Widgetmasters Debate Facebook as a Platform

Dave McClure thinks that Facebook is the most important thing to happen to the internet in the last five years. A highly debatable stance, of course, but that opinion makes him ideal to moderate the Web 2.0 Summit panel on Facebook as a platform.

The panelists, Seth Goldstein of Social Media, Ali Partovi of iLike, Keth Rabois of Slide, and Lance Tokuda of RockYou were collegial. Alas, all shied away from disclosing revenue.

After introductions, McClure opened by asking what percentage of each company’s efforts is now devoted to Facebook versus other social networks. Except for iLike, which is throwing about 80% of its efforts into Facebook—not surprising given MySpace’s engagement with the music world and Facebook’s lack of it—the responses were surprisingly low.  Slide is devoting about 35% to Facebook, with RockYou giving only 10% this week “because of other things opening up.”

Partovi was the biggest enthusiast of Facebook on the panel, placing it among the other key paradigm shifts in technology: DOS, Windows, HTM, and Google. Facebook, he says, is so compelling that many companies should consider following iLike’s lead in running their businesses within Facebook instead of trying to drive traffic to their own sites. The others were more non-committal. It’s clear they’re all hedging their bets to become providers to Facebook, MySpace, and any social network that breaks out with an open platform and large, enthusiastic user base.

The panel had the most fun with McClure’s question on Kara Swisher’s recent posts likening the early array of Facebook apps to children’s toys. Did they think their apps were silly toys? The consensus: Of course they are. They’re meant to be!

“I believe for her the apps are useless because she’s not a teenage girl,” says Tokuda, noting his fondness for Swisher. “One day I’m going to build something just for her.”

“Kara’s argument is ridiculous,” said Rabois more directly. “Why do people watch movies and tv? Because they’re bored or looking for something to do to relieve stress in their lives. Apps are providing entertainment to users.”

Partovi addressed the bigger question by noting that while current applications may be “lighthearted,” the same wasn’t true of the platform. With iLike being a top driver of traffic to iTunes and Ticketmaster, he noted, these products can drive serious business.

Photo: Jarda Brych.

Facebook - The Complete Biography

An in-depth profile of Facebook, written by Mashable contributor Sid Yadav and edited by Pete Cashmore. Image credit: Bryan Veloso.

Facebook is the second largest social network on the web, behind only MySpace in terms of traffic. Primarily focused on high school to college students, Facebook has been gaining market share, and more significantly a supportive user base. Since their launch in February 2004, they’ve been able to obtain over 8 million users in the U.S. alone and expand worldwide to 7 other English-speaking countries, with more to follow. A growing phenomenon, let’s discover Facebook.

The Facebook Phenomenon

First, let’s start by looking into Facebook in a broad spectrum - as the network, the phenomenon, the company, and its brand.

History

Originally called thefacebook, Facebook was founded by former-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (while at Harvard) who ran it as one of his hobby projects with some financial help from Eduardo Saverin. Within months, Facebook and its core idea spread across the dorm rooms of Harvard where it was very well received. Soon enough, it was extended to Stanford and Yale where, like Harvard, it was widely endorsed.

Before he knew it, Mark Zuckerberg was joined by two other fellow Harvard-students - Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes - to help him grow the site to the next level. Only months later when it was officially a national student network phenomenon, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz dropped out of Harvard to pursue their dreams and run Facebook full time. In August 2005, thefacebook was officially called Facebook and the domain facebook.com was purchased for a reported $200,000.

Availability

Unlike its competitors MySpace, Friendster, Xanga, hi5, Bebo, and others, Facebook isn’t available to everyone — which explains its relatively low user count. Currently, users must be members of one of the 30,000+ recognized schools, colleges, universities, organizations, and companies within the U.S, Canada, and other English-speaking nations. This generally involves having a valid e-mail ID with the associated institution.

Surveys & Studies

A large number of surveys and studies have been conducted around Facebook - some with interesting results. For instance, according to an internal September 2005 survey, approximately 85% of the students in the supported colleges had a Facebook account, with 60% of them logging in daily. A survey conducted by Student Monitor revealed Facebook was the most “in” thing after the iPod and tying with beer, and comScore Media Metrix discovered users spend approximately 20 minutes everyday on Facebook. Another 2005 survey said 90% of all undergraduates in the U.S. use either Facebook or MySpace regularly, and a detailed questionnaire analysis by Chris Roberts revealed that 76.2% never click on its ads. Perhaps the most amazing statistic of all may be that Facebook is the 7th most trafficked site in the U.S.

