News of the extensive changes Facebook made to its platform last week traveled quickly, to say the least, but how did the developments at f8 affect a company that uses Facebook to add a social element to travel experiences? Travis Katz, co-founder and chief executive officer of Gogobot, which allows users to share all aspects of their travel experience with their Facebook and Twitter contacts via stylized digital scrapbooks and interactive maps, spoke with AllFacebook about how last week’s changes will impact his company and its offerings.
What products and services does Gogobot offer that take advantage of: the new news feed, the ticker, timeline, and GraphRank?
The new integration allows people to enrich their Facebook profiles with visions of their travels, adding beautiful interactive travel maps showcasing the places they’ve traveled; highly visual travel collections,” where people can showcase photos and details from their most recent trips; the bucket list of places they want to go; recent badges; and more.What products and services are you developing that take advantage of Facebook’s newest features, and when are they going to become available for public use?
Gogobot has been working closely with the team at Facebook for the past nine months, and it has been a launch partner for several of its recent feature launches. For the relaunch of the profile, we began talking with them about a month-and-a-half ago. We saw the new launch as pretty revolutionary. Gogobot is a place where people come to share their travels with their friends, and when the new profile launches, Gogobot users will be able to share their travels directly on their profile through rich visuals, maps, and photos.What advice does Gogobot offer to page administrators and developers about responding to user complaints about the newsfeed and ticker, not to mention people’s reaction to the news about the Timeline and GraphRank?
Facebook is constantly changing and evolving. Typically, whenever a company makes a major change, you see a lot of complaints because it is different.The reality is that you have to be nimble and respond to the changes as they happen.
How does the volume of user complaints about f8 (riding on newsfeed and ticker gripes) compare with past rounds of complaining? Have things reached the level of the Beacon controversy or the original launch of the newsfeed?
People by their nature are resistant to change, but the Internet is constantly evolving.There was a huge outcry when Facebook launched the news feed initially, but once people actually tried it, they found that it was actually an amazing innovation that made keeping up with friends even easier.
I don’t see the same level of complaints about the new ticker or news feed today. On Gogobot, the new tools will make sharing on Facebook easier and lower-friction, while providing users with controls to determine what they share or don’t.
Net-net, I think when people get to know the new tools, they will actually find the new experience to be richer and more interesting than what is available right now.