Facebook Lexicon v. Google Trends

One of the most interesting stories of the last week has been Facebook's introduction of their lexicon tool, "a tool to follow language trends across Facebook" (via All Facebook). Whilst the information provided is very simplistic, merely showing the rising and fall of the terms' popularity rather than specific numbers, it will be interesting to see how the popularity of terms equates to those that are searched for in Google (available via Google Trends). Are those terms that appear in wall posts the same as those that appear in Facebook wall posts? And do they follow the same trends?

For a quick comparison I took data from the two services for the term Christmas, a popular term that could be expected to vary over the year:
Google Trends

Facebook Lexicon

Unsurprisingly they both peak around the Christmas period, although the peak is much more pronouced on Facebook...all those Merry Christmas posts. To a certain extent the differences in these graphs is to be expected, but I'm sure that there will be a host of far more interesting comparisons in the months ahead.

Facebook Harassment: When is a poke one too many?

As I sat in my dentist's waiting room yesterday (no work necessary, thanks for asking), I read a report in the Daily Telegraph about the first man who has been taken to court in the UK for allegedly harassing his ex-girlfriend via Facebook.

Whilst all new communication technologies seem to eventually make it to court for allegedly involving harassment, surely after the first unwanted sheep or two had been thrown in the ex-girlfriend's direction, or he had poked her once too often, she would have simply de-friended him. As the trial is only up the road I am almost tempted to go along later in the month and find out exactly the role Facebook took, surely it was a minor part that the media have decided to focus on.

UPDATE: The defendent has been cleared according to the Register 27/03/08

De-friending on Facebook

One of the Facebook issues that is often discussed is the juggling of friends from different spheres. Would you want professional colleagues seeing what you had been up to on a drunken night out? The vicar to see your debauched holiday snaps?

An issue that is often overlooked is whether you really want to know the continuous goings-on of certain people's lives. Today I finally gave up and de-friended my brother:

Whilst his status could not be seen by any of my friends, and he never felt the need to write inappropriate comments on my wall, a person's status can slowly drive you mad.

Unfortunately de-friending on Facebook is a rather un-momentous affair. Merely being asked if you are sure you want to go ahead, told you won't be able to undo it, and told that the person will not be informed. Facebook should allow you to inform the person and provide the reason if you wish. As it was I had to resort to the traditional email to explain my actions. Maybe I should have looked for a de-friending application that offered to send some sort of animated e-card.

Facebookers Back Barack

After spending the morning reading a few articles about blogging in the 2004 US election (does life get any more interesting??) I decided to have a look how Facebook reflected the race for the Democrat presidential nomination.

Basically, if democracy reflected the votes of the idealistic youth, rather than the self-interested cynical old conservatives, then Obama would be walking into the Whitehouse (no-one idealistic votes Republican). A comparison of Obama and Clinton's top groups can't help but make anyone who dislikes Hilary smile:
Obama
1. Barack Obama for President in 2008
2. Students for Barack Obama
3. America for Barack Obama
4. Barack Obama for President
5. 1 Million strong, against Hilary and Obama
(nb. maybe it is the annoyingly superfluous comma that is currently restricting the 1 million strong to 5,493).

Clinton
1. Anti Hilary Clinton 2008
2. ABC= Anyone But Clinton
3. as much as i love the U.S...i'm gone if Hilary Clinton becomes president
4. I'd vote for a trained chimpanzee before Hilary Clinton
5. Hilary Clinton Shouldn't Run For President She Should Run The Dishes

I'm sure that analysis of the comments in the groups would be even more of an eye-opener...although many of the comments about Clinton are probably not suitable for repeating in a polite blog.

In 2004 blogging was the also ran of the presidential campaign. Yes, it was an important element, but not quite the deciding factor that was hoped for. The question is whether social network sites will be the also ran, or the decisive mover. If Hilary enters the Whitehouse, it is definately an also ran.

Is content king of social networks?

I have just finished Hitwise's "The Impact of Social Networking in the UK", and as I thought it is well worth a read (although it didn't actually appear in my inbox until lunchtime today).

