Foodsplore helps users to discover great new restaurants and cafes by combining location based services with social networking. You can see where your friends are eating and what they thought of the food, service, ambience and everything else thanks to Foodsplore's community feedback features. And, with the aid of our new iPhone app (Android and Blackberry versions coming soon), finding a great snack or meal while out and about has never been easier.

Simply fire up the app, see what's available in your area and what your friends (and other users) have to say about it. Or, if instead you're just keen to discover something new to tingle your tastebuds, Foodsplore also helps you find places you'll love in advance - so no more finding out the hard way that a place isn't for you (paying through the nose for a meal you didn't enjoy, having a nice occasion ruined by below-par service, or whatever else).

As well as location based searching, you can also find new eating-out options by food type, deals, or glance at the social calendar feature which shows you where your friends are planning to try in the next month. As well as tips, users can share their experiences with photos and location-based check-ins, all of which are aggregated in a 'Splat' score - which gives you information as to how detailed and successful someone's recommendations are. In short, whether you're a foodie looking to explore new experiences or simply need somewhere decent for lunch in an unfamiliar town, Foodsplore is for you.

The Foodsplore team will head to SXSW Interactive for the 5-day conference in March 2012, along with 33 other hand-picked UK digital start-ups as part of the UK Trade and Investment mission. Here at Etondigital we're very excited for Zainab and Foodsplore and will have more coverage of the conference when it comes around in eight weeks. In the meantime, head over to Foodsplore.com, or check out the iPhone app in the Apple app store, to find out more right now. Sign up with an email address, or simply log in with facebook, and get exploring!

Overall there is something disconcerting about looking at the picture in that it's hard to connect the two people in question (the one in the photo and the one created in your mind by all their later success and fame) and really believe that they are indeed the same person.

Or perhaps it's like seeing a baby photo of someone like Cl. Gaddafi or George Bush (either, take your pick) - men who have so much blood on their hands, to the point where sometimes it's hard to remember that they once too were also children. Well, this is a bit like that. A bit.

Basically, this lengthy pre-amble is all geared towards sending you off to look at a Mashable gallery of the launch versions of the sites which now dominate the web (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon etc).

It's an interesting and quite wierd experience (not only for the reasons above) because it reminds me of the fact that not so very long ago these absolute tech giants were just young start-ups or student projects, with super limited functionality and sometimes pretty shoddy UIs (although in those web 1.0 days this was less of a sin than it is today).

You are also reminded of the fact that there is little in those original projects that guaranteed they would become the successes they are today - the journey from there to here was not prefigured by some Eureka invention but instead required constant work and sound decision making (not that they've never made mistakes).

Anyway, the final thought is one that returns a little to the rambling opening paragraphs of this post. The reason the launch-versions seem so odd to look at (particulalry twitter and Amazon) is down to the fact that we're so used to seeing them in their succesful later form almost every day that we probably forget how instantly recognisable their UIs and brand logos are to us.

The odder the launch versions, with their (generally) lumpy ugly UIs, look to you - probably the more ingrained is your association of Google with the white screen, search box and multi-colour logo - or Facebook with the blue and white colour combo and that lower case font... Soon you might realise that you spend longer staring at that UI than your parents' or childrens' faces...

(N.B. That last bit isn't meant to sound dystopian or anything, it's just an observation).

The concept of over-sharing is straightforward: sharing only has value if it is in some way special - rare or personalised, and if it becomes too ubiquitous then it simply becomes spam. The problem is that Facebook apps are now generally sharing every single little detail of what you do online that the noise is deafening. In other words you're constantly receiving hundreds of shared links, videos, info etc that they tend to lose their value (i.e. their ability to warrant your attention).

Most people start to switch off when this happens, which is a big potential problem for Facebook if their innovative Like button ceases to actually function - or rather has its functionality made irrelevant by the simple fact that Likes just get drowned out in the sea of info shared by user apps.

JD Rucker, who runs the Soshable blog, makes the obvious and pertinent point - sharing is already super easy. People are doing it a lot anyway but that doesn't mean that they don't make value judgements about what to share/like. Apps are not capable of making such value judgements - they just pump out the info because they can (in the hope it will benefit them).

The only solution is to remove apps which you don't want or use in a last ditch attempt to clean up your newsfeed so that you can actually use it how you like to. In the long run though, this surely represents a challenge to Facebook (I've written previously on this most pressing of issues for the network - too much data) and the only real threat to user numbers by virtue of the fact that it can very directly impact upon their UI, which is a highly visible turn-off for users if it doesn't work satisfactorily (privacy issues meanwhile tend to be more latent and only bother certain sections of users, meaning it's unlikely the company could shoot itself in the foot as badly in this department).

