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Understanding more about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook

After seeing The Social Network movie I had a much better appreciation for Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook phenomenon.

The well-written, lengthy article accompanying Zuck's 'Person of the year' accolade in Time is also worth a read if this topic interests you. Beware, you'll need 10 minutes!

[Time magazine]

Facebook launches a 'modern messaging system' - social inbox, seamless integration, and lots and lots of ads

A natty invite (right) led to growing chatter over the weekend about Facebook launching a service to rival GMail, and it looks like it's turned out to be true, sort of. TechCrunch reports this morning from San Francisco where the social network company has released its 'modern messaging system', which combines:

• a 'social inbox' (including an @facebook.com address if you want, but you can use any address too)
• conversation history, and
• seamless integration with instant message and SMS.

This is all in an effort to provide a system that does away with standard email's 'unnecessary formality':

Zuckerberg recalled talking to high schoolers recently and asking them how they communicate with one another. They don’t like email. “It’s too formal,” Zuckerberg noted. So about a year ago, Facebook set out to overhaul the system. But this isn’t just about email.

“This is not an email killer. This is a messaging experience that includes email as one part of it,” Zuckerberg said. It’s all about making communication simpler. “This is the way that the future should work,” he continued.

The system should be rolling out slowly over the next few months.

That's the Techcrunch story so far, but let's delve a little deeper...

'Social Inbox'?

First off:  'social inbox'? The trend of putting social before everything is starting to get a little tiring. But let's roll with it.

The key point is the removal of formality. No subject lines, for example, just more of the SMS/IM style, 'Hey, you got a second?"and 'OK, laters.' These are common lightweight messaging interactions. I certainly don't put subject headings in SMS. And for IM with friend's there's no formality either. 

For work? Work is different. I do go to colleagues and say, 'Can I chat to you about this'. I do say 'Thanks and bye' at the end, and not just 'bye' etc. But the thread with Facebook's system seems to be, 'That's fine, but that's not always going to be the case - informality is going to spread elsewhere as those more comfortable with out it enter the workplace'.

I can totally believe this.

And seamless integration of SMS and IM in the inbox so you have all of your communication in one place, and communication with one person or groups is clearly linked, searchable, probaly sharable to some degree? This is your 'social inbox' as it were.

Don't we already have this?

On the face of it, it sounds a lot like GMail, plus GTalk. It even sounds a lot like Outlook 2010/11 with Office Communicator, although there's no doubt Facebook's service will look prettier than both. And, of course, it will have a strong mobile element to it (bearing in mind Facebook had over 200 million mobile users as early as October - up from 100 million in February 2010). It's not hard to see how a similar app might work for businesses, either.

Overall, and while the reports and analyses are still appearing, it's not easy to figure much more out. By all accounts though, Facebook has put a lot of time and effort into this (15 engineers – the most ever on a single project), and it looks to be a pretty big deal.

As a sidenote, it was some years ago, 2007 actually, that both Google and Yahoo! whispered the phrase 'Inbox 2.0'. Google has continually evolved GMail to include new features like prioritisation. I have no idea about Yahoo! (does that site still exist?), but GMail is still definitely and primarily an (awesome) email client. Facebook is aiming to differentiate.

Hang on a sec though...

Amidst all this information, let's not forget what will unarguably be a very well calculated benefit for Facebook if suddenly their messaging use goes through the roof; lots and lots more data, and lots and lots more ad revenue. They'll scan anything and everything that comes and goes from your social inbox so they can target even more specific ads at users.

I'm all for more specific ads, but given Facebook's traditionally cavalier attitude to privacy and user data, this may represent a bit of a problem for some people.

We'll see.

Update: Mashable has some screenshots and more details of the new system.

Spacebook. It's Facebook for Astronauts.

One of the most enjoyable conversations I had when involved in knowledge management was a conversation with the chief knowledge officer at NASA, closely followed by chatting to the chief knowledge officer at Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, who make space shuttle and rocket engines. You cannot get much more state of the art than rocketship engines and space travel. I considered it a huge privilege to talk to these people.

Fast forward a few years to a blog post by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre CIO, Linda Cureton, and the launch of Spacebook:

We took a leap of faith and rocketed into social networking this week with the launch of Spacebook, an employee intranet that features user profiles, group collaboration spaces and social bookmarking. This is similar to Facebook, except that it is restricted to NASA’s secure internal network. It’s open to every employee of NASA.