Hey Facebook Users!Mashable’s shiny new Facebook account is HERE - feel free to add Mashable to your friends if you sign up, or you’re already a member.

Business & Funding

Given the situation other social networks on the web are facing, Facebook is in a good position financially. While it hasn’t managed to get acquired like its rival MySpace (despite some rumors about an $800m deal with Viacom), it’s been quite lucky in most aspects. For its initial funding, it received $500,000 from Peter Theil, co-founder of PayPal. A few months later, it was also able to get $13 million from Accel Partners, who are also investors in 15 other Web 2.0 startups, and $25 million from Greylock Partners, making their overall venture equal to approximately $40 million.

For users, Facebook’s core service is completely free and ad-supported. In fact, in August 2006 Facebook signed a three year deal with Microsoft to provide and sell ads on their site in return for a revenue split. The deal followed an announcement from Facebook’s direct competitor MySpace who signed a similar deal with Google. The youthful demographic that both the services attract is highly prized amongst advertisers and should return a good amount of revenue for both the services to stay alive - and profit. Another deal which made news in July was Facebook’s agreement with Apple to give away 10 million free iTunes samplers to Facebook users. A deal has also been signed to provide Facebook credit cards.

Lawsuits & Concerns

In its early days, Facebook faced an extremely threatening lawsuit from ConnectU, a very similar social network which - like Facebook - shares its roots back to Harvard, and as a result almost got shutdown. The founders of ConnectU alleged that Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg stole source code while he was in their employment. Zuckerberg denied the allegation and the lawsuit was dismissed.

Facebook has also been host to other issues and concerns, especially in the privacy sector where its privacy policy states “Facebook also collects information about you from other sources, such as newspapers and instant messaging services. This information is gathered regardless of your use of the Web Site.” Another theory is that Facebook could also be a data-gathering project or if not, used extensively for these purposes. Facebook’s policy also states that it “may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship.”

The Service

Now, let’s look into Facebook - the service itself, and some of its features, highlights, and the things that got Facebook where it is today.

Facebook Profiles

As Facebook has evolved, so have its profile pages - new fields have been added and users can share more information than before.

A typical Facebook profile consists of a number of different sections, including Information, Status, Friends, Friends in Other Networks, Photos, Notes, Groups, and The Wall. Most of the sections are self-explanatory but some are specific to Facebook.

Facebook Photos

With over 1.5 million photos uploaded daily, one of Facebook’s most popular features has been the ability to upload photos. Users can upload unlimited photos from their cell phone or through its Java-based web interface. Facebook is one of the few services to offer an unlimited quota with their only restriction being a 60-photos-per-album limit - this is much appreciated by Facebook’s college demographic.

The process of uploading photos is very simple. Users create albums which they can assign limitations to (e.g. visible to my friends only) and upload photos within them. The album is then put into their profile, and other users with right credentials have the ability to see and comment on them. Facebook also gives the feature to share the photos with a simple web link or send them via AIM or by e-mail. What’s more, users can also order prints online through a simple integrated interface.

Facebook Groups

Just like every other social network, Facebook has something called ‘groups.’ Users can create new ones or join and participate in existing ones. This is also displayed in their profile and is a good indication of hobbies and interests a person might have.

There are two kind of groups, a normal group and a secret group, which isn’t shown on the profile. A normal group is just like any other, but users can also create and invite others into secret groups. These can be used for collaborating on university projects, and provide a way to have closed discussions. About 80% of the groups are ‘fun-related’ and companies can even sponsor groups - as is the case with, for example, the Apple users group.

Facebook Events

Another Facebook success is their ‘events’ feature, which provides the ability to organize, be part of, and plan for events. This feature has been extremely successful when it comes to organizing parties.

Along with organizing and joining events, users can also invite and recommend others to an event. This feature, however, has raised some controversy as it is generally the start of underage drinking and dry campus violations. Colleges and universities use the feature to catch planning of such events before hand and investigate those that are over. In any case, it’s one of the most popular features of the service and even beats some of the competing products made specifically for this purpose.

Facebook Developers

As of August 2006, Facebook has offered a free Developers API called Facebook Developers. This essentially gives anyone access to Facebook’s internals and lets programmers create widgets, mashups, tools and projects based around Facebook.

