Olivier Coudert's Blog » social network

France’s double standards on privacy

Olivier Coudert — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:18:24 +0000

On March 1, the French government regulated that Internet companies must keep their users’ data for a year, and make them available to the authorities when subpoenaed. These data include anything used to identify a user and allow her to use a web service, i.e., ID, password, name, email addresses, as well as postal address and phone number when available.

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Why Facebook wants you to believe that “email is dead”

LinkedIn’s “People You May Know” gets bolder

Olivier Coudert — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 18:48:05 +0000

After Google +1, seen as a response to Facebook’s “like” button, LinkedIn’s recommendation system received a major upgrade that was unveiled this morning. Check this out!

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Is Google +1 button the answer to Facebook’s like?

Olivier Coudert — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:35:36 +0000

This morning Google introduced the so-called +1 button. It is Google’s attempt to create its own social annotation so that it can improve on search, recommendation, and targeted advertising.

For now, the +1 button is put right next to each search result. When you click the button, you tell that you like this specific result –and this is registered into your Google profile. This can be used to improve search relevance. Also if you do a search while logged in your Google account, the recommendations can be crossed checked so that your connections’ clicks are shown and can be taken into account for search ranking.

At first glance the principle seems sound, but under scrutiny, that may become yet another failed attempt for Google to get social.

The most obvious flaw is that you don’t know whether a search result is relevant until you actually click on the link and look at the result page. Assuming the result page is relevant, would you go back to the search page to push the +1 button? Obviously no.

So this means that to be clicked, the +1 button will eventually have to move to the result page itself. People will put a +1 button on their page, hoping that users will click it if they like the page. But then, what’s the difference between a +1 button on a page and a Facebook “like”, or a Tweet button, or a Buzz button for that matter?

It makes a difference for Google: it owns the +1 button, and it can derive plenty of information with the click logs without relying on Facebook or Twitter data. But I fail to see the benefit it brings to the user. A Facebook account captures the circle of people that a user already shares her status and photos with. Tweeting a link to a page is already a public recommendation. So why using a different circle –your Gmail or Buzz buddies instead of your Facebook friends or Twitter followers—for yet another sharing pool?

It looks to me that Google is frantically trying to make social search less dependent on Facebook and Twitter. Which mean, to make it more dependent on Google. I don’t think people will buy it.

The Twitter Cycle

Olivier Coudert — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:40:41 +0000

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So Long Google Wave

Olivier Coudert — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:09:54 +0000

Yesterday Google pulled the plug on Google Wave, announcing that it will no longer continue developing Wave as a standalone product, and that it will just maintain the service until the end of the year.

This is a somewhat humiliating for Google. Launched in May 2009 to much hoopla, Google Wave was supposed to revolutionize communication, mixing text and multi-media in multiple real-time conversation threads. It’s hard to remember now but at the time it was seen as the next best thing, as the second coming of the web. Business week suggested that it could replace email (and FaceBook) altogether, and Tech Crunch touted Wave’s ambition to shape a new web.

Like many, I tried Google Wave at the time, and I came to the same conclusion that most of us guinea pigs: too noisy, continuously disrupting collaborative work, too many gizmos with no real clear advantage compared to old-fashioned communication technologies (read: email, IM, twitter, SMS, etc). Collaboration requires efficient communication, not a hose drowning the user with information. And that is likely why Wave was to fail from the beginning.

What’s next to be phased out, Google Buzz?

Is Google +1 button the answer to Facebook’s like?

Twitter Maps America’s Mood in Real Time

Olivier Coudert — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 22:31:10 +0000

What’s the mood in the US? To answer the question, researchers from Northeastern University and Harvard College fed about 300 million tweets to a system based on ANEW [...]

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Why Facebook wants you to believe that “email is dead”

Olivier Coudert — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 06:24:33 +0000

Apparently email is dead. That is what Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg claimed at the Nielsen Consumer 360 conference last week and what we wrote a brief report about earlier this week. Continue reading Why Facebook wants you to believe that “email is dead” Related posts: So will Buzz and Facebook finally bury Twitter? Is Google [...] [...]

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So will Buzz and Facebook finally bury Twitter?

Olivier Coudert — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:42:51 +0000

Buzz was introduced by Google with much clamor. Since then, we have seen a lot of debate around it: Google stepping into the social media arena cannot go unnoticed. Many quickly saw Buzz as a Twitter killer [...] Continue reading So will Buzz and Facebook finally bury Twitter? Related posts: Is Google +1 button the [...] [...]

Continue reading So will Buzz and Facebook finally bury Twitter?

Twitter and snowflakes

Olivier Coudert — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:50:48 +0000

5NX9DCF979QD According to the official weather service, the UK has just suffered through its longest spell of freezing conditions since December 1981.

The recent winter storms across the whole of the UK wreaked havoc with public transport and generally disrupted the lives of millions of UK residents. Soon hundreds of thousands of UK residents turned to a Twitter-based application, the UK Snow Map. Created by freelance web developer Ben Marsh and powered by 34SP.com, the application lets Twitter users report where snow is falling and by which amount. It displays the reports in real-time on a map of the UK. It works regardless of the cloud cover, unlike weather satellites.

The system is deceptively simple: anyone with a Twitter account can report on her local snow conditions with the hashtag #uksnow. She rates the snowfall from 0 (no snow) to 10 (blizzard), and specifies her location using the name of the town or the ZIP code –no geo-tag support yet. Those tweets are then analyzed and placed on a map of the UK, giving a real-time visual picture of the local snow conditions as reported by actual residents on the ground.

The UK Snow Map has been active since February 2009, and has seen a huge increased in use, mirroring the Twitter popularity in the UK, as well as this year’s harsh winter. At the height of the snowfall last week, the map received 50,000 visits in one day –as many as the total number of visits it received last year. During the recent wintry weather, the application processed over 100,000 unique snow reports from all over the UK, with rates of over 100 tweets per minute at peak times.

Next step, using geo-location and more hashtags for real-time maps of fog and rain? Or to-the-minute traffic info? What kind of application would you build on top of it?

Is Twitter Flattening? A Short Answer

Olivier Coudert — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:19:31 +0000

Compete and Quantcast have now released their latest data about the traffic on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter for December. According to Compete’s report, twitter.com’s US traffic reached 22.81 million unique visitors [...]

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