Better Wording of My Point

I'd never heard of Judi Sohn before today, but I really like what she has to say about the Scoble/Plaxo thing.  She wrote four days ago what I wrote last night, only she did a better job.  I didn't read much about this before so I missed her post.  Being out of the loop for so long drives me nuts.  Check out what she has to say, though, because it's right in line with my thoughts.

Who Owns Your Email Address?

For the last month or so, I've been pretty out of the loop in terms of news, both online and off.  I normally read a few hundred articles a day, but during this time I read maybe a dozen total.  The holidays just kept me pretty busy, and I didn't have much time to read my feeds.  That being said, I'm a little late to the party on this particular piece of info.  Robert Scoble decided to test out a utility from Plaxo that would basically screen scrape information from his Facebook friends list and put it in a Plaxo database.  If you're familiar with the Facebook ToS, you already know what happened next.  That's right, Scoble got his account taken away.  After raising a big fuss online for a few days, he eventually got his account back.  I was completely unaware of any of this until today.  Had I found out earlier, I probably wouldn't have waited so long to unfriend him on Facebook.  I try to limit myself to not friending the "celebrity" type people on there, but I did have him, Leo Laporte, and Amber MacArthur.  Now I just have the latter two.  I had contemplated removing him earlier, but decided against it, as it was fun to see his updates.  After this, though, he's off my list. 

That isn't really what I'm writing about, though, as who I have on my friends list doesn't really matter.  What I find interesting is the debate about owning your social graph, and an open system that you can move that information around freely.  I am a bit split on this.  First, I agree that if I want to use a certain system for all of my contact management, I should be able to conveniently get that data from one thing to another.  However, is that data really mine to do that with?  Do I own my friends' contact info?  If they upload their information into Facebook, that doesn't suddenly make it my information.  Their information is still their information.  Does that mean that I should somehow be restricted on how I store this?  No, not at all.  But don't confuse the fact that you can find my email with the notion that you own that piece of data.  On that note, you aren't restricted on where you can keep my info once you have it, but I still have a choice of where I put it.  Keeping my email in your Outlook address book and keeping my email in your Plaxo account are two very different things.  One is only an address book, the other is significantly more.  If I wanted my information in the Plaxo network, I would have put it there myself.  The same can be said for the concept of social networks.  I am a member of Facebook, and I put all my information in there with the intention of it only appearing in Facebook.  I don't want my information in some other social network.  If you want to use some new startup network as your social network of choice, go right ahead, just don't expect me to join you.  Furthermore, don't stick my information there either.  I want to put my information in a network and have it stay there.  Sure, there's nothing stopping you from writing all my info down and then re-typing it into so other system, but I'm working on the assumption that you will be reasonable enough to not go sticking it in every social network out there.

Remember the fiasco that was Quechup?  A new network came along, asked you to upload your friends' contact info, and them spammed them like crazy.  That's a bit how Plaxo used to be.  Once they had your info, it was spam central.  I would really rather not risk having this happen all the time.  I know that we should be embracing the freedom of data portability, but let's not forget that not all of us want our data to be portable.  Just because we put it in Facebook doesn't mean we want it outside of Facebook.  And like I said, I know that it can be done manually, but that manual effort is exactly enough to keep most people from bothering.  If it's so easy to do manually, why do people want portability?  I'm uploading info with the assumption that it'll stay where I put it. 

I don't think that I'm being too unreasonable here, but if you disagree, please let me know.  Dare seems to agree with me, so I know I'm not completely nuts.

They're After You

There has been some noise lately about Facebook's potential new ad service that could display ads targeted to you based on your Facebook information while you're on sites outside of Facebook.  The way it would work is that Facebook would stick a cookie on your machine and when an ad they sold sees you on another site, it knows that you're a fan of goth-punk gospel music.  This is, of course, causing all sorts of concern over privacy issues.  People seem to find it scary enough that Google shows you ads based on your search results, to think that they might see ads based on their Facebook profile is of great concern to them.  To me, this isn't a big deal.  There isn't some person somewhere sitting at a computer, pouring over Facebook profiles, and matching those people up to ads.  There is just some algorithm that sees I'm a fan of Sprite, and shows me an ad for Sprite instead of Coke.  Well, they would attempt to show me an ad, but I wouldn't see it.  That's not the point, though.  The point is that is there really a big difference between seeing an ad on Facebook that is targeted to you because of something you have in your profile, and seeing and ad on MSN targeted to you because of something you have in your profile?  The site you're visiting doesn't see this information.  They don't know what you have in your profile.  All of that information stays within the confines of Facebook's network.  When Facebook introduced the ability to target flyers using specifics in profiles, people said it was great, and wondered why it took so long to get here.  This is really the same concept, just showing it to you somewhere else.  Also, all of this is contingent on you having that cookie on your machine.  Lastly, there is the fact that if I see an ad telling me about something for 50-Cent, I really don't care, but if I saw an ad for something Sarah Brightman related, I'd be interested.  As a consumer, this would actually work in my favor. If I find the ads of interest, they no long are such an annoyance.  Instead of being considered ads, they move into that long sought by advertisers position of being "value-adds."

