6 Steps to Building a Better iPhone App
June 10, 2009 by guidesto
Filed under Twitter Mobile
Brian LeRoux is Nitobi’s Software Architect, and is involved in shepherding the PhoneGap open source project. You can read his blog, or find him on Twitter.
Thanks to increasingly powerful devices and cheaper data plans, the mobile app space is growing faster every year. Apple has been at the forefront of that growth with the iPhone, by both partnering with telecom companies to provide near-unlimited web access, and redefining application distribution with the App Store, which created a new industry and market for smartphone applications.
The App Store has created a gold rush for developers, and there are now over 50,000 applications for sale, making it harder to get a newly released app noticed by users. It has become especially necessary for developers to reduce development time and put their product on the market as quickly as possible.
Here’s a list of steps which should be considered when getting into the iPhone app game:
Step 1: Narrow your focus
A mobile application has precious little screen real estate, so be sure to focus on reducing screen clutter. Your application should be as simple as possible without sacrificing usability and completeness. If it has to do multiple tasks to achieve its goal, then these should be performed one at a time.
Step 2: Build a better user experience
All software depends on a great user experience to succeed. You can maximize your chances of success by experimenting with different approaches to your user interface. Quickly discard what doesn’t work and build on what does work.
The design process can be as simple as drawing on a whiteboard, but if you are pitching ideas to your colleagues or clients, using a mockup tool will give your designs more polish. For the Mac, the OmniGraffle diagramming software has iPhone stencils, or for Photoshop design firm teehan+lax has created an iPhone GUI PSD file. However, for web applications, the easiest solution may be to create the mockup in HTML.
Whether you decide to paper prototype or take the 37signals approach of skipping the mockup step completely, you need to respect your audience and their goals. You’ve decided on a focus for the application in Step 1 and now it’s time to make sure that your app is not just useful but usable. If you’re unclear on the definition of usable, Apple has done a lot of this thinking for you with their Safari Dev Center (which requires the free Apple Developer Connection membership to access).
Step 3: Choose your approach
The development framework you choose will determine the speed and ease of creating the application, as well as what iPhone features are accessible from your application. You have three options: web technology, Objective-C or a combination of the two.
Build in the browser: The easiest option for creating an iPhone, BlackBerry or Android application is to build it in the browser using web development languages like HTML and JavaScript. Web developers already familiar with HTML and JavaScript can build iPhone applications that run in the browser, without having to learn Objective-C, the native iPhone app development language. On the whole, browser-built apps are easier to build and distribute. They’re portable and accessible from multiple devices, which helps them spread. Further, browser-built apps update instantly, generally load faster, are easier to read and update and offer more flexibility for future feature updates. Popular browser-built iPhone apps include mobile versions of Gmail and Facebook.
Create a native app: Native applications built in Objective-C make full use of all the iPhone features: GPS, accelerometer, local storage, camera, and more. This approach works especially well for robust applications, like 3D games. If your goal is to sell a complex, full-featured application, building a native application is your best bet.
Take the hybrid approach: If you’re not ready to take the plunge and learn Objective-C, there’s another option that combines the browser-built approach with the benefits of native development. Hybrid development tools, like the open source PhoneGap or RhoMobile frameworks, provide a set of tools and libraries that enable web developers to build iPhone applications with HTML and JavaScript, but also provide access to many of the native iPhone features. The obvious benefit here is that there’s no need to learn yet another programming language. You can build apps using the technologies you already know.
Step 4: Use the right tools for the job
To build native iPhone apps you need to have a Mac OS X computer and obtain an Apple Developer Connection membership (which is free, but to submit to the App Store there’s a $99 fee) in order to download the latest version of Xcode and the iPhone SDK.
If you’re taking the web application or hybrid development route, then WebKit is a great resource. jQTouch and XUI are JavaScript frameworks for WebKit specifically designed for creating iPhone interfaces. You can also use Dashcode (bundled with the iPhone SDK), which has iPhone app templates.
No matter which approach you’ve chosen for product development, you must be able to test your application on real iPhones (and iPod Touches), because the iPhone emulator in Apple’s iPhone SDK doesn’t exactly mimic the hardware’s performance.
Step 5: Test first, test again, test some more. Also: test
While it is always important to thoroughly test software before releasing it to the public, the App Store’s format has made the need for bug-free code a make or break situation. Users who have downloaded your iPhone app can rate it using Apple’s 5-star rating system and write reviews. Your application’s average rating and review count will appear alongside the title and developer name in searches and the app’s listing, and the reviews are accessible from your application’s page in the store.
