October 2nd, 2007

Ballmer on Facebook: Bunch of Features

by Joshua Porter  |   12 Comments  |  shortlink: http://bokardo.com/p/690

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer: (via)

““There can’t be any more deep technology in Facebook than what dozens of people could write in a couple of years. That’s for sure,”

Robert Scoble, in Steve Ballmer still doesn’t understand social networking:

“When I worked at Microsoft I heard this over and over and over again from various engineers and program managers who STILL haven’t competed effectively with WordPress, Flickr, Skype, YouTube, or any of the other things over the years I’ve heard this “we can build that in a few weeks” kind of arrogant attitude attached to.”

This echoes what I keep hearing from all sides: community building isn’t about features. Community building is about getting a group of people together who want to be there…who see themselves as part of a community. It has very little to do with technology.

Here’s an interesting question: when is the last time you heard two Windows (or Office) users actually having a positive conversation about their software? (I honestly can’t remember hearing one)

Ballmer is still suffering from the “if you build it they will come” mindset. And to his credit, that strategy (or MS’s version of it) has worked for almost two decades. But we’re in a different place now, and now Ballmer sounds like he’s betting against the Internet.

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Comments

1.  Dennis 5:38pm, Tue 2nd, 2007

Great point. I kept thinking of how much people love Facebook and how that same sentiment is not shared for the majority of Microsoft products.

Maybe their XBOX division.

2.  Ravi 6:57pm, Tue 2nd, 2007

It is funny when bloggers make this type of simplistic arguments that Ballmer doesn’t get it, but Scoble does. Do you think Ballmer is not smart enough to understand that it is the 40 million users Facebook signed up that is more important and not the technology? He is running a company that is worth 200 billion+, give folks like Ballmer some credit before making this kind of analysis.

It could be that he is downplaying FB to reduce the 10 billion$ valuation hype that seems to be floating.

(I am not an employee of MS)

3.  Josh 7:31pm, Tue 2nd, 2007

Ravi, I’m sure Ballmer is a smart guy…but his comment was about the technology…

So, if he does get it and realizes the community is what’s valuable, then why don’t we see some moves toward that end? Why can’t he say so?

Or, if as you say he’s trying to throw someone off the scent (trying to drive down the FB valuation)…he’s being pretty clumsy about it.

I sometimes think that we should give people in impressive positions the benefit of the doubt since they got there…but, well, look at some of the Presidents we’ve had. All smart guys, but boy do they say and do some dumb things.

4.  Sam 10:49pm, Tue 2nd, 2007

Of course Ballmer gets it, but what Ballmer doesn’t get is the inability of social media platforms to monetize users. He’s not betting against the internet, he’s looking to avoid irrational exuberance. Microsoft makes products that people pay money for and that people are locked into using with high switching costs (.doc). To then go and invest in a company such as Facebook that 1) does not monetize its site well and 2) has almost zero switching costs, would be considered insane in almost any other industry.

Maybe it’s a risk Microsoft is willing to take, but it’s still a major risk.

http://www.leveragingideas.com/?p=466

5.  The Groop 3:15am, Wed 3rd, 2007

The future is not about technology, it is about UI. If you use, PowerPoint, Keynote is better, if you use Vista, OSX is better.
Why? Not because of “features” but because of ease, intuitiveness and just plain pleasure.
Xbox 360 is great. But try navigating that thing. It’s like, “oops wrong direction”, “opps wrong button”.
The future is about getting people: 1. What they want 2. Faster 3.
Do these do more? No, not really but its less of a pain.

Is Facebook about features? Of course not. But I get to see my friends once in a while.

Steve, its about people! Dammit. The future is made of people!!

6.  Pete 1:22pm, Wed 3rd, 2007

My personal view is that it’s neither the attitude of the intended community or the technology… more to do with the fact that Facebook developed (could even have been by accident) an incredibly user friendly website that makes it easy for people do get in contact with other people… which is the long-term aim of all social networking sites… Facebook just got it right! Ballmer is just too ‘Microsoft’ to realise that complicated & sophisticated isn’t necessarily the best solution!