SN Evolutions

Facebook rules at the moment, but is it unstoppable? Is it the WoW of social networks?

Here's my thoughts on the next iteration of social network. I think it needs to blend social networks (or "the soical graph" as Mark Zuckerberg describes it) with CRM features. I have a Facebook acocunt, but I really do much with it. Most of the news feeds from my friends are simple one-liners, or "so-and-so just added ". It doesn't really tell me what's going on with my friends, especially if they're not putting the effort in to keep their profile updated (like me ...). What's really needed is a SN that tracks interactions: when I last emailed/phoned/texted each friend, when they last contacted me, and what we were talking about. I want to aggregate, for each friend, blogs, twitter, Flickr, everything. It would be cool to pull events from everyone's calendar too (at least those marked "public") and aggregate that too. And I want access to quality apps, not the junk that is now showing up n FB (I've even made one of those pieces of junk).

TBC.

Platforms

People want platforms, not just static web pages. Blogs and Wikipedia show us that people want to contribute content, and API's like Facebook show us that people like user generated content and applications.

The challenge in this space is to provide a platform that is powerful yet simple, secure yet open, free yet able to generate revenue (and share it).

TBC

The Mobile Web

The mobile experience has come a long way from it's original WAP roots, which was functional but never took off. iMode always intrigued me, but I never got around to trying it and by the time Telstra hooked it up in Australia 3g was available. So far my experiences surfing the web on my mobile phone (Sony Ericsson W880i) have left a lot to be desired. The best I've seen it was when I used it as a "modem" for my Macbook via Bluetooth. Interestingly enough, when hooked into a PC the speed is quite reasonable, but using the phone's browser seems to display pages extremely slowly. This could be due to the handset's limitations, or due to the browser, or even the site serving the content tailoring it on the fly for mobile consumption (and thus taking a performance hit). Regardless, it results in a very painful experience and not one that I use very often.

As I see it, the challenges are many. Input is the first major stumbling block. It can be quite jarring having to jump out of the web page into the standard SMS text entering screen then back again. While predictive text can speed things up a little, things like user names and passwords can be tedious to enter. The web pages themselves are viewable, but lack the punch of their PC equivalents. Connection times are slow.

Of course, I'm only speaking from my limited experiences. I'm yet to see an iPhone in action (because I live in Australia), so I'm eagerly awaiting it's release. Hopefully Apple will hook up with my current provider (Virgin) so I can just upgrade my phone. I think in the mean time I'll do some more research.

TBC.

Webs within the Web

Right now, the web is the wild west. There are web pages everywhere, on everything. It is becoming increasingly hard to get a domain name that matches an idea or product, as so many names have been taken, even if they aren't being used. The popularity of MySpace and Facebook, above the "find a friend" social networking aspect, is due to the fact that it gives people a home on the web. Somewhere to hang your hat as it were. Obviously people can create homepages, but they aren't easily connected to other people.

This is where the "friend" aspect of social networking really pays off; it essentially creates a "Web within the Web". If I create a Facebook account, it is generally easy for me to hook up with friends and view their homepages (essentially visiting their web homes) and makes it easy for my friends to visit my page. If I create a homepage on the web, it sits there doing nothing until I announce it to the world. I need to hard code links to my friends and I need to communicate my web address to them.

The rise of the API for Facebook (and soon MySpace) shows that people want the flexibility, the content and the novelty the web provides, all from within their connected social network. People still want the breadth of the web, the full diversity, but from within a more connected and personal environment. People still want the freedom to create.

So, how then do you provide a true "Web within the Web"? Has Facebook et al. achieved it? Or is it a new web protocol? Or is it something else?

TBC.

Search

There is a lot of information out there. There is also a lot of crap. Google has done wonderfully well in providing an easy way to generate an ordered list of crap based upon simple queries. This is not a failing of Google, it's more a statement on the web, I guess. Now, let me paint you a simple scenario, where the problem the user is trying to solve is "Why does my Windows machine crash when I try and watch a DVD":

• User fires up Google and types in a search term; "windows crash" + DVD.
  
• User gets a massive list (30k results at the time of writing)
• User filters through the results, occasionally refining the search and either gets lucky or frustrated
• Chances are, someone, somewhere has had the same problem and has fixed it

This is a pretty common scenario, where a user is trying to solve a problem leveraging the knowledge scattered throughout the web. Some other common scenarios include:

• Searching for information on a person (esp. a famous one)
• Searching for product information and/or reviews
• Searching for cheap prices on a desired item

So, the challenges here are firstly to better understand the goal of the user, and secondly, to better understand the content of the indexed information.

TBC.

Introduction

This is a new blog dedicated to capturing my ideas and helping me work through them. The Nu Web - not much of a name but we all have to start somewhere.

Each post will not be a self-contained idea ... I will develop each as I go along. Generally, they will end with TBC, to indicated that there is more to come. Each subsequent post for an idea will contain the same heading with an increasing number to indicated it's place in the process.