Dawn of the Iconoclast
like a sundown on reverse

Facebook 08: Hits and Misses

July 24, 2008 12:25 by kcorax

Original speech is here

From the User standpoint

Hit: It's nice to see the new interface. I really like how the timeline adapts and dedicates more space to the things that are important to users.

Hit: It was very very good to see Zuckerberg acknowledge that they failed to protect the users from developers who wanted to bust their balls. Most of all the applications that required people to invite others.

Hit: Easier installation of applications. Thank god, now I can look what an application will behave like with much fewer clicks. Really promotes a healthier developer ecosystem with benefits for everyone.

Miss: The timeline most of all still has a long way to go. In my mind, the final destination clearly lies in interfaces like Friendfeed. I'm uncertain why they aren't doing that.

Miss: Facebook pages look like MySpace more and more because of application creep. Some pages can't even load because of the clutter. There should be tabs or other navigational tools so that users can organize their spaces better. Eg keep a first page with the application they really like and more with contact info, another with games and so on.

Miss: No news about the spam. Whenever I see at an invitation to do something, there should be an option to dimsiss it and dismiss all future such notifications. I shouldn't have to go to the applications list, find it again and guess which checkbox created the unwanted invitation.

From the Developer standpoint

Hit: More incentives to build applications for Facebook especially over the Connect platform. This essentially means that I can use data from user profiles and so on. The underlying platform is the Windows Live Contacts platform which is ridiculously complete and allows access to users' data using pretty much any sort of API (REST, JSON, SOAP etc).

Hit: Throughout the announcement it was very clear that Facebook is getting serious about protecting the ecosystem. This is good. As a developer I wouldn't want to be in a place that darkens the reputation of my applications.

Hit: Funding for applications. This really means a lot. The most beneficial applications just so happen to not make any money. This is very insightful. It remains to see if they will choose decent applications for funding.

Hit: Equity between what Facebook and 3rd parties can do. It's really nice to see that Facebook is trusting and doesn't have unfair advantages over developers. This is key to a healthy ecosystem, and very different from what Apple is doing with the iPhone for example.

Miss: It still isn't clear which applications are ok and which aren't. As a small and insignificant developer I can't bother to read legaleze. Also the second speaker said that while these are guidelines, they retain the right to kill whichever application they don't like. This really doesn't help.

Miss: The needs of small developers and ginormous funded firms the the iLike platform have very different needs. On Facebook's developer wiki I still can't find sample applications. Things people can use as a blueprint and evolve out of, instead of having to understand how everything works and design from scratch.

From the Commenter standpoint

Major Miss: I read on twitter the most out of touch comment I've seen in a long time, stating that the message sent on f08 was complicated and that Facebook needed a visit from Steve Jobs to help them simplify it (dumb down).

The thing is that, unlike Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg is apparently not a salesman, and doesn't need to be adored. He even admited (in 3 cases) faults on the side of his company.

This was a developer conference, and unlike what Apple does in the WWDC the CEO actually discussed details of the platform, technical ones. As a developer with an IQ over 100 (i.e. not dumb) I'm pretty happy to see that the top management of the company is technically savvy and isn't into the business of fucking developers over and over like Apple usually does.

All in all, what Jobs does is generally more beneficial for his company. A speech from the CEO gathers press eyes and it's best for the company's stock if the half-knowledgeable technical press can understand the message. On the long term however, what get's a company value is the ecosystem. Zuckerberg clearly gets that, and it's only good.


The real scoop on Firefox download pledges

June 19, 2008 09:22 by KCorax

Since Firefox gets a lot of positive karma, some people have began to use pledge numbers as a measure of civilization advancement. The thing is, the data provided by the official download page is not amortized over population. It's really unfair to compare the downloads that China makes with those of Iceland for example.

Ofcourse this is still not a measure of civilization, and propably wouldn't effect the way you choose your vacation destinations, but still it's means something to a lot of people.

I've taken some time to calculate the download pledges per capita. The sources are:

  1. The HTML from http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/ as extracted at 19th of June 2pm GMT+2 time.
  2. Population information from Wikipedia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

In order for the numbers to look nice, I've cut out the entry for Lithuania. Their percentage is a real wow 10% of the population. Way to go Lithuania :) !

Either they really really really love Firefox, or they've put some serious botnet love into action.

