Jotting notes.

Some Scattered Thoughts on Facebook's New Re-Design

Yesterday was the first day that Facebook rolled out of beta their new re-design. I’ve been able to play with the site for the past two days. My buddy, Bigi, first solicited me for some thoughts about the re-design when it was in beta on only viewable to users if they manually enter in the URL.  My feedback: I emphasized that it was too confusing and they are going to make it a lot harder on new users to understand all the functionality. Granted this was when they only had a few layouts available and functional.

Although I still think the learning curve is a lot higher now for new users, my thoughts on the layout, now that it’s out of beta, have changed a bit. Facebook have organized the content a lot better with this re-design. My complaint? Only one - The Wall. At least for this public release, the quick link Wall-to-Wall functionality has disappeared between the home user and his/her friend. It makes it a lot more difficult to see my wall conversation with said friend.

The re-design is great for Facebook and I believe the re-design will:

1) Allow for Facebook to scale easier as they role out more neat features; 

I see a start of an iGoogle-type in the profile page. I see Twitter-type functionality there, too. Right below that, I see FriendFeed comment-enabled functionality. Couple tabs over, I see a Flickr-type functionality… This is nothing new from what they had previously. But, they made a great effort to put it in front of the user’s face. And I think it will be effective in getting users to creative more content with their aggressive placement of those functionalities.

2) Allow for a lot more ad space/opportunity to work with with the wider layout;

The extra 200 or so pixels means extra ad space! The original design didn’t account much for monetization and that was okay. They needed to prove the concept and win over users. Now, with $496M of investors’ money, the design makes a whole lot of sense. Typical rectangle and square banner ads can be added now.

3) Affect third party applications — viralness will be a lot tougher.

This layout move will probably affect third party developers the most. They lose the visibility on the profile page to promote their application(s). They get buried in the “Boxes” page. Most likely, third party developers will have to rely solely on newsfeed activity for any promotion of their application. This won’t be so bad with the already established players like Slide, RockYou, Zynga, SGN, etc. because since they already have their applications out to the masses, they own the 600 px. canvas page in which they can build their own viral-abled promotion of their own applications within one application. But, for the new players… good luck.

The biggest possible impact, though, is that with the expanded layout, Facebook now can take advantage of all the traction the developers have built up the past year. From what I recall, the rules state that developers own the 600 px. wide canvas, but Facebook owns the space outside of the 600 px. width. Well, Facebook just increased their ad space by 50% and move themselves to a more effective location on the layout — the right side. Great job, Facebook. Let’s see what else they have in store for us — Facebook Day! Developer Conference is tomorrow. :)

The Ultimate (Face)Phonebook

Back in September 2007, I found out about an event that was happening in Sunnyvale a month away (October 2007). The event, CommunityNext: Platform, centered around the Facebook platform and it sounded promising. It was a two day long event — the first day being dubbed Developer Day where some top Facebook application developers dicuss their experiences and technical problems they ran into in building their application and the second day being everything business related.

The real opportunity besides meeting the folks there was a 24 Hr. Facebook Iron Coder Contest. I had to do a little begging, but I was able to convince Bigi and Wilson to come along. :) (And luckily for us, my friend Tom, who lived in Mountain View at the time, was nice enough to welcome us — we got the living room floor to ourselves!) We were excited for the competition — we felt it was going to be a great opportunity to show what some guys from Davis can do. The day before the event, I started pondering up a handful of ideas and bouncing them with Bigi.

Little did we know, when we got to the event, Noah decided to give us more “rules” regarding the contest, “Build something where it involves education and the world.” I was bummed! Our idea that we came in with didn’t fit those categories so we had to draw up a new plan. We eventually made an application that translates your English comments to a myriad of other languages, good enough for the “Most Useful Application” award and a Mac Mini prize.

We never really had too much time to work on the original idea though, which was making contact book Facebook application. I thought it was such a no brainer idea. I remember many of my friends would create “Events” whenever they lose their cell phones or change their numbers. I felt it was not efficient and definitely a pain in the butt. My idea was simple and would solve that issue:

1. User adds the application and input only their contact information.
2. We (Pure) would already pull all the contact information that Facebook allows (Which meant we couldn’t touch users phone numbers and e-mail addresses because of TOS, though.)
3. User then send invitations to their friends to add the application
4. Friends input their contact information and send to their network of friends.
5. As user friends add the app and inserts their information, user Contact Book builds.

User would only be able to see their friends’ contact information. When user lose their phone or get a new number, user only needs to update their information on the application. Because the information is in the cloud, all their friends would have the information as well. Simple. Efficient. No Hassle. Useful. But, one problem. We’re a “third party” developer so users would be hesitant to give out their information. Since the application is only useful when the majority of the user’s friends use the application, we were going to fight a losing battle.

Every now and then I think about what this application could have been if we were able to have the resources and time to focus on developing this product. If the application were to take off, most importantly it would solve a great problem that all of us (that do not have a paid Plaxo account) have. But, in reality, I knew the cost/benefit would be far better for Facebook to implement the concept themselves. They hold to the key to trust when it comes to my friends/network and me vs. strangers. But, would Facebook solve this problem for us?

I’m delighted to say, they have! It’s a bummer that we couldn’t build on this idea much, but the important thing is Facebook just gave their users a big reason to keep their mobile application. I know this will be useful down the line.

Web Product Management

At Pure, I was responsible for running all the duties outside of coding. I started with the basic foundation and fundamental pieces and expanded my responsbilities — administrative, structure, communication, quantifiable tasks and goals, business development, social media speak, etc. These were the basics I expected to spearhead starting Pure.