This is an important feature for Facebook since it makes it the first major social network to give access to its API. Although it is limited to 100,000 requests a day, it’s more than enough for a decent web app to come through. What’s more, a selection of applications have already been created. FaceBank is a promising tool which lets you ‘keep track of depts and shared expenses with friends.’ Another interesting application is lickuacious which lets you ‘rank your friends by wall popularity.’ The Wall, of course, is Facebook’s comments feature.

Facebook Notes

Facebook’s most recent addition launched in late August. The service is called Facebook Notes, and allows users to write a Facebook blog. All notes are displayed in the user’s profile, and other members can add comments.

Notes possesses an important feature, which is the ability to import and syndicate an external blog, although unlike Technorati, doesn’t allow you to claim one only to yourself (e.g. it’s possible to claim the New York Times syndication feed easily in one’s Notes). The service allows HTML to be included in the posts, although JavaScript and Flash are disabled. You can attach photos and also post via cell phone by sending your notes to notes@facebook.com. Another interesting feature is tagging - tagging a post with a username will automatically send it to that specific user. The Notes feature has been well received.

The Future

Facebook is a massively successful social networking service that grew to prominence in virtually no time. It’s not hard to see why: its features and tools are highly appealing, and Facebook users are extremely well networked in real life. Rumors of an acquisition continue to circulate, with some estimates putting the price in the billions of dollars. In the short term, however, Facebook plans to go it alone, continuing to build out one of the world’s most successful social networks.

Hey Facebook Users!Mashable’s shiny new Facebook account is HERE - feel free to add Mashable to your friends if you sign up, or you’re already a member.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Profile

Uploading to Facebook Photos

Facebook Groups

Facebook Events

Facebook Notes

Facebook Developers

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Related Entries:

• Create Your Own Facebook Direct Profile URL
• Facebook Adds Profile Icons for your Apps
• ReverbNation Launches A Second Facebook App
• Last.fm Releases Upgraded Facebook App
• Google Reader Now Available for your Facebook Profile
• Answerbag Launches Q&A Facebook App
• SpaceLift Imports Your MySpace Profile to Facebook

Facebook - The Complete Biography

An in-depth profile of Facebook, written by Mashable contributor Sid Yadav and edited by Pete Cashmore. Image credit: Bryan Veloso.

Facebook is the second largest social network on the web, behind only MySpace in terms of traffic. Primarily focused on high school to college students, Facebook has been gaining market share, and more significantly a supportive user base. Since their launch in February 2004, they’ve been able to obtain over 8 million users in the U.S. alone and expand worldwide to 7 other English-speaking countries, with more to follow. A growing phenomenon, let’s discover Facebook.

The Facebook Phenomenon

First, let’s start by looking into Facebook in a broad spectrum - as the network, the phenomenon, the company, and its brand.

History

Originally called thefacebook, Facebook was founded by former-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (while at Harvard) who ran it as one of his hobby projects with some financial help from Eduardo Saverin. Within months, Facebook and its core idea spread across the dorm rooms of Harvard where it was very well received. Soon enough, it was extended to Stanford and Yale where, like Harvard, it was widely endorsed.

Before he knew it, Mark Zuckerberg was joined by two other fellow Harvard-students - Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes - to help him grow the site to the next level. Only months later when it was officially a national student network phenomenon, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz dropped out of Harvard to pursue their dreams and run Facebook full time. In August 2005, thefacebook was officially called Facebook and the domain facebook.com was purchased for a reported $200,000.

Availability

Unlike its competitors MySpace, Friendster, Xanga, hi5, Bebo, and others, Facebook isn’t available to everyone — which explains its relatively low user count. Currently, users must be members of one of the 30,000+ recognized schools, colleges, universities, organizations, and companies within the U.S, Canada, and other English-speaking nations. This generally involves having a valid e-mail ID with the associated institution.

Surveys & Studies

A large number of surveys and studies have been conducted around Facebook - some with interesting results. For instance, according to an internal September 2005 survey, approximately 85% of the students in the supported colleges had a Facebook account, with 60% of them logging in daily. A survey conducted by Student Monitor revealed Facebook was the most “in” thing after the iPod and tying with beer, and comScore Media Metrix discovered users spend approximately 20 minutes everyday on Facebook. Another 2005 survey said 90% of all undergraduates in the U.S. use either Facebook or MySpace regularly, and a detailed questionnaire analysis by Chris Roberts revealed that 76.2% never click on its ads. Perhaps the most amazing statistic of all may be that Facebook is the 7th most trafficked site in the U.S.