Perhaps I am too lenient about all of this.  What are your thoughts?

Experiment Part 3: El Fin

In case you somehow missed it, I ran an experiment this past week on Facebook.  It stemmed from wanting to play with the new controls you had over targeting flyers.  They now let you get very specific, right down to targeting people that mention certain things on their profiles.  I took that idea, and applied it to writing up an ad to offer a dinner date to someone.  Let's take a look at the numbers.

I had a click through rate of 1.073%, which I think is like half as good as what others reported as average, if I recall.  It is actually a bit higher than I was expecting given the nature of the flyer.  This translated into about 2.05% of the total population targeted.  Looking at it as being that 2% of girls were willing to click on a flyer on Facebook for a dinner date it is quite amusing as this is the same percentage of girls that say grabbing their breasts is an ok way to say hello.  I wonder if there's a correlation. 

My total impressions were about twice what my total population was.  Given that there is probably some amount of people that were in my population but didn't even log in this last week, I'd guess that anyone that saw it did so at least twice. 

The clicks were fairly well distributed throughout the period the flyer ran.  I didn't receive a ton at first then nothing, they came at a pretty even rate.  I thought that was rather interesting.

My final average cost per click was 64% of my max CPC.  The total amount that I spent was only 8% of what my maximum cost could have been.  All in all, this was a cheap experiment.

So, after all of this, did I get anyone that actually responded?  Nope.  Not a one.  While I did have people that actually clicked through, no one felt like responding to the ad.  When I told my friend the results she commented that it was rather sad.  I asked for me or the people that clicked through, to which she said, "Both."  I guess that pretty much sums up the whole experiment, though: sad.

As a final note, I don't actually see any ads, so I don't know if these types of flyers are commonplace or not.  In the past, you could target your flyers to a specific network, so if someone were to put something like this up, everyone would see it.  Now, though, since you can be so specific, I would think that your money could be used much more efficiently.  By targeting a very specific set of people, you would cut out anyone clicking on the ad that doesn't meet your target audience. So, has anyone seen an ad of this type before?  Do you think you might start seeing them now?

Experiment Part 2

I started an experiment on Monday to test out Facebook's new flyer targeting tools, and as just a social experiment.  It entailed making a flyer offering a date that was targeted to a specific set of girls in my area.  It's been running since Monday night, and will be up until next Monday.  Here are the results of it so far.

I've had a .96% click through rate so far.  This is about what I was expecting, if not higher.  I've seen a ton of stuff about how bad the click through rates on flyers are, and coupled with the topic of this flyer I didn't expect many takers.  I have yet to receive any responses, though, so the clicks I've received are probably just the curious. 

I know that each impression is not a unique individual, but the total impressions I've received so far equal about 85% of the total population.  Watching theses impressions increases has given some insight to when people get on Facebook.  For example, during the day time, the impressions increases fairly slowly.  However, once night comes, they rack up quite quickly.  This is to be expected, as most people are probably logging on and spending time on the site at night.  This seems to be later in the night, too, such as after 8.  Another interesting thing is the rate at which the impressions have increased.  At the beginning of the campaign, the impressions racked up rather quickly.  Now they seem to be increasing more slowly.  I'm not sure if this is related to how Facebook displays them, or if it is based on usage habits of my target audience.  What is interesting is that this mirrors what I've seen happen on Google ads I've run (those weren't for dates, just FYI).  In the beginning, they got a ton of views.  Then, as time progressed, they tapered off.

I'm paying based on how many clicks I receive, and the rate I pay is determined by the system based on how much they used to "bid" for my placement.  I set a maximum per click, and a maximum per day limit.  So far, the most I've paid for a click is 72% of what my maximum is.  Also, the average of what I'm paying is 60% of my max.

I'll probably have an update this weekend on how things are going.  I still am not expecting to actually hear anything, but I'm a bit surprised at how many clicks I've received, so who knows.

