Where’s The Full Feature Facebook App?
I’ve been keeping up with the news on the amount of downloads Facebook’s app for the iPhone has received. Being an iPhone user and early adopter of Facebook since I’m a college student, it satisfied a certain amount of curiosity I have with Facebook these days. Recently, they’ve reached over 1 million downloads, which is no small feat. While I personally prefer to play Tap Tap Revenge on my iPhone these days, the number of downloads meant nothing to me for one main reason….
The Facebook Website Is Better
I feel cheated by Facebook in so many ways. How do you release a Facebook app with no ability to write on a friend’s wall, the very center of every Facebook profile? While they’ve added this feature since the release, there’s still a ton missing. The Facebook app is not a full featured client for the iPhone. You’re better off adding the website to your homescreen. There are numerous features missing such as editing your profile, reading notifications from pages you’re a fan of, accepting friend request and adding friends. I don’t even know who’s birthday is coming up unless I head to the website. Facebook is very important for remembering birthdays. It’s very limited in its functionality and really only provides you with the the bare basics. You can’t even hold your finger over a friend’s picture to save to your phone (you can’t do this on the website either).
Facebook App
Facebook Website: Friend Request
Calling All Developers
All in all, I think it’s a pathetic attempt by Facebook just to ensure no one took their spot. However, to all developers I say there’s still time and room. I will surely switch for a full featured Facebook client. Right now, I only use the app because I have two Facebook accounts. I use the app for the profile I don’t need to interact with very much as you can’t add more than one profile to the Facebook app to simply switch between one or more accounts. Sigh.
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Looking At Twitter’s Latest Bump Differently
Today, I hopped online to news that people were noticed that their number of Twitter followers/followings were completely out of sync. Louis Gray is reporting a significant loss along with a ton of other people, myself included. However, let’s really examine this situation because people are up in arms about losing a patch of followers. Here’s why you should stop complaining about it:
1. Twitter Is Up And Running
Look at the bright side, at least Twitter is up and running. This was the biggest problem with Twitter for the past several months among others. Now Twitter is doing a much better job with their uptime and scheduling outages rather than having them randomly pop up. I’m back in action on Twitter myself and everything is almost the way it should be.
2. You Can Get Your Community Back
Personally, Twitter just did me a huge favor and did some spring cleaning for me. When the number of people you follow starts to exceed 300 you have a hard time keeping up with who’s no longer relevant to your conversations. So thank you Twitter. However, it’s not the end of the world people. You can get those followers back. While it’s annoying, it’s not the worst and I’d much prefer this than Twitter’s constant downtime any day. If those people want to follow you, they’ll find you again and if you want to follow them, you’ll find them again. Stop whining.
3. A Golden Opportunity
Now that your counts are all out of sync, this is the perfect time to explore Twitter for more friends. You people have to stop thinking so negatively. You’ll get your followers back. For now, take advantage of this moment to find new followers to add to your Twitter community. You’ll be better off doing this than simply waiting around for people to find you again.
Not A Big Deal
In the end, this really isn’t that big of a deal to me. Maybe because my most important followers are still on my list. While it’s annoying and could cause some concerns in the future, it’s a total opportunity at this point.
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It’s Not Tech Blogging That’s Boring
The latest meme conversation floating around is about tech blogging being boring or failing. Suprisingly, Scoble didn’t link to Hodson’s article which seems as if it may or may not have sparked his post. Moving along…
I don’t feel tech blogging is boring nor is it failing me. If I did, I would clear out my RSS feeds. While the echo chamber can pose a serious problem sometimes, it doesn’t account for tech blogging as a whole. Techmeme doesn’t account for tech blogging as a whole. As much as I love working at ReadWriteWeb, we nor any other major blogging network accounts for tech blogging as a whole. We’re individual slices of the pie. If you feel like you’re being bored or it’s failing you then move along to something else.
