Apple’s new social network Ping had Facebook Connect one minute and not the next. It’s a bit odd for a feature like that to disappear in less than 24 hours, but what I found intriguing was some people’s reactions across the blogosphere. Om Malik was severely disappointed:

As a long-time customer of Apple and its iTunes store, I’m severely disappointed that I can’t bring my pre-configured social graph to Ping. I hope Apple and Facebook both come to an agreement and kiss and make-up.

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t want my social graph to follow me. I like having different graphs at different services. Having Facebook Connect would help me pull those that I might want over, but at the same time I’m kind of hoping the cool ones will move on their own and we’ll create a new social graph. I think it’s the same way with dive bars or clubs – you always keep moving.

Facebook Connect will most likely not return to Ping

Some speculate that this just part of corporate one-upmanship.

Otherwise, Ping would really suck and the big losers in this game of corporate one-upmanship are the consumers, who probably — like me–  just want recommendations from our friends, then buy those tunes.

Some believe that once it’s worked out, Facebook Connect will return. I highly doubt that, simply because Facebook charges for access.

According to AllThingsD, Facebook was responsible for turning off Apple’s access to its Facebook  Connect API. Typically this API is open to just about any application developer. However, with higher-volume apps (think social games and services with lots and lots of users), Facebook apparently requires a special agreement for these kinds of connections.

Apple is huge, they’re the product company everyone wants to emulate, their fans are rabid. Why would they need to pay for access? I’m sure what Apple asked itself is what’s the value add for Facebook Connect? Given who they are and that there are people like me out in the world who actively want to recreate social graphs they couldn’t justify the expense.

When I asked Jobs about that, he said Apple had indeed held talks with Facebook about a variety of unspecified partnerships related to Ping, but the discussions had gone nowhere. The reason, according to Jobs: Facebook wanted “onerous terms that we could not agree to.”

Ping is directly challenging Facebook’s place as the de facto social graph

We would be surprised if this feature didn’t make a reappearance at some point. That’s a good thing, because Facebook is becoming the de facto social graph for many users and makes the friend discovery process much easier.

I would agree that it is the de facto social graph today, but that is what Apple is challenging directly with Ping. My money isn’t so much on Ping, but more on the fact that Facebook’s lock on the de facto social graph is fading. I can still remember when there was only one place to build a personal homepage – GeoCities. Eventually people discovered other places, then entirely new ways to establish a home on the Internet.

Facebook seems unstoppable as of late, but this encounter with Apple could open up some cracks in the walls.

Related posts:

1. Will Apple pull an end-around Facebook with social games?
2. Google Buzz will nullify Facebook
3. The end of the one size fits all social graph

Adam Rafkin has a very opinionated piece on GigaOM – Why Google has no game. It’s an interesting read but I feel like he’s just on the Facebook bandwagon. I remember a time when everyone was on the Google bandwagon and it was Yahoo! who looked like the chump. That’s the way they hype cycle rolls in Silicon Valley.

Adam starts off with quite a stretch.

Real social engagement comes from photo-sharing and chat. I thank Fred Wilson for that insight. It’s why FriendFeed was such a fantastic acquisition for Facebook: because they deeply understand that. Google should start by turning Picasa into a social application. If Google really cares about social engagement, copy Flickr.

As if all else doesn’t count as “real” social engagement. What does Adam mean by “real” social anyway? I’ve heard countless conversations started around social games.

Reading further you get the feeling that Adam just dislikes social games.

Many people are just not into social games. That’s right, half of Facebook users don’t play games, and many users hate games. Plus, the whole gaming ecosystem feels like it’s about to collapse on itself. It’s no wonder that Playdom sold out. For Facebook, games were a means to an end: a way to experiment with the pay-for-application-installs business model long enough to evolve into an advertising unit allowing brands and companies to promote (and pay for “likes” on) their Facebook Pages.