MSFB

So it looks like Microsoft was the one that won out in buying a minority stake in Facebook, paying $240 million to be able to say that.  Microsoft was fighting with Google, and somewhat Yahoo, for the stake.  The approximate value placed on Facebook with this investment is $15 billion. Along with a small stake, Microsoft also grabbed the rights to be the exclusive advertiser for Facebook overseas.  This is in addition to Microsoft's exclusive ad deal with Facebook for the US until 2011. 

I'm not too surprised that Microsoft won out on this one.  If for no other reason than the history the two companies have.  Despite Facebook constantly being likened to Google, they have worked closely with Microsoft for quite some time, and have shied away from dealing with the search giant.  Also, just looking at the employees that are on Facebook, Microsoft dominates there too.  Even Billy G has a Facebook profile.

Facebook says that it plans to use the money for additional people and possible acquisitions.  It will also try to expand its reach in the international market.  Today it is fairly large in North America and Western Europe, but little elsewhere. 

One pretty interesting part of all of this is that it lends that much more credibility to Facebook.  While it has become quite popular with online media, by being able to establish such a large valuation, it really sets itself up as a big deal.  To put things in some perspective, JC Penney has a market cap of $12.1 billion, about $3 billion less than Facebook's valuation.  Pretty neat, huh?

Experiment Part 1

I was talking to a friend of mine about Facebook’s new flyer advertising options when an idea for an experiment came up.  To give a quick overview, you can now get very granular with in your selection of who sees your flyer. In the past, it was based solely on which network would see it.  Now you can target based on any number of criteria.  What is interesting is that it gives you a real time number of how many people your ad will be hitting.  This can provide for some fun time killing (just how many men between the age of 18 and 29 like The Notebook), or for some legit marketing information. For fun, I can choose to target only single females in my city that like Family Guy.  Pulling that info up is when the idea came.  What if I tried making a flyer for an ad to get a date?  Facebook’s flyers are known to have abysmal click-through rates, so odds would be against me before even beginning.  Second, lets be honest, how likely is someone to actually click on and respond to an ad for a date on there?  To be honest, my hypothesis is that I won’t get any responses from this, but I figure this gives me something to write about for the next couple days. 

I’ll be running the ad for a week using competitive rates for maximum visibility.  It will give a quick blurb saying that I’m looking for someone to take to dinner, and have a link to a page with who I am and contact info.  I’ll post an update to how it’s going later in the week, and will have final results at the end.  Like I said, I’ll be surprised if anyone responds, but who knows I might meet some new people.

Why on Earth Would You Email from Facebook?

I have seen a lot of complaints by people about Facebook's messaging not being as feature rich as they would like. They are really wanting something that is more like email than a typical intrasite messaging service. I'm a bit in the middle on this one. On one hand, sure it'd be nice to have messages work more like email, but at the same time, if I want something that works like email, I'm just going to use email. It's been said that the messaging is hardly ever used (I have no idea if that's correct, but empirical evidence supports it), and that usage would likely increase if it were more feature rich. I'm not sure if I agree on that part. If Facebook had a more robust messaging system, would people really use it more, or would they still rely on email? I'll be real honest, I rarely send a message on Facebook. If I do, it is usually to someone that I know, but don't know their address (either they don't have one shown, or they aren't on my friends list yet). If I know someone's email, that's what is going to get used to contact them.

What brought this topic up at the moment is Facebook's new ability to email people using the messaging. Just start a new message like you would otherwise, and type in an email address. Type your message, hit send, and you've sent your email. Two quick things. First, if you put in the email address of one of your friends that they have listed with Facebook, it will detect this, and instead of emailing them, you'll simply Facebook message them. Second, if you put in someone's email address that's on Facebook but not your friend, then it will still email them rather than just send them a message. Now, here's the little part about this that is a bit annoying. The person that you email doesn't actually see the message in the email. Instead, they get the subject of the message, and then a link to go read the actual message.

As I'm sure you can guess, the page with their message on it has all the "sign up now" sort of stuff on it for Facebook. While I can understand why they'll include something in the message about signing up, making the recipient have to click a link, go to a page, see their ads there, and read their message is a bit of a pain. I think that that will kill a lot of usage right there. Just in case, by some chance, someone actually did decide to just send an email via Facebook rather than an actual email (I really don't know why you'd do that), once the receiver got it and complained it'd likely be the last time. Also, sending an email this way means that you'll have to know the person's email in your head, something that fewer and fewer people do as emails become like phone numbers. On top of that, if you're going to be emailing your friend, they probably are already on Facebook, which means they won't get an email that's just get a message. Which might be exactly what Facebook wants. Anything they can do to keep you on their site longer is good for them.