Hey Facebook Users!Mashable’s shiny new Facebook account is HERE - feel free to add Mashable to your friends if you sign up, or you’re already a member.

Business & Funding

Given the situation other social networks on the web are facing, Facebook is in a good position financially. While it hasn’t managed to get acquired like its rival MySpace (despite some rumors about an $800m deal with Viacom), it’s been quite lucky in most aspects. For its initial funding, it received $500,000 from Peter Theil, co-founder of PayPal. A few months later, it was also able to get $13 million from Accel Partners, who are also investors in 15 other Web 2.0 startups, and $25 million from Greylock Partners, making their overall venture equal to approximately $40 million.

For users, Facebook’s core service is completely free and ad-supported. In fact, in August 2006 Facebook signed a three year deal with Microsoft to provide and sell ads on their site in return for a revenue split. The deal followed an announcement from Facebook’s direct competitor MySpace who signed a similar deal with Google. The youthful demographic that both the services attract is highly prized amongst advertisers and should return a good amount of revenue for both the services to stay alive - and profit. Another deal which made news in July was Facebook’s agreement with Apple to give away 10 million free iTunes samplers to Facebook users. A deal has also been signed to provide Facebook credit cards.

Lawsuits & Concerns

In its early days, Facebook faced an extremely threatening lawsuit from ConnectU, a very similar social network which - like Facebook - shares its roots back to Harvard, and as a result almost got shutdown. The founders of ConnectU alleged that Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg stole source code while he was in their employment. Zuckerberg denied the allegation and the lawsuit was dismissed.

Facebook has also been host to other issues and concerns, especially in the privacy sector where its privacy policy states “Facebook also collects information about you from other sources, such as newspapers and instant messaging services. This information is gathered regardless of your use of the Web Site.” Another theory is that Facebook could also be a data-gathering project or if not, used extensively for these purposes. Facebook’s policy also states that it “may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship.”

The Service

Now, let’s look into Facebook - the service itself, and some of its features, highlights, and the things that got Facebook where it is today.

Facebook Profiles

As Facebook has evolved, so have its profile pages - new fields have been added and users can share more information than before.

A typical Facebook profile consists of a number of different sections, including Information, Status, Friends, Friends in Other Networks, Photos, Notes, Groups, and The Wall. Most of the sections are self-explanatory but some are specific to Facebook.

Facebook Photos

With over 1.5 million photos uploaded daily, one of Facebook’s most popular features has been the ability to upload photos. Users can upload unlimited photos from their cell phone or through its Java-based web interface. Facebook is one of the few services to offer an unlimited quota with their only restriction being a 60-photos-per-album limit - this is much appreciated by Facebook’s college demographic.

The process of uploading photos is very simple. Users create albums which they can assign limitations to (e.g. visible to my friends only) and upload photos within them. The album is then put into their profile, and other users with right credentials have the ability to see and comment on them. Facebook also gives the feature to share the photos with a simple web link or send them via AIM or by e-mail. What’s more, users can also order prints online through a simple integrated interface.

Facebook Groups

Just like every other social network, Facebook has something called ‘groups.’ Users can create new ones or join and participate in existing ones. This is also displayed in their profile and is a good indication of hobbies and interests a person might have.

There are two kind of groups, a normal group and a secret group, which isn’t shown on the profile. A normal group is just like any other, but users can also create and invite others into secret groups. These can be used for collaborating on university projects, and provide a way to have closed discussions. About 80% of the groups are ‘fun-related’ and companies can even sponsor groups - as is the case with, for example, the Apple users group.

Facebook Events

Another Facebook success is their ‘events’ feature, which provides the ability to organize, be part of, and plan for events. This feature has been extremely successful when it comes to organizing parties.

Along with organizing and joining events, users can also invite and recommend others to an event. This feature, however, has raised some controversy as it is generally the start of underage drinking and dry campus violations. Colleges and universities use the feature to catch planning of such events before hand and investigate those that are over. In any case, it’s one of the most popular features of the service and even beats some of the competing products made specifically for this purpose.

