The Danosphere.

Facebook, the monolith social network currently in charge of the social networking scene, needs to make money… like… really needs to make money. With an impressive 200million users you’d think the site would be churning out profit hand over fist, but it’s not. In an attempt to monetize and keep up with the explosive growth of Twitter, Facebook redesigned last month to look more like twitter, or did it? 

When you look closely at the redesign, the real emphasis is more about ‘pages’ and less about ‘trying to be like twitter’. But Facebook doesn’t want to shock it’s userbase with this new emphasis, it wants a slow dip in the pool, as opposed to a splash. 

And so it begins. If you haven’t noticed yet, your “highlights” column is probably about 50% page-based activities… your friends liking brands, ‘fanning’ brands, commenting etc. Facebook’s next move was relocating ‘People You May Know’ above the fold… previously it was underneath the ‘highlights’ column, generally below the fold. While the location change didn’t seem to be a big deal, the next move certainly is- “People You May Know’ is now ‘Suggestions’. These newfound ‘Suggesstions’ extend beyond freinds… to brands. Finally the Facebook vision is coming full circle, as it actively ‘pushes’ brands at you based on the activities of your friends. It pulls this off in a cunning way, by mixing in the brands with your friends.

Here is a great example of this, Facebook’s ‘Suggestions’ for me (and a bunch of people I don’t know):

Don’t get me wrong I love the office, but for me Facebook is about connecting with friends NOT about beomcing a poster child for a brand just because i may use/like them. I like “The Office” I watch it every week, but I am not a Facebook Fan of the Office. 

As Facebook pushes forward with it’s plans to monetize the question becomes “at what cost?”. Is Facebook alienating users by putting so much emphasis on brands and activities centered around brands? What do you think?

This week Digg released their “Diggbar” which also seconds as a URL shortening service. What this means for the end user… or more importantly the content generating users whose content is submitted to digg by other people is that- now Digg is stealing your traffic!

Mashable was quick to give Digg the ole’ reach-around, making it sound so soft and cuddly! But the truth is that Digg is milking traffic from other sites, without their permission at all. How much traffic are they stealing? Enough to boost their 20million unique visitors by about 20%. On top of all that (as if that isn’t enough) they also inject ads into the diggbar frame, so they are stealing views AND revenue from the sites that are shared via their shortened URL.

I could go on for ages about how much that sucks for the sites losing traffic and ad revenue to digg, or about how crappy shortened URLs are for the web, or about how the diggbar is killing SEO for sites framed by it, but luckily someone has already done that for me.

Want the truth? Here is it:

The Truth about Digg’s DiggBar

This just passed through my crosshairs- RIT’s Report Mag, the school magazine for the Rochester Institute of Technology, just posted their 2009 April Fools Edition! Check it out here [PDF]!

Before I start let me say- I like Apple. I own an iPhone, a Macbook, an iPod, and love them all. So when I decided to drop $100 to join their Developer Program, I thought the experience would be just as enjoyable as all their products have been. I was very wrong.

It started late last night, I joined the program, paid my $100 fee, and downloaded the lastest iPhone 3.0beta firmware. I installed it on my phone and then connected to iTunes to “reactivate” with the new firmware. Instead of activating, I got an error saying I needed to “register my device”. I scoured the Developer Homepage and saw a link to “activate my account”, sounded right, so I completed the activation process and tried again, still no luck.

I decided to sleep on it and call the “Developer Support” line this morning. After waiting on hold for well over 1 and a half hours, I was finally connected with a human on the other side. I explained my situation and asked him to help me activate my now “bricked” phone. He told me he could not answer my question, I would have to refer to the apple Developer Forums. So this guy, who works at the Developer Support Center, is telling me that after I have paid $100 and bricked my phone to join the Developer Program, the best answer he can give me is to check the forums?! Who the hell does Apple have working in their support centers?!

I ask to speak to his manager, he says he cannot do that. I ask him to connect me with a HUMAN who can help me, he says their are none who can help, but I can email dts@apple.com for help. Apprently humans respond to emails at that address, but they cannot be reached via phone… at all (I asked). I ask him if the Apple Store “Geniuses” can help me, he says no they cannot. Frustrated I ask for his name so I can use it to close the loop when emailing this “dts@apple.com” address he has referred me to. He says “Jimmy Ryan”. Sure.

In the end, after multiple requests to speak to his manager, or ANYONE else at the support center, all which were denied, I hung up. I turned to twitter and found help there. So now my iPhone is back up and running, and I have learned a valuable lesson, Apple Developer Support is completely and utterly worthless.

Conclusion: If you are a developer, do not, at all, ever, in any way, rely on Apple’s “Developer Support” to assist you. Save yourself the time and just visit the developer forums, it’s what they will tell you to do anyway after you wait for hours on hold hoping to get a real answer. #FAIL.