
   The Future of Widgets on Facebook: Dead - nickb
http://www.allfacebook.com/2008/09/the-future-of-widgets-on-facebook-dead/
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iigs
Talk about a picture being worth 1000 words -- I read the article and thought
"sure, it makes sense, that's probably a problem" and then saw the traffic
graph. Wow.

Everybody knows that this is a risk of developing inside someone else's walled
garden. I wonder if there will ever be a way to implicitly or explicitly
calculate the risk of something like this happening with any given platform.
As someone who might develop for a platform, I can't see myself signing up for
one where that's likely to happen, and that's one major thing that has kept me
from developing iPhone apps.

~~~
lacker
To be fair, that traffic graph is pretty misleading. It looks like it's
dropping many orders of magnitude, but really the drop is from around 850 to
400. It looks more extreme than it really is because the limits of the Y axis
are from 990 to 320.

Fiddling with the range of a graph when people will assume it's 0 to something
is pretty dodgy. Not to mention there's no key on it to say what the numbers
stand for.

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sanj
That graph is copied directly from facebook's statistics screen.

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lacker
Sure, I don't mean to say anyone's being malicious here, I'm just saying, it's
a shame to look at that graph and think "Oh wow what a big deal this is!" when
really you're being shocked by the choice of y axis range.

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petercooper
On the plus side, Facebook can avoid going the MySpace route and maintain a
clean, functional system by putting the myriad of applications in a cleaner
place.

~~~
umangjaipuria
My thoughts exactly. Although both are functional in their own way. MySpace is
about me. Facebook seems to want to position itself about my network.

~~~
buglewood
There's no support for that.

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jotto
The problem is worse than this article describes. You can no longer find an
application you visit unless you "bookmark" it.

If you visit a new application, you must specifically click a bookmark button
at the bottom of the screen AKA "taskbar", otherwise you will have to click
"Applications", "Edit", then navigate through about 5 tabs, find your
application and bookmark it.

Keeping Facebook clean is important but this has had, at least the short term
effect of hiding (presumably desired) applications from users.

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makecheck
Quite true. As mentioned in the article, the Boxes tab from Facebook obscures
most of the "fun" stuff added to profiles. I've returned to Facebook many
times in recent weeks, and I can't recall a single time I clicked the Boxes
tab (on my profile, or anyone else's). Those apps were interesting when they
were "in my face", but now I forget they even exist.

~~~
kirse
Yea, I like how they encouraged people to develop all these profile widgets,
and then effectively created an "All the Extra Crap Here" tab and stuck every
single application into it. I'm so glad I chose to sell off my apps before
these changes came into play.

The purpose of the initial system was to allow people to spice up their
profiles for others to see. Sticking them into another tab just wipes out that
purpose and makes Applications an individual user focus.

And seriously, "Boxes"??? Even the name of the tab sounds like it's just a
dump-bin.

~~~
unalone
I think they encourages people to develop USEFUL profile widgets. The biggest
and best applications get to put their widgets in the sidebar of the profile
on every page.

And, of course, now you can make a full TAB for your app, so if you have a big
idea you can give it a lot of space.

~~~
mmilo
Exactly right, the way I see it, they have given the power to users to decide
how and where to display their apps and widgets.

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bigthboy
The point in this article about Expression vs. Sharing is a key point that
I've always thought to be true. Facebook, in my opinion, works to shut out
people's expressions. In a way, Facebook, and their management, have a
conformist position.

Social Networking, in my opinion anyways, is supposed to be
about..ehhh...socializing. That should include me being able to be exposed to
new ideas, new people, new opinions, and likewise being able to express my
ideas and my opinions. I think one of the big problems that we've seen with
the new Facebook, and resulting decline in Widgets, is they took away a large
portion of what allowed people to be different on Facebook. I will admit I use
Facebook for only 2 purposes... I use it to play Mobwars (a random and
pointless game) and to chat with my friends (not via messages but that IM
program in that handy little bar at the bottom of the page). I don't ever
visit anyone's profiles... I've had a hell of a time trying to find groups and
such that are interesting to join, as with pages. I also am blessed to be able
to see everything my friends are doing... hello Stalkerbook.

Facebook it seems, is becoming a mere screw around (time sink) and basic
communications system. Even the communication aspect I don't think will last
as more people get SmartPhones and are able to use features that are becoming
increasingly cheap to send text messages. We're left then with a time sink...
At least at Myspace we can be expressive...and find new music, new groups...

~~~
colinplamondon
Give me a break, are you seriously saying that you 'express yourself' through
Bush count-down clocks and quizzes on what kind of a serial killer you are ?

