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Thoughtpick: A unique perspective of the Web and social media...
A unique perspective of the Web and social media...

April 30, 2009

Facebook’s Evolution: Biting off Chunks of the SN Market!

How long is Facebook going to stay, as I may call it, “The Big Boss” when it comes to Social Networking sites? Are Facebook’s continuous efforts to bite off chunks of the social network market proving to be successful and how much of the chunks can it digest? Are there any currently available sites which can confidently say they are competing at the same level with Facebook?


Founded February 4, 2004 with the aim to “Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected”, we have been more than aware of, and even impressed with, how Facebook has been on top of the game since the beginning. By taking chunks of the social networking market and offering a more comprehensive service and wholesome user experience to its users, Facebook its proving, day by day, its commitment to improvement and innovation through researching its current and potential customer needs and creating features and applications that meet them accordingly!

  • Facebook added the photos features. This, coupled with their SN platform, provided a great method for people to share private photos and even for professionals to use it as a portfolio and in turn gave Facebook a chunk out of the social photo sharing segment such as Flickr.
  • Moreover, Facebook added a videos service allowing people to share videos between friends and with better privacy options. So, that’s how Facebook took a chunk out of the social video sharing market, like Youtube.
  • In August 2006, Facebook Notes, which currently has 21,456 fans and proved to be highly social and easy to use, was introduced allowing Facebook to obtain a chunk of the blogsphere market.
  • In February 2007, Facebook added a new gift feature to the website, which, in my humble opinion, was a way to obtain a segment of the online greeting cards market.
  • In May 2007, Facebook acquired a chunk of Web 2.0’s mashups market segment by launching its SN platform.
  • In July 2007, Facebook allowed users to post attachments to their walls, which was most likely an attempt to replace or dilute the use of e-mails thus biting of a chunk of the e-mail users market.
  • In another conquest, Facebook introduced fan pages and groups that highly resemble forums thus allowing Facebook to take out a chunk of the social forums market.
  • What about Facebook chat? Well, it seems that it was a try to take a chunk of the instant messaging market (I can’t assert how successful this was, but I’m sure many people tried and are still using it!)
  • On December 2008, Facebook opened the gates with “Facebook Connect”. This in turn helped FaceBook take a chunk of the Open Authentication systems like OpenID.
  • Now, I come to the news article that got me thinking about writing this piece, the latest Facebook conquest was: Obtaining a chunk of the micro-blogging market, the one Twitter is it’s king, through opening status updates. A new application, RSS Feeds, makes use of this new feature.

What do you think would be the next market chunk Facebook is going to bite off? And will the following step be integrating music and playlists into the default Facebook site rather than an added application?

P.S: Thank you swardraws of Flikr for the sandwich photo.

Filed under: Deductions and Realizations, Research-Based Topics — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Beirut @ 12:33 pm

April 28, 2009

Quub Micro-Blogging: Meowing its Way in the SM Jungle!

Has Twitter become the king of the Social Media jungle? What is the future of micro-blogging and is there a real threat against the Twitter kingdom? What can a new micro-blogging platform add to the so-far highly successful Twitter experience? And is Quub’s attempt to “meow” its way into the Social Media jungle going to end up in an utter failure?

As we all well know, every jungle has its king! Usually, the king of the jungle is the lion, and this is how it was for years and how I assume it will be for many years to come! If watching National Geographic, Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel has taught me one thing, it taught me that cats will never rule the jungle and accordingly, I think Quub will always be just a cub and whether we choose to use it or not, it will simply remain a little cat when compared to giant social media lions such as Twitter!

The idea behind Quub is very simple so why do I see it as a fragile cat, you might wonder? Well, I can think of many reasons dooming Quub to a sad yet definite failure if not end, here are a few:

  • Research & Development: Quub aims to allow users to literally answer the question “What are you doing?” assuming that people really care to know about when their friends are eating, sleeping, reading and so on. The real question is: Have they really done their research about this? Did they gather enough responses before spending money to create a service that I honestly would not use and do not see such a large audience for?
  • Features: Quub has added features that are unavailable in Twitter such as the public calendar yet do users really want that? Personally, I would not really like to use a completely public calendar even if my friends are the only ones able to see it.
  • Virality: Quub is not an open platform like Twitter which in turn limits their search-engine appearance by having everything locked until you are accepted thus limiting the element of viral growth dramatically.
  • Repetitiveness: “Quub helps you actually write your status updates”. This means that after a while of “Quubing” status updates may become both boring and monotonous!
  • Uniqueness: Many platforms such as Ning, Plurk and identi.ca aim to apply the micro-blogging method in disseminating information, Quub should have a very “different” element in its features, a unique spark to be able to shine through the clutter. I don’t see much of a difference in Quub rather I see a solid weakness in its limitations!
  • Server Problems/Site Unresponsiveness: Yes! Already! Many people who tried to access Quub were shocked to get the following message: “Error reading from remote server”!
  • User Needs: Quub, in my opinion, is more personal and with our busy lifestyles and many of us being time-poor. Therefore, I don’t think it is even close to being as desirable as Twitter since it lacks the ability of mixing business with pleasure! As Victor Panlilio puts it: “Another Internet-based time sink, as if we needed yet more of them…”

