Some Notes from the Multi Platform Social Networks Event

I made an epic trek down to Stanford from San Francisco last night in the pouring rain to go to Shaking the Money Tree of Multi Platform Social Networks last night.  And when I say epic, I mean epic.  I took the 22 bus from The Grove in Pac Heights where I had a meeting, to a Bart Train to Daily City to a Bart Train to Millbrae, to a Caltrain train to Palo Alto, to the Stanford Marguerite shuttle.

It was a solid event - the focus was more on monetization than growth strategy (I guess the "shaking the money tree" should have clued me in), but I did walk away with a few nuggets.

In no particular order, here are my notes from the event:

• Jeremiah Owyang is a solid moderator - he brings energy and knowledge, and doesn't let panelists get away with dodging questions.   If you can get him for your event, get him.
• Social Network sites are facing a number of challenges currently: monetization, sns fatigue, workplaces blocking their employees, privacy
• According to a recent survey, here is what people do on social networks in order of frequency: Connect with Friends, Communicate, Update Profile, Browse Profiles, Stalk / Peep (e.g. check up on that ex girlfriend), Send Friend Requests, Listen to Music, Read Blog Posts, Write on Walls.  Note: No mention of anything having to do with "shopping" here.
• On MySpace, four out 1000 people click on an ad.  Less than a quarter of the Internet average.   Hello monetization problems.
• Jia Shen cites recent RockYou numbers; 105M monthly uniques, 1.5B monthly pageviews, 150M widget views per day, on 18% of all myspace profiles and 60% of all fb profiles.  Interesting to note how much more traction they have on FB than MS, despite a longer history with MS - it speaks to the impact of exposing the social graph on getting a widget /app to go viral.
• RockYou defines a platform as having three attributes: 1) The ability to add functionality; 2) the ability to distribute; 3) the ability to monetize
• Jia says that Multi Platform environments is not a new thing - cites examples of Mac / PC, Games (Nintendo, xBox, PS, etc.)
• Jia says that the scary time for RockYou as a company was when it was dependent on MySpace.  Now it's diversified.
• Both Bebo and Friendster's traffic spiked when they became platforms
• Sourabh Niyogi from sns ad network Social Media gave some of their stats: 2200 appas on fb, 22M uniques per month, 150M + impressions per day
• And then gave some examples of how much Social Media's network of app devs are making: they have 165 apps doing more than $100 per day, 35 apps more than $500 per day, 950 apps doing higher than $1 cpm, 40 devs making $10K per month
• Sourabh estimates that porting a simple app from FB to Bebo is a four hour project.   From FB to OpenSocial is a 5 day project.
• Kevin Marks from OpenSocial says that the value in OpenSocial is that it abstracts three behaviors that span all social networks; people and friends, data persistence, activity streams
• The most popular app on Bebo is the Make a Baby App - two people get together to make a baby, then they have to care for it, feed it, spank it, etc.  Says the Bebo platform head, "making babies is fun."
• SocialMedia believes that real money will start being made on the social networks when the need of individual, big budget verticals (travel, mortgages) start being met.
• VC Ken Gullicksen is not concerned so much about monetization - he says the dollars will follow the eyeballs.  Furthermore, Yahoo does $1 CPM network wide, but embedded in that are some very vertical segments.  SNS are not that different.
• Open Platforms should help monetization.  Because developers don't have to worry about collecting registration and social graph info, they can focus on making better apps.
• Jia Shen: The lack of a FB micropayment system is a barrier to ecommerce apps.  Another barrier is that folks don't come to FB to shop.
• Jia Shen: Bebo has run a very tight ship in terms of clear rules for developers.  They manage user privacy very well.
• Consolidation will happen among SNS.  In other words, eventually all of your personal data will eventually end up at one of the big data shops (Google, Microsoft, etc.)
• Gullicksen: rules are the same on SNS as they are anywhere else - if you deliver value, the monetization will follow.
• Jia: Ratio of success is higher for apps on platforms, than for websites on the open web.   This, I think, says it all.
• Open Platforms will enable the running of the same app in different social contexts - for example, an app run among your FB friends might have very different implications when run with your LinkedIn friends.

Anybody else who attended that took away other things, please feel free to chime in.

Comments

[Drew Bernard]

Thanks for the Cliff Notes...

[lawrence]

no sweat

[Kevin Tate]

Thanks for the notes Lawrence, sounds like a good event - and yes, the Marguerite Shuttle is to be avoided at all costs ;-P.

I'm a little surprised at the assumption that personal info will be rolled up along with the (likely inevitable) SNS consolidation. I guess I have a bit more faith that OpenID + OpenSocial/something-or-other will lead to more consumer-controlled profiles in the not too distant.

On the other hand, that's what I thought back in 1996 when we rolled out "I/CODE" as a "universal web profile", but that, um, didn't exactly work out.

[lawrence]

Kevin, that's a good point. At a minimum, we may at least have the ability to permanently delete our stuff in the future.

I'm not all that concerned with it even if the big data houses do gain control eventually. In general, I trust bigger brands more as they have more to lose should they act improperly...

[aaron]

did slide not show up?

Thanks lawrence I really like the notes! I'm sad i missed this event as i didn't find out about it until the day after. =(

[lawrence]

Keith from Slide was replaced at the last minute by the Social Media CTO.

[Eric]

What about consolidation between widget companies?

[Doug]

Nice work on the comments.I would have enjoyed this conference.

[myles]

Solid!

[darkfall gold]

VC Ken Gullicksen ist nicht so sehr über die Monetarisierung betrifft - er sagt, der Dollar wird die Augäpfel zu folgen.
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Darüber hinaus hat Yahoo $ 1 CPM Netzwerk breit, aber eingebettet in sehr, dass einige vertikale Segmente werden. SNS keine allzu großen Unterschiede.http://www.dfstock.net/darkfall-power-leveling.html

[Online Survey Software]

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