Tag Archives: Facebook

Apr 17 2008
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Toward Data Portability: SixApart’s BlogIt

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Caption: David Recordon (left) and Joseph Smarr (right) at the Social Graph Foo Camp

Recently, Joseph Smarr and I were invited by David Recordon of SixApart to take a look at something they were about to launch, called BlogIt. We got very excited and had lots of ideas about where they and we (Plaxo) could go together with this. It just launched, so I can now talk openly about it.

BlogIt is a very cool tool that embraces one of the foundational notions of the open Social Web: that once someone gets into using one social application, they will quite naturally begin to use multiple social applications, whether that’s social networks, blogs, microblogs, content aggregators, or whatever. The natural consequence of that is fragmentation, which, in the current “walled garden” phase of the Web, creates all sorts of hassles, inconvenience, and missed opportunity for richer interaction.

Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb is right, I think, to say that BlogIt “could be the start of something big.” At the core, BlogIt makes it easy to quickly create and publish a blogpost from within a social network or application, and have the post go to multiple destinations and get promoted from multiple sources (for example, Twitter). The first implemenation targets the Facebook platform, but obviously this can go to other networks, such as MySpace, Orkut, Plaxo Pulse, etc. via the Google-led OpenSocial platform.

What I like about it, is that we are still in the early phases of social media, social networking, and the opening up of the social web. Social networks and content aggregators can be a great way to mainstream the social media experience, and help millions of voices that are not currently heard jump into the world of blogging. How? By making it really easy to post — and to have a pre-existing audience — in the form of the local social graph(s) of the user.

David’s done a nice post, helping explain where this all fits in and where SixApart might go with this. Brad King, of TechWorldNews, also has a nice piece that puts this into a broader perspective. (I enjoyed my interview with him earlier today greatly!)

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Apr 15 2008
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Facebook Becomes an Aggregator, Too

Cracks Forming in the Wall?

In a move thats been expected for a while, Facebook has just enter the lifestream aggregation space (alongside Plaxo Pulse, FriendFeed, and a list of companies that grows nearly every week). Out the door, they are only supporting handful of external sources (Flickr, del.icio.us, Picasa, and Yelp), but they say many more are on the way.

Does this move make sense? Absolutely. Is it, as TechCrunch’s Mark Hendkrickson says, a threat to FriendFeed? Sort of. Eric Eldon, of Venture Beat, raises that question, as well.

But I see this as a very natural evolution, as we make our way from the era of “walled gardens” over to the open world of the Social Web. In that world, the user will be at the center, owning their own data and content, with the freedom to take it with them wherever they go. In that ecosystem, their will be a service layer that connects the user to myriad socially-enabled sites. That Social Web sevice layer will have three main components:

– Identity provider
– Social graph provider
– Content aggregator

Some players, like Facebook and Plaxo, will likely provide all three services, while others might focus on one or two. For example, Clickpass and Yahoo! are clearly playing in the “identity provider” space already, with consumer-friendly implementations of OpenID. The social graph provider space is the one that doesn’t yet exist, but is at the core of the vision for “data portability.” Expect interesting developments there in the coming months.

Other coverage include’s Mashable’s Paul Glazowski, here, and a nice piece by CNET’s Caroline McCarthy, which raises the interesting question of whether there is a revenue arrangment involved. Interesting question…

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Apr 11 2008
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Three “Data Portability” Related Events for Your Calendar

IIW 2008

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The last year has been an amazing time for building momentum for the emergence of the Social Web. We’ve seen the “open” and “data portability” memes move from the periphery to the core, picked up by Plaxo, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Facebook, among many others. We’ve seen major advances in the embrace of open standards, including OpenID, OAuth, and microformats. And we’re also beginning to see a swell of public awareness and the stirrings of demand for users to have ownership and control of their data, and the freedom to take it with them, wherever they go.

So where do we go from here? And how can you jump in an help turn the vision into reality? My recommendation would be to add one, two, or even all three of the following events to your calendar:

Data Sharing Workshop, April 18 – 19 at the SFSU, Downtown Campus

Internet Identity Workshop 2008, May 12-14, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View

Data Sharing Summit, May 15, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View

Here’s a link for registration for Data Sharing Workshop and Data Sharing Summit.

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Great things have happened at previous versions of these influential grass-roots events. Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble, and Michael Arrington co-authored the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web for debut at the Data Sharing Summit, where the document generated vibrant discussion, conceptual buy-in from some of the biggest companies on the Internet, and a ton of signatures from the people who are working on the building blocks of data portability and the Social Web.

Bill of Rights

And to be clear, these are not stiff, formal, traditional conferences. They are all highly collaborative events, with no one setting the agenda except the interesting people who show up. I advise you to become a part of them if you are passionate about bringing about the open Social Web!