Facebook Developers

As of August 2006, Facebook has offered a free Developers API called Facebook Developers. This essentially gives anyone access to Facebook’s internals and lets programmers create widgets, mashups, tools and projects based around Facebook.

This is an important feature for Facebook since it makes it the first major social network to give access to its API. Although it is limited to 100,000 requests a day, it’s more than enough for a decent web app to come through. What’s more, a selection of applications have already been created. FaceBank is a promising tool which lets you ‘keep track of depts and shared expenses with friends.’ Another interesting application is lickuacious which lets you ‘rank your friends by wall popularity.’ The Wall, of course, is Facebook’s comments feature.

Facebook Notes

Facebook’s most recent addition launched in late August. The service is called Facebook Notes, and allows users to write a Facebook blog. All notes are displayed in the user’s profile, and other members can add comments.

Notes possesses an important feature, which is the ability to import and syndicate an external blog, although unlike Technorati, doesn’t allow you to claim one only to yourself (e.g. it’s possible to claim the New York Times syndication feed easily in one’s Notes). The service allows HTML to be included in the posts, although JavaScript and Flash are disabled. You can attach photos and also post via cell phone by sending your notes to notes@facebook.com. Another interesting feature is tagging - tagging a post with a username will automatically send it to that specific user. The Notes feature has been well received.

The Future

Facebook is a massively successful social networking service that grew to prominence in virtually no time. It’s not hard to see why: its features and tools are highly appealing, and Facebook users are extremely well networked in real life. Rumors of an acquisition continue to circulate, with some estimates putting the price in the billions of dollars. In the short term, however, Facebook plans to go it alone, continuing to build out one of the world’s most successful social networks.

Hey Facebook Users!Mashable’s shiny new Facebook account is HERE - feel free to add Mashable to your friends if you sign up, or you’re already a member.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Profile

Uploading to Facebook Photos

Facebook Groups

Facebook Events

Facebook Notes

Facebook Developers

Link to This Post:

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Related Entries:

• Create Your Own Facebook Direct Profile URL
• Facebook Adds Profile Icons for your Apps
• ReverbNation Launches A Second Facebook App
• Last.fm Releases Upgraded Facebook App
• Google Reader Now Available for your Facebook Profile
• Answerbag Launches Q&A Facebook App
• SpaceLift Imports Your MySpace Profile to Facebook

What Google Needs

Google has some insanely useful applications, the top of their field in many cases — and by mastering these tools, you can become a productivity ninja. But these apps — Gmail, Gcal, Google Reader, Google Docs, et al — they aren’t perfect.

Don’t get me wrong — I love these apps. They are awesome, and I couldn’t bring myself to use anything else. But although they’ve come out with some minor upgrades recently, Google has been a little slow in upgrading their great apps with much-needed features. Perhaps they just need a little nudge.

Well here it is. Google, here are just a few of the features you need to add, pronto.

Gmail

1. Sort features. You should be able to sort your inbox (or any folder/label) by date, sender, etc.
2. Two panes. When you open an email, you shouldn’t have to leave the inbox view if you don’t want to.
3. Dragging. You should be able to drag emails if you want, to re-arrange them, pop them in a label.
4. Drag-n-drop and batch uploads. Why should we have to manually select each individual file attachment? Allow us to select a bunch of files, and drag them into an email.
5. Progress bar. Speaking of uploads, if you’ve got some big files attached, and it takes awhile for Gmail to upload, Gmail should show you a progress bar so you know it’s working.
6. Better integration with Gcal. This has been improving, but as of right now, you need to add third-party extensions to allow you to schedule stuff from an email into your Google Calendar, or to see your agenda for the day in Gmail. With two great tools like this, integration really should be complete.
7. Unthread. I love the threaded conversations. It’s ingenius. It took me a couple of days to get used to this, back when Gmail first came out, but now it’s indispensable. Except when you don’t want emails to be threaded (if you email something to 50 people, for example). Give us a choice.
8. Notification. I’m actually not a big fan of email notification, as they’re horribly distracting. But I know that others want it. You could use a third-party extension for this, but you shouldn’t need to.
9. Open emails in new tab. Self explanatory. Firefox made me addicted to tabs. Why can’t I use them in Gmail?
10. Read receipt. I wouldn’t use this much, but I think a lot of people find it useful.
11. Message size. I should be able to see how big a message is, and sort by size. Would make deleting emails easier.
12. Off-line reading. I love Gmail being online all the time, but what if my Internet connection is down, or I’m away from a wi-fi spot? How will I get my Gmail fix?

