SocialTimes.com

Posted: 10 Jul 2008 03:50 PM CDT

Today marked the launch of the new iPhone application directory and iPhone users worldwide had the opportunity to start testing out the new applications. So far it appears that there is positive feedback and given the expected success of the iPhone 2.0 tomorrow, things are looking up for Apple. There are some unexpected competitors though as Caroline McCarthy points out: Facebook and MySpace.

I have said over and over again that the iPhone is inherently a social device and have suggested that the phone could transform social gaming. At this juncture, I think that could easily be an understatement. With the launch of multiple iPhone applications this morning, it is clear that MySpace and Facebook have distinct competitors: Loopt, Whrrl and of course Apple, just to name a few. Most of those competitors have also built in location based services and some have included instant communications with others in the network.

The other thing that’s important is that companies can immediately start charging for applications, something that no developers have been able to do on social platforms. While that may soon change with the launch of Facebook’s payment platform, Apple has just catapulted themselves to become one of the potential front-runners in the social platform wars.

While the iPhone still has less users than Facebook or MySpace, that could rapidly change. With Apple ready to launch in a number of countries, the company has a great opportunity to reach their iPod user base which is already larger than Facebook and close to the size of MySpace. In the wars of the social platforms (just as with any other platforms), the battles are fought for developers and clearly the current opportunity presented by the iPhone will attract plenty of developers.

Whether or not competing social network offerings will be able to pull away the users from sites like Facebook and MySpace, the initial battles are simply for developers and that’s all that matters. In the coming weeks we may begin to hear of similar success stories to those experienced by the initial Facebook application developers.

As the success stories roll in, the developers will follow suit and jump on the latest platform craze. Facebook better be able to pull something out of their hat at the upcoming f8 event in San Francisco. With the clamping down on privacy violations, developers are getting nervous and there was never a better time to try out the latest hot thing. If Facebook doesn’t pull out something big at f8, there is a chance for yet another monumental shift of development resources.

Do you think Facebook, MySpace and other social platform developers will soon jump ship?

iPhone App Store Launches With Plethora of Social Apps

Posted: 10 Jul 2008 09:55 AM CDT

Today the iPhone application directory launched and there are a ton of social applications, most of which are completely free. There are obviously the basic social network applications which includes the Facebook and MySpace applications. Both have a robust set of features.

Instant Messaging

As I posted on AllFacebook though, the new Facebook application one-ups the MySpace application by including Facebook chat. If you aren’t into Facebook chat though, there is also an AOL Instant Messenger which lets you chat with any of your friends, manage your buddy list and even send SMS messages directly to your friends.

Location Based Applications

If you want to track where your friends are though you are going to need to use something aside from the new Facebook and MySpace applications. Instead you can use the Loopt application which functions similarly to competing Brightkite but includes a map. If you aren’t into Loopt there is also an application called “Whrrl” which lets your friends share their location, view a history of your friends’ locations, remember places that you want to visit and filter by types of destinations.

Finally there is the “Where” application that helps you find restaurants, gas, concerts and locate your friends. It doesn’t appear to be affiliated with the Where magazine but it definitely has some useful features. I haven’t been able to test out the application yet since I won’t have an iPhone until tomorrow!

Blogging Applications

There are a number of blogging and micro-blogging applications featured in the directory. TypePad has created an extremely useful blogging application which lets you blog directly from your phone as well as embed photos and adjust their size. I could see this being a highly used application. If you are a big Twitter fan, there is also a free ad-supported Twitterific application as well as a premium version without ads.

Pownce has also included an iPhone version of their application. It doesn’t look robust and based on the application description I have no idea what features are included!

Public Social Networking

Want to meet random people at the coffee shop or airport? There are now a number of applications that let you publicly broadcast your profile as well as publicly broadcast messages to people that are in your vicinity. These are digital icebreakers that help you start dialog with other people. There is currently the iFob application and the Shout It application.

There are a number of other applications as well. If you’d like to view it, go download the new version of iTunes and visit apple.com/appstore. Launching the application store a day early will surely help build the buzz for the iPhone launch tomorrow and possibly convert any last minute buyers.

iPhone App Store Screenshot

Regardless of CPMs, VideoEgg Keeps Innovating

Posted: 10 Jul 2008 08:00 AM CDT

Last month I hung VideoEgg out to dry after hearing a number of developers complain about VideoEgg’s inability to fill inventory and their rapidly decreasing CPMs. To put all the blame on VideoEgg isn’t completely fair though. There is an industry-wide problems which is that CPMs seem to continue going down, not the other way around. This is the exact reason I announced Social Ad Summit. Perhaps, if we get a bunch of brands, media buyers, social network execs and ad networks in a room, something positive will come out of it.

Either way, back to VideoEgg. Yesterday, VideoEgg announced a few new advertisements which as Catherine P. Taylor puts it, helps VideoEgg have another model beyond “engagement.” There are five new types of advertising solutions:

One solution enables advertisers to include live updates to advertisements via RSS feeds.
The second is “local mapping, which advertisers can use to provide store locations to users based on their zipcode.”
Third is a multi-clip capability. This is pretty straight-forward. It means that each advertisement can have multiple videos in each ad placement.
There is a mini-store “which allows marketers to display DVDs or other items for sale below the video player, and
Finally, a share and syndicate feature which enables users interacting with an advertisement to immediately share the video within that ad on Facebook and other social networks or email it to a friend.

Last time I came out with guns blazing against VideoEgg. It may not have been totally fair considering that at least they are consistently developing new advertising solutions, some of which are completely innovative. The problem of low CPMs or not being able to fill inventory with quality advertisements is not limited to VideoEgg. Everybody in the industry is facing this problem.

While there are companies that are attacking the problem from all angles, nobody has yet to come up with the perfect solution. It’s time to put our heads together and come up with one!