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Monday, July 28, 2008

SocialTimes.com

The Clash of Old and New Media Continues

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 12:52 PM CDT

With the continuing shift of content from offline to online, traditional media companies are being forced to rapidly adapt. While the best online business model for media has yet to be determined, traditional media companies are racing to forge partnerships and make acquisitions and investments that position themselves ahead of the rest.

Just today, two big announcements were made that highlight the continuation of this trend. The first announcement was that The Washington Post will begin using Predictify for stories. The tool will enable readers to vote on possible outcomes of stories. While not a revolutionary tool, the shift from one-way media to two way is an important component of this announcement.

This also highlights the difference between traditional media and social media. As Robert Scoble highlighted this past weekend, participation is a critical component of the new form of media. While traditional media outlets will still have to verify their sources, the process of generating the entire story could soon involve the readers.

Not only are the readers participating but they are also becoming part of the media. This is highlighted by today’s news announcement that Gannett has invested $10 million in Mogulus, a live-streaming video service. I’ve previously taken a look at Mogulus and I was thoroughly impressed. The best part about the tool is that you can have a 24-hour channel which includes previous media that you’ve shot as well as live-streaming media.

The Mogulus tool is the most robust one that I’ve seen to date and taken to the next level I honestly think Mogulus could be revolutionary. When I previously took a look at Mogulus, I thought that it would spell the end of public access television. Anybody can now have their own custom-branded channel with custom content. You can also pre-program your channel making it easy to have content playing while you are away.

Over the coming months I would guess that we will see many more announcements highlighting the clash of old and new media. Do you agree that these announcements are particularly significant?

MySpace Growth Slows, Revenue Grows

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 09:30 AM CDT

According to Peter Kafka, MySpace has been seeing a slow down in growth on a year-over-year basis. That’s not really a secret though considering the most recent traffic data from comscore as well as taking a look at charts of MySpace via Compete.com and Alexa. While Facebook continues to rise as the most dominant social network, MySpace growth has come to a halt but revenue isn’t too shabby.

According to Peter Kafka, the company will generate an EBITDA (earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes and amortization) of $155 million this year on revenue of near $650 million. That surpasses Facebook’s public estimate of more than $300 million in revenue this year. That’s not surprising though considering the plethora of advertisements displayed around the site.

Peter Kafka has used 15x and 20x EBITDA multiples to determine a valuation of somewhere between $2.3 and $3.1 billion. The largest problem lies with the projected revenue growth which is between 10 and 15 percent year over year. This highlights the larger problem at hand: nobody has yet to figure out how to monetize social networks effectively.

Google continues to post massive growth rates despite a declining economy but the second largest social network appears to be dwindling. Things don’t appear to be much brighter at Facebook aside from continued growth abroad which is keeping the company highly attractive. One thing is clear: while social networks command a large percentage of attention online, they generate only a small fraction of the revenue. This is a problem that must be solved if the social web is going to continue to thrive.

LinkedIn Has a Busy Week

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 08:00 AM CDT

While I was busy traveling around the country last week, LinkedIn was busy announcing new partnerships and new features. On Monday LinkedIn announced that they would be partnering with the New York Times. Their partnership enables two new features: the ability to receive targeted news headlines and the addition of LinkedIn to the Times’ share feature.

The targeting of articles is based on your profile information that you’ve entered on LinkedIn. The primary source of information is your industry. Once activated, you will see up to five articles that are relevant to your industry as embedded as illustrated below:

LinkedIn, NYTimes Screenshot

Unfortunately I haven’t tested out the new feature so I can’t tell you how well it works but the concept of targeted news is not a foreign one. For example the Seen This application on Facebook, enables users to find news relevant to them based on what their friends are reading. This is a big partnership for LinkedIn though as it could also help increase the number of new user registrations.

Last week LinkedIn also announced that they would begin offering the site in Spanish. This is the first new language that the site has launched in. In comparison to other social networks, LinkedIn has been relatively slow on the foreign language front. Both Facebook and MySpace have launched in multiple languages. Thanks to Facebook’s translations application, the site has been translated into 15 languages to date.

Finally, LinkedIn announced that they will begin integrating with Xobni, which has been hailed as the most useful email add-on, and LexisNexis. The partnership with Xobni emphasizes something I was discussing almost two weeks ago: the social platform race is really a race to my contact list. The faster that these companies can make my contact list accessible anywhere, the faster that they make my reliance on them as a service more critical.

While the Facebook news last week may have quieted some of LinkedIn’s buzz, the new partnerships did not go unheard. LinkedIn is still clearly one of the primary competitors in the social platform wars. Last week’s announcements by the company emphasizes their continued dedication to rapid expansion.

Friday, July 25, 2008

SocialTimes.com

Facebook Connect + Payments = Social Commerce

Posted: 25 Jul 2008 12:14 PM CDT

Today, Dave McClure wrote a post suggesting that the unlaunched Facebook payments platform in conjunction with Facebook Connect is the future of social commerce. I agree and I’ve also suggested that with Facebook Connect, the Social Ads service could also be extended to the rest of the web. Regardless of reports to the contrary, most of us were hoping that Facebook would reveal their payments platform at f8 on Wednesday.

Unfortunately that didn’t happen and as Mike Arrington illustrates, many were flat out disappointed. As Apple continues to wow the tech community with a new product release year after year, it is much more challenging for smaller companies (like Facebook) to do so. With all the disappointment, Facebook did in fact release a new product: Facebook Connect.

