The end of the one size fits all social graph

Posted on August 19, 2010 by justingibbs

Google’s Chrome presentation at GDC Europe, left Mashable’s Ben Parr asking just how will Google determine your social graph?

We find the “Apps your friends like” section to be especially intriguing: is Google going to use Gmail, Buzz or something else to determine who your friends are?

It’s a very good question and it’ll be interesting to see what Google comes up with. However at the same time I have a small sense of dread for having yet another social graph. Is that a sign that I’m getting dated or that the social graph is? Depending on which it is, one of us is due for an update.

The social graph is so last year, or is it?

Working in the consumer Internet space I joined many of the social networks long before people heard of them, from Friendster to Cyworld America. The whole thing was novel years ago but now just seems so common. In a way it reminds me of how everyone cared about interoperability between messenger clients years ago. Today there still is nothing in the way of interoperability and yet people couldn’t care less. People’s Internet habits seem to change as quick as the weather. Messenger clients haven’t gone away, they’ve just evolved and handed the limelight over to newer trends.

I don’t prune my social graph, I just make new ones

It’s widely perceived that Facebook users can’t be bothered to recreate their social graphs and that these “switching costs” make user-acquisition too difficult for competing services. A win by Foursquare – heck, even survival – while in direct competition with Facebook will call that assumption into question.

- Places Is Facebook’s Biggest Bet To Date

For me it’s the exact opposite, I want to switch. I wanted to get far away from MySpace and was happy Facebook was there. I’m happy when I’m on GChat and my friends on Yahoo! Messenger can’t see me. Frankly I’ve forgotten who some of my Yahoo! friends are. Messenger is old, it has my old friends on there and like many of them I’ve moved on.

I guess I could always prune my social graph on Facebook or Messenger but I just don’t care too expend the effort. Plus I feel bad in a way about deleting someone I once knew but have since forgot. The only list I care to prune is the contact list on my phone and it would be a stretch to call that a social graph.

So in the end I counter the perceived notion that there are “switching costs”. I’d rather jump and create a new social graph that better represents my current life than prune an old one. Like leaving bread crumbs to mark my path, I’ll leave the Internet sprinkled with my old social graphs.

All too often my feed is just noise

Email was great when I first got an account. I eagerly awaited every message. Now I can never get my inbox to zero. I feel the same way with my feed on Facebook. I know I can filter it, but I’m not going to for the same reason I don’t prune my social graph.

Location just adds to my social graph fatigue

I have a lot of friends so when I come to town I can’t possibly see all of them, so I’ve taken to only alerting those that I can see on that trip. It’s easier if the others don’t know I’m in town, helps to avoid uncomfortable conversations. Also helps avoid the, “I don’t want to hang out with you outside of work” conversation. Why do I have these work friends in my social graph? Because they asked to be added. All of this just ads to the anxiety I feel about my social graphs – just who’s exactly in it and will get this message? We’ve already seen people be fired for what they send out. Why do I need more anxiety in my life? Should I be fearful of who might show up next time I give out my location?

All this anxiety makes me want to just step away

Speaking of anxiety, every time Facebook releases a new feature the more I’m worried about my privacy. Can I really trust them with my social graph? Can I trust anyone with my social graph?

I already established that I’m not going to prune my social graph so that leaves me with little choice other than pack up and move on.

The death of the one size fits all social graph

In the end I find myself taking the easy route and using Facebook less and less to share. I share less personal stuff and tend more toward broadcasting links – which I find is better a task for Twitter. But I still like some aspects of social graphs like Facebook. What I really would like is multiple social graphs – a social graph for my family, close friends, and local friends. Maybe I’ll keep Facebook as my clearinghouse of every friend I’ve ever known and LinkedIn for my business connections.

Multiple social graphs could work, however that strategy doesn’t really leverage the true power of the social graph. I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg has dreams for more unique ways to use our social graph, however based on my personal use I think I’m heading in the opposite direction. What I really want is more akin to Rapportive, a Gmail add-on that surfaces contextually relevant information about the email sender combed from the web. Open an email from a recruiter and see their avatar image, job title from LinkedIn,Twitter feed, etc. This is what I need – a loose social graph.