Lesson one of Product Management: Listen to your customer

I got into the social game industry six months ago and I was skeptical like many. Was it all a fad? I hated the viral spam as much as anyone. But social games had already done the impossible – garnered a large woman audience. That’s what intrigued me and the potential for interactive drama. Being a Product Manager I went in with open eyes and was a bit amazed at what I found. Some players actually loved sending virals, it was part of their game play. What was most encouraging though was how passionate some of the players were. Some of the games had become part of their daily lives and they would certainly let us hear it if we tweaked something they liked or were down. That kind of passion is a rarity. It’s what excites me about the medium and keeps me and the likes of  Bing Gordon hopeful for it’s future.

We knock what we don’t understand

A lot of what Adam says reminds me of my friend and manga. My friend grew up on American comics and can’t stand manga because it’s black and white. To him it’s a step backwards, he doesn’t understand why people get so into it. However they do and they’re plunking down millions to feed their hunger.

A frivolous medium

Interestingly both comics and manga were considered frivolous when they began. However through the passion of their audiences and efforts of talented artists they both evolved.

Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989) is the godfather of Japanese manga comics. He originally intended to become a doctor and earned his degree before turning to what was still then considered a frivolous medium. With his sweeping vision, deftly intertwined plots, and indefatigable commitment to human dignity, Tezuka elevated manga to an art form.

-Back cover of Ode to Kirihito

Seeing audiences passion I expect the same evolution for social games.

Related posts:

1. Will Apple pull an end-around Facebook with social games?
2. Will Google Buzz support social games?
3. Using storyboards to build social games

Google’s Chrome presentation at GDC Europe, left Mashable’s Ben Parr asking just how will Google determine your social graph?

We find the “Apps your friends like” section to be especially intriguing: is Google going to use Gmail, Buzz or something else to determine who your friends are?

It’s a very good question and it’ll be interesting to see what Google comes up with. However at the same time I have a small sense of dread for having yet another social graph. Is that a sign that I’m getting dated or that the social graph is? Depending on which it is, one of us is due for an update.

The social graph is so last year, or is it?

Working in the consumer Internet space I joined many of the social networks long before people heard of them, from Friendster to Cyworld America. The whole thing was novel years ago but now just seems so common. In a way it reminds me of how everyone cared about interoperability between messenger clients years ago. Today there still is nothing in the way of interoperability and yet people couldn’t care less. People’s Internet habits seem to change as quick as the weather. Messenger clients haven’t gone away, they’ve just evolved and handed the limelight over to newer trends.

I don’t prune my social graph, I just make new ones

It’s widely perceived that Facebook users can’t be bothered to recreate their social graphs and that these “switching costs” make user-acquisition too difficult for competing services. A win by Foursquare – heck, even survival – while in direct competition with Facebook will call that assumption into question.

- Places Is Facebook’s Biggest Bet To Date

For me it’s the exact opposite, I want to switch. I wanted to get far away from MySpace and was happy Facebook was there. I’m happy when I’m on GChat and my friends on Yahoo! Messenger can’t see me. Frankly I’ve forgotten who some of my Yahoo! friends are. Messenger is old, it has my old friends on there and like many of them I’ve moved on.

I guess I could always prune my social graph on Facebook or Messenger but I just don’t care too expend the effort. Plus I feel bad in a way about deleting someone I once knew but have since forgot. The only list I care to prune is the contact list on my phone and it would be a stretch to call that a social graph.

So in the end I counter the perceived notion that there are “switching costs”. I’d rather jump and create a new social graph that better represents my current life than prune an old one. Like leaving bread crumbs to mark my path, I’ll leave the Internet sprinkled with my old social graphs.

All too often my feed is just noise

Email was great when I first got an account. I eagerly awaited every message. Now I can never get my inbox to zero. I feel the same way with my feed on Facebook. I know I can filter it, but I’m not going to for the same reason I don’t prune my social graph.

Location just adds to my social graph fatigue

I have a lot of friends so when I come to town I can’t possibly see all of them, so I’ve taken to only alerting those that I can see on that trip. It’s easier if the others don’t know I’m in town, helps to avoid uncomfortable conversations. Also helps avoid the, “I don’t want to hang out with you outside of work” conversation. Why do I have these work friends in my social graph? Because they asked to be added. All of this just ads to the anxiety I feel about my social graphs – just who’s exactly in it and will get this message? We’ve already seen people be fired for what they send out. Why do I need more anxiety in my life? Should I be fearful of who might show up next time I give out my location?

