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The 10 Commandments of the Social Web Posted: 30 Jul 2008 03:49 PM CDT Over the past year I have been covering Facebook and social networks obsessively. The more I write and the more I read, the more complex the social web becomes. The social web is the part of the internet where people socialize and interact with each other. It can be as simple as forums but the social web has come to embody a limitless number of tools from instant messaging to blogs to micro-blogs to social networks to lifestreaming services and more. It’s clear that the social web has become increasingly complex and with so many places to communicate it is frequently challenging to figure out where the best place to go and talk is. This blog and others are all striving to cover the numerous tools available to you to express yourself to those that you know and those that you’ll never meet or speak to. The social web embodies all of us and as we progress forward, I’m realizing that there are some really core concepts embodying all of these services. When it comes down to it, the social web is simply about communicating and no matter how many tools or websites are developed, it still all boils down to communicating with others. So after using tool after tool, site after site, I’ve come up with the 10 commandments that everything on the social web should embrace. 1. Thou shalt enable sharing with everyone The fundamental component of online conversations is sharing. If you haven’t realized this yet, then there is a good chance your social web service is not doing so hot. People want to share information with each other. Take a look at your instant messages, wall posts, or any other site you are on. A large portion of the dialog is about the sharing information. That can include links to websites or personal stories. The information being shared can also contain audio, video, photos or text which brings us to the second commandment of the social web. 2. Thous shalt support all forms of media Humans communicate in many ways and on the social web it is no different. There are multiple types of media that users utilize for the purpose of communication. Audio (music, interviews, dictations, etc), video, photographs and text are the four types of media on the social web. Your platform must support all four forms if it is going to succeed. If you don’t support all forms of media, you must enable users to embed other forms of media. 3. Thou shalt provide provide users with a face I’ve been to many social sites that don’t provide users with the ability to upload their image. For the longest time LinkedIn didn’t support users images and that was a critical mistake that they eventually remedied. A large portion of communication off of the internet is visual and on the web that same rule still applies. If users don’t have a way to express themselves (through their own photo or a logo), there is a large portion of communication that is lost. 4. Thou shalt provide granular privacy settings The concept of “granular privacy settings” is a fairly recent innovation. I would suggest that many of these settings were a result of user backlash as well as the media coverage of privacy violations and sexual predators. Whatever the cause of granular privacy settings, Facebook has been leading the way in enabling users to control what is visible and not visible to other contacts. Users should have the right to control what another person can or cannot see. If you don’t have granular privacy settings on your site, you will soon fall by the wayside as users go to another site. In the end the user must have complete control. 5. Thou shall not overload users with email notifications I understand that getting friend requests provides users with a unique type of satisfaction but overloading the user with notifications is simply annoying. I would suggest developing a scalable notifications system which throttles the number of notifications based on the number of notifications a user receives on a daily basis. Also you must enable the user to turn off all notifications if they so desire. 6. Thou shalt provide a central request repository This commandment of the social web follows closely to the notifications commandment. The bottom line is that there must be a single place where a user can manage all of their notifications. Whether it’s a friend request, a group invite, or more recently an application invitation, you must place all notifications in one location. Otherwise it will simply be too complicated to navigate. 7. Thou shalt provide a central activity feed When Mark Zuckerberg developed the news feed for Facebook I doubt he realized that it would become a standard for the web. All social sites must now have a single feed where a user can view all of their activities on the site as well as their friends. In the best case scenario all of this information should be provided to the user via an external feed. While Facebook doesn’t currently let users access their feed outside of the site, I believe it will soon become a standard to access your feed anywhere. FriendFeed is a prime example of this. Whether you decide to make the feed information public, all sites on the social web must provide users with an activity feed. 8. Thou shalt be absolutely transparent with users Preparing to release a new feature that will track all of a user’s activities around the web (does the name “Beacon” ring any bells)? You might want to make sure all of your users understand the implications of the new feature and provide them with the ability to use it or not use it. As the social web becomes more integrated, the sharing of information across sites will begin to push the limits of user privacy and keeping users in the dark won’t work. Be transparent with your users about what you are using their data for and how you are accessing their data. If you aren’t somebody will figure it out and release that information to the world. It sounds better coming from the company’s mouth than somebody else. 9. Thou shalt be a conduit for data, not the sole owner of data A user comes to your site and enters a bunch of personal data. Do you: a) keep all the data to yourself and try and come up with cool graphs from the data, b) share all of that user’s data with the web, or c) let the user share their data as they please? The answer? C, let the user share their data as they please! I know that the moment users start putting all types of interesting information into your database all you want to do is start coming up with interesting findings from that data. That’s fine! You are allowed to do practically anything with that user’s data within the confines of your own system. Before you start having all that fun though, why don’t you give those users a way to share that information with other sites if they please? Whether most people realize it or not, it’s what the user wants to be able to do. Let them share their data with other services, other sites and other people. You still have the right to harvest their data and come up with all those interesting findings you were dying to calculate when they first started entering that information. Just make sure to let the users do as they’d like with that data as well. This brings me to the last commandment of the social web. 10. Thou shalt provide an API for others to access If you are collecting various forms of a user’s data and all of their communications you should let them come up with interesting ways to leverage that information. While you most likely have brilliant ideas about how to leverage that information (that’s why you created a product or service on the social web in the first place right?), they too have brilliant ideas. Empowering the users to create their own tools and services with they data they entered into your system will only help you in the long run. Conclusion Whether you run a start-up website, a long-running internet business or have been thinking about finally executing on that great idea sitting in the back of your mind, there are some basic principals you should follow. You may be thinking to yourself “Facebook didn’t follow all these commandments and they grew into a company that Microsoft has valued at $15 billion!” Well you are right but in the past few years Facebook and other companies on the social web have learned many lessons, ten of which I’ve written above. While there are many other guidelines your social web tool or service should follow, these ten commandments of the social web should put you on the right track. Are there any other rules that you think social web companies should abide by? P.S. Please forgive the cheesy image below. I will be sure to replace it with one that is much more beautiful!

