MetaMuse

Friendster vs. MySpace

Some of the key takeaways on Danah Boyd's paper on Friendster vs. MySpace:

• Relationships meant something in Friendster, but were loose and somewhat meaningless in MySpace. "Friends" aren't really your friends in MySpace; it's merely an acknowledgement you exist. So there were really no barriers between circles of friends in MySpace. Friendster had these barriers, which limited the organic growth -- people would get there and have no one to look at. On MySpace you can lok around without having registered.
• It's so much about the RULES. MySpace didn't stop the users that hacked the system to create interesting profiles. Rather they evolved with users while Friendster became more restrictive. Templates aren't personalization. MySpace better capitalized on the need for individuals to develop their online persona, to be anything they wanted. Friendster painted users into corners.
• Friendster saw themselves as a dating site, while MySpace knew there was more to an online community than dating.
• Friendster's web site was painfully slow during its growth phrase, which alienated many users. God knows I tried 4-6 times throughout 2003 to check out Friendster, and I just couldn't.
• The path through MySpace is wide open, with all sorts of treasures around every corner and interesting nooks and crannies, plus the way to "remember" your path (friends list).  It's people surfing, whereas Friendster is much more limited to just those within your offline list of friends. MySpace is 10 miles wide and 10 miles deep, and the searching sucks.
• I love this quote "The primary value right now has to do with identity production and sharing". This is what I think social networkers really like -- to them the Web is a fantasy world, they're no one and anyone at the same time. There is no privacy in the offline world, it only exists online.

Can you say Bubble?

Reading the last paragraph of the ClickZ report that Sconex was acquired for $8.7M, I couldn't help but think that online social networking is in the midst of a bubble. $8.7M for 500K registered users? (which is about $17.40 per user) News Corp paid about $25/user  for MySpace. Ok, I can see a return on that if they're able to keep this users for a couple years, but these demographics have no loyalty. But I can't see $2B for FaceBook, no way -- it's irrational exuberance and as much as I'd love to benefit from it, you can't justify those valuations with those low revenue bases.

Closing the Chapter of 121Media

After 3 years of work helping to build 121Media from 10K users and no revenues to an IPO and offices in London and New York, this chapter in my life ended today when I sold all my shares.  I have no more ties, obligations or duty to this company. I'm so very happy to have had the experience and even happier to have cashed in -- it feels really good. Now of course the stock will probably double, but who knows if I would have been able to sell it again, and it may even be at a high (for all I know). And now all my risk stock is in Others Online, which I think has even greater potential for true one-to-one marketing, on an opt-in basis, and in a way that offers users much more value and respect.

Real Estate

The next MAJOR evolution of the real estate market is the incorporation of behavoiral modeling technology to allow users to select their ideal communities, based partially on the behavioral patterns of their neighbors.

MySpace / The Sun Deal

I noted with interest the news of the UK newspaper The Sun incorporating within their Web site an online community powered by MySpace. (Both companies are owned by News Corp.) This is the first deal (that I know of) where MySpace is actually working with another Web site.

I just can't picture this very well. Does the MySpace demographic go online to read The Sun, or just look at the Page 3 girls? (Having lived in London, I can assure you that most of this reading is done in transit, or during lunch.) Why would people go to MySun instead of MySpace? I see the advertiser value prop, but not the user value prop. Having said that, there exists a much greater advertiser AND user value prop if they were to partner with Others Online instead ...

I'm fairly skeptical of this working out, but if I were MySpace I'd certainly be pleased in trying this out -- they need to do everything they can to keep their user base and pageviews up.

International Delight

Yesterday was a pretty long day -- up at 6:45am for a conference call, work straight through to 7-8pm, then back at it at 11pm, in bed after midnight. But as I went to sleep, the day still fresh in my mind, I realized that I'd interacted with people from all over the world that day -- 5 different countries. Three years ago my business interactions might have only occassionally reached the East Coast. I feel fortunate to now have my sphere of influence/experience be much more global.

Matisyahu

Been hearing of this artist and saw some news coverage of him in LA, so I brought up trusty ole' Napster and downloaded his latest last night. It's good stuff, and I fully expect he'll be responsible for breathing new life into the reggae scene -- he'll create a space in people's minds where reggae hasn't existed before.

In this world of endless consumer options and marketing "noise", it really takes something unique to get some stickiness. The unique thing about him is that he's a white dude who converted to Hasidic (sp?) Judaism, and so he's got the beard, black pants/trenchcoat and wide-brimmed hat, but then jumps around stage pounding out deep reggae beats with religious lyrics.

The "PeopleWeb"

I just read this blog posting from Mark Pincus and I think wow, he's tuned in.  He's drunk on the same koolaid as me, and he doesn't even know about Others Online yet.