Will Facebook E-Mail Be A G-Mail Killer? Who Cares?
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on November 12, 2010 by admin in Technology
Friday, November 12th, 2010Why anyone would use either as their primary e-mail service escapes me. And using a Microsoft Office product through a web browser, via a Facebook account is sort of like pouring gasoline down your horse’s throat, poking his eye with a cattle prod, and yelling at it to get on the freeway
You’ve probably heard by now that Facebook will be announcing a full-fledged web e-mail service with POP access and Microsoft Office Web Apps integration on Monday. Unless – ironically – you’ve been on Facebook all day, because they themselves are saying nothing about it on the site as of this writing. So, with the tech press being as predictable as it is (apologies to Mr. Arrington, at least he breaks the stories), everyone is of course debating whether the new Facebook service is a “Google Killer”. Which is an absurdly framed question, in my opinion. Yes, Facebook and Google are in a battle to dominate the internet in various ways, but I will eat poop on the day that Facebook gets search right or Google gets social networking right. Of course everyone with a Facebook account will activate an available username@facebook.com option. And of course this will siphon in millions in ad revenue and put a big ding in Hotmail, Yahoo, and Google e-mail ad placement dollars. But will that mean that Facebook e-mail will “kill” G-Mail? I personally doubt it, for several reasons. First of all, because I know an astounding number of otherwise intelligent people who still use Hotmail or Yahoo as their primary e-mail accounts. And secondly, of the larger group of people that I know who use G-Mail – especially if they use Google Docs – the last thing in the world they’re going to do is give up the reliable functionality of Google’s cloud services to use a Microsoft Office product through a web browser, via a Facebook account. Forgive me, but in my opinion that’s like pouring gasoline down your horse’s throat, poking his eye with a cattle prod, and yelling at it to get on the freeway. But ultimately, I remain befuddled as to why people would use G-Mail or Facebook as a primary e-mail provider in the first place. Facebook is the company that helps you build a trusted network of friends and then tells you the reason you can’t export their contact info is to protect them from you. Unless THEY are giving them to another service, which then lets you export them. And Google? Aside from the fact that from day one they’ve indexed your e-mails so they can place ads next to them, they are in many ways Facebook’s strongest competitor not so much in terms of services offered, as in the realm of corporate deceipt. In their founding documents they said “we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers“. Two years later they introduced advertising to their results, and now derive the vast majority of their revenue from ad services. In terms of how to access e-mail, I still use a mail client and my own mail-server accounts. I guess I have the advantage of owning domains and offering reseller hosting, but this is remarkably easy to set up if you need web-based communication, and your hosting company doesn’t scour your files as a prerequisite to storing them for you. Ah well. To each their own I guess. One thing I must admit I am looking forward to though, is the first friends that get lost in FB’s interface and post an excruciatingly private e-mail on someone’s wall. You know it will be happening in the first week.
Rockmelt – A Social Web Browser, Not A Death Ray
[ Add A Comment ]Posted on November 8, 2010 by admin in Technology
Monday, November 8th, 2010The new social network-oriented web browser Rockmelt could easily be pitched as a “Flock Killer”. If anybody knew what the heck Flock was.
 We would have been SO much more excited if it were a planet vaporizing death ray. |
In August of last year, we pondered whether the mysterious Rockmelt was a new web browser or a planet vaporizing death ray. Well, the answer has been revealed, and frankly, we would have been a little more excited with the death ray option. So why is someone creating yet another browser? Don’t Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, et al give us enough to choose from and argue about? Well, on the “social web”, apparently not. Rockmelt is designed specifically to pull all your social doodads into one place, in a handy tabbed fashion. This is probably why no-one is calling it a “Firefox Killer”; if anything it’s a “Flock Killer”. And that’s not very sexy, ’cause who the heck has heard about Flock, aside from the guys in the IT department and when I mentioned it just now? I for one won’t be rushing to download and install the recently announced beta version of Rockmelt; if they’re trying to build trust and user engagement, they’ve already scored a few negative points with me. I gave them my e-mail over a year ago to stay informed, and heard nothing of them until they popped back into the tech media buzz the other day, asking for you to connect with your Facebook account if you want to try their beta release. No thanks, Rockmelt. They’re obviously on the right track in some ways though; as this Wired piece points out, the web we knew is dead, and apps and social networking define the road ahead. But to define your launch with a Facebook log in seems a little less than forward thinking. Most of the tech savvy and social people I know have been turned off by the MySpace-ization of Facebook, and are using it less, and with less enthusiasm every day. So if you’re an active Twitter/Facebook/FourSquare type, Rockmelt may be just the ticket. Personally, I’m a little connection weary, and LIKE the fact that I have to access different devices, apps, or websites to stay connected. So Rockmelt, drop me a line when you come out with the death ray version. If you can find that e-mail I already gave you. Launch promo video below. Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook Really Puts The “FB” in “FBI”
[ Add A Comment ]Posted on October 14, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, October 14th, 2010But we can all sleep a little better knowing that yesterday’s paranoid delusions are today’s ho-hum realities.
