Sexy Widget

Unplugging for a Few Days

I'm heading back to Philly for a week of family (good), and freezing cold weather (bad), and then it's up to Tahoe for NYE and the first boarding of the season.  Posting will be light.

To get everybody in the Holiday mood, here's Philly native Rasheed Wallace and friends singing a Jingle Bells remix.

The Beginnings of a Distributed Web Strategy

As regular readers of this blog know, I am not a full time blogger.  I have a day job as CEO of an (increasingly) distributed consumer review company called RateItAll.  We have pretty big destination site traffic, but feel pretty strongly that our future is dependent upon our ability to get distributed - to put our consumer review content and functionality where the users are, as opposed to making them come to us.

But more than just pushing our content out, getting distributed means making our footprint a two way street.  The world of consumer reviews is a two sided coin - writing reviews, and reading reviews.  If our distributed footprint is going to mean anything more than "free cpm advertising," folks are going to need to be able to not just read reviews, but post reviews to our network from any widget or app that they come across in the open web.

And it's not just the posting of reviews.  It's the accumulation of reputation on a distributed basis, it's the ability for each RateItAll reviewer to build up their subscriber base across domains, and eventually, the ability for each RateItAll reviewer to monetize their content contributions wherever it might appear on the Web.

We're just scratching the surface on what needs to be done here.  Our dev queue is impossibly long, and are resources are impossibly stretched.  But we're making progress - for those of you wishing to see one company's take on the beginning of a distributed web strategy, you can check out our stable of consumer review widgets here.

Some Quotes on Building Apps that Span Domains

Shelfari, via Mashable:

With the ongoing open movement, Shelfari has been pretty adamant keeping the Shelfari experience the same across networks, whether this be through a widget, a Facebook app, or an Open Social app (coming soon). This is actually a pretty tall order, considering the amount of time and skill needed to fully trick out an application that leverages the network into which it’s plugged while also maintaining the core objectives (look, feel and overall experience) of its main site.

Renkoo, via GigaOM:

Social networks are worlds unto themselves, and their prized viral effects won’t necessarily attract the same audience you’d find on the open web. I don’t know of companies that have been successful uniting their user bases on and off Facebook — possibly Flixster? If you’re a widget provider like Slide or RockYou, you don’t have this problem, but what if you want to hedge your bets? Renkoo CTO Joyce Park tells us that her company actually has three user bases: its event-planning web site Renkoo.com, its virtual pet application Haikoo Zoo, and its virtual drink application Booze Mail.

iLike, via VentureBeat:

ILike’s strategy is to build social music applications across social networks — Facebook, Hi5, and the rest — then let musicians communicate with their fans across all of these networks (our coverage).

I have very strong opinions about what a winning cross platform, cross domain app will look like.  I'll try and post more on this at some point.

MixerCast – User Generated Product Placement

I ran into Jennifer Cooper, CEO of MixerCast at the Bebo Announcement on Wednesday – I was reminded that this was a service that I had been meaning to check out for a while.

MixerCast is an ambitious publishing and syndication tool that allows you to combine your media (photos, videos, music) with third party widgets such as (Meebo, Slideshare, Twitter, RSS feeds, etc.) to create embeddable slideshows. 

Because of the ability to use third party widgets as elements of your MixerCast, there’s the potential for the company to become a widget platform and distributor of sorts – aggregating thousands of third party widgets for distribution via user created slideshows.

 

I messed around with it for a while, and it’s pretty neat.  Lots of drag and drop functionality, and lots of different ways to express yourself. 

But where it gets a bit more interesting is in the revenue model.  Slideshow creators are given access to a library of music and images from places like Getty Images and Muze.   When I was playing with the service, I added an old reggae track called “Tighten Up.”  Others looking at my MixerCast are able to buy the album from Amazon by clicking a shopping cart icon at the bottom of the widget.

So in effect, users are given the option to give product placement to digital goods in their MixerCast, and revenue is shared between the content owner, the creator of the MixerCast, and MixerCast the company.

While the platform is neat, I’m not sure if it’s going to be smooth sailing for this company.  Here are my concerns in no particular order:

• While the tools are powerful, it’s not super easy to use this service.  Less robust tools like Slide and RockYou make it really easy to propagate content.  MixerCast is not there yet in this regards.
• When affiliate revenues start getting divided three ways, we’re talking about pretty small numbers.
• It’s going to be hard work to identify the right digital media to populate the MixerCast library that strikes the balance between being popular, and actually generating some revenue.  It may also involve some BizDev work.