A major bug will inevitably result in a number of poor reviews and ratings from current users, which will discourage some new users even after the bug has been fixed. In addition, the App Store has a thorough submission system and submitting a bug fix often takes several days to be processed and get your application updated, further exacerbating any problems.
It is better to spend extra time testing your application than to publish it early and risk saddling it with a bad reputation from the start.
Step 6: Real artists ship: submitting to the App Store
How long does it take to get an app into the iTunes App Store? While we’ve seen some estimates of up to 20 days to have your app approved, we’ve had apps accepted in as few as five. The app review process is notoriously fastidious. Readers will recall, for example, how the Eucalyptus ebook reader was initially rejected because phone users could use it to read the Kama Sutra.
Both Niall Kennedy and Adeem Basraa have written great reports and instructions about the submission process to the App Store.
Reviews: Android, Facebook, Gmail
Tags: developer, iphone, iphone app, iphone application, Lists
Web 2.0 Becomes One Millionth Word; Just As We Stop Using It
June 10, 2009 by guidesto
Filed under Twitter Mobile
Words from the tech vernacular finding their way into common language – and ultimately the dictionary – isn’t a new phenomenon. “Blog” was Merriam-Webster’s “word of the year” in 2004, while more recent additions to the dictionary include “Facebook” and “Meh.”
Usually, these moves are timely publicity stunts of sorts by dictionary makers. However, the move today by a group called The Global Language Monitor to make “Web 2.0” the one millionth word in the English language is a bit puzzling, considering that term seems to have run its course. In fact, search volume for the term is about 50 percent off of its peak at this point according to Google Trends.
According to the group, their methodology for adding words is based on total number of searches for it, so, it sort of makes sense that they might be a bit late to the party.
That said, the term Web 2.0 was certainly significant – and remains so to some extent – to the recent history of the Web. However, the things that constituted “Web 2.0” two years ago – like social networking, web-based software, and content sharing – have become so commonplace that it’s rare we refer specifically to them in that context anymore.
What terms, if any, do you use to describe the current state of the Web? Share your favorites in the comments.
Reviews: Facebook
Tags: Dictionary, Web 2.0
Saving Grace With SavvyAuntie; TNT Tries Sponsored Tweets
June 10, 2009 by guidesto
Filed under Twitter Mobile
Melanie Notkin, otherwise known as @SavvyAuntie and the founder of the social network by the same name, has been tasked with a very unusual role by a major cable television network.
Turner’s TNT has hired the savvy auntie to officially live tweet on behalf of the Saving Grace program starting next Tuesday, June 16th at 10pm EST. These sponsored conversations will be hosted by Notkin (a prominent member of New York’s Social Media Hub) and use the hashtag #SavingGrace with [sp] to denote that the tweets are sponsored.
We’ve seen a lot of networks try and capitalize on the Twitter phenomenon. MTV’s The Phone has a companion Twitter game, and even Bravo celebrated their Real Housewives of New York season finale with a virtual viewing party that had Twitter in the spotlight. We’re especially intrigued by TNT’s approach to forgo the celebrity angle, however, and turn to a member of the web/tech space for her influence and audience.
Notkin writes a detailed description of how the relationship came to be on the SavvyAuntie blog, and we learn that she reached out to TNT because she saw a natural fit between the show — who’s heroine is an aunt — and the SavvyAuntie audience.
She writes, “It took us a couple of months to figure out the best way to create engagement through social media…and finally agreed that inviting everyone to a weekly Twitter event – led by yours truly – to watch and live-tweet Saving Grace every Tuesday at 10PM EDT, starting June 16, would be a fantastic solution.”
Sponsored Twitter conversations have been known to create quite a stir, and we’ve even explored the impact that IZEA’s Sponsored Tweets could have on Twitter, but Notkin’s openness about the sponsored conversation, the direct alignment with her audience, and the network’s involvement somehow make this campaign appear more genuine.
Then again, we could be wrong. Let us know your thoughts on TNT’s Saving Grace social media campaign by way of sponsored tweets.