Ultimately though, the end result might be that users really evaluate a little more thoroughly which apps they want to install (just like they should evaluate which friends they want to add) and this might overall reduce the volume of spam on the network if the bar for app success gets raised that little bit higher.

The only way this will happen though is if users realise the need to de-clutter their apps before they simply decide to use Facebook less because they enjoy the experience less than they used to - but aren't quite sure why (since not everyone is likely to figure out that over-sharing is the problem).

That's why I find this infographic over at Mashable (designed by JESS3) quite useful. It's called 'An Average Day on Facebook' and gives a little insight into the main ways in which users currently engage with the site as well as some comparisons between stats for 2008 and 2010. It only gives a quick 'at a glance' type of picture (there's simply reams and reams of data which could be looked at with 700 million users) but nonetheless could be handy for marketers trying to understand how their trade might be evolving with time on Facebook.

Take for example the average age of the Facebook user: 33 in 2008 and 38 in 2010. I would hazard a guess that it is now, at the end of 2011, higher still. This doesn't mean that all those young users have gone and are no longer reachable on the network (they are) it just also means that Facebook is now increasingly viable for social media marketing targeting older (and typically wealthier) consumers - which somewhat contradicts the stereotypical image of social media marketing being best for 16-25 year-olds for example.

All this is important as, unsurprisingly, Facebook remains the network with the highest daily engagement (52%) when ranked with Twitter (36%), Myspace (7%) and LinkedIn (6%). Social media marketers are therefore right to devote extensive time and attention to it - that fact won't be changing for some time at least - but the way their campaigns are constructed does however need to be constantly evolving, as the network does, if they are to maximise their potential.

1. Yegge is quite a senior and experienced employee, having been at both Amazon and now Google for a good while (a combined total of thirteen years) and we all know it is really quite rare to have access to the completely honest, PR-less, thoughts of such a senior figure since they are usually pretty careful about letting their guard down and mouthing-off about their employers (or competitors) in public.
2. The second point about Yegge's experience and seniority is that his original post offers a wealth of extremely perceptive analysis of how Google and Amazon operate at both the broad conceptual level (a rare insight because it requires someone quite clever to be able to see things so clearly at this 'bigger picture' level) and at the behind-the-scenes workplace culture level (this is equally rare but for a different reason: most people consider it career suicide to bitch about their employers and colleagues online).
3. Google's response to the post was not what some might have expected - they allowed it to remain public and, instead of reprimanding Yegge, began immediately to try addressing the frustrations he had expressed. This fact should give you a clue to the quality of Yegge's analysis - had he come out with a load of tripe, Google might have been much more likely to either get rid of him or in any case take a more hardline position (it's very hard to punish someone who is in the right).

The main gist of Yegge's original mammoth post was essentially around one single issue, albeit done with a huge level of detail and a number of fascinating examples and anecdotes. This can basically be summarised as Platform vs. Product, although the simplicity of this opposition is perhaps ridiculous since some of the nuances of the dynamic are apparently eluding even the chiefs of Google (according to Yegge) so it should be stressed that once we get into the nitty gritty of the issue (which Yegge does - though I won't, since this post needs to be well under 5,000 words...) things are far from black-and-white.

Nonetheless, Yegge's main frustration is that though Google is light years ahead of even some of its more successful competitors on so many fronts (especially company culture), it does lag well behind not only Facebook, but also Amazon, in one key area: proper understanding of the distinction between platform and product, and the recognition that the only way for Google to move forward and build on its success is to properly emphasise quality of platform as a goal much, much more than is currently happening.

Google Search for example is a product - it a specific tool which, owing to the fact that it works very well at something for which there is massive demand (organising the content of the web so that people find what they want), has been a huge success. Similarly, Google has a range of other very successful products in their portfolio and on their CV (Maps, Youtube, etc) but, crucially, no platform successes as of yet. Facebook on the other hand also has massively popular and successful products (the newsfeed, photos etc) but they also have a very powerful, useful and effective platform which ensures that developers can build products on and in Facebook.

This means that Facebook has loads of really great products which were actually not built by Facebook engineers at all, but which the quality of Facebook platform ensured would and could be built by someone else - ultimately making Facebook stronger in terms of user appeal and quality of experience. So while Chrome for example has various pretty decent third-party extensions, and Android thousands of quality third-party apps, Yegge's main point is that Google is currently too focused on trying to build successful products, all the while failing to recognise that in ten years time it will be the best platforms that dictate who is a major web and tech company - and who isn't. So in other words; it's all very well and good to be open-source - but it won't count a jot if the platform itself is not good enough for anyone to do anything interesting with it.

