Dan Romero

Looks like Facebook is dropping its mandatory "is" in its status updates sometime in the near future. While hardly newsworthy (yet it's the top story on Techmeme), it's definitely interesting. I have always thought that Facebook status updates were the perfect evolution of crafty IM away messages. And with the rise of Twitter and the whole micro-blogging phenomenon, I think Facebook might be realizing what a real gem they have.

I am a firm believer that the Twitter phenomenon will eventually catch on and spread like a wildfire throughout the SMS-crazed college demographic. The big question is who will capture this market? As much as I love Twitter, I would have to think Facebook will win this.

That is, of course, if Facebook can actually make status updates more like tweets. Right now, updates are just News Feed (or as they say at Duke - stalk feed) fodder. Imagine if you said "hungry" and you were instantly sent a list of your closest friends who were also hungry. Now that would be slick.

I figured that I would resolve some housekeeping business with a post:

• Facebook does have some RSS - I stand corrected. After complaining about Facebook's lack of RSS a few weeks ago, I discovered today that your notifications can be read as an RSS. Unfortunately, I already get most important notifications sent to my mobile via SMS. This also doesn't address the Newsfeed RSS problem either.
• Wider blog design - Unlike the NYTimes, which seems to be getting more narrow every time I visit (more on this in a later post), I increased the width of the blog by about 60 pixels. The non-designers reading won't care, but I did this to increase my line lengths.
• New domain names - So I now have a whole bunch of domain names that I own: danielwromero.com, blazamos.com, dratius.com, coupondj.com, he.rodot.us, milliondollarhillary.com, feehanbooks.com. And now I have two more: danromero.tv and kville.tv. What they will be use for, that's still up in the air.
• Upcoming birthday - A much less pertinent piece of info, I will be turning 20 on the 12th. Scary.
• iPhone typing speed - I have been using the iPhone for over a month now and I just want to say that I can type very fast on the keyboard (with thanks to the auto-correction software). I will be doing a complete "one month after" analysis sometime next week.
• Next week - Expect some posts about Twitter/Pownce/Facebook next week. I also think a post about the new MMOG company Multiverse and Indiana University's The Synthetic Worlds Initiative. Exciting stuff.

Seems like I can't stop posting about Facebook. Oh well, at least I am not the only one.

Anyways, VentureBeat recently wrote an article profiling RockYou's new advertising network. RockYou currently has three big-time apps on Facebook: Horoscopes, X Me, and Super Wall, which according to the article:

RockYou has eight applications right now (with two more in the works) and claims to have at least one of its apps installed by a third of Facebook users, including Horoscopes, X Me and Super Wall.

This bold claim jumped out at me. So I did some quick research with my own group of friends. Out of my 414 Facebook friends, a combined 54 people had these apps installed (Horoscopes and X Me with 37 and Super Wall with 7). Not exactly 1/3. Upon further investigation, I found that the actual number of people was 35, as many of those users had installed multiple RockYou apps. I would be willing to bet that this trend is pretty common among RockYou app users, with many users having two or three RockYou apps installed on their account.

I am still waiting for an app that is actually useful to come out. So far, all the apps I've seen just make it harder to post on my friend's walls.

So there has been a lot of talk about Facebook recently. And by a lot of talk I am referring to the fact that the whole blogosphere/online media outlets can't stop covering the constant arrival of new and exciting Facebook applications. Whether iLike to ChipIn, Facebook applications are the new darlings of TechCrunch and Robert Scoble.

That's nice. But for the moment, most of these apps are just costing developers money and not yielding much of a return. Who knows maybe Facebook is planning to launch a developer ad network to compete against the likes of Google's AdSense. Brad Feld, Mark Evans and Fred Wilson each offer there own take on where they see Facebook headed.

For Facebook, I think they need to focus on the major reason people use the site: sharing photos with their friends. That's what most people I know use Facebook for. Yes they are "adding" apps to their profiles, but I can guarantee almost all Facebook users spend most of their time looking at pictures.

Here's an idea: design image-recognition software that recognizes labels on beverage containers or brands of clothing in user's pictures. Then tailor the ads on the page to match. Talk about viral marketing. See really cool kid wearing a new Designer X shirt, simply click on the advertisement to purchase the same shirt. Now you too, can be cool.