The Many — or Singular? — Problems of Friendfeed
by Tony Hung on July 10, 2009
The most prolific Friendfeeder of them all (to give you an idea of how Robert-Scoble-as-lifestreamer >> Scoble-as-blogger, just look at the number of comments on his Friendfeed vs. Blog … currently a ratio of 10:1 as of this writing) gives the low-down, which includes the lack of people needing an aggregator, how it sucks on mobile systems, and the “noise” issue. All valid points (there are more … go read them all if you must).
What Friendfeed has to have is some kind of inflection point where its inherent greatness pulled through, was recognized by all, and contributed to some greater good. The key, of course, is that “inherent greatness” — as Scoble points out, there are a lot of things it kind of does well, but hamstrung by a manpower (and goodness knows what else), its become easy pickings for Facebook to merely mimick the features off of. That is to say, if Scoble can’t pin down a few singularly great things about Friendfeed, what hope does any of us have when we try and describe it to would-be fans?
Allen Stern describes it as something like a forum. I would agree … but perhaps what Friendfeed needs to do, or become, is something more evolved than a mere forum. The thing that blew my mind about Friendfeed wasn’t just how it was an aggregator, but how it enabled real-time conversations that were impossible to track with Twitter. Perhaps what Friendfeed lacks, then, is the magic sauce that powered Twitter through its would-be-Nobel-nominating efforts in Iran: its ability to be used through text-messaging and SMS-services. Imagine, for a moment, the kind of impact that secure and private rooms for conversations to be had, in real time, on the fly, off your desktop for would-be revolutionaries in Iran (or, anywhere, for that matter).
There’s still time for an inflection point to happen with Friendfeed, but I’d agree with one of Scoble’s assertions: to make the transition from good to great, they are going to have to think of something clever that Facebook can’t just copy — Facebook has the manpower and resources to continue making Friendfeed a “feature” without it.
A Bit of a Personal Update
by Tony Hung on July 9, 2009
Just a bit of a personal update. About a week ago, I finished my medical training. I’m now fully qualified in Internal Medicine and Palliative Care. Its culminated about 27 years of schooling, 15 of which has been post-secondary. Whew! I’m taking some time off in advance of some “real” work later in the summer and the fall to spend some time with the family … and get back to blogging for a bit. :) Thanks to some of the usual folks for noticing my noticable absences, and thanks to all who have stuck around (and remember me!). Also, thanks to FindInternetTv.com who has faithfully sponsored this blog, and has enabled me to keep the lights on.
Bing Bigger Than Digg? Twitter? Not Quite.
by Tony Hung on July 9, 2009
Ben Parr at Mashable says Bing, Microsoft’s latest search engine offering, is doing well. So well, in fact, that its bigger than Digg, Twitter and CNN.
But none of that matters if Bing doesn’t grow and find a way to compete with Google . So after a month, where are we? We knew that Bing was growing, but the numbers being released tonight tell a tale of success, as Bing is now the 13th most visited site on the web.
According to Compete.com, Bing was able to amass 49.57 million unique visitors in its first month as Microsoft’s official search engine. Bing’s traffic trumps that of Digg (38.96 million) Twitter (23 million), and CNN (28.54 million). We want to stress that this focuses on U.S. visitors, since Compete does not track international visits.
The problem is that all of those stats are quite misleading without attributing the fact that Microsoft’s previous search engine, Live.com, redirects directly to Bing.com. If you look at the stats for Live.com, you’ll notice that prior to Bing.com it hit an apogee of around 100 million visitors per month. In fact, I’d say that since traffic for Bing is “only” at around half of what Live.com was the month prior to its debut, its probably far too early to tell how popular it actually is.
Furthermore, when you take into consideration that MSN.com directly feeds into Bing (previously Live) at the top of its page (primo real estate if there ever was any), and that MSN.com is the default home page for millions of Internet Explorer home pages, its further reason to take it all with a grain of salt.
I think the jury’s out on how popular Bing is — and with all due respect to Ben Parr, that jury’s only due in several months I’d say.