Gcal

1. To-do list. C’mon. This is pretty basic.
2. Pop-up notifications. Yes, they have this already, except when Gcal isn’t open. I’d like to be notified at all times.
3. Quick-add. There’s an extension for this, but it should be built in. Do a simple key combination, and enter an event. Voila.
4. Off-line usage. Same complaint as Gmail — you should be able to save stuff and view your calendar even when you’re not connected to the Internet. I’m sure this is coming, but it should come sooner.
5. Drag an event to another week. I love being able to drag an event to another day when I’m in “week” view … but what if it’s next week, or the next month? What then, Google?
6. Icons. OK, this isn’t that necessary. But darn it, I’d like a little birthday cake next to the birthdays, and a little Christmas tree …

Google Reader

1. Nothing much. This feed reader is pretty much perfect.
2. Except. Off-line reading.
3. And search! How is it that the king of search companies doesn’t have search in Reader?
4. Also: someday/maybe list. If I unsubscribe to a feed, I might want to save it on a list to check out at a later date.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets

1. Sharing with non-Google users. As far as I know, if you want to share a Google doc with someone, they’ll need to log in with a Google account to access it. Well, they shouldn’t have to.
2. Drag-n-drop. When I’m looking at my list of docs, I should be able to re-sort them, put them into folders, drag them to my desktop, and drag documents from the desktop to Google Docs.
3. Selecting text. I should be able to use the keyboard to select a paragraph of text, like you can in other word processors. Control-Shift-Up Arrow. It’s frustrating not to be able to do that.
4. Spreadsheets. This app needs a lot of work. It’s so behind other spreadsheet programs it’s almost not usable. I can make some very basic spreadsheets, but it’s a lot more time consuming. Simple things, like being able to quickly do a Sum formula without having to click on the Formulas tab first. Keyboard shortcuts. Things like that.
5. Off-line working. Same as above. This would be killer.

Other apps Google needs

1. Glist. Instead of just adding a to-do list into Gcal, Google should come up with a really cool to-do list program, with multiple lists, project view, drag-n-drop, reminders, etc. Basically a Google GTD program, integrated tightly with Gmail, Gcal, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
2. GMoney. There are a lot of personal finance programs out there, but Google needs one, integrated with its other features. I’m sure it will do this one day.
3. GDrive. This has been discussed, but really, Google should put your hard drive online. Drag and drop files, sort them, put them in folders.
4. GContacts. I like how Gmail automatically adds email address to your contact list. I barely even think about my contacts anymore. Until I want to look up a phone number. Then I have to go to Contacts, do a search, click on the contact … using the contact manager is one of the worst features in Gmail. Google should have a separate Contact manager, integrated with Gmail and Gcal. And make it really cool, kay?

Search your name ????

The Internet users can be divided into two categories: those who surf exclusively in a anonymous way, this thanks to the use of a pen name, and the others, who use their real name and first name. These last ones represent one not unimportant part, because according to the institute Pew Internet, the specialist of the United States, 47 % of the American surfers look for their own name on internet. A figure in net progress for five years, because they were only 22 % to make him(it) in 2002. This strong growth of ” search(research) on itself ” is the logical consequence of the explosion of the Web social, said networks 2.0 (blogs and friends of front in France, MySpace and FaceBook in the United States), billions of pages indexed by search engines, and democratization of internet across the Atlantic. To look his(her,its) for own roll thus allows to find information published by itself, but also by the others. Are the Internet users making this research type just curious, or does it show a paranoiac tendency? For Pew Internet, 60 % of the Internet users do not worry about information concerning them visible by all on the painting(cloth). However, 38 % admit to pay attention on this information, so that they do not reach(affect,achieve)  For a part(party) of these curious Internet users, examine themselves consist especially in putting itself in the skin of a person who wants exactly to find information on their person. We notably think of the recruiters or the former(ancient) knowledge.  So, according to Pew Internet, near a third(third party) of the Internet users looked at least once on the painting(cloth) for the career of a person, as well as its photo, its profile in a social network or the other details of its private life. Sometimes unsuccessfully if the person involved did not wish to reveal some information on her subject. 

Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista side by side

The more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s what I thought watching coverage of Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s conference opening yesterday, where banners that read things like “Hasta la vista, Vista” and “Redmond has a cat, too. A copycat” hung.

