Facebook revealed their roadmap yesterday and it includes a number of changes for developers. Inside Facebook has a create summer here.
I think the biggest change is the consolidation of communications into the Facebook inbox. Facebook Invites and Notifications are going away and communication will be divided into Inbox communication and Email. It looks like both channels will feature an opt-in requirement, making app to user communications very challenging in the future.
I think the consolidation of communication is probably a good thing. Everytime I see a screenshot of someone’s Homepage I always see hundreds of ignored invites and notifications. I don’t know that the new system will fix that but it should allow users to find these types of communications centrally.
The other change is around the placement of Bookmarked Applications. It looks like these will be moving from the task bar to right side bar where the feed filters are located now. Its not clear where the feed filters will be going or how often they are used ( I suspect they are not being used effectively ).
All of these represent another UI change for users though and Facebook has indicated they want to roll-out the changes by the end of the year. As always it will be interesting to see the reaction from users to these changes…
Facebook released some interface changes last night. They appear to be:
The changes are all relatively small but the most significant is probably the LiveFeed addition and it seems users will be defaulting to this in most cases.
For years now Google has dominated the search marketing field. Its Pagerank algorithm attempts to find content that is the most relevant to the keywords being search. In most cases this means placing a greater emphasis on older more established content and ignoring the newer content. This has worked well for most content types except for breaking news and trending items. When Michael Jackson died a search for “Michael Jackson” was more likely to bring up fan pages than articles around his death.
Enter Twitter and Facebook, for trending topics the social networks have an advantage in that they can see trending topics developing in real-time. And yesterday they announced a partnership with Bing to power its real-time search component. This should provide Bing with an advantage in the real-time search market. Its not clear how big the real-time market is as compared to the more traditional search market that Google dominates.
Its will be interesting to see if Marketers start to place a greated emphasis on purchasing keywords based on real-time trends that be associated with their brands. The search engines are already well equipped with bid based pricing models to handle real-time price fluctuations in keywords.
One Degree announced yesterday that they are stopping production on their site. I’ve been a long time reading and even contributed some articles a few years ago and it looks like they’re committing to keeping the site up as an archive for now.
I’d really like to thank Kate and Rose for all the time and effort that went into maintaining the site. They’ve done a great job of since taking over from Ken.
The agenda for Facebook Garage Montreal has been posted and I’ve been accepted present on ‘Public Involve with Social Media’. I will be great to talk about my work with Ascentum over the last few months. The preliminary agenda is:
Should be an exciting evening. The event is free and you can register here.
I first met Ted Rogers about 10 years ago at a Rogers Wave booth at a home show in Toronto. I was working with an ISP in Hamilton that was also launching cable modems. My job at the time was to explain how cable modems worked and the advantages of dial-up and the soon to be released DSL. As luck would have it Ted chose me to ask about the Roger’s Wave product we were launching. He made a good impression and I think he really worked hard to understand how technology would benefit individuals.
I’ve been neglecting this blog for awhile but I’m planning to re-commit as part of my Canada celebration.
Have a great day and expect more posts soon.
Democamp was back on last night at the Imperial Pub. It was back to its root with a small crowded venue with hard to hear and see demos. I think with a 2nd speaker near the back would probably fix all this and the location was certainly work-able. It was also a lot of the Torcamp crowd. It looks like Democamp will be going to a monthly schedule which is pretty awesome and should help new people attend.
I arrived late and only cause the Kontagent demo near the end. I did see all the ignite presentations. One of the most interesting presentations was the N8T TXT project, which sends Haikus via SMS project. I thought it was really interesting that he’s using 416 number to sent a Haiku based on your current location, which you provide in the SMS text. Using a short code for this type of project would have been extremely expensive and using the 416 number gets around that.
There was also a lot of networking at the event and I was able to meet a few of Greg Wilson’s students, some that I’d love to hire 
Overall it was great to see Democamp back in action and I’m looking forward to future nights.
