DISQUS

Bob,

Take a look at the lexicon stuff on Facebook. It has the potential to be much bigger than the current twitter search. Jesse Stay has a good post on Facebook search at http://staynalive.com/articles/2009/03/22/the-p...

We need to remember that Twitter has improved very, very slowly. Anything related to openness or APIs and status updates has really happened only in the past year for Facebook. They are improving very quickly.

I just wanted to say that Robert Scoble saying that I am right about 4 times in one post is kind of cool :) You go into the targeted advertising, but I am thinking more about selling the anonymized data. Think of the marketing potential of that information even without the names attached. Facebook has several monetization options if they open up enough. And thanks for the link.

Tac,

Glad to hear you like the blog! I meant the post as a short rant because of the "conversation platform" comments regarding Facebook statuses and Twitter. I did not give the topic a thorough examination, and you raise some of the points I would have said. Can you have a conversation on Twitter? Sure, but it is really difficult if you have more than a few hundred subscriptions. The Facebook acquisition offer was really laughable when you looked at the details, so it really doesn't count :) I am talking about a real offer loaded with cash and some stock. Facebook status updates may not be great but Twitter has little extra functionality and with their user base could quickly have more active users. This could relegate Twitter to the tech and early adopter crowd.

I find it interesting that FriendFeed sends as much or more traffic than techmeme.

Nice rant! Though it can probably be summed up as, "email is better". I am not sure why we can't use email as the real delivery mechanism. We can even have an "email user" link on the site itself. Why is this so hard?

Donna,

This is Jason Goldberg's success. I just wrote the article.

Alex and pwb, I know at least Xinha and one other actually handle Word pasting, and I think FCK does it as well. So, regardless of whether you feel it is an issue, you can get the feature for free.

Alex and Schmoo, markup is a huge issue and is highlighted in some cases. TinyMCE, WYMeditor, Xinha and FCK all generate valid XHTML (not sure if it is strict or transitional or whatever). If you have concerns about prior experience with bad non-standard markup, then you can review the tools above very quickly to determine which ones fit your needs. Most tools are trying for standard compliant markup generation at this point.

pwb

Xinha and TinyMCE seem to handle posts from Word, but that is not the real problem. If you have one of these editors, why write html in Word, just use the editor directly. The pasting problem would be an issue if you were trying to import information into a CMS from a bunch of Word documents though.

Alex,

I understand that html and css are all that you really need, but some people are providing editing capabilities to non-developers. That is really the target of tools like these. These are not website builders, these are things like comment editors and CMS editors.

Schmoo

In your case look at CB RTE. It is a bare bones editor for the most basic functions. Some people need a full featured editor like Xinha or TinyMCE because it is the front-end to a CMS system of some sort. Most people using those systems are not developers, so a point and click editor is best for them.

Stephen

According to the Xinah FAQ (http://trac.xinha.org/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuest...) it must be installed on a web server otherwise some plugins and languages other than english will not work. In my testing, a local file would not complete loading or initializing the Xinha editor. I have not dug into the code, but I am assuming it is making some calls back to the installed URL to get some information.

Not sure how I missed the announcement of that one, but I had researched the others around the same time. Definitely looks interesting though.

No problem with the duplicate comment. As I replied above, I missed FCK somehow but will be looking into it.

Alex,

Yep, I found FCK earlier today and just did not have time to add it in. I will try to take a look at it later.

Paul,

The problem is that they were stagnant for a while and only now laying the infrastructure for their future. Infrastructure is very boring generally, but they might be able to build something interesting. However, as you doubt this possibility, they also have not had a terrific record of developing new/innovative products lately. We just need to wait and see what they do next.

Paul,

The point is not to create yet another social network. At least I hope it isn't because then you are correct, it will fail. However, having "social" integration with the rest of their properties eases people into the social network. The purpose seems to be to just hook everything together with a social layer.

Rhett

Excellent point, and that was what I was trying to say in this post. They have a huge user base and a lot of activity occurs on Yahoo properties. By putting that social layer underneath everything, they can increase engagement.

The key is that the social networking needs to be in the background. Nobody wants yet another site where they need to add all their contacts. However, if you derive the network from a user's activity like email and IM there is a lot of power there.

I believe that the user opinion is already showing through on SocialMedian. I have seen several interesting discussions starting there already. As the site grows, there is the potential for a lot more.

OK, I see your point when you got into the Dave Winer example. A person's general views can greatly impact the type and function of an application. I was not thinking about the issue from that perspective, but it makes complete sense.

Jason,

I have no problem writing a post like this when you are as open to discussion as you are. Thanks for your point of view on this, it is much appreciated.

Eric,

So does this mean that someone's political views change your view of whether an application is useful to you? I am not saying that political beliefs are not important, but just does it affect your choice of tools.

This is what I was wondering about. Is there a large enough group of people that feel like politics can get in the way. You are one of the few I have heard from so far.

Leah,

I completely agree with you, that politics are very personal. I think the decision to include it is a tough one. A community discussion about including politics is a good way to ensure you keep your users happy.

Chris,

It is a much easier question when dealing with an individual. Reem's case probably gives the best example because she is a person with political views, but the email she was sent just sounds ridiculous. SocialMedian is a much more interesting problem, but as Jason says, it is a conversation starter.