What I found most enjoyable though, was having the opportunity to work with the engineers on projects, and on some, serve as a product management/development lead. The challenges were plenty — understanding clients’ goals, interpreting the visions into functional requirements, developing the documentation for the work, drafting rough layouts, working with the engineer(s) to execute the functional requirements — all within a budget. And for the record, no, I have do not have any formal programming background.

But, lacking the programming background didn’t prevent me from doing my job. I successfully executed many client projects without needing to code. I was still instrumental through the production process. I was able to identify the functional requirements, in some cases hire designers to execute on the deliverables, and focus on strategy with the client. All while letting the engineers do what they do best — technical implementation and deliver great code.

In my role, I was able to learn a great deal about the social media and especially the Facebook ecosystem. Every project presented a different challenge and that made it exciting. And within a project, I started to enjoy growing my product management knowledge.

A great piece that I found recently on (Web) Product Management was a PPT by Dan Olson given at the Web 2.0 Expo in SF in April of this year. This is an excellent framework to go by when strategizing for web applications. Enjoy!

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My search and some reflections on Pure, Inc.

I’m in the process of finding my next job opportunity. I’ve been updating and revising my resume. As I quantify and bullet point the tasks I accomplished over the past couple years, I’m proud of my development and the quality of superstars we were able to develop within Pure, Inc. I rarely talk about the team or the company, but I’m reminded every so often how much the experience within a the small company has helped with each of our development and I can’t help myself from sharing. Here’s a little excerpt from an intern I hired:

When they asked me about my web experience, all my stories and experiences came from you guys. They had also taken a look at some of the work I did there w/ you guys as sample work. Funny enough a lot of the questions revolved around “So you’re a graphic major, then how’s your programming? Do you work well w/ other programmers? What’s your approach to web UI?” Ultimately my experience w/ you all at Pure really taught me a lot and gave me my first introduction to what web development/graphics work was like. It made their questions easy to answer.

So uber kudos to you all, and thanks again. I hope you’re all doing well, and tell the rest of the guys I said “hi” and a “huge thank you”.

I’ve been having a hard time putting into words my own experience in Pure. Not all has been exactly like roses. I’m sure if I had the chance to go back in time to change some of my decisions I’ve made, I’ll take that in a heartbeat. I’ve been pretty hard on myself ever since we made the tough decision to change our course of direction. Letting go is not easy and we obviously wanted more success; we’re no different than another other young professional. But, after weighing out all the factors, deciding to let all of us loose was the best decision — financially and to further our development. There are many professional skills I’ve developed through Pure. It’s true for me to say that it has been a beneficial yet humbling experience.

Two months have past and I’m finally more at ease with myself. Those that have been a part of Pure has nothing, but gratitude for the opportunity. Many of the folks has gone on and landed great jobs at other companies (startups) and they’ve expressed much of it is owed to their time at Pure. I’m allowing myself to believe that now. I’m marching on with my job hunt with my head held high. Pure was a great experience that allowed me to hone my business knowledge, work with a technical team, and learn the web/social media industry. Maybe there may be another time in my life where this type of opportunity exists again. For now though, I’m content moving forward working with and learning from others that will share equal or more responsibilities. :)

Thoughts at 4AM

Here are some quick updates:

Johnny was gracious enough to host a bomb 4th of July BBQ get-together at Carmichael Park in Sunnyvale. There were tons of food, friends, and activity throughout the day. I tossed the football around, made an assortment of kabobs, and learned the game of Chuck-o bean bag toss game. The only downer was that I severely strained my ankle making a cut playing football. But, even that didn’t prevent me from having a great time there!

Panera Bread has some awesome sandwiches. And free wi-fi. If you haven’t given it a try, you should.

RedBox movie machine rentals found near the exits at most national supermarkets is a brilliant idea. Imagine the overhead it saves vs. Blockbuster. Any movie, $1 a night. Long RedBox Automated Retail, LLC. Here’s a heads up: The company announced that it intends to file for IPO in 2Q of 2008.

Internet (web 2.0) startups that put in the requirements for their job positions to have 8-10 years of web programming experience is bogus. Really? Most developers now are just barely in their mid to late twenties!

It’s everyone’s responsibility to be eco-friendly! Recycle, Reuse, and take care of our environment.

Do you Yelp? I do!

Finally, the stock market blows. Everyone needs to sit tight, be in cash, and watch for a bottom…

Couple Helpful Links (plugs for my friends)

Most of my posts have been basketball related — it’s not surprising. I’ve been a die-hard Laker fan for the better part of my life (going on 20 years of dedicated purple and gold) and now it’s the biggest stage of the NBA: The Finals.

I wanted to give a couple shout outs to a few of my friends’ websites:

My friend Rob works at a startup that just launched RepairPal, a site dedicated to provide drivers with the most accurate, unbiased, and useful car ownership information available. It just got profiled on TechCrunch and I think it has great promise! It will help you keep a better record of your car’s health and keeps you in the know so you don’t get ripped off by shady repair shops. Check it out!

My friend Selina just started a cooking blog, Let’s Chow! She plans to focus on simple, delicious recipes. She’ll probably write more than a fair share of Chinese recipes, but I’m sure it’ll have a variety. I’m looking forward to it and I already put in a request for her to share one of her Korean dishes.

Lastly, in Twitter network, I have a buddy that just started a useful StockTweet intiative. Basically, if you’re on Twitter and are interested in stocks, follow the user StockTweet. If you tweet any stock related tweets, prefix it with a ‘$’ (i.e. “I just sold $AAPL. The iPhone price drop is big.”) It will get automatically indexed by StockTweet. You can view everyone’s stock tweets at their tumblr page.