Microsoft Trying to Acquire Facebook?
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 7th, 2008 1:10 PMIf you can’t buy them, beat ‘em? That appears to be the new strategy of Microsoft who according to Kara Swisher is trying to go organic like Granola and acquire as many Web 2.0 properties as possible. This strategy will supposedly differentiate them from Google. One of those companies that they are looking to potentially acquire is Facebook. Will they be willing to give Facebook half the value of Yahoo? Not sure but apparently they are interested in making an acquisition.
If Microsoft went ahead and acquired Facebook it would be the largest social networking acquisition in history and it would also could be one of the most over-valued acquisitions ever. Making moves like this makes Microsoft look desperate. They are obviously struggling to figure out a way to compete with Google and it appears that they are willing to spend anything it takes to get there, even if it doesn’t pan out.
The one problem with acquiring “hot” Web 2.0 properties? Most of them haven’t figured out a way to make money. Kara Swisher references one of her prior posts, stating that:
Here’s a list: LinkedIn. Digg. Flixster. Slide or RockYou. Veoh. WordPress. Sphere. Sugar. Some international stuff. And more.
Then, some noted, Microsoft would have to give massive financial incentives to those entrepreneurs to stay and thrive. Most importantly, it would have to keep its Redmond hands from interfering.
Now that would send shivers up the spine of Larry and Sergey.
Really? Would Google be scared if Microsoft purchased a suite of disconnected web services? Kara Swisher seems to think so. While the web services that Kara mentions definitely have value to their entities, I’m not so sure that they could figure out a way to make these services profitable. This current strategy appears to be a last ditch attempt for Microsoft to acquire a large group of web services and build a new web powerhouse from the ground up.
It has never been done this way and I’m not sure that it ever will. If anybody is going to try though, it would definitely be Microsoft. Do you see any purpose of Microsoft to make a bunch of disconnected acquisitions?
Kongregate Enters Facebook Territory
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 7th, 2008 11:03 AM
Yesterday, news surfaced that the social gaming site Kongregate had launched a Facebook widget which enables you to display your Kongregate profile data within Facebook. This is only the beginning as Kongregate recently raised a round of funding from Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos. I’ve been wondering for a while why many of Kongregate’s games are not already on Facebook. I have spent hours playing Dolphin Olympics 2.
Currently, the primary social level to Kongregate games is the chat room next to each game. Aside from that there isn’t much that’s social about the site. Their entry into Facebook should be interesting and given their financing and history of growth they should prove to be formidable competitors to SGN and Zynga, the current leaders in the space. There are a number of companies that are trying to become the dominant players in the space but overall this competition appears to making the pie a little bit bigger for everyone.
While nobody knows if users will grow tired of games on Facebook and other social networks, both Zynga and SGN have been relatively successful so far at retaining users. Kongregate already has a loyal following and hopefully that will transfer over to Facebook and any other platforms the company decides to launch on.
Facebook Can’t Figure Out Profile Design
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 7th, 2008 9:48 AMLast night Facebook posted an update to members of the Facebook Profile Previews Page. The update included the updated profile design shown below. The update means one thing: Facebook still can’t figure out how they want the new profile to look. Facebook has been continuously adjusting the way that applications interact with the profile. This most recent way decreases the importance of applications within profiles.
While I think that the news design makes the profile cleaner, application developers should be concerned as Facebook continues to juggle with how applications are emphasized. They previously mentioned that applications would only be displayed in the left hand narrow column and had removed the wide column all together. This new version places both wide and narrow applications within one box. The one thing I don’t understand though is why they called the tab “Boxes” rather than “Apps”.
Initially a new design was expected to be rolled out in the first quarter but Facebook continues to consider feedback received from users and application developers. While some of the changes should concern developers it is great to see that Facebook continues to listen to feedback from developers. What do you think of the new profile design?
Depressing Numbers Revealed for Facebook Platform
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 6th, 2008 5:01 PMJesse Farmer has compiled an impressive set of statistics pertaining to the Facebook platform which suggest that the Facebook platform peaked months ago and is on the way down. The beginning of the discussion surrounds a decrease in overall activity on the Facebook developer forum over the past few months. New developer registrations has also decreased substantially in the forums since the initial launch of the platform.
While the forum statistics are only part of the data Jesse uses to suggest a decrease in platform activity, a more important metric yields some less positive results. Jesse created groups of applications based on the week they launched and then checked the average daily active user level for the group of applications three weeks later. Since early November, the average number of active daily users has decreased more than 80 percent.