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Nov 12 2007
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While Interviewing Marc Canter, Kara Swisher Calls Facebook a “New Version of AOL”

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The video was posted a few days ago, but I just stumbled onto it. Kara Swisher interviews Marc Canter (pictured above at the legendary Data Sharing Summit that paved the way) on his reactions to the Google OpenSocial announcement. Not sure what I enjoyed more — Kara declaring Facebook and MySpace to be a “new version of AOL” — or Marc phrasing Facebook’s strategic dilemma as whether they should “eat the blue pill or the red pill”. Must see TV!

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Oct 25 2007
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Has Facebook “Jumped the Shark”?

The Wall

I suppose I should have seen this coming. Feelings run deep with respect to Microsoft and on the topic of privacy. If the Facebook/Microsoft deal gives Microsoft access to the Facebook social graph in detail for the purpose of ad targeting, might this cause concern and consternation, at least for some?

Apparently, the answer is, “Yes.”

In a post entitled, “This is a poke-free zone,” a South African blogger, Ivo, says he’s leaving Facebook, closing his account there, and heading over to Orkut. It seems he also the created a group on Facebook called “If Facebook sells to Microsoft, we’re leaving”!

And in a post entitled “Please Turn Out the Lights,” Wired Gecko jumps on the bandwagon, and indicates he’s leaving Facebook for Orkut and Plaxo’s Pulse. 

A few lone wolves, or the beginnings of a mass migration?

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Oct 25 2007
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Facebook/Microsoft Deal Analysis: Part 2

The Wall

The talk around many water coolers today is of the “incredible” or “crazy” deal that valued Facebook at $15 billion. Yes, $15 billion — for a three-year-old company that is just hitting cash flow positive on a mere $150 million in revenue. People ask, “Does this mean we are now formally in a Bubble again?”

My answer is, “No.” Why? Because Microsoft is Microsoft, not a VC firm. Microsoft couldn’t care less whether their investment valued Facebook at $1 billion or $100 billion, because this wasn’t a venture capital investment decision for them. It was a purchase, not of a piece of Facebook, but of a very unique and strategically important asset — the run of ad inventory on the Facebook network through 2011 (minus some portion reserved by Facebook), plus some undisclosed amount of access to user profile data essential for “social targeting” of the ads.

There is only one Facebook, and somebody was going to end up with the exclusive right to sell its ad inventory and leverage its user data. In the end, it came down to a question of which of the three big players needed it most — Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo. It is not at all surprising that once the bidding got high enough, Yahoo got priced out. Nor is it surprising that Google stayed in until the end, ensuring that if Microsoft had stronger need to win, it would have do so at the highest possible price.

For cash-rich Microsoft (they have over $20 billion on hand), this was not a terribly costly deal. For their $240 million, they get something that just might help them leapfrog Google in battle for supremacy in the huge and growing market of online advertising.

Oh, yeah. And one more thing. By agreeing to a deal that effectively values Facebook at $15 billion, they have made sure that neither Google nor Yahoo will buy the company. All in all, I’d say a very smart play by Microsoft, and a very well played hand by Facebook.

And, no, we are not in a Bubble.

To read what I think are the implications for others in the space, like Plaxo and LinkedIn, here’s a post I did yesterday. 

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Oct 24 2007
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Why Facebook *is* Worth $15 Billion

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The news has now broken. Microsoft has taken a minority stake in Facebook that places a valuation on the company in the $15 billion range. How could this possibly make sense? Is it just a simple multiple on a revenue number based on a current and projected growth rate? Probably hard to make a $15 billion case based on that alone. (100x current revenue!)

The real answer lies in how Facebook differs from the riff raff of “social networks.” Facebook has always distanced itself from that term, prefering “social utility.” Why? Because Facebook isn’t about friending strangers. It is, instead, one of a small number of players that have staked a play based on the belief that “who you know” is fundamentally valuable, and that if you could ever amass a large enough collection of who-you-know data, that “social graph” would enable a variety of monetization strategies. For Facebook, and now for Microsoft, the bet is that the social graph can turbo-charge online ad targeting.

The two other most prominent players in the who-you-know space are LinkedIn and Plaxo. (Disclosure: I run marketing at Plaxo.) Oh, and outside the U.S., a company called Xing, which is, like LinkedIn, focused on “business networking.” LinkedIn makes money from being a middleman between job seekers and recruiters.

Plaxo, on the other hand, got its start in the who-you-know business with a “networked address book” and a “freemium” business model. More recently, to the surprise of most industry-watchers, the company has been re-inventing itself as a next-generation social network, leveraging the huge piece of the social graph that they are hosting for tens of millions, by “bringing address books to life.” And how are they monetizing their social network, Pulse? With targeted advertising, of course!

With Facebook valued at $15 billion, what are the implications for others in the who-you-know business space? Will the rising tide lift all boats equally or some more than others? 

To really understand this deal, see Part 2 of my analysis, that explains what Microsoft actually paid for.

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