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Mar 05 2010

Facebook Innovator #1? WTH FastCompany? & Walmart? I'm Losing My Religion!

Category: lifestreaming, social media, tech opinion, tools — jmacofearth @ 6:58 am

I may not have been born yesterday, and I have been prone recently to praise the quick pull and insight of FastCompany.com, but Facebook? The most innovative company. Really?

I seriously need to go read the article. But Zuckerberg?

Well, this morning Business Insider says this, "Facebook Will Be Worth $35 Billion To $40 Billion When It Goes Public Next Year, Investors Predict // Facebook will probably go public in 2011, once it's had a year of $1+ billion in sales behind it. (The company expects to do between $1.2 billion and $2 billion in sales this year.) "

What? Maybe the games are selling, but are companies (Besides Progressive and Dell) still buying large ad space on Facebook? I'd really like to know what the ROI is on a Facebook campaign. As I've stated before I know of only one other person, besides myself, who has actually bought something in response to a Facebook ad. Oh, wait, he didn't buy, he just browsed. So, I'm the only person I know who has actually paid off for one of the advertisers. In my case it was a t-shirt manufacturer and I bought a handful of geek shirts. (grin)

So how did Mr. Zuckerberg's brain-sink get to a valuation of 2,687 Teslas, before tax?

Innovation? Really? What's innovative about Facebook? I need to Google for Facebook's revenue numbers. What ARE they making money on? (If you find this number and send it to me, I'll give you a bag of donuts.)

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/innovation-fail

Silicon Alley's Business Insider: The complete FACEBOOK Story.
FastCompany: Top Innovative Companies of 2010.

Tags: 41 billion for facebook?, facebook, facebook gaming, facebook is about games, facebook sucks, facebook valuation, gaming on facebook, i don't even like facebook, i love facebook, meet me on facebook

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Feb 12 2010

Google Buzz * Is Gonna RAWK: Web Worker Daily Seems to Love It

Category: community building, connections, speed the web, tech opinion, tools — jmacofearth @ 10:24 am

Buzz May Be the Best! Really?

The best thing Buzz has going for it is the name.* Who ever branded this new G-mail inbox (that's what it looks like to me) as BUZZ is a frakin genius. But I don't think the Buzz is going to live up to the hype/buzz that is being generated by all of us social media mavens trying to figure it out the pros and cons. Here's a common "join" on the positive Buzz spin posts.

"Buzz…so easy, that is attached to my gmail account."

To be fair, this quote is from the first comment on Web Worker Daily's Google Buzz: Already Better than WAVE and not part of Darrell's Google gaga.

Darrell, I have to argue for a second with this paragraph.

At a fundamental level, Google Buzz is already much more functional than Wave, if only because it talks to things outside of itself easily and with a minimum of hassle. Plus it lives in your Gmail, which is where a lot of online workers spend much of their day anyway. And unlike Twitter, it supports threaded conversations, and a variety of different methods of interaction and sharing. It’s like Facebook without the annoying apps, or like Twitter with all the good bits of Facebook thrown in.

<BUZZ rant>The miss here is that just because Buzz "lives in your Gmail" does not make it better or more connective than lots of other apps/sites/services. For example: if you are just looking for threading and connectivity outside of the system look at FriendFeed and Ping.fm. If you are looking for streamlining your communications don't jump on Buzz and ask everyone to join you on Buzz, simple cull your Twitter and Facebook accounts. If you've gotten yourself in a bad place with those services (too many games, following to many spammy tweeters) it is your responsibility to work with those services to get them back under control.

Adding a new "in-box" on G-Mail is not an innovative solution for anything. </BUZZ rant>

Then you take aim at WAVE, "Google Buzz is already much more functional than Wave" and I find this one the funniest. If you don't understand WAVE that's okay. If you don't have any WAVERs that you like, that's okay too. But WAVE is a platform not a fully formed service. I agree WAVE is hard to get connectivity on, but when you've been on a good WAVE it's hard to imagine collaboration on WEBEX or Live Meeting, ever again.