This means that the average application that launched three weeks ago is now getting less than 2,000 active daily users in comparison to applications which launched in early November and had close to 10,000 active daily users on average. There is no way to say why developers are leaving but we can surely speculate. Here are a few reasons that we think developers are leaving Facebook:
- It has become increasingly difficult to attract news users to applications
- Multiple platforms have now launched including MySpace, Bebo and hi5 and it’s no longer worthwhile to invest all your time on Facebook applications
- Facebook continues to implement selective rules which make it harder for new developers to experience substantial growth
As Jesse says, this doesn’t mean there is no opportunity, it’s just that opportunity is found in new locations. We are seeing consolidation in the space and real build out from larger networks of applications including Zynga, Social Gaming Network, RockYou, Slide and similar companies. Consolidation will continue and the primary players in the space will be forced to pay for new users rather than obtaining new users through the traditional viral channels.
Marc Andreessen to Join Facebook’s Board
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 6th, 2008 1:31 PMKara Swisher has news that Marc Andreessen, the found of Netscape, has verbally agreed to join the board of Facebook. The announcement came hours after Kara first reported about yet another Googler leaving the search engine to join Facebook. Not only will Facebook get a new head of communications but they’ll also get one of the most sought after investors and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.
Mark Zuckerberg has been amazingly successful at building a team of top tier executives and board members to help build the company into a world class organization. Facebook is increasingly the hottest startup to work for in the valley. Even though the company has yet to figure out a solid long-term revenue model, they have had no challenge in attracting the top talent. You can bet that the top Googlers are not too happy about the talent shift taking place.
Expect more big names to hop on the Facebook train as they chug toward one of the most anticipated IPOs since Google.
Facebook Launches in 3 New Languages
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 6th, 2008 12:45 PM
Facebook users have been working hard to translate the site into a number of new languages. In addition to adding localized versions of languages including Spanish, Facebook has completed translation of Norwegian, Japanese and Polish. I can foresee Japanese being one of the most popular languages on the site. Facebook is also working to finish up Chinese as their copycat in China, Xiaonei, recently raised $430 million.
While Facebook doesn’t have the most translations of any social networking site/platform currently, they have been the quickest at getting out new languages thanks to their translations application. The translations application crowd sources the translation process to Facebook users, enabling them to create a dictionary of different word translations and vote on which words are accurately translated.
Facebook has close to 20 languages that they are actively working to translate into but they have suggested that they will be adding more in the near future. The site is now accessible in 8 languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish and Norwegian. New languages will be added in the coming weeks. Crowd sourcing has proven to be an effective model for Facebook.
The true test will be if Facebook becomes as dominant internationally as they’ve become domestically.
Facebook Grabs Another Googler
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 6th, 2008 12:27 AMFacebook is stacking up the ex-Googlers at a rapid pace. Kara Swisher is reporting that Facebook has grabbed Elliot Schrage, Google’s vice president of global communications and public affairs. This is a big hit to Google and it is a trend that is expected to continue. The most remarkable part of this is that Facebook is going straight to the top for hiring rather than grabbing those that are lower down the chain of command.
According to Kara, Elliot will be reporting directly to Sheryl Sandberg, the new COO at Facebook who also once worked at Google. Based on all the employees jumping ship from Google and joining the Facebook team, it appears that many employees see a great opportunity to be part of the much anticipated Facebook IPO, whenever that may take place. It will be interesting to see how Facebook’s interaction with the press changes with this new hire.
Facebook has been criticized on a number of occasions for mismanagement of their PR strategy. Eventually Facebook adapted and began reaching out both bloggers and the press as new changes were announced. While there’s not much that can be read into on this new hire, one thing is for sure: Facebook doesn’t appear to be slowing down. A quick look at their most recent traffic chart on Alexa, shows that growth continues to soar. This is yet another big hire for the Facebook team.
Fresbo World Brings Avatar Worlds to Facebook
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 5th, 2008 12:45 PMAsia has been one of the leaders in monetizing social networks. How are they making money? Virtual goods. Those virtual goods are sold so users can build virtual houses, clothe their virtual avatars and a number of other things. I’ve found one of the first avatar worlds on Facebook called, Fresbo world. The application provides you with an avatar that you can proceed to purchase clothing, furnish your apartment and play games with.
