Why I’m deeply unimpressed with the new Facebook
Posted by TJ in Technology on October 4th, 2011
Since I’ve been in social media for about 5 years I’m qualified as an EXPERT to tell all of you how you should feel about Facebook. That’s right. Listen to my knowledge!
Ok I’m no expert and I usually stay out of the fray about Facebook whenever they release new changes. This card from my favorite site of all time sums up my opinion pretty well:
Up until recently, the vast majority of the changes made by Facebook made sense to me. Granted, some of the privacy stuff was wonky and convoluted but I understood the general direction of where they were headed. The goal was to make connecting and sharing with your network much easier.
This is the key to where they’re falling down this time: your network. I now see that the moves of the past were towards a broader goal that’s now clear as day to me. Facebook is no longer interested in being a social network where you connect with your friends and family. Facebook wants to be a portal. That sounds very 90s of me, i know, but I can’t find a better word to describe what these changes mean. I now look at my feed and I see a random entry as the “Top headline”. It can stay there for 2 hours or 2 minutes and it just depends but rarely do I give 2 craps about seeing it. On the right I see EVERYTHING that my friends are doing, regardless of whether I know the people their interacting with. And the addition of Timeline, and the cracking open of that API, we’re going to start seeing all of the things I’m doing, saying, and reading elsewhere on the web fed into my facebook profile. They’re wanting to make Facebook THE place to go for all information. News. Deals. Pictures. Comments. Whatever it is, they want you on Facebook to find it. So this is why I call it a portal. Or maybe there’s a better name for it: Google killer. And I’m not talking about Google+. I’m talking about THE Google.
Anyways, while a lot of these changes are pretty nifty on the face of things, it takes away from what I think the core objective of a social network should be: to connect with my friends. My family. My coworkers. But the connecting with the rest of the world? Not interested.
I like these guys
4/5th of the We&Co team for a Scoutmob article coming out next week.
From left: Michael Dorio, Jared Malan, My Awesomeness, and Eric Toledo. Missing is our man in Germany, Ryan Jones. What an awesome crew to work with.
Herb found the motherlode
Herb loves tennis balls. Even though he’s only 13 pounds, enjoys giving me a bunch of unwarranted attitude, and pees in my shoes, he’s actually a pretty fun little dog. Now don’t me wrong. He definitely has all the markings of a lap dog: barking at any noise from the outside world that could be construed as an attack (or a deliveryman bringing him food), a desire to sleep as close to my face as humanly possible, and a love of women (which is sort of rad by the way). But yeah, Herb likes to have a good time. And our primary way of having a good time: fetch.
I have tennis balls strewn around my place so Herb and I can have an impromptu game of fetch a moment’s notice. That kid loves him some fetch and is obsessed with tennis balls constantly prowling the grounds of where we live looking for an unsuspecting ball to pounce on. (As I was writing this I was thinking about the 4 or 5 different types of fetch we play and I had actually started to list them out here before I realized it made me sound like a crazy cat person. So yeah, suffice to say that one of the games is called “herb, get marv to play fetch with you”. Its never worked.)
This past saturday I’d just come home from a tennis match — that’s right people, I’m currently on a tear through the men’s doubles league of North Fulton County. I’ll be bringing my brand of tennis badassery to your neighborhood soon.
But I digress…
I was lounging on my couch, recuperating from another solid victory when Herb started crying. He was out of eyesight so I just told him the usual “Herb, shut the hell up”. He kept crying so I tried my other tried and true directive: “Marv, go play with your brother”. The crying continued. I finally got up and saw what he was doing. He was feverishly pawing at my tennis bag. He looked up at me for just a split second before he started working on the bag again. I said “Herb, there’s no food in there. And no there are no pretty girls in there”. I said that in a manly voice of course. He was undeterred. So I stepped closer and finally found what he was going berserk over:
Herb had found the motherlode. Yep, he looked into that bag, his eyes lit up, and he thought “this is the top of the mountain. and it is good”. Or something like that.
Bringin’ the nerd to Lazyego.com (and an Amazon fix)
At one point I had this lofty dream of maintaining two blogs: lazyego to keep track of my inane stories and muehleman.com to keep track of the nerdy crap I do on a regular basis. However, as its become painfully evident that the sudden influx of a million social networks into my daily life has neutered my ability to keep up with one blog let alone two, I’ve decided to start posting nerdy stuff here. That’s right Mom, Dad, and some random observer in France. You will now be subjected to my troubleshooting skills on this awesome blog. Muehleman.com is now a fairly basic website with cool amazing facts about me. One day I’ll turn it into a full blown CV.