Update: I forgot to mention the Sun “Camera” give away at DemoCamp. There was a Sun Startup Essentials rep at DemoCamp last night collecting business cards for a server give-away and Mesh ticket draw. For entering you also received a USB “Camera”, unfortunatel the “Camera” turned out to be USB power flashlight. I’m wondering if this is actually the Sun Server prize…
CNN really surprised me today with its use of technology around the Obama inauguration. There’s 3 main components that I think stand out:
CNN has reset the bar in terms of coverage of major events. It will be interesting to see if they use the same technology for other events. It would be great for the Superbowl to have the same coverage…
CanadianTire.ca has decided to stop all online sales as of Jan 29, 2009. Very little information about why the decision to end online sales has been disclosed. CanadianTire.ca includes the following reasons for the change:
…canadiantire.ca is finding new ways to serve you better.
Over the past year, we’ve made many improvements to our site. We’ve added more of the robust product information you find so useful when you are making a purchase decision. And, as always, we’re dedicated to ensuring that our site is the best in its class.
You’ve told us that canadiantire.ca is a great resource.
Many of you use our website to research and compare products before buying them in your local Canadian Tire store. We’re proud of our strength as a research tool and will continue to build on this in the future. Because our site is primarily used for research and product comparison, canadiantire.ca has decided to discontinue selling products online for home delivery.
We will make this change on January 29, 2009.
All orders placed before this time will be processed and delivered. And, our Gift Cards will continue to be available online for home delivery.
More exciting changes to come.
The great news is that, coming soon, we’ll be making many refinements to our site navigation to make browsing and product search faster and easier. The site will also look a little different, with bigger, more descriptive pictures and even better product information. In addition, we’ll introduce in-store pick up capability in selected test markets in Spring, 2009.
Keep visiting canadiantire.ca.
In the weeks to come, we’ll reveal these enhancements. As a valued online Canadian Tire shopper, we want you to be there with us as we turn in this exciting, new direction.
One can only assume that CanadianTire.ca has not seen significant growth, and as a business with substancial investment in retail stores, it must have been an area where it didn’t want to invest further. Canadian Tire is not the only Canadian retailer to forego online sales, Shoppers Drug market has continued to ignore the online sales market.
Canadian Tire seems intent on maintaining its online presence with product information but will leave the actual sales fulfillment to the retail store locations. Its not clear if this is part of a bigger trend for Canadian retails and how the lack of online sales will impact the Canadian Tire forecast.
Canadian online sales are estimated at $62. 7 billion CDN ( source Highbeam Research ) and not having an online sales presence opens Canadian Tire to competition from an online only retailer. This is exactly the situation with Shoppers Drug mart and Canada’s Online Drugstore – Well.ca. While Canadian Tire and Shoppers Drug represent different segments it seems odd that both have ignored the online sales potential. While ignoring the online sales market today might make sense at some point it will become a necessary component of sustained growth and market share. Lack of investment today will likely mean a more expensive investment or purchase in the future to re-capture the online market.
Update: Canadian Tire issued the following message to affiliates:
Dear Affiliates,
Over the past few years, canadiantire.ca has experienced exceptional growth in traffic, making it one of the busiest e-commerce sites in the country. Our research indicates that the overwhelming majority of the traffic to the site is focused on products that are heavily researched, but not necessarily suitable for home delivery (patio sets, tires, etc). This, coupled with the fact that we have an extensive store network with 473 stores located within a 10-15 minute drive of 90% of the Canadian population, led us to the decision to discontinue direct home delivery and to deploy our resources to development of capabilities and features that will significantly enhance the online experience for the millions of customers that visit canadiantire.ca every month.
To continue to deliver on our commitment to provide customers with the best retail site experience, we will continue to invest resources to dramatically enhance the site. In addition to re-launching the site with a brand new look, new navigational functionality and even more ‘how-to’ information for our customers, we will also be introducing in-store pick-up of online orders in a couple of markets later this spring.
