Social Network Usage

CNN reports that users spend more time on Facebook than on other social networks. I could have told you that. Obviously MySpace is in 2nd place even though I don't know anyone who even uses MySpace anymore. I start to not be able to follow the article when they start listing the other social networks.

The others referenced are LinkedIn, Twitter and Blogger. LinkedIn is definitely a social network... But Twitter and Blogger? Am I confused or is the person that wrote this article or whoever did this study not really understanding what these sites do?

Suggestions for Facebook

When I signed up for Facebook a few years ago I thought it was just a passing thing. I sign up for pretty much anything that's new just to keep up with the new technology and ideas. In the last year or so it seems that a lot of people I know have signed up and friended me and it has actually become a semi-useful tool for finding old friends.

I don't use it to keep in touch with people, I find people and then I keep in touch with them myself. The reason for this is privacy. The privacy settings are weak at best.

My main issue is that out of my 200 and some friends, maybe 20 of them are what I call "real friends," people that I actually know and talk to and email and really care about. Another 30 or so are what I call "semi-friends," these are people that I don't actively keep up with but care about keeping in touch with. The rest are "acquaintances," people I either knew in elementary school, or know in passing, but don't really keep up with, or care about keeping up with, other than those 30 seconds after they friend me where I say "how about that! I haven't heard from this person in 20 years!"

This causes several problems... First of all when Facebook suggests people I may know there is a big difference between someone who is friends with 10 of my "real" friends or even my "semi-friends" and someone who is friends with 40 of my "acquaintances." Facebook doesn't differentiate between these and as a result the suggestions of people I may know has become useless.

The other problem is that the privacy settings let me set privacy levels for the following groups of people:

1. Everyone
2. Friends
3. Friends of Friends
4. My Networks
5. Combinations of these

It does not differentiate between my custom lists of people (coworkers, high school friends, college friends, real friends) nor does it differentiate between my self-defined groups of "real friends" versus "acquaintances." I may want a real friend to be able to see my phone number but I don't want an acquaintance to even know where I work. The only way I can accomplish this is to be the most restrictive (not give out my information to anyone).

I know that Zuckerberg wants Facebook to mirror real social relationships, the "social graph" as he so often refers to it. My primary benefit from Facebook is reconnecting with people I haven't spoken to or seen or heard from in years. Some of these people I was good friends with and want to stay in touch with. Others are people I bumped into in the hallways of high school, and don't really care about keeping in touch with, but still want to have an idea what is going on with them. I don't want to limit my friends to only the people I would consider "real" friends because that would eliminate the majority of my benefit from using Facebook.

I never update my status. First off I don't care who is eating a taco for lunch and I don't want other people to know what I am eating for lunch. Secondly if there is anything I really do want my friends to know chances are I don't want my acquaintances to know it, or prefer to not share it with them.

So I would suggest that Facebook does the following:

• Differentiate between real friends and acquaintances. This would be for purposes of categorizing friends, showing updates in the news feed, and suggesting people you may know. This would also be useful for privacy settings.
• Allow privacy settings to be configured for user defined lists of friends. This would give me a level of control to let people know what I want them to know and would give me some more freedom to share information that I right now do not feel comfortable sharing.

Linked In Valuation

LinkedIn valued at $1 billion. Not even close to Facebook but that is likely a reasonable valuation. If I had money I probably wouldn't invest at that valuation but maybe at $500 mm or even $750 mm. I don't know how they are making revenue but I think LinkedIn has a good product, which is geared towards professionals, not college kids and 30-somethings who still act like college kids (aka my friends).

Facebook

Quote from Details:

"Like the popular kids, Facebook will end up living in a trailer — just down the gravel road from Friendster."

Sums up my feelings on Facebook perfectly. People say that LinkedIn is boring and useless but in my opinion it is the one that will survive.

Isn't this time of year supposed to be slow?

The traditional holiday slow-down is not occurring at my job, so I haven't had time to keep up with the news or post here. I'm living on Provigil, which is the greatest thing ever. Except that I am totally exhausted when it wears off.