Reviews: Twitter
Tags: saving grace, savvyauntie, sponsored tweets, tnt, turner, twitter
Last.fm Founders Wave Goodbye to CBS
June 10, 2009 by guidesto
Filed under Twitter Mobile
After two years under the CBS umbrella, the founders of music discovery service Last.fm are leaving the company. The team announced their departure in a blog post this morning, explaining, “this is the latest stage in a long journey for us founders, which began in a living room in East London in 2002, and took us to the headquarters of one of the biggest media companies in the world.”
They note that traffic is currently at an all-time high (a self reported 37.3MM global unique visitors), but the recent history of Last.fm has not been without controversy. In March, the company announced that they would start charging a subscription fee to international users, only to temporarily back down from the decision a week later. The company has also been defending itself from rumors that they handed over user data to the RIAA.
All of that aside though, the founder’s departure is more likely about moving onto the next project (or, early retirement perhaps). Most deals of the CBS-Last.fm variety stipulate that the founders stay on for a given period of time, and now that the $280 million deal is two years behind us, that period is probably up. In any event, Last.fm will certainly be remembered as one of the more successful (if not frothy) exits of the Web 2.0 cycle.
Firefox Introduces Add-On Collections
June 10, 2009 by guidesto
Filed under Twitter Mobile
Most users have no time to browse through thousands of resources, read (often obscure) forums, and search for best tools to accomplish a certain task. That’s why here at Mashable we’ve long held the belief that collections of various online resources are real time-savers for our readers.
The folks at Firefox seem to be on the same page, and thus they introduced a new feature: Firefox Add-on collections. Let’s say you want to interact with the various social networks directly from Firefox. You can try out the different plugins one by one, but now you can also install an entire Firefox collection of add-ons called the Social Circuit, which contains 16 social add-ons.
New collections can be created by anyone and shared with their friends; you can browse them on the Collection Directory, and you’re currently able to filter them by popularity, or you can browse through the Editor’s picks.
To create your own collection you must register on Firefox’s site; after that, creating a collection is quite easy: choose a name, and pick which add-ons you want to be in your collection.
Collections go hand in hand with the Add-on Collector, a special extension which turns your favorite collections into subscriptions. It’ll notify you when new add-ons are published to one of your collections, and it also allows you to share add-ons with friends, publish add-ons to your collection, and set up a collection to be automatically updated in your Firefox.
Check out a video introduction to add-on collections below.
Reviews: Firefox, Mashable
Tags: add-ons, Collections, Firefox, web browser
Mashable’s Weekly Guide to Social Media Marketing & Web Development Jobs
June 10, 2009 by guidesto
Filed under Twitter Mobile
If you’re seeking a job in social media, we’d like to help out. For starters, Mashable’s Job Lists section gathers together all our resource lists, how-tos and expert guides to help you get hired. In particular, you might want to see our articles on How to Leverage Social Media for Career Success and How to Find a Job on Twitter.
But we’d like to help in a more direct way, too. Mashable’s job boards are a place for socially-savvy companies to find people like you. This week and every week, Mashable features its coveted job board listings for a variety of positions in the web, social media space, and beyond. Have a look at what’s good and new on our job boards:
Mashable Job Board Listings
Director, Social Media at Reprise Media in New York, NY.
Currently seeking Director to lead the growing social media arm of our business. This person will manage all parts of the social media department, including sales, execution, reporting, training, and departmental growth.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Manager, Online Publishing at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory seeks a highly gifted, creative individual with strong leadership skills and organizational abilities to manage JPL’s online publishing, including JPL’s World Wide Web home page site.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Manager, Online Marketing at Marketwire in El Segundo, CA.
Marketwire is looking for an ambitious online direct marketer to be responsible for developing and executing demand generation campaigns to drive new leads to our products as well as programs to nurture existing prospects and retain our customers. The online marketing and lead generation manager will develop integrated online marketing programs designed to drive traffic, leads, high response rates and quality opportunity conversions.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Web Developer at LOLapps in San Francisco, CA.
Lolapps is seeking engineers to work on a full spectrum of web development from front end through back end. You should be entrepreneurial, proactive, and love software development.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Director of Social Media at Anthropologie in Philadelphia, PA.
We’re interested in someone who has extensive social media experience—someone who is active in the blogosphere and all forms of social media; someone who has developed and managed mobile and online symmetrical communication strategies. You must know how to facilitate conversations and empower others to talk about our brand. You must be dually focused on today—generating actionable social media deliverables—as well as tomorrow—thinking strategically and conceptually about long-term business needs and opportunities.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Associate Account Executive at IRME in Sparks Glencoe, MD.
