Dr. Manhattan will be in all your friends' living rooms simultaneously.

This is an example of Facebook reaching far past its standard boundaries. The idea of watching a Blu-Ray in real-time with my Facebook friends is a truly social experience, something akin to having a distributed theater experience.

Watchmen version of Blu-Ray Live will feature Facebook

Cool.

Arrr, Facebook recently launched the hottest new language - English (Pirate).  Go into your Settings and select Language to change it up.  A vast amount of standard headings have been pirate-icized, which definitely spices things up.

A tip o’ me bottle o’ rum for them hearty Facebook marketing group on this great publicity stunt!

In short, in an almost Windows fashion, the bottom left corner of your Facebook experience now has a series of shortcuts to your favorite applications, and an “Applications” button which displays all Applications.  It really gives Applications a clear home in the new Facebook design, and shows just how quick and nimble they desire the user interface to be.  I really sense their aggressiveness in making FB your one-stop-shop for Games, Friends and maybe even Utilities (although that’s a way off).

In any case, this news, combined with the de-prioritization of Profile Boxes and super-prioritization of Tabs means that FB is trying to really promote the applications that you use often. If an app has a real-world value to you, you’ll add the tab and favourite it in your application bar.  And you’ll have one more reason to pop over to facebook.com, as if we needed another.

But with iPhone 3G set to be released tomorrow, everything poised to change.

With the launch of the iPhone Application Developer Platform, individual developers now have the capability to rapidly develop innovative applications that take advantage of all the iPhone’s features.  Now anyone with some spare time can easily come up with creative applications that leverage the iPhone’s location-based GPS features and high-speed internet connection.  The possiblities are endless.  Want to chat to the crowd in a 100-meter radius at a concert?  Want to check out the profiles of all the hot girls in the bar on your iPhone so you can go on a directed attack? (ok, that one’s pretty lame, but you get my point)

What makes this application platform even more powerful is that individual developers now have a powerful marketing and sales channel, the iPhone Store, to distribute their applications to the millions of iPhone consumers worldwide.  Think Facebook Applications, but for the iPhone.  It’s a win-win situation for both Apple and the developers, as Apple stands to leverage developers world-wide to build vast quantities of innovative applications to enhance the value of the iPhone.  At the same time, developers have a channel to distribute their applications with a direct incentive to develop applications by earning either revenue for downloads or indirect monetary benefits (advertising, social graph, etc.) with no-charge applications.

But who is the big winner amongst it all?  Of course - the consumer.  We’ll now have a very valuable social tool for bringing our social networking capabilities to a new dimension.  With tens of thousands of developers around the world building their own unique and creative applications to get a slice of Apple’s pie, there are bound to be must-have applications created that change the way we live and communicate.

I would surmise that the iPhone 3G and it’s application platform will do for social networking what Netscape and the browser did for the worldwide web.  Social networking was not meant to take place sitting in front of a computer all day.  It needs to evolve to areas and events where you actually socialize, and can leverage mobile technology to enhance your social connections.  The iPhone 3G is ushering in this new era.

Why am I so confident?  Apple is cool, Apple is trendy; the product, interface, and design are all best in class; they have the commercial channel; they have the price that will drive mass adoption ($199); and best of all, they have the vision of how a consumer is meant to leverage their mobile device to enhance their daily lives.

And the commercial platform for developers now provides them instant access to bring the utility of the iPhone to new heights.  Applications can be discovered, distributed, updated and shared with one touch.

And ground zero breaks tomorrow, folks.  It will be an exciting time to watch it all unfold.

Inspiring quotes:

“And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And with any great relationship, it just keeps getting better and better as the years go on. So keep looking - don’t settle.”

“If you live each day as if it was your last - some day you’ll most certainly be right.” “…if today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today? - and whenever the answer has been ‘no’ for too many days in a row, then I know I need to change something… Remembering that you are going to die, is the best way I know, to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. You are already naked - there is no reason not to follow your heart.”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

As is normal in the social networking space, an announcement with massive implications has snuck up on us overnight, and seeing as mainstream media has not the sense nor foresight to understand its implications, the big news drifts innocently along the formal news stream of the day.

Google Friend Connect, simply, allows any site to implement users, friend lists and third-party applications using Google’s OpenSocial. So let’s say you made a great Facebook Application, and want to spread the idea: whip it into a full blown web page, implement Google OpenSocial’s FriendConnect, and now you’ve got completely control over your destiny AND a full-sized web site to boot.

While it will take a long time, my preliminary analysis is that Google will continue to improve support for FriendConnect, and continue to woo bigger and bigger companies and websites to use it, and over the course of the next few years, it will be an important part of any site that desires to be ‘connected’.

That said, Facebook just recently moved forward with their own similarly named Facebook Connect, which allows any site on the web to provide its users with a simply “Connect to Facebook” button, which will then port in all of FB’s friend and user information, and allow for the use of applications.

