Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Flixster

This post is for the Facebook Application Seminar, and it will be about Orry and co's app: Flixster.

A few things before I begin. First, I'm not going to talk about Flixster itself, because I think Orry's covered the app pretty comprehensively. I do find it interesting, however, that while it's called Flixster from within the application, Facebook calls it 'Movies' on the application status bar, on the bottom left of the screen. This suggests that if Flixster is the official Facebook movie application, then it may well be possible for other businesses to position their sites as official providers of various other niche services - like Food, for instance, or Music, or Job Listings, or even a Maps app from within Facebook itself.

What I really want to talk about is Flixter's move into Facebook. Why did they do it? Flixter has already built a strong community around its services, and so why did it approach this growing network - this 'gated community', with its site and service? What exactly are the benefits that Flixter sees in Facebook, and what might that mean for the rest of the web?

I ask this because there are a conspicuous number of other web applications that are not integrated into Facebook. Google, for instance, is unlikely to integrate anything of theirs into Facebook's ecosystem, for a number of reasons that I'm not sure are merely competitive in nature. There are also a large number of indie developers who would never consider plugging their apps into Facebook - 37signals, for one, and Wufoo; and I'm fairly certain that Facebook does want developers like these to plug their services into the site. (I also get the impression that Facebook wants to be the 'operating system' of the web, in the sense that it wants to be a platform for just about anything people-related that you want to do.) So again, why Facebook, and what exactly should you take into consideration, before bringing an app into the Facebook ecosystem?

Screen shot 2010-02-02 at 4.38.59 PM.png

Let's look at Flixster first, because it comes from an interesting position. I particularly liked Orry's point of how, if Facebook dies, Flixster would still continue to exist. And indeed the benefits to Flixster for plugging into Facebook's ecosystem is fairly easy to guess: you get a low-barrier-to-entry in a captive audience, which means that users won't have to go through an extended sign-up process on Flixster's parent site, and you get to leverage Flixster's (existing) viral nature onto Facebook's far larger audience. The same principles that applied to the Flixster network must've been easy to implement within Facebook, and on the surface at least, both services seem to be a good fit for each other.

That being said, though, there are a couple of questions that I'd like answered, questions that matter to me as a potential app writer. It seems to me that developers today have two options: to build for Facebook, or to build for the open web (and it is ironic that it seems as if there are two 'internets'). I must note, however, that the benefits available to Flixster are benefits that are applicable to almost all other apps within the Facebook ecosystem - a low-login-barrier-to-entry; a high density of potential users, and a set of tools designed from the ground up to be potentially viral for users. So what do they give up, in exchange for all these benefits?

They give up the right to define their brand, for one. This isn't particularly dangerous, because companies making these apps still have the ability to link to external sites related to the app itself. But Facebook's brand is pervasive, and if the app's popularity outstrips that of the original site, there is a real risk that it would be defined by the first point-of-contact, which for many users would be from within Facebook itself.

If you don't believe me, consider: would you have heard of Oodle had it not been for Facebook's Marketplace? And now that you have, is not your experience tainted by the first point-of-contact from within Facebook? Let's take it a step further: let's say that Marketplace is a far lousier experience than the parent Oodle.com site. Would your impressions of the brand be affected by the first, lousier, app? It probably would now, wouldn't it?

But what else is there that might be affected? One thing I think you lose is the ability to choose the kind of community you build around your app. A peculiar truth of the Internet is that an online community is always defined by the 'tone' of the site that spawns it. The simplest way to see this in action is to observe the kind of comments you get on blogs and forums: if a blog is bimbotic and snarky, the comments on said blog are likely to be as bimbotic and snarky as the blogger herself; if the blog is thoughtful, the comments are likely to be longer and more considered than is the mean.