Our ideal candidate will be a dynamic, creative and fun college graduate with a degree in communications or other related field. Must love the internet – frankly, maybe even obsessed with it and regularly access social networks, blogs, forums, and consumer reviews. Candidates must be a self-motivated and detail oriented team player and can often be found making YouTube videos just for fun.
Read more about this opportunity here.
PHP and Social Networking Guru Developer at Giantnerd in Boulder, CO.
Ideal candidate is extremely hard working, extraordinarily talented, entrepreneurial, THINKS OUTSIDE THE BOX, has great problem solving skills excellent intuition for user interface, and is extremely passionate about open source applications, web 2.0, mobile applications, social networking and social commerce. If are looking for a cutting edge and entrepreneurial dotcom company in silicon valley but would rather work with products which you are passionate about in an eco friendly industry in entrepreneurial Boulder, CO than this is the position for you.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Online Business Marketing Manager at The Wing Girl Method in Los Angeles, CA.
I need someone to help me take my online business to the next level by means of further product development, viable lead maintenance and marketing strategy.
Read more about this opportunity here.
VP Advertising at Everywun in San Francisco, CA.
Our ideal candidate has a wealth of experience in the online advertising and/or sponsorship world. He/she has experience interacting with online ad agencies, has a deep understanding of SEO/SEM and affiliate advertising, marketing, and lead generation, and feels comfortable implementing a wide range of strategies and tactics to test and iterate on a fast developing business model. He/she is also extremely well-spoken, well organized, competent writer, self starter, and excited to use expertise to lead a big part of a small socially conscious startup.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Senior Web Developer at OpenCrowd in New York City.
OpenCrowd is looking for highly motivated individuals who thrive on challenging work in a startup environment with a strong dedication to delivering innovative applications utilizing the latest technologies. Our technologists need to be very delivery oriented and be able to pick up new technologies quickly.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Account Director at 360i in New York City.
360i is looking for an entrepreneurial-minded Account Director with an MBA, Digital Agency Experience and at least 2 years of CPG Client Side Experience to serve as the strategic client services lead and business development contact for a host of Fortune 500 clients in the Consumer Packaged Goods vertical.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Web Pioneer at ROBLOX in Redwood City, CA.
ROBLOX is looking for talented web engineers for a new team that will create, build, and enhance our social gaming / social networking functionality. As part of this team, you will innovate social networking features particular to 3D gaming, explore current and emerging social technologies (e.g. OpenSocial, Facebook), and internationalize our website in ways that allow seamless play between everyone.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Web Developer/Designer at Sloshspot, Inc. in San Jose, CA.
You have a number of developer/designer blogs that you like and frequent often. You stay on top of current design/development advancements and you can distinguish between a passing fad and a true step forward for the developer community. You are passionate about your work and often pick projects based on how much it interests you rather than just the paycheck. Looking and using developer libraries is great but you recognize the benefits in developing your own and wouldn’t be afraid to do so if necessary (especially in PHP and JS).
Read more about this opportunity here.
Lead Developer at keepwheel in Palo Alto, CA.
You’ll be responsible to work with us to construct a list of features and create mock-ups, prepare a development roadmap/technological architecture and timeline, develop and code the company’s web-based software and database; oversee the development process to ensure overall compatibility, as well as timely delivery; and work with the senior team to develop and implement the business strategy.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Social Media Marketer at Yellowbook in King of Prussia, PA.
The Social Marketer will develop and incorporate social sharing initiatives that drive traffic to both Yellowbook.com and newly developed vertical websites. This candidate will be responsible for increasing the ‘share-ability’ of Yellowbook data and content to facilitate peer-to-peer referral traffic and establish repeat usage in the social network communities. This position requires the candidate to consistently seek out and engage potential customer segments to introduce Yellowbook’s ease of data sharing.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Account Planner at 360i in New York, NY.
360i is looking for a Social Marketing Strategist/Account Planner to help our roster of Fortune 500 clients (like NBC, MTV, Ralph Lauren, H&R Block and JCPenney) navigate and excel in social marketing through innovative ideation, strategy development, flawless execution and thoughtful measurement.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Manager, Social Video Marketing at Feed Company in Los Angeles, CA.