Without further ado, a problem that’s been vexing me for a few days:
Here at We&Co we’ve decided to cloudify our entire operation. Its 2011 and it just makes sense. Also I’m cheap and lazy so the cloud plays nicely into that. But whatever. I’m going through the motions of setting up our webservers on EC2 and its been fun but a massive pain in my ass. First and foremost, its been a loooong time since I set anything up on a linux machine. Second, these instances come online with out much of anything pre-installed. So I’m having to hack my way through getting even the most basic things configured. I’ve made great progress as most of the documentation is pretty straightforward. However, what should have been my easiest task, getting my EC2 instance to talk to my RDS (database) instance proved to be the most vexing.
By default, all Amazon instances are locked down military style. So you have to open a port to allow MySQL access from outside of Amazon. No big whoop. Piece of cake. However, what I ran into this weekend was getting a webserver instance on EC2 to talk to RDS. I figured this would be easy, no? FALSE. I struggled through configuration files, a million message board threads, until finally the solution was found here. I have no idea why, but you have to add a special security exception for access via an EC2 instance. Here’s what you do:
1) Go into RDS
2) Go into DB Security Groups
3) Scroll to the bottom and select “EC2 Security Group” (normally I’d select CIDR/IP)
4) Put the security group that your EC2 instance is in (could be default or some custom security group) and put in your Amazon AWS Account ID
5) Add the exception
And voila, you should now be able to connect your instance to your RDS instance.
Day 4 and 5: I’m too tired to write anything profound
Its true. My 5th day on this trip and I’m freakin beat. We’ve spent morning, noon, and night working on the business, meeting folks, driving all over the place, and trying to make this thing work. Its been amazing but yeah, I’m whipped. So here’s a reader’s digest version of what we’ve been doing:
Yesterday we got up, headed to downtown, and went to a restaurant for a meeting with an investment banker. Except when we got there we realized the meeting was actually Sunday. Whoops.
So we sat there and did business planning. I also ate 4 helpings of bread pudding. Taaasty.
We then bar hopped to 2 different places doing more and more roadmap planning. I drank too much. Thus you might see in the next version of the We&Co app some interesting new features.
We watched Notre Dame lose. Jared went there for b-school so I introduced him to my relentless teasing. He handled it well. We’ll make amazing business partners. I couldn’t tease Ryan because he went to West Point. Do they even have a football team? HA! I’m hilarious.
Today we went back to the same restaurant to have the meeting we were supposed to have. The guy we met with paid for lunch. That was nice. I had four more helpings of bread pudding. That was even nicer.
After that meeting we decided to take the afternoon off and head to Muir Woods for a hike. I went off on an anti-consumerist rant during the hike. Afterwards I marched right into the gift shop and bought a kitchen magnet. Hypocrisy is my middle name. The hike was followed by a trip to the beach just down the road. It was too cold. And I don’t like sand. But it was pretty. So that was good.
Our evening concluded with a trip into a seriously sketch section of San Francisco to partake in some Indian food. It was good as hell. We were only confronted by 18 homeless people. None of them mocked my laugh, however, they all did awkward little dances to try and get us to give them money. I appreciated that.
I’m tired now. Tomorrow and tuesday are BIG days as we head over to the Techcrunch Disrupt conference. Hoping for good things! Send me positive vibes. Or send me a check. Either will do.
Day 3: A pretty freakin good day
Sorry but this has to be a short blog entry! Yesterday was a really cool day. We met w/ the guys behind the forthcoming Santa.com. They have some pretty awesome ideas around this site so be on the look out. They also had great advice for us and made me insanely jealous with how cool their office space was. Pretty much every office I’ve been in in SF has been perfect for the internet culture. Eccentric, weird, and totally comfortable. I wanna work here so bad.
After that we ventured down to a sustainability conference and met with a friend of the company to get some advice. The conference was down on the water and we had to kind of sneak in to meet our guy. We got free drinks while we were there. So I’m not exactly sure if that’s going to be a black mark against my name with that crowd for helping myself to a tasty organic beverage.
Lastly, we headed back down to Palo Alto for another VC meeting. This was a pop-up meeting so I was not prepared for it. That’s to say I was dressed kind of like a bum. Not that I was dressed particularly spiffy for the other investor meetings we had. But at this one I looked like a Kurt Cobain disciple or something. After the meeting we got some really cool feedback from another meeting. Nothing I can share right now (secret secret!) but it’s good stuff! Very exciting.
