Well, I’ve been taking a lot of shots in the past few weeks for always covering the latest shiny social object. You know, first it was Twitter. Then Jaiku. Then Facebook. Pownce. On and on.
The critics say that either I’m late to the game, like with Facebook, or that I’m just too scattered and not looking for real value. Or that I don’t stay on one thing long enough to learn it well and add real value to my writings.
Fair enough. Although one thing I’d like to clear up. When I yammer on endlessly about Facebook that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped using any of the others. Twitter, for instance, is just a constant part of my life now.
Anyway, last night I was at the Facebook party aka “Lunch 2.0.” I met Mark Zuckerberg and his sister, Randi, and a ton of Facebook employees and executives. It is one of those parties that in about five years we’ll all be looking back on as a major inflection point in the valley. I stayed until the very end. In fact, even after the party ended a small group of us hang outside of Facebook’s offices and kept talking about what is going to happen in social networking.
One of the guys was John McCrea, vice president of marketing for Plaxo.
He told me that on Monday Plaxo i sgoing to turn on a new version. Ahh, a new “shiny social object.”
But then he explained why we should care: Plaxo is going to open up a new social network that’s both open as well as controllable. Translation: Plaxo is making a play for Facebook.
First, let’s go back to Facebook. Why does everyone say it’s a “walled garden?” Because you can’t get to data stored on Facebook unless you’re a Facebook member. Two days ago I did a video for Chris Pirillo on Facebook. Chris instantly got excited and wanted to share that with his blog’s readers. But he couldn’t. That video is locked inside Facebook’s walled garden. If you don’t have a key (a Facebook account) you can’t see it.
John told me that on Monday Plaxo will come out with a social network that gets rid of the walled garden.
Why did I say a couple of weeks ago that Facebook is a “data roach motel?” Because I can put all sorts of information about myself into Facebook (I could, for instance, tell you that I like “Daft Punk.” But, do I own that data? Can I get it out of Facebook? No).
John told me that on Monday Plaxo will come out with a social network that lets me own my own data and take it out of Plaxo and put it on other social networks.
Finally, I’ve been getting a few complaints about what I’ve been doing with Facebook. By turning Facebook into a professional networking tool I’m causing problems for people who saw it as a social tool to keep in touch with their college friends. See, Facebook for the first three years of its existence was mostly a tool for college kids to pass photos and other funny things around. Now, if you have photos of your frat party at college do you really want your new boss and coworkers to see those? Probably not.
But Facebook isn’t controllable. You can’t really have two groups of friends. One group that sees your drunken college frat photos and another group that sees you making presentations to your board of directors.
John told me that on Monday Plaxo will come out with a social network that lets me control which groups of friends (or family) that can see certain items.
OK, sounds like Plaxo is going to kill Facebook and bring down Facebook’s value by a few billion dollars. The bubble 2.0 will end. Zuckerberg will drag his tail away from the valley defeated. Etc etc etc. Right?
It’s not going to happen. Here’s why. It’s too late and the walled garden will keep people locked in.
Huh?
Sorry, Facebook already has momentum and a coolness about it that Plaxo doesn’t exude. I don’t really know how to explain the coolness without sounding really idiotic and goofy. That’s part of the 20-something vibe that Facebook has going for it right now. Oh, here’s a photo of me looking at the artwork in the Facebook offices. That might explain a little bit about it. There’s lots of other photos from the event last night here.
But it’s there and can’t be ignored. If John could explain to me how he’s going to get the world’s college students to look away from Facebook and toward something else maybe I’d go along with this “more open and controllable” Plaxo. My head is telling me that Plaxo is the way to go but my emotion tells me that Facebook is more fun.
The other thing is that BECAUSE of Facebook’s “closed” nature I’m not likely to leave it anytime soon. Why? Because if Facebook has 10% more content than the other networks do (which it will have because of the momentum that Facebook has today) that the more “open” networks will always seem lame in comparison.
But, on Monday I’ll try out the new Plaxo. I’m into “shiny social objects” and will report to you the pros and the cons. The problem, though, is that even if I get really excited about it my email is demonstrating that many of the world won’t be listening and won’t care.
What do you think?