Effective January 29, 2009 online sales of product (excluding gift cards) from Canadian Tire’s website, www.canadiantire.ca, will be suspended. The eFlyer program will continue without interruption.
You are welcome to leave Canadian Tire creative banners up on your sites but need to be aware that as of January 30, 2009, commissions can be earned on gift card sales ONLY. Any Canadian Tire creative banners that speak to free shipping codes or purchasing products (other than gift cards) will be deleted from the Linkshare Image Inventory on January 29, 2009. A reminder will be sent to you on January 30, 2009 asking you to review your site to ensure that the Canadian Tire creative banners reflect this change.
We appreciate your understanding in this matter and look forward to working with you in 2009.
Regards,
The Canadian Tire Online Team
1-866-746-7287
Matthew Ingram has a great article about the US Government trying to get control over a trademark controlled by a bike gang. Matthew compares it to the Al Capone situation with regards to tax evation. I think its a great example of IP Law gone wrong. The US Government has put so much effort into IP Law and the DMCA that they are actually a bigger stick than many anti-racketeering laws. I think its a pretty sad situation and McCain encountered similar problems during his campaign with the extremely restrictive IP Law in the DMCA.
I’m hoping we don’t see a repeat of the DMCA in Canada now with the Harper government tabling an agenda that includes copyright reform. I think its pretty clear to most people involved with digital media that DRM and unrealistic controls on media are not going to work. Apple, Amazon and even hopeless Yahoo have all been removing their DRM services in favour of DRM-free solutions. It makes even less sense to be criminalizing most of society with unrealistic legislation.
Today we got our annual call from the Yellow Pages Group about advertising in their directories. We’ve moved offices so we’re probably in the Toronto West book. The major difference between the call last year and this year was the online only options. Last year we didn’t really have an option not to purchase online only
Facebook is trying hard to get users to user and like its new profile re-design. I think one of the funniest new additions are little yellow stickies on all the new and non-obvious additions. Kinda of a “we know you’ll miss this if we don’t tell you” approach to interface design.
I’m not sure how successful this will be with users. In my case I’m mostly just clicking the x to get rid of these and non-obvious features will probably be lost on me or at least until Facebook changes something again.
A few weeks ago I wrote about my frustrations with the CIBC visa opt-out upgrade program. Since then CIBC and I have parted ways, my Aeroplan Visa card was the last CIBC service I retained from them since openning a bank account with them as a child. A few years ago I switched to Royal Bank after CIBC was unable re-issue me a bank card without me returning to Hamilton Ontario. I am now free of all CIBC services…
Being with Royal Bank I thought it would be easiest if I just chose their Avion Infinite Visa. It seemed similar enough to my CIBC card until it arrived in the mail a few weeks ago. Royal Bank has decided to be the first bank to take ‘advantage’ of the new Visa chip and PIN option. This is a system Visa has been using in Europe for years and it hads a PIN to Visa transactions similar to Interact payments in Canada. Unfortunately it seems that while Royal Bank is ready, and maybe Visa is ready, vendors are not. I was unable to order a Pizza, make purchases at BestBuy or even use it at the driver through. With the exception of BestBuy ( where it took 20 mins for staff to figure out how to process a payment with a chip and PIN ) it seems that most vendors don’t support the new system. In additional Royal Bank doesn’t actually send me a PIN. Instead the card is essentially useless ( unless you want to talk to a RBC operator about every transaction ) until you visit an RBC branch and create your own PIN. In anycase the Royal Bank Avion Infinite Visa with new Chip and PIN technology and I are no longer seeing each other. Its been cut into little pieces as per instructions…
I’m now waiting for a TD Visa, which I’m assured is Visa Chip and PIN technology free, at least until 2011 when its mandatory and hopefully vendors will know how to handle them. One unfortunate surprise around the TD Visa was the TD won’t actually send the card to my house. Instead I have to pick it up at a branch. I suspect this is so they can check my ID and TD bank seems to have really good branch hours with most branches open 8am to 8pm. I’m hoping their Visa will be the winner…
New Facebook Application List
Facebook has changed the Application List again. Instead of having the Applications list accessible in the header they have moved access to the chat bar. The presentation looks alot like the Microsoft Start bar but I’m not really sure its an improvement. I think alot of people pretty much ignore the chat bar ( I haven’t been on FB chat in months ) so its not an ideal location.
