Check out this nugget from Lance Tokuda yesterday from Graphing Social:
A well executed app on Facebook is about 7X more viral than a well executed widget on MySpace.
His advice? If you're working on your widget strategy and roll out right now, stop. Do Facebook first.
Posted at 08:44 AM in graphingsocial | Permalink | Comments (3)
... Hooman Radfar from Clearspring just gave a good one.
Besides the distribution opportunities, besides the low cost of development, besides the opportunities to dovetail with your home base site - it's practice for the future.
The Platform model will soon be expanded to other communties. Learning how to plug your web service into another site's social graph will be a critical part of distribution going forward.
Even if your Facebook app doesn't blow up and become one of the 1% with more than 1M installs, you will learn how how to tune the viral pieces of your app so that you're better prepared when the next big property opens up.
Posted at 02:54 PM in graphingsocial | Permalink | Comments (3)
More Graphing Social notes:
On the monetization panel, a RockYou rep said they had 50M installs on Facebook.
Posted at 02:47 PM in graphingsocial | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Sexy Widget Summary: There is not one social graph to rule them all - people want multiple social graphs. (translation: LinkedIn will live on!)
No mention of when / if LinkedIn will introduce a platform.
Here are my notes from Reid Hoffman's Graphing Social Platforms keynote:
Will cover five themes:
What makes a social network platform
Social Networks and Professional Networks
One Graph to rule them all?
Opportunities with Facebook Platform?
What does the social network platform mean for evolution of the web?
Discussion in 2003 was about features. There were those that said "social networking is a feature."
Today it's about platforms and applications.
MySpace - ability to hack in "widgets"
Then Ning (before F8) - you can build your own hosted network.
Then Facebook launched the first platform with a large number of users. Apps could rely on graph to get traction.
Why are social networks platforms?
A social network takes patterns of relationships, and puts them on a way that empowers applications.
Importing real life relationships, it enables apps to change people's lives.
Example: Friendster as a dating app. But it wasn't limited to dating, could be any number of apps.
Key Elements of Facbeook's platform:
Facebook vs. MySpace
MySpace: enables widgets, but widgets don't have access to social graph. No access to key data. No platform access. No access to communications or newsfeeds.
Facebook vs. Ning
Ning: progam your own social network
Difference with Ning is that they don't offer a user base... you have to build your own. Facebook says you can user our user base.
Facebook: platform leverages a communications architecture and a newsfeed "sharing" space.
SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL
Is Facebook going to build a professional network? Maybe.
Differences in functionality:
Search:
Facebook: pic and networks
LinkedIn: piece of professional bio
Facebook is not geared towards professionals.
Try searching for "open source" on both - Facebook gives you nothing interesting, LinkedIn gives you experts.
Contrast search for photos. LinkedIn is headshots. Facebook is everything.
Contrast search for company connections
Contrast Answers:
On Facebook, it's about being witty or clever
On LinkedIn, it's professional subjects, with folks trying to prove their professional expertise.
Contrast Messaging:
LinkedIn is about brokering intros, Facebook is a full on communication vehicle.
* Simple Misconception: any communications infrastructure can be used for anyting
One Graph To Rule Them All?
Is there any one social graph? Lots of social networks still growing.
Is there one graph that captures each different sort of relationship?
Reid: There will be multiple graphs. I don't know how many.
There's also a geo factor - Orkut and Brazil.
Classic geek dream: one graph, with appropriate tags to capture all data. That's true for techies, but not true for mass marketing. The effort to build and maintain is not for regular people.
There's value for users to have different rules, different baselines for different networks. Family, religious networks. Reid doesn't believe in "one graph to rule them all."
Fortunately, value can be created with multiple graphs.
Current possibilities for Facebook:
- Communications - one to one, many to many, poking, walls, gifts, mail
- Games like comparing people, Scrabulous
- Music and Media
Future possiblities:
- iterations of what we're seeing today
- Interesting to see what happens with friending apps
- interesting to see what happens with honesty box - anonymous communication
What's new?
- platforms are about enabling creativity
- what apps would work in 1-1, 1 to many, many to many communications environment.
Facebook Limits:
Limit to number of apps? no penalty other than noisy nav bar.
Rising aboe the noise gets much harder. Lots of competition. Why the metric was switched from active users to number of installs. Reid thinks you will see more in this direction from FB, because it helps users sift through the noise.
What hasn't worked? Business, politics, and money. Nothing with much usage or traction.
"The Challenge of the Second Act" - you got their attention, now what?
How do you create something sustainable?
Example: JibJab - great creativity, but what's next?
Facebook Economics
Today: Parallel to internet gold rush. Folks paying high ad prices to rise above the noise. Todays parallel comes from Cost Per Installs on Facebook.
The challenge is that apps are inserting interruptive ads to generate income.
Incented installations - install and we'll give you x.
All of this is financed by future hope.
Future possibilities:
Targeted ads
Virtual / Real Currency
Most interesting to Reid: an innovation to the platform will solve the economics. Devs and Facebook would benefit from evolved economics.
Economic analysis leads to:
Low cost apps with sufficient sustaining appeal. College students building and maintaining.
Also there will be apps that Facebook use cases
Evolution of key uses cases.
What we don't know - what will be the new use cases, what will be the new major applications.
Web competition is tough.
If you try and charge something, somebody else will give it away.
At least three people will try and copy what works.
Competition from companies and individuals. Parallel to what's happening on the web - blogs vs. MSM
We'll see lots of experimentaiton - when looking at ROI, you need to establish stickiness.
Facebook and the Web
New patterns of email and communication and sharing of content.
Zuckerburg: sharing is a new pattern of communication.
Photosharing on FB is genius - took some of Flickr. Tagging notifies friends - great many to many comm system.
Most interesting to Reid: apps that replicate this genius of many to many communciations.
Future of discovery on the Web?
Search is huge, discovering content through friends is a piece of it.
Discovery of friends social lives is a part. Entertaining and fun.
Apps and Platform
Can one website be everything? No
But, we will see great apps based on socail graph.
Diversity makes ecosystem good and interesting.
Reid's summary:
Many new interesting entrepreneurs will start with FB apps.
There will be an interesting ecosystem between websites and facebook apps. (flixster and ilike)
Yahoo hired RockYou to help with FB engagement. Acquisitions of apps for foothold on FB.
Economics will be a real issue.
- recommendation: keep costs low.
Constant newness will be important for entertainment.
- facebook gets this through platform
- apps will need to keep this going.
Question: Something about will LinkedIn build apps for FB.
Reid: Yes. Bumper stickers app has some traction.
Goal is to provide professional apps to the degree that people want them.
Limit to LinkedIn activity on FB is about ROI, not fear of being taken advantage of by the platform.
Question: You mentioned some things that haven't yet worked on the platform. Like ecommerce. Can social networking in general make this work? Or is it just social, and commerce has no place here.
Answer: interesting apps month by month are in communications games and sharing. This will likely to continue. But maybe there's a commerce game that might work.
Question: you have a unique perspective. What advice do you have for early stage companies focusing on facebook or focusing on destination sites.
Answer: nervoous about venture potential of FB apps. Definitely sees angel potential of FB apps. With VCs only able to do 3 years a year and looking for Billion dollar market caps, it's tough.
Generally speaking - if you want venture and big exit, you have to build out web presence and not focus just on FB.
Posted at 10:13 AM in graphingsocial, gsp07 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
