Great Twitter presentation by Raffi Krikorian of Twitter's API team. The talk is from a presentation at UC Berkeley and he talks about Twitter's platform, scale, etc.
Fascinating to think about the scale of Twitter's ecosystem (users, messages, platform, developers) and how complex 140 characters can become... after billions of deliveries:
This is picture from Twitpic sums up the options that consumers and brick & mortar retailers face: choice overload. Google Places, Facebook Places and/or Fan Pages, Twitter, Yelp... and that doesn't include Groupon, LivingSocial, and other couponing options. Choice is great - and it drives deeper innovation. But choice can also be overwhelming - and drive non-committal usage.
Two weeks ago, Facebook rolled out their new Places product; and, to drive user awareness and adoption, they prominently promoted it within their mobile application and web experience. This week, Twitter rolled out Twitter for iPad. It's an exceptional product and I encourage non-Twitter users to trial it as well... the user experience is that good!
To drive awareness of the new application, Twitter is delivering an interstitial to users browsing via an iPad. It's big, highly relevant and promotes the application over the web experience (just compare the size / placement of the 'download button' vs. the mobile.twitter.com link).
It's another great example of driving usage through relevant promotion (relevance defined by placements and user targeting)... and what I refer to as getting product "in the river".
As I preface every Facebook post, it is difficult to tell how widespread a feature (or test) is because they are constantly testing new products to different segments of their massive audience. With that out of the way, I have started to see image tagging units in the advertising panel on Facebook image pages. It probably appears on <5% of impressions. It shows an answer with someones face and asks you to tag it. My guess is that it is a mechnical turk like confirmation of friend tags, or more far fetched, an experiment to confirm their facial recognition
But my first reaction was actually neither of these things. It was a recollection of Google's Image Labeler game / tool from a few years ago. Speaking od game mechanics and Mechanical Turk - Image Labeler was ahead of the curve.
Google would have you paired with another user in real time. The goal of the game is to both type the same word - any descriptive word- about a series of images. Upon user pairing, it would reveal an image synchronously and a list of obvious words that you can not use in the game. Once you both enter the same descriptive word not on the banned list - points are awarded (function of speed, accuracy) and the next image is loaded.
Its simple to play. Its synchronous. Points are awarded and leader boards are displayed throughout the experience - so its competitive. And it assists Google and their various image / algorithm / matching technologies.
I have been really impressed by Facebook Places - which I think has done a terrific job simplifying a rather complex product and making it usable / productive for a massive audience (which in turn complicates simplicity). If I could change one component of the product - and I really only have one suggestion - it would be to add photographs. Four reasons why:
1. I believe that images are becoming integral pieces of explaining location / local activity. Checking in at a restaurant, theme park, ballgame, etc are all well described by time, title & description and photograph.
2. GPS & photographs are tightly related on the mobile device. Putting them together in the Places product could still be done simply and comfortably.
3. The lack of integration makes me frequently choose between posting a newsfeed photograph and describe location via the description... OR forgo an image and post via Places.
4. Finally, if Facebook Places is to ultimately also become a directory of businesses, reviews, etc - photographs must be tightly integrated.
Check in or post a photo? Why not both...?
When Facebook launched Facebook Places, I wrote about how they boldly and centrally promoted their new feature. Here is a similar example from Facebook's mobile web experience - Facebook Touch. Like the YouTube HTML5 promotion, there is a spotlight box that sits between Facebook's header and the newsfeed input box... which means there is no way you can miss the unit.
In addition to the messaging, notice the Places button that offsets my profile icon and sits to the right of the input box. It is less obvious but, again, very prime real estate.
You can tell how much of a priority Places is to Facebook, a company that takes web design and each pixel very seriously:
I had the pleasure of spending yesterday at YCombinator's Demo Day. 36 companies presented and launched - three of which were Dogpatch Labs residents: Fanvibe, Rapportive, and an off-the-record company. While there was plenty of news around the companies, spaces, etc - I found it interesting to see how the crowd of YCombinator entrepreneurs, investors and friends / family checked into the event.
The result? Totally even: while the numbers fluctuated a little bit, there were roughly 15 check-ins on Facebook Places and 15 on Foursquare.
I can't tell if this is:- an algorithmic enhancement - a bug - an indication that my newsfeed is becoming less interesting - an indication that I am not liking enough current / real time activity ... But my Facebook Top News feed is beginning to display content from beyond the last 24 hours. In some cases it extends up to two weeks ago (see below screenshot). I frequently see posts from over a day ago - but have since seen posts from several days (and now weeks).
While it could be an algorithmic change, it could also be an effort to better archive feed activity (particularly if Facebook considers the more aged content as "extra top news").
I am clearly reaching - but interesting to think about how Facebook deals with backward search and archival over time. In fact, in two discussions yesterday - old Facebook posts were discussed (pointing to a newsfeeed post / link) and we gave up trying to find it as it was months old.
Whether it is Facebook or a developer (both are likely), there is clearly a business opportunity to archive ones digital life - with time, search, and filtering (whats important) being paramount.
And this is why I am so bullish on Facebook Places:
The two biggest components of a winning location play are: 1. network (and we know that Facebook is the largest at 500m+ users) 2. mobile (geo is critical to locating users and posting on the go) Well according to David Kirkpatrick's recent interview on Fool.com (David is the author of The Facebook Effect), Facebook is dominant there as well:
"more than half of all usage of the iPhone of apps, other than those provided by the phone itself like telephony and email, is coming from Facebook."