MyYearbook Raises $13 Million More Posted: 30 Jul 2008 10:39 AM CDT Back in June I wrote about MyYearbook’s phenomenal yearly growth which outstripped Facebook as the fastest growing social network. Last night the company announced that they had raised an additional $13 million from Norwest Venture Partners. The company currently attracts high school student to their website and continues to grow at a furious pace. As Eric Eldon at VentureBeat points out, the company continues to dominate other competing social networks domestically including hi5, Bebo, Tagged, Meebo and Friendster. This positions the company as a distant third to Facebook and MySapce. Domestically, MyYearbook attracts around 10 million visitors a month while Facebook attracts over 35 million and MySpace has close to 70 million. As the company grows, the largest challenge will be expanding beyond their initial user base which is comprised of mostly teens. Given the name and the design of the popular social network, it will be hard for the company to grow to a more mature audience. For now, it appears that the company will use the funding to expand their product offering and expand their marketing efforts. As Caroline McCarthy pointed out, the announcement was relatively ambiguous with releasing any of the company’s intentions. It will be interesting to see how the site changes over the coming year among continued growth.

MySpace Hires New Execs Among Layoffs Posted: 30 Jul 2008 08:21 AM CDT Yesterday Mike Arrington broke the news that MySpace could be laying up to 5 percent of their staff. While Amit Kapur claimed that the layoffs were “performance driven”, the news still generated some negative buzz for the company. Then last night, MySpace issued a press release announcing that they company hired five new executives (one of which, Jason Oberfest, will be speaking at the upcoming Social Ad Summit). As Caroline McCarthy points out, the timing couldn’t have been more coincidental. When did these new hires come on board exactly? Who knows, but MySpace decided to issue a press release late last night about it. Manu Thapur, the former Vice President of Engineering at Yahoo!, will become the Senior Vice President of Engineering at MySpace. Angela Courtin, the ex-Vice President of Integrated Marketing for MTV Networks, will become Senior Vice President of Marketing, Entertainment, and Content for MySpace. Tish Whitcraft will be responsible for building out global support for MySpace and Abe Thomas will serve as Vice President of Online Marketing for MySpace. Finally, Jason Oberfest who previously worked for the LA Times will be leading Business Development at MySpace. As I noted earlier, Jason will also be speaking at our inaugural Social Ad Summit on September 15th in New York City. As I mentioned earlier, the timing of this announcement makes it pretty clear that MySpace is trying to quell some of the negative buzz generated by Mike Arrington’s article yesterday. These employees could have been working at the company for the past month and only have been announced today.

