users can enjoy this integration.  For Mac and Linux users, we have to wait indefinitely.  I say indefinitely as there is still no announcement as to when they will release this version of Skype for other platforms.  I just hope that they actually do!

Afterthought: I wonder if they will be able to integrate Facebook chat?  Now THAT would be a definite improvement, don’t you think?

Facebook Groups to Give Us More Control?

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Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, have been under a lot of fire for sucky privacy features.  Zuckerberg is quite excited about a new feature that they have released: Facebook Groups.  You might be asking, “Groups? Hasn’t this been around for a while?”

Well, they have a NEW feature called Groups that is different from whatever you think.  The important thing about this new application is that users can have more control over their privacy.  Think about it as  being able to put your friends into – literally – groups and then being able to choose what information you want to share with them.

The new Facebook Groups aims to mimic human behavior in real life. If you think about it, you actually categorize people in your life.  You have friends that you drink with, but you may not necessarily share private information with them.  You have friends that you run to when you have problems, and they probably know everything about you.  With this new Facebook feature, you can basically do the same thing online.  It will make selective disclosure of information (including photos, status messages, etc.) easier for Facebook users.

Despite the excitement of Mark Zuckerberg over Groups, critics are already making their  voices heard.  Larry Magrid, co-director of ConnectSafely.org, says:

“The only worry I have is that friends can add people to the group, so if you create a group and are in a group you have to be aware of not only who you add but who others add.  As long as you are aware of who is in the group it can be a great privacy tool. If it gets out of hand it could give you a sense of false security.”

Personally, I am neither excited nor skeptical about the development.  My rule of thumb: don’t put anything on Facebook that you don’t want others to see or know.  Simple enough, isn’t it?