Some tidbits to hold you over until my workload eases up:

Fark allegedly tries to trademark NSFW. Good luck with that.

On the future of Ajax.

New startup does something to help people decide whether to buy or rent. I haven't quite figured out what that is yet or how it works, but it's a cool idea for people living in big, expensive cities.

Silicon Alley Insider names Top 100 Most Influential people, and there's also a "People's Choice" with less votes than nominees.

Robert Scoble leaves PodTech. Why this is interesting I have no idea. I have never heard of PodTech outside the confines of Scoble.

Fred Wilson throws a party? Why wasn't I invited? Maybe I should have nominated myself to the Silicon Alley Insider's 100 most influential people list.

Facebook's guerilla marketing bible or some such ridiculous thing.

Web 2.0 Bubble Song and Video

Plus Facebook Beacon steals and transmits data around. There's a surprise.

And an article about how Facebook is dying! I like this guy! Let the feeding frenzy begin.

And here is my comment on the article linked above:

I agree that the article is correct. I have been saying the exact same thing for months now - and I am not a member of the press.

The problem is not that Facebook doesn't play nice with the press. The problem is that it has very little revenue and with advertisers jumping ship now that will likely stay the same or go down in the future.

The thing is that while everyone uses Facebook - people don't seem to click on ads on it. That is not an opinion, check the research or take a look at Facebook's revenue, which is expected to be $150 mil for 2007, which is not a whole lot for a company valued at $15b.

If things start to go bad and the VCs jump ship Facebook will be hung out to dry with no way of raising capital. I don't think they will go out of business but I would expect them to be bought by a Microsoft or something.

Writers Strike

As the writers strike continues, actors are forced into less scripted stuff:



Incest on Gray's Anatomy? I've never seen it and have no plans to.

Someone else hates Apple! Although Fred Wilson does so for very different reasons than I do. And he actually buys their products. And not used on eBay.

Facebook gives a little on it's Beacon program.

Some girl from some reality show I have never seen who I have never heard of gives an interview which doesn't interest me in the least.

Ning, which I am familiar with, and Flux, which I have never heard of - a point by point comparison.

Busy at work... Here are some snippets

Fat kid avoids ridicule by swimming with his shirt on, from the ONN:


Fat Kid Successfully Avoids Ridicule By Swimming With Shirt On

Mouse vs Elephant, from MythBusters:

Mouse v elephant
Uploaded by krupis

Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg is still a smug little shit.

Video about the writer's strike:



Classmates.com goes public, makes no money and has no users.

The long awaited gDrive may finally see the light of day.

Fake Steve Jobs book comes out and gets good reviews from the WSJ.

Wednesday Round-up

Rupert might actually make the WSJ's content available for free! Joy! Oh wait... I hate reading papers online. Hurts my eyes and my brain. So... meh, I guess.

What the Rackspace transformer explosion might look like, via Valleywag.

Robert Scoble's comments on the gPhone.

Something about Facebook and OpenSocial. I really don't even read most of this stuff.

Apparently Internet advertising is huge and growing. Why can't I see some of those dollars? Please...

Google is trying to get people to develop software for it's new phone... But they haven't given out any phones or a single line of code yet. I don't even know that the phones exist. So you people have fun with that. Actually a few people do have the code or the phone or whatever it is.

Apparently Friendster could have bought Facebook back when they were starting out. Unfortunately for them they did not. However once Facebook crashes and burns they will be happy that they did not.

Annoying Shits

More on the possible illegality of Facebook's ads. And they are apparently creepy as well. Valleywag details how to block them.

Zuckerberg is wearing shoes! Sound the alarms!

Gawker charts exactly what makes James Lipton so annoying. And they do a pretty good job of it.

Friday!

From the ONN:


Messages From Our Troops To The Families They Can Barely Remember

From Valleywag:

• How to get popular on Facebook.
• Facebook emails are not private at all.

From TechCrunch:

• Digg is not being bought or sold.
• Facebook's new advertising model may face some legal roadblocks.