I suppose Apple’s got reason enough to accuse Microsoft of copying their software. My first impression of Windows Vista was that it’s a lot like OS X. But doth Apple protest too much? A bunch of features they touted yesterday have been around on other operating systems for awhile, or were just simply yawners (with one exception, in my book.) After the jump, a little side-by-side comparison of Leopard and Vista.

Note: Windows Vista is still in beta, and Apple says they’re not announcing a lot of new Leopard features because they don’t want Microsoft to copy them. “Again.” That sounds like marketing hype wrapped up in Apple’s signature superiority, so take it with a grain of salt. But do remember the features listed in this article are not final or complete according to Microsoft and Apple. Also: I love and use both a Mac and a PC.

Backup

Leopard will have Time Machine. Vista’s got built-in file versioning and XP’s got System Restore points. Leopard’s looks prettier, but are they basically the same thing? Probably.

Multiple desktops

Leopard calls them “Spaces” (ironically this makes me think of MSN Spaces) but they’re just virtual desktops, which have been around on Linux since, well, forever. Right now you can get ‘em on Windows XP with the Virtual Desktops Power Toy. Eh.

Search

Leopard’s improving their desktop search, Spotlight, to index network drives, and it’s supposed to be faster and better overall. Search nerds will particularly appreciate the introduction of Google-like search operators:

In Leopard, Spotlight provides a richer syntax so you can search for more specific sets of things. Use new boolean logic to narrow search results by entering “AND,” “OR,” and “NOT” into a search request. You can also search using specific file attributes — author, type, or keyword, for example.

(Which are available in Google Desktop search for Windows right now, FYI.) Ok, fine - fast desktop search is a good thing. Vista starts the no-longer-Start menu with a search box, and Vista’s improved Explorer is much more search-based as well. No word on whether the sucky Finder has been improved in Leopard, but one would certainly hope that’s one of the secrets Cupertino’s keeping.

Calendar and Mail

Windows never shipped with a built-in calendar before Vista (you needed Outlook.) Vista comes with “Windows Calendar,” what I felt was a direct copy/competitor to OS X’s iCal. Still feel that way. Good news is Leopard has improved iCal to support group calendars with a WebDAV server (oooh, maybe offices can actually use iCal to coordinate now). But most importantly to organized, Mac-using lifehackers, Apple’s got some cool shiznit going on in Mail regarding to do’s and notes.

Check out this video of managing notes and creating todo’s from a line in a Mail message, and scheduling it in iCal all in one interface.

So on the Calendar/Mail front? Leopard wins.

Other Leopard bits and bytes

Leopard’s iChat improvements sound incredible, while Dashboard upgrades are pretty shrug-inducing. Also, note that Windows Vista Desktop Gadgets (and third party offerings Google Desktop Gadgets and Yahoo! Widgets) are the same thing as Dashboard. Yeah. I know.

Leopard’s built-in Bootcamp is also a smart move on Cupertino’s part, to get more folks to shell over their dough for Apple hardware without the worry of not being able to run their Windows apps. Because, you know, no matter how many stylish black turtlenecks you own, Windows still dominates the personal computer market.

One More Thing

Microsoft released Vista as a limited beta download for regular people (like me and you) to use and test. Leopard, so far, is a set of Quicktime movies on the Apple site. Both are due out in 2007. Now, Vista is Microsoft’s first major operating system release in years and years, whereas Apple makes your Mac’s OS “the older version”  almost yearly. Take from all that what you will.

MSN Ad Boosts Starbucks Brand Impact

Case Study|11/09/06
To celebrate its 30th anniversary and promote its anniversary blend, Starbucks took advantage of an innovative ad format from the MSN network of Internet services. Then, the coffee company worked with MSN to study the impact. Results were impressive. Among people who saw the ad only once there was a 75% rise in message association and a 16% lift in unaided brand awareness.¹ This is particularly impressive because Starbucks brand awareness number were high to begin with.

Starbucks was one of the first advertisers to try the creative type: a vertical ad with a billboard that flies out when the page loads. The billboard automatically retracts in a few seconds leaving the vertical ad in place. The automatic expansion of the ad is limited to once per session. But a user can initiate this action at any time, just by pointing to the vertical ad. Because the action is user-initiated, it doesn’t interfere with the online experience, but it does make a big impact. Even when users didn’t take action, research shows the vertical ad alone contributed to significant boosts in key branding measures.