There seems to be a common trend with the Facebook re-design to combine items of low value ( ie Chat ) with items of high value ( ie Application navigation ). We saw the same thing with the new wall where mini-feed items ( low value ) were combined with wall items ( high value ). I’m not a huge fan of this paradigm and at minimum I think it creates confusion for users. Areas where they could previously ignore are now much more relevent.
The other big concern I have with this design is the size and the location of the bookmark option. Instead of being in the top ( where booking is done in every browser on the planet ) its now down at the bottom an relatively small. Bookmarking is very important for applications going forward because its how users will remember to interact with applications. I hope Facebook reconsiders this design location or provides applications with a “Bookmark Application” FBML object to make it easier for users.
It looks like Facebook is reacting to user feedback about how hard it is to find and navigate applications in the new profile design. In response last week they changed the application list so that the “browse all applications” actually connected you to all your applications. This week they’ve changed the application drop-down so that it displays a shortened application list. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way to configure which applications are displayed or easily get to any of your installed applications.
The other point of confusion with this design is the Facebook term change from “installed” application to “bookmarked” application. I don’t think they’ve done a job of explaining to users how these terms are essentially the same but “bookmarked” applications don’t automatically install a profile box. I’m hoping Facebook introduces a better definition.
One my main frustrations with the new Facebook profile design has been the Application list. The new design had a menu option entitled “All Appliations” that really only led to your bookmarked applications. To make things even more confusing bookmarked applications were applications you ‘installed’ under the old profile. Facebook has gone along way to improving this situation with a new application list that does show all applications:
The new list includes filers to display only bookmarked, profile or authorized applications. This is a big improvment for the application list and it provide the user with a much better idea of how they are interacting with applications.
After trying the IE 8 Beta2 I thought it would be appropriote to talk about Chrome. My first thoughts after reading the Google Comic was that it was going to be really fast and very unstable with the V8 engine. My tests showed that its actually pretty stable ( about as stable as Safari or Opera ) but not really fast. The only site I think it actually handles faster is Gmail. Facebook is definitely slower, which is also a heavy Javascript site. If v8 was really gonna shine it would be on Facebook. I’m not sure if Chrome is just optimized for Gmail or if there are components of Gmail preloaded in Chrome. It would be kinda smart of Google do to that, IE8 has benefited from Windows pre-loading stuff for years.
One area which was a great surprise was the developer tools. Its has the equivalent of Firebug built-in ( Mircosoft, where is yours? ) and it includes a javascript console. Its going to be great to debug/develop Javascript environments but unfortunately I don’t really see it challenging IE or even Firefox. I think Firefox is still a better browser experience and the reports are that v3.1 is going to be even faster for Javascript processing.
As it stands it might be a browser I leave open as kind of my Gmail client but I’m not going to invest alot of time it switching over to it.
Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 this week with a big push out to bloggers. As part of my day job at Refresh we spend alot of time developing Facebook Applications and one of biggest hurdles is Internet Explorer support. I think one of the biggest momentum shifters for Firefox has probably been Firebug. It makes it easy for developers to develop and debug AJAX and JS applications for Firefox. The Javascript console is awesome and there isn’t anything really close for Internet Explorer. The result is that most web apps, including Facebook, are developed for Firefox first and then made to work on Internet Explorer. This is a nightmare for Internet Explorer users, who are still fairly dominate, because the experience on Internet Explorer is immediately lower than Firefox. Microsoft really needs to develop a competitive tool if they want to get serious about beating back Firefox.
