It all started on twitter…
NishaChittal: Ok, Facebook is really starting to overdo it. RT @danschawbel: NEWS: Voice chat coming to Facebook http://bit.ly/eKOg7
Jaywalk1: @NishaChittal I agree. To get all “theory level,” makes me wonder about our expectations of a social network. Google, sure? FB, ehhh….
Jaywalk1: @NishaChittal Might be interesting topic. Do we expect certain things from certain netwks? what happens when we get more than what we want?
NishaChittal: @Jaywalk1 feature overload is never good. shouldn’t companies specialize in a niche rather than try to be everything to everyone?
So Facebook is launching a voice chat system called Vivox. According to Daniel Terdiman of CNET,
“The service, which is currently in closed beta, will allow Facebook users to have high-fidelity conversations with anyone on their friends list. Each user, however, will have to download Vivox’s plug-in. But once installed, the service works almost seamlessly with Facebook, and is intended for everything from one-to-one chat to large group discussions.”
When I read Nisha’s tweet, I agreed with her. I may be a little old school with my Facebook perspective, but I think I liked it best when it was a smaller, college focused network. It was a great niche (…one I happened to be in when it launched) that made great sense.
When the hail storm of apps pounded my friends’ profiles, the status of my relationship swtiched to “complicated,” and when text chat was launched, I laughed knowing I would never use it (that’s why I have gchat!). Facebook and I have since made up, and we were in a good place until I learned about this Vivox voice chat.
Due to a fairly busy day (..and my choice to hit the rooftop for sun during lunch), I had most of the day
to ask myself: Is Facebook going too far? Are they approaching feature overload as Nisha said?
In an HBS article titled “Understanding Users of Social Networks,” professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski shares his view that “online social networks are most useful when they address real failures in the operation of offline networks.”
As the variety of technology grows in both type and function, so does the number of tools which aim to give you that all-in-one, one-stop-shop solution. Should Facebook serve this role? Do I really want a one-stop-shop social network – phone, email, tweet-like status posts, text chat and now voice chat?
My answer is yes and no.
No because I don’t really see myself using this to chat with my friends on a 1:1, but yes because of the tremendous ability to connect on the group level. One example where this might work is for group trips.
A group of my friends used Facebook to plan our trip to our high school reunion. We are spread out all over the eastern seaboard, and though we maintained contact with some better than others, we were all still Facebook friends. It made sense to use the network to gather everyone to work out logistics of the trip. No phone numbers needed. No need to track everyone down. We were all connected there.
Chat could be a nice addition here, and with the right strategy, I can also see bold, trendsetting brands benefiting from this as well.
Interesting thoughts. I just think sooner or later FB is going to overextend itself. It’s like it’s trying to do everything Google + Skype + Twitter +YouTube + Flickr are doing all mashed together, but you can’t do everything and do it well. They should pick a couple things to specialize in and get really good at it. They can’t take over the world!
Some markets you do need to stay in a certain niche to maintain your quality of service. As for FB you control what apps you would like to add and if you want to just use the basics, then you have that option. Look at how well and how many people has benefited from Google, by adding Google Docs, Maps, etc.. If they stopped at just being a search engine most would have looked for another service provider. For me, I am comfortable with FB adding additional option because down the road, if one app does everything for me then it saves me and my business time and money.
@nisha They certainly are trying. The more and more I think about things like FB connect, the more it seems like the goal is for them to keep you within their area as much as possible. Where Google wants all the info about you, they want (or I should say “wanted”) social info. Now they’re spreading their wings a bit. Thing is, will they spread them too far and get clipped…
You seem to be in the camp certain they will. I’m not far from there, but I’m not there yet.
@johnnie You make some nice points here. I lightly addressed the issue of consumer expectations but not to the level I probably should have.
I said: “As the variety of technology grows in both type and function, so does the number of tools which aim to give you that all-in-one, one-stop-shop solution. Should Facebook serve this role? ”
Your point about Google is interesting because of how they started their expansion. The fact that they began with email made them the best positioned (in my mind) to expand the service into things like chat and docs (all ways to create and share info). The expansion seemed more natural and integrated as opposed to here’s another app… on top of another app… on top of another app. Get where I’m going?
I guess this just doesn’t feel as natural and makes me think not about whether or not chat (text or voice) is a good thing, but whether or not I want to chat (text or voice) via Facebook. As I mentioned in the post, I see some potential, but I’m not 100% on board.