After I get up this morning I’ll film a video explaining more of my thoughts and I’ll put that on my Kyte channel. For now Nokia’s CTO left me a little message there. I’ll do more stuff from the Always On conference today.
[kyte.tv 6118]
[...] Scoble talked to the vice president of marketing, John McCrea, about Plaxo’s upcoming social network. This is a good move for Plaxo in an obvious direction. I’m glad to hear they found a way to make the leap. [...]
[...] new social network, called Pulse (we wrote about it last month), is still extremely buggy. Robert Scoble and Matt Marshall say it launches properly on Monday, so hopefully they’ll have the kinks [...]
[...] that will enhance user adoption, what you need to consider before adopting office 2.0 tools, open networks & portable data, and whatever else strikes my fancy and/or is the hot topic of the day. After all, is there [...]
[...] And, most importantly, for self-important self-promoters like podcaster Robert Scoble, it offers total control over how to spam your fans. The premise: Plaxo users will be able to designate contacts as dysfunctional family members, [...]
Damon: yeah, I know lots of people find value in LinkedIn for jobs and such, but that’s EXACTLY why I don’t like it.
Facebook is already being used for that and is so much more.
Yes, but I think the primary advantage for LI is that they do have a jobs/recruiting focus. Until Facebook makes more of their service for business folks – even if some are already using it – it won’t have the same rate of adoption.
As stated, I do think Facebook is a very legitimate threat to LinkedIn. As it stands right now, I would say that it currently can’t beat the LinkedIn product (my professional profile is much more robust on LinkedIn). I’ve had a lot of potential job offers because of LinkedIn (being a Community Manager/Evangelist is still somewhat of a niche role, so folks find it easy to find folks like me there).
What Facebook could do:
Allow you to segregate business and personal contacts. Now that would be something that could be highly disruptive (99% of my Facebook friends are actually people I know through work!).
Damon: yeah, I know lots of people find value in LinkedIn for jobs and such, but that’s EXACTLY why I don’t like it.
Facebook is already being used for that and is so much more.
Yes, but I think the primary advantage for LI is that they do have a jobs/recruiting focus. Until Facebook makes more of their service for business folks – even if some are already using it – it won’t have the same rate of adoption.
As stated, I do think Facebook is a very legitimate threat to LinkedIn. As it stands right now, I would say that it currently can’t beat the LinkedIn product (my professional profile is much more robust on LinkedIn). I’ve had a lot of potential job offers because of LinkedIn (being a Community Manager/Evangelist is still somewhat of a niche role, so folks find it easy to find folks like me there).
What Facebook could do:
Allow you to segregate business and personal contacts. Now that would be something that could be highly disruptive (99% of my Facebook friends are actually people I know through work!).
Facebook for Business already exists… Fast Pitch! (www.fastpitchnetworking.com)
I’m curious to see what Plaxo comes up with. The guys at Fast Pitch! will have to add another column to this comparison chart:
http://www.fastpitchnetworking.com/compare.cfm
Facebook for Business already exists… Fast Pitch! (www.fastpitchnetworking.com)
I’m curious to see what Plaxo comes up with. The guys at Fast Pitch! will have to add another column to this comparison chart:
http://www.fastpitchnetworking.com/compare.cfm
[...] Will this be the next “shiny social object”? | Scobleizer Quote – On Monday Plaxo will come out with a social network that gets rid of the walled garden. (tags: facebook socialmedia socialnetworks scoble) [...]
So what are the negatives in iPhone? I want to find some.
So what are the negatives in iPhone? I want to find some.
NOOO WAY: Daft Punk??
At first I had heard the 2005 album and didn’t really enjoy it much… Then I borrowed the older 2001 one with catchy tunes I already knew like “One more time”. I’m so hooked on it now!!
On the subject: I guess facebook tends to be a traditional social network model (I don’t think “deprecated” would fit in..) whereas Twitter and other are a new bread, where information is public as you intend it to be.
There are, of course, pros and cons on both models (privacy later on in life, comes to me when I think of the latest model).
To be honest, you had me try Facebook AND TWITTER!!!
Although I do enjoy Facebook, it just feels like more of the same (eg. orkut, hi5, netlog, etc…) which I have or had and got tired of it! The one advantage (huge one!) about Facebook is it’s interaction with other services… that can be the more “open” ones. That way, you kind of “aggregate” your social networking on one page, for “insiders”. (I just tried MyBlogLog and Jaiku yesterday… seem interesting!)
