facebook new design: a new sign of twitter success 1

Posted by herve on March 15, 2009

I’ve been tweeting for a couple of weeks about the facebook new design and their twitter approach.

 

here is some:
More and more people are bored by facebook. I’m not sure that a new design will change that, no?
Facebook has released its new home. Should we rename facebook to twitbook. at least, they will give twitter some credits
with 514m$ raised, Facebook is so innovative. they are able to copy twitter but change twitter light blue into a Facebook dark blue. Waouh
I had some interesting reactions (read below). It seems that Facebook, even if they still do well with the general public, start to lose its mojo with their early adopters due to too many mistakes: Privacy rules, acting more like a monoply than an open minded leader,etc…

 

From Monica (@mony_)
I hated the new HP of facebook, too crowded too messy, and u kinda lose ur way in there
I agree with the FB fact,i’m one of those who are getting bored, their new look? dont even care plus they are copying twitter
now facebook wanna be like twitter. clearly twitter is market leader and facebook is trying to catch up.
facebook has clearly accepted that twitter is the future and they have to just follow the direction of twitter
I’ve certaiinly stopped using facebook as frequently as I did. Suspect you are right - new design won’t bring me back.
From Mona (@mmonaa)
Twitter success is because of the real time intimate conversation (include support of this through apps and desktop widgets) and the age of next generation reporting as a cause of this. This is why Facebook copied Twitter.
twitter success is bc of the third party the desktop apps, FB desktop app r not well know with avg. facebookers. will that change?
well facebook can not copy Twitter in few things, like u follow people, but people do not have to follow u to get their tweets, in facebook u have both to accept the friendship which makes it more limited, thought now public profiles go to the homepage on FB, still there r random peeps that tweet much better than any public person. and r worthy of following, and there r tons of ways to find them in twitter, take public time line, tag search, that is not available on Fb, will it? if so then facebook will not be what it claimed to: privacy and connecting people around u
in my opinion, loosing early adopters is really bad sign.
It means you don’t innovate enough to keep them excited.

 

this loss of attraction will gain general public sooner than expected.

 

the next Facebook is Twitter so that means somewhere in the cloud there is the next twitter, but which service it is? an USD 100++ millions question.

 

any opinion? 

HADOPI is a mistake driven by the music industry lobby

Posted by herve on March 13, 2009

I cannot end up that week without talking about what’s going on in france regarding P2P networks usage.

if you are not familiar with the subject you can read this excellent article from ars technica: French anti-P2P law toughest in the world

Don’t get me wrong my point here is not to advocate for piracy, every talented content creator deserve to get the harvest fruits of their work.

But to denounce an industry that misbehaved for the past 2 decades and the clueless lawmakers influenced by music/video industry lobbies.

To better understand the situation

we need to take a closer look at their business model. If you think, they make their biggest profit on original content creation and talent detection, you are all wrong.
Music industry (same for video) makes most of their profit by moving from one medium to another audiotape to CD, videotape to DVD, etc.. so you have to buy again and again the same album (I bought some albums 3 times: audiotape, CD, iTunes). This has nothing to do with content creation. Everybody was happy, money was flooding without any work except burning some CDs. That was good old times.

Then came a problem: Internet. Information became medium free, distribution worldwide, and file exchange standards emerged. it took them sometimes to understand the importance of the phenomena. They were to concentrate at resampling songs and creating best of with their already produced music.

When they understood it, their first reaction was how can we stop this not how can we benefit from it. So they created the DRM. a “smart way to recreate medium but they went to far. The music you were buying on iTunes was no playable on you Nokia mobile, and having it on two PC was an nightmare.

They forgot 2 things in their masterplan: Internet has no boundaries, so there is no way to stop the information (except if you live in china) and the most important one: Customers are not stupid.

How you can explain to a customer that from now, you can only listen to your music on the device you used to buy it. Even with a CD, I was able to play it in my car, at home or at a friend place…. and with the digital music, you (music industry) try to explain me that I don’t have that right anymore! NO WAY so I have to find another way to enjoy my music freely. the other way are P2P networks.

that’s why I started downloading from P2P networks, and by their attempt to preserve their unfair profits they have pushed millions of people to P2P networks.

Of course there are professional pirates, I don’t deny it and they deserve to be punished by law as any other thief but the vast majority of P2P networks users are people like you and me pissed of by music industry greediness. I hope they will one day realize that I’m using P2P networks because of DRM, they have moved me to P2P. I had and I still have no problem to pay for content.

Then comes now the second act. As the DRM has failed, let’s make a law. Here comes the HADOPI

577 deputies talking about something they barely understand for the majority. French assembly debates are looking like comedy shows.

  • French Culture minister saying that Internet access is not a fundamental right.
  • French government can request you to send your hard drive via mail
  • To solve the problem of using P2P from public hotspots, let’s create a white list of site accessible from public hotspots. Don’t we normally call that censorship?
  • If you downloaded too much music, they can cut your internet access. What happens when I’m using dial up, will they cut my phone line also?
  • Etc, etc…

I’m appalled. HADOPI is just another proof that France is stucked in the past, incapable to see a change in a positive and so unable to take advantage of it (you can also read my post on the french digital revolution).

To the Music industry leader

you should spend your energy to figure out how to recreate your economy is a worldwide interconnected market because this or any law won’t change that. Even, China has difficulties to keep the system closed.

By this law, you will just encourage people to find a better system that P2P to exchange files but it won’t solve your problem.

Funny links (in french):

Finally it’s done 2

Posted by herve on March 11, 2009

I finally finished my blog rewamp.

What new?

  • a mailing list (inside twitter) that deliver the best of twitter content in your inbox.
  • Categories have been restructured
  • New design, as you can notice I hope

I would like to thank

ok, enough talking about this blog. Let’s get back to work

I’m back

Posted by herve on March 06, 2009

Ok, Ok. I’ve said enough blogging.

the truth is after 2 months (euh may be 3) trying to think about what’s next now, I still feel there is opinions I like to share and discuss with you.

Plus, you are still there (my stats are decent) and people are continuing to encourage me to get back to work

So, I finally decided to give my blog a second chance. I will also come up with new tools (a mailing list “inside twitter” is on its way).

Next step will be a good blog rewamp, first categories reorganization then design.

But first, I will enjoy this promising sunny week end with my family.

Have a good week end