The good news is that MixerCast has just raised a bunch more money – a $5.57M Series A led by Intel Capital and ComVentures.  They’ll have a decent runway to try to hit the right formula.

You can check out an example Wyclef Jean MixerCast here.

Facebook's Social Operating System

Today was supposed to be about Bebo.  How they were making it easy on us app developers by allowing us to port our Facebook apps over, virtually as is, to Bebo.

But as  Bebo founder Michael Birch was explaining this morning about how they are "in touch" with (their direct competitor) Facebook about keeping the Bebo platform synced with Facebook's, it hit me.  Today is not about Bebo.  It's about Facebook.

It's about Facebook deciding that a Social Operating System cannot reside on just one domain, even if that domain is a powerhouse like Facebook.com.  Social Operating Systems need to reside on all social media sites, not just the ones you own.  In some ways, Facebook's decision to share their platform architecture can be seen as a statement of mortality.  Facebook is hot today, but will it be 3 years from now?  Sharing the platform architecture itself is a way for Facebook to push its own platform out to the edge, beyond the Facebook domain.  It's a hedge against the inevitable fickleness of a social network's users.

Today is also about Facebook realizing that in the social networking world, they don't have to pander to Google by joining OpenSocial.  When it comes to engaged users and engaged app developers, Facebook is calling the shots.  No amount of Google PR and BizDev work can change this.  If you want to add apps quickly to your social media site, the only rational move is to prioritize conforming to Facebook over building to some vague Google press release.  Bebo did what they had to do.

To date, we have talked about the social media scene being divided into the aggregators - those big communities like Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo that pull together widgets and content and apps from all over the web - and publishers - companies like Slide and RockYou and Hungry Machine and RateItAll that are building features and pushing content to those sites.

Facebook did a little mold breaking today.  By making their platform architecture available to sites that are direct competitors to them, they have tipped their hand a bit.  Their goal is not to be the biggest social network.  Their goal is to be the social operating system upon which all other social networks reside.

It's Official - Facebook to Share Platform Architecture with Other Sites

It's suddenly looking like it might be OpenSocial that is on the ropes.

Just hours after Bebo's announcement that they were working with Facebook to mirror their APIs, Facebook has posted on the Facebook developer blog that they plan to make this sort of coordination with other social aggregators standard operating procedure:

Now we also want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model. In fact, we’ll even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags to other platforms. Of course, Facebook Platform will continue to evolve, but by enabling other social sites to use what we’ve learned, everyone wins -- users get a better experience around the web, developers get access to new audiences, and social sites get more applications.

Could this move marginalize OpenSocial before it even gets going?  Suddenly, there's no need to build for OpenSocial to reach Bebo.  And with Facebook's announcement, you'd have to think it's only a matter of time before other major SNS start making their platforms Facebook compatible.

What will MySpace do?

Bebo Prioritized Facebook Compatibility over OpenSocial

During the Bebo platform announcement this morning, someone in the audience asked how Bebo's announcement tied into OpenSocial - Google's initiative to create a common set of APIs that would allow third party applications to work across multiple social networks.

In response, Bebo founder Michael Birch talked about limited engineering resources, and how once their Facebook compatible platform was stable, they would begin working on OpenSocial.

Wow. 

Facebook 1, Google 0. 

When OpenSocial was announced, everyone (including me) marveled how Google had so deftly outmaneuvered Facebook by convincing every other social network to get on board with OpenSocial.

In a post entitled "Checkmate?  MySpace, Bebo and SixApart to Join Google OpenSocial," Michael Arrington said:

Suddenly, within just the last couple of days, the entire social networking world has announced that they are ganging up to take on Facebook, and Google is their Quarterback in the big game.

It would appear that this may have been a little premature.

When faced with the decision of whether to build an OpenSocial compatible platform or a Facebook compatible platform, Bebo decided to build for the platform that could bring them the largest number of apps in the shortest amount of time - Facebook.

It looks like its going to take more than vague announcements to unseat Facebook as the developer platform of choice - even if it is the mighty Google making the announcements.

