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02.14.08Complications with asset valuationsGiving some link love to Fred for a great post on how Microsoft's investment in Facebook might make it's fight for Yahoo a bit more interesting. But I am saying that if you overvalue Facebook, you are also overvaluing myspace. And when the company you want to buy uses a myspace overpay to make itself less interesting to you, then you are the one who gets screwed.
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12.12.07Facebook’s wall slowly crumblesThe Internet provides one of our greatest opportunities to study the "invisible hand" of a (virtually) free market economy. The network owned by no one, yet everyone fosters a level of democracy previously unseen. Competition between online properties is therefore very interesting and transparent as seen in Facebook's counter to OpenSocial. This move should should spur yet more developer interest in the platform now that it will presumably grow beyond a single domain and will quell some of the comparisons made between AOL and FB. I say some because it still looks an awful lot like a ...
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10.03.07Is Facebook a fad?Nate Westheimer thinks it is. Both “fad” and “the rage” imply a temporariness — I know. And while I think Facebook is a great social networking site, which I will use for the time-being... ... Try this idea/illustration on for size: Let’s say Facebook vanishes into thin air tomorrow. How quickly do you think our inherent social graphs would take to reconstitute themselves somewhere else on the Internet? I’d say a week. In a week, I’d build up my languishing MySpace, Friendster, and Virb profiles and wait and see where the rest of my friends headed to. Ask yourself how quickly Facebook replaced AIM and ...
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08.11.07There is room for more social networksThe takeaway from Reid Hoffman's recent interview about LinkedIn: there is room for niche players in the social networking space despite the headline grabbing businesses. The nauseating comparisons to Facebook continued, but he defends social networks -- such as his professionally-targeted site -- as tools each with their strengthens and markets. Om's fourth Hitline is that there are too many social networks and they are all looking the same, BUT they need to break out and do one thing well in agreement with Reid's message. The money quote: ... at the end of the day, the only social network that ...
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07.22.07Facebook turning me away (again)Fred's post had me laughing. He asked the same question I had from this morning: What happened to the "Skip This Step?" I was annoyed with this as well. Information that does not establish identity or serves some other necessary function should be voluntary. To force me as a user to supply more data than I want is an unexpected and concerning breech of an unspoken contract. "... maybe LinkedIn is the adult Facebook after all." Bingo. The noise level on Facebook is now only going to be acceptable to pre-professionals.
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07.12.07Facebook users do not understand applicationsHead on over to the petition to remove Trakzor from Facebook. Currently it is "signed" by over 2300 people. What I find interesting for developers is that many users still do not understand that applications are third-party. Some comments of interest: This is looking more and more like the comments on YouTube: Finally, there is some sensibility: This should remind the TechCrunch 53651 that you shouldn't assume your users know what you know; that means they can and do plead ignorance.
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07.12.07Facebook’s outrageous $6B price tagJohn Battelle asks what would justify a $6B acquisition price for Facebook, 200 times current estimated earnings of $30 million a year. It got me thinking. After all, in 2002, tons of folks were asking the same question. Why Google, why now, when there were dozens of other search engines out there? Last time, there was an easy answer: PageRank. Is there an easy answer this time? I don't see one. Do you? I think Facebook is clearly trying to get into the identity game. They are now farming out their R&D to developers via their platform while focusing on their core business of ...
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07.07.07Apple and their obsession with being closedI have always enjoyed Fred Wilson's musings on technology. From my understanding, he and I seem to agree quite often on issues that I read through his blog. I am surprised to hear that he is just now seeing the danger in Apple's model of a proprietary software-hardware model. I am particularly concerned that I'll have to use iTunes to synch music and photos instead of being able to drag and drop. This post explains there is no way to get music and photos onto the iPhone without using iTunes. I've got way more than 8 gigs of music on my ...
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06.25.07Social networks and the military’s hidden classismI just finished reading a great article on a supposed class difference between MySpace and Facebook users. There is nothing you shouldn't be able to spot between the lines but a good read nonetheless. One thing I found interesting is her conservative take on the U.S. military's ban of MySpace. A month ago, the military banned MySpace but not Facebook. This was a very interesting move because there's a division, even in the military. Soldiers are on MySpace; officers are on Facebook. Facebook is extremely popular in the military, but it's not the SNS of choice for 18-year old soldiers, a ...
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06.23.07Is noise Facebook’s next growing pain?Bill Erickson has an interesting take on the effects of Facebook applications on the site's userbase. A change has happened at Facebook and not many have noticed it. As the VC's and entrepreneurs have become more connected to facebook, the average user (a college student) has become more disconnected. Facebook as a replacement for TV? It was that 2 years ago, it isn't any more. As a college student and an entrepreneur (like everyone else in the world, I have a facebook app being released next week) I've seen the change happen. Last year, whenever we - and by we, I mean ...
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