Have you even heard of Quub? That is a question I would like for you to answer. And if you have, what do you think of it? Would you use it? Do you believe it stands a chance?

Filed under: Web News — Tags: , , , , , , — Beirut @ 4:12 pm

April 26, 2009

“Social Media Forces” Helping the Police Clean Up Psychos!

Is there a definite end to the world of crime? Sadly but truly, the answer to this question is an equally definite “No”.

Let me ask you something: How many of you spend numerous hours, daily, watching those crime-related series such as NCIS, CSI, Cold Case, NYPD and many others? I for one, used to spend around 2-3 hours on average watching a bunch of these series for the thrill of the chase and hoping that maybe, one day, the psychos they catch on TV will get their share in real life as well!

However, things in real life are not always that simple and criminals are not always caught, except – as social media has proven- for maybe the “stupid” or “overconfident” ones who use the Internet such as Twitter to advertise their evil plans in advance!

Join me, if you may, to the latest news of the new SMF (Social Media Forces) dedicated to fighting crimes!

Through monitoring tweets made through Twitter, the FBI recently captured and detained a man threatening to execute an outrageous bloodbath!

Yahoo’s message board was able to help the FBI trace a Southern California man posting racist threats against President Obama and predicting “he will have a 50 cal in the head soon”.

Montreal police was able to capture and stop a teen threatning to attack Montreal College through a reported threat-loaded online chat.

Through following his blog posts, police arrested a Wisconsin high school teacher after monitoring a blog post that included support for student killers like those involved in the 1999 Columbine, Colo., High School massacre.

I should feel much safer with the SMF protecting me now, or should I really? I mean we all agree that we are entitled to freedom of thought and speech. So who decides in the end, if we are really psychos or not? What really defines someone as a real criminal?

Something for you to think about…

Note: Thanks for Matt Hamm for the original bird picture.. I hope you do not mind putting a hat on its head :)

Filed under: Controversial Picks, Web News — Tags: , , , , , , — Beirut @ 1:45 pm

April 23, 2009

The Future of Our Privacy: Down the Drain It Goes!

This decade seems to be heading towards an endless whirlpool of privacy breaching, mind controlling trend which appears to have the power to lure more and more audience without any deeper reflections upon issues such as: How is this going to invade my personal space? Do I really want people to know what I do, what clips I watch and where I spend my time?

“Shocked, revolted and frightened”… That is exactly how I felt after having read this article posted yesterday at Techcrunch entitled “First Look: We Take YouTube RealTime For A Spin”
And now I’m screaming out loud: What is this world coming to?


With the wide range of “stalking tools” now available at everybody’s finger tips, we can now track the physical location of our “friends” using Google Latitude, follow up on what they are doing through Twitter text-based messages, find photos of you and your friends that are not tagged via Facebook Face Recognition and further have the power to know who is watching what and when through the latest trailing device Youtube Real-time!

Thinking about this issue, I can’t help but wonder: Why do we call for human rights and fight endlessly for our right to privacy when we, willingly, fly into the nests of freedom-free boundaries? Is technology so overwhelmingly seductive that we can’t but welcome it with open arms and allow it to take over what is rightfully ours?

To be fair, allow me to talk about my personal experience regarding this matter. Since I turned 16, I have been more than uptight about anyone asking me about my whereabouts, it used to annoy me! I also used to hate it when people used to constantly nag to know what is bothering me and why. Yet, with the introduction of the “almighty” Facebook and the status feeds, I found myself sucked into the cycle of letting people know when I’m down and why without them even asking. I am also confident that if I hadn’t taken a moment to reflect on what Google Latitude is about, I would have allowed others to know where I am without feeling stalked!

Personally, I think the fact that we are trained to believe that we have a choice whether to use a certain service/tool or not is the most alluring trap of all! But if everyone else is using it, do we really have a choice?

Think about it!

Note: Thank you Adam Zyglis for the cartoon.

