DISQUS

You can link my name :)

http://maryspecht.com

Chris, pleasure to meet you last night. Yes, Gannett has cleverly thrown its "big media" weight behind innovation & product development efforts, instead of clinging to outmoded ideas.

From Dave's post:

"When I last visited Fry's I wished I could hide all the items on the shelf that don't match my search criteria."

I've had that feeling, too!

I was at Whole foods to prepare for my first-ever foodie cooking experience.

Where are "tumeric" and "shallots"? What do those things even look like? As I entered the store I thought: "No biggie, I can find anything. Doesn't matter that I've never heard of it."

And then I panicked: "This isn't Borders. There's no search!"

When I calmed down, I asked a store employee for help. Google is much better at hiding its disdain for my culinary ignorance!

We were there last night, too, like flies to a light. Or like cheap 20-somethings to a $3 drink special.

I'm seeing Social Ads on mine. They're on the right instead of the left.

Digg's stuff makes great screensavers. Is there a screensaver version of FriendFeed Spy?

Yeah, it's a tad cluttered, but the different colors make it fairly easy to distinguish one story from another. (Except where the "cool" stuff clusters in the bottom right). Neat.

Jolly good!

Can you link to the statement where Facebook explained its reasons for disallowing Friend Connect?

Agreed. Social networking, like everything else online, seems more relevant when you're out living your life--not just when you're chained to a desk/table/somewhere you can set a laptop.

"Without investing in advertising campaigns, new applications will find it increasingly difficult to experience much growth at all."

Maybe a push for Social Ads is part of this? (Doubt that's the main driver, though--I imagine they genuinely were trying to improve the experience as app spam speeds up Facebook fatigue).

Nick, sounds like fun. Count me in! (Just as a regular, listening attendee, for now).

It seems like the regular logging that comes with AIM by default isn't so bad. I can usually remember who I was talking with, and then search the log file for that person's screen name with a simple CTRL+F.

It would probably be useful to have advanced search if you had several screen names or several instant message clients--in which case you might have four different log files for one conversation partner.

Willis, it looks like Facebook is responding to such problems quickly. It announced last week that it won't allow apps to hold quiz results (etc) hostage until users spam their friends with invites.

From the Facebook developers blog:

"Additionally, it is misleading to entice an investment of effort or promise a result and then -- without warning -- hold expected content hostage behind an invitation ransom; this is now expressly prohibited."

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&...

Beyers' argument that Facebook could charge companies to build apps on their site is an interesting one. First, however, app-makers need to know they can make real money there, and it seems there are only a handful doing so...

On the other hand, if there were some barriers to entry, the quality of the apps might be better (only richer, more experienced players could get in the game) which would create a better user experience.

Loren is right...the content is awful.

Is nytimes.com really using Beacon? I see their Product Page but I don't see anywhere on their site that sends your activities to Facebook. I looked in the travel section too--nothing.

Anyone found anything?

Who's making a million bucks on their apps?

I'm in that group protesting the forced friend-spamming. I was speaking to a college class last semester at GWU, and one student told me she's getting turned off by the clutter of Facebook apps. Facebook's not going to be deserted tomorrow, but it does make you wonder what's going to be the next--perhaps simpler--network to come in underneath it.

Hahaha--I'm actually pretty impressed when guys whip out both an iPhone and a...is that a Newton??

"Hopefully the Jaiku team got some valuable Google stock options and can now take off and start another business!"

Hahaha

Speaking from a user's perspective, Facebook actually seems to do a great job with ads. Of all the sites I visit, FB's ads are the only ones I consider clicking (and sometimes have done so). Perhaps they're getting keener with their targeting.

There's no real ironic connection--Facebook Beacon is never going to publish your SS#. Beacon may sometimes be in poor taste (resulting in the tragedy of the Christmas ring: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...) but never *that* poor of taste.

Haha, I kind of liked the quirky, non-grammatical things people came up with for status updates. A worthy change, though. I can still choose to add a nonsensical "is" on top of whatever I write, as a throwback.

No real need to download an app like this for a school project--you can just make a group. I could do a project in "I HATE When Kids Suck At Putting Together the Shrine of the Silver Monkey" (my favorite fb group) just as easily as I could using DivShare. The discussions, posted items, the wall, etc. that every group comes with are plenty.