Marketing executives liked the ad because it portrayed the Starbucks brand in a bold uncluttered setting. They also liked the fact that it allowed them to bring their offline creative online. The generous size of the fly-out ad enabled the company to carry over the evocative image from its in-store poster and print ads to create the Starbucks mood online.

Researchers from Dynamic Logic say the quality creative was one of the reasons the campaign was so successful. When building a brand, they say you definitely want to evoke a mood and keep both the message and the image simple. The Starbucks message resonated well with Starbucks drinkers. Among established customers, the research showed even impact with increases in message association as high as 112 percent.

Goals

• • Raise awareness.
  • Promote anniversary blend.

Target

• • Starbucks customers.

Campaign Elements

• • In-store posters.
  • Print ads.
  • Fly-out creative type from MSN.

Results

• • 16% increase in unaided brand awareness.
  • 75% increase in message association.
  • 112% increase in message association among loyal Starbucks drinkers.

Facebook, the Place People Go to Meet Other Scrabble Players

Like most fanatical Scrabble players, devotees of Scrabulous, a Scrabble-like application on Facebook, hate to be interrupted. So players are breathing easier since an upgrade last week intended to ensure that matches load more quickly.

The improvement came in response to the booming popularity of the application, which lets Facebook members to play one another online. According to the site, Scrabulous has upwards of half a million daily users.

Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, software developers and brothers in Calcutta, released Scrabulous on Facebook at the end of June. Longtime fans of the board game Scrabble from Hasbro, they developed their online version on their Web sites Bingobinge.com, which was introduced in 2005, and Scrabulous.com, which had its debut a year later.

In early June, a Scrabulous.com user suggested they put the game on Facebook to broaden their reach, so they wrote to Hasbro to make sure they were not engaging in copyright infringement. The brothers say they never heard back from the company. (Representatives at Hasbro did not respond to queries on the matter.)

“We were targeting 2,600 users, about 0.01 percent of the entire Facebook population,” said Jayant, a 21-year-old college senior. Within weeks, the Scrabulous application had 20,000 users.

Jayant’s enthusiasm for the online game has not dulled his love of the face-to-face experience of the original. He recently came in first in his age group in a local Scrabble competition.

“Scrabble has a charm of its own because you’re playing with close friends or family members,” he said. “But the thing is, as in everything in the world, people don’t find time to be with their family, to find two hours to play. Most people have Scrabble in their attic gathering dust, so the application helps people play and stay connected.”

Though they will not disclose how much money they make from Scrabulous, The Wall Street Journal quoted Jayant this year as saying Scrabulous earns roughly $18,000 a month. In addition, it may help Scrabble sales.

Through Scrabulous, “we have managed to reach a lot of people who have never played the game,” said Rajat, who is 26. “Some even ask us questions about how to play Scrabulous because they’re not familiar with it. Once we’ve explained it to them, they come back and say, ‘It’s a great thing and we have to buy the original version to play with our family offline.’”

The brothers plan further upgrades, including video lectures about the game. And they are preparing a chess application for Facebook.

“We’ve tried to make it as intuitive as possible and as friendly as possible,” said Rajat.

ADVERTISING ON THE INTERNET

With millions of users & thousands more coming online daily, conducting business on the internet is growing at an unprecedented rate. In 1998 online retail sales tripled from the previous year and are projected to follow or surpass that trend into the foreseeable future. A commercial website can be developed for the cost of a quarter page yellow pages listing or less - so the question becomes not whether your organization can afford an Internet presence - it’s whether you can afford not to.

DAFT PUNK ALIVE 2007

A Daft Punk live album loses some of the essential experience: the robot costumes, the giant glowing pyramid, the sweaty bodies next to you. And the drugs, definitely the drugs. But the whoops of the human-after-all audience add plenty to the French filter-disco duo’s surprisingly consistent career-spanning show. The set leans too heavy on their proggy recent work, but it’s still basically a celestial rave tribute to Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, cut with classic Eurodisco and Roxy Music. “One More Time” still sounds unbearably pompous, proof that robots should never get sincere. But the knockout punch is the final medley of “Superheroes,” “Human After All” and “Rock ‘N’ Roll,” as Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo shoot a Barry Manilow sample over the crowd like they’re sprinkling holy water. This is the first-rate live album that Electric Light Orchestra should have made but never did.