Facebook tries to pacify disgruntled users

Facing a lot of flak over its latest redesign, social networking site Facebook has decided to implement a lot of measures which will not only eliminate clutter but also make the site more user friendly and easy to navigate.

Admitting that there was an unprecedented user reaction was its director Christopher Cox, who in his own words said that, "Ever since the launch of Facebook’s home page design, we have received thousands of emails, wall posts and comments from a lot of friends and families who want a direct feedback from us."

He also said that, "We are focusing hard on bringing about improvements immediately over the next several weeks," after the site earlier in this month got going and introduced the novel innovation of a twitter like feed on its site. Further, he also stated that, “In the new layout users will not be required to reload the page in order to see new posts; instead they will get the option of turning on auto updating so that they would not be required to update the page in the near future”.

Cox has also said that, “The site has also started coming to grips on how to deal with the excessive content that is appearing in the stream”. It will incorporate new features to provide users with tools that will enable them to control and reduce any application content which is being shared within the stream.

A number of constant improvements are also being made to the "Highlights" section on the homepage so it can be updated more frequently and show content that closely mirrors the content which was provided on earlier news feeds. Interestingly, that’s not all about it, “a number of photo tags or notifications that include pictures of a user's "friends" that have been posted will also be added to the stream of updates on the main page in the coming weeks.

Well, even though the social networking site has ballooned in popularity since its inception in 2004 and has notched an estimated 175 million users not every one is happy with all that is happening. A lot of such disgruntled users have started expressing their unhappiness over the fact that all feedbacks happening on the site are not in sync with what they wanted.

Moreover, their views have forced Cox to admit that, "Redesigns are generally hard to manage, in part because change is always hard and in part because we may miss improvements that any individual user may like to see." To conclude he also brought forth the view stating that "With the recent home page changes, we are trying to present the right balance between what is happening right now and what is really of interest over a longer period of time."

Is Internet Search a dream too big for Microsoft?

If something is working well for you and it is fetching profits galore then why change it around? Right! Well, if you are the big boss at Microsoft then you just need to throw that philosophy out of the window. As a company you continue searching for novel and innovative products that will put you on a pedestal that remains elusive for any of your competitors.

The same story keeps on doing rounds at the Microsoft office where its top boss Steve Ballmer believes that Microsoft still can get a big chunk out of the search industry by out running its main competitor Google. This inspite of the fact that the Czar of the IT industry remains unchallenged and better still enjoys a very strong position in the corporate software market.

Again according to Mr.Ballmer, he wants to get a foothold into the search industry because he really believes that is wherein the real moolah lies. According to him, “At the end of the day, one of the key lessons is that not all businesses on the Internet are good businesses,” and even though Microsoft dominates instant messaging in Europe, its popularity hasn’t fetched much profits for it.

Moreover, there are only three things that have really got going on the net, predominantly some of those sites are Amazon, eBay and Google and if you are looking to rake in a lot of money on the Internet, then one would have to go ahead and challenge the ‘numero uno’ in search i.e. Google.

To give it a befitting end it would be further safe to say that Internet search remains an elusive dream for Microsoft and it has to really dig its heals if it wants to get to the top position in the search industry.

Get that edge with Facebook and Twitter

With sites like MySpace and Facebook boasting of hundreds of millions of members, it will be safe to say that the concept of social networking in the present scenario has reached a tipping point. The evidence presently was further put on display when platforms like YouTube and Twitter turned around the electoral results in favor of the presidential elect Barack Obama.

However, still for some or the other reason such tools which were expected to bring about a profound transformations in corporations are still being resisted strongly. The popular perception that plagues many corporate executives today is that either social networking is a big time distraction or is considered to be a big time risk management issue. They fear that such sites pose a strong threat and eventually act as potential risks that give way to security breaches and data privacy.

Web 2.0 pundits, on the other hand, put forth all kinds of arguments that whatever social software might be available it can just act as the right catalyst to boost productivity to a level higher than before. Moreover, they come out with the arguments that such software can usher in an open-ended corporate culture where innovation, collaboration and transparency become the norms of the organization. Further, these sites also gain importance as they are an effective way for building a customer-centric organization that not only communicates authentically but also listens to clients and strives to learn from mistakes that crop up during interaction.