You Can't Get Rid of Me That Easily

Hello again, boys and girls. First, some meta stuff. I'm aware I haven't posted in a month, and I'm sorry about that. Things have been crazy in all parts of my life. Work has been really picking up lately, and I moved into a new apartment mid August. I'm finally getting some stuff settled, and will hopefully get myself back on track. There hasn't been near as much news reading because of all of this, but I have been able to read a number or articles in the last couple days, so I'll give some brief thoughts on those.

First, the one that has been making all sorts of news lately is the Apple event from the fifth. The big news includes completely redesigned Nanos, bigger HDDs in the "Classic," and the release of the Touch. As anyone that knows me knows, I'm not really a fan of Apple, for a few reasons. That said, I can always appreciate cool stuff when I see it.
The Nanos, in my mind, are finally worth the money they cost. Up 'til now, I'm not so sure they were. A quick side note, why the heck do people act like Coverflow is so great? Does it do something magical that I just haven't noticed? Isn't it just a navigation method, that when you think about it is really not the most efficient one there is? Sorry, just curious.
The newly dubbed "Classics" are pretty much the same as they were before except for the space and UI, so not much to say about that.
The Touch is where all the cool stuff is. A lot of people had been begging for an iPhone sans the phone, and this is pretty much the answer. Personally, I think this thing looks spiffy, but still has too many shortcomings for my taste. First, the most obvious, is the lack of storage. Jobs has this stupid obsession with things being thin, but when it comes to a device that is supposed to become your primary portable media device, you need to stick more than 16 gigs in there. Especially when you charge that much for it. Aside from AT&T, everything else that's bad about the iPhone is bad about this one too, so I won't rehash it. It is pretty, though.
Speaking of the iPhone, it has now reached a price that resembles something reasonable. Steve's closer of dropping the 4 gig model altogether, and bringing the 8 gig to $400 instead of $600 has generated the most coverage. The reason that so many people are talking about this, in case you've been out of it this week, is that those close to a million people that bought an iPhone in the first two months of its release are feeling pissed. Jobs' answer to this is that technology moves fast and that early adopters pay more. I can tell you from my HDTV purchase that I've felt the early adopter cost first hand. However, it's an entirely different thing when you've been able to experience the device for close to a year before seeing huge price drops happen. In this case, it was a first of its kind. Just two months after release, the price came down 33%. That's just absurd. To me, this says that the people who bought early really got gouged. Now, there are all sorts of arguments that come in response to this and defend Apple. One of them is that the people obviously thought that it was worth $600, or else they wouldn't have paid that. That is absolutely correct. However, does it look like Apple thinks it was worth $600 when they drop is so drastically so soon after launch? Has anything ever dropped that much that quickly before? That's not rhetorical, I really am wondering. While Steve is right that tech prices come down quickly, I think that this is a bit of a stretch. I think that the reason they dropped this much is because Apple doesn't value the device at $600 so it blatant, "We overcharged you," to all of the people that bought one. If there was something you really wanted, and would gladly pay $1k for, would you still do it if you knew that the guy selling it would be charging less than $700 two months later? Most people, no probably not. That's why I think so many people are pissed.

Lets see, what else has been going on...Oh, Facebook announced that they will start having profiles indexed and searchable by search engines. This means that when you type someone's name in Google, that their Facebook profile might come up. This is something that I think is a neat idea, but I'm agreeing with everyone saying that it should be an opt-in, rather than opt-out service. Facebook was built around the principles of privacy, and keeping everyone out except those you let in. Now, though, the default is that everyone can see you, and you have to tell it otherwise if you don't want that. Well, poo on them. I joined Facebook back in 2004, and have loved it ever since. That said, I'm not happy in the direction that they are heading. I feel like each new feature they release is bringing them one step closer to MySpace. I say that only half-jokingly. While I know that they will never (probably) fall into the pit of despair that contains the likes of the ugly as sin site that is MySpace, I do think that they are on the path to pissing a lot of people off. Even moreso than they did with that newsfeed fiasco (I actually defended them on that one, the info was all already available). This time, though, it's not just opening you up to your friends, it's opening you up to the world. Get with it, Facebook, make this an opt-in feature and don't risk having the users complain. It'll be really easy to do. Really.

