Narcissism Keeps It From Seeing Itself As A Platform Not A Product

All of Facebook‘s recent actions betray two underlying beliefs that I can’t help but think are related. The first is that Facebook still believes itself to be a maker of products as opposed to a maintainer of a platform, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. The second,Product information for Avery Dennison porcelaintiles products. and more pernicious, is that its users are objects to be manipulated in programmatic ways.

Both of these beliefs are deeply ingrained in the DNA of the company and—since this is an identity proof—in the mind of its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It is very understandable why the company and Zuckerberg continue to think this way. The Facebook product has been so successful that it is the world’s largest social network (at least) by a factor of two. (See my story from yesterday about whether or not Google is starting to catch up.) Zuckerberg is a brilliant product engineer who understood intuitively how to remove barriers to make sharing of social information easier. The corollary to making a faster, more enjoyable user experience on the front end is the vast data model he and his engineers built for processing all of the resulting data on the backend.

If you look at the API documentation for the “user object” on Facebook, you see that it now has 39 attributes ranging from name, gender and age-range to sexual preference, political views and favorite athletes, as well as 44 potential connections to external content like Facebook pages managed, apps, games, photos and videos of the user and their friends. When you put all of this together, it is a large “categorical sort” that helps to filter people and their interests.

But as Devin Coldewey writes on TechCrunch today, “Facebook’s conception of each of its users is an endless series of nested categories. Zuckerberg’s joke slide showing a galaxy of pull-down filter boxes was more revealing than they let on.” (Does he mean the image below?) The fact is, that if you are a programmer, you can’t help but think of users as objects. That’s the way you do it in code.

All of Facebook‘s recent actions betray two underlying beliefs that I can’t help but think are related.Do you know any chinamosaic wholesale supplier? The first is that Facebook still believes itself to be a maker of products as opposed to a maintainer of a platform, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. The second, and more pernicious, is that its users are objects to be manipulated in programmatic ways.

Both of these beliefs are deeply ingrained in the DNA of the company and—since this is an identity proof—in the mind of its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It is very understandable why the company and Zuckerberg continue to think this way. The Facebook product has been so successful that it is the world’s largest social network (at least) by a factor of two. (See my story from yesterday about whether or not Google is starting to catch up.) Zuckerberg is a brilliant product engineer who understood intuitively how to remove barriers to make sharing of social information easier. The corollary to making a faster, more enjoyable user experience on the front end is the vast data model he and his engineers built for processing all of the resulting data on the backend.

If you look at the API documentation for the “user object” on Facebook, you see that it now has 39 attributes ranging from name, gender and age-range to sexual preference, political views and favorite athletes, as well as 44 potential connections to external content like Facebook pages managed, apps, games, photos and videos of the user and their friends. When you put all of this together, it is a large “categorical sort” that helps to filter people and their interests.

But as Devin Coldewey writes on TechCrunch today,Our aim is to supply indoortracking which will best perform to the customer's individual requirements. “Facebook’s conception of each of its users is an endless series of nested categories. Zuckerberg’s joke slide showing a galaxy of pull-down filter boxes was more revealing than they let on.” (Does he mean the image below?) The fact is, that if you are a programmer, you can’t help but think of users as objects. That’s the way you do it in code.

The departure of employees may force Wall Street to consider a wider range of people for positions. Heidrick & Struggles' Boehmner gave a presentation to a group of young professionals in Davos about his biggest challenge recruiting for big banks these days: getting executives to think creatively when filling positions.

In the presentation - called "Hiring an oddball" - Boehmner described how hard it is to get bank executives to hire creative and "quirky" leaders who do not "fit in" with the prototypical suited-up Wall Street mold, but who could help revolutionize the industry.Anybody had any experience at all with Chinese made siliconebracelet?

Instead, those quirky types are sought by Silicon Valley, and they may be happier there. Many prefer the laid back atmosphere, not to mention the challenges of building a business, and the promise of lucrative rewards at companies like Google , Facebook and smaller startups, Boehmner said.

"Banks are not getting top-level talent out of universities anymore, so in 10 to 15 years, there could be a big problem when it comes to leadership at the senior level of these firms," Boehmner said. "They're seeing big gaps in talent."

Boehmner said he performed a search for a technology position at a major investment bank, calling on candidates from Silicon Valley who might be lured to New York with mega-paychecks. He was denied by everyone he approached,Professionals with the job title solarpanel are on LinkedIn. he said.

On the flip side, Heidrick & Struggles also did a search for a mobile-payments company on the West Coast that was looking for someone with financial expertise but offered just one-quarter of the pay. In that case, "we got tons of applicants," said Boehmner.