Facebook: The Private Internet

Illustration: Brent Humphreys

This article popped up on Wired a few days ago and has elicited a number of spirited discussions amongst my colleagues and friends.

The great wall of Facebook: The Social Network’s Plan to Dominate the Internet – and Keep Google Out.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-07/ff_facebookwall

FACEBOOK’S 4-Step Plan for Online Domination

Mark Zuckerberg has never thought of his company as a mere social network. He and his team are in the middle of a multiyear campaign to change how the Web is organized—with Facebook at the center. Here’s how they hope to pull it off.

1 – Sell targeted ads, everywhere. Facebook hopes to one day sell advertising across all of its partner sites and apps, not just on its own site. The company will be able to draw on the immense volume of personal data it owns to create extremely targeted messages.

2 – The challenge: not freaking out its users in the process. Build critical mass. In the eight months ending in April, Facebook has doubled in size to 200 million members, who contribute 4 billion pieces of info, 850 million photos, and 8 million videos every month.

3 – The result: a second Internet, one that includes users’ most personal data and resides entirely on Facebook’s servers. Redefine search. Facebook thinks its members will turn to their friends—rather than Google’s algorithms—to navigate the Web. It already drives an eyebrow-raising amount of traffic to outside sites, and that will only increase once Facebook Search allows users to easily explore one another’s feeds.

4 – Colonize the Web. Thanks to a pair of new initiatives—dubbed Facebook Connect and Open Stream—users don’t have to log in to Facebook to communicate with their friends. Now they can access their network from any of 10,000 partner sites or apps, contributing even more valuable data to Facebook’s servers every time they do it.

Taking a step back for a moment, last year, Microsoft sunk in a hefty $240 Million USD into Facebook returning back 5% ownership of the new kid on the block, which yielded an extrapolated worth of $15 billion USD. Not bad Mr Zuckerberg. Ostensibly, this investment was a fast start to allow Microsoft to deploy its BING search technology, which is Microsoft’s latest attempt to cash in on the search market which Google & Overture (Yahoo!) have dominated for so long. As an aside, some of my colleagues have referred to BING as “But It’s Not Google” which brings a smile to my face. The creation of the private index for Microsoft’s & Facebook’s own use is what fascinates me more, as with a large pool of active users, the gathered data around trending topics and user preferences is simply staggering.

Now specifically – will it work? Will Facebook’s effort’s to create a 2nd, “closed” network of information and activity tailored on its network of users yield much needed revenue and deliver monetary value to shareholders without alienating users?

Facebook’s efforts at creating a personalised experience for its user base and deliver a complexity and depth of targeted advertising that will surpass anything that has occurred before has a big challenge ahead of it. Part of this will be the delivery to its audience that walks that fine line of not annoying them yet offers value and ultimately makes their browsing experience more enriched. The challenges Facebook has is minimising the  impact on the user experience or compromising the privacy of its users – and advertisers. As the user audiences learn to adopt the baseline delivery which encompasses the above, they will become less concerned about such foibles, instead preferring to manage their information in an appropriate fashion.

The heart of this issues is our faith. We put it to blind faith that our erstwhile corporate overseers that make up the organisations like Google, Facebook, etc will do the “right” thing from an ethical and moral standpoint with our information and our online personas.

I actually don’t personally mind that in my Facebook profile, I have in my interests listed “Mountain Biking, Snow Skiing and Adventure Racing” and am getting ad served specific information around cheap snow ski accommodation at Falls Creek, MTB insurance and adventure racing sales at my favourite online store. It’s cool and relevent to me and currently doesn’t impact too much on my day to day.

What I object too is the stance that the disasterous Beacon trials went through mid to late 2007 when suddenly users are portrayed to their trusted friends network as having looked at or endorsed a product or service, which may have through natural attrition been discarded as irrelevant, unsuitable or whatever other metric we care to value judge things by.

With the steroid driven BING Search technology now mining data and being analysed to levels never seen before, trends are being spotted in real time around social clusters – the users friendship network, meaning the relevence and value it offers users is significantly increased. If Facebook starts to spam its audience in any way – whether it be email, pop ups on in the browser or larger and more imposing add space, they better be ready to receive a massive drop in their active user base.

The original appeal of Facebook in the first place was that it was a relatively austere and add free environment, to connect and stay in touch with your friends. If it becomes a newspaper of your friends lives, then, the audience will be there, but its focus and preferences will shift with the next new thing.

Then Facebook will be back to square one – how to make money?

All things considered, now that Facebook has shown the usefulness of having a network which is closed, and offers insight into what our friends are doing, thinking and their opinions, I think if I were given the option of having an advertising free experience, on a closed network which only presented me my friends updates, photos and information, I’d be comfortable paying for it.

I wonder if this is a viable option now.

Mountain Bike: Giant

2009 Giant Anthem X LTD Carbon

“Across seven continents and fifty-odd countries, underneath thirty-two of the world’s brightest professional cyclists, in over ten thousand retail outlets, and throughout the streets of the world’s most populous nations, you’ll find bicycles designed and built by Giant, ‘The Global Bicycle Company’.”