Remember a few years ago, when most people over 25 were just beginning to join Facebook, and this seemingly tinfoil hat paranoiac video (also below) was going around, trying to scare the bejeebus out of everyone by pointing out all of Facebook’s connections with the CIA, NSA, and the IAO’s Total Information Awareness program, as well as the details of its creepy privacy policies and user agreement details? Well, it’s not so tinfoil any more, is it. We’ve talked about privacy a lot before, and how both Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Eric Schmidt have already decided your privacy is a thing of the past, but until the EFF got their hands on some Homeland Security documents the other day, any Big Brother paranoia you might have experienced about your Facebook activities was still a little hypothetical. Well, now you can pretty much rest assured that your every move IS being catalogued, so relax. It’s too late now. Just don’t make casual observations about things that go boom in places where people might shop, or you’ll have the FBI crawling up your ass too. Or at least under your car. Read the rest of this entry »
7 People Who Still Haven’t Joined Facebook
[ Add A Comment ]Posted on October 4, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Monday, October 4th, 2010It’s hard to believe that with Facebook’s incredible market penetration, there are still a handful of people who haven’t joined. Do you know of any?
 Although Jesus is more of a Twitter kind of guy, he may have been the original inspiration for the “Like” button “Thumbs Up” |
If you’re reading this, that means you’re on the Internet. And since you’re on the Internet, you probably have a Facebook account. And if you don’t, well, don’t bother. Although the party will probably never stop now that Facebook has over 500 million users, the party you’ll be joining isn’t the same party that was going on a year or two ago when Facebook enjoyed its early explosive success. Everyone finds their own special relationship with a social networking site like Facebook, so maybe you’re still quite delighted to have a bunch of people you would never have lunch with as friends, because it gives you someone to play Mafia Wars with. Or maybe you derive genuine gratification from “Liking” things or joining political causes, so you can incessantly share your liberal, conservative, or wingnut point of view (not that those are mutually exclusive terms) without actually having the skills or focus to engage in real activism. But if you happen to have joined around the time I did in 2008, you may have found the witty repartee has fizzled, the great friend reconnects have taken place, and you may have come to know all too well the banal existences of both yourself and your “friends”. If that’s the place you’re in, you may have also noticed a couple of interesting waves of new users over the past year or two. First, the ones who joined around that same time as you and I did in 2008 and just didn’t get it, treating the site like the next MySpace. Then, the wave of over-40′s who read about the site in Time Magazine, also didn’t get it, popped in and made goofs of themselves, and then got quiet abruptly, having no idea how to de-activate their account. Then everybody’s mom and grandma joined a few months later, and more recently, it seems that the kind of people who are still on AOL joined, and everything went to hell. What may surprise you though, is the fact that there are still people who haven’t joined. Below are just a few. Do you know anyone who hasn’t joined? Let us know. Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook & Skype. Two Great Tastes That Don’t Taste Great Together
[ Add A Comment ]Posted on September 29, 2010 by admin in Technology
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010I’m not so sure I want audio/video in my Facebook account, but I do have suggestions for some Like Button-like audio widgets I’d like to see.
 Great. Now the Numa Numa Guy can video chat me whenever he feels like it. |
I really love sushi. I also really love chocolate. However, I suspect I wouldn’t much enjoy chocolate-dipped sushi. Which was the first feeble analogy that sprang to mind when I learned today that Skype and Facebook have formed a partnership . One that we imagine would inevitably lead to being able to video Skype on Facebook. Call me a stick-in-the-mud, a Luddite, call me whatever you like, but when I want to talk to someone, I call them. And if I need to call someone overseas, or have a conference with or without video, Skype rocks. And if I want to peruse what my friends are up to or engage in some low-key attention whoring or silly banter, Facebook is just the ticket. But something that I really don’t think I need is video calls on Facebook. Or a more Facebook aware Skype. C’mon. One of the first things a Facebook noob learns to do is to set their status to offline so that they don’t get random late night chat box popups from opposite-sex stalker friends of their friends that are barely their friends in the first place. Facebook has reached an almost “MySpace before the fall” feeling anyway; between the privacy changes and the late joiners, most people who are even moderately perceptive are starting to feel a little Facebookworn. Sure, it’s a great way to avoid buying birthday cards, and share pictures of the kids, but we’ve all learned that it doesn’t make more people come see your band, and once you’ve gotten a sense of the banal existence everyone is leading, you’re probably happy to go back to not knowing. Besides, linking the two services will just make it that much easier for the government to spy on you. There is however one improvement I think they could make. Since the “Like” button has removed the burden of ever actually having to make intelligent comments, we already suggested a bunch of “Like” button alternatives. But I think it would be even cooler if they added a little audio widget that would let you add simple comments like a rimshot or a trombone “wah wah wah wah” . Or crickets for when someone obviously agonized over what they thought was an especially clever status post but no-one commented. What do you think? Do you want Skype in your Facebook?