Scobleizer - Latest Comments in James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Richard Farmdale — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:57:23 -0000

I keep reading a few higher profile bloggers write about how linkedin is no longer cool and how facebook is the new amazing place for business professionals and working people. I spent time looking at and critically examining facebook, their offer and the users who congregate there. I browsed about 70 profiles on facebook. Every single profile was of a 18-25 year old doing Jello shots of some chicks abs. I didn’t see a single professional profile or a person over 25ish. OK so no professionals here…why is this useful for professionals then? Then I looked at the applications and widgets available on facebook and all of them were for entertainment purposes (music, movies, jokes)…nothing for professionals so why is this useful for professionals?? I went to groups and saw more college age kids hooking up and socializing…no business or networking groups. I didn’t see any business or industry news or information and I could not find a way to be introduced to professionals in specific industries. PEOPLE – Either I have completely missed something or facebook is offering bloggers access to their IPO to pump up the site.

What do you think is more likely? That an application built for college kids is more useful then other applications built for professionals or that there is a pump and dump scenario brewing?

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Rodgers — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:55:48 -0000

http://news.com.com/8301-10...

According to NPD, Mac market share increased from 11.6 percent of the market in April to 13 percent of the market in May.

Tablets sold as much as Macs? Rewinder, Scoble IS crazy.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

SoWhatChuThink — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 20:22:07 -0000

"- There’s no external API for updating and almost no export (RSS etc)"

Erm, Facebook offer a lot of RSS feeds.

- friends status updates
- friends notes
- friends posted items
- events can be subscribed to via the industry standard iCal format
- a specific friends posted items

Its missing a few things, such as RSS for recently tagged friends in photos/videos, the news feed (though they might not give this up, as its the most prized possession) and a feed or reply tracker for activity in groups (this is sorely missed) but overall it isnt the complete data roach that people seem to be suggesting.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

LayZ — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 19:18:52 -0000

@26 "iPhone already has set all the sales records" Compared to what? Data point, please.

"Tablets? Still sold more than Apple has sold Macs."

This is an idiotic supporting statement. Since when do Tablets compete with Mac's? The better comparison is Tablet sales vs non-tablet laptops.

"Gaining in strength every day, even if most people don’t know they are using RSS."

Who is measuring this? You? I mean, could you at least support your statements with facts?

"Longhorn? Sold 40 million copies in first three months."

WTF?? Microsoft is SELLING beta software now? Or did you mean Vista? If so, er, um... not so fast..
ww.crn.com/white-box/200900...

"Xbox? Outselling Sony PlayStation"

So THAT explains why MS had to allocate $1B to extend the warranty on the 360's Maybe 360 is outselling playstation3, but hell, a PS2 outsells a PS3 And the WII is also outselling the 360. So, what's your point?

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Rewinder — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:18:24 -0000

Re: Your Rodgers response

Those "sales records" don't touch other carriers weekends. More Tablets than Macs? You crazy? So only a little more than a million Macs out there? Someone named Steve Jobs will have a bone to pick with you. RSS, a wash-out even by geek standards. Longhorn did NOT sell 40 million, Vista did, (Longhorn was trashed years ago) and rough 65-70% of that number are OEM installs and upgrades, with a good deal yet unsold. Exactly how many "sold" is unknown, stop smoking Microsoft statistics. XBox 360 has the worst retail return rate of any consumer electronic product in history (33%), add another billion in write-off's, and Microsoft self-admitted that it was their own design flaw (Moore ruined Sega, ruined Microsoft, now off to ruin EA). And PS3's story is not yet over, price decrease and upgrade at same price, besides Wii is outselling all. SecondLife is so over, as will be Facebook, or whatever goofy-sounding start-up pops on the scene for a moment.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

mp — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:32:57 -0000

Twitter cracks me up! I think a person's "interestingness" in real life is inversely related to how interesting their Twitter is - the two most interesting Twitters that I read come from people who BORE ME TO TEARS in real life. But they write really pithy comments in 150 characters or less.
In conclusion: TWITTER IS NOT REAL LIFE... at least for me. Social networking is great but quite overplayed these days. Hype is just hype.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Robert Scoble — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:27:09 -0000