Something about George Soros. It was too long, I didn't actually read it.

Facebook Social Ads

Facebook launches their new advertising product in which brands and products can be your friends. Hidden message - big corporations are your friends! Or maybe not so hidden. Fortune's take on it. And AdAge's report.

And in related news I bought some Facebook related domains.



That bastard rich kid made a bad deal. Ha! I haven't made any deals, bad or good, but I like it when people who are more successful than they should be make mistakes. Like Donald Trump. I would pay to see him go bankrupt again.

Apparently something to do with Mystery Science Theater 3000... I'm not sure exactly what.

Something about some guy called Boykin.

Facebook wants to turn into a spam giant like MySpace.

Google drops an advertising bomb on Facebook.

Social networks and such

Dave Winer on the MySpace / Facebook / Google brawl. I believe my opinions of Facebook have been made abundantly clear. Also - Facebook apparently has not been briefed on OpenSocial.

A chart of how to tell how much your web site sucks. Pretty accurate in my opinion.

Valleywag does a Web 2.0 for idiots primer.

And an update on the breaking Jakob Lodwick story... He responded to my response to his post with a "LOL." I'm not sure exactly what he was laughing at but... um... OK. Thank you, come again.

And Valleywag posts their opinion of the same interview I posted this morning. Shall we take bets on how long it takes him to reply to that? I have seen him leave comments on Valleywag before...

However I posted my name, which I have a Google ego alert set up for, in one of my other random blogs and I have not received notification yet. Interesting...

Evil Characters from South Park (and Facebook)

Imaginary evil characters on South Park:



Self-help books that will never sell, from Radar.

How to kill yourself in a totally awesome way.

Interview with David Lynch about Twin Peaks. Lynch is apparently some sort of boy scout with a really twisted imagination and I love it! The next movie I am going to watch is Inland Empire. Without cows there would be no cheese in the Inland Empire.

The Microsoft Facebook deal in 15 seconds or less. A reasonable person's view on this matter. And a rather non-committal viewpoint.

Google was named by a typo. By someone who know works at Microsoft.

Best. Headline. Ever: Pit Bulls Kill Miniature Horse Donated To Cancer-Stricken Child

The Hills is staged? Really? (I've never seen it, nor do I have plans to)

NPR's Daily News Quiz.

Valleywag lists some websites that used to be funny or useful but are no longer. The Onion is #1 on the list.

Financial Tips for those of us who don't reportedly own 30% of Facebook

Some common-sense financial tips, from theStreet.com.

Some thoughts on the Microsoft Facebook deal that is making huge waves today:

• Did Zuckerberg not want this deal?
  
• Microsoft took a 1-2% stake in Facebook for $240 million... Some tidbits of info about this.
• What exactly does a poke mean? Not being a regular Facebook user I am not exactly sure.
• Facebook downgrades its growth rate.
• If Zuckerberg does, in fact, own 30% of Facebook as has been reported, on paper he is now worth $5 billion. That must feel nice, but I can say from experience, it's horrible when you are worth a lot of money on paper and you don't cash out and end up with nothing. See an older post of mine for more details on this.
• I still hold by my belief that Facebook is going to crash when and burn when they are unable to turn their large user base into a large money base. While Apple reported such a good quarter last week, I think the stock is pretty much done with it's run. It's been down for the last two days. Want to hear something that will make you sick? I bought AAPL at $18 and sold it at $30 a few years back. Makes me sick to think about it, but not as sick as the above mentioned paper loss of 99% of my net worth.
• All of the above that is not from me is from Valleywag.
• And just in - Facebook is getting another $500 million from two hedge funds, bringing their take over the last two days to a hefty $750 million!
• And something about Facebook's value and growth... As a note, Facebook's users are growing at 2% a week - not active users, registered users. And as far as I know the revenue growth is pretty much non-existent.
• Some guy from Intel agrees with me.

In non-Facebook news:

• Google is once again being a little bit evil. Only like 2% evil or so but still...
• Sergey Brin tries to pass off the Facebook mess as something positive for Google. I don't think its positive for anyone except Mark Zuckerberg and the other early investors.
• Montage of Mark Cuban's all-too-brief stint on dancing with the stars.
  

