Archive for June, 2008
Marc Andreessen to Join Facebook’s Board
Monday, June 30th, 2008This article is a repost of the article originally posted on the Social Times.
Techcrunch is reporting that Marc Andreessen will be joining Facebook’s board with Jim Breyer, Peter Thiel and the majority seat holder, Mark Zuckerberg. It has been rumored that Andreessen would be joining the board but now the news appears to be official.
Marc Andreessen is currently the Chairman of Ning, a competing social network platform. This new position is important because it will tip the balance of the Facebook board, adding one more person and removing Zuckerberg’s majority seat holder position. It is also an interesting position for Andreessen given that he is currently running a competing service offering.
As Mike Arrington points out though, “Andreessen is known to be a mentor to Zuckerberg, who calls on him often for personal advice.” While the news theoretically puts Zuckerberg in a minority position, Andreessen would most likely tend to side with Mark on most issues. Then again, this news may suggest that Zuckerberg realizes it is becoming time for him to reduce some of the control he has and let the company have more seasoned management.
Is Facebook Worth $15 Billion? Not Anymore
Sunday, June 29th, 2008Facebook used to have a valuation on $15 billion based on Microsoft’s investment in the company. According to Mike Arrington the new valuation is probably in the $3 - $4 billion range. According to Arrington and now Peter Kafka at Silicon Alley Insider has reported similar rumors.
One financial wealth manager is looking to unload some shares and apparently some Facebook employees are also looking to sell shares. From the sounds of it, some shareholders have enough shares that they’d be satisfied exiting now. These rumors also may make a potential acquisition more attractive to a large company. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t looking to sell though according to other sources.
While Facebook’s current cash flow doesn’t justify a $15 billion valuation, the launch of their platform payment system could easily justify a higher valuation. Do you think Facebook’s new payment system will help boost their cash flow substantially overnight?
Slide’s Top Friends Remains Under Investigation
Friday, June 27th, 2008Yesterday, news broke out that Slide’s Funwall application was no longer working and had been banned by Facebook for terms of service violations. According to a CNet news article, “Until Facebook suspended the Top Friends app, created by Slide, anyone could browse partial profiles of anyone else on Facebook who had added Top Friends to their page. CNET News.com confirmed that the security hole exposed the birthdays, gender, and relationship status of strangers, including Facebook executives, the wife of Google co-founder Larry Page, and one profile that seemed to belong to Paris Hilton that used her middle name ‘Whitney.’”
It has now been over 24 hours and the application appears to still be down. Top Friends was the third largest application and you can assume that Slide is rapidly working on a fix. Adonomics currently values the application at a whopping $25 million. The elimination of Top Friends would make RockYou the largest Facebook application developer. Given the historically fierce battle between Slide and RockYou, you can bet that Slide is working around the clock to make sure that this security hole is fixed.
Honestly, I’m surprised that the application is still down. Facebook provided Justin Smith with the following update regarding the issue once news of the application shut down was released: “We have suspended the Top Friends application while we investigate violations of our Terms of Service. We recognize this is a popular application and don’t take this action lightly.”
It’s great to see that Facebook takes security violations seriously. I’m still concerned about the scalability of ensuring the lack of private date leaking from the platform but at least Facebook is willing to enforce their policies.
Facebook Steps on Hermaphrodite Toes
Friday, June 27th, 2008Confused about your gender? Worry no more because Facebook is now requiring you to select a gender according to the Los Angeles Times. Facebook previously used the word “themself” in newsfeed stories but unfortunately themself is not really a word. As a result Facebook will be prompting users to specify whether or not they prefer to be referred to as “he” or “she”. To all my fellow hermaphrodites, it’s now time to make a decision about what gender you affiliate yourself with.
According to Naomi Gleit of Facebook, “We’ve received pushback in the past from groups that find the male-female distinction too limiting.” As such, Naomi stated “We have a lot of respect for these communities, which is why it will still be possible to remove gender entirely from your account, including how we refer to you in mini-feed.” The problem surrounds the lack of a gender specification when creating statements in newsfeeds in other languages.
For those that speak a foreign language, you probably know how important gender is in language. While Facebook will be requesting all users to specify how they would prefer themselves to be presented (as he or she), there will be no requirement for specifying a gender. How will Facebook cope with those that don’t specify “he” or “she”? I’m not sure how Facebook plans on handling people that don’t respond but in foreign languages there is a good chance that news stories just don’t display due to a lack of gender.
Do you consider this gender discrimination or do you think that this is strictly a result of language barriers?
