Spencer Smith Blog

Mashable broke the news yesterday that Facebook is creating Facebook Lite. What is Facebook Lite? Well I’m glad you asked. According to their article

It is a completely stripped-down version of the Facebook platform. From what we can tell, it is almost like a Twitter (Twitter) stream: you can see your most recent status updates and the updates of your friends. There is a left-hand navigation with four main categories: Wall, Info, Friends, and Photos & Videos. It does little more than that.

He’s a quick screenshot of the future service

As you can see, it looks similar to the twitter interface. The one major difference in the layout is that the right panel in Twitter is moved to the left panel in Facebook Lite. Your profile picture and links remain on the left side of the News Feed as Facebook has always looked.

The next feature that goes above and beyond Twitter will be responding to status updates. It’s much harder to follow a conversation in Twitter due to the @username replies that are not easily connected within a conversation. The screenshot shows Facebook’s normal function of displaying comments on a status update and subsequent replies directly below the original update. This makes it much easier to follow a conversation.

Back to the original question, will Facebook Lite take down Twitter? Not anytime soon. Unless there is still more to be released about Facebook Lite, they each still have a niche market. Twitter is less personal in a good way, and Twitter makes it easier to follow and gather information I care about. It does not require me to “friend” someone to follow their status. There is a perceived and real stronger connection between most people on Facebook in comparison to Twitter. For example, if I do a search on Twitter to find information on a particular topic or scan the public opinion, and I find a person with many relevant and valuable posts, I don’t think twice about “following” that person. However, with Facebook, I am more hesitant to “friend” someone. Yes, there are privacy settings that could be changed to only show as much information about me as I share on Twitter, but that becomes a hassle with each new “friend”. I’m sure Facebook understands the concerns around this issue and will be addressing it. There will undoubtedly be revolt on Facebook as we have learned in the past with Facebook’s many changes, but as we have also learned, they emerge stronger.

Let the microblogging war begin.

Once Facebook followed Twitter down the path of microblogging by integrating status updates into a News Feed for it’s users homepages, the next logical step was searching.
According to Facebook’s Official Blog today:

Facebook “began testing new versions of Search with a small group of people on Facebook. Based on the success of those tests, we’re rolling out a new version of Search to everyone on the site beginning today.”

The Twitter search (shown below) has become a hub for following trends across Twitter and subsequently our world, and Facebook is looking to grab some of that success from the Twitterverse.

In their blog post today, Facebook also explained the functionality of the new serach:

You now will be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan.

In related news today, Facebook acquired Friendfeed, and we all look forward to the future integration of Friendfeed features into Facebook.

Happy Searching.

Google Voice, formerly Grand Central, is slowly opening to the public. What does that mean for you? A cheaper phone bill.  Once you sign up for Google Voice,  select a local phone number for free.  Most cellular phone companies offer either free incoming plans or unlimited calls from a specific set of numbers, such as MyFavs from T-Mobile, Friends and Family from Verizon, My Circle from Alltel, and Pick 3 or Mobile to Home from Sprint. After you’ve selected your phone number, add it to the list with your cell phone provider for unlimited calls.  Now go into your Google Voice settings and add your cell phone or other phone line you would like to use.
 

 When someone calls your Google Voice number, each of the lines you select will receive the call.  You will not be charged because it is either an incoming call or on your list of numbers for unlimited calls. The hardest part is notifying your contacts of your new phone number, and telling them to call your new Google Voice number now.

How about outgoing calls? They are a bit trickier, but not too complicated either.  You have two options. The first is to call your Google Voice number directly from a line you added in your settings from the previous steps above.  A greeting will prompt you with the option to listen to voicemails or make a call.  Select “make a call” and dail the number you wish to call.  The cell phone company thinks you are calling your Google Voice number, which is a free call. Your second options is through the web interface of Google Voice. 
 

In the top left corner of the Google Voice interface is a button labeled “Call”.  Click the Call button and a drop-down box will appear.  Enter the phone number you wish to call and Google Voice will call your phone and connect you to the number you entered. A second way to call from the web is to select the person’s name you would like to call from your contacts page and click the “call” link to connect the two of you.

Some other useful features of Google Voice are:

• Call screening – Announce and screen callers
• Listen in – Listen before taking a call
• Block calls – Keep unwanted callers at bay
• SMS – Send, receive, and store SMS
• Place calls – Call US numbers for free
• Taking calls – Answer on any of your phones
• Phone routing – Phones ring based on who calls
• Forwarding phones – Add phones and decide which ring
• Voicemail transcripts – Read what your voicemail says
• Listen to voicemail – Check online or from your phone
• Notifications – Receive voicemails via email or SMS
• Personalize greeting – Vary greetings by caller
• Share voicemail – Forward or download voicemails
• Conference calling – Join people into a single call
• Call record – Record calls and store them online
• Call switch – Switch phones during a call
• Mobile site – View your inbox from your mobile
• GOOG-411 – Check directory assistance
• Manage groups – Set preferences by group

I hope this is helpful. Please post any other tricks you’ve learned with Google Voice in the comments section.

I found a  good video that visualizes the current credit crisis very well, minus one major change. The video claims the insurgence of sub-prime loans began after September 11th. However, according to a 1999 New York Times article

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

Therefore, at minimum, sub-prime mortgage loans were forced to be lent with pressure from the Clinton Administration years before September 11th, but it’s affect on the economy didn’t help. Other than that issue, it puts the crisis into understandable pictures for everyone’s understanding.

Today while checking twitter updates, I noticed a new “feature” on my homepage.  As you can see from the screenshot on the left, Twitter has implemented a new text box directly below the user’s statistics. 

I first noticed the text box this afternoon, and it was a link to Twitter’s search site. The second version I saw was for the Twitter widget which I have installed on the sidebar of this blog. It’s also the version I have shown in the screenshot.

We have been waiting to see what Twitter’s business model would be for making money. My prediction is that these text boxes will transform in the near future to real advertisements and not just links to features within Twitter. I also believe we will see other forms of advertisements within Twitter, and this is only the beginning. I understand they need to make money. As long as these ads stay small and simple text, they get my vote. How about you?