So Facebook have acquired FriendFeed for a reported $50million (guardian.co.uk). Looks like they’re building an extension to their walled garden. A walled garden which harvests real-time and personal data. And most importantly, Google the search engine isn’t big enough to see over.

(Dollar heart from masscorporation)

People’s profiles on Facebook and FriendFeed purposefully aren’t viewable by any old wierdo class-mate looking to “catch-up” and ironically the same applies to Google’s Stalk-bot (that’s our new name for the Google Bot =) ). Even though it’s job is to read every site and index it for their search, it still can’t get in to look at all these peoples’ personal pages.

This effectively is blocking Google’s revenue stream as there’s a LOT of information they can’t index on these profiles. So it means the data Facebook then owns is worth a LOT more, because they have something even the biggest tech firm can’t see.

Interesting to see what Google’ll have to do next, GoogleBook?

Also as a side note, notice on the Jesus-esque Guardian picture of Mark Zuckerburg how shirt cuffed hand on the bottom left looks like it’s there for a little more than the picture… She should take that watch off first, it’ll be cold.

So the Facebook status box doesn’t seem like such a good idea. Why is a virtual machine asking me what’s on my mind? It’s not going to offer advice and I’m not comfortable sharing my innermost worries with everyone’s News Feed.

So what is better question and response to expect? Here’s some ideas!

These were created using Firebug, Inspect & Edit. Feel free to #hashtag any of your own on twitter with, #allyourfacebookarebelongtous

Is Facebook trying to be the new agony aunt of the Virtual world? The previous design we were asked to share, “what are you doing?”, which was a pretty pro-active question. It had potential to provoke updates like “Daniel is happy with today”, “Daniel is far far away!”, “Daniel has just finished climbing Everest” etc… With the new design however, comes the new question, “What’s on your mind?”.

That’s the type of question you’d ask a friend down the pub when they’re feeling down and need to talk? Something that can prompt the release of their deepest feelings and allows you to listen and understand how they feel. Something that I prefer to talk about face-to-face, one-on-one, mano-o-mano with beer in hand.

So are people going to feel comfortable broadcasting their innermost pains, worries out to everyones’ News Feed? In turn should we be feeling comfortable offering support and a shoulder to cry on with comment responses? In turn do I even want to be bombarded with general negativity every-time I log in!

Just because Facebook is asking the question I don’t have to answer it, I know. But I wonder about those younger than me. Generations that feel more comfortable sharing their feelings over text & e-mail. Will they feel happy sharing their ‘**** I fe3l Cr4p cos Jeeny just dumped me, :’( @}–>   -’,—-’, with everyone? And in turn, is that healthy for them to not be doing it face-to-face? Or infact, should I feel comfortable with it?

For now, I think I’ll be going down the pub to chat through my innermost feelings. At least then I get a beer.

The new Facebook has been released but what are some of the changes about?

Navigating the profile

The profiles have been re-designed to allow you an easier navigation of all the ‘information’ people want to post up about themselves. I suppose with it normally expanding vertically 30 Million Pixels high to accommodate information was becoming tiresome, so tabs will help divide up the mess… I mean relevant information.

With a wider layout they’re not only opening out the sides of the design to counter app bloating, this could also open up more room for bigger pictures, videos and making use of the space allowing people to enjoy each other’s media and bigger adverts.

The tabs are also going to open up screen real estate for more interesting apps to take precedence on people’s profiles, which is good news for any virals like the Euroball widget. I wonder if it’s going to start making people wanting to organise their profiles more often too?

Old

New

They’ve acctually done it, Google went ahead and released lively.com a 3D world to “create an avatar and chat with your friends in rooms you design”.

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5YbwfOucET8[/youtube]

They packaged the whole product to explore the lands completely through your browser, no need for a separate client application, just download a package (windows only) and install it to run in Internet Explorer or Firefox! A full 3D world in your browser to go explore, to read more about the product check out Lively.com but now read to open up thoughts on the wider aspects of Lively.

Offshoots

The package initially makes me wonder what (more…)