What’s the conclusion here? These two companies are going to war over the areas outside Facebook’s walled garden, and the next year is going to be absolutely critical to determine whether people truly value the amount of photos, friend connections and wall posts they’ve already put into their Facebook. Because Google’s FriendConnect is going to operate as most Google products do: silently. You’ll use a feature here or there, then maybe sign up one time (if you’re not already), and one day you’ll realize all your friends are on there as well, and one guy will throw up a photo on there, and a rush will occur, where everyone heads over to make their second important Social account…

Just like when MySpacians migrated to FB.

Only time will tell.

A lot of its success and allure has to do with the presentation. Along with Facebook’s Lexicon, I’m excited at the potential of mining the incredible social data that is now available on the web. Interactions and relationships between people can reveal great trends about our culture and behavior. I’m sure this will one day help to reduce the amount of redundancy in today’s advertising.

Before you kill me on that, think about it. Right now, I get hit with a web ad for a brand new Luxury SUV. Anyone that had even had the vaguest notion of who I am would know that I’m just never going to buy one. But still, Lexus is wasting a bit of their money getting that ad to my eyes.

Maybe one day, when the ability to harness trends and personal preferences is used wisely, the right car company can find out that they will be able to sell me if they pitch the 5 year lease on their brand new hybrid fuel-cell car-plane.

What will be interesting to see, however, is how big an impact this launch will have on the usage of Windows Live Messenger, AIM, and other IM applications. Back in the old days when Instant Messaging was the hot web application, keeping in touch with new acquaintances was done through exchanging IM addresses (around the time when you thought you were cool if you had a 6-digit ICQ number). But as social networks have become the medium of choice for maintaining and creating new connections (ignoring Twitter for now), it remains to be seen whether MSN/AIM can hold on, given that their core functionality is now being built into the Facebook platform. I’d surmise that until Facebook launches a standalone IM client, there will still be a role for traditional IM applications, but their day in the spotlight will soon fade as Facebook IM begins to flourish (for the average consumer, at least).

Which brings me to my next point - where is Facebook headed next? Well, their Messaging system is pretty laughable right now and as many are saying, is completely due for a major overhaul. By leveraging your social graph, Facebook has the capability to come up with an innovative email platform that will have the potential to completely disrupt Google/Microsoft/Yahoo’s grip on email. Since Facebook knows your social relationships and who you frequently communicate with, it can begin to automatically prioritize messages and enable you to more efficiently manage the increasing amount of emails and other electronic messages that we see on a daily basis. Top this off by then integrating your existing Facebook account and features into the Email application (ie. Event Calendar), and allowing 3rd-party developers to create applications that extend your email functionality even more, and you have an email platform leaps and bounds above the ever-stagnant Hotmail’s of the world.

Some of you may remember a simpler time of instant messaging, when ‘uh-oh’ sounds and crudely drawn happy faces reigned supreme. ICQ, the first massively popular instant messaging program on the web, attracted users with multicoloured chat rooms and basic user profiling.  However, ICQ isn’t a term we hear round these parts too often anymore. That’s because circa 1998, King Microsoft ventured into IM land with their mandatory installs and predatory practices, stomping it out with its simple (but elegant) Windows Messenger. Despite cries from dedicated ICQ’ers about the inefficiencies of the software, it was only a matter of time, and MSN Messenger’s advantage of being built in to Windows eventually powered its way to victory (not before Mirabilis, the makers of ICQ, sold to AOL in 1998 for a cool $287 Million).

Fast forward a few years or ten, and we’re all using Microsoft’s latest incarnation: Windows Live Messenger. It’s a sure fire way of getting in touch with friends. And it sucks. Year after year another useless feature is piled on, and now we’ve got software which takes minutes to load despite the fact that at its core, it is relaying text messages between computers.

What follows is a list of “What were you thinking?” additions. Sit back and take the time to enjoy this, because I know we’re going to feel some camaraderie on how terrible we’ve been treated for the last few years as users of Messenger. Incidentally, if anybody’s listening at Microsoft: please take these features out before a competitor beats you at the relatively simple game of instant messaging. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

1) Tabs
Is it really necessary for my instant messaging client to “Sizzle”, as the Kiwee tab in this screenshot intends? I just want to talk to my friends. This tab is obviously ignored 99% of the time, but let’s say I’ve just hit the most mind-numbing day of boredom ever conceived, and I decide to give KiWee tabbing a shot. My first impression of the service would be what you see in the screenshot: one quarter of a page where about half of a ‘tool bar’ (?) is visible. I am asked to ‘log in’. Aren’t I already logged in? Simply put: What the hell does this tab mean?  Fail.

2) Pay-for-use Emoticons
… Are you actually serious? I always have to wonder if there are actually people out there that will pay for a small yellow face that has a slightly deformed smile as compared to the default emoticons given with Messenger. If you enjoy this and are reading this (almost impossible, as we have intelligence restrictions by IP address), please, let me know that I’m “out of the loop” and “all the cool kids are doing it”. Another great element of this feature is that it now takes twice as long to load the emoticon selection window.