One of the most amazing things about these Web 2.0 technologies and the greatest value to NASA is the ability to help us create a culture of engagement and collaboration that makes each individual employee much more effective. Engaging the public, harnessing the power of crowds, and open and transparent government … as my friend Efrain and fav acquisition professional would say … it’s ALL good Poopsie.

My favourite quotes of the post:

"I need to tell you that this whole Web 2.0 thing gives people the willies..." and, "There are a lot of phobias associated with social networking. Somehow … someway … we worked through those issues. I’m sure that some of those serious issues may appear silly now.... I expect that we will look back on the serious issues raised by Web 2.0 technologies in wonder and amazement."

Read the full blog post here. Read the comments too.This has the potential to be a marker for government organisations everywhere.

I look forward to seeing a more in-depth demo and presentation some time in the future.

Hat tip to Peter Richards.

P.S 'Goddard Space Flight Centre'. Not a bad name for the office. :-)

Thoughts on The Social Network

Originally I wasn't all that keen to go and see 'The Social Network', the dramatisation of the story of Facebook (trailer). That might seem odd given my line of work, but the premise and build up – a bitchy Hollywood take on a dot.com technology story of a guy I didn't really like the sound of – didn't appeal that much.

As the film came out though, the mainstream reviews were looking positive, and then the buzz on Twitter started saying the same thing. Coupled with some free cinema tickets and a free evening, I ended up seeing the film this past Friday.

I'm really glad I did.

The Social Network is one of the best films I've seen recently. It's well acted, well written, and well produced overall, to the point that it's a good movie on its own. Add in the compelling story and its relative accuracy (sure, they embellished the characters a little but the turn of events are apparently pretty well lined up) and you have a great piece of work. It's hard to say that about 99% of Hollywood films.

Facebook itself is a phenomenon of our time. It seemingly smashed past its first million users as obviously as it smashed through half a billion. Perhaps a billion could really be next. Getting insight into how it really came about was intriguing. 

What was most unexpected though, was leaving the cinema with a new, thoroughly positive appreciation for Mark Zuckerberg.

'What?"

Yup, I came out thinking this guy is pretty awesome. A significant change from when I went in at 8pm.

I have always admired the complexity, functionality success and, of course, enormous valuations of Facebook, without actually ever really liking the company itself, or Zuckerberg. Everything I've ever read about him, every interview I've seen, and the epic mistakes like Beacon, seemed to reinforce the idea that he was an arrogant asshole. I didn't appreciate the individual work done, nor how well the opportunity had been grasped.

With Facebook's continuing insane growth in the last year (250 million users on July 16 2009, 500 million on July 22 2010), less and less very public mistakes, and his appearance in the upper echelons the Forbes rich list, my opinion was already changing; the magnitude of what Zuckerberg has accomplished was starting to set in. But after this film, for me it unquestionably cements him as brilliant.

He took a good idea and developed it into an excellent one, and then had the tools and capability, and got a little bit of good fortune, to execute it to unimaginable levels of success. I see the point of those such as Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff who say Zuckerberg's the next Bill Gates (he's already richer on paper than Steve Jobs). Facebook is the social layer of the web. It's the latest Godzilla Silicon Valley firm (the last one was Google). It's incredible, and awe-inspiring, really.

And here's the thing: who knows what Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old multi-billionaire and genius (and 'punk, prophet' etc. etc.), with the world at his feet, will have done by the time he's as old as the old man of Microsoft.

If he stays on this path, it's going to be a ride watching what happens.

Overall score of 'The Social Network': 4/5

People-based intranets and the future of intranet design

James has published his latest 'Future intranet principles' post, and this one focuses on 'putting people at the centre of intranets':

"Up to this point, the central focus of intranets has been content. How to write it, how to publish it, how to maintain it and keep it up to date. This matches the intranet’s role as a publishing platform, and an internal website.

Intranets in 2015 will put people at the centre, supported by content, tools and collaboration"

This concept, 'people at the centre' or, understanding that 'information is socially situated' as James Dellow describes it, has huge potential for intranets. Some organisations are starting to do this already, including some we're working with right now and one notable winner in the 2009 Intranet Innovation Awards (I hinted at this in a post just before we unveiled the winners, and some great points were left in the comments section).

On that point, below I've republished my editorial column from the 2009 Awards report, focusing on 'people-based intranets'. Several months on, I stand by everything in here, especially the last sentence. What do you think about this concept?