Anyway, this is a rather simplified version of Yegge's post and it really is worth devoting a little time to read the original in its entirety. After that, it's worth checking out this excellent follow-up post from Yegge which reveals more about a very specific aspect of workplace culture at Amazon: pitching to uber-genius CEO Jeff Bezos. The post is apparently the first of a small series so, in case you were still in any doubt, it really is worth remembering the name of Steve Yegge and checking his blog in the near future since it is (rightly) proving to be an absolute goldmine of tech-industry insight and behind-the-scenes anecdotes about two of the sector's major companies.

Timeline will basically be a new way of organising the Facebook user profile in order to more accurately reflect who you are in a broader sense, rather than who you are as evidenced by the last 5 minutes worth of status updates and likes. Think of the little summary of key info which they not so long ago introduced to the top of your profile (the bit which says 'married to... studied at... lives in...' or whatever) now expanded more deeply into the profile layout.

Now, as usual, there's been a quite a few protests with people talking about how they will leave the network if the new changes are made compulsory, and indeed the concept of timeline is kinda creepy if you think about it too much (a short graphical representation of your entire existence, even before you joined the network, all your thoughts, relationships, experiences neatly tabulated for the short-attention spans of others etc).

But the problem with these protests is that all of this info which will go into timeline is already on Facebook - they're not going to make extra info accessible, but simply to make existing info more accessible. Timeline confronts users with just how much of their lives they have uploaded and lived through Facebook, and it's not surprising that some are shocked and angered by seeing this. Basically though, if timeline makes you want to quit Facebook, then you're not really comfortable with the reality of how much of yourself you've made public on the network thus far.

More importantly perhaps is what timeline tells us about where Facebook is currently at in the course of its development as (the) social network and thus what other social networks might also one day be doing. My view is that all of the recent changes are geared towards improving user experience in terms of quality rather than quantity. The latter dominated the past few years, with the addition of third party apps and various other features to expand what you could do on the site, while the emphasis from the network's own developers is now firmly focused on the former.

The key for Facebook now is that it is becoming so huge in terms of the complexities of networks which it hosts, the volume of data that passes through it, that its next major challenge is to find mechanisms for ordering this sea of content so that users' experience continues to be felt as meaningful (i.e. what they encounter is what matters to them) and also to retain the simplicity of the interface so that the whole thing doesn't become awkward or time-consuming (I for example think that the sidebar feature compromises the simplicity of the UI and thus slightly hampers FB in this respect). However, what seems certain is that Facebook is taking this challenge very seriously and is adapting to handle its now colossal weight and complexity by looking for new ways to order its data.

So, once you've negotiated that annoying experience of feeling like you're the pawn in some protracted custody battle as Google and Facebook fight over your attention (relentless blue arrow vs. Facebook sidebar changes) and actually navigated your way to your Facebook home news feed page, you'll probably start to feel a little nauseous from the excessive volume of info now splattered all over the UI - well, you will if you're anything like me (and the many, many others who've responded negatively to the changes).

It's like Facebook has forgotten the whole story of how its clean UI won the battle against Myspace and made it what is today. Yeah, you can click 'Hide Sidebar' if you wish - but this doesn't actually hide the sidebar. No, that would be too easy. Instead it just moves it, in slightly smaller form, to a different part of the interface. That is not what 'hide' means to me and other people I know.

So once more there's the experience of feeling like changes are being forced on users which offer the illusion of opting out, but not really - hardly something Facebook needs more of. Now interacting with the UI feels like trying to read the Sun while on a roller-coaster with about a hundred different items competing for your attention at any one time. Not cool...

Then there's smart lists, a change to how you can view your news feed, filtering only for Family, Friends, University buddies, co-workers or whatever. When you click on a smart list it will only show info from the relevant people in your news feed. So, basically, exactly what Google circles is offering. This probably is the only one of the three major changes that I consider to be decent, though it is somewhat offset by the third and final change, which is perhaps even more annoying than the messy UI: it's called top stories and basically means that items in the news feed are no longer displayed chronologically but according to which ones are going to be most interesting and relevant to you (as decided by Facebook).

Now, most people kinda like the idea of deciding for themselves what is most interesting to them - and don't really trust that Facebook (even with their mega-tons of personal data) can perform the function as effectively. Plus it's kinda creepy for them to be filtering your social activity in this manner (surprise surprise, it feels invasive).

Also, since most people logging onto Facebook understand that the distance between log-ins is measured by them in time (and not network activity), it seems logical that they should find what has been going on in their absence organised by time - and not by activity levels - which are an important criteria for developers - NOT users.

