Helping GetHelp.

This application is very similar to the one my Facebook App Group created – Looking-For. To be frank, their application seems much more aesthetically appealing than ours, so I shall not comment on the graphics or I’ll be indirectly hurting someone.

The basic idea of GetHelp and Looking-For is pretty similar: Post a distress message on Facebook and hopefully get friends to help you or refer a friend who might be able to help you. The very nature of such applications dictates that users are free to post whatever they can think of. I am not too sure if this problem can be avoided, or rather, is this a problem at all. While I am for the idea of allowing users too “Add more details” such as the deadline, time and description, it would be better to have this section code in AJAX such that it appears after the user clicks a button.

When the user first adds the application, he should only see one textbox with a submit button, as well as a call to action like “Need help with something? Post it here: {textbox}”, exactly like Rumour Has It. Offering the user too many options confuses the user. By deliberately limiting the number of options given to new users, users are indirectly “forced” to familiarize themselves with the key features necessary to make the application work. This same idea is used in Mafia Wars too - when a new player adds the application, they are only allowed to perform one job and right after that job, users are prompted to buy a weapon which enables them to perform a different job. All users are “forced” to learn the game in this way, hence there is no need for a tutorial on how to use the application.

Bottomline: Less Clutter.

Flixster

The application captured a very important point: Online businesses can tap on the plethora of opportunities and resources in social networking sites (SNS). From what I gathered from the presentation, the main reason as to why Flixster became much more successful by having an application on Facebook is due to the nature of the activity.

Movies: A Social Activity
Watching movies (in theatres) is a social activity as few people (at least I do not know of any) go to theatres alone. Our decisions of which movie to watch, when to watch, where to watch and with whom to watch are highly influenced by our friends’ opinions. The application allows users to read the reviews written by friends as well as by other users. For users who have little or no time to read these reviews, they can scroll down the page quickly and simply look at the percentage of people who indicated that they “like the movie”.

All in all, by having a movie review application in a social networking site, it provides a one-stop platform to users to find information about movies and keep a lookout for friends who are interested in watching the same movie without logging into Flixster. Combined with other applications like Events, users can organize movie outings more efficiently.

My Two Cents
Before having to do this application critique, I did not add the application. And when I tried to add the application by doing a search using the search box, it returned me the Pages and Groups which have “Flixster” in their names. It took me quite a while before I figured that the application name is called “Movies” rather than “Flixster”; Flixster is merely the icon that they use for their application.

*** Imagine the number of people who tried to find Flixster, and gave up. ***

In my opinion, they should have created an application by the name of Flixster with the same icon and direct the users to the same URL. In this way, if a user was to look for "Movies" or "Flixster", he would end up in the same application.

On Presentations

Since the previous semester, I started to LOVE presentations, especially when I know that I will be presenting a topic that I am very passionate about. I get extremely nervous before a presentation and my mind goes blank just before a presentation. (You can read more about my reflections on one of my presentations last semester, here.) This is made worse (thanks to Prof Ben and the bunch of ‘evil’ TAs), by the fact that we need to take notes about the rest of the presentations as we are required to blog about them.

However, during the actual presentation, it’s an entirely different thing. I get a surge of adrenaline and this stays with me for quite a long while even after the presentation – its effects are the same as that of drugs, which explains why I am blogging right now though my stomach is growling.

After talking to Shannon, Angad, Hong Pang and Wai Hong, they unanimously agreed that I could have done better by making the ending less abrupt. Reflecting upon my presentation, I feel so too. I should have included a final slide which summarizes the key point in my entire presentation so that the audience will have a take-home message. I will just need a slide with the word “Conclusion” and then some graphics to capture the following point: “You don’t need a complex game with beautiful graphics and animation to build a killer application.”

Lastly, I would like to point out several presentation pitfalls that I’ve observed (just in case you are wondering why I know them so well, that’s because I was once guilty of ALL of them, and I am still guilty of some of them :p)

1) Overuse of the word “Actually”

- Actually, a lot of people are guilty of this pitfall actually, even some Profs.
- As you can see, the word is usually not required. I have a feeling that the brain inserts this word to allow more time for the brain to process what to say next.

2) Looking at slides way too often

- The ultimate pitfall that haunts me, and I am struggling to overcome it.
- One lecturer suggested for me to make a presentation without slides (The thought of it sounds intimidating, but I am definitely going to try it some day)

3) Moving too much and moving too little

- I like to move during presentation, but I don’t know if I am moving too much. So if you happen to read this blog, please let me know if I am moving too much.

Kudos to Joshua for creating the video on Marketplace in plain English (and sorry for making fun of it with Mafia Wars in Singlish). I know a bit of video editing and I know that it is EXTREMELY painful to create such videos. Respect!