Feed Company is looking for a Manager, Social Video Marketing. The candidate will be responsible for executing online video seeding campaigns. The candidate must have experience executing social marketing campaigns that drive online video views and engagement and managing interns to assist in the execution. The candidate must also be extremely organized, strong communication skills (written, verbal), and (of course) computer and online media savvy.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Social Media Strategist at a film distribution company in New York, NY.
A New York-based entertainment company is seeking an experienced Social Media Strategist to implement multiple campaigns/accounts.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Web/UI Developer at U30 Group in Knoxville, TN.
The ideal candidate is capable of creating visual design and Action Script functionality. They are self-motivated to learn the latest trends in Web 2.0 apps, as well as understanding the correct situations to employ them. They are highly organized (in both schedule and coding). They have an undying drive to “get it right” even in a fast-pace, tight-deadline environment. And they are able to do it all by themselves or as part of a larger team.
Read more about this opportunity here.
Mashable has a variety of web 2.0, application development, business development, and social networking job opportunities available. Check them out at Mashable’s Job Board.
Got a job posting to share with our readers? Post a job to Mashable today ($50 for a 30 day listing) and get it highlighted every week on Mashable.com (in addition to exposure all day every day in the Mashable marketplace).
Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, PHP, YouTube
Are Twitter Users Inactive? Depends on How You Look at It
June 10, 2009 by guidesto
Filed under Twitter Mobile
Hubspot’s second State of the Twittersphere report is out, and once again, a cursory glance reveals that a lot of Twitter users aren’t very active. However, it all depends on how exactly you define “inactive;” a look from a different perspective shows that less than 10% of Twitter users aren’t really using the service at all.
It’s been a tough month for Twitter, stats-wise. Compete and Quantcast posted their traffic stats for May, showing that Twitter’s phenomenal growth has stopped or even reversed. Before that, a report from Harvard Business Review revealed that most Twitter users are passive, with 10% of all users accounting for 90% of the overall number of tweets. Now, Hubspot’s report, based on some 4.5 million Twitter accounts, pretty much confirms this. Here are some of the highlights:
* 79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL
* 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
* 68.68% have not specified a location
* 55.50% are not following anyone
* 54.88% have never tweeted
* 52.71% have no followers
Sounds quite bleak, doesn’t it? Especially the part that shows that over half of all Twitter users do not tweet at all. However, one has to take into account the fact that you can be a Twitter user without tweeting; you can merely follow other users. Therefore, Hubspot really labels a Twitter account inactive if it satisfies all of these three conditions: it needs to have fewer than 10 followers, fewer than 10 friends, and fewer than 10 updates.
By this definition, only 9.06% of all Twitter users are inactive, which sounds surprisingly good. What does this mean? Well, these numbers are certainly skewed by various spammy/bot accounts, but it definitely shows that you cannot take Twitter’s inactivity numbers for granted. Some Twitter users don’t tweet, but they follow other users. Some don’t have a lot of friends, but they tweet a lot (for example, you could use Twitter to communicate with a small, closed group, like one’s family or a group of people working on a project). Twitter is a versatile tool, and its usage patterns do not necessarily follow the usage patterns of other services.
The report also shows a number of other interesting stats. For example, very few users ever retweet other tweets, with overall percentage of retweets among all tweets being 1.44%. Replies, however, are used a lot; 33.44% of all tweets contain the “@” symbol. Another very interesting graph shows the distribution of tweet length; a vast majority of users are trying to cram as much text as possible in Twitter’s 140 character limit, which suggests that increasing this limit somewhere along the line might be a popular move for Twitter.
Read the full report here.
Reviews: Twitter
Tags: statistics, twitter, twittersphere, users
The Internet: Some Think it’s Essential, Some Don’t Want it for Free
June 10, 2009 by guidesto
Filed under Twitter Mobile
According to research conducted among 2,000 people by the UK Communications Consumer Panel, almost three quarters (73%) of those interviewed think that broadband Internet is as essential as water or electricity. However, UK regulator Ofcom conducted additional research which shows that 30% of the UK population is currently offline. Interestingly enough, among those, around 43% wouldn’t take broadband Internet even if someone gave it to them for free.
Ofcom divides the offline UK population into two groups: those who cannot afford broadband or a PC, and those who are self-excluded, meaning they’ve said they have no interest in using the Internet. The members of this group are mostly older and retired, among them, 61% confessing to never having used a computer. Interestingly enough, most of the offline population don’t really care about cheaper prices or free Internet-related training; 58% of them simply stated these wouldn’t be a strong enough incentive to start using the Internet.
