Marc Benioff: Future Software Will Look Like Facebook
tech.slashdot.org
tech.slashdot.org
Is this not the Google Wave Fallacy?
Is that like one of those Swiss army knives with a built-in compass?
Learning management systems like Blackboard and Instructure Canvas are basically imitating facebook now. Edmodo goes the other way and basically starts from facebook and then adds in some learning/teaching features like quizzes and assignments.
Of course github has taken off the past few years, and it has feeds and likes (starring projects) and follows.
As someone commented on slashdot, even AutoCAD added a 'design feed' feature http://www.autocadws.com/blog/introducing-the-design-feed/
For things that aren't enough to warrant social attention to 'like' (like posting 100 times), there seems to be more use of badges like on forums and stack exchange.
Future software will look like Facebook except when it doesn't.
Much better.
But if feed based products were the way to go then USENET would of been growing in popularity above and beyond the binary feeds.
We after all as humans are still pefecting ourselfs and with that we are shy of any software that dictates direction for us. For most a forum were the input feeds are moderated and sanatised by others prior to you getting it is the common form, be it via crowd sourced forums like this or teirs of managment filtering what is interesting. Though the ability to overide those filters is just as important than having them and any other way is dictating and controlling the information in a way that makes most uncomfortable in the expectation that they are missing something which to them is important. Just as if this forum had no search option and the ability to view only the deemed top news items, well you know how that would work out badly, even if most don't use search or the new options much.
For example, the 'news feed' is super compelling and attention-grabbing, but at least partially in attention-abusive ways. By intermixing updates of wildly different importance, provenance, and topic, a heightened sense of novelty is created. By the use of reverse-chronological order, a false urgency is created -- "I must read/reply before it scrolls out of view!" -- even when the topics aren't really urgent. So this pattern is a sugar/steroid/stimulant for engagements... against which the mentally-healthy will eventually have to disengage and replace with something more respectful of their attention, with truer cues about novelty and importance.
So I expect the 'feed' pattern to be copied everywhere it might offer a quick bit of 'sizzle' to interactions... but also for new ameliorative antipatterns to be developed, and modify or displace the 'feed', as well. Especially in productive contexts where entertainment/diversion/distraction is not the highest value, it will be tried but then modified or discarded.
From my vantage all of the modern social networks feel like the newest incarnation of the blog model, which has always had that timeline model.
Nir Eyal has some nice thoughts on it: http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/08/the-webs-slot-machine.html
Mixing unrelated things, and making this mixed-history the default view, and optimizing it relentlessly for impressions/engagement -- those are all thiings that trend towards abusing people's attention. People will become more aware and less tolerant of such 'false excitement' UX over time, presenting more opportunities for designs and businesses that respect rather than squander our mental cycles.