Back in July I discussed the idea of a golden application on Facebook. Just today, Kara Swisher posted a similar thought. Kara, who appears to spend a fair amount of time on Facebook herself, supports Chris Anderson who says that most Facebook applications are crap. I couldn’t agree more. There are good ones though and while attending the Graphing Social Patterns conference in San Jose, California I have had the opportunity to see a few of them.
The question remains: are there going to be highly useful applications or will they all be for fun? There are many naysayers and I’m beginning to wonder myself. Will there eventually be applications that I need to use on a daily basis for productivity purposes? There may not be. If you think about it, Facebook is trying to be the “social operating system.” Working and productivity are not really social activities. The largest applications on Facebook are going to continue to be the social ones. For those that believe the web will all go within Facebook, I would have to disagree.
Facebook will continue to manage our social connections better than any of the other social networks. Theoretically, Facebook could attempt to own the social backbone of the web, but with a few hundred employees I don’t see it happening anytime soon. Dave Morin spoke today about Facebook’s focus on openness. Facebook is open to the extent that you will build on their platform, a concept similar to how Microsoft built Windows.
Facebook will continue to be a tool that enables me to keep in touch with my contacts. The golden application is going to be one that furthers this and many of these applications already do. For those of us that think a “golden application” that provides an immense amount of utility and productivity will arise, I am beginning to think that it just won’t happen. Does Facebook need utility focused applications to survive? I don’t think so. What do you think?
isn't "I am Hungry" the Golden app?!
Comment by Mark — October 9, 2007 @ 1:28 pm
My girlfriend saw the app directory the other day and said "that's all there is?" until she found the vibrating hamster app. That one's a winner.
Comment by Marshall Kirkpatrick — October 9, 2007 @ 3:00 pm
Facebook theoretically CAN be used for productivity (work connections for example) but it's going to take some time before it ever is, and for that matter why would you EVER consider an online network to be any kind of Operating System? Why would you use Facebook for work?Sebastian
Comment by Sebastian Lewis — October 9, 2007 @ 3:38 pm
Wow, that comparison of Facebook to Microsoft is a really bad example. Microsoft has made a boatload of money on not being open. It's like you're subconsciously encouraging Facebook to not "open the social backbone."Anyway, what would a Golden App look like anyway? It would have to be something that everybody (even people who aren't into social networking) wants, but also something that only works well in a social network. That's hard to picture.
Comment by Michael Bauser — October 9, 2007 @ 4:43 pm
isn’t “I am Hungry” the Golden app?!
Comment by Mark — October 9, 2007 @ 6:28 pm
My girlfriend saw the app directory the other day and said “that’s all there is?” until she found the vibrating hamster app. That one’s a winner.
Comment by Marshall Kirkpatrick — October 9, 2007 @ 8:00 pm
Facebook theoretically CAN be used for productivity (work connections for example) but it’s going to take some time before it ever is, and for that matter why would you EVER consider an online network to be any kind of Operating System? Why would you use Facebook for work?
Sebastian
Comment by Sebastian Lewis — October 9, 2007 @ 8:38 pm
Wow, that comparison of Facebook to Microsoft is a really bad example. Microsoft has made a boatload of money on not being open. It’s like you’re subconsciously encouraging Facebook to not “open the social backbone.”
Anyway, what would a Golden App look like anyway? It would have to be something that everybody (even people who aren’t into social networking) wants, but also something that only works well in a social network. That’s hard to picture.
Comment by Michael Bauser — October 9, 2007 @ 9:43 pm
I think everyone needs to understand that good apps take time – sometimes years – and this platform has only been around for a limited time. A comparison to gaming systems is apt; at first, most of the games are just minor updates to existing titles, but after 18 – 24 months, we start to see games that really take advantage of the new systems. Give it a little time, and we'll start to see some really interesting things.