All this anxiety makes me want to just step away

Speaking of anxiety, every time Facebook releases a new feature the more I’m worried about my privacy. Can I really trust them with my social graph? Can I trust anyone with my social graph?

I already established that I’m not going to prune my social graph so that leaves me with little choice other than pack up and move on.

The death of the one size fits all social graph

In the end I find myself taking the easy route and using Facebook less and less to share. I share less personal stuff and tend more toward broadcasting links – which I find is better a task for Twitter. But I still like some aspects of social graphs like Facebook. What I really would like is multiple social graphs – a social graph for my family, close friends, and local friends. Maybe I’ll keep Facebook as my clearinghouse of every friend I’ve ever known and LinkedIn for my business connections.

Multiple social graphs could work, however that strategy doesn’t really leverage the true power of the social graph. I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg has dreams for more unique ways to use our social graph, however based on my personal use I think I’m heading in the opposite direction. What I really want is more akin to Rapportive, a Gmail add-on that surfaces contextually relevant information about the email sender combed from the web. Open an email from a recruiter and see their avatar image, job title from LinkedIn,Twitter feed, etc. This is what I need – a loose social graph.

Maybe Rapportive can build in some levels to its social graph. If I email the person back we’re at level two of the graph. Maybe this unlocks other information that can be displayed. Maybe Rapportive can pull up information like what game I’m currently playing, book I’m reading, song I’ve starred.

Of course I don’t need this all to become noise either, I don’t want all of the info on this person. Maybe they could randomize it – surprise me. That’s what my daily routine needs more of anyway – fun surprises. And I’m being serious about the surprises.

Surprise me what social game my insurance agent is playing. Now that would be truly viral.

There is hope

After Facebook introduced Places all the talk last week was about what Foursquare would do now? From what it sounds like they’re moving toward splintering the all encompassing Facebook social graph. Just what I needed.

The goal is to make Foursquare a product that does a better job than Facebook Places of keeping users in touch with their real friends  – as supposed to the 700 people they know on Facebook.

Related posts:

1. Does Ping really need Facebook Connect?
2. Google Buzz will nullify Facebook
3. Will Apple pull an end-around Facebook with social games?

In the post, What Happened to Yahoo, legendary programmer Paul Graham dives into how Yahoo! fell from grace. I was at Yahoo! around the same time as Paul, we even worked on a few projects together and I agree with much of his post. The availability of easy money allowed Yahoo! to truck along without ever actually defining what it was.

But what Yahoo really needed to be was a technology company, and by trying to be something else, they ended up being something that was neither here nor there. That’s why Yahoo as a company has never had a sharply defined identity.

Yahoo! still doesn’t understand what it is. It’s almost comical how to this day they still try to hedge around actually defining themselves. Even a 100 million dollar ad campaign can do little for them.

Lack of identity meant it was impossible to be strategic

Paul explains Yahoo!’s other mistake was to not take programming seriously. Unlike Google where they are manic about hiring the best Engineers, Yahoo! was content to take on mediocre Engineering talent. As Paul says, the Product Managers were in charge. I of course was one of those annoying Product Managers and while I never felt we had mediocre Engineers I certainly felt the lack of direction all stemming from Yahoo!’s inability to define itself.

I liken corporate strategy to football. Say it’s been a tough game, we’ve played our hearts out and we’re still tied going into halftime.  In the locker room we’re all looking to our coach for direction, for a plan that can ensure us the win. But all too often the senior executives lack a clear actionable plan, they may think they have one (ala Yahoo!) but all it amounts to is, “Play harder and we’ll win”. It can be heart felt and emotional but if there isn’t a strategy it falls flat the minute we retake the field. What we need to hear in the locker room is a plan, “we’re a running team so we’re going to run the ball down their throats until they leave our star receiver open, then we’ll get it to him in the in zone”.