Interview With Where I’ve Been Team Posted: 30 Jul 2008 08:00 AM CDT Yesterday I had the opportunity to chat with Michael Dalesandro, CEO and Craig Ulliot, CTO and Founder of Where I’ve Been. The company has been building out a travel destination site off of Facebook and now also has offering on MySpace, Bebo, hi5 and Friendster. They also raised $1 million from angels a few months ago which apparently went unannounced. We are actually the first to publish this information. Additionally the company is looking to raise another round of funding to help expand the company’s efforts to become the social travel vertical across the web. I asked Michael and Craig about their thoughts on the new iPhone platform and they said that they are working on launching the first version of their iPhone application. I’d bet that most companies in this space are working at building something on the iPhone as well. Michael also said that Where I’ve Been is looking for a new round of funding. Listen up VCs! Here is a chance to get some skin in the social web game. Where I’ve Been has over 7 million active users and they are growing daily, not bad stats for a company with $1 million in funding. I also asked them if they plan on tackling the Where Am I Going issue that a number of other web startups (such as WAYN) have already begun tackling. They said that they plan on providing this service as well but under the amount of resources they currently have available it has been challenging. Listen to my podcast below to hear more about where the Where I’ve Been team is going! This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

RNC Gets Technical With BarackBook Posted: 29 Jul 2008 11:01 PM CDT The Republican National Convention, an organization which typically supports candidates that are less than technically savvy, has decided to step up their tactics with a new website targeting Barack Obama. The developers of the site clearly have the beat on digital media given that Barack’s newsfeed is called the “FriendFeed”. Aside from that it’s not a complete rip-off of Facebook but it attempts to come close. The site picks out a random set of “friends” that have less than a positive spin to their profiles. The team also launched a “BarackBook” Facebook application. Unfortunately the application doesn’t work so perhaps this campaign wasn’t thoroughly planned. The website is ultimately a hit job on Barack which attempts to discredit seven of his associates that have a sketchy past. The fact that the site can only come up with seven “associates” that Barack has at one point associated himself with is pretty impressive. It’s a creative attack campaign and I give the RNC a lot of credit for this. It’s clearly an attempt at generating a lot of negative publicity for Barack Obama. Whether or not they will succeed at it via this individual campaign is another question. The Obama campaign has been referring all journalists requesting a response to the RNC discussion board which includes a thread called “This Site is Lame”. Whether or not this campaign is successful, it highlights the massive popularity of Facebook domestically.

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Should Students be Banned from Social Networks at School? Posted: 29 Jul 2008 02:59 PM CDT According to USA Today, “Congress is considering a bill that would bar children who use computers in public libraries from accessing Facebook and other social networking websites without parental permission.” The law is a measure to protect children from sexual predators. Others are arguing that this interferes with “library users’ privacy and free speech”. I have to agree with those that argue that this interferes with privacy and free speech. While children should be protected from sexual predators, banning them from having access to social networks is not the way to do it. The again, it should be up to the school to determine what technologies students have access to while on campus. For instance should students be able to bring their portable video game system with them into class? There is no doubt that students are not involved in the most productive activities while browsing social networks whether at school or at home. Simply put, even without a plethora of game applications, social networks are about as productive as playing video games: there is really no productive value currently. This may be one of the fundamental issues preventing social networks from further monetizing their platforms. Users of social networks are ultimately not gaining much productive value. The bill being discussed is banning students from social networks at school due to the risk of sexual predators. Ultimately, I don’t think this is the best way to approach the issue. Do you think students should be banned from social networks at school?

iPhone App Directory Crosses Milestone Posted: 29 Jul 2008 01:56 PM CDT Today the iPhone application directory crossed the 1,000 applications milestone. It’s a significant announcement for any new platform and the iPhone appears to be racing to the forefront to potentially become the leading mobile platform for developers. One of the most buzzed about platforms recently is the Facebook platform which has, according to Facebook’s statistics, attracted over 400,00 developers. The iPhone platform is rapidly proving itself to be a significant opportunity as well. The most significant challenge for the iPhone platform is user adoption. While Apple was able to sell millions of iPhones, the number of total users pales in comparison to other platforms. That doesn’t mean that the platform is one to sneeze at though. Just last week it was reported that the iPhone Facebook application had been downloaded by 1 million users. While nowhere near the more than 90 million users installed by top Facebook applications, these numbers are still significant for an early platform. Numbers aren’t all that matter though when it comes to comparing platforms. If you take a look at the quality of applications being developed on Facebook versus the quality of applications being developed on the iPhone. On Facebook, most of the top applications are relatively simple (although they have been improving in quality since the initial launch). At launch, the iPhone provided an immense number of applications which have proven to be extremely useful or at least entertaining. Whether I’m using Shazam to figure out what song I’m hearing in a bar or restaurant, or looking to waste some time playing Labyrinth, BubbleWrap or Monkey Ball, there is a huge value offering. Also while I was eating lunch in Miami this weekend, I was able to figure out what we would be having for dinner by pulling up the Yelp application and finding nearby, top rated restaurants. The bottom line is that there is a huge value proposition for the iPhone platform regardless of the number of users that have purchased it. Apple will most definitely fill this gap by continuing to sell out of iPhones for the foreseeable future. As forecasted by many, I believe that the iPhone is the phone to transform the mobile industry in this country and help mobile computing take a huge leap forward. While venture capitalists are warning entrepreneurs not to invest everything in the iPhone, at this point I think it is too large of an opportunity to ignore.