Bebo Launch - Live Blogging

Here we go:

- Bebo has 40M users.  This is a big day for Bebo and the development community.
- Video interviewing Bebo users.  Why they use Bebo - stay in touch, pick up girls
- In the UK, Bebo is number one.
- Original programming - "Kate Modern" (sponsored by MS, Disney, others).  Show broke a band called "The Daze".  Atrracted 20M viewers.  Hottest show not on TV.  More programming - Sophia's Diary. 

OpenMedia introduced 1M ago to let brands put their stuff in front of our users.

Today, the same but for developers.

Michael Birch - Co Founder

Key Messages

- Launch tonight
- FB apps can port right over to Bebo - almost 100% portability
- Devs keep 100% of revenue
- Apps ordered by user rating

Started in 2005.  Sold another in 2003.  We were late.  Had to be a real community, word of mouth recommendations between friends.

6 Markets - all english language.  Number one in UK, Ireland, NZ.  Highest engagement of all networks - 35 to 40 mins per day.

Now we have engagement, the time is to open up.

We didn't want to open up like MySpace, wanted to be more controlled, with biz opportunities for developers.

While we were thinking about how to do it, Facebook launched the platform.

That changed our course.   We didn't want to launch something separate - pain in the butt for developers.

Launch is 100% compatible with Facebook - including APIs.  Launching with 40 app developers.  Many took FB, put it on Bebo, and it worked.  Some are new to Bebo.  Some small subtle differences, but many apps can just be ported.

Demo.

Has 20 engineers - up from 1 a year ago.

Platform is live on Bebo now, but only a few can see it.  Launch is tonight.

People can rate apps.  Quality apps to rise to the top.  Fresh apps get immediate exposure.  Rate every app right from the directory.

Gap Model Maker App (editor's note: this app was made with Widgetbox)

Each APP has a profile page, and they can skin and brand it (unlike FB).  Gap skin is Gap look and feel.  It's a full profile.  Same header as any Bebo member.  Modules to see developers, discussion, recent ratings of app, comments.

Over time, other apps will be able to run on an app's profile page.  You can build apps for apps - not there yet though.

What makes Bebo different?

- about self expression.  Very community focused.  Taking a great community and wrapping it around content and media.  Opened up to the media companies a month ago, this is stage two.  Media companies can keep the revenue.

Skinning Pages.  Push for viral spread of apps.  What are your friends most popular apps?  One click adds of apps and skins from friends.

We have all this great media content.  Universe of 7K app developers who can now push their stuff of Bebo.

Before, I'd have a new idea and would build a new site.  Now, I just plug that idea into Bebo.  SNS are the ultimate portals.

Building a true economy with Bebo.  We need to support and enable profitable businesses.  Ideas coming for ad monetization strategies next year.  We'd like Bebo members to have cash accounts with balances to make micropayments to devs and media companies easy.  This is the vision.  We have an open mind.  Community comes first though.

Bebo Announcement

I'm sitting here at the Metreon in San Francisco for a big Bebo announcement.  The obvious guess is that this announcement will be about Bebo's platform plans.  I'll blog it as it happens.

The gathering is from all walks of the Silicon Valley start-up scene.  I've seen a bunch of local CEOs, investors, and bloggers. 

Imeem: A Distributed Music Powerhouse?

I've been halfheartedly following Imeem for the last few months, hearing about their big user base and whatnot.  Yesterday, I finally took the time to check them out.

Imeem is a massive.  Think of a YouTube for songs, in which every song is available for export via widget.  According to TechCrunch, Imeem's database now boasts 5M songs - just 1M fewer than iTunes.

Even more amazing is that they have each of the four major record labels on board: EMI, Warner Music, Sony-BMG, and now Universal.  This means Imeem is a legal and stable source of adding music to your profiles or other social media sites.

In terms of hub and spoke, distributed business models, Imeem is looking formidable.  It's a great example of a central database working in tandem with a distributed footprint.  Home base provides the community and the tools for users to upload their music tracks.  This content is pushed out to the edge via Flash widgets, which in turn acquires more users and builds more community (each track's user comments are highlighted in the widget).

I think other UGC sites should take note of this model.  Use a central hub to provide community tools, monetize, and aggregate content.  Use widgets and apps to push that content out in small chunks to acquire more users (and more content).  Gorgeous.

Here's an example of the Imeem widget playing a great track from the now defunct SF band Beulah.