F8 Registration Opens
Thursday, June 26th, 2008Last night Facebook announced that registration for the upcoming F8 event in San Francisco is now opened. The event currently costs $150 at an early bird rate and $50 for students. Here is the schedule that Facebook posted for the event on the F8 registration page:
12:00-2:00PM Registration/Partner Pavilion Open
2:00-3:00PM Keynote by Mark Zuckerberg, Founder/CEO
3:30-4:15PM Breakouts: Set I
4:30-5:15PM Breakouts: Set II
5:15-6:00PM Reception
6:00-6:45PM Breakouts: Set III
7:00-7:45PM Breakouts: Set IV
7:45-8:00PM Closing Remarks
I will be flying out to attend the event as to see what Facebook will be announcing as well as what developers cook up during the hackathon. Facebook announced their platform at last year’s F8 and it is highly expected that Facebook will announce their e-commerce platform as well as potentially release Facebook Connect. If last year’s event was any indication of what will follow, this event could very well be transformative for the social networking industry.
Facebook Officially Closes ConnectU Chapter
Thursday, June 26th, 2008Late last night Facebook sent me an email stating that they now consider the ConnectU case closed thanks to a decision handed down by Judge James Ware (download decision). There were a number of findings related to the prior agreement between Facebook and ConnectU. The first is that:
In sum, the Court finds that the Agreement reached by the parties does not display on its face a failure to agree or any uncertainty regarding its material terms. Accordingly, the Court finds that the Agreement is enforceable.
ConnectU’s new lawyers have also asserted that the agreement was procured in fraud because the valuation of Facebook was misrepresented. Apparently, the ConnectU team had what effectively amounts to “buyer’s remorse” after they heard of the new valuation of Facebook created by Microsoft’s investment in the company. The findings on whether or not Facebook committed fraud:
In sum, the Court finds Defendants have failed to establish that Plantiffs made a misrepresentation during the negotiation. The individual signatories to the Agreement are sophisticated business parties who were represented by reputable counsel at the mediation. Either party could have chosen to condition the financial exchange being negotiated on representations and warranties of the value of the stock involved or to conduct their own due diligence with respect to Facebook’s valuation. Neither party chose these courses of conduct. [...] Without a showing by Defendants of a material misrepresentation or omission in the negotiations, the Court finds no basis to decline enforcement.
Finally,
Accordingly, the Court finds that Defendants have failed to tender sufficient evidence of fraud in the circumstances proffered to the Court to create a genuine dispute as to whether the Agreement was fraudulently induced.
Ultimately, the court struck down all claims made by ConnectU calling all of the claims unsubstantiated. It’s now up to ConnectU to try to find more evidence before a final hearing on July 2nd. At this point Facebook assumes that no more evidence will be submitted and that the ConnectU chapter is now closed. Here is a statement that Facebook released last night:
“We are happy that Judge Ware enforced the agreement settling our dispute with the ConnectU founders. ConnectU’s founders were represented by six lawyers and a professor at Wharton Business School when they signed the Settlement Agreement. The ConnectU founders understood the deal they made, and we are gratified that the Court rejected their false allegations of fraud. Their challenge was simply a case of ‘buyers remorse,’ as described by the Boston Court earlier this month.”
“We were disappointed that we had to litigate the settlement, as we believed we were caught in the middle of a fee dispute between ConnectU’s founders and its former counsel. Nevertheless, we can now consider this chapter closed and wish the Winklevoss brothers the best of luck in their future endeavors.”
Breaking: Facebook Taking on FriendFeed, Launching Mini-Feed Comments
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008Facebook has just announced that comments will be added to mini-feed momentarily. Here are the details that Facebook provided me with:
What is changing?
Users will be able to comment on content right in-line within their friends’ Mini-Feed. For instance, rather than having to click through to a friend’s videos that have just been uploaded, users can comment directly from their friend’s profile page.What made you decide to add comments in Mini-Feed?.
We aim to help users share information and communicate more easily, which sometimes entails having a conversation around a piece of content or an action. We already have comments for photos, videos, and posted items, but we realized there is much more content users want to comment on for example, status messages.Are you going to be adding comments in News Feed?
We are always iterating on the product and evaluating what will provide the best user experience. We will consider adding comments in News Feed if it makes sense for our users.Did you model this after other products in the industry?
We are constantly iterating on our product to help users share information and communicate more efficiently. Adding comments in Mini-Feed is functionality we’ve been hoping to implement for some time.What if people don’t want their comments displayed in other people’s Feeds?
All normal privacy settings apply with commenting on content in Mini-Feed. If you are not friends with the person who owns the content, you cannot comment on it. Also, if a friend comments on something in your Mini-Feed and you want to delete it, you can do so in-line.How will this change with the new design?
You will still be able to comment on Mini-Feed stories in the new profile design.How many comments will display under each story?
Under each story there will be up to 8 comments with the option to show more.What types of stories can be commented on?
Users will be able to comment on their friends’ status messages, uploaded content such as photos, videos or posted items, and stories generated by third party applications. They will also be able to comment on posted items and videos inline, without leaving the profile page.
