Monkeynotions

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a panel for Web 2.0 Expo, Facebook Marketing Best Practices. Jeremiah posed the question:

What is with these useless apps? Many people don’t get them, yet they are wildly popular.

I’ve heard this question a lot about these apps come mainly from adults and pundits of the social media space. However, the latest graphs from flowing data suggests that these applications by far are the most popular.

1. Pandering to the Masses.
One explanation is pandering to the masses. We may not understand the popularity of people reality TV, and we dismiss it as pandering to the masses. It’s what sells and what people like.

2. Generational differences.
It’s the classic case of “parents just don’t understand”. While the older population on Facebook continues to grow, it is still more populated by high school and college students. These silly apps are really for those kids and not adults. In fact, it’s the adults that are really asking these questions.

3. Facebook is a place for friends
The number one reason why I hear how people use Facebook, it is to “keep in touch with friends”. If people are coming to “hang out” and talk with their friends, the silly apps offer a way for them to casually hang out with one another. In the offline world, people rarely get together with their friends to execute a search, schedule a meeting, “network”, or sit around and get recommendations. While those things do occur when hanging out with friends, it is usually a secondary reason as to why you are hanging out with your friends.

4. Inherent Viral Co-efficient is Low for Utility Apps
A very well-written reason is that the inherent viral co-efficient for utility apps are just not as good as these “useless” or “silly apps”. Utility apps are rarely viral, particularly when layered on a platform. These apps all become very advanced for achieving some simple goals, as the platform is itself a communication utility tool.

5. Silly Apps Offer More than a Binary Interaction with Friends
We all get friend requests that are very binary: “Are you my friend or not” . In the offline world, our interactions with one another are less binary and more casual. There are tiny nuances such as body language and tone of voice that allow for more casual or double meaning of things. “Poking” was the first casual form that allowed people to interact outside of the binary,rigidness of “friending”. Poking is full of double meaning and is a way to interact, but not really. It has perfected the art of “passive aggression” online. The silly apps mimic the casual interaction that is present in human analog interaction.

I think that useless apps are here to stay, and if you take a closer look they aren’t all that useless when they are allowing more nuanced interaction than the common digital binary interaction rudimentary in online social networks.

I have to admit I play Lotto Scratchers every once in awhile… I know the odds are against me. I guess I like the slow anticipation of possibly winning money as I work hard at scratching away at the surface…

Today I bought “The Big Cheese” where you have 5 chances to match up the number under the “Big Cheese”. As I scratched away holding my breath at each scratch, I pulled up a loser on all 5 chances. One one of them I thought , if this digit was a “6″ I could have won $500. Then I realized that the Lotto had not stripped me from my dignity by leaving me with a glimmer of hope that I “could have been a winner”.

The amusing thing is I fall for it every time. Lotto knows that that number is not the winning number, yet they choose to print the amount I’d win on it. They could save some ink, but I’m sure their returns on people buying another ticket because they felt “close” to winning some money is more than worth the extra ink.

Well back to designing experiences that leave people with hopes and dreams of how they *could be* a winner….

For the last several months I’ve been hunkering down on trying to create a compelling, empowering and engaging product. While I have much more to learn, here are some things I’ve learned in being apart of a Silicon Valley Startup.

1. Human beings are evolutionary, not revolutionary
I always thought to be truly innovative I needed to do something that fundamentally shifted the way a product was seen or used. Oftentimes when I try to be innovative, the adoption of it is quite low. I’ve come to realize that it’s because humans are evolutionary, and I’m trying to create revolutionary designs. Innovation happens with iteration and the tiny tweaks done in the product. Something small can really make the product innovative.

2. It’s not just a product, it’s a culture
In the midst of trying to create a product that sticks , a culture is being created within your organization. The decisions you decide within product affect the vision, approach, and way of thinking that is carried through the way people interact with each other at the startup.

3. Hire slowly, fire quickly
Since it takes a lot of time and resources hiring and finding the right person, once you find out it’s not a good fit you should quickly get rid of them. The longer you take to get rid of them, the more you eat away at finding the right person. Also, if the person has an abrasive/bitter attitude, it can spread quickly to the rest of the team. One of the highest priorities should be protecting your team. Without your team, your organization and product are nothing.

4. Do the things that only you can do, and outsource the rest
I’m guilty of wanting to do everything and feeling terrible asking people to do things. However, there are just so many things call for your attention that you really can’t spend your time wasting it on things that can easily be outsourced. While you can never see any task as beneath you, you are on the team for a certain skillset that no one on that team has. Make sure you are doing the thing you were brought on to do first and give up the rest.

5. Assign roles to people, but empower them not to stay in them
When we first started we didn’t have a product manager even though a lot of us had strong feelings about product. It was hard for us to come to decisions because while we all had opinions about the product, but there wasn’t one person responsible for the direction and vision of it. Once we hired a product manager, everyone recognized that he was the person to hold the direction and vision. Things ran more efficiently as he fit right into this role.

However, since the startup is small and aims to mature, that person will need to take a leadership role and grow out of the initial role he/she was hired to do. This means that roles need to be rigid enough so that flawless execution can happen, but loose enough so that the person can develop a visionary mindset.