Oh, Snap, Guys! Facebook Keeps Your Private Data Private

It seems that I’m finding more and more people that are complaining about Facebook not being a truly “open” platform because it doesn’t let your information out. By keeping all of your data private, and within their system, they aren’t truly open. Or so the theory goes. I’ve written before on what I think about that. I’m not talking just about whether or not we can call it open, though. I’m talking about people complaining that user’s data is kept inside the system. I’m willing to admit that I might be missing something here, but to me, this sounds like the stupidest complaint I’ve ever heard about Facebook. I am baffled at why people would be upset that a company keeps your information so private. Isn’t privacy a big topic right now? Isn’t a company that keeps all your data under tight lock and key a good thing? Facebook isn’t selling this information, they aren’t letting people just gather all this information to use for their own purposes, they are just keeping everything locked up. I don’t want Google to be indexing my Facebook page. I don’t want someone to be able to download all of my data in a convenient Excel file. I should probably point out that this “closed” system they have didn’t use to exist. There was a time where you could click a button and download everything. I actually have a file with about 41,000 people’s contact info in it that I got years ago. It was just a simple export from Facebook. Tell me, do you really want them to go back to that? I’m perfectly happy with Facebook keeping my data behind closed doors, and I’m willing to bet that nearly all of its users feel the same way. I think that the vocal people complaining are definitely the minority view, but it concerns me that they are so vocal. The very people generating all of the buzz for Facebook are also the ones that are saying this. So please, someone explain to me why this would be a good thing for everyone. Either that, or stop complaining about it, and start complementing Facebook for keeping my stuff private.

Kottke Is Wrong...Sorta

Oh goodness, where to even begin here. I started off with reading a post on Read/Write Web about how open Facebook really is. This started off by saying that despite their claims, Facebook really is not as open as they claim. MacManus says that he found that most people agree Facebook is not an open platform in the true sense. I only half agree with this one. When I hear Facebook say that they are an “open” platform, I interpret that as meaning that they are a welcoming platform. They allow developers write applications for, and integrate with, their platform. Rather than an iPhone, they are a desktop computer, for instance. By the same token that Windows, OSX and Linux are not “open” in that just writing something for one does not make it work on all, Facebook is not “open” either. What is important here, though, is that Facebook is the only social network service that has a large user base, and welcomes outside development. So while it could be accurate to say that Facebook is not open, I don’t see this as being as bad as it might sound. Also, I don’t think that Facebook is in error by calling themselves open, as I think they are referring to their welcoming developers.

Next, the article goes on to examine a point made by Jason Kottke that Facebook is the new AOL. Again, I’m not sure if I fully agree here. I think that they share similarities, in that they are something of a walled garden. The difference, I believe, is that Facebook’s “wall” is permeable. Many applications that have been created are tie-ins from other outside sources. For instance, with an application for Flickr, users can pull in outside data, and integrate it with their Facebook profile. This works both ways. There are other apps that take things you do in Facebook, and then tie those into their own external sites. This flow of information is far from a true walled garden. Kottke goes on to say that part of what makes Facebook so closed is that the data on it is completely private, and not even indexed by search sites. I have to wonder just what Kottke is smoking. Who would want their profile pages indexed? This is one of my annoyances with MySpace. I don’t want my Facebook information available on Google. I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of people agree with me on this one. Jason seems to find fault with the fact that interaction happens in private. That is part of the appeal of Facebook, not a hindrance. This is also where it does tie back to AOL, though. The difference is in the flow of information via the apps that are created; the similarity is in user information. To me, this is a pretty nice blend.

MacManus concludes that Facebook is a good development platform, but is not an open form. He goes on to answer the question of how this matters by pointing out that closed platforms don't end well, pointing out AOL and Microsoft. On AOL, I believe that Facebook demonstrates enough of a difference to have a much better chance at success. Remember, AOL failed for multiple reasons, not just because they were a walled garden. Added to this that Facebook isn't a true walled garden, I don't think foreshadowing AOL's fate is a fair comparison. As for Microsoft, aren't all operating systems inherently closed platforms based on the standards people are applying to Facebook? By that account, I think Microsoft is doing alright for themselves while still being a closed system.
What are your thoughts? Am I way off the mark on this one?

