>10 million blogs launch every year; the vast majority of them barely update quickly disintegrating into the blogosphere.
In hopes of not becoming another lost blog, I post now.
Facebook’s “social graph” experiment is in month 2 of operation, this since opening up their API to third party developers.
I wasn’t moved at all actually when a friend recently forwarded news of early VC interest in this space. Bay Partners in Menlo Park announced the AppFactory (similar to CRV’s quick start-up fund) concentrating solely on Facebook applications being built on the Facebook “social operating system.”
I’m not sure exactly at what point in time it occurred: Facebook transitioned from a social networking site into a social operating system. As much as I applaud Facebook’s ambition I have to question– both rationally and cynically– some of the early funding in this area.
The simple analogy is that Facebook apps are like Myspace widgets. Well sure, yes. But whereas Myspace widgets served primarily to create traffic and even more importantly user registration for their mother sites, I currently see a solar system of stand-alone Facebook apps orbiting Facebook. Many, if not most, have no mother site. And the few that do, exceptions like HotorNot or iLike, are already mature and don’t require the funding of VCs like Bay Partners.
And due to Facebook’s tight hold on user privacy, for instance limiting the ability of apps to extract information from its network for external use, even launching mother sites after successful app launches is not immediately feasible.
Where as MySpace is an open meat market, Facebook is a fully enclosed shop. Luring customers away to other storefronts is much more difficult in the latter.
One of them helped fuel the growth of YouTube and Photobucket with its enabled widgets. It seems early VC interest may seem the market is betting on history repeating itself.
Of course if Facebook is truly interested in becoming the web’s next social operating system, is it in their own interest to spawn new behemoths and possible competitors (the likes of YouTube) from within their own ecosystem?
The answer of course is no. So whereas Facebook apps may serve very well in a complementary role to their sites, investing in stand-alone facebook apps is like setting a ship out to space with no means back.
you know the trick of the online buzz right? RIGHT?
see online its a different ball park. the etiquite is different entirely, if it wasnt, id be spell checking this post. myspace to facebook and facebook to stumbleuponit and on and on… but see wiht out being featured and cheating using hit generators, theres only one other method that works. trust in mob mentality. chris C. didnt really get your attention until someone told you about him. its just not enough to be good anymore, you have to be good and set yourself on fire. (so to speak) execution is everything (ignore the pun) what time is it??? its time for change. you can sit on the pulse all you want, but with out guides, you end up being at the back of the line herding to what people viewed a year ago. you have to insert yourself using cyber ego and cyber identity into the pulse. common sunbulli, PUSH PUSH PUSH. (but theres other ways too…) i can draw 3500 hits on an otherwise dead bbs by simply attacking the administration. easy huh… but not really. a bot can not generate wit. wit is pure psyche and must be maneuvered as such. martyrdom is useless online, there will be a new profile to view tomorrow. be careful with this, as people arent disposable, and the industry allows no one instant access to eternal. its the reinvention and ressurection after martyrdom that counts. for chris i wonder, how much abuse can he endure? are you ready to handle that? (experience aside, is your SOUL ready to handle that?)
with love and admiration. you beat me to him. but did he really win?
yours, h
kennen records
September 15th, 2007