Facebook Monetization Opportunity: Search

Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 30th, 2008 7:58 PM

This afternoon I got to thinking about various opportunities for businesses to leverage Facebook and realized that Facebook is not taking advantage of one of their greatest opportunities: search. A few months ago, Microsoft announced that they were going to begin offering Microsoft Live search results for Facebook as well as search ads. So far nothing has been implemented.

The most important search results on Facebook is people but many users are regularly search for specific products and services within Facebook yet those products and services are not the first results that are displayed. Most often you need to click on the “Pages” tab to find any of the brands or services. In the case that it’s a person, a fan page will regularly show up but this only appears to occur for people.

So how could Facebook help businesses leverage what’s currently an unrealized opportunity? Simple: sponsored results. If I search for “Ford” and was looking for Ford Motors and not my friend who’s last name was “Ford”, a sponsored ad will show up at the top of the search which directs me to the “Ford Motor Company” fan page. I’ve produced a sample image below of what this could look like.

Currently Facebook has the curse of extremely engaging pages. The site is so engaging that most people don’t even realize that there are ads on the side of most pages. The one place where I’d suggest that this trend breaks is when people search for things. At this point there is an amazing opportunity to grab the user’s attention.

How many people are searching for Ford on a regular basis? I don’t know but enough people are writing about it that it shows up in the Facebook Lexicon, which tracks the frequency of words on walls. If people are writing about it, then it’s probably pretty good assumption that they are writing about it. While Facebook doesn’t currently monetize their search, this is a quick way for the company to boost their revenues while they keep searching for a breakthrough advertising solution.

More Details on the Upcoming Facebook Movie

Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 29th, 2008 3:35 PM

Source: 02138

Today more details were released about the Facebook movie which is in the works by Aaron Sorkin, creator of the West Wing. The movie is supposedly going to be based on a book created by Ben Mezrich who is also the author of Bringing Down the House. According to 02138, Mezrich also recently sold a book called Face Off, “a book on the origins of Facebook”, for $1.9 million to Doubleday.

The book has been criticized by a number of people about how it exaggerates a number of components of the story, including that he is a koala-eating jet-setter as Caroline McCarthy pointed out back in May. There has been a ton of buzz about this and based on the rumors about this book it sounds like the buzz is only going to get louder. It sounds like Mark Zuckerberg isn’t covered in a favorable light, especially if he is eating Koalas (nobody likes a koala-eater).

Just earlier this week news about the movie became widespread and it looks like this will only continue as roles are cast and production gets under way. No matter how Facebook is portrayed in this movie, it sounds like this is going to be a juicy story … the anticipation is killing me! The movie will also discuss how the movie was created and try to tackle the age old question of: who did Mark Zuckerberg steal the Facebook idea from?

While I doubt this movie will come up with the accurate answer to the story, I’m sure it will be an interesting version! For those looking to purchase your tickets to the Facebook Movie (which may be title Face Off), you may be waiting a while as most movies take months if not years to produce. Our projected date of release? June 2009! This is based on nothing but gut instinct.

Facebook Live Feed Kills Twitter & FriendFeed

Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 29th, 2008 9:00 AM

Yes, I love calling Facebook the Twitter and FriendFeed killer but I seriously think they may have one-upped the competition on their latest release: the Live Feed. You can sit and watch in real-time what is taking place with your friends across their profiles in an unfiltered manner. This is similar to the functionality the Twitter Search (previously Summize) provided.

Rather than the AP Newswire going across your screen, you now have a live activity feed of all of your friends actions. Soon enough I’d imagine that we will begin to see the activities of friends that are taking place outside of Facebook show up in this feed more frequently, making it much more of a competitor to FriendFeed. Just as with FriendFeed though, the majority of posts remain to be comments.

I’ve included a one-minute screencast below of my live stream newsfeed and I have to say that it is really impressive. Congratulations to the Facebook team on this one. One of the most enjoyable experiences with this new feature was watching the stream of feedback people were providing to the Obama speech last night. It will most definitely be interesting to watch this feed during any significant national event.