Rodgers: let's see. iPhone already has set all the sales records. Tablets? Still sold more than Apple has sold Macs. RSS? Gaining in strength every day, even if most people don't know they are using RSS. Longhorn? Sold 40 million copies in first three months. Xbox? Outselling Sony PlayStation. Second Life? The story still hasn't been written on that, but I haven't hyped it up for a year now.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Jeremy Toeman — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 13:24:13 -0000

Robert - I just sent you this note on Facebook too - some friends and I are launching www.apprate.com as a place to rate & review Facebook applications. It's a combination of editorial and community driven. Check it out!

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Rodgers — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 13:13:25 -0000

Facebook is doomed, and iPhone forever niched, merely as Scoble is hyping it. His track record breathes death, Tablets, RSS, Longhorn, Xbox 360, Second Life and every start-up that somehow captures his short-attention-span. If you want to read the tea leaves in this industry, see what Scoble is flagging up, and bet the other way.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

LayZ — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:28:08 -0000

"But, luckily for me I have a really killer list of friends."

No, you have a "really killer list" of contacts. ("killer list?" How old are you? 12?) I rather doubt all those 3,000 are friends Rather doubt Ballmer or Gates are your friend. Not saying your list is not useful to you, but to say they ALL are friends? Hardly.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Joe — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 08:51:49 -0000

If I worked for the NSA, I would absolutely love whats going on in the social space,we've come to the point where we willingly give up all privacy and put our entire lives on a site for everybody to see and to act on, because it's the cool thing to do.

I do believe there is some use for these things, such as blogs,but other things take time to gestate, and only then will we see if they have any long term value, regardless of how many neat things certain people perceive that it brings into their lives.

I have friends all over the world and we keep in touch without social networks.

But lets face it, we're human, we have the Monkey see, Monkey do factor programed right into out DNA.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Eric Rice — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:07:45 -0000

Julian, that's what kinda makes it nice. Because if Google sees it, then someone will abuse the crap out of it. (read: SEO)

And hey, this is social stuff. A lot of folks act more normal and human on Facebook than they might on Twitter. Once those APIs and RSS feeds show up, guess what.... mmm audience! Time to perform, time to be a bit louder perhaps?

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

SG — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:25:43 -0000

@19: Except Scoble's posts about facebook :)

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Julian Bond — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:18:05 -0000

It irritates the hell out of me that FB is so closed.
- You can't see anything without logging in.
- It's Anti-SEO. Google doesn't see the content
- There's no external API for updating and almost no export (RSS etc)

I really hope that when the next greatest thing comes along and we all desert FB, we'll be able to get our data out again. Or maybe it won't matter, we'll just start over.

But right now, FB is like a black hole. It's gravity is pulling everything into it, but nothing comes back out.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Samantha Murphy — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 02:58:19 -0000

I prefer Pownce, but with no mobile interface it's limited. I predict they will surpass twitter.

And you're so right on about Google Reader's app on FB.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Jon Husband — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:32:54 -0000

Today in the Vancouver newspaper there was an article about how a mother and son, long lost to each other and who had been searching for each other, connected and are now together ... via Facebook.

I have been less than impressed by essentially all the other social networking applications, starting long ago (anyone remember Orkut, for example, or Tribe ?), but I think Facebook is very well done. It offers users much more choice and control, and yet is open with respect to all sorts of other applications .. which will find a home if they are useful, and wither and die if they are not.

I'm also not really big on naming everything that has hyperlinks and tags as "social", but in the case of Facebook calling it a Social Operating system for peoples' activities on (and sometimes off) line seems appropriate.

I do wish they'd get the "how do you know this person" part sorted .. but it's a minor quirk.

I think that as applications and services on the Web get easier to use, and more intertwined with each other, peoples' life and work activities on and offline will just keep blending together more and more ... and it will be up to each of us individually to make our own choices and draw our boundaries .. tho' I suspect even those will vary, for most of us, over time.