Maybe Rapportive can build in some levels to its social graph. If I email the person back we’re at level two of the graph. Maybe this unlocks other information that can be displayed. Maybe Rapportive can pull up information like what game I’m currently playing, book I’m reading, song I’ve starred.

Of course I don’t need this all to become noise either, I don’t want all of the info on this person. Maybe they could randomize it – surprise me. That’s what my daily routine needs more of anyway – fun surprises. And I’m being serious about the surprises.

Surprise me what social game my insurance agent is playing. Now that would be truly viral.

There is hope

After Facebook introduced Places all the talk last week was about what Foursquare would do now? From what it sounds like they’re moving toward splintering the all encompassing Facebook social graph. Just what I needed.

The goal is to make Foursquare a product that does a better job than Facebook Places of keeping users in touch with their real friends – as supposed to the 700 people they know on Facebook.

Yahoo!’s problem is that it never knew what it was

Posted on August 17, 2010 by justingibbs

In the post, What Happened to Yahoo, legendary programmer Paul Graham dives into how Yahoo! fell from grace. I was at Yahoo! around the same time as Paul, we even worked on a few projects together and I agree with much of his post. The availability of easy money allowed Yahoo! to truck along without ever actually defining what it was.

But what Yahoo really needed to be was a technology company, and by trying to be something else, they ended up being something that was neither here nor there. That’s why Yahoo as a company has never had a sharply defined identity.

Yahoo! still doesn’t understand what it is. It’s almost comical how to this day they still try to hedge around actually defining themselves. Even a 100 million dollar ad campaign can do little for them.

Lack of identity meant it was impossible to be strategic

Paul explains Yahoo!’s other mistake was to not take programming seriously. Unlike Google where they are manic about hiring the best Engineers, Yahoo! was content to take on mediocre Engineering talent. As Paul says, the Product Managers were in charge. I of course was one of those annoying Product Managers and while I never felt we had mediocre Engineers I certainly felt the lack of direction all stemming from Yahoo!’s inability to define itself.

I liken corporate strategy to football. Say it’s been a tough game, we’ve played our hearts out and we’re still tied going into halftime. In the locker room we’re all looking to our coach for direction, for a plan that can ensure us the win. But all too often the senior executives lack a clear actionable plan, they may think they have one (ala Yahoo!) but all it amounts to is, “Play harder and we’ll win”. It can be heart felt and emotional but if there isn’t a strategy it falls flat the minute we retake the field. What we need to hear in the locker room is a plan, “we’re a running team so we’re going to run the ball down their throats until they leave our star receiver open, then we’ll get it to him in the in zone”.

As Paul pointed out, all Yahoo! knew about itself is that it was winning in 1999. When things turned ugly they’re locker room speech came up hollow – I know, I was there. Paul believes Yahoo! might have still saved itself if it had been a home for the best and brightest Engineers. Another way to look at it is to expect the players to come up with their own strategy, for the star player to take it on their shoulders to pull out the win. I don’t disagree but I doubt they could have pulled out the win. Google is a good example, their Engineers have done some great things but they’ve also come up short a few times as of late – Google Wave and the privacy fiasco around Buzz come to mind.Google has a mission – to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. The closer their Engineers execute toward that the better, the farther they stray the more questionable the results. Anyone remember Google Lively?

In the end it’s a team sport. If you don’t have a strategy you can hope some star players manage to pull out a hat trick. I for one would rather have the coach come into the locker room at halftime with a plan.

Using storyboards to build social games

Posted on August 3, 2010 by justingibbs

If a car comes off the assembly line with only three wheels it’s obvious to everyone that someone screwed up. I wish that were true in the software industry. Maybe the Product Manager knows when a new email product is missing a “wheel” but does the rest of the build team? Maybe if they read the specs, but how often is that done? When was the last time the artist read the spec? I find the problem only gets worse when building social games, but we’ve stumbled upon a tool to make it a little more obvious a social game is missing a “wheel” – storyboards? Using storyboards we’ve found that we can lessen the confusion about what you’re building and even enlist the entire team in contributing to the design.

