So far Facebook’s functionality changes to publishing; the addition of the News Feed, more general sharing options, and real time feed updates all brought Facebook’s functionality closer to what Twitter got us used to and enjoyed, but certainly didn’t replace Twitter.  The limiting factor to that was Facebook’s privacy policy.  Facebook was a closed set of relationships, while Twitter allowed you to broadcast to the greater web. That was the key differentiator, but now it is changing.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s what’s I am referring to.  Up to this point Facebook’s privacy filters were applied very broadly. You set up your privacy filters to allow one group of people (large or small) to see some subset of your personal data, your status and links, your wall posts, etc. , but privacy was set within those broad categories.   You couldn’t share one wall post with one group and different one with a different group.  The same people who would read about your excitement over the arrival of a new niece would also read about your excitement over the latest jQuery implementation, which was usually fine, but a limitation that kept Facebook updates and Twitter on the same footing in that regard.

With Facebook’s new privacy settings for the publisher you can now be more specific about who you share your published items with.  Share general news with everyone, share your personal information with friends only and share with specific groups things that only apply to them.  Targeting this privacy setting will be as easy as clicking a button in the publisher. I feel that the ability to customize may be the game changer for whether people aggregate information from Facebook rather than to Facebook as we have done in the past.

I joined Twitter first and Facebook later and for all that time I have used Twitter as my default microblogging platform, importing my Tweets into Facebook.  Twitter is the platform that I use to share news, promote business, meet new people and I keep Facebook as the location for established friends and family where I share more private information.  For this reason I don’t export by Facebook updates to Twitter, but I do import my Tweets to Facebook

The new privacy functionality may upend that process for me.  With the new privacy controls from Facebook I can share the fencing exploits of my daughter to just the family and friends who really care, then, with the same tool, rave about a new restaurant, mark the sharing privacy “everyone,” and share that with the entire internet when  it appears on my public page.  My hope is that status updates to “everyone” will also be available as an RSS feed that I can then send to Twitter therefore exploiting that medium’s broadcasting abilities.  And thus Facebook becomes the handiest of the Twitter publishing programs and the microblogging platform of choice.  The aggregator becomes the source and the source the aggregator.

Google Web Elements allow you to embed a calendar, conversation, search, maps, news, presentations, spreadsheets and YouTube news channels as a little widget into your webpage with a snippet of HTML and Javascript.  I suspect that there will be more elements and greater customization in the future.

I don’t have an immediate need for any of the widgets, but if I keep posting entries about upcoming events that I may be attending then I’ll add a public calendar and maps to those events.   Maybe post a presentation that I give at one of them, add a conversation about the topic.  I’m on a roll…

I’ll add a video to the page when I have some time later this week.  If the response is good maybe I’ll make custom pages for other social media sites and comments?  I’ll keep you posted.

To get to the Feed Bundles from within Google Reader click on Browse for Stuff, which is the last item under the Home tab.

This opens the Discover and search for feeds menu from which you can either select from hundreds of pre-existing bundles (currently 449) that Google has compiled, or you can create your own.

Creating your own bundles to share is easy, just drag feeds from the list of feeds on the left that you are subscribed to into the bundle then give give the bundle a name and description.

Google makes a nice little Google Reader Bundle button with your profile picture, name, description and expandable list of feeds, but unfortunately it’s not available as HTML for blog bling.  It’s only visible within Google Reader.

When people click through to your bundle it will display posts from the set of feeds in chronological order.

Bundles are a nice feature for sharing RSS feeds, supporting community, and promoting Google Reader, but they need a little help.  I’d love that button for my blog that people can access, which would also encourage use of Google Reader, but that’s not available as of yet.  Hopefully this is just an initial stab at things and more features and support will be coming over the next few months.

Again, I’m not associated with Podcamp Boston, but will try to attend this year.

Note: I’m not affiliated with Refresh Boston I’m just in the general industry and work upstairs from the event.

Refresh Boston: What Makes a Design Seem Intuitive?

Thursday May 28, 2009 at 7:00pm
Microsoft Startup Labs
1 Memorial Drive
Boston, Massachusetts Get Directions
Jared Spool of User Interface Engineering

Everyone wants an “intuitive” interface: the users, the designers, and the content publishers. But building them is hard. User Interface Engineering’s recent research has given insight into why it’s hard and how to get past major obstacles.

To build an “intuitive” interface, a designer has to do two things: (1) Take complete advantage of what the user already knows, so what they see is completely familiar to them and (2) make the act of learning anything new completely imperceptible to the user. It turns out, if the interface requires the user to realize they are learning something, the “intuitive” label disappears instantly.

In this talk, Jared will show:

• How users need both tool knowledge and domain knowledge to complete their tasks
• How simple problems with designs can cause big problems for users
• What successful teams are doing to create experiences that delight

1. Chastity (which I am defining as “Courage and boldness. Embracing of moral wholesomeness.” As opposed to some variant of purity): Right now,  in a social network somewhere, people are talking about your industry, your brand, the problems that your product or services solve.  You should be a part of that conversation.  As a participant you can help your perspective customers, express your point of view and build up good will as a member of the community; good will that may be necessary when someone else disparages you or something bad is posted on YouTube.  Take a deep breath and jump into the conversation.

2. Temperence: Listening, not talking, is the most important part of a conversation.  First you should use Google Alerts and monitor the Twittersphere to find the conversations that you should be involved in.  Then listen to those conversations before getting involved.  Understand who the community is, what their interests are and how to be a member of the community; don’t just launch into a sales pitch.  Marketing missteps in social media don’t reduce results they can lead to negative results.  The self-control that you show will pay off in better relationships and more effective marketing down the road.