That’s a pretty bold statement right there. This global philosophy makes it hard to pin down where the HQ is, but they manufacturer out of an enormous facility in Taiwan, according to Wikipedia

From a brand perspective, somewhere in my travels, I’ve heard Giant are the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world in terms of volume. Whilst I can’t conclusively prove this tidbit fact, in past years looking at their range of bikes and the matching components that come at a particular price point, there is no denying that dollar for dollar, they were amongst the best value complete build bicycles money could buy. Their current line up of mountain bikes seems to have shrunk a bit for 2009 relative to previous years, but consists of:

• Competition: Glory DH (Downhill) Anthem (Cross Country Dual Suspension), XTC Advanced (Carbon Fibre Hardtail)
• Trail: Trance X, XTC Hardtail
• All Mountain: Reign
• Freeride: Reign X

Giant’s claim to fame back in the early days of its dual suspension in 2000/2001 bike development was the NRS – No Resonance System – famously developed in conjunction with the Renault F1 Team offering suspension resonance, telemetry and geometry expertise. In 2007 this was updated both branding wise and structurally/technically to become the Maestro platform, which has been met with critical acclaim as reaching that holy grail of compliant under pedal load and active under braking (no brake jacking). The promotional vids went around the net and captured that sense of “get out there and ride”

I find Giant Bicycles a bit of an odd beast at times in relation to the brand, its uptake and the way they go about presenting product and supporting it. There is no doubting the quality nor depth of the range, covering as they do every variant of bicycles from children’s bikes, triathlon, time trials and road across to cyclocross, hybrids, commuters and mountain bikes. Technology is not lacking either, with their own take on carbon fibre gracing the top echelon of product as the pinnacle of design and technical advancement and oftimes various of their bikes showcasing the latest elite and exclusive release products from component manufacturers like SRAM and Shimano.

Pick say the pricepoint of $2,000 AUD for a Hardtail MTB as an example and you are met with the XTC2. In 2009 trim it comes with a mix of Shimano XT running gear, Avid brakes, RaceFace cockpit (seat post, stem, headset & bar) & Mavic rims. Comparisons with other manufacturers will find the tendency to err towards a generic or own brand cockpit and lower spec trimmings around spokes, cables and tyres. Not Giant. Hand over your cash and you’ll find yourself a highly specified and well made bike which has a very comfortable “fits like a glove” geometry and feel to its ride. I find Giants (and this is a gross generalisation) don’t do any one thing brilliantly, but do everything really, really, REALLY well, leading to a true “sum of its parts makes for the greater whole” experience. Alot of my friends ride Giant, love them and they are amongst my first recommendation for anyone to look at. In addition, the sheer scale of the dealer network means that the support is there if things go south. From a riding point of view, I find them a very “relaxed” position having ridden a couple of the XTC hardtails, their original dual suspension cross country NRS series bicycles and more recently the Trance and Trance X series. They’re smooth, easy to steer and just “ride”. Do everything very well, nothing brilliantly.

What I find odd is that this reputation for value for money and good equipment is jarred by the online and instore experience. If you Google the words “giant bikes”, you are met with a slew of different websites. It is not easy to dessiminate which is the official website as opposed to a dealer website. Bad move. Once you get to the official website for your respective country, I find that they are a totally underwhelming experience, particularly next to the likes of Cannondale, Specialized, Trek etc. The websites are bland, and don’t hold a lot by way of character. More noticable (particularly next to the other branded websites) there is little differentiation between a basic $400 steel framed, caliper brake shod 19kg mountain bike verses a $10,000, disc brake, 9.5 kg carbon fibre race ready weapon. This haphazard approach extends to the bike stores themselves. I’d love to say that Giant present a great buying experience, but they just don’t – I’ve never walked into a store that stocked Giant which has totally blown me away in every aspect – sales staff technical knowledge, product presentation, store layout – it just isn’t in the same class as what the guys at Specialized, Cannondale, Scott or Trek do.

• Official Website Portal http://www.giant-bicycles.com
• Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Manufacturing

McLaren F1: Reborn

Way back in the early 90′s, I was an absolutely huge fan of Formula 1 (zeolot is the more accurate term, but I’ve grown up a bit since then), religiously staying up until the early hours of the morning to watch the entire F1 race season broadcast live from its respective country. The fascination went far beyond a bunch of cars doing laps around a track under the control of a bunch of very highly paid (and skilled) drivers. It extended to the vehicles themselves, the engines, the computational telemetry, the pit crews, the team structure and most of all the psychology behind it all. I loved (and still do) the technology, the fanatical focus on process and relentless drive to develop faster, better, more effective and more efficient ways of being more reliable, more competitive and ultimately more justifiable to the sponsors which shell out tens of millions of dollars in sponsorship money in the expectation of high profile media coverage.

Of endless fascination to me is the pursuit of technical solutions to mundane, every day problems.