Musical Choices of Morons

In the ongoing aftermath of Danah Boyd's paper about MySpace and Facebook users, Mashable looks at some interesting data from the two. They've taken the top music picks from the two sites and compared them. In a disclaimer, they say that they only have access to the Maryland stats on Facebook, not the entire site. Their intent was to be fairly unbiased, and just to report what they found. I don't find their results too surprising. The music preferences on Facebook are what might be considered "classier," in that there aren't rappers in there with songs about shooting people and humping like rabbits. That might not be the best term, but you get what I mean. Taken in a purely stereotypical view, the contrasting musical choices play along quite well with her paper, and with my opinion of MySpace users.

Semi-Scientific Study Proves My Point...Sorta

I first found this article earlier this morning, but just now have had time to read it. The piece is by Danah Boyd and is titled Viewing American Class Divisions Through MySpace and Facebook. It's a pretty interesting piece, and I encourage you to read it. Personally, I don't feel like I necessarily learned anything new, per se, but it was definitely a good piece. Her basic premise is that the "higher" socio-economic class teens go to Facebook, and the "lower" ones are on MySpace. To this, I say, "Well duh." The interesting part is to see this being said by something that has spent over six months talking to teens around the country and logging thousands of hours online looking at social networking sites. My opinion of these sites are basically based on a few minutes of surfing, and talking to a handful of people. Yet, her conclusion mirrors mine. One of the interesting tidbits she has is a good summary.

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to
Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and
going to college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are
primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking
forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens,
"burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer
kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity
paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to
get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into
the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a
band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially
ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

While I don't think I'd necessarily call the kids on Facebook "goodie two shoes," and she does go on to say she's seen more debauchery on Facebook than MySpace, I think that the point is accurate.

It is very interesting to look at the development of the different social networks, and where they are now. When Friendster first came along, I got my hands on an invite and created my profile. After a few months of being one of two in my network, I started to realize that no one was getting on there.
I avoided MySpace for a long time because I never had a high opinion of it. The ugliness was just too much to make me want to be associated with it. When I finally did create a profile, I immediately replaced the default theme with one that was much cleaner and wrote about how much I hated the site. I even gave links to examples of horrible profiles, and why MySpace should be outlawed. I've since erased everything on my account, and have blocked the MySpace domain. Many of the people I found on MySpace were people that I knew from high school who did not go to college, and with whom I wanted no association because they were morons.
Facebook was a very different story. I was one of the people pushing to get my school added, and once it was I was the 8th person from it to sign up. Upon joining, I already had about two dozens friends there, and this was when there still weren't that many schools. Trying to convince my school colleagues to sign up was a bit harder, though, since when they thought of social networks they thought of MySpace. Now, though, my school has thousands of people on Facebook.

I think that what it comes down to is who got on there first. As Danah mentions, Facebook was founded in the Ivy League schools. It makes sense that it is going to attract the upper educated crowd because likes attract likes. By the same principle, the urban kids that were in bands on MySpace are going to attract their friends.

Brad Feld is an Idiot

Brad Feld, as well as many developers of Facebook apps, seem to misunderstand how reality works. They think that simply creating an app on Facebook and getting a bunch of users is magically going to give them money. The thing they're missing is that they have to actually have a business plan that works in order for them to get money. Going out and signing up hundreds of thousands of users is great and all, but if you haven't thought about how you're going to make money off of them, then that's your own dumb fault. All that Facebook provides is a platform. It's not their job to get you users or money. This is akin to a software developer getting mad at Microsoft because they made a Windows application but no one bought it. If your product has no value, of course you're not going to get any money from it. You have to be able to see how you can monetize the benefit that Facebook provides. Getting a huge user base really quickly on Facebook is, relatively speaking, a simple thing. Once you get them, you have to use them to either generate revenue through a service you have, or via targeting advertising. If you have 200k users, and haven't made a single penny then one of two things is true. Either you don't have any sort of plan, and your lack of revenue is your fault, or your plan sucks and your lack of revenue is your fault. Either way, you need to reevaluate your approach and stop thinking that your problems are Facebook's fault.

RIPL Only a Drop in the Bucket

A friend of mine mentioned that she had an invite to the social networking site RIPL and was wondering if I knew anything about it. I did some digging around, and found that there really is not a ton of information out there about this site. What I did fine, though, did not make it seem too appealing.

They are pretty big on the idea of customization, to the point that I’d think they are on the path to MySpace’s horrendousness. Also, the screenshots that I did see of it show a lot of advertising, which, as you know, I hate with a burning passion. The one bright side of the advertising is that they allow you to choose what gets displayed on your profile. The downside is that they’re treating this as content, which I think many would disagree with. The other thing they are proud of is their privacy system. They say that you can have very granular control over who can see you, and what they can see.