Whilst I would agree with most of the report's predictions for 2008, especially the growth in the role of social networks for marketing and the increase in specialist social networks, the report didn't particularly address the issue of content. By which I mean the quality content of the music, film and television studios, rather than the strange things that pass for humour amongst the user-generating masses. The general social network that successfully ties up the rights for their users to share music and video seems likely to take the spoils, and a successful new entrant could quickly usurp the market leaders.

The music rights secured by Imeem are likely to have been a major contributory factor in the social network's massive growth over the last year, and that these rights are only for the US helps explains the network's missing from the top 25 UK social networks. Whilst the growth seems to have slowed of late (at least according to alexa and google trends), music rights are not likely to be as enticing as video rights. People want to listen to music on numerous different platforms, whereas television programmes are usually only watched the once.

Whilst I have tired of Facebook, I could be persuaded to return on a more regular basis if I got to do the social stuff whilst watching quality TV programmes.

Facebook fatigue and Poke 1.0

In the heat of summer when I was an avid Facebook user, before the fatigue kicked in, I signed up for the Poke 1.0 conference, an afternoon conference on the topic of Facebook. I am pleased to say that despite my own fatigue with Facebook, the conference was definitely worth the train fare (and not just because the university paid for it).

For me personally the highlight (with just the one lecture still to go) was the initial (primarily quantitative) talk on the use of Facebook in the UK, basically according to Neilsen's Netratings whichever way you cut the cake its the UK's biggest social network. They provided many more details than is usually provided in the press releases of sites such as Compete and with the promise of slides and videos of the conference being placed on the London Knowledge Labs web site, it will be worth looking up.

Whilst the commercial speakers were giving quantitative details, the academics seem to be stuck with qualitative data. Stuck is probably a bit of a harsh term, after all qualitative is a recognised methodological choice. I do wonder however how much is choice and how much is the lack of access to the quantitative data. There seems to be a need for greater collaboration between different departments and between commercial organisations and academia.

Pay Facebook? The adverts are the sanest part.

AllFacebook have pointed to a Facebook poll which asked Facebook users the question:

Would you pay $3.99 a month to not ever see ads on Facebook?

Unsurprisingly 95% answered with a 'no'. Whilst there may be a bit of quibling about the suitability of the wording of the question, the result is far from surprising.

The average Facebook page is filled with rubbish, people throwing sheep, buying beers, being bitten by zombies (or werewolves or vampires), with the list of pointless applications growing on a daily basis. Scrolling amongst the rubbish the adverts are often a welcome moment of sanity, a welcome exit strategy from the turmoil of Facebook.

Anyway, even if you did pay for an ad-free Facebook, there would still be numerous ads included in the embedded applications. Only a fool would pay.

Who really won Facebook?

You couldn't really describe the Microsoft investment in Facebook as breaking news, the story seems to have been going on for weeks. The final outcome, a 1.6% stake for $240 million, valueing Facebook at $15 billion. If Facebook is worth $15 billion, then I'm the Queen of Sheba.

Whilst I think that it is an outrageous price, it will probably work out quite well for Microsoft as it will tie Facebook into their adverts for the forseeable future. Whereas I don't think it is necessarily a good deal for Facebook, they should have sold a little bit more whilst they had the chance, their stock is unlikely to be riding this high forever and they need to capitalise on it ASAP. Zuckerberg talks about going public in two years, by which point it will probably be worth half as much.

The other big social networking sites are going to continue innovating, new social networking sites will enter the market, the mobile market is going to become increasingly important, and teens are going to decide they want to hang out somewhere different to their parents. The market is constantly shifting, but the $15billion price tag seems to reflect a continued status quo. Yesterday Techcrunch published the growth rates of a number of different social sites, and the fastest by far is IMEEM a site that has managed to pass me by up to now. Whilst I have yet to have a close look at IMEEM, it serves to illustrate the point about emerging sites; it may be the next big thing, it may not, the point is nothing will stay the same.

However the future of social networking pans out, one thing is for sure: Rupert Murdoch got MySpace for a bargain price.

Facebook Nose-dive: Please let it be true

Over at GigaOm some statistics have been put up that show a fall in Facebook's traffic, both in absolute user numbers and in the number of pages viewed. If it is indeed true, and I fear it may be more to do with the calculating of the figures, I would be very pleased indeed. I liked Facebook, but quickly got bored of it, and it would be nice if the fact its really 'not all that' was reflected in some sort of numbers. One of the things I hate about the web is the way surfers go crazy about the latest big thing.

