Facebook Delivers an Outstanding Performance In these days it's trendy to collaborate, share data and information over the Web and the big differentiator of Facebook came when Facebook opened their platform letting information structure emerge instead of imposing structure.

Facebook does not impose any limitations on how services show their value proposition and make money. It's like an operating system, businesses can run full applications on top of Facebook leveraging the social graph or just connect with their customers.

With 7.5% time spent in a community, communities capture a respectable share of user's overall online time. From the OPA:

There is several ways to get orientation, currently Facebook leverages 21.428 additional applications. They can be selected from several categories and sortet according to selected criteria like 'Recently Popular, Most Activity, Most Active Users and Newest' and of course they can be searched.

There is Adonomics™, Facebook Analytics and Developer Service. I'm quoting from their site: 'There are 930,295,450 installs across 21,492 apps on Facebook with over 200,000 developers currently evaluating the platform.' They offer free services like 'Top Applications, Top Companies and Top Developers' and help to grow engage and monetize an application as well as to track application growth, activity, and valuation.

Of course there is also a typical Web 2.0 app rating style called AppRate, a Community-Driven Facebook Applications Reviews and Ratings site with daily reviews and ratings of Facebook applications.

Overall, Facebook and its community provide excellent services, transparency and an outstanding performance with business models for an open Platform and applications like:

• Contextual, displayed, targeted and linked advertising
• RSS advertising
• Sponsoring and donations
• Affiliate programs and merchandising
• Social Commerce (recommendations, reviews etc.)

Hard times for competitors!

• Facebook Sets Trend for Distributed Networks
• Facebook's Open Platform a Serious Trend for Future Marketing
• Facebook as an Open Platform

Labels: bizdev, facebook, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'Facebook Delivers an Outstanding Performance' posted by eA : 3:38 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Perfect Open Source Project Management on a Linux Box with OpenProj While setting up a list of useful open source applications for my Linux laptop I found a very advanced project management solution provided by Projity incorporating both, a web-based project-on-demand service (SaaS) and an open source desktop alternative to MS Project. The latest version requires Java (JRE) and is available as .deb, .rpm or platform-independent source at Sourceforge.net.

'OpenProj shares the industry's most advanced scheduling engine with Project-ON-Demand and has Gantt Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts, Earned Value costing and more.'

Being familiar with MS Project it's easy to switch. Just create a work breakdown structure, add time and dependencies, OpenProj will construct a project model applying CPM ready to prioritize activities for the effective management of project completion.


Probably the best solution I've ever seen, just got used to it.

Labels: linux, management, networking, productivity

  ¶ 'Perfect Open Source Project Management on a Linux Box with OpenProj' posted by eA : 3:49 PM  0 comments links to this post

  2007 Year of Third Party Widget Developers As the market dynamics and content delivery systems change 2007 is the year of widgets. I've written already about Current and Future eCommerce Challenges leveraging network effects, Web Widgets as a Distribution Channel, of course Facebook's Open Platform as a Serious Trend for Future Marketing and Facebook Sets Trend for Distributed Networks.

Web widgets bring the Web to you, prominent use is iGoogle (released a set of tools in 2005 called Fusion), Google's personalized start-pages are frequently used as an information resource and a preferred place to personalize trust worth and up-to-date news and services via gadgets.

Inspired by the success of iGoogle, Google introduced a new pilot program dedicated to helping developers create richer, more useful Google Gadgets: Google Gadget Ventures

1. Grants of $5,000 to those who’ve built gadgets we’d like to see developed further. You’re eligible to apply for a grant if you’ve developed a gadget that’s in our Google gadgets directory and gets at least 250,000 weekly page views. To apply, you must submit a one-page proposal detailing how you’d use the grant to improve your gadget.
2. Seed investments of $100,000 to developers who’d like to build a business around the Google gadgets platform. Only Google Gadget Venture grant recipients are eligible for this type of funding. Submitting a business plan detailing how you plan to build a viable business around the gadgets platform is a required part of the seed investment application process.

Recently comScore introduced a new report called comScore Widget Metrix to serve advertisers wich relevant facts:

'“The recent explosion of user-generated content has helped create a worldwide marketplace for widgets,” said Linda Boland Abraham, executive vice president at comScore. “comScore is excited to be providing measurement for this developing content medium.”'

'comScore’s analysis of the top ten Web widgets worldwide revealed that photo-related widgets dominate the top positions. In April 2007, Slide was the top widget provider with a worldwide reach of more than 117 million unique viewers, or 13.8 percent of the total worldwide Internet audience. Other top photo-related widgets included RockYou (82 million viewers), PictureTrail (31 million viewers), and Photobucket (28 million viewers). '

'As more and more sites across the Internet employ Web widgets, the worldwide penetration will continue to grow. In April, widget penetration was highest in North America where 40.3 percent of Internet users visited a Web site with an embedded widget, followed by Western Europe (24.3 percent) and Latin America (17.5 percent).'