So there you have it, a summary of Facebook's three major new changes:

1. The UI is now a constantly refreshing mess of different feeds, lists, buttons, toolbars, and widgets...
2. The news feed is now ordered according to a criteria nobody really perceives in the same way as the ordering algorithm (why didn't they organise posts by number of vowels contained therein? Or maybe by 'most grammatically correct'?)
3. Smart lists (aka Google circles) have been added - and are actually pretty good...

It's not that I disagree with Facebook's urge to organise users' experiences in a more relevant manner - necessary now more than ever owing to the sheer volume of content which gets uploaded to the network continuously. Rather I just think they've compromised some of their main strengths in this attempt to tackle the overload issue - and all this before f8 next week. God knows what's coming next...

The main point of the article isn't really that for certain types of business social media is useless (which isn't the case) but rather that, without a well planned and implemented social media strategy, a badly executed attempt to engage with such media is almost always going to do more harm than good - even if only in the sense that you waste your valuable time.

Ultimately the pattern is usually the same for badly conceived social media campaigns - they are initiated because of the Zeitgeist perception that all businesses should have one, end up being rather aimless and, after an initial spurt of activity, slowly trail off as the ideas and content for a sustained presence are found wanting.

The aforementioned blog post covers all of these standard pitfalls, as well as giving handy tips (such as using the FBML app to customize your Facebook page so that it stands out from the crowd a little bit more).

In the end though, all of the mistakes discussed result in the same end product - a social media campaign that is static, uninteresting, and therefore ineffective. In other words, a Facebook page that is run like a web 1.0 website might have been - rather than a fluid source of content with which users engage with on a regular basis - something absolutely crucial to the establishment of a relationship with your business (and the whole point of social media campaigns in the first place).

The principle is essentially quite simple. First you register on various social media and web 2.0 platforms, before writing articles on each one that link both to eachother and also to the main page whose search rankings you wish to bolster.

It really is as simple as it sounds - a rare example of a tremendously effective SEO technique which requires zero development or programming experience to implement. The key to doing it effectively of course is not so much in the technical know-how of coding, but in writing effective articles which will draw attention and link well to eachother, and to your main page.

Though such a strategy has been possible (and evident in practice) for a long time, it nonetheless is now more appealing than ever before since the potential for creating a snowball effect (in a web traffic sense) is ever greater with the abundance of link sharing tools currently popular on the web (everything from Twitter, to Facebook's Like button and so on).

All in all, the link wheel represents a superb SEO strategy for those without extensive coding or development experience and one with very decent future prospects, whose efficacy will only grow the more it is employed (i.e. the more articles/posts you are able to create).

- G+ has signed up well over 10 million users since launch
- However last week's traffic is down 3% on the previous week (US only stats - but ones which will probably be similar elsewhere when comparing weeks 3 and 4 after launch)
- Though G+ is still technically in invite-only beta mode, it is now fairly easy to join should you wish to do so

However, the problem that comes from Google's massive prominence as a leading global tech giant is that these stats are deemed to be more important than they really are - simply by virtue of Google being newsworthy, and thus this data is over-reported left, right and centre...

Before long, we have people proclaiming the beginning of the end of G+ or some other wild speculation (see comments posted after either of the articles linked above) which in actuality merely mask the absence of any actual understanding or insight into how these stats might be interesting (and, lest we forget, not all stats must be somehow interpreted as signposts towards some tectonic reversal in the industry landscape...)

Doesn't everyone remember what happened with Facebook one month after launch? (And I don't mean in the film version of events, but in real life...)

The short answer is: no - hardly anyone was really paying attention back then, and something like a 3% decline in traffic from weeks 3 to 4 was reported in exactly zero tech media outlets.

To make things clearer, I am not doubting that the 3% drop in G+ traffic is accurate, nor that it is not relevant (you can bet that the G+ programmers will be pretty conscious of it), but simply that I doubt it represents aything other than the initial hype (and attendant 'artificial' traffic spike) over its launch dying down. In its wake, we'll see this giving way to the more interesting process by which users and developers explore ways in which they might get something useful out of the whole thing.

And while we're on this point, here's a pretty good example of people doing exactly that - working out 10 interesting tips for getting the most out of G+ (some of which really aren't that obvious). They range from telling you simple ways to get around some of the annoying things about how the service currently functions (like having posts which you intend to be private shared by someone else) to simple tips for achieving custom profile layouts (like how to get more personal info into your pop up profile box).

Anyway, I expect that most of these tips will eventually be obsolete (that's the point of beta testing surely...) as developers realise that they're highlighting areas for improvement in terms of what users would like from the service, but for now they represent a much more interesting and useful bit of info to have come out of the past few weeks of G+ than the fact of a 3% traffic dip between weeks 3 and 4...