~~~
bigthboy
While I see your point on the "What kind of serial killer are you." Things
like a Bush countdown clock is a way of expressing your discontent with the
current president/administration. And in the scope of things I'm not limiting
it to just these sorts of things. I'm talking about general ways of putting
expressive ideas and symbols on your page.

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colinplamondon
Facebook is positioning their applications as Applications with a capital 'A'.
From the 'Start' looking 'Applications' button on the bottom left to the
shortcuts, it seems like Facebook is trying to encourage people to build real
apps with real value.

Think more Excel and iTunes and less Vampires and Werewolves- the problem is,
the FB platform was getting known for shitty spam apps, not for the truly
useful and innovative applications that FB can be used for. By killing the
spam apps they help the real apps, like Scrabulous, Causes, and Flixster.

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vaksel
Maybe the widgets need to refocus on the actual user doing the install?

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fallentimes
Good. Most of the facebook applications are spammy & awful. I didn't like the
new facebook at first, but now, after getting used to it, I really do.

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adrianwaj
Someone should do a startup that takes the best of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter,
LinkedIn, Socialbrowse and Friendfeed. I'll help.

~~~
prospero
You can start by explaining how this combination of features would be
compelling enough to get users from any of these services to migrate to yours.

~~~
adrianwaj
The first thing FriendFeed lacks is a profile of the user. If I use my
Friendfeed account as a link for someone to find out about me (ie in an email
footer), then having some profile information alongside my feeds makes sense.
This is more of a Facebook profile feature I'm thinking inserted into a
FriendFeed-like 'base' site.

Also, FriendFeed lacks distinction between Friends and Subscribers, currently
there are only subscribers. A person's life also consists of events they are
going to, places they are or have been employed, and place they've travelled
to. Each of these would be represented.

Furthermore, as a webmaster, I'd like to login and see what on-site comments
have been made about pages on my site and by whom.

There should be a toolbar, allowing me to like/digg/approve any page I come
across and then comment on it. Those comments can be accessed back on the
site, in a sidebar like socialbrowse, or 'pulled-into' any site that wants
them. In the sidebar, I should also see where else on the web discussion for
any page is occurring. Also, I should be able to see what pages my friends are
on at any time, and there should be a toggle to turn off the broadcast of my
browsing behaviour to stay 'under the radar.' There should be chat too, either
with friends or people on the same page. Also, an author or content creator
profile should be seen in the toolbar of any page so a webmaster or author can
claim their site or page.

A business can create a profile page and then keep it updated with the latest
news, product offerings, events, press releases and fundings associated with
it for stakeholders to follow.

The new site should allow 'Tweet'-like updates, and also presence updates of
where someone is located and friends and news occurring in that physical zone.

There's no reason the aforementioned sites (twitter, facebook, socialbrowse
etc.) can't be integrated to some extent (especially Friendfeed), but ideally
this site would be standalone and a replacement. It may in fact copy text and
content straight off qualifying external sites for redisplay, like imgfave
does for photos. That way, it can start to track authors I like, and I can
then view articles on-site without logos and ads as seen on the source site.

News for example can be submitted on-site and attached to a company or
individual or, it can be aggregated from elsewhere like on Friendfeed.
Expanding overall submission capabilities would be a goal. It can also
implement the OpenSocial SPI.

Information is semantically marked-up and searchable.

~~~
prospero
This is a well-thought out response to my snarky one-line comment. That being
said, for the casual users of social networks (who are the vast majority),
would any of these things convince them to raise stakes and move over to your
walled garden?

Facebook, at its inception, offered simplicity. The redesign is a sign that
they still consider that to still be one of their primary strengths, not just
something that allowed them to achieve their current user base. I'm not a
social network power user by any stretch, so maybe I'm just not thinking big
enough, but I can't imagine any feature (or set of features) that would make
another social networking site irresistible to me.

The problem here, other than the obvious chicken-and-egg one with respect to
users, is that there aren't any trendsetters in social networking. Announcing
some new features will inevitably bring in tech-obsessed users looking for
something new and shiny, but creating a feature set that specifically appeals
to power users doesn't guarantee that the casual users will eventually follow.

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spoiledtechie
Maybe the developers need to refocus on the new design so they need time to
release...

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quasimojo
well played facebook! well played. use the app monkeys to help build traffic,
then kick them off the rez. haha well played indeed.

thats sharecropping for you children. will be amusing to watch the
slide/rockyou wankers fall back into the well of mediocrity that spawned them.

