Technology As Innovator

1. Facebook Vietnamese translation is quite good. Facebook’s translation team (mostly well-educated, English-fluent and enthusiastic users) has done a terrific job.

2. I am less excited, if any at all, to see a competition between Facebook Vietnamese and made-in-Vietnam made-by-Vietnamese Social Networks when Facebook official launches its Vietnamese page…

3. The hesitation to vote for Facebook is: traditionally thinking, a social network site for Vietnamese should satisfy some requirements:

• Blog as center
• Media (mostly music) sharing
• Customizable profile for younger users
• Not so overwhelmingly rich with features

Facebook’s focus is the opposite of all these 3 points. “Notes” is powerful enough to be a blog, but I have the impression that the application is not fully utilized by the users. At least one application allows profile customization, but Facebook core doesn’t encourage this. And since Facebook is an open-platform, the amount of application may be too much for first-time users.

4. Nevertheless, Facebook has all the potentials to solve one big problem for Vietnamese community: where to migrate to from Yahoo! 360.

5. Going vertical might help for Vietnamese Social Networks.

How are you with the new design so far?

Tech-savvy users, needless to say, you must have loved Facebook’s new design.

My non-tech Facebook friends, have you familiarized yourself with the new design? Do you still think Facebook makes it hard for you to navigate and locate things you like? Do you miss the old design? Well you know, I have seen the expected results from the new design already. Let me show you:

Have you noticed the change improvement of Facebook Ad?

First thing is in the Ad. I call new Facebook Ad Relationship-based Semantic.

There are two elements: Relationship-based and Semantic.

Relationship-based

The old ad is exactly a same-old vertical banner. No thing new.

The new add is in the form of “Friend A is a fan of Product P”. Wow! Facebook recognizes you and displays ads that feature your friends!

Semantic

Semantic is a little bit more abstract.

Facebook ad caters for relevance of information to you. Information they care about:

• Relationship: ads show faces of your friends
• Location: ads show products/services in your location
• Background: if you are doing or did your tertiary education in an Australian university, the ad might display a Master degree from Australia
• Interest: are you into Rock? ads show Rock performances

Do you have the impression that Facebook starts to understand you?

Why is this a result of the new design?

First thing first, I have to admit that saying “the new smart ad is a result from the new design” is an over-simplified statement.

Can Facebook ad be smart with the old design? Yes!

But it was much harder and would take longer with the old design.

Take a look at the new design:

1. You can comment right on your friends’ statuses
2. You have more spaces on the homepage as well as in your profile. Your profile is no longer crowded with all the applications but applications are separated thus create more spaces
3. Your friends’ Walls are thrown up first so it’s much quicker for you to leave your message
4. Your friend list is now more organized, increases the will to send them messages
5. Photos are displayed in different views, you want to comment more as you see more photos
6. In short, you write a lot more on Facebook’s new design
7. In short, you create a lot more contents on Facebook’s new design

As you create more contents, Facebook understands you more, thus displays more relevant ads to you.

You may argue: ads benefit them (Facebook and its sponsors), not you. Well, to be honest, would you prefer to see a totally non-relevant ad or an ad that might interest you?

What do you think about this? Do you love it or hate it?

Other considerations

Of course, a service provider is a business. Many may have concern of privacy. Google has known MUCH about me, now Facebook does. There’s a chill in the air that there are always people who want to make money keep an eye on every step I take online.

Conclusion

The ad might be beneficial to all three parties: you, Facebook and sponsors. Like it or not, inter-dependence is the driving force that strengthen consumption.

Private-owned high school Ngoi Sao (translated as Star) was probably the first non-international school in Ho Chi Minh City to provide edu email to their students. Read the story here

First, since the capacity is 7Gb, I have reason to believe that the school’s IT utilizes Gmail service.

Second, providing students with the school email address makes it more professional for communication than a personal mailbox on a free service. The students can use their school email to apply for part-time or free-lance job.

Third, I wonder if there is any difference between email addresses of students and email addresses of the school’s staff?

Last but not least, maybe these students can use their edu email as credentials to join a network on Facebook, instead of the current introduction mechanism.

How to join a network on Facebook

1. Location-based network has no restriction

2. For organization-based network, members must have an email address belonging to their company / organization where they find the verification link from Facebook

3. High schools also have their networks, but since many high school don’t provide school email, joining process is done on introduction basis. Person A requests network N to which s/he belongs. When person B who is a member of that network in real life want to join N, B has to add A as a friend and asks A to confirm that B is actually in N before Facebook adds B to N. Then C shall have to add either A or B and ask for confirmation. This process goes on for subsequent members…