OK, so the figures are not showing a 'nose-dive', and there may be a reasonable explanation for the dip in users, but more than anything it is a reminder to the blogosphere that there is a world beyond Facebook (and the other big current topic-the iPhone) and that we should really be keeping the iPhone and Facebook stories within reasonable limits. When Google bought Jaiku many bloggers felt it was necessary to explain what Jaiku was, surely if the blogosphere had been doing its job then the users would have already known what Jaiku was; unfortunately the blogosphere had been banging on about Twitter for months instead.

Is the UK Networking or Wilfing?

The latest research from comScore finds U.K. social networking site usage to be the highest in Europe. Whilst the UK users average 5.8 hours per month (with the heavy users' average being 22 hours per month), the average hours per user in Germany is only 3.1 hours and in France 2.0 hours. There are two ways of viewing these result:
1) UK residents are using social networking sites to share ideas, collaborate, and come up with innovative ideas, and increased use of social networking sites will help economic growth.
2) UK residents are merely wilfing, aimlessly surfing the internet with little or no purpose (from the phrase 'what was I looking for), and is of little productive use.

Whilst the press release lacks details on which social networking sites are being used (LinkedIn use seems likely to be more productive than MySpace), I fear that the majority of use is likely to be the big three generic sites (i.e., MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook), and people's surfing habits have changed from aimlessly surfing the whole web to aimlessly surfing/interacting with their social network communities. Whilst I am sure that our fellow Europeans will soon catch up, I don't think it will be something that they'll be boasting about.

Facebook Flyer Fun

Whilst all the Facebook pages now have bright enticing 'Facebook Flyer' adverts down the side, the lack of variety in the adverts (at least in the West Midlands), and the fact the flyers don't seem to be content driven, means that you can happily kill time finding a group that (vaguely) amusingly matches a flyer that you have seen, and then re-find the flyer with the help of the refresh button:

An advert for gay dating on an anti-gay group:


Or the chance to win an iPhone on an anti-cellphone group:


I am almost tempted to join the London network for a greater choice in the adverts.... although I am sure there are more productive ways to spend my time.

Web protests and petitions: Do they mean anything?

Over the last week there has been a lot of news about the situation in Burma, and it is unsurprising to find that it is a hot topic on Facebook. Both Allfacebook and Mashable highlight the “Support the Monks’ Protest in Burma” group that was growing at 3,000 members an hour at one point, and at the time of writing this blog entry had passed the 225,000 members mark. Whilst I don't doubt that there are many people in the group that sympathise with the monks' situation in Burma, the ease with which people can now join groups or sign online petitions means that it is necessary to reassess what such large numbers represent. 50,000 people joining a Facebook support group is not the same as 50,000 people standing outside a Burmese embassy, in fact I doubt it is comparable to 1,000 people standing outside a Burmese embassy. The mass joining of Facebook support groups may even have a negative effect on a cause, as it allows people to assuage their guilt without making any real effort.

There is a place for Facebook support groups in the sharing of information and promotion of real-world activities, however if we focus on the numbers too much we run the risk of turning every situation into a Facebook race, where important political discussions are beaten by 'just for funs': Canada vs. America(493,356 members); "I secretly want to punch slow walking people in the back of the head" (424,980 members).

LinkedIn: Yes to a profile photo, no to a superpoke

According to Mashable, from tomorrow you will be able to add a photo to your profile page on LinkedIn. Whilst I agree that it is a good idea, as it helps with the identification of people, I don't agree with Mashable's conclusion that:

It’s clearly a move that aims to keep up with Facebook, which increasingly looks set to steal LinkedIn’s audience.

Facebook and LinkedIn are extremely different animals, appealing to very different markets. Whilst there is a big overlap between the two social networks in the types of users, their purposes are very different, and the same user on the different networks will use them in very different ways and for different purposes.

Whilst Facebook has shown some innovative ideas that other social networks want to incorporate, such as the developer platform, this is not necessarily the same as the other social networks wanting to be Facebook. After all, it would be a very odd 'potential Facebook user' who decided to stay with LinkedIn purely due to the addition of a profile picture.