Taking Care Of Business
Business tech talk can be fun. With Guidewire Group, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with a ton of great CEO’s and alumnus of the DEMO conferences. They’ve shown me interesting products such as ReQall and Silobreaker. They’ve given me great advice and I now have a different perspective on the business side of tech. It’s not a failure when bloggers blog about the business side of tech.
I also don’t think that tech blogging is controlled by PR. While PR definitely has their hands in the cookie jar, I think we’re controlled by our audiences and we do our best to give them business news that could change the services they use or the way they use a particular service. We inform them of things that they may not take the time to read about elsewhere. We let them know what’s going on with the companies that create and build the products that they use. To be honest, I feel like we do the dirty work and simplify all that jargon that would confuse the average user. Plain and simple, we give them what they may want or need, but don’t otherwise know how to get. I’d say we’re pretty successful at it too. It’s a necessary balance in my opinion even if it is drawn out sometimes.
A Plateau Perhaps?
Every once in a while, one hits a plateau. Things come to a standstill. At this point, there’s nothing wrong with tech blogging and I think we may have just hit a plateau. Also, there just aren’t any new services coming out that stand apart from other services that are currently available. Sidenote: That’s not an invitation to flood my inbox with pitches. We blog about what we do, what we see, and how we experience things. However, we can’t do that without something new to do, see, and experience. No one wants to keep blogging about the same services. Unfortunately, if that’s all there is, then that’s all you can do until something else comes along.
I don’t think this means blogging is boring or failing. We’re waiting for something better. In the mean time, we make due with what we have. What’s so wrong with that?
Other Related Links On The Web:
Scoble: Why Tech Blogging Has Failed
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Wordpress On The iPhone Needs Improvement
Just wanted to provide you with an update that the WordPress app for the iPhone is now available in the iTunes app store.
I’m typing up this post using the app now. My biggest complaint thus far is that I can’t type up a post in landscape mode. If you have an iPhone you’re aware that it’s much easier to type on the virtual keyboard in landscape mode. You can’t switch to this mode with the wordpress app.
Another qualm that I have with the app is that images are attached at the bottom of the post. So you cannot write around images and formatting just isn’t an option unless you feel like manually inserting code. You also have to manually type in links which you won’t ever see me do. Copy and paste on the iphone would’ve been very handy for this.
All in all, I would only use this for breaking news. You can add images from your library or take a snapshot right from your camera. As a tip, if you’d like to grab a screenshot from the web or from an app simply hold the home button and press the power button at the same time and an image of whatever is on your screen will be automagically saved. You can also hold your finger on an image from a website to save it to your iPhone.
This app still needs work such as a possible plugin to grab a link or a separate browser like Twitterrific to browse to the page you’d like to link to and insert the link. Still, it’s nice to have this as an option for quick on-the-go posting.
The image below is of Dan Kaplan from VentureBeat pwning my Crepe :)
Apparently, fellow Grand Effect blogger Martin from GHacks shares my sentiments for the WordPress iPhone app: “Wordpress For iPhone Is Not A Killer App”
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Twitter’s New Redesign
I just logged into Twitter and after sending a direct message from the Twitter homepage my screen showed this:
At first I thought Firefox was going haywire on me. However, this is not the case. It seems Twitter is testing a new theme design and one that I’m not quite sure how I feel about.
What’s New
- Tabs are now to the right of the screen
- You can see the number of direct messages you have (not sure if that was there before)
- Time stamps and “from” stamp are in italics
- Latest tweet has been pushed under the "message box
- Reply and Favorite shortcuts now appear as you hover over a message
- If someone sent a message via text, the txt link takes you to the Official Twitter Commands page
- The previous update also does the same for Twhirl, Twitterrific, and Twittelator. Meaning it takes you to their respective homepages
- The search box was also moved (Thanks Orli!)
Not a huge or even drastic change, but a surprising one nonetheless. What do you think of the rearrangement?
UPDATE
It seems they’ve reverted back. To quote Chrissie Brodigan:
chrissieb ROFL - opps, apparently someone pushed the wrong button. FAIL! half a minute ago from web.
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