Daily Bits

Social Networks

Friendster to Make a Comeback?

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Friend what? For sure, a considerable number of people still remember the “good old days” when Friendster was THE social network to be part of. However, actually admitting to being active on Friendster these days is something that I will not expect of a lot of people. For one reason or another, the popularity of this social network just spiraled downward – a fate that is not altogether alien to social networks.

I did read on the BBC today, however, that the people at Friendster are not giving up. The fact is that, while Facebook is the undoubted leader in the scene, Friendster is still alive. In Asia, especially, this platform is doing quite well. Friendster users in countries such as the Philippines and Malaysia are actually as many as Facebook users, believe it or not.

Having said that, experts believe that Friendster can get back on its feet. Last year, in December, MOL Global bought Friendster. MOL Global is known in Asia as the number one online payment solutions provider. With that kind of entity backing Friendster up, the site has actually grown in some ways.

Its interface has been changed to suit the times. Applications have been added, and games have been integrated. These changes could very well be what Friendster needs to draw the attention of users once again.

Today is the first time that I logged in to my Friendster account for a year or so, and lo and behold, my account is still alive! Even more surprising, my friends seem to be quite active. If their behavior is any indication, then perhaps Friendster will indeed make a comeback. Then again, if more people are like me, then I fear that Friendster has no hope at all.

Have you logged in to Friendster lately? What do you think? Will we be hearing more of Friendster or will it simply suffer a drawn out death?

Photo via PinoyAmbisyoso

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?

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?

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?

Getting Tired of Facebook? There’s Diaspora.

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In spite of all the complaints that people have been making about Facebook, no one can deny that it still has countless users – and it doesn’t look like the numbers are going to drop anytime soon.  If you don’t have a clear idea about the numbers, you might want to take a look at Infographic Labs’ post on how Facebook is dominating the scene.

However, just because everyone and their mother is on Facebook does not mean that everyone’s all happy and content about it.  That’s just the thing – with the numbers involved, you can’t really expect to make everyone happy.  That’s a fact of life, isn’t it?

Just in case you have serious and legitimate issues with Facebook, then you just might have an alternative pretty soon, and it’s called Diaspora.  With the tag line “The privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network,” Diaspora is all about bringing together the users and the platform together.  The idea of Diaspora came up earlier this year, and it immediately received a lot of attention.  However, it wasn’t until last week that the brains behind the idea actually had something concrete to show.

On the 16th of September, the Developer Release of Diaspora was made available.  Before you get all excited and try to create an account, though, you ought to know that it’s simply for developers – people who can deal with the underlying technology.  In layman’s terms, if you are a mere user (like me), then there’s still nothing concrete to be excited about.  Still, once the ones who do know how to program work things out, we ought to have a safer alternative to Facebook.  Don’t hold your breath, though – small chance of seeing it in a “usable” format within the year.

Twitter Rolls Out New Design

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Have you checked what’s trending on Twitter today?  If so, you couldn’t have possible missed one of the trending topics: #newtwitter.

What’s this #newtwitter buzz all about?  Basically, Twitter is rolling out a new design that will make things easier and more fun for those of us who communicate in 140 words or less on a regular basis.  If you visit the page dedicated to the new Twitter design, I promise you won’t be able to help it – you’ll get excited.  Take a look at the video teaser below.

So the new Twitter is going to have a viewing pane, which will allow users to see videos and photos shared in tweets without having to leave the home page.  That’s obviously handy – who likes leaving a page to see media anyway?  Another development is that users will now have links to @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists just above the timelines, providing easier access as well.

If you think about it, most of these features can be found in other applications that have access to Twitter.  That is precisely the reason why so many Twitter users, including yours truly, use these applications instead of logging in directly to the Twitter web site.  Think TweetDeck.  With the changes, people might just go back to logging in to the Twitter web site.  After watching that video, I think I shall be waiting for my account to reflect the new Twitter look. (Yup, it’s being rolled out gradually, so hold your horses if you’re not seeing any changes yet.)

Well, it IS about time that Twitter did something like this, don’t you think?