Honestly, I have a feeling that the demand for this feature of the news feed is going to grow exponentially as users get used to the new design. The only challenge will be that users that have less friends won’t have as active of a stream. Then again, this same phenomenon takes place on any social media site: the more friends you have, the more content you have to consume. Take a look at the feature in action below.

New Facebook Profile Available to All in September?

Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 28th, 2008 11:47 PM

A blog post today to Facebook developers highlighted that they have yet to remove infinite sessions and also that all users are slated to have access to the new profile in “mid-September”, a little behind schedule for Facebook. The new Facebook profile roll-out has taken significantly longer for Facebook but it’s clear that they are trying to optimize the site and improve the user experience.

So far Facebook has had a pretty smooth transition but everyday I read about a few people who don’t like the new Facebook layout. One group I previously wrote about this month has grown to over 50,000 users. This is a really small number though when you compare it to the more than 20 million people that now have access to the new Facebook design.

Whether or not you like the new design, it won’t be a choice as to whether or not you make the shift. What “mid-September” qualifies as is left for interpretation but it’s clear that Facebook is taking their time when it comes to making the shift over. Are you in favor of the new design or do you not like the changes? Do think this is much ado about nothing?

Facebook Emphasizes Status in Newsfeed

Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 28th, 2008 11:30 AM

If you are more interested in what your friends are up to then what photos they are uploading and what their relationship status, you may be pleased to hear that Facebook has upgraded your friends’ statuses. Now rather than just showing recent friend activities, the most recent status updates of your friends are now displayed at the top of the news feed.

It’s clear that statuses have become one of the most important components of Facebook and many have called it a Twitter killer. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an increasing emphasis on statuses as Facebook moves forward. One interesting component about this new layout is how the statuses are updated instantaneously whereas the main news feed content is only updated periodically.

This contrasts FriendFeed where every load of the page presents new data among your friends as the site is updated in real-time. Facebook has tried to automatically filter information for users to try to select the most relevant information. It will be interesting to see if Facebook ever shifts this strategy to display more information.

This is a simple change but it most definitely highlights the importance of statuses in Facebook.

Facebook Movie In the Works?

Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 27th, 2008 6:21 PM

Caroline McCarthy got the scoop on a Facebook movie which is in the works. The only reference to the movie is a group which was created by Aaron Sorkin, the creator of The West Wing and A Few Good Men, and Sorkin’s assistant. Is the group real? It seems pretty real considering Aaron’s claim to have no understanding of how Facebook works at all.

Aaron Sorkin prompts users to test to see if he is real in the group’s description. The only problem with accomplishing what would otherwise be an elementary task is that there is no way to friend or send a message to Sorkin. Not sure how he got to have that setting but my guess is it’s via the privacy settings. The only other person that I know of that doesn’t have a friend request in the directory is Mark Zuckerberg.

I wonder if this movie will be created in a similar way to The Pirates of Silicon Valley which highlighted the start of Microsoft and Apple. The only difference between that movie and the apparent Facebook movie? The Pirates of Silicon Valley had two companies that actually went public. Facebook has yet to do that. However the movie is written, this definitely sounds like an interesting beginning!

A Facebook Vibrator?

Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 27th, 2008 10:49 AM

This is one thing I wasn’t expecting to pop-up in my inbox. This morning I received an email about an application called “Love Bunnies”. What exactly is a love bunny? Well apparently it is a fairly robust vibrator. How do you get one? Well you have to go install the Facebook application to find it.

The application allows you to adopt a Love Bunny and care for it. You can place it in various locations which appear to be proper locations for using it. You can put it in a hot tub, a bath, the living room, a chamber which appears to have cuffs hanging down from the ceiling (don’t ask me), the bedroom and the kitchen.

Personally, I haven’t been so fortunate as to interact with a love bunny but I’m sure there will be thousands of satisfied customers. This is definitely an interesting way to promote a sex toy. I’m not quite sure that I’d share this application among my friends but maybe this app will work its way into an interesting group of people.

If you want to experience the fun of adopting a love bunny, go check out the Love Bunnies application.