I think that RIPL’s biggest problem is that most everything they tout as an advantage for them is now easily available on Facebook via applications. Having your playlists and such automatically displayed on your profile is now as easy as installing the Last.fm app. RIPL did start at the end of 2005, though, which was well before Facebook apps was known. Today, though, I think that they are going to just be another wanna-be in the market for social networking.

RIPL is currently only availble to students of the University of Washington and the University of Central Florida, or if you have an invite.

Do You Like iLike?

It seems like everywhere I turn I'm reading about how fast the iLike application is growing on Facebook. In about two week's time they have garnered over 3 million users on the site. It is currently the second most popular application. I am not one of those 3 million, but many of my friends are. I don't plan to speak for the application, as I don't know if it is good, bad, or what. I'm more interested in the speed in which it is growing, and the amount of attention it has received. Its growth rate, as has been mentioned a number of times, is largely due to the viral nature of Facebook's applications. When someone adds one, an entry is added to their mini-feed and posted to their friends' main feeds (depending on settings). This means that if you have a good number of friends, the simple act of adding an application advertises it to a large number of people. On top of this, these are not just ads that are on the side of the screen. These have your implicit endorsement, which means other people are more likely to add them as well. If they do add them, it is posted to their feeds, and just propagates out. This means that in a matter of a few hours, thousands of people can potentially see an application multiple times simply because one person added it.
The rabid adoption rate is a double edged sword. In iLike's case, they outgrew their servers very quickly, and had to scramble to get more. If you don't have the ability to scale exponentially in a very short amount of time, you're screwed. On the other hand, it means that the time it takes to make it big can be cut drastically. If you have something that you can monetize, the lead time for it will be shorter. This is definitely a good thing.
There is something interesting here, though. How quickly will the saturation point be reached? When the growth rate is practically a straight line going up, it is near impossible to keep that up for long. Not for any fault on the application's part, but simply because they run out of people. This means that once they hit this point, there is no way to grow other than to offer new things to existing users. When your growth rate is slower, you have more time to plan for this, and to roll things out to keep people interested. Will something like iLike be able to do the same on a faster basis? Will they need to? People can be finicky, and like things that are new and interesting. If everyone is using the application from day one, I would think that a boredom factor would begin to set in. The novelty factor can only carry on for so long. Is it possible that iLike will get the same grace period as other apps that take longer to become popular? I am really curious, I have no idea. Part of me wants to think that this thing could skyrocket up, and then be forgotten within a few months. The other part of me thinks that they will be able to keep people interested long enough to offer something else. Either way, it will be interesting to see what happens. Their growth can only go on for so long (after all, there are only so many Facebook users), but I imagine there will be a while longer where we see this happening.
The other interesting part of all of this is the coverage that this is getting. The success of iLike is being told and re-told, and will likely serve as a blueprint. The coverage also just helps to drive more people to look into what iLike is, and what other applications Facebook has to offer. It also is making sites like MySpace scramble to come up with something to compete. This is all free publicity for both Facebook, their new platform, and applications like iLike. It is definitely the hot topic right now.

All of this is pretty exciting stuff. I'll continue to read about it and pass along info. Also, I share a lot on Facebook that I don't necessarily write about on here so take a look at my posted items there for some more info.

Where Does This Put Your IQ?

I meant to write this on Sunday or Monday, but was lazy. Then I meant to write about it yesterday, but it was a busy day at work, and when I got home I was distracted.

When I first saw Michael Arrington's post at TechCrunch titled "MySpace v. Facebook: 'It’s Not A Decision. It’s an IQ Test'" my first thought was, "Well duh." When I read it, though, it turns out that he was talking about 3rd party people chosing a network to target. The choice would be between MySpace with its massive user base but unfriendly tactics, or Facebook with its smaller user base and open API which allows developers to keep any revenue they make. If you're a developer, this is a pretty simple decision. Facebook is much more friendly towards 3rd parties, and they have an incredible "stickiness," which refers to how often users are there.

The quote, though, extends to beyond just developers. I think it works for the users too. To give an example, my friend said something along these lines a couple years ago.

I had to join MySpace to be with my friends from high school since you had to go
to college to get on Facebook.

