Timeline and modularity create space for Spotify, Netflix, Hulu and others
Well...one thing was accurate. The new ticker on Facebook was an indication of a complete revamp of the screen real estate and therein a new, necessary component of the user experience. It's current redundancy will be replaced by the other components of Timeline, which Zuck revealed yesterday at Facebook's f8 conference (keynote video here). I have to say that, while it sure is a more aesthetically pleasing layout of my social graph, it sure looks like FB is becoming more and more akin to the cluttered, overloaded UX that became the Achilles Heel of MySpace. I mean, I like pushing the boundaries of tech advancement, and the new business models that follow with that, but my feeling (as a user) is that FB is pushing the limits of human nature and information overload (even for the MTV/ADD generations) and that the whole thing could backfire if they aren't careful.
On the other hand I think the new Timeline concept has great potential if they manage to integrate the privacy levels in a thorough and clever way, AND if they make the modularity of it all simple and manageable. Two big elements of this which I think are fantastic are the (long rumored) Spotify and Hulu integration into the ticker. This is obviously step one of the process and even Daniel Ek at Spotify expanded on the development in an interview yesterday - saying there would be a Spotify widget as well like a player app as a module in the Timline view. So, as you can imagine, with a Spotify player, Hulu player (or other video play service), or even your friends' FB Video feed player (oh yes, it will come soon), your Nike training app, and other apps connected by the Social Graph APIs filling up your Timeline view - that annoying Ticker will become your default feed and trigger point for all things social.
Years ago, while I was working with content propositions for a handset manufacturer, one of the most powerful and underused tools we had implemented into the software was the live RSS reader on the standby screen. Now, of course, this is standard social integration via widgets on most smart phones. Facebook has just optimized the ticker experience to make it more complete and I would expect to see this lifted directly over to standby screens by most smart phone makers. One unfortunate side-effect they need to get a handle on is the seeming vaporization of privacy settings around that ticker feed. I'm seeing everything my friends are writing to everyone I don't know. That's not good.
So where do you get the new Timeline view? Right now it's only available in beta to FB app developers so unless you're signed up and have an app in the system it doesn't look like you will be enjoying this just yet. I predict the masses will bitch and moan only to give up. 250 million users will be pissed off and react, but the other 1/2 billion will follow the tail of the animal in front of them on up the trail of social web paradigms and it will all be business as usual in no time. Two things are clear: 1) Facebook has established the hooks to lift media consumption fully into the social engagement experience and now needs to just implement. 2) I wrote about it months ago when Google Music beta was announced, saying they needed to provide APIs to Spotify and others to tie into the cloud storage for my local files. Hasn't happened. And I don't see Google making as much progress as quickly as Facebook has. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said yesterday that during initial meetings with Facebook, Zuckerberg had asked him what his growth target number was. Reed gave Zuckerberg his number and Mark's reply was that for Facebook, success would be reaching that number... x2. Facebook is getting the media aggregators onboard.
Love 'em or hate 'em. Right now Facebook has not just the number of eyeballs but also the number of fingers hovering over the buttons and the hooks to trigger that crowd mentality. Call it "Real Time Serendipity", "Peer Pressure", "Recommendation" or anything similar, but with 750 million users wrapped up in your social web, your worst day is going to be miles ahead of your competition.
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