Yahoo 360?

• Jerry Yang shuts down Yahoo 360 and the world lets out a collective "meh."
• Translation of Yangs latest conference.
  
• Google finally does something about all of those horrible link farm sites that clog up its results. But they lower most blogs in the process. And another blog on the same.
  
• Some ibanker on "nanny arbitrage," which is where a spouse makes more money than they pay the nanny, and on how enforcing labor laws and eliminating the illegal, off-the-books, underpaid majority of nannies would have a negative impact on the legal NY labor market. From Gawker.
• iTunes removes a video starring a nude Natalie Portman. No one is sure why.
  
• Monetize your thirst with Facefuel. Heh.
• NY Times online meta-data.
• MySpace is still the social networking leader, although others are catching up.
• Porn may save Google $1 billion? I'm not sure how but interesting anyway. Apparently has something to do with the 2257 laws.
  
• Anna Nicole Smith tape. A brief exception to my ban of celebrity gossip.
• Mark Cuban finally gets the boot on the dancing show he is on. Video from Valleywag.
• Sounds like Microsoft and Facebook are finally close to closing a deal.
  
• Facebook is going to be rolling out "SocialAds" soon which I assume they are hoping will finally make them some money from all these eyeballs they have.
  
  

Back to Work on a Monday

A Seinfeld quiz. I got 46 out of 50. And a bonus interview with Jerry.

Andy Kessler on how schools are putting lectures on YouTube.

Excepts from Options, the new real book by Fake Steve Jobs.

Seth Godin on logos. And on Radiohead's new album sales strategy.

Some idiot on how we should sell two kinds of cigarettes, as if the one kind isn't bad enough already. He's got some good ideas but it's a terrible, terrible idea.

I visited Bard College many, many years ago as a prospective student. Everyone there looked completely high. This just supports my opinion of that school.

Facebook is trying to do some ads that might actually be worth something to someone. Good luck to them.

Final Thoughts for Thursday

• My wife came up with this idea and I said that someone must already be doing it, and I may have been a bit early but here it is. I should have jumped on it the second it came out of her mouth.
• More blabbing from Zuckerberg.
• Patent court strikes down at least part of Amazon's claim to have a patent on one-click shopping.
• A non-software way to block porn. So your kids can't see it, I assume.
• 
  

Kids Start Becoming Gamers at Age 6

I am not a gamer so I don't really understand all the fuss. But apparently young kids are turning into serious gamers. From Advertising Age.

Seth Godin on using Wikipedia for homework. He thinks its a good idea, as do I, a lot of other people apparently do not.

Debbie Harry is 62 years old? Other stuff in the article as well.

A list of 66 celebrities that blog. Just because we have nothing better to do.

Zuckerberg is a smug little asshole as usual.

Man given vodka after he drank antifreeze or something. Apparently he needed it for medical purposes.

Man arrested for standing on a sidewalk in Time Square.

Apparently eBay's acquisition of Skype contributed quite a bit to the not so good numbers eBay reported last night.

Google's ridiculous 411 idea is apparently being copied/rivaled by Microsoft. Two companies with huge amounts of money now battling it out over the same stupid idea.

Some crappy web apps that everyone uses and some better replacements that not too many people use. I haven't used any of the replacements so I have nothing to say about them, other than that I dislike Vimeo for personal reasons.

Wednesday Round-up

An article on rehab, Malibu style.

Don't try to time the market. It almost never works.

Article on Yahoo, Google and paid search results. From Valleywag.

And an article on how Google screwed people over when buying Urchin, which its analytic software is baded on.

Some other people's opinions of Facebook "Platform" and apps.

Ten questions for the guy who does the PostSecret.com web site. From Guy Kawasaki.

Jeff Jensen's latest Lost article for EW.

And I leave you with a long, nonsensical interview with Bob Dylan for Playboy, from this list of his top ten most nonsensical interviews. The Playboy one is #1.