The pulse of Alexander Interactive

On Wednesday, Facebook CEO and President Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the next step towards a more socially integrated web at Facebook’s f8 developer conference in San Francisco. Facebook’s latest release includes open APIs and a suite of plugins aimed at making third party web sites more personalized and social.

With very little coding effort, sites will now be able to import experiences and interactions once limited to within the confines of facebook.com. Examples of these distributable features include a web-wide “Like” button and contextual activity feeds. These feeds will show which of the user’s Facebook friends have viewed an article or product, and offer recommendations based on friend activities. Sites like Yelp, CNN, BuzzFeed and Pandora have already integrated the new Facebook functionality.

Facebook’s “Like” button integrated with an article page on Buzzfeed. Clicking the button automatically updates the user’s Facebook Wall and their friends’ activity feed.

The implications are astounding and limitless. And the importance to business owners is multifold: users will be more likely to treat sites as destinations if they can accomplish socially-oriented tasks without leaving the site. This will translate into longer visits; more exposure to content and products; and an overall richer experience for the user. Furthermore, from a business perspective, the new functionality is so easy to implement that it will save countless programming hours.

Ai immediately incorporated the “Like” button feature onto the product pages of one of their premier clients, Steiner Sports. Now, sports-fan Joe Smith in New York can browse steinersports.com and click “Like” on everything that catches his eye-from a Derek Jeter Autographed Baseball to a World Series Autographed Locker Room Hat-and his cousin in Talkeetna, Alaska will get a real-time idea of what Joe might like for his birthday in two weeks.

Facebook’s latest effort to deepen the social experience on the web represents a significant step forward in creating a tighter internet, where users will be presented with recommendations from friends they know and trust on any site they visit. For customers and businesses alike, the new Facebook feature is an instant wishlist, registry, recommendation tool, and will become a powerful indicator of social and marketing trends.

The digital profiles that represent our personal and professional lives are becoming increasingly intermingled. My Facebook account isn’t just made up of my friends, but a motley mash-up of friends, family, colleagues, clients, others, and some dude who said he went to my high school but I swear I can’t remember him. On Twitter, I follow co-workers, clever people, some people I sold concert tickets to, and the family members that signed up for Twitter accounts whose both posts (first and last) were “This is my first twitter post.” On LinkedIn, I accept any request, unless it’s from an aggressive recruiter.
The (inter)net effect of my mixed up profiles is that I must always consider this varied audience when posting an update. Do I want everyone knowing that I had a nice time at the zoo this weekend with my kids? (maybe) Do I want clients knowing that I was out late the night before a big meeting? (probably not) Do friends care that we just won awards for some website? (most definitely) Does anyone care that my Entourage crashed and the rebuild progress on its database? (no, but they don’t ask me to stop tweeting about it)
So it shouldn’t be surprising that I was thrown two curve balls during recent new business engagements. During the first, we had reached the end of an exciting, and very competitive RFP process. I learned it was down to 2 firms. I was invited out to coffee to make our case, one-on-one. I did my best, explained our passion for the project, shared our ideas, and spoke to our other relevant success. I thought the meeting went well. On my way home that evening I see a LinkedIn request from the gentleman I had coffee with just an hour earlier. “I’d like to invite you to Join my LinkedIn Network!”
What did this mean? Was he saying that we had won the business and this was a cute way to notify me? Was he saying that he needed to complete more due diligence on me, check out my network, see who I know, and try to glean more information about me and our firm? Or was he simply asking me to join his network, even though we weren’t really networked yet?
I couldn’t very well ignore the request; I had to accept it and see how things developed. Spoiler: we won the business, it’s an incredible project, and our client is a fabulous company to work with.
More recently, we were involved in another very competitive RFP engagement. We traveled to our client for the big pitch, presented, said our goodbyes, and were on the way back to the office. Suddenly an email comes in: “PersonX would like to make you a friend on Facebook.” PersonX? Who was that again? Does anyone remember who was PersonX? Why are they friending me? To see if I really *get* social media and will promptly accept the friend request? To see if I had properly maintained a filter between my personal and professional life in my digital profile? To maybe find some forgotten nugget on me that I had posted years ago?
I agonized a bit over this one, but again came to the only logical conclusion: I had to accept the friend request. Spoiler: again we won the business, and have partnered with this truly awe-inspiring institution.
In both cases, but perhaps more importantly with Facebook, I felt completely comfortable accepting the requests because I have taken great care to preserve my digital image. Sure, Google can find a few oddball posts from Usenet and some funny discussion forums, but all in all, I’m squeaky clean. Some friends and colleagues maintain two profiles: work and fun. That seems like way too much effort and is far too dangerous. Just imagine the “did I just say that out loud?” moment when you post your opinions on the latest scandal to befall your favorite Yankees player to your Twitter feed usually reserved for ecommerce and UX tips.
In the two cases above the outcome was positive. But that’s not always going to be the case. I have a friend that consistently uses Twitter to complain about his frequent air travel, usually to one particularly annoying destination to see a client. He doesn’t seem worried one bit that the client will start following him on Twitter and will be somewhat put off to read, “oh joy, traveling again to the armpit of the U.S. via XYZ airport.” Another colleague complains about meetings and co-workers, right on Twitter, for the whole world to see. He masks names, but everyone who knows him knows exactly who he’s talking about. And yes, we’ve welcomed an employee or two ambling late into work one morning after posting 3am FB updates from the bar the night before.
I only see the personal/professional divide becoming more blurred. So, Caveat Twitterer: once you hit send, it’s out there for the entire world to read. And if someone–a friend, significant other, a prospective client–wants to dig up a little dirt, it’s just a search away.

OK, so I fully understand the copyright implications behind the bald-faced ripoff that is Scrabulous, and owner Hasbro’s insistence that its violators cease and desist, which led to the Scrabulous Facebook app going offline. What I don’t understand is the way Hasbro is going about its business.

Why, if Scrabulous is so popular, has it been unable to forge an agreement with its creators that leverages the traffic?

Why did a lawsuit get Facebook to shut down the app, while the standalone Scrabulous site continues to chug along unabated?

Why, after many months of legal wrangling, did Hasbro choose yesterday to get tough with Facebook directly?

Why wouldn’t Hasbro get its own Facebook Scrabble app out of beta, and check its scalability, before the Scrabulous C&D overwhelmed the Scrabble beta, knocking half a million Scrabble players offline?

In other words, why is Hasbro alienating its users?

Scrabble has a fanatically devoted consumer base. People play competitively, casually, asynchronously–however they can play, they will. Alex used to play via text renderer before the graphic apps launched; I play EA’s stupid Scrabble iPhone app that doesn’t have a good competitive setting, even though I lose by 150 points every game. A friend of mine taps (tapped) into Scrabulous continually throughout the work day.

Point being, people love their Scrabble. They played Scrabulous simply because it was the best option on the market. With their platform knocked offline without a viable alternative, 500,000 devoted Scrabble fans are flat-out livid, and their devotion is being tested. The same people that love their game have pushed the official Facebook app to a 1.3/5 rating, and the discussion board is full of anger.

Hasbro could have been a hero: test its app’s scalability, make streamlined play, and invite Scrabble fans to play on the authentic platform when it was ready for broad release. Only then should they have shut down Scrabulous, forcing people to make a comfortable transition. Instead, their users have lost faith. It will be interesting to see how long their disillusionment lasts.

Update: Apparently the official Scrabble app was hacked yesterday. Which is appropriate. Also in this article: “Analysts say the blow-back from Scrabulous fans, although painful now, will probably be temporary.” Which is probably true, and somehow disappointing.