That is not to say that Facebook spawns users that are dumb (though Youtube, as a comparison, probably has one of the dumbest communities on the whole Internet) - rather, Facebook contains users of a particular kind. Facebook users are attuned to the vocabulary of the site: they are used to short, superficial posts, distracting little games, and plenty of profile-hopping and/or the clicking of random links sent by friends and family.

As an external developer, your app would be defined by this existing, attention-deficit community, and you'd probably lose your ability to set the tone of your site/app. This is important to consider: Flickr would have been a very different app had it launched in Facebook, the same way Facebook would have been a very different app had it launched in Flickr.

I'd like to close by saying that while Flixter may have found a wonderful match in Facebook, I am starting to wonder if it's worth it to build Treehouse within Facebook itself. Treehouse is constructed around three ideas: sharing, meaningful communication, and privacy, of which only one (sharing) is a match with Facebook's underlying philosophy. Would it be worth it to sacrifice brand and community for users? I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet I'll find out, and soon enough.

N.B.: This may not apply to games, but just as a test - go to Kongregate and observe the vocabulary of the community clustered around the site. How different are they from Facebook, and which do you think is better?

12 comments:

Li Yen said...

Your text, photos and videos will not be visible to anyone outside your Treehouse

I can upload photos in my treehouse? I don't know how...

Eli James said...

You can't, and that's the problem. =/ We wanted to implement photos before the Thursday deadline, but we didn't have the time to figure it out. All the solutions we had either didn't work in the time we spent on it, or weren't private.

=(

All in all, really clunky. This is something we'll have to look into, for the final project.

joshuatj said...

ermmm... it should be flixster right?

joshuatj said...

I think Treehouse should be an external app with Facebook Connect. This way, you are in a win-win position!

Eli James said...

OMG I didn't realize I was misspelling everything. o.O

And yes, Facebook connect would make sense. But that would mean a significant rewriting of everything.

Hrmm ... worth thinking about.

WiRuS said...

Yes, I also agree with Joshua. Using facebook connect sounds like a much better idea than putting it inside. Well, the initial thought I had when this treehouse concept is launched is "I don't understand why we need this since Facebook has the communication platform done quite well".

But if you are able to do it from the other perspective, people want privacy and sharing and meaningful communication and so they signed up to treehouse. Then they realise that through Facebook connect, they can get updates via Facebook which provides much convenience to them. This will make the app more popular I guess..

- Hong Jun

joshuatj said...

How about implementing Treehouse on top of Google Wave. Most of the wave infrastructure can be used. Even better, add-in Facebook-Connect. Voila! Treehouse awesomeness!

Have you tried Li Yen's blog, I think the embed Wave is a cool feature.

Eli James said...

@Hong Jun: Good point. I'll talk it up with the rest once we're done with the Wave assignment.

@Josh: You sure? It sounds like a good idea, but Wave is still rather buggy. That being said, I do suppose we can use Wave 'as a protocol', though.

And, yes, I've tried Wave as an embed - but it's quite clunky to use at the moment. I'm wondering if there's a way around that ...

Sebastian said...

"I think Treehouse should be an external app with Facebook Connect" - Joshua

Social media sites come and go. Friendster was once the monopoly player. Ask around and see how many people are still using it. Who knows if Facebook would end up the same.

It's wise not to be overly reliant on a 3rd party platform.

joshuatj said...

Facebook Connect as ONE of the many social connect?

Eli James said...

@Sebastian, Josh: The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced taking this out of Facebook is the way to go (or at least, Treehouse with a small arm inside Facebook - aka FB Connect like Joshua suggests). Treehouse isn't made to be particularly viral, nor is it short/public/superficial. The benefits that the Facebook platform offers other apps don't really apply to Treehouse, save perhaps the ease of use with which users may invite their friends.

But then again, I should point out that I'm not exactly a Facebook supporter. I never really liked the idea of a closed garden in competition with the open web. =/

joshuatj said...

I like the analogy of "closed garden vs open web". But maybe they might not turn out to be mutually exclusive - they might just complement each other?