And of course there is already applications for the newly released Apple iPhone. I'm excited to watch this development to take off in the mobile space.

Labels: advertising, apple, google, networking, widgets

  ¶ '2007 Year of Third Party Widget Developers' posted by eA : 12:53 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Facebook Sets Trend for Distributed Networks I've written already about Current and Future eCommerce Challenges leveraging social network effects, Web Widgets as a Distribution Channel and of course Facebook's Open Platform as a Serious Trend for Future Marketing.

When Facebook announced at their F8 event a new strategy for further expansion focusing on distribution deals, Facebook as an Open Platform, they set a starting point to letting users build the site from the ground up. Amazing facts from the Facebook Developer Meetup in New York last week via ZDNet:

'Dave Morin, Facebook's director of platform, told the Developer Meetup audience via video conference that more than 40,000 developers have requested to be part of the project, around 1,500 applications have been produced so far, and some of the most popular went from zero to 850,000 users in three days. "This is unprecedented in the history of the Internet," Morin said to the developers.'

"If you think about just how we went about building the site," Zuckerberg said, "the traditional approach would have been to assemble the information and build the directory ourselves"..."Decentralised systems just tend to be more efficient."

Attracting more than 1000 developers a day and one month later it almost seams to be done - with an open platform it's no longer necessary to build all software in house - it even leverages the Long Tail sporting smaller, but very specialized applications far beyond the mainstream offering them an opportunity to capitalize on Facebook's large and loyal user base. I've never seen enhancing a platform in that short time!

• New Strategy: Facebook as an Open Platform
• Facebook's Open Platform a Serious Trend for Future Marketing
• Web Widgets as a Distribution Channel for Advertising

Of course there is also the risky side gambling with its image of being the anti MySpace. Letting things go in an 'unprotected' way and see what's coming out in the end might lead to spam & co and be overwhelming for some users, they might become tired of new apps, but seen overall this kind of strategy applying a strict policy in case has shown that 'no major problems had surfaced yet' according to Zuckerberg. No risk no win!

It reminds me to the success of YouTube, which came up by just letting users do it and finding out what they really want. YouTube holds 45% of the free online video market now - they are currently developing a software to detect and protect copyrighted material and offer online publishing tools and copyright free outlets to remix one's videos and to address a stricter policy.

• Google Developer Day: Going Offline with Google Gears

Labels: bizdev, facebook, networking

  ¶ 'Facebook Sets Trend for Distributed Networks' posted by eA : 2:40 PM  1 comments links to this post

  Web Widgets as a Distribution Channel for Advertising Web widgets bring the Web to you, prominent use is iGoogle (released a set of tools in 2005 called Fusion), Google's personalized start-pages are frequently used as an information resource and a preferred place to personalize trust worth and up-to-date news and services via gadgets.

As the market dynamics and content delivery systems change Web widgets or gadgets, badges, modules, capsules, snippets, minis and flakes, embeddable chunks of code written in Adobe Flash or JavaScript represent an application of a third party with a destination target including social networks, blogs, wikis, personal homepages and even desktops have proven to be an excellent way to distribute the message to the end-user.

With Facebook's new strategy for further expansion focusing on distribution deals 'Facebook as an Open Platform' resulting in an explosive growth for both, the social network and the services benefiting from a word-of-mouth and of course ground-breaking networking technologies and disciplines setting a serious trend for the future, Web widgets as a very successful way to distribute the message to the end-user might be the end of the page view as a metric for measuring a site’s popularity.

comScore introduced a new report called comScore Widget Metrix:

'“The recent explosion of user-generated content has helped create a worldwide marketplace for widgets,” said Linda Boland Abraham, executive vice president at comScore. “comScore is excited to be providing measurement for this developing content medium.”'

'comScore’s analysis of the top ten Web widgets worldwide revealed that photo-related widgets dominate the top positions. In April 2007, Slide was the top widget provider with a worldwide reach of more than 117 million unique viewers, or 13.8 percent of the total worldwide Internet audience. Other top photo-related widgets included RockYou (82 million viewers), PictureTrail (31 million viewers), and Photobucket (28 million viewers). '

'As more and more sites across the Internet employ Web widgets, the worldwide penetration will continue to grow. In April, widget penetration was highest in North America where 40.3 percent of Internet users visited a Web site with an embedded widget, followed by Western Europe (24.3 percent) and Latin America (17.5 percent).'

Popular widget platforms include Widgetbox, Clearspring, GoodWidgets, I'm expecting more companies opening up their platform to optimize value, to broaden reach and to attract the attention of niche markets and markets that did not exist before.