On our way back to San Francisco, we were invited to go and visit the crew behind the incredibly cool site Pinterest. Unfortunately our directions seemed to be a bit old and took us down to an old apartment complex off in the distance. There WAS a Pinterest sticker on a mailbox so we walked around back of this place. What we found was a vast collection of empty beer bottles, suggesting that the fellas at Pinterest had since left and been replaced by some kind of fraternity. So while we didn’t get to meet these guys (yet), we at least got a good laugh.
More to come tomorrow!
Day 2: Let’s get locked out of the condo!
Day 2 of our epic journey to the land of internet wealth began how all my days on the west coast begin for me — at 4:30 am wondering where the sun is and how I’m getting up so early when not provoked by a dog who needs a potty break. I tossed and turned getting cozy into the corners of the couch I was sleeping on until I finally fell back asleep –at 7am. Awesome.
The work day began at 9 with a call with a major international retailer. I can’t say who but suffice to say that I often bogart their generously free wifi when I’m wandering around a city and desperately need to get online to check my fantasy football team. The call went well and they’ve already asked for a follow-up. SWEET!
After that call I sort of realized that I still had not yet eaten after my amazing egg salad sandwich from the previous day. For a big dude like me that’s akin to trying to fly the space shuttle on a gallon of watered down gas from quiktrip. I made the amazing judgment call to go and attack a mexican restaurant. Typically I look at the chips and salsa as roadblock separating me from a few enchiladas. But this time I looked at it as fuel. I might’ve devoured not only my meal, the chips, but also part of Jared’s meal. I don’t feel bad about it.
The Mexican meal of Life was followed by a meeting at Get Satisfaction, a cool internet customer service company. We met with one of the co-founders to get some much needed advice. He asked us about Atlanta. I told him we had the biggest black gay pride parade in America. I’m pretty sure my random chit chat skills are second to none.
Our day concluded at Pitch ‘11, an event designed to hook dudes like up with dudes who have bank. We made a couple of good contacts and I got a free t-shirt. Who can complain about that?
After Pitch ‘11, Jared and I wandered back to the condo while Ryan stayed back to meet up with an old college friend. Jared and I grocery shopped together on the way back — want to get someone, see how they buy eggs. Anyways, we realized after getting back that Ryan had the keys to the condo. So I wandered the random courtyards and streets around our condo while we waited to get back in. After a long day, I seriously contemplated sleeping on an old rusted out picnic table. Just as daydreams of sleep started to dominate my thought process, Ryan materialized and we were able to get into the condo. I then cooked the guys ravioli for dinner. It sounds like a date doesn’t it?
Day 1: Here we are
So I’m off on my second official trip with We&Co doing a fund raising / networking trip out to San Francisco. Since this is a week long trip and kind of a big deal, I’m going to try and blog every day about what we did, who we talked to, etc. Since this is an action packed trip these blog entries may be short, riddled with typographical and gramatical errors, or filled with stories that no one save for my mom and God will care about.
Anyways….
We get here, rent a car, and head straight to pick up our 3rd partner in crime, Ryan, at a co-working spot in downtown. Its interesting in this modern economy that I’ve now worked with Ryan since May and yet have never actually met him. He’s based in Germany and handles the brand side of our business since he comes out of P&G. So it was one of those “dude, what’s shakin! oh, great to actually meet you too” kind of things that’s become all too common in our wired world. He’s a freakin cool guy and a great compliment to the team so it was fun to finally “meet” him.
From there we headed down to Palo Alto to meet up for our first VC meeting. It was a good meeting and the guy took plenty of notes and asked a lot of questions. The fact that I observed this tells me that I’m like Griff the Crime Dog or something, snooping out clues wherever I can. Anyhow, he’s going to push us up the ladder at his firm and introduce us to a few other VCs in the area. Overall it was a great first meeting and seriously fun to be in there pitching someone. I’m not much of a sales guy (as those who have worked with me can attest), but its fun trying to convince someone to give you $50,000. Its also terrifying.