As Doc Searls would probably say, for most of us it's probably not "either / or" but "both / and".

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Robert Scoble — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:47:48 -0000

Jim Long is an NBC cameraman and yet another example of an interesting person you could get to know on Twitter.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Shaine — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:45:45 -0000

The connections we make via Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network are as real as we make them. It is true that technology changes while people stay the same. One could say that people will use technology that makes it easier to do things. For now, Facebook and Twitter make it damn easy to connect and organize. For now, they are the path of least resistance. All my people are there, as am I.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Jim Long — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:18:30 -0000

Firstly, thanks for linking to my post! Deb Schultz' tagline on her blog says it best. "Technology changes, humans don't" We want to connect, we want to have a voice and have impact. Some tools allow us to do that better than others. Somtimes it's useful to connect to groups with common interests, other times it's good to get out of the echo chambers.

A Twitter friend @BlondeByDesign asked me to find her a soldier she could "take care of" on trip i recently made to Afghanistan. I met Sgt. Danny Allman in Kandahar and asked him to write down his email. Simple... done. I passed on the info. to @BlondeByDesign and she's whipped up a huge campaign to send Sgt. Allman and his comrades "care packages" The outpouring has been tremendous.

THAT, to me, is a real, measurable demonstration of the value of social networking. And Jonathan, Kandahar, I assure you is about as real world as it gets my friend!

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Robert Scoble — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:41:15 -0000

Joe Ranft: you might ask Barack Obama or John Edwards that question. They find these things very useful to keep in touch with their supporters. And not just the geeks, either. I also know a bunch of people who work outside the tech industry who are on Facebook. Facebook is NOT a "geek only" thing. It started out as a "college only" thing, though, and it's growing out from there. Certainly if you are in the tech industry and you're not on Facebook already you're missing out on networking opportunities.

Jeff Pulver, for instance, who runs some of the biggest conferences in the industry, says Facebook is it for him now and that he's dumping LinkedIn. http://pulverblog.pulver.co...

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Robert Scoble — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:38:11 -0000

Jonathan: I get out in the real world a lot. I just find that people hold onto what they know way too much.

Anyway, you must have missed yesterday. I got together with a bunch of my Twitter/Facebook friends and drank beer, walked on the beach, and had lots of fun too. Just cause you're on Facebook doesn't mean you can't do stuff like that.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Jeremy Steele — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:33:40 -0000

Thank god a lot of those useless networks are owned by privatly held corps, or else there would sure be a lot of mad stock holders (or there would be another Internet crash)

Then again, I'm sure Facebook would make a lot of traders happy.

With that said, I've yet to sign up.

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Joe Ranft — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:32:02 -0000

In the end, I wonder how useful any of these sites really are outside of the tech community and those younger users with lots of free time. I don't know a lot of mainstream people with jobs and families who have time for any social networking sites or tools. So while Facebook and others generate a lot of traffic, they don't really generate the traffic advertisers want. Is there a Facebook for families?

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Jonathan — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:27:38 -0000

But I don't live in the past, I wouldn't ask you to ride a horse that would be silly.
I'm serious when you get out of the bubble and see how others view technology you would be suprised.
Does that mean I'm living in the "dark ages".... obviously not. I would deem my wife and my family technologically savy and power users of their computers (Windows XP, Linux and Mac OS X are the different Operating Systems in use)... most of my friends we would rather spend time togehter doing things like going for a run, enjoy a beer and watching a sporting event, then "talking" over jaiku/pownce/facebook. I think we need to redifne what "friendship" really is

Re: James Robertson asks “where’s the social networking value?”

Robert Scoble — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:18:06 -0000

Jonathan: like I said, you won't get utility out of these things if you don't know anyone on them. In your case only your ex girlfriend is on it. I wouldn't see any utility in it either if that was the case.

But, luckily for me I have a really killer list of friends.

And I don't want to get out of the bubble more often. Everytime I do it seems like I'm going back to the past.

Maybe you'll ask me to start using the US Post Office to send mail, or you'll want me to give up my Saturn for a horse.

Nah. I'd rather live in your future.