Labels: advertising, markets, networking, web2.0, widgets

  ¶ 'Web Widgets as a Distribution Channel for Advertising' posted by eA : 11:35 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Dealing on Twitter a Product a Day Improved social networking technologies fostering creativity...

• Woot.com on Twitter
• Amazon.com on Twitter

I've seen already the first airlines twittering.

• eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband
• Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry
  
• Brand the most Valuable Asset of a Global Company
• Global Brand Awareness: YouTube and Wikipedia among Top 5 Now

Labels: ecommerce, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'Dealing on Twitter a Product a Day' posted by eA : 10:18 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Facebook's Open Platform a Serious Trend for Future Marketing Since Facebook opened their platform letting information structure emerge instead of imposing structure developers can create their own services on top of Facebook now leveraging trendy and ground-breaking technologies and disciplines setting a serious trend for the future. Combining social networks with vertical applications means

• creating new opportunities for self-expression and collaboration
• complementing and competing in products and services
• leveraging network effects and monetization

Getting in front of potential users such as facebook members and showing them the value proposition is crucial to success of a service.

Both, the social network and the services benefit from a word-of-mouth spreading through social networking resulting in an explosive growth as a recent analysis from Fortune showed:

'The social network has gained another million users and is now up to 25 million.'

'The hottest application on Facebook is from a music social networking company called iLike. That service is now approaching a million users, growing at about 200,000 per day.'

'Now there are already 300 applications' (up from 85 at launch)

'iLike also demonstrates the viral power of Facebook's platform.'

Since Facebook will impose no limitations on how services make money besides selling one's own products and services business models for the open 'Facebook Platform' can involve

• Contextual, displayed, targeted and linked advertising
• RSS advertising
• Sponsoring and donations
• Affiliate programs and merchandising
• Social Commerce

I'm expecting more companies opening up their platform to optimize value, to broaden reach and to attract the attention of niche markets and markets that did not exist before.

• New Strategy: Facebook as an Open Platform

Labels: bizdev, facebook, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'Facebook's Open Platform a Serious Trend for Future Marketing' posted by eA : 3:34 PM  0 comments links to this post

  New Strategy: Facebook as an Open Platform The Web has quickly morphed into a giant global operating system which allows to remix the Web via mash ups resulting in improved social networking technologies fostering creativity and self-expression, service orientation and cinematic user interfaces based on AJAX and Flash complementing modern SOA's.

Being the second largest social networking site on the Web Facebook announced at their F8 event a new strategy for further expansion focusing on distribution deals: Facebook as an Open Platform.

From Fortune:

'"We want to make Facebook into something of an operating system so you can run full applications," Zuckerberg told me. He said Facebook is becoming a "platform," meaning a software environment where others can create their own services...'

People's behavior in researching buying related information and decision making has changed during the last months. Their favorite methods include researching buying related price comparison sites, RSS-feeds, review sites, blogs and travel sites, while consumer generated content and peer-reviews have a huge impact on their decision making.

Currently Facebook is monetized by advertising. Introducing new applications might lead to intensified usage without leaving the site and a richer experience for its users leveraging content and commerce.

'Facebook will impose no limitations on how they make money. Says Zuckerberg: "They can sell sponsorships, they can have ads, they can sell things, they can link off to another site - we are just agnostic."'

It's a step further to better compete against MySpace and since Facebook resisted a $900 mio. acquisition offer from Yahoo! I think they will even resist further mergers and acquisition offers, do it alone and potentially go public one day. While Google is the exclusive provider of text-based advertising and keyword targeted ads for MySpace Facebook's main business partner is Microsoft.

'Last year it contracted to broker banner ads for Facebook, reportedly guaranteeing a minimum of $100 million per year through 2011.'

To take advantage of new business opportunities it's recommended to hook in some of the best community-empowered sites.

Labels: bizdev, ecommerce, facebook, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'New Strategy: Facebook as an Open Platform' posted by eA : 11:11 AM  2 comments links to this post

  Germans Like Web 2.0 Sites and Wikipedia I've written already about YouTube and Wikipedia among top 5 now in global brand awareness and a brand the most valuable asset of a global company, now I'm looking at Web 2.0 sites on a local level.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings 54% (19.7 mio.) of the German online population have visited a Web 2.0 website in Feb/2007 with a growth rate of 32% compared to the year before. The booming online travel sites hold a reach of 53%.


Market share is dominated by by Internet giants like Wikipedia (33% in Germany),YouTube (13%) and MySpace (5%), but local sites like StudiVZ (Social Networking), Clipfish (Video), wer-weiss-was (Knowledge) and Knuddels (Flirting) are high potentials, too.

Web 2.0 features increase brand loyalty and customer retention, easy to use tools have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business. Once connected to their friends it's unlikely to start from new and build another network on another platform.

eMarketer reports that 'consumers continue to flock to social network sites' and 'in 2011, marketers will spend an estimated $1.1 billion on social network advertising outside the US', compared to $95 mio. in 2006.

