Man Bites Blog

I’m in a bad mood, and trying to get stuff done with Google Docs, so I’m going “public” with my beefs about it.*

• Cannot initially save documents to a folder — I have to save it, then dig for it in “all documents,” then move it to a folder.
• When I want to import slides from another presentation, I am presented a list of every presentation I have saved in Google. These are in no apparent order; I cannot search the list, nor can I tell what folder they are in. And there is no in-line preview of the selected presentation. God help me if I have two with the same name.
• I cannot export multiple files at a time; I must do so one at a time.

That is all.

Mark Cuban writes about how Facebook and Twitter may compete with Google.

I’m not so sure. (Kidding!)

More seriously, for what Cuban describes, Twitter and Facebook take one technological step back from what Google does.  A Google PageRank represents the aggregation of thousands of individual user preferences.  Whereas a Twitter network represents the preferences of people I have actively chosen.    Twitter gets you closer to the raw data, and allows you, rather than Google, to determine its weight.

It seems to me people will innately trust the more human solution.  If I’m looking for a mechanic or a doctor, I’d ask my friends for reommendations before I’d see which one had the highest Google PageRank.  It also seems a more human network will be more responsive to new information.  If a previously trusted source does something to destroy that trust, my suspicion is that this information would be more quickly processed by my trusted human network than by the Google PageRank algorithm.

I think there’s a place for both models — I’m more a fan of discovering information than having it pushed to me, but I think people are always going to trust actual humans they know more than a ranking algorithm, regardless of how smart that algorithim is.  So Cuban may on to something.

Imagine of Google stopped using its PageRank algorithm, and instead simply always brought back all pages containing the search text in reverse chronological order of when they were updated.  What would be expect to see?

• Reduced satisfaction with search results
• People gaming the system to update their pages constantly so as always appear as a top result.
• Google losing its dominant position as a web site search engine.

This is essentially what Facebook has done with its recent redesign of a user’s front page.  It used to use a complicated algorithm to push information that user is interested in.  Now it simply presents all updates from a user’s network of friends, starting with the most recent.  It essentially looks like Twitter.

This reveals either a fundamental misunderstanding of how people use Facebook or represents a nudge toward how Facebook would like people to use it.

I “friend” people on Facebook differently than  follow people on Twitter.  My threshold for friending is that I would want to know if the person died.  It does not mean that I want to know how their new casserole recipe came out.  If I follow you on Twitter, then I enjoy reading what you have to say on a day-to-day basis.  If I get tired of it, I stop following you.   Twitter has also cultivated a bit of a Wild West culture, which is different from Facebook, which is a platform for some businesses.

The algorithm Facebook used to populate the front page was an essential adjustment to the limitation of Facebook only having one level of association.  Both my wife, and a kindergarten classmate I may not have seen since are “friends.”  With the new front page, a birth announcement from my sister is given the same prominence as an update of how my former professor’s hockey team is doing.

One of the beauties of Facebook is that it lowered the effect cost of staying in contact with people.  I don’t have to clear a spot in my address  book; I don’t have to keep track when you move; I just need to click “Yes,” and then I can contact you if I need to.  The new front page changes the equation.  Suddenly, I have to dig through your thoughts on last night’s NCAA games (oops, that was me) to get to see the first pictures of my cousin’s new baby.

I can see this having two effects:

1. Social stigmatization of frequent updates.
2. More defriendings.

Friendships and data (i.e. updates) are the lifeblood of Facebook.  It seems odd that they would take a step that could result in a net reduction of both.  What’s worse is that it could be dominated by the few people who don’t mind if your front page consists 80% of the status of their baby’s latest B.M..

Maybe there’s something I don’t know.  But it seems like Facebook is imitating the wrong entity.

Google has acknowledged Columbus Day, perhaps the most un-PC of holidays, with a special logo..

 One almost wonders if they are doing so ironically…

I have to say that, despite considering myself a bit of an environmentalist, Earth Day grates

• It seems to be an excuse for people to congratulate themselves for essentially meaningless gestures. Oh, you showered for seven minutes instead of 8? Great — now we’ll run out of oil thirty seconds later!
• Frontline took the opportunity to broadcast their documentary saying that climate change was the Bush Administration’s fault.
  The Bush Administration screwed up a number of things, but there is some irony that government-funded public television has several programs (NOW, Frontline, Bill Moyers) that are pretty much singularly dedicated to playing up problems and blaming them on the Administration. Then there’s NPR….
• Oh, and while Green is again Universal for today, next week Matt Lauer (along with his crew) starts circling the world for no particular reason other than to goose ratings.
• But do make sure to unplug your toaster when it’s not running, because that wastes energy…

• I’m curious how many people would have to unplug their toasters in order to cover the environmental footprint for producing that video.
• One more — as tired as I think the criticisms of Google for ignoring patriotic holidays like Memorial Day and Veterans Day are, seeing what a big deal they make out of Earth Day, their ignorance of what it took to create a nation where a company like Google could even exist is a bit jarring.

In short, Earth Day, seems like a day to celebrate ourselves, which seems to be the trend in holidays these days.  Halloween is a lot bigger these days, too, because it’s all about us expressing ourselves.   If a holiday doesn’t give us a chance to tell ourselves how great we are, it’s doomed.