Currency in the game comes in the form of points and credits. The credits can be purchased and the points are earned. The only way to earn points currently is through a game called “Pass the Bomb.” Pass the bomb is a game of chance with a little bit of strategy. All you have to do is guess what number is under the bomb and based on the number you think it is, you ad 1, 2 or 3 clicks to the counter each turn. If the counter reaches the number under the bomb during your turn, the bomb explodes and you lose points.
I’m embarrassed to say that I played “Pass the Bomb” for a solid hour this morning. Honestly, the game is not that unique and it isn’t challenging. I just found it interesting that I could use the points I earned during the game to go purchase more goods from the local shopping mall. Currently there is only 1 village in the game and it’s called “Noob Villiage.” Given that the game is in beta they will be adding a lot of features.
I can see people figuring out a way to pour a lot of time into this virtual world, the same way people spend time on second life. While there is not as much customization as there is within second life, there is enough for those looking to have fun and waste time. I’ve argued that there is no real point to second life in conversation with my friends and ultimately there is really no point to Fresbo world except for building up your avatar’s inventory and wasting time playing games.
Perhaps I’m just frustrated that I don’t get paid real dollars to play games in real life. Either way, Fresbo world is a great application if you are looking to waste some free time or get sucked in to building up your own virtual character. If you are interested, go check out the Fresbo World application.
A Store in Fresbo World
Pass the Bomb Game
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...Facebook Calls it Quits on Java
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 5th, 2008 11:30 AMFollowing Tuesday’s weekly platform update, Facebook has decided to stop offering support for the official Facebook Java client library. Java developers will have to instead rely on the community-driven libraries. So what does this mean for the average developer? Not much unless you are using Java to communicate with Facebook. You will have to update your library on a weekly basis to keep up with all of the regular updates being made to the platform. There were few details provided, but here is what Facebook did say:
We have decided to discontinue support for our official Java client library, and rely on the existing community-driven libraries to fill this gap. While we understand this may have an impact on some developers, we feel that it is most important to keep working on our list of initiatives I referred to before, instead of maintaining an additional client library of which the developer community has already built several unofficial versions.
After this Tuesday’s push, the official Java client library will no longer be available for download from any of the developers pages. We encourage all developers who are interested in continuing to develop in Java to consider some of the open source alternative client libraries listed on the Wiki here. While the official Java library should have no immediate problems with continued use, we nevertheless recommend that you use a client library that is kept up to date, in order to best take advantage of any new functionality that is added in the future.
We appreciate all of the effort and time that you’ve invested in working with us, and apologize to anyone that this change inconveniences. However, we hope you recognize that this is being done with our main goal in mind- improving the overall Platform experience for users and developers alike.
Personally, I hadn’t been working with the Java libraries on a regular basis but I know of a few applications that have. For those applications it now means that the developers will have to keep up to date on absolutely all changes taking place on the platform and modify their existing libraries as necessary. It will be a headache for some but not for most. I’m glad that I’m not one of the many Java developers on the platform!
Spreading STD Awareness on Facebook
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 5th, 2008 10:30 AMBack at the end of January, a company that had technology that could morph faces together decided to launch an application. As expected, the application has done decently with close to 60,000 installs. Last week, the American Social Health Association sent out a press release announcing a formal partnership with the application team to spread awareness about STDs. The partnership provides a great example of a successful campaign on Facebook.
As soon as you morph two faces and send it, your friends will receive a copy of the image in addition to a notification that they have unfortunately received chlamydia. The goal is to spread awareness. Honestly, I think this is a great example of a smart partnership for getting the word out about an organization and a cause online. Frequently we see crappy ads on a number of Facebook applications. Instead, it’s frequently much better for brands to partner with those applications then to build their own.
There are a number of examples of this including some movie launches. That’s what the company Apps Savvy is focused on. They are working with large brands to help the expand their reach through existing applications on the Facebook platform. I’ll be interviewing Chris Cunningham, the founder of the company, later this week to discuss how brands are benefiting from such partnerships and what types of CPMs developers are seeing.
Getting your brand out on Facebook is extremely challenging. While larger media companies and large brands can frequently afford to build their own application and pay for an initial user base to install the application, most companies don’t have the luxury of a lot of free cash on hand. As such, making an investment in branded partnerships with applications can prove lucrative. Check out the video below to see how the Morph Monkey partnership worked for the American Social Health Association.
