Three things you should read about Facebook
Three things:
- Alexis Madrigal presents The Case for Facebook in The Atlantic. Key concepts: “classic market myopia,” the global mass and velocity of Facebook, and design momentum.
- Robin Sloan on Pictures and Vision. Key concepts: “Facebook is the world’s largest photo sharing site,” and oh by the way Google Glass(es) is the tip of an augmented iceberg.
- Oliver Reichenstein, Information Architect, on how to Sweep the Sleaze. Key concepts: Your users might be smarter than you think, and that dirty pile of buttons you crumble all over your content doesn’t account for that.
My take:
1. IPO drama aside, Facebook isn’t going anywhere. For better or worse (and some will say for worse), it’s now woven deeply into the fabric of the web. Take it away, and we lose our easiest, safest, most casual connections with our social graph. The lines fall away.
2. But it’s a mistake to get caught up in the devices and applications of the present. Data has value, and the tools to interpret it. Delivery systems will continue to evolve.
3. And although we may lean on crutches of interface to open channels of content into the sprawl of niche networks, to access the intersection of social graphs, eventually we can lean on our users as they pick up the next tool and the next. “If the news is that important, it will find me” does not depend on any particular network or Like button.