As Paul pointed out, all Yahoo! knew about itself is that it was winning in 1999. When things turned ugly they’re locker room speech came up hollow – I know, I was there. Paul believes Yahoo! might have still saved itself if it had been a home for the best and brightest Engineers. Another way to look at it is to expect the players to come up with their own strategy, for the star player to take it on their shoulders to pull out the win. I don’t disagree but I doubt they could have pulled out the win. Google is a good example, their Engineers have done some great things but they’ve also come up short a few times as of late – Google Wave and the privacy fiasco around Buzz come to mind.Google has a mission – to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. The closer their Engineers execute toward that the better, the farther they stray the more questionable the results. Anyone remember Google Lively?

In the end it’s a team sport. If you don’t have a strategy you can hope some star players manage to pull out a hat trick. I for one would rather have the coach come into the locker room at halftime with a plan.

No related posts.

If a car comes off the assembly line with only three wheels it’s obvious to everyone that someone screwed up. I wish that were true in the software industry. Maybe the Product Manager knows when a new email product is missing a “wheel” but does the rest of the build team? Maybe if they read the specs, but how often is that done? When was the last time the artist read the spec? I find the problem only gets worse when building social games, but we’ve stumbled upon a tool to make it a little more obvious a social game is missing a “wheel” – storyboards? Using storyboards we’ve found that we can lessen the confusion about what you’re building and even enlist the entire team in contributing to the design.

Storyboards

Of any product I’ve ever built, social games have to be the most open-ended. Everyone has a different vision in their head. Even when writing a screenplay I have a structure to cling to. Games are a different beast all together. To help get everyone on the same page we started using storyboards on my last project. Most games start with either a concept doc or if you’re lucky a full Game Design Document (GDD). As the Product Lead I would take that and write out use cases. However instead of handing those over to Engineering to start building we turned many of them into storyboards. Capturing a typical play session in storyboards we not only found it helpful in communicating the design but in advancing the design.

Allowed us to engage the entire team in design

I like to engage my entire team in building the game. Many of us are in this industry because we like games so why not collect everyone’s input. However it’s a bit cumbersome to get everyone from the Game Designer to Engineering, and Customer Service in one room let alone on the same page. Having not been privy to earlier design discussions most input isn’t all that helpful but using the storyboards we found we were engaging everyone in a more productive way.

We weren’t a room full of people with our own ideas or vision in our heads. In a typical meeting we might draw a diagram or two on one of the white board to clarify something. With up to a 100 slides in the storyboard it was equal to a 100 diagrams spread about the room. Everyone in the meeting understood the user experience with the current design, so our time was spent arguing how best to improve that design.

Highlighted issues we couldn’t see in use cases

Use cases are always helpful to highlight something you or the Game Designer might have missed. Seeing some of those use cases in storyboard form brought even more issues to light. Ultimately anything that isn’t caught in preproduction will cause trouble down the line. If it’s something major it might call for a major course correction – which no one enjoys. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and that certainly goes storyboards too. Never hurts to see a little emotion too, which is nearly impossible to communicate through a use case.

Improved communication

Having storyboards I think if I would use them even if I went back to typical web development. It isn’t that far from using flows to diagram a product but I feel like it goes even further – to capture more the experience you’re trying to build.

I use to say, “you never really know a product until you’ve done a few use cases, or a few hundred”. Now I might add, “and have done a few storyboards”. One of the biggest problems of relying on use cases was that few ever read them, but having a visual and one charged with emotion goes a long way in the communication department.

Related posts:

1. “Don’t Make Me Think” for social games?
2. How do virtual worlds build community?
3. Frivolous mediums evolve – so will social games

The rumors started last week with a TechCrunch article and today - Disney Paying Up To $763 Million For Social Gaming Company Playdom. So it looks like mouse ears for me and a free trip to Disneyland.

It certainly changes the landscape for social games. Also plays to the theory that the game industry at large is moving toward social games.

Companies that have embraced casual games have been the ones that have been able to revolutionize the games business. Those that have held onto the core games have not. Look at Facebook, they embraced casual games. Apple with the iPhone embraced casual games. Look at the three major consoles. Who won? The Wii. Why? They embraced casual games.

Related posts:

1. Facebook squashing the virality of social games?
2. Using storyboards to build social games
3. Frivolous mediums evolve – so will social games