Comments on: Quick thought on blindly copying Facebook features

By: Eduardo Rocha

Eduardo Rocha — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:01:10 +0000

Orkut has copied News Feed from Facebook, but you always have been able to “categorize” your friends. And Orkut let you choose which categories you want to see updates from, very nice

By: DShen

DShen — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:57:32 +0000

I think that users are coming expect certain features to be present in a social network in order to even want to participate in it. If you don’t have a newsfeed, then you might not participate because it’s a great solution to the following friends problem. Finding the niche feature, function, or attraction will be the big challenge in retaining and attracting users in the face of commoditization of these features.

By: Steven Loi

Steven Loi — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:52:15 +0000

Hey Andrew,

Just wanted to drop my first comments on your blog after subscribing to your blog for some time now. It’s interesting you bring up this point. Heck, I think the crowd your speaking to includes my team and I because we’re in the process of building our product. (Not to mention it’s also becoming a norm for all social networks to be doing this now…) It’s important to have a “Newsfeed” type feature for sites that will make your user experience better. Facebook’s system is great because while the feed is personalized, there’s a sense of discovery and pleasant surprises. It compliments the user’s experience while logged into Facebook. I’m not so sure I get the same vibes with many of the “other” sites. (MySpace and LinkedIn come to mind.)

Steve

By: AdamD

AdamD — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:54:33 +0000

FB would have the same problem for a lot of people if they didn't have a system to determine the most important feed items to show you. In other words, they infer from your other action on the site (whose profile you look at, who you email, etc.) who you care to hear about.

I haven't looked at MySpace's feed, other than to scoff at their me-too feature announcement, but if it's like other stuff they've done, they just threw it up there without much thought and it does contain the updates from everybody, even those you don't care about.