After that we headed to a developer meet up. Those things are always hilarious b/c the crowd is so eclectic. You meet guys who are hiring, people who are kind of drunk and can’t seem to articulate their way out of cardboard box let alone build a start-up, and cocky investors willing to hammer your idea as they sip on a fruity mixed drink (I will NOT take money from someone drinking a mai tai. Ok false, I will). It was a good networking event and we met a number of interesting people doing a bunch of cool things. If nothing else, it helped validate that people who do what I do (read: nerds) are still in high demand. It also solidified all that I’ve been reading about our economy: we’ve stratified into two clear camps — those that understand and can manage information, and those that cannot. Its sad how little emphasis our country is putting on making sure more people can do the former but that’s a blog entry for another day.
Lastly, we ventured back into downtown to find our living arrangements for the week. Since there’s 3 of us, and we’re on a shoe string budget, and we’re all seeking to relive the college “holy shit I have no money” glory days, we rented a 1 bed, 1 bath condo for us to stay the week. The place we rented is buried up on top of a hill in what could pass for a 3rd world retired jail. After parking and hunting for the actual condo itself 30 minutes, we finally found what we thought was the condo. The key wouldn’t work so we jimmied the lock until we realized we were at the wrong door. Whoops. Some poor soul was terrified as they thought they were being broken into by 3 jet lagged and food deprived entrepreneurs (that’s right, I had an egg salad sandwich and handfuls of trail mix for food yesterday). Alas, we realized our mistake and scrambled to the correct door. Once in we found the condo to be really nice and spacious — for a 1 bed, 1 bath, 800 square foot home.
I slept on the couch after we had a long post game meeting. The view from the place is pretty rad! As soon as the fog burns off I’ll shoot some pics.
All in all, the first day was great. This thing is a blast!
More to come…
Time for a change
Tomorrow, August 12th, will be my last day at my current job. I’ve been with the organization for almost 5 years, coming in as one of the first hires at a time when the company was basically just getting off the ground. I helped build the platform and the team and feel a sense of accomplishment with what I’ve done there. I’ve met some of the most important people I’ll ever meet during my tenure. I’ve learned about systems, scalability, how to pull a really good office prank, how to deal with bringing people on, how to deal with letting people go (sadly), the importance of a well timed office dance-a-thon in the controller’s office, how to handle 28 consecutive defeats in foosball gracefully, and more importantly, how to deal with change. So today is bittersweet for me. I love this place, the people here, and the mission of the company. But I also know that I’m ready for a new challenge.
So, as of this Tuesday August 16th, I’ll assume full time duties as nerd in charge at a brand new start-up called We&Co (I hate titles; I’m the CTO for those who really care).
All this begs the question “who is we&co??” and “why the hell are you leaving??”
We&Co is an iPhone app that launched about 2 weeks ago that plays on the check-in notion that foursquare introduced several years ago. But unlike foursquare where you check-in to a place, We&Co allows you to “thank” a person who gives you good service. We like to think of it as adding a people layer on top of the check-in. Imagine you get great service from a server or bartender or plumber, how might you go about telling your friends about it? Most apps, yelp, angie’s list, etc allow you to review the place. But the person? Not as easy. We’re aiming to remedy that with our application. The twist to this is that with our app, you can only offer a “thank you”. There’s no negative feedback offered through our app (maybe we’re a bunch of hippies but I love that about our app). And so far, we’ve had really good success with write-ups in FastCompany (one of my favorites!), GOOD Magazine, and Mashable. Users are really loving the app and we’ve had good adoption so far. We have BIG plans for what we want to do next and how we want to make the “thank you” as common as the “check-in”.
At this point the app has moved beyond a “project” that I spent nights and weekends on to something that demands my full time attention (and nights and weekends — much to the dismay of my social calendar). There’s so much to do and so much to build that my eyes are lighting up like a kid in a candy store. This is what I love. And this is what I’m good at. Building stuff. I’m leaving b/c my passion for this new project is immense. So I’m taking a big chance with this project. I’m not afraid to fail. If we do, that’ll be ok, I’ll just take something away from this project and apply to the next one. Wish me luck and do me a huge favor. Go download the app and find someone to Thank! It’ll make you feel good, I promise.
I love you slate
Slate has long been one of my favorite websites. Today’s edition has about 6 super quality articles worth reading (given yesterday’s stock market dumper all of the articles are major downers. but whatever). Anyways, from this article on the Lessons from the Deficit debate comes this zinger:
Some of the congressional Republicans who are preventing action to help the economy are simply intellectual primitives who reject modern economics on the same basis that they reject Darwin and climate science
I’m not going to expound upon this b/c the line is perfect as is. And hilarious.
That is all
Note: normally I’d take a note this short to Facebook but I’m not in the mood to start any flamewars there with my conservative friends. We can have that battle here.