Disqus - Latest Comments for Jon Nichols

Re: Does Facebook Have the Right Priorities?

Jon Nichols — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:22:19 -0000

This wasn't so much a feature suggestion as something that they've been working on so that they can eliminate the old spammy notifications system. I think it's a reasonable priority, since the notifications spam has gotten pretty bad.

Re: Are Applications Facebook's Version of Spam?

Jon Nichols — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:25:17 -0000

It looks like this will be greatly improved within the next 7 days, as Facebook is making it more difficult to send out those invitations. As you reported earlier, apps are sending invitations without notifying the sender, and that appears to be ending soon, since you'll have to use a standardized form.

Re: Should Facebook Allow Aliases?

Jon Nichols — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:31:19 -0000

The solution to this would be the availability of officially sanctioned 'aliases' from Facebook that would be linked to real accounts. Perhaps this, in combination with the new friend grouping that is coming, would satisfy people.

In the meantime, I fully support Facebook's stance. Aliases are one thing, but the true problem is when companies, bands, groups, etc. all start creating accounts. The 'one person, one account' philosophy is key. Facebook should work on ways that non-people can be represented on the site, but they should be separate from the main person directory.

Re: Is Facebook Evil?

Jon Nichols — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 04:39:54 -0000

Vampires, Zombies apps... that's evil. I actually removed one of my friends (admittedly not a close one) because I was getting too many of those damn invitations. I suspect that I'd do the same if my Newsfeed ends up loaded with a bunch of Pepsi ads.

Re: Changes to Beacon Are Coming

Jon Nichols — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:14:48 -0000

I would be happy so long as I knew that no stories would show up unless I specifically approve them. I'd also like to be able to report an item as being 'not from me'. I had a case where a site posted something that I certainly hadn't done, and it appeared in my feed. I had no way to report it as spam.

Re: Facebook SocialAds Hit A Few Bumps

Jon Nichols — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:48:58 -0000

I have actually been having some pretty good experiences with SocialAds, although I might be in a unique position. I've run a number of ads for different products, and the CTRs have varied dramatically. From what I've seen, it all comes down to how targetable is your ad. Ads for the Stitchbook app (http://apps.facebook.com/stitchbook) have had really solid clickthrough rates - today overall I'm at 1.36% and am not paying very high CPC. But ads for more general subjects (a site related to storytelling for example) had much lower CTRs. I agree with Michael that the system is still pretty bad... my biggest gripe is that I can't create an ad that targets multiple countries; I have to recreate the ad for each country. That's fine for the US, Canada, and UK, but I'm not even bothering with the smaller countries, simply because it's more work right now than it's worth. I get a sense that the whole system was rushed out, which, isn't so bad necessarily, it's just that there isn't good support, not even someone to read and answer forums. I suspect that's one of the reasons why Pages hasn't been heavily promoted... they put it out as beta (without calling it so), and are allowing time for the bugs to get worked out and to learn more about what people want. I don't think that's such a bad approach, but it doesn't seem like the support task is being taken seriously enough.

Re: Facebook Quintuples Application Email Limit

Jon Nichols — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 01:34:56 -0000

Agreed. It's hard to imagine how 1 email per day wasn't enough. This will hurt all developers I fear.

Re: Facebook Listens to the Blogosphere

Jon Nichols — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:47:40 -0000

It also strikes me that this is a good example of how different generations view the sharing of data. According to the Facebook ad system, 80% of Facebook is aged 25 or below. I'm guessing that the vast majority of the bloggers complaining are over that age.

With any good or service, there is a cost and a benefit. The problem is that the bloggers assume that there is no benefit to Beacon, so they see any cost (in this case privacy) as too high. Google has similar privacy issues, but bloggers love the value that Google provides so they consider the privacy cost reasonable in that case.

It also bugs me that so many mention Zuckerberg's age and experience. They say things like 'Facebook needs real management'. Of course, their next post will be about how record labels or movie studios 'don't get it' when it comes to digital distribution. I have a certain amount of hostility (ok, probably jealousy) towards a guy so young and so rich, but I think he's done as good a job as anyone at new media. If you want experienced management, Rupert Murdoch's MySpace is there for you.

I think you're correct Nick. We won't even remember this past month a year from now. And who knows, maybe Beacon will prove incredibly popular (like Newsfeeds).

Re: Will Facebook Ever Be Productive?

Jon Nichols — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:20:50 -0000

The Facebook userbase has to grow up. I don't mean this in a negative way, it's just that still 80% of users are 25 and under, and less likely to be interested in general productivity applications. If a productivity application is to be successful soon, it's going to have to be specifically interesting to those 18-25, and LinkedIn isn't it.

Re: 2007/05/15/kyte-funded/

Jon Nichols — Tue, 15 May 2007 05:41:32 -0000

Congrats to Daniel and team on this. I know them well, and can attest to the hard work that it took to get to this point. I expect to continue to hear good things about Kyte.

Re: 2007/11/05/an-honest-answer-from-canada-we-are-throttling-p2ps/

Jon Nichols — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:09:02 -0000

yes, the government should intervene so that all of us have super slow connections so that 3% of people can download all 9 years of Seinfeld from BitTorrent. This is a great example of how the vast majority of internet users would be hurt if we passed net-neutrality legislation.

The market solution to this, of course, is to allow Bell to have a level of service that allows them to limit bandwidth for certain activities, but then offer a higher priced version that doesn't have these limits.

If you're intent on passing legislation, I think the best approach would be a full-disclosure bill. That is, ISPs should be required to disclose any bandwidth limiting that they do. We could all see the different policies and choose based on those policies. I for one would sign up for a service provider that limited P2P traffic, because I could be assured that my connection would be faster.

Re: 2007/11/13/daily-kos-founder-to-join-newsweek/

Jon Nichols — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:36:52 -0000

Well said... yes, diverse opinions are important. But it's sad that the people they choose to represent the 'left' and 'right' are those at the ridiculous extremes. Like Anne Coulter, Markos Moulitas' opinions are based on a sort of vile hatred than any sort of fundamental philosophy about governance.