In this period of recession, as organizations look for novel ways to showcase their products and engage clients, the top management has finally started looking at how social networking tools can give leverage to their brands and unleash a corporate culture that is predominantly based on listening and learning. To say the least, it is looking at such a suite of software to further boost up the performance of the organization and enable it to reach a level which is beyond any of its competitors.

Google Surges Ahead in Race of the Search Engines

In a recent report released by Hitwise, search engine giant Google has taken a quantum leap over its competitors and has managed to post an increase of 8% in its overall share for U.S. based search queries. Overall, the figure in totality came out to be 72.11% for all U.S. based searches conducted over a four-week period and left Google’s closest competitors such as Yahoo, Search, MSN Search and Ask.com with only 17.04 %, 5.56 % and 3.74 % of share respectively.

With nothing to be surprised about, the giant among search engines continues to hog the limelight and increase its share while its closest competition like Yahoo, MSN, and Ask are lagging far behind and have been forced to throw in the towel.

The competition has now come to such a passé that Yahoo had been forced to admit that being ‘numero uno’ in search is not its focus anymore. Further, it also acknowledged the fact that it was not gearing towards the universal approach anymore and it just wanted to be a search engine that predominantly targeted women.

While, on the other hand MSN the third party in the fray is trying hard to notch a share of 10 % or a little bit more in the next few years by acquiring Yahoo search property. As this cat and mouse race gains momentum, it is assumed that Google does not violate the trust of its users and does not take bigger chunk of the share from the remaining top tier providers in the race.

The Longer the Query, the better the Returns
Coming with a unique approach, Hitwise has also come out with the assumption that a longer query, i.e. averaging near about five to eight words in length fetched better search results as compared to a shorter query.

On the other hand, the other implication from the data is that if one weren’t already doing so then he would need to dig deeper into every research and planning effort and include a range of wider and more specific queries. The entire pattern of the data follows a consistent trend which will enable searchers to continue and become more sophisticated with their queries and expectations and in a sense land up with what exactly they are looking for.

Open source browsers fast eating up IE’s market share

If statistics are anything to go by, then a recently published report suggests- Internet Explorer’s popularity as a browser has almost gone down by 7% from the beginning of last year and it continues to go downhill as time progresses by.

Eating into its share have been open source browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome. As pointed out by the latest trends and stats, Firefox’s market share saw an unprecedented increase by about 4% in 2008 and Google Chrome managed to notch up an impressive 1% in the first few months of its availability whereas Opera managed to come a close third with its current share remaining steady at 0.71%.

On the other hand, the use of windows dipped to about 89% in November, and those of Linux users remained steady at around 0.85%, up 0.02% from the previous month.

The survey also pointed out Mac users were to more likely remain loyal to their preinstalled browser, Safari, as compared to window users who had been using Internet Explorer all these years. Pointing to the fact that the little blue "E" which had been gracing the desktops of Windows users had not paid any attention to the security glitches which had prevailing all this time.

Overall, if statistics paint the right picture, this appears to be the right time where open source software can further get a foothold in the ever-expanding internet industry. Whereas, on the contrary, the IE needs to gather up its act fast or the time is not far away when it might just get lost in the oblivion.

The US Elections and the Internet

The US elections are over but not many of us are aware that the good old Internet played quite a proactive role in enabling Obama cross the finishing line well ahead of his republican counterpart John Mc Cain. The extensive use of the Internet by Obama not only gave him an unassailable advantage over his rival but also gave the perfect example as to how technology can aid candidates in fighting as well as winning elections.

Technology and US Elections in the Past
While television was the medium that played a big part in booking John F. Kennedy’s ticket to the White House, the Internet was “THE” medium for Obama that not only got him nominated but also elected. His campaign aggressively used the Web 2.0 to advertise his campaign to voters, muster support, defend against political attacks and at the same time actively communicate with all constituents.

To say the least, the internet became a tool that enabled Obama to organize his supporters in a way that in the past would have easily required an army of volunteers and paid organizers. He successfully made “YouTube” the backbone of his campaign and reached out to an audience of every single caucus state that mattered the most.