Filed under: Controversial Picks — Tags: , , , , , — Beirut @ 3:39 pm

Touching Social Media Success Stories

Different emotions sprung up my head while researching stories of successful social media campaigns in mobilizing people for different causes. The research itself wasn’t really a hard task as I knew where to start at. Actually my memory saved me. It allowed me to remember that at the social media panel in Alexandria, Markmedia mentioned that he tweeted the exact question, and got many answers in no time. So, smart me, jumped on twitter, and *listened* to that lovely conversation.

This is one of the things that I love about Twitter. It is its ability to help me find fast answers to my questions. While it may be hard to manage over Twitter, many web services appeared to give better structure for the questions/answers process. Mashable collected 5 of them in this informative post. You have to check it out, my favourite is to-answer.

As a result of my research, I picked up four really amazing stories that demonstrate how powerful social media tools can really be:

1. Virginia Tech massacre:
Tears escaped my eyes while scrolling the pages that talk about this heart wrenching massacre of a troubled young man who killed 32 people and wounded many others before committing suicide at Virginia Tech canvas.
A huge number of people were mobilized online not only to organize prayers and pay tributes to the souls of the victims, but also to re-ignite the debate of gun politics in the US which prompted changes in the Virginia law of handguns purchase. Are schools in Virginia safer today? Probably yes, and probably not, but I salute people for taking action to make things change.

2. HSBC Interest Rate: I clapped my hands for the National Union of Students in the UK for standing up against the sudden unjust decision of HSBC bank to withdraw interest-free overdraft deal.
Facebook was used heavily in what turned to be a very effective viral campaign that forced the bank to reverse its decision, acknowledge the service-oriented nature of its business and the power of Facebook to make their customer base voices heard.

3. Mumbai terror attacks:
On 26 November 2008, and for 3 days in a row, the Indian people found themselves facing horrible attacks on different places in their financial capital – Mumbai -. With horror occupying the city, Indian people found themselves using their cell phones to report instantly the current news of events in which reigned Twitter at the helm of breaking news main source.
Twitter has been used lately in different tragic events to report breaking news by people much faster than any other conventional media outlet. In fact, when a US Airways plane crashed in Hudson River earlier this year, news appeared on Twitter before CNN or Fox news mention anything – even on their websites.
Social media have changed the face of journalism. Mumbai attacks triggered new realization of journalism facts in the era of social media. Conventional journalism is history; journalism schools are looking for ways to catch-up with social media and realize its implication on the nature of journalism itself as a business

4. Obama: Barack Obama broke traditional heritage of racism and discrimination and became the first black man to rule the United States of America.
One can’t help but admire the way this man ran his brilliant online campaign; the way he mobilized people behind him for what he drew as a cause of an entire nation is purely amazing. His team mastered social media tools much better than his competitors which played a big role in helping him making history.

I stand humbled by the powers social media opened for us ordinary people. These stories are human stories that came to life because of social media. Maybe sometimes people would face failures as in the case of the ‘Day of Anger’ in Egypt, and maybe some people do really feel trapped with the social obligations such medium impose on us, but the truth is that no one can deny the new form of communication social media opened have for us. Whether it is for our betterment or for our demise, it is us – people – who will decide.

Note: Thank you Kalpak Pathak for this amazing picture

Filed under: Research-Based Topics, Web News — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Fadi @ 10:40 am

April 22, 2009

What Happens When You Execute Before Research! Hahaha

I recently received a forwarded joke to my e-mail and I thought you’d get a kick out of it just as I did!

P.S: Whoever the owner is, thank you, and feel free to comment and claim ownership.

Know Your Customer!!

A Coca Cola salesman returned from his Middle East assignment disappointed.

A friend asked, “Why weren’t you successful with the Arabs?”

The salesman explained, “I was very confident I would make a good sales pitch in the Middle East as Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem. I didn’t speak Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters…


“First poster: A man lying in the hot desert sand…totally exhausted and fainting.

“Second poster: The man is drinking our Cola.

“Third poster: Our man is now totally refreshed.

“And then these posters were pasted all over the place

“That should have worked,” said the friend.

“The hell it should have,” said the salesman, “Didn’t realize that Arabs read from right to left!”

Filed under: Offbeat — Tags: , , , , , — Beirut @ 11:03 am

April 21, 2009

Does the New “Twittering Interns” Trend Really Work?

Every single day, consumers such as myself, are bombarded with numerous advertising messages slamming us from every radio station we tune to, every television channel we choose to watch, every street we drive or walk about and even through our personal mobile phones! The advertising clutter we are directly exposed to is proven to dilute consumer attention and can sometimes be overwhelming and I think many of you out there would agree!