It would be nice if sometimes the web could talk about social networks without discussing Facebook, and mobile phones without discussing iPhones.

Facebook and Microsoft...again

I don't know how many times I have read rumours about Microsoft buying Facebook, or bits of Facebook, or how much Facebook are looking for in another round of financing. Every time these stories raise their head I think, surely this is the opportunity for Facebook to really be innovative on a big scale and utilise that social graph they are always banging on about.

Why doesn't Facebook sell a portion of the company to the users. Their enthusiasm would push the prices higher than they would get from Microsoft, and create a network of Facebook evangelists who would get everyone they knew on board, however young or old, tech-savvy or tech-incompetent.

Whilst I am sure it would be a logistical nightmare, and that Microsoft brings more to the table than a rather large chequebook, it would be nice to give the investment opportunity to those that have built the value of Facebook rather than the corporate suits who already have plenty of money.

Friends Reunited: Some old dogs just won't die

Nielsen/Netratings have just released figures showing the most popular social networks in the UK by unique audience. The inevitable has happened and Facebook has finally overtaken MySpace, with Bebo continuing to grow faster than MySpace. As Facebook has been the topic of (what seems like) millions of articles in the mainstream press it is unsurprising to find it the most popular social networking site, although it seems likely that many of the users will be relatively short lived...a factor that will go unnoticed in the short term.

For me the most surprising result was Friends Reunited at number 5. Not only holding its own, but continuing to grow! Why on earth are people continuing to use this site? Where you pay on Friends Reunited, its free on Facebook. It may be that Nielsen have combined the ratings with Genes Reunited and Friends Reunited Dating, nonetheless it seems to show that the constant stream of Friends Reunited adverts on the ITV web site is doing them some good.

Is Facebook fatigue curable?

Whilst the popularity and growth of Facebook makes comparisons with search engines inevitable, it is missing one key ingredient: it is not indispensable. My numerous online hours can pass quite happily without feeling the need to look at Facebook, and I have noticed of late that days are passing before I remember to log on. Whereas once I made an effort to keep up with all the latest Facebook applications, news and rumours, now I find I give a little shrug. I find I really couldn't care less about the latest applications being sold on ebay or the introduction of Facebook's auto-complete for the sidebar search.

That is not to say that facebook doesn't have a lot of potential, I just haven't found that one thing that makes me need to go back again and again. Whilst there are applications that appeal to me, they are often clunkier versions of something that already exists at another URL in a more user friendly format and I prefer to visit those. For example, both chess.com and shelfari.com have applications on Facebook and standalone web sites, but applications aren't as good as their sites, and whilst I have no need to return to Facebook, I want to return to chess.com to make a move on a game I am playing, and return to shelfari.com to add the latest book I am reading. The purpose of Facebook is just not defined enough for me.

Somebody needs to create a Facebook application that requires an already established user network, and is so innovative that users will have to keep coming back...whoever does that will quickly become very rich.

Is there more to life than Facebook and the iPhone?

It sometimes feels as though every other story I read on the web is talking about either Facebook or the iPhone. Surely more than they deserve? Especially for a UK reader where the iPhone is not yet available and the last I head Facebook was in third place in the UK. Admittedly it is the fastest growing, but much of this is due to the extremely low starting point as it only recently opened up to UK users.

So has the over-exuberance of the web, and especially the blogosphere, for the iPhone addled the minds of those people at O2 who, its being reported, have paid through the nose to be the UK carrier of the iPhone. Whilst the iPhone has created enough of an internet buzz to really get people interested in the next generation of mobile phones, does this mean it is necessarily the best, or that it is good enough to draw people to the O2 network.

There is no doubt that the iPhone is a stylish looking bit of kit, but does it really compete with the functionality offered by the N95? Whilst it doesn't look like it, it doesn't have to. The majority who buy the iPhone will be buying it as a fashion accessory, and there will undoubtedly be plenty of them.

Personally I weighed up the option of waiting for the iPhone on O2 (it had been rumoured for a while) or going for the N95 on a carrier who offered unlimited web use for £7.50 a month, it was an obvious choice. Looking at the O2 site today, I still can't see an unlimited web use option (the only price I could spot was £3 for 2MB of browsing), and unless it introduces an unlimited tariff for the iPhone (which they may not be able to afford to now), I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

Facebookers v.s the 'Eccentrics'

The Facebook group law probably goes something like this:

The probability of a town 'eccentric' being the focus of a Facebook group reaches one when there is at least one Facebook user in the town.