Bebo Launches Interstellar Publicity Stunt Posted: 29 Jul 2008 11:09 AM CDT Jemima Kiss is reporting that “Bebo and the TV company behind Wife Swap have teamed up with one of the world’s experts in interstellar radio communication, Dr Alexander Zaitsev, to beam 500 messages from users into space in a digital time capsule.” This means up to 500 users will be able to beam their messages to a planet 20 light years from earth in hopes that their message reaches another life form. Given that on this planet there are millions of radio waves floating around on a daily basis, even if the messages do make it 20 light years away, I’m not sure that any living creature will be able to receive it. The concept that other “intelligent life” on another planet has also discovered something called “radio waves” is mind blowing. This experiment is literally “a shot in the dark”. The messages will be sent by Bebo users, celebrities and politicians. When asked about the content of the messages, Dr. Zaitsev said, “I understand that in the majority of cases these messages may be naïve, but I also hope that we will receive a creative and fresh look at the subject.” It sounds like an interesting concept to me but I’m not sure how effective this will ultimately be. While blasting out interstellar messages sounds amazing, the effect of this seems relatively useless. Who exactly will be listening to see if the “intelligent life” 20 light years away beam anything back? Perhaps they will simply shoot back a rocket? For now this appears to be a successful publicity stunt which has attracted the attention of a few blogs.

MySpace Application Invites Launch Posted: 29 Jul 2008 09:20 AM CDT Earlier this month MySpace officially announced that they would soon launch application invites. In under a month the invites have finally launched and today MySpace has finally provided developers documentation on how to implement the new feature. Does this mean we will soon see the degradation of the MySpace interface thank to application invite overload? Potentially. Thankfully though, MySpace has placed all notifications in a separate area within the inbox (as illustrated below), placing them away from friend requests (as currently displayed on Facebook). Hopefully this separation will help protect the user experience while providing applications with a little extra virality. According to a number of developers, the MySpace platform has been building steam over the past couple months. The top application though is still left at around 6 million installs in comparison to the largest applications on Facebook which have more than 95 million installs. While the Facebook platform continues to be the leading social platform, MySpace is slowly (and wisely) adding new features that help increase application growth while protecting the user experience. This contrasts Facebook who started off with all the viral channels wide open and have since been clamping down on developers. It will be interesting to see which strategy plays off in the long-run. For now Facebook continues to have the lead but each day MySpace is moving closer to becoming a platform of equals.

MySpace Keeps Growing Portal, Adds Classifieds Posted: 28 Jul 2008 07:35 PM CDT In a move mimicking the portal days of yore, MySpace has announced the launch of a new Classifieds service. The new service will be powered by Oodle, which is simply a free online classifieds platform. The service will also provide users with promotional tools similar to those that Facebook currently provides on their Marketplace product. Granted, this is not a new strategy for MySpace who already had a classifieds product. The difference is that there will be new features including search and filtering tools as well as listings from users not on MySpace. This means MySpace will have more content for their classifieds product. While Facebook’s marketplace has not been a highlight of the social network site, MySpace’s classifieds service appears to be more popular among its user base. One thing posing a challenge to MySpace? Craigslist, the leader in web-based classifieds. Also, why does MySpace need to focus on a classifieds service rather than focus on innovating their social network offering? More revenue of course! MySpace has been placed in a position where it has become critical for the company to generate more substantial revenues and this new classifieds offering will help them achieve that. MySpace is trying to group this new classifieds offering as “social commerce” but I’m not so sure I agree with that. While classified transactions are inherently social, it is not the type of social commerce that many industry people refer to. Social commerce typically refers to recommendations and comments from fellow shoppers. Facebook is trying to take that to a whole new level with recommendations from other friends. Whether or not this new offering is actually “social shopping” isn’t really important. What is clear is that MySpace is looking to offer new features that help keep users on the site for longer as well as help MySpace boost their revenue. This new classifieds service should help them accomplish that.

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