Why Hulu Won? Free Compelling Content That Saves You Cash Always Wins (Doesn’t it?)
by Tony Hung on July 8, 2009
Saul Hansell queries why Hulu was pooh-pooh’d in the first place, and then takes the position that its peculiar and non-disruptive to broadcast network television on teh internets
It seems odd to say, but “American Idol,” “Heroes” and the rest of the prime-time lineup have many millions of fans who don’t get the same satisfaction from YouTube (even though many of them turn to YouTube for other entertainment). So not only did Hulu have something people wanted, it had a brand promise that was clear and distinctive: Hulu is where you go for network TV. That’s different from YouTube, which is where you go to watch the biggest collection of video that isn’t on TV. Hulu, in effect, is Amazon.com to YouTube’s eBay.
I’m not so sure. I’d say it *was* disruptive, since prior to Hulu there was no way to quickly and legitimately (sorry bit torrent) and *easily* (watching 5 minute clips on daily motion? No thanks) watch full length clips of network TV. You can pooh-pooh network television all you want with respect to its quality, or where its trajectory is in the overall decline against online media, but facts are that millions of people Still Watch Television. Much of it is good. Some of it is really good.
And to all my Canadian and European bretheren who have never tried it, believe me when I say that it is wrapped up in one gloriously slick package.
Even better? Its totally free. Yes, its ad supported so its not really “FREE!”, but its free enough that it could allow any reasonably minded person to meaningfully cancel their cable bill. In a real way, it could even save you money.
In my mind, the broadcast networks always held the keys in this regard, because they were always so tight-fisted with the licensing of their content. And rightly so. With Hulu they’ve got a slam dunk. Now, there’s always time to still screw things up, but until they do (start suing their users, for example), everyone should enjoy their free (and generally ad-limited) ride with gusto. Revenue? Revenue is an issue for another post, children. :)
Tempering Overexuberance
by Tony Hung on July 8, 2009
Dennis Howlett is amongst the realists when it comes to GoogleOS, and he rightly reminds us that:
Linux has not fared so well in the Netbooks market and I don’t see anything here that makes me think Google ChromeOS will do any better. Where’s the secret sauce here other than the Google halo effect painted over with the browser and duly hyped by the SV Google lovers? Sure, I can see why Google might make subtle statements that people wish to interpret but the reality is no-one outside the Silicon Valley tech bubble gives a damn what operating system and browser they use. Many are still mandated to use IE6 as a colleague reminded me the other day. Simply having Google wave its hand is not going to sway hard nosed enterprise buyers – even if it is free. Which neatly brings me to another point
Google has said it wants to get help from the open source community. I’ll bet they do. All those drivers that Arrington dismisses with a wave of the hand WILL need to be served. If he thinks I”m wrong then a quick call to any of the major banks’ CTO offices should put him straight on that one. Better still, listen to some of the discussions at CloudCamps where the problem of driver capabilities in the Internet Cloud matter a great deal.
I haven’t an intelligent thought about enterprise-related issues as it has to do with … well, pretty much anything. But the lusty failure of Linux as an OS for Netbooks (according to some accounts) for the lay-public (the Word-using, WOW-playing, I-just-canceled-my-AOL-subscription-6-months-ago public) is something no one should discount out of hand.
Michael Jackson The Victim of Googlebombing? (“The Ugliest Person In The World”)
by Tony Hung on July 8, 2009
SEO Roundtable picks on a meme in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death:
If you conduct a Google search for ugliest person in the world today, you will see Google listing a picture of the late Michael Jackson … As virtually everyone knows, Michael Jackson died on June 25th and the memorial service was yesterday. The popularity of Jackson, especially right now, with how Google ranks documents, has likely lead to Jackson’s picture being listed as the number one result for that search.
That is, its referring to this particular image, hot-linked to the San Francisco Gate (classy!) from the Winamp Forums:
One wonders whether or not Michael Jackson’s been the unfortunate victim of a Googlebomb — my money is on “no” for at least one technical reason (I think): Google Images doesn’t work that way. As far as I know, for images to get indexed on Google Images, the influence of off-page factors, namely the quality and quantity of inbound links probably doesn’t matter as much as influencing the SERPs for the usual Google web results. Rather, on-page factors probably do, including the strength of the domain that is hosting, surrounding text of the image, the thematic content of the page, and the meta-tags of the the <image> tag, including the title, alt, and so on.
If I’m wrong, point me to a source. On the other hand, speaking from personal experience, I happen to own a first page result for “lolcat” with nothing but on-page factors. At least that’s what I’ve convinced myself is the cause.
Three Reasons Twittorati Needs Pruning
by Tony Hung on July 8, 2009
Seth Godin, Beppe Grillo and Geekologie to start.
(For the lazy: The above blogs don’t Twitter).