3. Charity: Content is the currency of social media and social networks.  That content can be text, photos, graphics, video, audio, etc. and members of the community who are interested in your content will want to share it with their community.  Making that content free and easily shared increases the speed that it is  spread to a wider audience.  Make sure that your content is creative commons licensed so that others can use it (with appropriate credit) and available in common formats.  Give your content away and reap the rewards.

4. Diligence: If you are making your content available you need to ensure that it can be found.  Using a variety of the free services available for distributing media is crucial.  Make sure that your blog and press releases have an RSS feed.  Bookmark your posts on Del.icio.us.  For photos and graphics use Flicker and Picasa, for video use YouTube, for audio and video podcasts make sure that they can be subscribed to on iTunes and Zune Marketplace.  Even PowerPoint can be shared through Slideshare.  Distributing your media in this helps your core audience find it, creates the opportunity for your content to be discovered by secondary audiences and increases your visibility in search engine results.

5. Patience: Don’t expect success overnight or be lured by “get friends quick schemes.”  The number of friends and followers as a metric is the same as the number of hits on a website; it tells a superficial and artificially good story.  It’s not the number of connections that you have it’s the way that these connections pay off.   Cultivating relationships with a small set of influential members of the community may be better than many less engaged “friends”.  Finding those fans, understanding them and relating to them takes effort, but the payoff of their good words about you and their influence on the larger community is what you are really after, not thousands of superficial connections.

6. Kindness: Social media is a community and maintaining that community takes manners and respect.  Be the nice guy not the jerk. Be the one who is answering, supporting, providing help, and having a dialogue not the blowhard with a message who turns a conversation into a monologue.   That listening, giving and time that I described before leads to the relationships that will benefit you in the long run. Be a part of social media rather than a user of it.

7. Humility: Give credit and share the love.  Find something interesting? Pass it on.  Link to your friends and inspiration. Digg that blog post that you just read.  Comment on that great photograph that you found.  Retweet the amazing insight that one of your friends had. In social media there is no greater love than to have what you have shared shared again therefore increasing reach and audience.

Finally, consider the golden rule in all your actions within social media and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Evidently the thin streets of some European cities caused some trouble for a car mounted with the Google Street View rig, so those ingenious guys at Google came up with the human-powered tricycle above.  This idea is great, but what I love even more is the face on the rider that says “I really expected more from my summer internship at Google.”

I travel a lot. I do almost all of my work online.  I need internet access alot when I am traveling.  Want my loyalty and travel dollars?  Here’s how to earn them.

1. Give me internet access anywhere I’m waiting for more than an hour. I am a captive audience and I need to check email make me happy by giving me internet access.  Time was that only Virgin had internet access and if the schedule was right I would pay the premium price in order to work online for the 6 hours from San Francisco to Boston.   That’s the loyalty that internet access brought. Oh and Amtrak, if I can get online at 25,000 ft over the Dakotas then I don’t know why it’s so difficult at sea level in Connecticut.  Hook us up on the Acela and we’ll never fly the shuttle again.
2. Don’t charge me for internet access. Hotels especially,  I’m already shelling out a few hundred dollars a night for the room, do not nickel and dime me to get online.  $20 a day for internet access is criminal and does not build brand loyalty.  You know what does?  Making me feel like a guest who has access to amenities.  That’s probably why you have exercise machines and I bet that they cost a lot more than the router and internet access, not to mention the room that it takes up.  You want my  name and email address?  Need me to sign up  for your rewards program?  Fine.  I’ll happily hand them over for free wi-fi and probably come back to your hotel again because you treated me well.   I’m not alone in this so get it together and earn our loyalty.
   Soon all the airlines will have in-flight internet making it less of a perk, but that’s where making it free or for registration builds my loyalty to your airline.  Airports be warned; you may think that you are the only game in town and can charge me for wi-fi, but that’s not always the case.  The first time that I flew into Oakland rather than San Francisco and found their free wi-fi, after a few ads, I started some buzz about the little, less crowded, internet friendly, airport across the bay.  Give me what I want and I will praise and reward you.
3. Give me the power. My computer battery won’t last 6 hours, especially if I’m uploading pictures to Flickr.  I need an AC jack to power up my laptop.  The Acela earned my love by providing outlets, being able to arrive 5 minutes before the train leaves and not having to take my shoes off.   When you give me internet access,
   back it up with some electrical support otherwise you’re just a tease.  Every seat doesn’t require an outlet, 2 outlets on each side of the aisle is fine and builds some community with the business travelers.

There you go.  Give me wireless access anywhere I’m waiting for over an hour while traveling, make it fee (I’m willing to register with you) and provide the power to make the most of the internet and I am yours.

The widget is a little HTML code that you can add to your blog and displays a Google Map with your location on it.  I needed to tweak the sizing to fit in my Wordpress blog template, but it seems to work well.  One issue that the less privacy concerned among us should be aware of is that the widget can be easily copied from your blog and therefore used by someone else to keep tabs on you.  If at some point you want to not be found using the widget then you must disable the widget from the Google Public Location Badge web page.  Deleting the code from your blog does just removes one instance of where it is used, and does not end having the data broadcast and displayed somewhere else.

I can certainly see the potential for Google Latitude and these widgets are still only scratching the surface of its utility.  More value will need to be shown for this application to make the jump to higher registration that will make even more useful applications possible creating the increasing user base fueling valuable application feedback loop that Google is hoping for.  All that said, the widget is what got me to sign up.