Ninad’s (lazy) Blog

Reichenstein argues that tabs were a good solution for an earlier age of the Internet, when users hardly ever had more than ten tabs open at any given time. Now, however, as browsers are slowly turning into operating systems, a new paradigm for organizing this information has become necessary.

The current generation of browsers does a decent job when it comes to keeping a current browser session organized, but Reichenstein wants to create a system that structures the browser more like a mutimedia file system. He proposes a new interface that looks more like iTunes than today's Firefox, with folders, libraries, and bookmarks in a sidebar.

Interesting Idea this. Also, dont forget to check out the Tree Tabs addon for firefox, I just installed it and loving it so far!

In general, there are two ways to model human relationships in software. An “asymmetric” model is how Twitter currently works. You can “follow” someone else without them following you back. It’s a one-way relationship that may or may not be mutual.

Facebook, on the other hand, has always used a “symmetric” model, where each time you add someone as a friend they have to add you as a friend as well. This is a two-way relationship, and it is required to have any relationship at all. So as a Facebook user there is always a 1-1 relationship among your friends. Everyone who you have claimed as a friend has also claimed you as a friend.

Andrew Chen recently described one advantage of the Twitter model. It allows 4 types of relationships, while Facebook only allows for two. The two relationships of Facebook are “friend and Not Friend”. The four relationships of Twitter are:

1. People who follow you, but you don’t follow back
2. People who don’t follow you, but you follow them
3. You both follow each other (Friends!)
4. Neither of you follow each other

Attention Inequality & the Power of Asymmetry

As Andrew points out, an asymmetric model allows for more types of relationships. I think the benefits go further than that. I think that the asymmetric model better mimics how real attention works…and how it has always worked. Any person using Twitter can have a larger number of followers than followees, effectively giving them more attention than they give. This attention inequality is the foundation of the Twitter service…

Some very interesting observations on the fundamentals of the two most popular social networking software. The limitation that facebook currently has is that users of facebook cannot subscribe or to someone else feed without becoming a "friend" and in the process forcing the other person to subscribe to his feeds. Thats one of the friction points that I as a user have when accepting facebook friend requests. Im OK with letting people subscribe to my feeds, but I do not necessary want to know about them.

Maybe facebook can allow a way for users to subscribe to other peoples feeds without the obligation of becoming a "friend" and achieve Asymmetry which will enable them to grow as rapidly as twitter.

“Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos on YouTube, using social networking sites like Facebook or shopping online under the pretense that it costs millions in lost productivity, however that’s not always the case.”

According to the study of 300 workers, 70% of people who use the Internet at work engage in WILB. Among the most popular WILB activities are searching for information about products, reading online news sites. Playing online games was the fifth most popular, while watching YouTube movies was seventh.

The attraction of WILB, according to Dr Coker, can be attributed to people’s imperfect concentration. “People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration. Think back to when you were in class listening to a lecture – after about 20 minutes your concentration probably went right down, yet after a break your concentration was restored.

How "Twitteriffic" is the new Facebook redesign? Imagine that Apple panicked over the press the Google G1 phone was getting last fall and abruptly decided to remake the iPhone in the image of its upstart competitor--dropping the most desirable features and adopting the G1's bigger bulk, smaller screen, skimpy memory, lack of apps, and mediocre interface. We all know that could never happen: Apple has too much confidence in its own market dominance and design brilliance to blink like that. Yet, incredibly, Facebook--until last week, the Apple of social-networking services--decided to react to the Twitter "threat" by trying to turn itself into its relatively puny challenger. It's like Meryl Streep getting plastic surgery in order to more closely resemble Malin Akerman. Who'd have guessed that Facebook, of all the beloved services, could be capable of such a needlessly lousy facelift?

I personally don't like the new facebook design, it not balanced, know what I mean?