Unfortunately they announced it weeks earlier. Just as virtual goods have swept through Asia over the past few years, many expect the same to happen when Facebook offers their payment platform. Additionally, we may just be looking at the future of social shopping. While Beacon was a PR disaster, the idea behind it was a really great one.

Now Facebook has a second time to release Beacon under a second name: Connect. Just as Beacon partners could publish information to a user’s feed so too can any developer with the new program. Theoretically I consider Facebook Connect and Beacon pretty much the same thing with Connect now offering greater features. It’s a great program and while Facebook may not be monetizing it the way that they originally hoped, Connect has a much better chance of spreading.

Social commerce is not going to happen overnight though as many of us wish that it would. It will take time for developers to build upon the various social platforms and it will require the ongoing education of consumers. Right now the average person doesn’t understand the power of Facebook Connect if they know about it at all. Over the coming months though I have a feeling that they will begin to understand it and soon enough they will be leveraging it to make purchases.

MySpace Launches Age Restrictions on Applications

Posted: 25 Jul 2008 10:15 AM CDT

Yesterday, MySpace informed developers about new age restriction settings for applications. The tools are optional for some applications but will be required for others. Dating applications as well as chat and video chat applications must require that users now be 18. Drinking applications must now require that users be 21. Any failure to comply with these new terms could result in the suspension of applications. Does this mean we will start seeing a wave of applications start getting shut down on MySpace just like they have been on Facebook?

Possibly. One of the strange rules implies that MySpace apparently thinks that sending virtual alcoholic beverages is the same as consuming them. While I’m not sure about the legal aspect of this, they appear to be the first platform to implement such restrictions. As far as I know, Facebook currently has no age restrictions for applications.

As new applications emerge on the platform, it makes a lot of sense to implement some age restrictions. Then again, the ages of users are not verified on MySpace. One of the post popular ages on the site is 69 and my guess is that the average MySpace user is not really 69. As the social platforms emerge, we will begin to see many new policies to protect users.

While the new policies may restrict developers in some ways, ultimately it is the users who are most important. MySpace hasn’t said when applications must comply by leading me to believe that the changes are effective immediately.

MySpace Application Age Restriction Screenshot

MySpace App Age Restriction Screenshot 2

Thursday, July 24, 2008

SocialTimes.com

Facebook Connect: OpenID Without the Email

Posted: 24 Jul 2008 02:26 PM CDT

Yesterday Facebook announced the launch of Facebook Connect and with it the opportunity for sites around the web to easily integrate into the largest “social graph” on the web. The pre-f8 hype along with MySpace’s Data Availability initiative and Google’s Friend Connect program ended up muting much of the buzz that was intended for Facebook Connect. Whether or not it was buzzed about, Facebook Connect could have a substantial impact on the future of the web as Om Malik points out.

I agree with Om and I think that Facebook Connect could truly be game changing. As many industry thought leaders were saying last night at f8, Facebook Connect is the alternative to OpenID. It’s also the first time that mainstream users will understand the power of an OpenID-like system, something that only geeks previously understood.

Mike Arrington previously suggested that there is currently a land grab for user identities by becoming the largest OpenID issuer. I agree that there is a land grab for user identities on the web but OpenID may not be the answer that many thought leaders were hoping for. Instead Facebook, MySpace and Google are all racing to create their own standards which are essentially abstract OpenID copycats.

I fully support the concept of Facebook Connect aside for one thing: I don’t have access to a user’s personally identifiable information. As a business implementing an OpenID system I at least get a user’s email when they register for my site. This contrasts Facebook where all I know is what a user’s friends Facebook IDs are. Theoretically, in a worst case scenario Facebook could switch all users’ Facebook IDs to protect user identities.

This would leave all the businesses without a way of reaching out to their user base that registered via Facebook Connect. One of the most valuable assets that large web companies have are user email addresses and phone numbers. It provides the companies with a valuable marketing potential. Now Facebook will force me to contact users through the Facebook API.

Am I going to rely on Facebook’s algorithm to arbitrarily decide how many emails I can send out every day to my users? If I want to spam my registered user base I should be able to. It’s my own business decision. So while I’m all for Facebook becoming the center of my identity online, I’m not cool with Facebook telling me how I should run my business outside of their finely pruned walled garden.

Interview with Jia Shen, CTO of RockYou

Posted: 24 Jul 2008 05:49 AM CDT

Earlier today I had the opportunity to speak with Jia Shen, the CTO of RockYou about his thoughts on the new platform design and Facebook Connect. RockYou is well positioned to adapt to a changing platform given that they have operated in much more volatile environments in the past. RockYou was launched on MySpace before social platforms even exist, putting their company at the mercy of MySpace who would shut down their applications without notice or explanation.

While RockYou recently had one of their applications shut down on Facebook, they now operate in a much more stable environment driving over 1 billion impressions a month. Jia sounds prepared to adapt to the new platform changes and is actually excited about where the platform is going. I also briefly discussed RockYou’s expansion on to other platforms outside of the U.S. Jia said that they are currently on Xiaonei and things appear to be going well there.

I discussed much more with Jia so if you’d like to hear more about the future of RockYou and Jia’s thoughts on the Facebook platform announcements, listen to the podcast below!

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Mark Zuckerberg f8 Keynote Podcast

Posted: 23 Jul 2008 06:29 PM CDT

I gave a pretty thorough overview of the Mark Zuckerberg keynote over on AllFacebook earlier today. If you missed it and would like to listen to the audio version, I’ve included the podcast below. Some of the audio is not that loud but it should come through clearly. I’ll be posting more podcasts over the coming hours. Stay tuned!