Quick Hit: Facebook and Google this… Facebook and Google that…

December 12, 2007 at 11:33 pm · Filed under Peer-to-Peer, Social Media, Quick Hits, Web Applications, Privacy, Programming, Online Marketing, Social Networking

Googling Facebook

Facebook previously announced the availability of limited profile data to search engines. I’ve checked here and there and hadn’t seen any evidence, but Facebook profile data is now definitely being returned (by Google at least). A search for “Scott McAndrew” (yeah, that’s vain, I know) shows the Google result to be a standard search result listing.

When not logged-in to Facebook, a click-through to the Facebook site displays the limited profile data as shown in the screen-capture below. Although not logged in, and likely not an acquaintance of mine, you are still taunted with the offer to Poke me (please don’t).

More eyesight into the walled garden

Part of the excitement about Facebook Applications, lies in the ability to reach Facebook’s every growing, engaged user-base. That’s nice, but if you’re looking to launch on Facebook, you likely have grandiose visions for your application. A week or go or so the lack of visibility outside Facebook’s gates was addressed by Justin Mitchell in a Facebook blog posting entitled “Public Canvas Pages”.

In broad strokes: Facebook’s firewall quietly invited Googlebot to take a closer look at Facebook applications earlier this month. Depending on new settings controlled by the application developer Facebook applications can be fully functional to the casual browser (not require logging in to Facebook whatsoever), require login to be in any way functional, or (the most likely) fall somewhere in between the two extremes. Developers can find more information in Facebook’s Developer Wiki.

Per an October blog entry, applications that are in the Facebook Application directory are also automatically showing up in Google search results regardless of their stance on non-Facebook user functionality. If you search on “Apple Student Gallery” you’ll find a Terralever-built application’s directory listing in Google’s search results.

Did you say Open? How’s this for Open:

In the (relatively calm) wake of last month’s MySpace/Google Open Social announcement, Facebook quietly blogged their counter-punch today: Facebook’s platform is that open, too. If you want to leverage Facebook’s innards to push out your own social networking site, have at it. As Open Social has yet to launch, the question has to be one of relevance (or lack thereof) at this point. An excerpt from the aforementioned blog entry by Facebook’s Ami Vora (emphasis and footnoting mine):

[…]we also want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model. In fact, we’ll even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags to other platforms. Of course, Facebook Platform will continue to evolve, but by enabling other social sites to use what we’ve learned, everyone wins* — users get a better experience around the web, developers get access to new audiences, and social sites get more applications.

This is just another step toward the vision of easy, open sharing of information. We look forward to supporting other social sites as they release their own platforms, and look forward most of all to the added benefit for developers and users.

* I’m relatively certain that Google, MySpace, and the rest of the Open Social club don’t include themselves as a part of the ‘everyone’ cited in the Facebook blog entry.

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OLPC: Give one, get one, enjoy free WiFi and play SimCity

November 14, 2007 at 11:12 am · Filed under Hardware, Peer-to-Peer, Industrial Design, Online Marketing, Social Networking, Applications, Games, User Interface

The One Laptop Per Child project (OLPC) XO laptop is on sale in the U.S. by way of their “Give One Get One” program. Sales kicked off on Monday (November 12th) and will be running until November 26th. As if getting your hands on the XO to kick the tires isn’t enough, T-Mobile is offering one year of complimentary WiFi access at their HotSpots for all donors. From the OLPC site:

This is the first time the revolutionary XO laptop has been made available to the general public. For a donation of $399, one XO laptop will be sent to empower a child in a developing nation and one will be sent to the child in your life in recognition of your contribution. $200 of your donation is tax-deductible (your $399 donation minus the fair market value of the XO laptop you will be receiving).     

It was also announced last that Maxis (Electronic Arts) has donated the original SimCity game to the project, allowing for free distribution of the addictive classic which was originally developed for the Commodore 64.

Don Hopkins created a UNIX variant of the game in the past and has been advocating the use of SimCity for educational purposes for years. Hopkins commented on a Slashdot article earlier this year:

“The goal is to enable the open-source community to renovate SimCity and take it in new educational directions, by applying Seymour Papert’s ideas about constructionist education, Alan Kay’s ideas about interactive user interfaces and object-oriented programming, Ben Shneiderman’s ideas about direct manipulation and info visualization, and many exciting ideas about multiplayer games, blogging, storytelling, game mods, player created content, and lessons learned from World of WarCraft, The Sims, Spore, etc,”      

The cause sounds noble. One way or the other games will make it to the OLPC. Let’s hope the educational angle triumphs.More about SimCity on the OLPC XO from Don Hopkins:

• SimCity for OLPC (One Laptop Per Child): Applying Papert’s Ideas About Constructionist Education and Teaching Kids to Program
• History and Future of OLPC SimCity/Micropolis

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Joost Beta review

April 15, 2007 at 11:28 am · Filed under Usability, Television, Peer-to-Peer, Content, Video, User Interface, Applications, Beta, User Experience

I’ve been using Joost now on and off over several weeks.