The other side of the coin is encouraging, though. With constant talk (especially in the UK) about the possible introduction of the three-strikes law, which would ban file-sharers (pirates) from using the Internet after two warnings, it’s good to see that, just like the European Parliament, most users think of Internet as essential as tap water. If the majority of citizens think of Internet access as one of the basic human rights, it’ll be harder for governments to introduce extreme anti-piracy measures such as the three-strikes law.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Yakobchuk
Twitter Tracker Returns to Conan and Gets its Own Website
June 10, 2009 by guidesto
Filed under Twitter Mobile
Conan O’Brien is apparently keen on making Twitter a part of The Tonight Show – at least in a satirical kind of way. Tuesday night’s episode saw the return of the “Twitter Tracker” sketch that debuted last week, featuring more made up “Cream of Tweets” from celebrities like Jessica Simpson, and further animated mutilations of Twitter’s iconic bird.
More interesting, however, is we’ve learned that NBC plans to launch a full microsite dedicated to the sketch – Twitter-Tracker.com. It’s essentially an aggregation of the tweets that Tonight Show staffers are posting on Twitter itself through the @TW1TTERTRACKER account, and will start being promoted on NBC.com’s site later this week.
While Conan might be taking a different approach to Twitter than some of his late night counterparts, early signs (i.e. – tweets) point to his sketches at least drawing a reaction from the social media set. With the first two “Twitter Tracker” segments receiving some of the biggest laughs we’ve heard on the show and NBC reacting quickly to launch a special site for it, it looks like they’ll ride this wave as long as they can to help build up Conan’s Twitter following.
Tonight’s Twitter Tracker is embedded below:
Reviews: Twitter
Tags: conan o’brien, nbc, tonight show, twitter
Facebook Usernames: Good Idea or Not?
June 10, 2009 by guidesto
Filed under Twitter Mobile
Today, Facebook made the announcement that it would be allowing users to register usernames and custom URLs. On June 13th at 12:00 AM ET, you will be able to register Facebook.com/YourName as your own. This brings Facebook in line with two of its biggest competitors, Twitter and MySpace, both of which offer vanity URLs for profiles.
While this is a feature many users have been requesting, there are other Facebook members that are having a strong negative reaction. In fact, the comments on the Facebook announcement go back and forth between positive and negative. So why are some users ecstatic about this feature, while others are making their dissatisfaction heard? Are you a fan of the new Facebook username system?
Positives: improving shareability
For Facebook, this move is all about shareability. Currently, for someone to find my Facebook profile, I would usually tell them to search “Ben Parr” on Google to find my Facebook page. In three days, I will be able to tell them to go to Facebook.com/BenParr. This brings Facebook at the same level of profile shareability as Twitter and MySpace.
This change also brings an additional level of personalization and promotion in the mix. It’s easier to now make Facebook part of your personal branding strategy, since the link can involve your name or alias. It can also give you a greater sense of ownership over your profile.
Negatives: privacy and community concerns
The new change has not gone without some concern, however. Users have been raising issues or just general discontent in Facebook comments. Some have even created Facebook protest groups. Here are some common arguments against Facebook usernames:
Virtual land rush: Unlike Twitter and Myspace, which have had vanity URLs since the start, Facebook is releasing this feature with over 200 million users. The inevitable result will be an online gold rush for common names, key phrases, and brand names. We can imagine users stealing the brand names of rivals just to keep it out of their hands, leading to a lot of headaches, complaints, and a mess to clean up.
Privacy: Some users are worried that a vanity URL will decrease privacy on the social networking website, an issue that has put Facebook in hot water before. Some users don’t their profile easily discovered, but will register a username to protect it. This could lead to problems.
MySpace comparisons: Some users simply don’t believe that the vanity URL is in line with how they use Facebook. Many commenters on the Facebook blog have made a fuss over how this change makes Facebook more like MySpace, not a positive comparison to be sure.
What’s your opinion?
While we can only speculate as to how users will react when Facebook usernames go live, we can gauge initial reaction. So we want to know what you think. Do you like the idea of Facebook custom URLs? Or do you think that the virtual land rush is a bad idea for user satisfaction and privacy? Let us know by voting, and once you vote, please share your thoughts in the comments:
Reviews: Facebook, Google, MySpace, Twitter
Tags: facebook