A few days back I stood up for Facebook for a few reasons. First, I don’t think the design is as bad as people say it is. Second, people often don’t offer many recommendations for improvement beyond “dude, the UI sucks.” The beauty of the internet is everyone gets a voice. The downfall of the internet is everyone gets a voice. It makes it extremely hard for PMs to sift through the mess(as evident from the comments on MG’s TechCrunch post) and understand what is noise and what is actionable feedback that should be addressed. OK, that is now out of the way and I can get back to the task at hand, Virb.

If Facebook had Virb’s UI, Productivity in the US would plummet
Seriously, Virb’s UI is hot. Its clean and easy to use. It really isn’t fair to compare it to Facebook, since it’s purpose isn’t to keep in touch with friends. Instead Virb lets you explore photos, text, quotes, bookmarks, videos, and more. One of my favorite features on Virb is the explore button. I spend so much time searching for the things I want, it’s nice to just browse through images, videos, and quotes from interesting people that I don’t know. It’s like channel surfing on TV, but better. There are definitely some talented artists and photographers on Virb.

Content is king, so Virb’s got some work to do
Despite the wonderful UI, content is king, and on Social Networks the content that keeps users coming back is more users. Maybe Virb’s goal is really to be a place for really creative people to… well, be creative. I’ve got no problem with that, since I’m a big fan of concrete mission statements or mantras. I think it tends to lead to products that answer a need and successfully monetize.

This post really just scratched the surface. My next post on Virb will go over a few of the UI/UX features that I think make it a killer web application. Stay tuned.

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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.

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One of the things recently talked about in our Facebook class is the news feed. The consensus was that its an Ace in the hole for Facebook. I’m not going to argue with that, but how much is too much? Sure, I’m glad that Facebook gives you the ability to control what shows up where on mini feeds and news feeds, but I am beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed with all this “control.”

One of Facebook’s strengths (atleast in my mind) is the UI. Its clean, simple and attractive. reading the information relativ to your network is easy and the format is great. Now I feel like I have to defend myself from so much information so I can still make out the important stuff.

With the news feed being opened to Apps, and now the feature Project Beacon which includes products your friends have purchased from partner sites in your feed, The clean interface might be a thing of yesteryear.

Could Microsoft be rubbing off on Facebook already? Check this video out to see the a possible evolution of Facebook. Replace “iPod” with “Facebook”

Facebook App Beacon, facebook, microsoft

I’m fully aware of all the lame apps around, but creating a good app is a lot of work. My entire team definitely underestimated the amount of time required to develop an app that is useful to users. Our app is aimed at the car enthusiast community, therefore we’ve performed some “field” research to get feedback on what kind of features they would find useful. Obviously, we had our own ideas previous to the research, but the feedback was great. We got a lot of awesome suggestions(along with some entertaining ones). If you are developing an app for a specific community, I highly recommend speaking directly with people who will likely be using your app to get great ideas. Obviously, user comments on the app are effective, but it is definitely a different type of feedback than feedback “in the wild,” or sites where your users congregate en masse.

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