Like those in previous years, this year’s Award entries show that it’s possible to design a powerful, effective intranet that will do what’s expected of it, and do it well, while providing collaboration tools, conversational spaces, filtered and targeted communication, efficient, money-saving applications and more. This year we’ve even seen a number of intranets with striking visual designs that compare favourably with the latest trends on the Web. That’s some progress. But where are we heading?

Underpinning several entries this year is a sense of something significant happening at the leading edge of intranet design: people as the focus, and the very essence and foundation of the intranet.

This year’s entry from IDEO demonstrates just how important people are to an organisation. IDEO’s people are its intranet. Remove them from the equation and the site would be no more. That’s in contrast to the vast majority of intranets, where the ‘staff directory’ is just one, albeit usually the most popular, application.

Instead, and as the IDEO team suggest: ‘Build pointers to people. Rather than attempt to capture everything someone knows in a database with the hope that others will tap that database, we strive to identify the key bits of information that help one understand who someone is in terms of expertise and experience, so that person can best be leveraged.’

This is a compelling concept that has massive potential for intranets and intranet teams. When designing an intranet, don’t just make it user-centred, make it user-based: search for a product and you’re presented with the product owner(s) and their related contact details pages, blogs, feeds and FAQs and the latest processes specific to their products and services.

For the individual staff members, their information is drafted straight from the organisation’s HR systems and automatically kept up to date, while presented in the same rich interface and design as all other systems, actions and processes.

Staff directories, collaboration, social tools and personalisation feature throughout the 2009 Awards. But fundamentally changing the focus of intranets and starting with people, and building on social tools from the very beginning as opposed to adding them as features... that will be one of the most important intranet developments ever.

Attending Online Social Networking and Biz Collaboration

Online Social Networking & Business Collaboration World - Sydney, 24/25th November 2008

I mentioned this event earlier in the week and am now signed up to go.

The lineup includes a mix of some tech firms - W3C, Google, MySpace etc. - and some great enterprise examples, one speaker being Andrew Mitchell from Urbis who's discussing his team's wiki use (Urbis won a gold Award in this year's IIA for their profect finder work. Clearly a lot of good stuff going on there!).

Also of note are Laurel Papworth (aka Silkcharm), plus some government case studies (always interesting if successful due to the sheer number of grey areas to be dealt with).

Places are filling fast, so if this topic is of interest (and if you're reading this blog I expect it might be), then head over to AC Events, where you can also check out the full list of speakers.

See you there perhaps?

Spooky Facebook

OK, so I can see the benefits of Intellipedia, but a Facebook for spies? Yes indeedy. It's called "A-Space" and it's described as "a place where spies can meet". 

The powers that be - the CIA, FBI and NSA -  are apparently quite clear on "not wanting to make it a goldmine of sensitive future information for future double agents."

And you were worried that your new CEO's internal blog was a security concern...

Businesses still not keen on social networks?

A post on Lifehacker today looks at a survey by Avanade, which found that 60% of businesses have no plans to integrate social networking tools, even though the majority recognised that incoming staff were likely to want access to them.

As John Backley at Westpac said, however, want or demand is becoming less of an issue. Among younger generations there's increasingly an expectation (quite different to demand) that these tools and similar ones will be available.

The Avanade survey found the main reasons for the lack of implementation was security, lack of knowledge, costs, and apathy. These are quite similar findings to the social media survey we did at Melcrum back in 2007, where lack of senior exec buy-in was one fear, security another and timewasting another. In that survey, 52% of over 2,000 respondents said they had no plans to implement social networking in the next 12 months.

Regarding a perceived lack of productivity and timewasting, as Angus at Lifehacker points out, clearly those blocking Facebook at work have not seen the more than capable Facebook iPhone app, or even the mobile site for other phones. With powerful devices in pockets, IT restrictions based and created on the fear of people wasting time will cease to be effective. (I have said this before as well, when 3G really started to take off in the UK). 

From bandwidth use to security fears to timewasting, in most cases (most, not all), the arguments for blocking sites don't stand up to anything more than surface-layer scrutiny. But still the arguments are used and the sites are blocked.

Later in the Avanade survey press release (and, by the way, Avanade is a joint project between Accenture and Microsoft, had you ever heard of it before?), there's irony that's quite typical for this subject. Despite 60% saying they had no plans to introduce social networking, 75% of the same surveyed group admitted that social networking will come into the business by stealth if not proactively managed. That means, at worst, over half of that 60% who said they had no plans to implement and capitalise on social networking recognise that it will work its way into the organisation anyway...

Head. Sand. Buried.