A few thoughts:

• Video Quality: VERY good for the Internet. What the Joost team has done with Internet video quality is nothing short of remarkable. That said, it’s not ready for a high def set, however.
• Streaming: Fair to Good. At work I have a better experience than home. My home setup is broadband delivered wireless (Pre N). I experience streaming delays once every few to several minutes that last anywhere between 5 and 20 seconds.
• Usability: Good to Very Good. The user interface works well, but not great. On some of the menus, I have sluggish responses when navigating through lists of channels or shows. UI elements make sense to me for the most part, but I don’t think that the average consumer would understand it as readily.
• Overall Experience: Fair to Good.

In its current incarnation, Joost isn’t for me. Why:

• I want to watch video on a television. I don’t want to watch it on my computer.
• Video quality is important to me. While the quality of video is impressive for the Internet, the quality I’m looking for is better.
• The social networking aspects aren’t all that compelling at this time.
• Performance matters. Whenever the service stops to buffer video, the content consumption experience is abruptly interrupted.
• Dynamically inserted commercials (in the middle of viewing video content—not the bookend static ads that previously existed) are implemented poorly, derailing the consumption of content without warning. They also make it feel like… well… watching television.

Does Joost have promise? Absolutely. Why:

• Bandwidth and video compression technologies are improving rapidly.
• Whether it is a scramble to try to understand the streaming landscape and not miss the boat entirely, or, because they know more about Joost than we do, several premium content providers have announced content provision via Joost. Desirable content will bring advertising, and advertising revenue will enable continued improvements.
• If the service takes off, it will naturally be brought into the living room.

What else could propel Joost forward?

• A feature that is new and innovative; something that simply doesn’t exist right now at all which would allow a very different take on the way that users interact with video. For example, what if transcripts of all the video that Joost offered was indexed allowing more advanced ways of finding content and consuming it.
• A well thought out partnership. While the UI isn’t as polished as one coming out of Cupertino, it certainly feels Apple-esque. What if Joost was another option on the Apple TV interface? Joost would make it to the living room, and Apple TV owners would have access to FREE content.
• Killer content. What if Joost delivered new movie releases two weeks prior to DVD releases?

I’ll keep watching Joost, but that ‘watching’ will likely be in terms of reading the press to see what is happening as opposed to firing up Joost to watch video on my computer. I won’t be surprised, however, if next year I’m watching Joost in my living room and experiencing content in a whole new way.

Note: I’m currently viewing Joost on a MacBook Pro with 2GB of ram, utilizing the current version of the Joost client (0.9.2). At the time of writing this I have zero invites to give out.

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Joost upgrades client, adds channels to catalog

April 3, 2007 at 12:41 pm · Filed under Peer-to-Peer, Television, Video, Beta, Applications

Joost has upgraded the beta version of the Joost client to release .9. An email was sent out to current Joost testers notifying them of the release. I’ve only tinkered with it briefly this evening, but here is what’s new at a glance (from the Release Notes):

• User Registration and Login have been updated to use a user name as opposed to an email address. The client also retains your user name and password so you need not login each time you launch Joost.
• The Invitation System used to send invites to friends to participate in the Beta has been made a part of the user interface.
• Standby minimizes the Joost to the OS taskbar. The Power button pauses the the video, suspends the application, and minimizes it to the taskbar.
• Reception quality has been improved and streaming is more tolerant to poor network performance.
• The UI has been updated for ease of use, including the Channel Catalog.

There are several other features in the release notes which I have omitted. Oh, there’s one more thing—more Joost channels in the Channel Catalog including:

• MTV (Laguna Beach)
• VH1 (Hogan Knows Best, SoNoTORIous, Breaking Bonaduce, Two-A-Days)
• Comedy Central (Stella, Freak Show, Dog Bites Man)
• BET (American Gangster, The Christies, Beef: The Series, DMX: Soul of a Man)

Overall, the application seems to be evolving well. I’m still trying to gauge my affinity level for Joost, but regardless if it is for me or not, I think it will definitely be rattling some cages.

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I’ve been Joost

March 26, 2007 at 11:22 am · Filed under Peer-to-Peer, Television, Video, Beta, Applications

Thanks to Em(alyse) for helping me get a Joost Beta Invite! The download and install was painless. I haven’t had too much time to tinker around with it, but I’ll report back soon on my initial thoughts. Thanks again Em!

p.s.: I don’t bother Em for Joost invites—she’s out of them now. When more are made available to me, I’ll be sure to pass them out, however. Em keeps an interesting blog called “STUFFEM-Up the hill backwards.”

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