Country

Pledges

Population

Density

Lithuania

334734

3361100

9,9590%

You can get the original Excel workbook (07) as well as the CSV for your own use here:

And the rest of the list follows:

Country Pledges Population Density
Iceland 6445 316252 2,0379%
Slovenia 28624 2025768 1,4130%
Luxembourg 6704 483800 1,3857%
Norway 63391 4767520 1,3296%
Switzerland 101288 7619800 1,3293%
Liechtenstein 459 35322 1,2995%
Finland 66603 5312353 1,2537%
Faeroe Islands 590 48547 1,2153%
Netherlands 189877 16426371 1,1559%
Estonia 14757 1340600 1,1008%
Hungary 110437 10043000 1,0996%
United States 3272158 304376000 1,0750%
Denmark 53991 5482266 0,9848%
Ireland 42716 4339000 0,9845%
Sweden 82533 9201650 0,8969%
Canada 296318 33295000 0,8900%
Singapore 39532 4588600 0,8615%
Australia 175595 21328050 0,8233%
Spain 369478 45200737 0,8174%
Bulgaria 62295 7640238 0,8154%
Hong Kong 51662 6963100 0,7419%
Aland Islands 198 27153 0,7292%
Czech Republic 73947 10403136 0,7108%
New Zealand 28797 4267000 0,6749%
Poland 253649 38115967 0,6655%
Bermuda 432 65000 0,6646%
Belgium 69172 10584534 0,6535%
United Kingdom 383217 60587300 0,6325%
Andorra 512 83137 0,6159%
Latvia 13788 2269600 0,6075%
Israel 43916 7282400 0,6030%
Romania 128955 21438000 0,6015%
France 360927 64473140 0,5598%
Malta 2237 407000 0,5496%
Italy 303792 59536507 0,5103%
Slovakia 26651 5402273 0,4933%
Chile 77063 16598074 0,4643%
Portugal 49294 10623000 0,4640%
Japan 568505 127690000 0,4452%
Croatia 19189 4555000 0,4213%
Aruba 423 104000 0,4067%
Taiwan 93262 22990000 0,4057%
Barbados 1181 294000 0,4017%
Antigua And Barbuda 321 85000 0,3776%
Greece 41664 11147000 0,3738%
Iran 266116 71208000 0,3737%
Cyprus 2729 855000 0,3192%
New Caledonia 737 244600 0,3013%
Maldives 870 306000 0,2843%
Greenland 159 58000 0,2741%
Saint Kitts And Nevis 134 50000 0,2680%
Turks And Caicos Islands 67 26000 0,2577%
Costa Rica 11263 4468000 0,2521%
Brunei Darussalam 906 390000 0,2323%
Dominica 147 67000 0,2194%
United Arab Emirates 9323 4380000 0,2129%
Argentina 83227 41000000 0,2030%
Puerto Rico 7893 3991000 0,1978%
Bahrain 1485 760168 0,1954%
Grenada 203 106000 0,1915%
FYROM 3879 2038000 0,1903%
Trinidad And Tobago 2311 1333000 0,1734%
Bahamas 572 331000 0,1728%
Saint Lucia 277 165000 0,1679%
Serbia 14928 9858000 0,1514%
Malaysia 40345 27170000 0,1485%
Turkey 101579 70586256 0,1439%
South Korea 61796 48224000 0,1281%
Bosnia And Herzegovina 5025 3935000 0,1277%
Brazil 231724 187047836 0,1239%
Uruguay 3784 3340000 0,1133%
Kuwait 3217 2851000 0,1128%
Austria 9254 8334325 0,1110%
Belize 318 288000 0,1104%
Mexico 112223 106682500 0,1052%
Panama 3477 3343000 0,1040%
Mauritius 1268 1262000 0,1005%
Venezuela 27287 27908875 0,0978%
Russia 133236 141927900 0,0939%
Colombia 40122 44090118 0,0910%
Jamaica 2391 2714000 0,0881%
Peru 24106 28750770 0,0838%
Moldova 3131 3794000 0,0825%
Dominican Republic 7451 9760000 0,0763%
Belarus 6667 9690000 0,0688%
Montenegro 406 598000 0,0679%
Vietnam 58135 87375000 0,0665%
Paraguay 3596 6127000 0,0587%
Thailand 36855 63038247 0,0585%
South Africa 24633 47850700 0,0515%
Suriname 233 458000 0,0509%
Mongolia 1317 2629000 0,0501%
Fiji 400 827900 0,0483%
Tunisia 4804 10327000 0,0465%
Saudi Arabia 11259 24735000 0,0455%
El Salvador 3017 6857000 0,0440%
Guyana 311 738000 0,0421%
Bolivia 3588 9525000 0,0377%
Jordan 1961 5924000 0,0331%
Oman 792 2595000 0,0305%