My other major issue with Internet Explorer is the adoption cycle. Many corporations are still using Internet Explorer 6 because of the update process. Its possible to get Firefox v3 running on any computer in a matter of minutes, a quick download, install and go. When I installed Internet Explorer 8 it downloaded for awhile ( via Windows Update ) and then immediately wanted to reboot to download some more, check for malicious software components, install, and then install updates. The process took me about 30 mins and is very prone to errors because Internet Explorer tries to embed into the operating system. I think Microsoft really needs to rethink the Internet Explorer architecture. They’re done with the DOJ battle over whether Internet Explorer is a operating system component and it should be developed independently so that it can its a smaller and nimbler. I can understand the resistance from IT staff to put all their employees through a 30 min download, reboot, download, install and then install more cycle. The cost/benefit ratio of updating a browser just isn’t worth it.
Leigh Himel has a good post about how the opt-out campaign approach should never be used. We’ve both been the victims of CIBC’s wonderful new Infinite Visa upgrade program. Without talking to me CIBC has decided to upgrade me to this new VISA program while I was in Portugal at Alex & Iuliana’s wedding. This is a perfect example of an opt-out campaign, I apparently had a limited time period to opt-out of the upgrade program.
To make matters worst I’ve never received my Infinite Visa so someone could be running around with it right now. When I login to my old CIBC VISA program no longer get balance updates and I only have until Aug 14 to use my new Visa. All of my direct withdrawal aggreements also need to be transfered over to my new Visa ( which I don’t have ). CIBC has even projected a lovely 1-800 to help transfer these direct withdrawals. My first and only call to the number included 10 mins of horrible music while I wait for a CSR to respond and tell me I need to call the vendor and make the change with them instead.
I’ve been using this card for about 10 years now and I’ve even memorized the number. What ever benefits this new CIBC Infinite card provides pale in comparison to the inconvience of getting this new card. And by cancelling my old card on a fairly aggressive schedule they are ensuring that I need to find a replace from here, here, here, or here. I don’t really understand how CIBC could roll out this type of campaign and expect it to be acceptable to anyone who actually uses the their cards.
I recently had to send a letter, for the first time in a long. When I was at the Post Office ( I don’t know where else to buy stamps ). I noticed that all Canada post stamps a valid regardless of their value. Instead of having to buy $0.01 stamps when the price goes Canada Post has ey are decided that when you buy a stamp its good until you use. I don’t know the cost to print a stamp but I’m sure its greater than the $0.01 they made up with these interim stamps. I’m also sure that there is not a huge inventory of stamps being stock piled at todays prices with the hope of saving a few cents in the future. Even if people do start to stock pile them they are sure to loose a few. This new policy solves a very old problem with a really simple solution.
Another great example of a simple solution is the TTC transferable pass. For years the TTC invested in identity cards and took photos of people purchasing their monthly passes. Passes were then bound to that particular person and with the intent of getting each person in the household to purchase a separate pass. The result was that people that need to purchase a pass did, and those that used the system rarely did not. They also had to incur the cost of the photo taking equipment and the photo cards. A few years ago the TTC decided to introduce a transferable monthly pass. Anyone can use the pass also as they don’t ‘pass it back’ to someone on the same trip. The pass has been a huge success and many couples and families split a pass. Another good example of a simple solution to a very complex problem.
I think both Canada Post and TTC are great examples of how to solve problems creatively. Are there any others?