Just today, as I surfed Original Signal looking for new articles to read and interesting topics to research, I found myself staring at a somewhat disturbing article entitled: Pizza Hut searches for Twittering intern and I started wondering: Is this really what we, consumers, need these days: More and more advertising seeping into every venue and vent of our daily lives?
Let’s think about this for a second and weigh the positives and negatives that may come out of it!

To be fair to Pizza Hut and other respectable chains around the world, I will start with the advantages of such a move:

  • By posting such a job vacancy, Pizza Hut is helping the economy by offering a new position that would in turn generate income for the chosen intern. This will help, in a way, reduce unemployment and enhance its image as a socially responsible chain.
  • While researching Google for more on this topic, I found that numerous sites have addressed this issue which means that Pizza Hut was able to attract the media’s attention and “get people talking” about its endeavor without even trying to boast about it: Free noise-free advertising. Good job!
  • Obviously, by recognizing the power of social media, Pizza Hut has set the bar for its competitors by letting them know that: “Yes, we know more and we will utilize what we know to gain more market share!” Accordingly, competitors will want to react by increasing their advertising efforts yet trying to be creative while doing that by innovative techniques rather than imitation.

Now, how about the disadvantages that Pizza Hut seem to have overlooked?

  • Is Twitter the best way to go? Well, I don’t think so just for the simple fact that there are tens of international restaurant chains available around the globe and if only 5 or 6 of them decide to utilize the same tool for their PR activities this would cause confusion and in turn antagonize the Twitter community!
  • How many of us want to hear more about this restaurant or the other? I mean seriously, how many of us care if Pizza Hut created a new topping or added a new special dish? And if we do care, do we want to be reminded of it often?
  • How many people are really loyal to Pizza Hut as a chain? And how many of them are affected by price vs. quality?
  • Let’s take the best case scenario: Let’s assume the Twitter intern achieved a great job by gathering a Pizza Hut “Lovers’” community, will this community alone end up in more sales for Pizza Hut? Or will it just be a way for the community to talk and share their usual Pizza Hut experiences?
  • Finally, how much information can we process per day? I am a Twitter user for 2 months now and I barely can follow up and grasp a few messages and links from the millions posted every day!

Social media is, by far, a very prominent tool for advertising and no one can deny that but does it always work for everything?

I would like to read your comments about this topic as it is a very controversial one and my opinion is just a cloud in a sky of different shaped clouds of possibilities!

Filed under: Web News — Tags: , , , , , — Beirut @ 5:58 pm

April 20, 2009

The (endless) Table of Social Website Platforms for Businesses!

How is Web 2.0 helping everyone stay connected in the business world? What are social website platforms, who are their main users and how do they promote business endeavors and initiatives? How can you find the best website to help you attain the reach and success you aim for?

Thoughtpick always thinks of you when researching a certain topic. Keeping your interest at the top of our mind’s list, we have prepared for you a seemingly “endless” table to help make your online research experience a tad smoother and more informative!

In a nutshell, there are many platforms out there to help a business build a social website. By a social website, we are referring to the ability of having a two-way conversation with your clients, and clients being able to talk to one another thus forming a community around your business.

This following carefully crafted table will discuss and cover the main issues related to social website platforms in terms of their target audience, effort needed to start using them, their interface, business value, limitations and further advices to help optimize your benefit from them. We also added a list of further reading and examples to help you better grasp what we are talking about throughout the table.

Enjoy :)

Here is the table – just click on it to view the full table in full screen:

We hope you feel full after this wholesome meal we have presented you with!

More endless tables coming your way soon :)

Filed under: Research-Based Topics — Tags: , , , , , , , — Beirut @ 12:47 pm

April 17, 2009

Did social media fail the Egyptians?

Earlier last week I attended a journalists’ panel discussion in Alexandria Library. The panel meant to discuss social media effect in mobilizing people. To be more specific, it focused on giving answers to the question of why social media failed to mobilize people in Egypt on the ‘Day of Anger’.

According to Arab Media Blog, ‘The Day of Anger’ in Egypt was called by the April 6th Movement, a group of young activists formed last year after workers protests culminated in clashes between security forces and workers in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla, killing three people, including a child, and injuring more than 150.

Egyptian activists focused on Facebook and SMS text messages to gain support for their protests. One of the Facebook groups ‘April 6 Youth’ – not affiliated with any particular political movement – boasts more than 75,000 online members with a motto “It’s our right, and we’ll take it”. Many news outlets reported their two main demands: “setting the national minimum monthly wage at 1,200 Egyptian pounds (213 dollars) and electing a body to draft a new constitution – The current minimum wage in Egypt is 167 Egyptian pounds (29 dollars) -”.