To be absolutely fair, I don't think I've seen even 10% of WAVE's potential. But the possibilities are much more interesting than an new g-mail inbox with threading and crossposting options.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/buzz-love

A few additional Buzz or anti-Buzz thoughts:

*legal disclaimer: I do NOT work for Google, Friendfeed/Facebook, Ping.fm, or any other platform company. I work as a social media producer for WCG. I'm trying to figure this stuff out too. If I am opinionated, that's part of my shtick.

Tags: anti-buzz, buzz-kill, buzzkill, facebook, get on the WAVE, getting buzzed, gmail, google buzz, google caca, google gaga, google miss, google misses, hate buzz, love buzz, no buzz, turn buzz off, turn buzz on, turn off buzz, turn on buzz, web worker daily, what's WAVE, where's the WAVE, why buzz

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Feb 10 2010

What's the BUZZ Tell Me What's Happening with Facebook vs Google Buzz?

Category: community building, connections, lifestreaming, social media, speed the web, tech opinion, tech reviews, tools — jmacofearth @ 6:20 pm

Poor Google social media smart guys. They have sooooo much momentum and so much "buzz" around anything they launch and yet they really have not had a home run. And it's not that they haven't tried, they have: case Orkut = sharable profile. Jaiku = Twitter wanna be, and most recently the service I can't even get the advocates for the service to really respond to: WAVE.

So now enter BUZZ. Ho hum. Are you surprised that it doesn't sync with Facebook yet? Are you really surprised by that?

FastCompany tries to make news out of the launch, but comes up short with this scoring.

1. Media Integration: Buzz wins simply because it's easier to connect than Facebook. Well, at least to Picassa and Flikr and Twitter. (I'd actually score this for Facebook, cause you can integrate almost every account.)

2. Interface: Facebook wins. (Ha ha, we'll get to Facebook's new interface violations in a bit.)

3. Fun Factor: Facebook wins. (Yeah, it's a social thing after all. FB has games, causes, pages… Buzz has… well, g-mail.)

Okay so what's so great about buzz?

1. It's from Google. (Okay I think we've established that the Google umbrella offers little in terms of will we use it, will people flock to the party if we build a new party room bolted on the side of gmail?

2. Nobody's on it yet. (Are we really ready to start building our social networks again, on another service? Well, are you?)

3. It's got the big "so what" tag on it. What does buzz actually do that is interesting, unique or more efficient?

It might really be more of a competitor to Tweetdeck and Seesmic as a megaphone for initiating your tweets, bleeps, pings, wall scrivings and giving you some Google love in the process. *Might be.*

So what's the resistance?

Or for me, what's the value of spending time putting together my profile and my connections on Buzz? At the moment I don't see it. And I AM an early adopter, but not necessarily an early evangelist.

The part of Google I discovered last night when the "See Buzz in your G-Mail Account" link was not doing anything was this.

They might not get my mindshare with Buzz, but they got my Blackberry coming and going. I could care less about Buzz, frankly. But I want the WAVE to work, I just can't find anyone else quite as passionate about the WAVE as I am. At least not in my limited WAVE-lets here in Austin, Texas.

Let's see if anyone uses WAVE at SXSWi this year. I'm pretty sure you won't hear a word about Buzz. And I'm pretty sure you will still hear too much about iPhone apps and APIs and Twitter-enabled apps.

I can't wait to see how this pans out. Buzz – meh. WAVE – bring it!

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/you-buzz

Interesting note: Since I use FriendFeed to integrate all of my social networks, I wonder if I can add my BUZZ to FF yet? Or how soon will a WordPress plug-in like Sociable add BUZZ as a new option? Let's see: Jan 10, 2010, 6:24 CST.

Tags: advocates, blackberry, but is it fun, buzz factor, buzz vs facebook, early adopter, evangelist, facebook, FastCompany, friendfeed, fun factor, g-mail, google, google WAVE, jaiku, lack of buzz, media integration, megaphone, momentum, orkut, Picassa, ping.fm, seesmic, social media smart guys, social networks, socialable, spending time, the social media eyeball, tweetdeck, twitter client, WAVE, what's so great about buzz?, where the part is, wordpress, your social media eyeball