3) The Customer Improvement Program

Everytime I start Live Messenger (and wait a few minutes for it to load) I am rewarded with the space under my name asking me to “Learn More About the Customer Improvement Program”. Despite the fact that most of Messenger’s glaring oversights should have been handled by the designers eons ago, I decide I’ll do them the favour (without pay) of letting them know what to fix, by clicking through… Hold on a second! This pop-up isn’t saying “Please enter your feedback”: It says “let us collect statistics about your Messenger usage”.  Well I’m not signing up for that.  Where is the option to remove this ‘customer service’ notice from my limited-space on Messenger?  Nowhere?  Shouldn’t this message have some sort of option to disappear? It’s been there for two years! If I didn’t click it the first time, I’m not going to do it now. Isn’t it kind of mandatory that good software allow me to remove things like this? Then again… is this good software?

4) Winks
I know exactly what you thought of this, because it’s exactly what I thought of this. “Wow, that was pretty cool.” Probably, that was the first and last time you ever used “Winks”. I’m not sure where lies the fun-factor in letting other people have the power to slap minute long animations with terrible sound across your conversation window, and probably on top of your music. But even if that sounded like roses to me, couldn’t they come up with something better than a kid throwing a balloon? After all, this is a product of the richest, brightest, most influential technology corporation in the world. Or is that Google now? Bonus: this feature also takes a sweet minute to load. Are you seeing a pattern here Microsoft? These ‘cool new upgrades’ are slowing down my life.

5) Live Spaces
Get over it. It’s not going to work, even if all of a sudden you guys label it a “social network”. It’s just another page for me to submit photos and write information about myself. But since my actual friend list is only barely integrated into the Spaces page, I guess I’m just posting for myself. You want this feature to make some impact? Let me tag the photos, let me have circles of friends, enable bulletin boards that automatically save conversations between my best friends. There’s so much you could do, but seeing as you’re not doing anything, drop it. Did I mention relabeling Spaces as a social network is like calling MySpace user-friendly?  Check out my earlier post about this, where I have a screenshot of my Spaces news feed: (unknown name) has added (unknown name).

6) Sharing Folders
I’ve tried this three times, because I actually like the idea of having a web folder between me and my friend.  Each of the three times I’ve tried, however, it has failed to connect, and not only that, each consecutive time I boot up Live Messenger, I’m now asked to resume these connections that failed in the first place. It is a P2P technology system (think BitTorrent) and I applaud MS for getting into that game, but don’t slap this button all over the place until you can have better guarantees of functionality. It doesn’t help that there is no longer a “Send File” option in my chat window, because it has been replaced with the broken “Sharing Folders”.

7) Windows Live Onecare Scanning Software
I’m sure any regular Messenger user saw this gripe coming back in section 2. It’s what prompted the article. The ‘last straw’, or so they say.

About a year back, I received a file from my brother. “This file may potentially be harmful” appeared to me in an anciently styled grey box.  Considering the only option was to click “OK”, I did.  Heading over and checking my “My Received Files” folder, I noticed the file was deleted without notice. It had taken an hour to transfer. This now happens daily with users and files of all types, and it’s gone so far as to condition us to avoid clicking the download link from within our Messenger window… for no good reason. I’ve virus-scanned and  tested files that have been blocked, and there was nothing wrong with the file.  If you ever get this error, please ignore it, then open the file in a separate window, and try scanning it: 9 times out of 10 it’s fine. What an absurd, unacceptable user experience. If software like this was released by a new startup technology company, it wouldn’t just fail, the company would get purposely and systematically refused funding for ever launching another project again.

This gets better though. A few months ago, Microsoft released Windows Live OneCare Scanner. My first impression was that it took literally 10 minutes to load while some obscure and frankly unofficial looking window loaded the software the first time a file was transferred. The second time, the window hung up and never disappeared. The third time? See image.

Windows Live OneCare informs me the file has been scanned and is fine. I click the link, the first time in a long time that I felt safe to click without my transfer being deleted… And that pop up appears again!  “There seems to be a potential problem with the file”!? That’s impossible. OneCare just said that it was fine… I give up.

In closing, Microsoft, this scathing catharticism is not an attempt to ‘beat on the big guy’ as has been done to you so many times before. It’s not any sort of Damocles’-esque suggestion to switch to open source software. Heck, I’m not even harping on the constant, rotating banner ads (remove them). This piece is a request from a legitimate, long-term user who has put up with annoyance after annoyance and simply has come to a point of exhaustion. I’m not going to stop using Messenger, nor are all my friends. We’ve grown together using Messenger. But please, for the love of money, pay attention to your users… or else!

Rant.End();

I’d like to draw out one point.  Search today is being used as a tool for anonymous consumers to find the relevant information they need.  But what search today lacks is the ability to leverage the individual consumer’s social graph to provide much more relevant search results.

If I’m searching for a takeout restaurant in my area for food, I don’t just want a random list of close-by restaurants, I also want to know whether my friends, who’s opinions I trust, recommend each place or not.  I also want the search engine to know that I particularly fancy Italian food, so that it will prioritize those results.

Social media adds a new dimension to the relevancy of search results.  And with modern information overload, whoever can provide the most relevant search results will win.