Listen, Facebook, we have to talk.

We have a lot of fun together. We go through photos, play scrabble, chat with friends, its great. But lately I’ve started to see a side to you that I’m finding rather aggressive. I am speaking specifically about your new “People You May Know” area on the main aggregate screen that provides a short list of people that you think I have simply overlooked.

Sorry, Facebook, it’s more complicated than that. While they are friends of my friends, I do not know them. Don’t get me wrong, I am aware they exist, the names are familiar to me, but I have yet to be properly introduced and conversed to the point where it wouldn’t be weird to ask them to consider me as their friend. So, I would appreciate easing off the pressure, I will meet them on my own, at some point, in real life.

And while we’re putting it all out there, Facebook. You leave me in an awkward place when you add ex-girlfriends from back in collegeto that list. I’m not sure whether we left things as friends, so asking them to add me as a friend is a pretty loaded request.

So, please Facebook, trust me that as soon as I see a familiar face, I will add them as a friend, but until then, stop telling me who I should be friends with.

I had a couple realizations this morning while adding my social network feeds into Friendfeed.com. The first was that I have the good fortune of getting “robleto” as my handle a lot. I suppose that comes with being on the cutting edge.

The second was that I ‘m not sure what to do with Friendfeed. If it is the information overload I expect it is, I don’t want it in my RSS Reader. I’m one of those people who get satisfaction that I have scanned through all the feeds in my reader. For that reason I had to drop BoingBoing, they just never stopped, I couldn’t get that feeling of completion. I think adding the FriendFeed feed will be very similar.

That leaves forcing the new habit of going to the Friendfeed site routinely, which is doable, except that the short-changed interface and visual design make reading on FriendFeed a bit more complicated that reading in my RSS reader.

So, I don’t know how I’m going to use FriendFeed yet, but I am in the system. If you want to find and friend me: http://friendfeed.com/robleto

 

The South by Southwest conference in Austin once again proved to be a fantastic opportunity to feel the pulse of the industry and see where the bleeding edge is and how much catching up we have to do. I will happy to discover that this year I didn’t feel at all behind the curve. My own knowledge, my work and the work we are doing at the Fool are progressing if not near the front of the pack, not at all far behind (this website withstanding, it’s stuck in a state of mid-relaunch). That being said, here are ten points of knowledge that I took away from SXSW:

• “Need”, “can’t”, “only”, “easy” and “fast” are five words that can add three months to the scope of a project. Example: It’s only one more feature. We really need it. We can’t launch without it. It should be easy. Can’t you just do it real fast? Boom! Three more months.
• The best way to be successful at making money online is to help other people make money. It comes back to the old principle of greed being one of the two driving forces (with fear) to get someone to do something. While providing information online is helpful (a la Wikipedia), providing an opportunity for others to make money online is when things get lucrative (a la Basecamp).
• The biggest sin on the web is crappy copywriting, which is made even more heinous because of all the parts of the web, words are by far the cheapest thing to fix.
• It’s great that you can read the NY Times on the iPhone but you won’t unless the NY Times provides a light-weight mobile/iPhone-ready version with stripped down content already pre-zoomed (which they actually do, Apple just doesn’t use it in the advertising).
• We are going to look back at this era, when you had to go to a terminal to use the internet, as antiquated. The wheels are already in motion for a day when you can view a Google Map on display at the pump while filling up the tank, and order groceries from PeaPod from your refrigerator.
• Sites like Google Reader get it right with pagination for the mobile/iPhone browser. “First, Prev, Next, Last” is too cluttered on the small screen, just provide the single link to “Next 10 Stories”.
• The Imperial Shuttle wasn’t designed with Wookies in mind. If you look for it, you can find examples of bad (or good) accessibility and user experience everywhere, even in your favorite films.
• The two minute video is turning the corner: no longer being seen as an ad but as a desired part of the site experience. Utilizing short well-made video on your website is a clear next step.
• Clients will naturally gravitate towards the Frankenstein design (a piece from comp A, these elements from this comp B). It’s a designer’s obligation to set the expectation that each design is holistic, and can not be mixed and matched.
• There is a misnomer that websites are being sold on newsstands. The concept of “above the fold” is an antiquated as it is inappropriate in the digital media. People are comfortable with scrolling.

It’s so simple really, and not at all new. It’s the original Facebook model, before it became huge.

Twitter is about proximity. Over the past year I have sent about 100 Twitter “tweets”. Over the past week I doubled that. Why? All the people who I am following, and who were following me, were all in the same location (at SXSW conference in Austin).

Proximity changed everything.

Previously, I would have argued that if you saw my tweet “Going to Stubbs for some BBQ” it would provide you with a topic of conversation for the future. When you see me next, you can ask what I thought of the famous Stubbs ribs instead of just approaching me with a broad question like “How are things?”.

But proximity adds another layer. Now, you can join me at Stubbs if you like. I broadcast I would be there at lunchtime, and if you were to come, you would find me there and you can trust that I would welcome the company (because if I wanted to be left alone, I wouldn’t have broadcast where I’d be to the world).

I wasn’t in college when Facebook came onto the scene, but I imagine this was how it originally became huge. Students, on the same campus, updating their activity (late for class, in the dining hall, studying in the library) so other students on the campus could find them.

So, the company I work for, The Motley Fool, just launched a really cool new online game “” CAPS.The premise (as I understand it) is that there are these guys like Jim Kramer on CNBC who yell and bellow “pick this stock” or “pick that stock” with no accountability. There is no follow up if that pick made money; no way to really know if this Kramer guy really knows what he’s talking about.

So, the Motley Fool came up with a way. They made this game where you can rank whether you think any stock will either beat or lose to the S&P 500. It’s sort of like High-Low with stocks. You choose your stock, determine whether it will do better or worse than the S&P and (optionally) write why you think that.

So if you are like me and love Disney, you can pick DIS to succeed “cause their awesome”, or as time goes on and you get more experienced and familiar with stock trends, you can take a more analytical approach and say that since “TheKnot.com has absolutely cornered the market on online wedding websites”, that KNOT would have a good chance of beating the market.

It’s free to play, no money is exchanged. You only need to pick seven stock to get into the game, and then once you are it becomes real fun, because you can track yourself over time, against other people, against financial celebrities (I am kicking the tar out of Jim Kramer right now), and against the field. You also can see the picks everyone else has made, from the best players down to the lowest ranked.

And that is the key to the whole thing: you are now in contact with people who make good picks and are accountable for them, a very useful resource to have if you are trying to understand the stock market a little more, or especially if you are thinking of putting some money into it.

You can find CAPS at http://caps.fool.com, and once you are in and have made the seven required picks to begin, then look for me, and set me as a Friend or Favorite, my screen name is TMFShakespeare.