Some Examples:

1. Need to change tires faster. Reduce wheel nuts from 5, to 4, to 1, development of cross locking splines, keyed to the air gun. The result? Pit changes that went from 3 to 4 minutes down to under 5 seconds for 4 tyres. This was so fast, that new rules were introduced to force cars to refuel at the same time, increasing pit stop time to 30 seconds.
2. Tyre technology: compounds, wet weather patterns and tyre wall structures evolved and refined itself, again and again, so much so that they introduced regulations to narrow the tyre width and introduced grooves to slow the cars down. The silica compound technology and asymmetric tread pattern variants became production vehicle tyre standards and are now benchmarks for performance.
3. Turbos introduced forced induction, increasing power at astonishing rates. The rules around engine sizes were changed to reduce their capacity with the result that at their pinnacle, 1.5 litre engines were generating in excess of 1400BHP. This technology pioneered by BMW, Honda & Porsche has influenced production cars today with the introduction of variable timing (think: BMW Vanos, Honda VTEC, Porsche Variocam). They were subsequently banned: too much power.

The list of the innovations in technology flowing on to production cars is endless: ABS brakes. Safety Crash Cells. Pre-fabricated crumple zones to aid in crash deceleration forces. The modern lap/sash harness. Non-submarining seats. The list is endless.

So, it was with a certain amount of awe and reverence I met the news in 1992 – my first year in Uni and incidentally the year I got my drivers license – that the McLaren F1 team had formed a road going division under the guidance of Gordon Murray and were releasing a fully fledged member of the supercar aristocracy in a street legal road car – the  McLaren F1. Every superlative that can be applied to supercars is valid here, where even 17+ years on, it is still the fastest naturally aspirated production engine vehicle in the world and is only eclipsed outright by the Koenigsegg CCR, the Bugatti Veyron and the SSC Ultimate Aero TT. Putting into perspective just how uncompromising a technological tour de force the F1 was – and still is – Top Gear UK last week pitted both the Bugatti Veyron and the McLaren F1 in a standing mile race. Whilst the Veyron won (it does have 1000 bhp), the F1′s acquitted itself in a fashion which is a fitting tribute to Gordan Murray’s unrelenting design and engineering focus.

100 McLaren F1′s were made in total Road Cars: 64 F1, 5 F1 LM, 3 F1 GT and Race Cars 9 GTR 95, 9 GTR 96 & 10 GTR 97′s. As stated on the official McLaren website:

Production of the McLaren F1 drew to a close in May 1998, with a total of 100 cars built, sold and delivered to customers. Of the 100 cars 64 were F1 road cars, five were F1 LM versions built to commemorate victory at Le Mans in 1995 and three were F1 GT road going versions of the long tail 1997 F1 GTR race car. The remaining 28 were F1 GTR race cars built for private customers competing in the FIA GT series and the 24 Heures du Mans.

Much myth and conjecture abounds about McLaren’s and the various figures and feats which are reported. What cannot be denied is that even now, there are very few car marques, let alone single vehicles of any description, which have so universally and comprehensively been branded as superlative by every noted automotive commentator and publication globally.

So, you can imagine my utter delight when I heard that McLaren are building a new range of sports cars from 2011. Ron Dennis, the former commander-in-chief of the McLaren F1 Team is taking the helm of the new business, with the splitting of McLaren’s production and racing divisions into an independent company – McLaren Automotive – severing ties with the SLR badged Mercedes-Benz vehicles at the end of 2009.

The first vehicle off the rank has ostensibly been coded the P11, and is aimed at the likes of the Ferrari F430 / F430 Scuderia, Lamborghini Gallardo/ Gallardo Superleggera, Audi R8 and Porsche GT2/GT3/Turbo.

I cannot wait.

• Wikipedia: McLaren F1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_F1
• McLaren Automotive: Official Website http://www.mclarenautomotive.com
• McLaren Automotive: Street Car News: http://streetcars.co.za/2009/04/the-mclaren-p11-supercar-news-renderings/
• F1 Fanatic Blog: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/f1-information/history/
• Car Magazine UK: McLaren P11 Latest
• Car Magazine UK: New McLaren P11 Supercar: The Spy Photos

Save Water: Target 155

www.target155.vic.gov.au is the State of Victoria’s campaign to communicate environmentally responsible and sustainable practices around water consumption and usage in the community. The goal is for each Victorian to use no more than 155 litres of water each day, whether it be cooking, showers (4 minute goal), flushing the toilet (dual flush systems are Australian Law @ ~5.5 & 11  litres), watering the garden (already under restriction) and influencing the underlying mindset in the area of wider commercial usage.  This latest photo shoot has been done by Hugh Peachey, a photographer based in Melbourne who has done some outstanding work in recent months with Work Cover, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) and other well known government and commercial bodies. I’ve been lucky enough to have met Hugh, and he has even done some work on behalf of some Areeba clients in some corporate identity and products environment. He’s a great guy and his photography is reflective of some fantastic work.

Currently the photos are being displayed in prominent locations around Melbourne – The Thomson Dam shot is on a big billboard at Richmond Train Station near Punt Road and the others will be installed at various Metrolights around Melbourne.

Well done Hugh!

Our Water, Our Future: Target 155  http://www.target155.vic.gov.au

Hugh’s website: http://www.hughpeachey.com