Comment by Jon Nichols — October 10, 2007 @ 4:56 pm
Nick,In the early days of the PC, your concept of the "golden app" was called a "Killer App" and it was defined as the single app that would convince people to buy the machine that the app ran on.At the dawn of the PC era with a product called the Apple II that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak thought was cool and might impress their friends had interesting color graphics when hooked up to a TV monitor and a stripped-down BASIC. I believe it may even have lacked a SHIFT key. Some said at the time (like Kara Swisher claims now about facebook) "How childish… a machine for alpha geeks in the homebrew computer club to make games for and not much else."Well, I worked in a computer store in San Antonio in 1980 when a little piece of software called VisiCalc came out. I was instantly selling a lot of Apple II’s to businessmen who were dealing with huge ledgers of white-out strewn inventory counts and balance sheets who would give their eye teeth for a spreadsheet template that auto-recalculated their work whenever they needed to correct a mistake.VisiCalc was the killer app that put Apple and Steve Jobs on the road to billions in wealth. And with respect to Tim O’Reilly’s concern expressed in his facebook stats report about the fact that only a few big apps are getting most of the use on Facebook, isn’t that always the case? At least with facebook operating system, unlike Microsoft’s, the main apps are owned by 3rd parties. The real point is that Facebook is exactly ONE APPLICATION away from having their Social Operating System embraced and endorsed by the entire business world. This app will quickly zoom to the top of the list and will be the first app that causes new users to join facebook — just like Visicalc caused business people to buy the only computer that offer it.In my opinion, Groups on facebook could be a possible starting point for a Killer App. The group "Create Event" feature works well and gracefully leverages the social graph and leads to more invitations than eVite.com. Groups also allow the group creator to send messages to their entire group which is quite useful in a business setting.With respect to sending a message to the entire group, the group owner(s) can do this at the beginning of the group's formation but Facebook cuts off this capability when your group exceeds 1,000 members. I think this is kind of a silly restriction and it hampers a real business but I guess they are trying to prevent folks from using groups to spam folks. My own belief is that since groups are opt-in, I’m not sure this makes sense. However, it does show Mark Zuckerberg fanatical dislike of spam and groups could be mis-used to create spam-traps for unwitting users.That being said, if App Developers could target the group page with the missing group features and if Group owners could monetize their group members by either using ads or charging to join subscription groups via a single facebook payment system, then we have the makings of the first Killer App on facebook that every cataloger, e-tailer, retailer, brand manager, blogger, unique content owner, etc. would want to use to connect with their key influencer customers.This Super Groups app is my current suggestion for a Killer App or Golden App candidate for Faceboook. If there are developers out there working on it, please contact me and perhaps we'll invest in your company. Past killer apps that drove hardware purchases were:1. VisiCalc — Apple II2. Lotus 123 & WordPerfect — IBM PC3. Excel & WORD — Windows4. PageMaker — Mac and Laserwriter5. iTunes — iPodIn the case of facebook, the definition of a Killer App will be one that causes people who aren't yet on Facebook to Join Facebook itself. In that since, you might say that Photos and Events apps are already Killer Apps, but they mainly brought in college students. The next Killer App will be one that crosses over and brings in business people.Thanks,Lee LorenzenCEO, Altura Ventures — the first facebook-only VC(c) 2007 Altura Ventures LLC.
Comment by Lee Lorenzen — October 11, 2007 @ 2:46 am
Nick,
In the early days of the PC, your concept of the “golden app” was called a “Killer App” and it was defined as the single app that would convince people to buy the machine that the app ran on.
At the dawn of the PC era with a product called the Apple II that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak thought was cool and might impress their friends had interesting color graphics when hooked up to a TV monitor and a stripped-down BASIC. I believe it may even have lacked a SHIFT key. Some said at the time (like Kara Swisher claims now about facebook) “How childish… a machine for alpha geeks in the homebrew computer club to make games for and not much else.”
Well, I worked in a computer store in San Antonio in 1980 when a little piece of software called VisiCalc came out. I was instantly selling a lot of Apple II’s to businessmen who were dealing with huge ledgers of white-out strewn inventory counts and balance sheets who would give their eye teeth for a spreadsheet template that auto-recalculated their work whenever they needed to correct a mistake.
VisiCalc was the killer app that put Apple and Steve Jobs on the road to billions in wealth. And with respect to
Tim O’Reilly’s concern expressed in his facebook stats report about the fact that only a few big apps are getting most of the use on Facebook, isn’t that always the case? At least with facebook operating system, unlike Microsoft’s, the main apps are owned by 3rd parties. The real point is that Facebook is exactly ONE APPLICATION away from having their Social Operating System embraced and endorsed by the entire business world. This app will quickly zoom to the top of the list and will be the first app that causes new users to join facebook — just like Visicalc caused business people to buy the only computer that offer it.
In my opinion, Groups on facebook could be a possible starting point for a Killer App. The group “Create Event” feature works well and gracefully leverages the social graph and leads to more invitations than eVite.com. Groups also allow the group creator to send messages to their entire group which is quite useful in a business setting.
With respect to sending a message to the entire group, the group owner(s) can do this at the beginning of the group’s formation but Facebook cuts off this capability when your group exceeds 1,000 members. I think this is kind of a silly restriction and it hampers a real business but I guess they are trying to prevent folks from using groups to spam folks. My own belief is that since groups are opt-in, I’m not sure this makes sense. However, it does show Mark Zuckerberg fanatical dislike of spam and groups could be mis-used to create spam-traps for unwitting users.
That being said, if App Developers could target the group page with the missing group features and if Group owners could monetize their group members by either using ads or charging to join subscription groups via a single facebook payment system, then we have the makings of the first Killer App on facebook that every cataloger, e-tailer, retailer, brand manager, blogger, unique content owner, etc. would want to use to connect with their key influencer customers.
This Super Groups app is my current suggestion for a Killer App or Golden App candidate for Faceboook. If there are developers out there working on it, please contact me and perhaps we’ll invest in your company. Past killer apps that drove hardware purchases were:
1. VisiCalc — Apple II
2. Lotus 123 & WordPerfect — IBM PC
3. Excel & WORD — Windows
4. PageMaker — Mac and Laserwriter
5. iTunes — iPod
In the case of facebook, the definition of a Killer App will be one that causes people who aren’t yet on Facebook to Join Facebook itself. In that since, you might say that Photos and Events apps are already Killer Apps, but they mainly brought in college students. The next Killer App will be one that crosses over and brings in business people.
Thanks,
Lee Lorenzen
CEO, Altura Ventures — the first facebook-only VC
(c) 2007 Altura Ventures LLC.
Comment by Lee Lorenzen — October 11, 2007 @ 7:46 am
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