Its not necessarily a particularly nice law, but it seems to be true. Facebook offers the chance for the rather childish poking fun at people who are different to us to continue beyond our school days with little fear of censure. My thoughts are brought to this topic of conversation after noticing a rather odd titled 'popular event' in Facebook's West Midlands network:

WE HAVE BEEN CLOSED DOWN AND I AM BEING PROSECUTED
THANK YOU BRITAIN FOR BEING SO FULL OF COWARDLY F****

A glance at the 'event' and a quick Google News of the terms Leamington, Spa and Facebook reveals the story. The 'eccentrics' of Leamington Spa are the focus of their own Facebook group: Leamington Spa Celebrity Mental Spotting. Whilst there are many groups devoted to those who are often riduculed and outcast from mainstream society (and even a 'What's the time Gordon the Tramp' application) the difference with this group is that this time a local mental health group contacted the police and asked them to do something about it as it is slanderous to the people featured.

I am unsure how somebody reporting a perceived injustice to the police would make them "a cowardly f***", but there again I am still trying to get my head around the group creator's current oxymoronic status where she is riling against the "politically correct nanny state facists".

Its unfortunate that we live in a world where there are people with so many problems, and that they feel the need to group together and poke fun at other people.

Here come the Facebook metrics...

Despite search engine optimisation being a topic that generally makes my flesh crawl, Search Engine Guide is one of those sites that I for some reason entered into my RSS aggregator and whilst there is rarely an article I bother to read fully, it has just enough going for it to stop me deleting it. Sometimes, however, there are articles that are so irritating that they make you reassess whether now is the time to finally delete the feed.

At the moment everyone is talking about Facebook, and it is not surprising that the SEOs are on the case with tips about how it can be used to promote an organisation and share news. I'm not sure which part of the article annoys me most, the lack of discussion about whether a Facebook group is necessarily appropriate for a particular organisation's web presence, the pretty obvious tips, or the awful suggested metrics. It would probably have to be the metrics which focus primarily on quantity rather than quality.

Its time that I either take the RSS feed out of my aggregator, or accept that those involved in web analytics are just inhabiting a different world to those in the academic world of webometrics.

Facebook Freedom

Allfacebook.com has pointed out a small religious controversy going on over at Facebook, with people angrily protesting at one particular group called F*** Islam. Whilst the creator goes on to say f*** Christianity and f*** Judaism as well, the title has unsurprisingly caused a bit of a backlash amongst the muslim facebook users. Whilst this is by no means the first controversial facebook group, this is likely to be the one where we find out what Facebook is made of. If Facebook want to become the future of the web, then it must allow controversy and differences of opinion however objectionable; if they want to play it safe and bow to the vocal (not necessarily the majority) opinion, then they offer the opportunity for an alternative social platform to emerge that will offer the competitive advantage of freedom of speech.

This has the potential to be the most exciting Facebook story since they opened up the Facebook platform!

Facebook friend policy

There have been many blogs posted on the difficulties in deciding whether to add someone as a Facebook friend, whilst these have primarily focused on the difficulties of having personal friends and work colleagues viewing the same information, Shel Israel discusses how he makes decisions on adding those people he doesn't know. Whilst it is obviously necessary for a well known blogger such as Shel to formulate a policy to separate the wheat from the chaff, I think he misses an important factor within his policy: Whether or not he is willing to accept the responsibility that comes with accepting a Facebook friend.

Whilst it is not unknown for many of the prominent Facebookers to accept all the friendships that are requested, it is less likely that they will respond to all the comments that are either placed on their wall or sent to their inbox. It is at this point that the status of Facebook friend becomes meaningless. Personally my criteria for a Facebook friend is, 'If they contact me, will I reply', obviously this is a personal boundary, and would depend a lot on how busy a person is and how many Facebook requests they are likely to get, but if everyone kept to this criteria, then the social network would have meaning.

Obviously the boundaries of what you can reply to will change over time as more people join the network, and it would seem to be very rude to de-friend someone who has done nothing wrong, so a little foresight is also necessary.