With all the hype of social media one would expect huge demonstrations. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much anger in Egypt on the ‘Day of Anger’. Why?

Egyptian journalists attending the discussion panel rationalized it for two main reasons:

  1. The heavy security measurements applied by the Egyptian government security forces. Dozens of people were arrested in the run-up of the planned day. “Police have been given the order to arrest anyone taking part in demonstrations. Extra security forces are deployed around sensitive sites in Cairo and around the country” said a security official.
  2. The virtual aspect of the movement which lacked any real organization or set of demands, couldn’t build the trust needed to create a coalition among desperate groups to demand real change.

Markmedia, a social media expert and one of the main speakers at the panel, corrected the notion of the failure of social media and highlighted a very important point: “Social media is a tool, it doesn’t mobilize people. People are the ones to mobilize each other”.

Throughout history few people have always managed to influence the masses. Think Jesus Christ, Carl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi – just to mention few. In today’s world, such influencers have even more powerful tools to pass on their messages and reach the masses.

Social Media broke the monopoly of mainstream media over reflecting people’s voices. Markmedia put it eloquently “Mainstream media used to say we are the voice of the people. Now people are saying: “F*** off we have our own voices”.

Social media wasn’t used effectively enough to help mobilizing people in Egypt. I looked for other examples over the web where social media failed to mobilize people but didn’t find any -please feel free to point out any other examples -. Although there are many cases where social media failed in business marketing: research firm Gartner claims that many social media campaigns are doomed to fail! Facebook Beacon is an example. There are many successful stories where social media was used successfully. I will leave that for another post.

Now, answer me: Should dictatorships fear the power of the Web today? Or can they manage to suppress the emergence of social media the way they have managed to do with other communication medium?

Filed under: Controversial Picks, Web News — Tags: , , — Fadi @ 11:55 am

April 15, 2009

Social Network Brainwashing! Be Vewy Vewy Caweful!

Are we gradually metamorphosing into brainwashed entities probing social networks to find a place where we can belong? Are we now the new breed of social networking junkies too blinded by our addiction that we are unable to see the intangible threads of silk wrapping us into the “web”? How and when did our lives start revolving around who did what, where and when and with whom? And how are we becoming more miserable, by the day, when we focus our lives around other people’s successes, relationships, status feeds and latest photo albums?

Allow me to point you towards the direction of the hidden truth that I’ve been unveiling through my latest research endeavor!

Do you remember the LooneyTunes character: Elmer Fudd? Well I certainly do! What reminds me of him most, apart from his inability to pronounce the letter “r”, is his obsession with Bugs Bunny! How he ran around all day, stalking him and getting into so much trouble just to catch him and yet he never did and his entire trauma was futile!

Come to think of it now, social networking could be exactly the same in certain aspects!

Whether we spend hours using our social network platform as an excuse to tail gossip stories about those we know or just as a path to find solutions to emotional or even physical insecurities, social networking seems to be crawling into our minds trying to steer us into believing that it might be the only hope left for many of us!

I believe otherwise: I think it is the cause rather than the cure! Here is why…

One of the “Great Ways to Make Yourself Absolutely Miserable” is through comparing everything you do to the lives and achievements of others and feeling bad about yourself for how happier, more successful and better looking they are than you. Social networking gladly offers you that option!

Within the same line of thought, allow me to ask you a couple of questions, and please feel free to share your answers or just ponder upon them: How easy is it now to stalk your ex boyfriend or girlfriend using Facebook for example? Wasn’t breaking up in “the good old days” more convenient? I mean seriously, a few calls here and there, a message every once in a while but that was mainly it! Now, with all the access you can have to every single detail of other people’s private lives, you are cursed with having the power to snoop around your ex’s profile, see his new pictures with the cute girl he’s been dating and you have all the excuses you need to make “getting over him” a mission impossible!

But that’s not just it!

I have recently finished reading a very disturbing article entitled: “Facebook can ruin your life. And so can MySpace and Bebo”. In this article you are able to see how, in addition to the usual daily miseries brought on by social networking, social networking can also cause you to lose your job, taint your reputation through imprisonment or even, in some extreme cases, sign your death sentence all in the name of “staying connected”!

To sum up my argument, I must admit that I believe that the social networking brainwashing cycle is endless and that there are numerous other discrete examples out there if we only look closer!

But I’ll leave you with something to think about: Is social network platform hypnotization the new clinical therapy or is it the new decade’s plague?

Filed under: Controversial Picks, Deductions and Realizations — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Beirut @ 11:13 am
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