Facebook Responds to Mattel and Blocks Scrabulous

Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 26th, 2008 10:21 AM

Over the weekend, international users of the popular Scrabulous game were shocked to find that their favorite applications was no longer accessible. By Monday word has spread around the world via traditionl media outlets which were all reporting the source of the shut down was surprisingly not the Agarwalla brothers (who developed the applications), but instead Facebook who was responding to pressure from Mattel.

The one place where Scrabulous is still available is India but that may not be for long. In response to a law suit filed against Scrabulous, the brothers who developed the application decided to shut it down and relaunch a modified version of the game called Wordscraper. So far, the application has attracted over 262,000 monthly users so far. That’s a far cry from the more than 500,000 active daily users that Scrabulous used to have.

Electronic Arts and Hasbro also released an official version of Scrabble which has now attracts over 382,000 monthly active users. It appears that the Agarwalla brothers will have to suffice with only a few hundred thousand active users rather than the millions they previously had. This should still be sufficient for the brothers to make a living but the battles with Mattel have most definitely stunted the company’s growth.

Facebook’s decision was guided by the risk of facing “liability for copyright and trademark infringement” according to AP News. Tough luck for the Agarwalla brothers and it’s unfortunate that they couldn’t take advantage of the remaining hours to direct Scrabulous uses to their updated Wordscraper game. I have a feeling that this story isn’t over until Scrabulous is shut down everywhere, including India.

Developer Analytics Is Alexa for Social Apps

Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 25th, 2008 9:22 PM

Over the weekend we wrote about a secret among application developers which is that at least one developer is currently generating over $1 million a month. Today, Charles Young of Developer Analytics released data which suggests that this rumor is false. The information does suggest that Mob Wars is the top revenue generator though. This is also what many have speculated and confirms some of our own findings.

The only problem with this information? It doesn’t seem completely accurate. It does make a lot of sense though but this also suggests that Slide is currently generating close to $6 million a year from their top two applications. That definitely doesn’t justify a $500 million valuation though. Can you really plug all these numbers into a single equation which can tell you a company’s revenue?

Definitely not! You can definitely come close though and Developer Analytics appears to be a more realistic estimate than Adonomics (which calculated an app’s estimated valuation) was is estimating valuations. There are some intersting findings that the company has generated and a number of suggestions that have been created for most of applications based on the numbers the company has.

So what is Developer Analytics trying to create? The company is looking to generate what appear to be automated numbers based on equations they’ve created which is similar to a Compete.com or Alexa for social applications. It’s an unfulfilled niche but are companies willing to invest $200 - $800 a month after an initial fee of $500 - $8000 for company data?

I’m sure there a lot of companies already registered but the only problem with this strategy is that the data is still automatically generated. There’s definitely valuable information though. Check out Developer Analytics recent post for the latest stats.

Michael Phelps Officially Most Popular Person on Facebook

Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 25th, 2008 11:49 AM

Last week I wrote about Michael Phelps’ rapidly increasing popularity on Facebook as the company decided to assist Phelps by promoting his fan page on the top of Facebook. The end result is that Michael Phelps’ fan page has become the most popular page on Facebook, overtaking Obama now attracting over 1.425 million fans versus Barack who has over 1.389 million fans.

What does this mean for Michael Phelps? Well, first of all it means that a run as a Presidential candidate is now warranted. It also means that Phelps is sure to attract millions of dollars in sponsorships when he returns home from the Olympics. I contacted Barack Obama for comment but have yet to receive a response as he is busy preparing for his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Colorado this week.

Hey Barack, we’re not mad at you for not replying to our emails, we know you are busy trying to become the next President. Michael Phelps was at least kind enough to update with the following wall post on his profile:

Hey guys. Thanks so much for all the support - you guys are awesome! I know I haven’t been around lately (been a little busy), but I should be able to post some cool stuff now. Just to give you an update, I got to hang out in Beijing for a couple days once I finished up and met Kobe and Chris Paul. They’re definitely bringing home the gold. Now I’m on my way to London for the hand-off between Beijing and London. After that, well…just stay tuned.

Unfortunately the wall post was on his own wall, but we’ll accept that as though Phelps had contacted us directly! Congratulations to Phelps on becoming the most popular person on Facebook. We know that this is easily a bigger achievement then winning the most gold medals in a single Olympics ever.

Phelps/Obama Screenshot