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Facebook can Die Like the Rest

In the post Planning for the future my point was to tell you that the future is unwritten. It hasn’t happened yet, which means you can still have an effect on it.

Facebook is Dead

In Keep Making Social Networks, Facebook Hasn’t Won, Ben Metcalfe gets into it, reminds us of the past, and tells us that the future is open. It’s encouraging because there are times when I think Facebook has all the cards. Right now they’ve got a lot of users, a lot of data, a lot of mindshare, and we’re at a point where the usage of the Internet by “common folk” is exploding, or has been exploding for quite some time, and many of these new people join Facebook and think “this is what the Internet is all about!” and they’re wrong. So wrong…

I do use Facebook, just like I’ve used many tools in the past, to the limits of their usefulness. But I also don’t just settle. I like to think that things will get better the next time around. I still believe in a free and open web, and I’m not satisfied with how Facebook fits into that future.

So when I say “Facebook can Die Like the Rest” I’m not talking to Facebook, telling them what to do… I’m talking to you, telling you that it’s a possibility. Maybe if we work together we can make it a reality, and replace it with something better.

Keep on disrupting!

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Evil-O-Mator

Evil-O-Mator

I unveiled the Evil-O-Mator during the September 2010 Web414 “Mystery Show!” It will tell you if your favorite web company is evil.

You may want to ask about Google, or Facebook, or maybe even… Twitter!

I built the Evil-O-Mator because I needed a small project to play around with HTML5 and also because I couldn’t sleep one night. (And also because we had nothing planned for Web414 and I figured this could chew up a good 5 minutes of time…)

So go on, ask me about evil, and when you’re done, think about how you can contribute to Web414. Thank you, and good night.

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Cookie-Eating Robot

Cookie-Eating Robot

Today’s Lunch Bag Art is a robot that eats cookies. Why would a robot ever eat cookies? Well, cookies are delicious delicacies. (Or at least they used to be.)

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BarCampMadison: Future of Web608

BarCampMadison Web608 is Madison’s Web Community, and was inspired by Web414, which is Milwaukee’s Web Community. Abraham Williams was one of the founders of Web608, but moved away from Madison, so Andrew Shell led this session on rebooting the group and deciding how to run things in the future.

Here is the audio from the session. It took place in the big room at BarCampMadison, where it was very echoey and the AC noise was loud. Still, I cleaned it up a bit and it should be listenable.

You can also download an MP3 file if you’d like. (And for our freedom loving friends, enjoy an Ogg file.)

Also, if you want to get all of the audio automagically downloaded podcasting style, subscribe to the feed. I’ll add in more BarCamp stuff as I get it all edited and published.

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Users vs. Accounts vs. Signer-Uppers

I’m a signer-upper. I admit it. I have a problem. Most of my friends are too. (Well, my nerdy online friends, but then, that’s most of my friends.)

Space Available

“Hey look, Froblunet launched today!?”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, but I should probably sign up, create a profile, and check it out!”

And so it goes…

Scattered across the web are pieces of me… Accounts I’ve signed up for, wanting to check out some new site, just to see how they do it. How do they handle importing friends? How do they do uploads? How? How? How? It’s a question web people tend to ask. We’re either convinced there’s something interesting to see, or something to learn, so we sign up, give it a try, and maybe use it. Or maybe not. I should probably sign up… this might be the next big thing!

And then sites get to brag that they have 1 million users. Or that in their first day they had 100,000 people sign up. (75,000 of which never return.) But the media likes those numbers, and the news sites, and blogs, and investors like those numbers. They make everyone feel good. Except me.

Here’s an idea… Now that I’ve signed up for Froblunet, which is the hottest new thing since yesterday, I’d be totally fine with them emailing me months later if I never log in again and saying:

Hey, we noticed you haven’t logged in for 3 months, are you still interested in using Froblunet? If not, would you prefer to:
1. Delete your account (We’ll delete your data, and your email, and never bother you again.)
or
2. Inactivate your account (You can reactivate any time… we’ll reserve your username, and keep your email on file in case you ever want to try it out again, but we won’t email you again.)

I’d probably pick option 2 in many cases. Yes, inactivate my account! (Maybe it’s just my fear of deleting accounts. Please tell me I’m not the only one.)

But it’ll never happen.

I mean, I’d like to see this happen… but I think it’s unlikely. Sure, some engineer at Froblunet might think it makes sense, and would probably prefer to know that the people using the system are actually using the system. More accurate numbers are things engineers tend to like. Capacity planning and all that. But the sales and marketing guys would never go for it. Why say “We have 200,000 (active) users” when they can say “We have 500,000 users!”

By the way, I’m launching this new site next week that I’d love to have you sign up for…