Storyboards

Of any product I’ve ever built, social games have to be the most open-ended. Everyone has a different vision in their head. Even when writing a screenplay I have a structure to cling to. Games are a different beast all together. To help get everyone on the same page we started using storyboards on my last project. Most games start with either a concept doc or if you’re lucky a full Game Design Document (GDD). As the Product Lead I would take that and write out use cases. However instead of handing those over to Engineering to start building we turned many of them into storyboards. Capturing a typical play session in storyboards we not only found it helpful in communicating the design but in advancing the design.

Allowed us to engage the entire team in design

I like to engage my entire team in building the game. Many of us are in this industry because we like games so why not collect everyone’s input. However it’s a bit cumbersome to get everyone from the Game Designer to Engineering, and Customer Service in one room let alone on the same page. Having not been privy to earlier design discussions most input isn’t all that helpful but using the storyboards we found we were engaging everyone in a more productive way.

We weren’t a room full of people with our own ideas or vision in our heads. In a typical meeting we might draw a diagram or two on one of the white board to clarify something. With up to a 100 slides in the storyboard it was equal to a 100 diagrams spread about the room. Everyone in the meeting understood the user experience with the current design, so our time was spent arguing how best to improve that design.

Highlighted issues we couldn’t see in use cases

Use cases are always helpful to highlight something you or the Game Designer might have missed. Seeing some of those use cases in storyboard form brought even more issues to light. Ultimately anything that isn’t caught in preproduction will cause trouble down the line. If it’s something major it might call for a major course correction – which no one enjoys. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and that certainly goes storyboards too. Never hurts to see a little emotion too, which is nearly impossible to communicate through a use case.

Improved communication

Having storyboards I think if I would use them even if I went back to typical web development. It isn’t that far from using flows to diagram a product but I feel like it goes even further – to capture more the experience you’re trying to build.

I use to say, “you never really know a product until you’ve done a few use cases, or a few hundred”. Now I might add, “and have done a few storyboards”. One of the biggest problems of relying on use cases was that few ever read them, but having a visual and one charged with emotion goes a long way in the communication department.

The iPad screams for a new form of entertainment to compliment it

Posted on May 2, 2010 by justingibbs

I spent most of Saturday playing with my new iPad at WordCamp San Francisco 2010. Of course it was a bit odd playing around with the famously proprietary device while Richard Stallman was on stage, but oh well. I have to say I’m very impressed with the iPad. I bought it mostly as an e-reader and excuse to test games, but am surprised at how the device fills me with a desire for other forms of interactive entertainment.

At home I love streaming Netflix movies through a Roku. Equally I was happy to see I could stream the same movies on the iPad as well. However I haven’t been able to sit more than a minute watching any of them on my iPad. My thumbs are right there, I want to interact, I want to do more than just watch. For me static media isn’t going to be enough, I want more.

Sure I can jump on Twitter or some other social media apps but I find even those don’t capturing my attention. I want more, I want entertainment. So I download a few games. Yet even these don’t keep my attention for long. Sure they’re clever how they take advantage of the iPad’s novel interface but I just don’t find them that compelling. Maybe it’s a consequence of that very novelty? Maybe it’s still early in the evolution of these games? In either case I find myself wanting more.

What I want is a mashup of Netflix and games – interactive drama. It would be more akin to visual novels or dating sims. Sadly the only visual novel I could find in the App Store was in Japanese and there are no dating sims yet. After spending the day with the iPad I find it to be as revolutionary as Steve Job’s attests and believe it should find an equally revolutionary medium to complement it.

Justin Gibbs

Bringing a little drama to social games

Yahoo!’s problem is that it never knew what it was

Lack of identity meant it was impossible to be strategic

The iPad screams for a new form of entertainment to compliment it