Oh well… creativity is lacking at times in some of those startups: they want to make a better something, instead of creating the best thing! (catchy phrase LOL – you can use it :p)
Keep it up Scoble!
NOOO WAY: Daft Punk??
At first I had heard the 2005 album and didn’t really enjoy it much… Then I borrowed the older 2001 one with catchy tunes I already knew like “One more time”. I’m so hooked on it now!!
On the subject: I guess facebook tends to be a traditional social network model (I don’t think “deprecated” would fit in..) whereas Twitter and other are a new bread, where information is public as you intend it to be.
There are, of course, pros and cons on both models (privacy later on in life, comes to me when I think of the latest model).
To be honest, you had me try Facebook AND TWITTER!!!
Although I do enjoy Facebook, it just feels like more of the same (eg. orkut, hi5, netlog, etc…) which I have or had and got tired of it! The one advantage (huge one!) about Facebook is it’s interaction with other services… that can be the more “open” ones. That way, you kind of “aggregate” your social networking on one page, for “insiders”. (I just tried MyBlogLog and Jaiku yesterday… seem interesting!)
Oh well… creativity is lacking at times in some of those startups: they want to make a better something, instead of creating the best thing! (catchy phrase LOL – you can use it :p)
Keep it up Scoble!
I disagree with the assertion that Facebook isn’t controllable; in fact, I do maintain “two groups of friends,” as well as a ‘limited profile’ in order to, well, limit who sees what of my Facebook persona. The privacy settings are flexible enough such that I ensure that the potentially embarrassing photos, for example, don’t make it to family members. In fact, it was Facebook’s dedication to privacy controls that convinced me to join a social network for the first time.
I disagree with the assertion that Facebook isn’t controllable; in fact, I do maintain “two groups of friends,” as well as a ‘limited profile’ in order to, well, limit who sees what of my Facebook persona. The privacy settings are flexible enough such that I ensure that the potentially embarrassing photos, for example, don’t make it to family members. In fact, it was Facebook’s dedication to privacy controls that convinced me to join a social network for the first time.
[...] and a deleted Address Book. Now they’ve released their updated Plaxo 3.0 service and are launching their social networking service [...]
[...] 30 seconds ago (it’s 11:58 PM on Sunday, August 5, 2007). While Scoble, and others are in a virtual love fest with Facebook, I just didn’t find any value in [...]
[...] of discussion recently about opening up closed social networks like Facebook (here, here, here and here). Atom/REST could allow a simple way to share information between social networks. An update to [...]
[...] the next big thing comes along, maybe it’s already here. As of yesterday, Facebook, aka “the walled garden”, has to put up with a new kid in town, Plaxo. Plaxo itself is not new, however, it has been [...]
[...] at doing what Fidgt does. Create a social address book. Read something more about Plaxo pulse here, here, here, here and [...]
[...] Scoble talked to Plaxo about it last night: He and his commenters have a lot more to say. [...]
[...] that people consider Facebook a serious part of our every day lives. Or, it’s just the latest shiny object. Depressing how bloggers sometimes possess the same traits as the rest of the media. Posted by [...]
[...] Robert Scoble writes about some drawbacks of social networking site Facebook, and why people prefer inferior products. He talks about bookmarking/calendaring/ address book app Plaxo, which is already pretty cool. They’re adding social networking features, and Scoble explains how it’s different: First, let’s go back to Facebook. Why does everyone say it’s a “walled garden?” Because you can’t get to data stored on Facebook unless you’re a Facebook member. Two days ago I did a video for Chris Pirillo on Facebook. Chris instantly got excited and wanted to share that with his blog’s readers. But he couldn’t. That video is locked inside Facebook’s walled garden. If you don’t have a key (a Facebook account) you can’t see it. [...]
[...] | Tags: Facebook, Plaxo, Microsoft, Yahoo, MySpace, FriendFeed, aol The concept of an “open social network,” one that gets its news feed not from within its own walls, but rather by aggregating [...]
[...] Today’s Twitter could well be tomorrow’s Geocities, recognised as ground breaking in its time but relegated to second class status as everyone signs up to the next shiny new thing. [...]