I don't want to email from Facebook!

News that Facebook is integrating email into its messenger service seems to be have been met with general approval. Whilst there are a few criticisms, these have been levelled at the current level of functionality rather than the notion of Facebook incorporating email. Personally I do not want to have all the internet services I use to be in the one place: it encourages vast power in the hands of a decreasing number of major players; it potentially stifles innovation; and it causes lock-in.

Power of access to information in a few hands should not be considered a good thing, especially when they are commercial organisations whose primary motive is profit: 'Do no evil" very quickly becomes "Be seen to do no evil".

When we are locked into one of the major web organisation we can find ourselves 'forced' to sign up to ever increasing numbers of their services, primarily for the sake of ease, but potentially due to necessity. I have found this increasingly noticeable with Google, although I am sure that the other major search engines are equally culpable. A few months ago I wanted to add a profile picture to my other blog, but whilst Google's blogger allowed pictures to be uploaded to the blog entries, profile pictures had to be hosted somewhere else....unsurprisingly it offered to host them using Google's photo subsidiary Picasa if you downloaded the software.

Facebook is very quickly becoming one of the major internet powers, and as it is integrating more than any organisation before we may soon find ourselves locked into the most powerful organisation ever. As people migrate from the World Wide Web to Facebook we find ourselves walking blindly from an open net that people have fought to keep free of government interference to a closed service in the hands of a rather odd 23 year old.

Personally I will continue using Facebook, but only as a social networking site.

Is the world Facebook crazy?

The big news of today is that the Facebook application 'Where I've Been', has been bought by TripAdvisor for $3 million. Whilst I wouldn't say that TripAdvisor had bagged a bargain, it may be a rather shrewd investment.

At the time of buying 'Where I've Been' it was reported as being embedded on 2.3 million users pages, approximately $1.30 per user. Whilst this may sound a lot, if it translates into 2.3 million permanent adverts for TripAdvisor it suddenly doesn't seem so outrageous. This is in addition to the press coverage the acquisition is likely to attract. It should also be remembered that Facebook is not a static network, but rather is growing at a phenomenal rate and the application is likely to be embedded on many more pages in the weeks to come.

Those early applications that have created enough of a buzz are likely to see a host of established companies swooping in to buy them up, which in turn will increase the number of Facebook users and applications as everyone wants a bit of the action. If networks such as Bebo and MySpace don't want to fall out of the race they need to open up their platforms and hope for some big buy-outs to get the public interest in their sites.

The big question is, can TripAdvisor successfully use the application to drive people to their web site without compromising the original application?

UPDATED: And then it is all change on the rumour mill, with the takeover being denied. Nonetheless I still don't think it will be long before many of these applications are being picked up for silly money.

Total social-networking is for the young!

I like to think that I am an advocate of many of the so-called Web 2.0 technologies: I blog; I am a member of a number of social networks; and I don't consider my day to have properly started until I have trawled through my hundreds of feeds on Bloglines. Whilst I have to admit I am not a great Twitterer, and my status on Facebook has been known to fall silent before I change it, I can at least see how they are useful additions to the lives of many more socialable people.

Sometimes however something appears that I just don't get, and I find myself asking "why would anyone want to do it?". Today such a Facebook application came to my attention , One Minute Friend. The premise is that it connects people who want to talk about similar topics on the phone for one minute for free, after which point you are disconnected, with the choice of being reconnected if both parties request it.

Whilst I understand people wanting to talk to someone they have met online, I would presume there they want a certain amount of communication before they get to that point...at least one or two lines by way of an introduction rather than being dropped in at the deep end. This at least gives an opportunity for the would-be chatter to determine whether the person at the other end is a nutter. But I guess this is an age thing, whilst those over a certain age may have mastered the technology, and adapted to certain aspects of the lifestyle, we are not necessarily as comfortable with the social aspect as those who have never known anything different.

I wouldn't be surprised however to find that if this application is successful, which it probably will be (the masses never cease to amaze), that there will be court cases further down the line as people take little heed of the risks and connect with numerous unsavoury characters. Luckily for me it's only available in Canada and the US, so I can always claim that my refusal to use it is not just an age thing.