This was, of course, before Facebook opened up to anyone. Even still, though, the type of person that gets on Facebook just seems to be different. I think that this is largely based on Facebook's origins, but I also think it has to do with the way they've made their site. Facebook is a clean, well designed, stable site. It doesn't experience horrible loading speeds, downtimes, or the abilty to have 5 videos load on a page at the same time. The appeal of Facebook is the more intelligent design that went into its creation. The better interface appeals to a more sophisticated crowd. Look at car commercials for an analogy. Kia commercials are loud, flashy, and generally incite homicidial thoughts in me. By contrast, a Lexus commercial is quiet, simple, and makes you feel relaxed. Same concept here. The class of people that get on Facebook are just a different breed than the MySpace crowd.

MySpace and Facebook in Bed Together?

The last couple of days I have been having some problems with Facebook. For some reason, their stylesheets were not loading, so the site didn’t really work. This aggravated me quite a bit. I really have not used Facebook much lately for anything beyond sharing interesting articles that I don’t post on here. This feature did not work, though, due to the site being broken for me. I first thought that something was being blocked by my ad blocking program. I disabled that, reloaded, and still no avail. I thought maybe there was something wrong with IE, so I switched to Firefox to check, and still no luck. This started on Tuesday, but I had not done anything that could possibly be causing this outcome, so I just assumed it was an oddity and would resolve itself. Yesterday, though, I got a surprise. When I got on in the morning, everything was working fine. However, in the afternoon, when I looked again, it was broken. This time, though, something caught my eye. A bit down the page I had the message telling me the site had been blocked by the administrator. This is the message displayed when you try to access a site that has been blocked at my router. The thing is, I only have one thing blocked there, and that is MySpace. When I logged into the router, remove the block, and checked Facebook again everything worked perfectly. Wanting to test this out, I put the block back, and checked again, but everything was still just fine. As of today, it is still working just fine. So why on earth was I seeing something that could have only happened if something on Facebook was referencing MySpace, but then it just goes away? I’ve been over the source code on the page a couple times, and still have come up with nothing. I am joking when I imply that there is any sort of real link between the two; it just really makes me wonder, though.

I Hate These People

Perhaps the fact that this came from a site called MLM Forums I shouldn't be too surprised by what it says. They outline, in I assume seriousness, a plan on how to promote your business on Facebook. What the heck? First off, this seems like a rather simple approach, and I don't know why someone would need to be told how to do this. More importantly, though, is that Facebook is not meant to be used as a promotion tool. It is a networking site, and if you want to try to network and meet new people and tell them what you do, that's one thing, but if you just want to use it as an advertising platform I am going to not like you. Given that they have recently added a marketplace, I assume that it's more likely people will post things there as opposed to making them a shared item. As far as I'm concerned, the shared item things should be used for sharing interesting/funny/apocalyptic things, not ads.

Interesting Evidence

I could be reading way too much into this, but based on what Eric Schmidt said in the Financial Times, I think that buying Facebook would play right in line with this.

Will Google Own Facebook?

The other day TechCrunch had a post about the who might buy Facebook. The company that they consider to be the “obvious candidate” is Google. I don’t know if I think Google is interested, but they do have some good points. For one, according to comScore Facebook is the number one photo sharing site with more than 6 millions photos uploaded each day. On a side note, that is absolutely insane when you think about it. When Google bought YouTube they secured dominance in the online video marketplace. Given that MySpace recently bought Photobucket, Google could buy a major player in the social networking space AND dominance in online photo sharing. The question is, do they want to? Google is already involved with photos through their Picasa photo organizer. They also offer online sharing of them via Picasa online albums. I don’t know an exact number, but I think there is all of three people using that. Also, in the second half of 2006, Google bought Neven Vision which makes technology for recognizing items in photos to allow for better organization. These all show that Google does have an interest in photos, but is it a big enough interest to make them buy Facebook.
With Facebook there is also the social networking aspect. Google currently owns Orkut, but unless you’re in Brazil you’re not likely to know anyone using it. With Facebook would come all of its users. That is a big number of people that would see Google’s ads. Orkut does show, though, that Google has at least a dabbling interest in the social networking scene.
As a user of Facebook, I could not think of anything that would make me happier than Google buying them. I still think that Facebook is a wonderful service and site, even though I don’t use it as much as I used to. On their own, they are managing to do a really good job of making a great service. But let’s face it, I love Google and want them to take over the world. I can only imagine that if they did acquire Facebook that only good things could come from that.
All of this is speculation, obviously, as Facebook could be grabbed by someone else, or they could go the IPO route. Zuckerberg has said that he wants to keep the company independent, but as TechCrunch accurately points out, it really isn’t his choice to make. His investors are the ones that will make the final call, and at the end of the day they are looking to make the most money possible. With Google’s giant stacks of cash, they could easily provide that.