As a product guy, I do feel the need to stand up for Facebook. They take a lot of bashing from the media for their UI. I myself am guilty for bashing Facebook’s UI/UX, but they have a long laundry list of requirements. Not to mention their user profiles are quite diverse. They have user feedback pulling them in a million different directions, and then there is the other 98% of users that don’t explicitly say anything. Their actions must be measured, translated, and digested for their product team to act. So next time you think about saying “Man Facebook’s UI sucks,” think again. A 200 million user base didn’t show up due to lack of options.

Despite Facebook’s dominance there is room for innovation in the social network space. Facebook is winning the game, but it has not won it. They aren’t happily sitting back with their lead in the space. Their product serves a need, but it is far from perfect and they are well aware of it. Social networking is still in its infancy stages despite its adoption rate.

In regards to competition, I do like Virb’s look and feel, but it does leave me wanting feature wise. I’ll save my thoughts on Virb for another post.

Media, Product Management, Social Media, Technology facebook, Product Management, social networking, virb

Over the last few months, my wife and I have begun watching these two comedy central stars. We started watching during the election because all the other news shows typically resulted in me jumping up and down in front of the TV yelling at Pat Buchanan and Bill O’Reilly and my wife sitting there trying to calm me down.

Not just a joke

Now that the election is over, I’m able to watch CNN while remaining in my seat, but Stewart and Colbert are now a part of our daily routine. On one hand these guys are absolutely hilarious, but on the other the information is often quite enlightening. While everything out of Stewart’s mouth is rolled into a joke, a fairly educated mind can pull out some high quality information the more tame media sources won’t dare present. In the case of Colbert, one needs to take what he says and turn it 180 degrees to understand the implied meaning.

Bottom line

If you want to be entertained, watch The Daily Show & The Colbert Report.
If you want to learn something, watch The Daily Show.
If you want to see the slime of America get dragged through the dirt, watch The Daily Show.
If you are a self hating Republican, watch The Colbert Report.
If you hate Bill O’Reilly, watch either.

Media

I fought the Twitter craze for a while now, but the time has come to take the plunge. I tried to convince myself “Its just endless Facebook status updates, why do I need this?” The truth is, I don’t but its pretty fun. I downloaded Spaz, this new Adobe AIR app and Twitterrific for the iPhone. Its pretty fun and quite addictive. I haven’t truly had the time to explore the app, but I’m convinced that Twitter will be playing a larger role in my life in the days to come (whether I want it to or not). For you Twitter veterans out there, should I stop before its too late? In the mean time, follow me.

Apps, Media, Technology Spaz, twitter, twitterrific

I could be jumping the gun here, but I cant remember the last time I channel surfed. I’m sure part of this has to do with a simple lack of time. However, I do find the time to watch some TV. In fact, I’m watching Heroes as I type this (great show by the way). Only, I’m watching it through my Xbox 360 Media Center via Amazon Unbox. All of the TV I watch is On-Demand. Our web desiger at work doesn’t have cable. He just purchased a brand new HDTV, but has no plans on buying cable. For the first time in my life, that doesn’t seem so unreasonable. I actually considered doing the same thing. I get all my news from the internet(http://www.pageflakes.com/warren.colbert) and podcasts. Between all the Movie Download services, DVD renting services like Netflix and Blockbuster, and the IPTV services on the rise (Joost), channel surfing may just be on its way out.

Media, Technology

Rumors about a possible $100 million acquisition by Yahoo of sports content site Rivals surfaced today. But two previous deals to acquire the company died once it was discovered that the CEO, Shannon Terry, was found to have violated the anti-touting and antifraud provisions of U.S. securities laws in 1998.

Last week after reading Necromancer by William Gibson, I was lectured on the homogenization of the personal identity due to the digitization of human life. It was proposed by my prof, Fred Turner, that the interconnecting nature of the digital lifestyle gradually strips away the individual by making one dependent on the collective we call the net. We are effectively always “plugged in.” What does this have to do with the Bad Boys over at Rivals? Nothing in the slightest, but its nice to know that amidst the downward spiral orientation of society, there are still bandits at the helm of society committing old school crimes. As long as there are bank robbers, how different can society really get? Right?

read more | digg story

Business, Media, Technology

For every decent web 2.0 product there must be 20 useless, and I do mean useless, ones out there. This, however, looks as though Stanford has produced yet another winner. The idea of collaborative blogging has interested me for a while. Currently, I’m enrolled in the class New Media Entrepreneurship out here at The Farm which is my first formal peek into the world of journalism. My prof on the other hand is certainly no newbie. Anyways, I assume the search for a compatible blogmate is probably going to be atleast as challenging as finding a sustainable company from the Web 2.0 era.

read more | digg story

Media, Technology