I agree with Michael Arlington that Dr Horrible is not so horrible. Jen at work mentioned it a few weeks ago and I was a little skeptical because of the music nature. The production quality is really great and the story is very entertaining. Its available for free on the Hulu site with ads here:
Rogers has recently started ‘helping its customers’ be redirecting search requests to its own landing page with advertising. They’re even going so far as to redirect Internet Explorer search requests to this new landing page. The page looks like this:
Notice the Rogers branding, Chatelaine and Macleans advertising on the page. Not really clear how these are helping Rogers users…
Rogers has already received a lot of negative press for its iphone pricing and lack of competitive data plans. This appears to be another example Rogers working very hard to completely assassinate its own brand. Verisign tried the same approach a few years ago and eventually abandoned the product based on negative feedback. Rogers appears to be lining up for the same experience.
Last night with the 18th DemoCamp in Toronto, I think I’ve been to about 11 since my first DemoCamp around #5. The venue was at the SuperMarket restaurant/bar on Augusta. The venue was way too small for the event, even though the SuperMarket does have awesome food. The Supermarket even ran out of beer glasses with so many people enjoying the night.
The Demo’s for the nite were:
1/Refesh Analytics by Roy Pereira
As a partner in Refresh it was a good opportunity for us to demo our Facebook Analytics tool and showcase some of the new social influencer metrics we’ve added for applications. I think Roy did a good job of covering the product and I think most people quickly understood our focus with. I was little surprised that nobody asked about the business model.
2/BluePrints by Chris Gurney
Blueprints is a product to help business capture requirements more effectively. Its combines a the components of a product requirements document with the ability to mockup a user interface. The tool can then export the requirements as a requirements document, ULM and other formats. Apparently it will also export test cases too. I liked the demo and I think its a great product for product managers ( which I’ve been in the past ) but the price point is pretty crazy. I also wasn’t too excited about using a desk top java based application, I think it would have been better to see this as a web app and maybe a SasS model to lower the cost of entry.
Ali and the Well.ca team presented a tool they developed for Well.ca to allow customers to chat with a CSR through a web interface. It was a pretty slick demo with the ability to keep the chat open as user browsed web sites and pass URLs to the user. I think the most innovative aspect was the integration with Jabber clients so that different chat clients could be supported for the CSR. I think this was most important aspect for Well.ca but there are a variety of cheap alternatives. At Autotrader.ca we purchased a solution for $500 that provided almost the same solution but required that the CSR keep a web chat window open.
4/ IRC integration with DrProject by Kosta Zabashta
Many open source projects are using IRC as form of communication between developers and sometimes users. The IRC integration project aims to integrate these conversations into the project development process. The first component was the ability to access ticket information via the IRC channel. This was handled through an IRC bot. The 2nd component was the ability to tag conversations as part of a ticket and integrate the chat history into DrProjec. It was a good demo and I can see the practical applications for larger projects.
This was the first demo/ignite after the break and I missed most of it socializing. From what I saw it provides a tool to quickly create small comic strips that can be embedded into websites. I grew up loving comics but I think the medium has probably passed. I don’t think comics have the same appeal in a digital format, especially when we can get videocasts, postcast or even games that are more engaging.
I had seem some PR around the SpreedNews reader around the iPhone launch. I had watched their video online and their demo was very similar to the video. I was hoping to see more of the application in action as I’m a little skeptical that its that much faster to read news. I’m looking forward to see it and I know it won’t be long in a limited beta.
7/ How Startups will Save VC in Canada by Jevon MacDonald
I think its no secret that venture capital in Canada has declined and its in pretty bad shape. Jevon’s presentation highlighted this but encouraged entrepeneurs to look past this problem. I think he’s right in that there alot of Canadian startups that are succeeding without venture capital. In some cases they are making business decisions to grow in a different way that doesn’t require huge capital ( keeping their day job, or financing with a service business ). I think it will be interesting to see how this effects Canadian startups. From what I’ve seen when I visit US based startups is that we’re generally more efficient with capital and we’re getting more done with less. I think this might be the lasting impact of the lack of Canadian VC situation.
