SxDSalon: A group blog on social interaction design

“Social” can’t be solved by an algorithm

I was contacted by a dutch journalist who’s writing an article on the merits of social interaction versus search engines. She read a paper of mine and emailed me with two questions. I thought it’d be useful to post my reply publicly: First, do you think search engines making use of social networks will improve search results and thus make our daily life a bit easier? Yes! A lot of fact finding and information discovery already comes from friends, colleagues, and even acquaintance...

New Presence patterns in the Yahoo! Pattern Library

We just published two new social patterns in a new category, called Presence (under People), in the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library. The two patterns are Availability and Updates. The Design Pattern Library is a collection of guidelines for the design of online interactions that can aid decision-making and guide the work of web developers and designers. I’ve been studying the concept of “Presence” (often meaning remote presence – telepresences – or digitally med...

FB new privacy settings – a contrarian positive view

Facebook’s privacy changes are drawing a lot of fire, but they work pretty well for me, and are at bottom a positive change. But the way Facebook presents these changes is untrustworthy, and makes the company seem even more untrustworthy than they are being. Facebook now makes it easier for you to share information with the world, and to make that choice on a post-by-post basis, and to share posts with a specific set of people. In the past, I didn’t share much on Facebook because ...

Unintended Side Effects

I have been presenting the material from our book over the last several months and have been asked questions about some of the anti-patterns and how we avoid or solve them. Most recently at Web 2.0, I was talking with a bunch of smart, interesting people and a few things have bubbled up that I think are worth poking at that we need to pay attention to as “social” becomes more ubiquitous. Issue 1: Authentication Service Hell The first is the UI and conceptual quagmire we have inadve...

Social search and advertising: Google’s endgame?

A few weeks back, Jeremiah Owyang wrote a piece "Revealing Google's Stealth Social Network Play." In it he detailed the tactical benefits of a combined of Google Reader, Wave, and Sidewiki in a back-door strategy aimed at social networking. And more to the point, to realizing the advertising opportunities around social networking.Google has been neither a leader nor a even a decent case study in social networking. It's home-grown social network, Orkut, is popular elsewhere but not here. Open Soc...

How Facebook integrates FriendFeed – Discovery vs. Privacy

This week, FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit popped up on FriendFeed to let folk know that developers are quietly at work on a couple of longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world. There has been a lot of discussion about the dropoff in FriendFeed traffic since the Facebook acquisition, and the appearance was intended to reassure the community. People weren’t reassured, not only because Buchheit didn’t share any details about what they’...

Foursquare vs Yelp: Recommendations and Reviews

Foursquare and Yelp are each sites that capitalize on user-contributed reviews and recommendations. Users contribute their favorite places and things to do, spotlighting best-kept secrets and customer favorites. Users get visibility and even some amount of notoriety for their contributions. Their enthusiasm for, or against, a merchant can have substantial repercussions for businesses. In the age of social media, might sometimes makes right, whether the customer is "right" or not.Social interacti...

Why I don’t worry about competiton

Often when talking to press or VC’s, they ask a million questions about competition – about Google, Microsoft, and other document sharing sites. I tell them, that’s not what worries me. What worries me is not being able to execute on our own plans, not delivering on the promise to our users, not figuring out what the right strategy should be, not being nimble and agile enough to change as the field evolves, or not focusing on our customers enough. That’s what keeps me up at night. Srid...

User Acquisition in the Era of App Platforms panel at TiEcon tomorrow

If you are going to TiEcon, then come by to our panel in the morning tomorrow. Dave McClure is moderating. Panel description: From entrepreneurs working on new applications to established firms looking to gain scale, effective customer acquisition strategies remain of paramount importance and vital to success. The massive scale of application platforms today combined with the acceptance of modularized content/functionality have resulted in new options for those looking to crack the consumer ad...