Last Wednesday (08 Aug) I went to Lunch 2.0 at AOL. What a difference a year makes =). Lunch 2.0 was first held at AOL in March of 2006. Mark Jen had asked me to host at AOL back when we were sneaking in cafeterias. I mentioned to Mark that we might have to pay for our own lunch and go to the cafeteria where we jaywalk across the street. Mark was gracious enough to say that was completely fine — little did I know that was their M.O. so it really was no big deal. The folks that came all fit in one picture frame:

Photo Credit: Terry Chay

It was nice and intimate and we were able to take them around and show them the office. I was most excited to show them the UX Cafe where we post designs and everyone can look and comment on them. I told some of my designer friends to take down anything “confidential”. When we got to the area, everything was taken down and all the boards were flipped hahaha I guess everything was confidential.

Today, designs may still be confidential but AOL is showing more signs of embracing the Silicon Valley Tech “Web 2.0″ community. The VP at AOL Silicon Valley, William Morris, welcomed folks. They had great schwag … giving away a Timbuktu bag! Check out the video below.

Click To Play

Disclaimer: I used to be an employee at AOL Silicon Valley

Technorati Tags: lunch 2.0aolr

I got this message across my inbox:

“If you’re a frequent Twitter user, a journalist writing a wire service (AFP) article on Twitter would like to talk to you. If you’re interested, contact Kara Andrade at kara[dot]andrade[at]yahoo[dot]com”

After more research, she is interested in the following:

The two main questions I’m interested in asking frequent Twitter users is:

(1) Why do you Twitter?
(2) What are some common misconceptions about people that Twitter and who is interested in what Twits (?) have to say?

I’m definitely interested in following one person’s story throughout the day as they Twitter.

Contact Kara if you feel like you fit the bill: Kara Andrade at kara[dot]andrade[at]yahoo[dot]com

Technorati Tags: twitter

So I went to my first Women 2.0 BBQ and it was pretty cool! I have met them in the past as I helped arrange a meeting space for them at AOL, but did not get a chance to go. Angie and Annie graciously opened up their house for us. The food was great, and the group was small enough to meet some cool folks. I met several women who own their own business or doing their own thing. I met Rochelle Kopp who has built Japan Intercultural Consulting which helps Japanese and American Businesses understand each other better. I was really impressed that she had built this thing herself and had connections all over the world, even in Mexico! It was encouraging and inpsiring.

Well I took some video footage and wanted to share a little taste as to what the events are like. The beginning question didnt’ turn out too great but it reads “What happens when tech entrepreneurial women get together?”

Click To Play

A big thank you to Angie, Annie, Shivani (altho I missed you there!), Shaherose and Wen-Wen.

Updated 06/02: Cleaned up some of the writing.

It’s summertime, that means the number of geek events rises, just due to good weather! I dusted off my videocam and took some footage at Netgear’s Lunch 2.0. It’s become a lot bigger since we got into the SFChron (feel free to dig it!).

It’s become a bit of a PR thing. Towards the end I think there were some photo shoots, and I’m not talking about Terry’s trusty photography skillz. This is really due to size. Also since I have been around from the earlier days I knew what it was like before. Don’t get me wrong, the buzz is definately exciting! But, I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing for conversations to occur, as it can feel really big. I’m glad that there are more Lunch 2.0 events cropping up as it’s only localization can you have community. There are also some other off-shoots.

Well here’s the video. This time there was no talking, just music. The more exciting editing is towards the end. There were other video cams there doing live interviews along with Podtech.

Click To Play

Technorati Tags: lunch 2.0netgear

Photo Credit: Flickr, ukslim

One of my favorite things after eating a Chinese meal is the fortune cookie. Yeah, I know it’s not even a Chinese thing! I started thinking why do I love the fortune cookie?

1. Element of Surprise - What kind of fortune am I going to get?
2. Tasty - It just tastes good!
3. Resourcefulness - You can eat the shell of the fortune, and save the fortune for when you’re having a bad day.

For all those building web products, I think we can learn a thing or two from our experiences with the fortune cookie. How can we build elements of surprise? How can we recirculate and re-use what we already have? How can we delight our users? Above all, how can we make it a tasty experience?

Cindy Li, a great photographer, is in the Smithsonian Altered Photo Contest. Click here to vote.

Stick shifts and safety belts
Cindy Li
Reston, VA

WARNING: Terrible UI to vote… You will need to log into the forum and a link for “4th Annual Photo Contest - “Altered” Finalists” will appear above the post a new topic and new reply buttons. Click that link and vote with the radio buttons.

I’m not a professed Google fan, but I’ll have to say their products are pretty damn good tools that solve large problems for me in my day to day life. Not every one of their products are great, but the ones I do use, well I love.

I’ve used both mediaWiki and GoogleDocs to collaborate and manage documentation on a project and work related and I have to say that GoogleDocs wins out. Here are the reasons why:

1. I don’t have to learn WIKI Markup. GDocs uses the familiar metaphor of a wordprocessor.

2. I was always confused about how to create a new page, and then how to find it. Now I just create a new spreadsheet.

3. Navigation is easy… okay hyperlinking structure is not as advanced in a wiki, but its lack of functionality makes it simplier and easier to use.

4. Revisions Tab!!!! AND RSS to it!!! woo hoo

5. Best of all, the links are managed by Google and not me. Meaning if I want to send out a message that a doc has been updated, then I dont’ have to remember where or what it was, I can just re-send the doc.

Give it whirl. I know we all think Google is evil, but GDocs is pretty damn good.