This new service is a clear move against FriendFeed who has enabled comments on all user activities. While the comments have not been added to the main newsfeed, it’s awesome to see that Facebook is listening to its users. Facebook currently lets users import their activities from 12 sources but they have said that the number of sources will expand in the near future. The only remaining problem that I see is that most of these features are not mobile accessible.
Mobile accessibility is one of the core reasons that people like Robert Scoble are so active on FriendFeed. When people are on the go, they want to communicate with their friends and commenting on mini-feeds is not possible with most phones.
Update
Here is a screenshot of the mini-feed comments in action:
Visa Launches on Facebook, Who Cares?
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008Yesterday there was a ridiculous amount of hoopla about the new Visa Business Network application. The buzz all started with an Associated Press (AP) article which resulted in numerous blogs and news outlets covering the story. I honestly have no idea how Visa was able to get so much buzz going about a custom application that they’ve developed. Supposedly they are investing $2 million in advertising this application but so far less than 1,000 people have installed the application.
The application is designed to let small business owners promote their company within the Visa application. So how is this useful to small businesses, you ask? It’s not! I tried using the application and it didn’t work the first time around. The one benefit of installing this application is that the first 20,000 businesses that register get $100 to spend on Facebook Ads. I tried adding my business to this directory to get the free $100 in SocialAds but for some reason it didn’t register my company.
20 minutes later I’ve given up and am moving on. If there is one thing to learn about this campaign, it’s that spending $2 million to promote your application gets you a lot of press but it doesn’t necessarily get you a lot of application installs. They should instead invest in an install campaign to get some traffic going. If you want a free $100 for ads on Facebook go install the Visa Business Network application. Don’t blame me though if it doesn’t work!
Facebook Headed Back to Court
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008The case that was once considered settled with ConnectU is back in court. The Winklevoss brothers and their team of lawyers believe that they now have new evidence that could help them win their case. The courtroom was barred from public access yesterday as the hearings got underway. One judge has already reduced the new case to “buyer’s remorse” but a San Jose court has been willing to give the two companies a hearing.
The two companies are now engaged in a debate over whether or not the initial settlement was binding. The ConnectU team argues that it was not binding as they were mislead into accepting Facebook stock as compensation. Additionally, ConnectU claims that they have new evidence in the case. As I had written in a previous article, it appears that the company now has copies of instant messages sent by Mark Zuckerberg that proves mal-intent.
This has now become the never-ending lawsuit. At this point the press is simply speculating about where this will go but it appears that the ConnectU team is not backing down, even threatening a fraud suit if their evidence is not heard. These guys just don’t give up!
The Facebook Dilemma
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008A little over a year ago Facebook opened up their platform and announced an environment free for all developers to come and build on as well as monetize. One year later Facebook is at a crossroads and it appears that they are toning down the free for all mentality that they initially embraced. Numerous companies have built monetization systems on top of the platform and Facebook now finds itself competing with many of them.
In theory and open platform is best for all, especially the consumer but few if any purely open platforms have ever been built into sizable businesses. Microsoft was never shy about involving itself in protectionist measures to promote their own software. Facebook now faces a similar dilemma. It’s clear that their new design is going to negatively impact many of the applications on the platform. Such a substantial redesign of the profile is an almost unprecedented move in an ecosystem with rapidly growing businesses.
At the Graphing Social Patterns East conference two weeks ago, I posed a question to a panel of Facebook executives which essentially boiled down to if Facebook is safe for business. Ultimately I received a non-response from a team of media trained employees. The question still stands and it appears that Facebook is still figuring it out. According to a few insiders, Facebook is regretting some of their open door policies as they learn that large brands have developed large marketing campaigns on Facebook with 3rd parties rather than approach Facebook directly.
In theory though, the focus needs to continue on perfecting the platform. I also have a feeling that we will see this focus continue when Facebook makes their announcements at next month’s F8 event. This focus shines through when sales representatives from Facebook are pitching large agencies. As one agency represent put it, “Facebook and MySpace’s sales pitches are distinctly different. MySpace’s pitch focused on how their platform benefits advertisers. Facebook’s pitch focused on how their platform benefits users.”
As Facebook is subjected to increasing pressure to generate revenue, the company is going to face tough decisions. One of which is how friendly they will act toward companies that have built businesses on their platform. As far as I’m concerned, this may very well be the most important decision for Facebook. Competing platforms have the luxury of determining how restrictive their policies will be.
Facebook on the other hand, has clearly stated that their platform is open for all to compete. While they didn’t proclaim that it would be fair for all to compete, it’s clear that they are now in the precarious situation of changing the platform environment and potentially reconsidering what was once a completely open-door policy.
(4.64 out of 5)
(4.22 out of 5)