hubbub

Why Facebook Is On the Rise: It Actually Works

OK, for a while there I thought it was just me, but I've been checking around, and a number of people have confirmed: Facebook appears to be accellerating fast in the tech business community.  If you have not joined yet, I am guessing you will be invited to join, soon (quick:  check your in-box). 

A few things appear to be driving adoption:

*Facebook, which began as a "social utility" for college campuses, is now open to everyone. It's been this way for a while, but only recently have I noticed a big uptake.

*The reason for that big uptake? Well, more recently, Facebook opened its platform to developers, spurring lots of fast innovation among the hordes of widget makers and widgetizers of other Web 2.0 tools.  One of the coolest of these tools is the TextMe app, which makes it super simple for friends to text you directly from your profile page.  Sure -- nothing terribly innovative about this idea, but on Facebook the install process is so simple you hardly need to think about it.  Ditto for most of the other tools I am looking at (e.g., the Pownce and YouTube widgets.) In the meantime, the freaks and geeks that make up Silicon Valley culture are having a great big party on Facebook, and with the sprawling networks that these folks are capable of creating, the safe money says that Facebook may cross the chasm, where other platforms haven't.

*Facebook is both beautiful and practical. I love the environment that the platform enables you to create, mixing and combining subtle forms of social gathering, referrals, ad hoc group formation, private communication, insider gossip, etc.  I've been pulling people in from my other networks (e.g., LinkedIn), easily, and I am connecting, accidentally, with people that I haven't seen in many years.  As a college freshman, one of my first jobs was to sell bagels on campus.  I remember my very first customer, a very friendly gal from Alabama (she took pity on me -- she and her friend bought a half dozen).  The year -- 1977.  Found her today -- almost 30 years later -- on Facebook, and learned that she's in marketing.  Fortuitous, huh?  She's now in my network.

Google Desktop for Macs

It's about time. This is a great application ... I mean Web service ... I mean application.

It's both. What's amazing about Google Desktop -- now available for Macs -- it's how it integrates into your personalized Google page so that you can use a single interface to access almost anything you are looking for, whether it's from your recent Web browsing, documents you have been working on, or email.

The simplicity of this approach points to the future. It's already here, with Google Desktop, but I expect lots of innovation from companies who want to compete with Google for ownership of the desktop. As I keep on saying, there's no such thing as "always on." Ownership means bridging the online and offline worlds.

Om Malik: Will Yahoo!Mail Become a Desktop App?

It's a great question. And if that happens, it will continue to demonstrate that "there's no such thing as 'always on'."

Om Malik on Hybrid Apps

I was very pleased to see this piece. Thrust of the story: more and more Web apps now have a desktop component. A while back, I wrote about how Hubbub client Socialtext is doing this. It's a smart response to the realization that there's no such thing as "always on."

Twitter Wiki

Yesterday, I wrote briefly about Twitter. Now, here's a great resource for those who want to dig deeper. It's a wiki that's helping to collect opinion, use cases, etc.

Twittering Their Lives Away

I think it's fascinating that one of the biggest stories in recent weeks is becoming a story about information overload (my favorite topic of discussion these days). Twitter -- the wildly popular "micro blogging service" -- is now the subject of debate in both old-world and new-world media. One side of the debate: it's literally a waste of time. My take: this will survive, as a cool feature on larger platforms.

Leafletter Debuts

Leafletter, a cool little Web app, is in public beta. It enables people to create miniature Web sites that they can "easily distribute to social networks, blogs and other web sites." Most if not all social media tools -- blogs, wikis, podcasts -- are DIY, and the idea of a "DIY mini Web site," at first glance, is very compelling. I see many potential applications for this kind of tool. Leafletter, of course, is not alone in this market, and when I write again about it I will try to include a comparison to other tools.

TechCrunch: What is a Blog?

Great discussion at TechCrunch, and it's one for the archives (the comments link to other discussions on the same topic). The trigger for this particular discussion: the Google blog doesn't allow comments.

Google Gapminder

Digital Roam links to this most amazing interactive chart that can help you track and study life expectancy around the globe. The x axis is per capita income, and the y axis is life expectancy. And one of the coolest features is that you can see the distribution unfold historically (in fact, you will see this when you first open the map). But if you haven't been following the widening gap between that haves and the have-nots -- the "gap" that this tool refers to -- prepare to be enlightened. Compare what's happened in the U.S. over the past 20 years, with a country like Angola. Interested in that particular story? Click here, and press the "play" button.

Thomas Pynchon Wiki

Author Thomas Pynchon -- who has engaged, puzzled and mystified readers for several decades with books as complexly layered and encyclopedic as anything written by Vladimir Nabokov -- has inspired a wiki. Launched last week, the wiki provides an online forum to discuss and decipher his latest book, Against the Day. Earlier this year, I looked at the potential for wikis as a tool for information gathering on labor intensive projects, education, and fan sites. The PynchonWiki has set itself up to do all three.