Oatmeal Stout - Justin Thorp’s Web 2.0 blog

In a recent post on Facebook’s corporate blog, Carolyn Abram talks about how Facebook users should not be listening to rumors about Facebook that are passed around via chain letters, Wall messages, and third-party applications.

So… let me think about this…

If you’re transparent about what you’re doing and actually give people real information, why would they spread rumors?

If Facebook actually talked more about what was going on people wouldn’t spread stupid rumors.  They’d be talking about all the amazing things Facebook has going on.

Doesn’t this make sense?

I just happened to stumble over to the Facebook What’s New page and noticed the following:

Frickin finally!  I was expecting this.

I knew that if Facebook really wanted to turn another corner and gain better traction with a world audience they’d have to translate (localize) their site for different languages and regions of the world.  I’m sure this will cause a BIG bump in traffic.

It will be interesting to see how they integrate this with the platform.

It seems like Facebook is all that marketers talk about these days. Ever since Facebook launched their platform, people have been trying to figure out what the secret equation is to make an application that will extend their brand. I don’t know about you but I can’t take any more poking, slapping, shooting, beer passing, zombie biting applications.

The Facebook apps have that been my favorites are the ones that allow me to share my activity from other Web apps into Facebook and over the social graph. For example, I love the Pandora Facebook App. It allows my friends to see what Pandora radio stations I have created and I can see theirs.

Other apps that do this within Facebook are Upcoming for events, WordPress with blog posts, Twitter with status updates, del.icio.us with bookmarks, Digg with dugg news stories, and many more.

A users activity inside of your applications is very silo’d. No one else gets to see it. But you really do want a users to be able to show their friends what they’re doing with you’re applications. That way things can be more viral.

You want the first user to go about his/her business with your Web app. Within Facebook, people will see what they’re doing with your app. Hopefully your user’s friends will start using it and their friends will start using it.  You’ll be sharing your content without having to actually share it explicitly.
The Web is so big. People want to be able to use their friends as a filter for what they should and shouldn’t check out in life in and out of the Web. Why not provide them with the most information possible?

Today, I was on the Web site for the Facebook application maker Slide Inc. They say “Slide’s ‘Top Friends’ has more than 3 million active daily users.” The same thing is said in the Facebook Applications Directory.

If you’re not familiar with the application Top Friends, you say who your top friends are and thats it. You display that information on your profile.

How on earth does that give Slide 3+ million daily active users? What is there to use? You set your friends and then you forget it.  How is this an engaging app?

Someone explain this to me.

If you ever wondered, why I act so jaded about Facebook, I present the above screen shot as one reason.

A Facebook application called Poo Fight has become one of the applications with the most activity.   Now you may ask, what does Poo Fight do?  Well the name really says it all.  It allows you to send imaginary poop to your friends through Facebook.  *shakes head*

Poo Fight typifies my Facebook application platform user experience.  I know there are some good ones.  I was at Facebook Dev Garage DC tonight and saw some being demo’d but unfortunately they aren’t what everyone is using.

Seriously… someone please tell me about how Facebook the network itself or an app in the network has changed your life by allowing you to stay in touch with your friends in some new deep meaningful way.

If you’re a Facebook app developer, contact me and tell me how your app is going to change my life.  If it’s good, i’ll tell everyone I know about it.

I continue to be amazed by how the DC tech community is really starting to take off.  The latest twist is that there’s going to be a Facebook Developer Garage in Washington DC.  It’s on Wednesday, October 10th at 6pm at Edelman.

As you all know, I’m continually fascinated by Facebook.  I know this is going to be a great opportunity to get some of my questions answered.  It will be a great opportunity to dive deeper into the Facebook platform.

Hopefully see all of you there.

There is an interesting thread in the blogosphere about how Facebook might just be a gigantic way to be unproductive.  Web standards luminary  Jeffrey Zeldman and even Facebook app consultant/self-proclaimed Facebook addict Nick O’Neill have  admitted to its unproductive qualities.

The question I ask is… if the best thing Facebook has going for it is its ability to help you waste time really well, can’t it be easily replaced or won’t it slowly die out?  How can this be a long term viable platform?

Some other Web application or social network is going to help you waste time in an even more fun way and people will flood to that, in the same way that people are moving away from MySpace to Facebook.

At TechCrunch40, everyone got super excited when Mark Zuckerberg announced the new venture fund they’d be starting to spur on the growth of Facebook applications.   They have apparently set away $10 million for this.  I guess this means I can apply to get $25k to build the next generation in Zombie biting Facebook applications.

Please, someone build me a Facebook applications that blows my mind.  Build me an application that really takes advantage of the social graph in an meaningful way.   Show me how you use it in a way that is beneficial to your day to day.

I like Facebook Events but I’d rather use Upcoming or Evite because its not as restrictive.   I like Facebook Photos but I like Flickr better because everyone can see it.  Facebook Video is great but I don’t use it that much.

I need more.

I have been really busy lately. Work has had my que loaded pretty non-stop. When I’m not working, I’m getting ready to move into the city, organizing conferences, and hanging out with friends. It’d be incredibly easy for me to go a week without using Facebook.

I’ve been thinking about, talking about, and writing about Facebook and I’m still not really sure what extraordinary thing it does.

Facebook is the place where I find out whats up with my friend from third grade who I haven’t talked with in 10 years. Facebook is where I get bitten by the Zombie application from the person who I met at a conference but haven’t talked to since. Facebook is where my friends join groups which do absolutely nothing.

I challenge all of you who read this to not use Facebook for a week. See if you can live without it. I bet you can.

If you can’t live with out it, tell me why. Like Robert Scoble, has it become your address book? Do you have 5000 friends you have to keep track of?

Also… I challenge my friend Nick O’Neill to live without Facebook for a week or to write me a post convincing me why he can’t live without it (and the reason can’t be that its the center of his business.)

So to continue the conversation on Facebook, I thought I’d write about one of my favorite applications, Facebook Video. (I don’t want people to think that I’m completely negative on Facebook.)

Facebook Video is very simple, which I think is part of its charm. You can upload videos that you have on your computer or you can capture video right from your Web camera and send that to all of your friends or to certain specific friends as a video message.

Uploading videos that you have on your computer isn’t that exciting. That’s what we have YouTube for.

Being able to send video messages is what excites me. I have an Apple MacBook, which means I have a Web camera built into the lid of my laptop. (This is so genius of Apple.) So… all I have to do is literally open the “Create a new message window,” hit record, and start talking into the camera. It’s that easy.

There are times which I’m tired and don’t feel like penning War & Peace in the form of an e-mail. It’s so much easier to just to open up Facebook Video, type in the person’s name, hit the record, and start talking. I’ve been doing this with one of my best friends from college. It’s so much fun.

With video, so much more comes across. You get the emotion and personality so much clearer from the person that you’re talking to. It’s quite cool.

So you’re assignment for today, if you have a Web camera, go on Facebook Video and send me a video message and I’ll send you one back. As I said before, this should be incredibly easy for those of you that have Apple MacBooks.

You’ll see how much more fun it is then sending e-mail.

To continue the conversation about Facebook and to respond to Daniel’s comment, there is a way in Facebook that you can control the level of noise in the News Feed.

From the news feed, you can click “Preferences.” You’ll be presented with some sliders. There you can choose how much of what story types you to see. These look cool but you can’t really tell if they have any effect or not on what stories are present.

You also have the option of seeing more or seeing no updates from certain friends. This seems like it could be more useful.

While it’s good to see that Facebook has some preference options like this, I’d really like to see something more.