I think it was a great event despite the ridiculusly crammed venue. The popularity of DemoCamp is going to continue to cause problems for revenues.
CBC, or Canadian Broasting Corp, has just made what I think can only be called the worst branding mistake ever with regards to the Hockey Song. For 40 years the CBC hockey broadcasts have used the Hockey Song and this week they let it slip away to their competition. I can’t think of a bigger branding mistake… Ever!
I can’t think of another TV broadcast, or show that has ever let its theme song slide to the competition. Worst yet, the song has been in use all year up until 2 weeks ago with the end of the Stanley Cup playoffs. If the CBC wasn’t intending to renew the license they should have stopped using it awhile ago and worked on a replacement plan. Instead they just now launched a contest to find a replacement with a $100,000 prize, in the same week that CTV announced they’ve listened the Hockey Song.
I don’t know much about the management of the CBC, or their sports budgets or the deal that proposed for the rights to the song. Everyone I’ve met from the CBC has been intelligent and with good intentions but I don’t understand how they let this happen. Its hard to believe that they can sign Don Cherry to a multi-year deal but let their theme song go without renewal. What a disaster…
Sebastian, over at Praized, has a great post about the “New Inflation “ report by CIBC world markets. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend you check it out. I’ll wait… ( besure to check out the “Will Soaring Transport Costs Reverse Globalization?” section )
Over the last few years there’s been alot of discussions about globalization and the Walmart effect on business. There hasn’t been alot of consideration around the sustainablility of the model. The simple situation is that we’re running out of fossil fuels and the cost is going nowhere but up…
I think this is going to have a big impact on the business world over the next 10-20 years as have to deal with the fact that distance is going to cost us money. The change and the cost increases probably won’t be linear, the tar sands projects in Alberta are showing that. As the cost of oil increases, less opertune oil deposits are reconsidered. Alternative energey sources will also become viable but most still depend on a finite supply source. This is probably good news environmentally too, as the costs of the shipping increase its going to force businesses to consider local options. Overall a great article and a whole new angle to consider with regards to internation competition.
Joey deVilla has a great post about his experience trying to get a recommendation for a moving company. It sounds simple enough, ask you’re blog readers to respond with recommendations for local services. In reality its hard to get reliable information, in Joey’s case the recommendations were tainted by an apparent fake recommendation and legal/intimidation against apparently true recommendation. Not a great representation for user generated recommendations…
We looked at this when I was with Trader Media, and again with Refresh on Freshrevie.ws. The hard part with user generated recommendation is to evaluate the quality of the recommendation. Its a similar situation with Ebay, and their approach is a user rating system based on past transactions. Its hard to do a rating a recommendation engine since the past reviews have less baring and there is no money being exchanged to qualify the review.
I think the solution is to have some sort of context around the person writing the review. Facebook is a great environment for this, since you generally know your friends and your friend network helps define and validate you. Gigpark is doing a great job of getting user generated recommendations, by focusing on the user relationship first. They’ve done a good job of connecting users in Facebook and on their own website. The challenge they might face is that people have a limited friend network and they don’t have a complete businesses listings.
The big business directories, like Yellow Pages have very complete listings but haven’t been willing to expose their advertisers to user generated recommendations. Yellow Pages has just recently launched user reviews inside the Yellow Pages Facebook application. This should reduce their exposure to fake reviews since Facebook spends alot of time tracking down and deleting fake accounts.
I’m excited to announce that Refresh Partners, has launched its first product. Its Refresh Analytics and it lets Facebook Application developers learn more about their user demographics. We’ve been using it with our client for several months and we decided to launch it as a product.
You can see the press release here:
Refresh Analytics provides demographic monitoring for Facebook application developers
And Mashable has written about the launch here:
Get to Know your Facebook App Users, with Refresh Analytics
Great Lenovo commercial based on the Macbook Air commercial. I still love my Thinkpad and I think X300 would be great laptop, except without Vista…
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