Characteristics of today's Web 2.0 architecture allow better communications and data exchange resulting in improved social networking technologies, service orientation and cinematic user interfaces based on AJAX and Flash complementing modern SOA's.

Labels: branding, markets, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'Germans Like Web 2.0 Sites and Wikipedia' posted by eA : 10:27 AM  1 comments links to this post

  Costa's New Flagship Costa Serena Launches in Second Life Europe's Number One Cruise Line Costa recently launched their new flagship, the Costa Serena, which is 114,000 gross tons, 292 meters in length and features accommodations for up to 3,780 Guests in 1,500 cabins. From PRNewswire:

"Costa is the first company in the world to host a virtual inaugural in "Second Life" simultaneously with the ship's actual inaugural ceremony," said Daniele Mancini, Director of E-Business for Costa Crociere. "This project represents the beginning of a series of new projects in which the user is the center of all communication. Web 2.0 will now allow Costa's satisfied cruise customers to reach beyond friends and family to the entire Internet."

Over the next 10 years many people will spend a lot more time in 3D virtual worlds using them as a platform to meet, communicate and shop, to participate in virtual 3D events and to conduct business on a level of interaction we have never experienced before. Blurring the virtual and physical worlds just makes me think of how many business opportunities and of course challenges will occur...

• Teleport yourself into SecondLife (you need SecondLife)
• Virtual Inaugural Event
• Costa Serena Photo (Reality)
  

Labels: 3D, bizdev, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'Costa's New Flagship Costa Serena Launches in Second Life' posted by eA : 2:05 PM  0 comments links to this post

  What Users Motivates to Engage Online In today's attention economy where infinite media choices offer numerous products and services to a limited amount of users it's even more important to deliver an outstanding experience to a coveted, but limited audience.

Experience showed that there are certain points that drive a rich online user experience. To become a rich online user experience, a product or service must address a user's interactive demand to connect with other people, to be as compelling to be worth to be memorized and shared, to extend one's horizon to make better decisions and to become smarter or to improve one's digital lifestyle and to look out for people with same interests.

Directing the creation of marketing tools, steering the execution of marketing and technology programs and successfully driving growth in targeted markets through implementation of key projects becomes more and more challenging as understanding rich user experiences is critical to success.

• Dedication and Competitive Drive Required
• Sketching Early Stage Designs with AJAX
• Ruby on Rails with TnT 2.0

Labels: markets, networking

  ¶ 'What Users Motivates to Engage Online' posted by eA : 12:45 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Current Business Models for Free Online Video As a result of the recent merger of Google and YouTube, which holds a tremendous amount of the current video market, services like free videos, shortfilms or TV-like streams and branded entertainment will provide a free audio-visual experience in future.

Complementing each other's services usually leads to an effective monetization leveraging network effects, in this case I'm thinking of accessing YouTube's community tagged videos and combining them with Google's algorithms and ad-technology.

Shaping a business model based on the idea of a community means to balance the divergent interests of users, artists, the entertainment industry and technology. Current business models for free online video include:

• Contextual, displayed, targeted and linked advertising
• RSS advertising
• Sponsoring and donations
• Affiliate programs and merchandising

I can't say how many people participate in and with videos regularly, but home-made videos are attractive, hype and innovative because they represent a service that would not make a commercial sense from a traditional media point of view.

As a user one doesn't have to care about video standards, just upload a film and the website does the rest for one while using a blog creating an atmosphere sharing video over the Web documenting individual experiences and videos and keeping in touch with friends and family has become one of the strongest growing fields on the Web.

Funny entertaining clips, international TV shows, sports related video clips and home-made amateur star videos dominate the needs of an international audience.

However that attractive user audience loving Internet-based clips and videos they can view, listen, interact with and participate when, what and how they want and technologies standing out by an intuitive and natural user interaction reducing the amount of friction for users to interact with rich media online makes me think if serious online marketing is shifting shift to an entirely new format: Video.

Home-Made Videos invade cyberspace, enter Video Top 100 lists with millions of views showing impressive amateur-made videos, personal mash ups of film screenings and discussion programs and reflect the diversity of culture.

I think the more we zap TV ads, the more important it becomes for brands to integrate products and services into the video programming and deliver an emotional outstanding experience for the audiences.

Labels: networking

  ¶ 'Current Business Models for Free Online Video' posted by eA : 1:23 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Trendspotting a Web of User-Generated Content During Web 1.0 design and content were dictated and information was stored in documents, now in Web 2.0 new applications let users combine data and functionality from a variety of sources into a custom environment blurring the line between software and the Internet using an architecture of participation.


Participating in a social network centered on user-generated content has become one of the most exiting trends today. Free and easy interaction, staying in touch with friends, finding long lost friends, and meeting new people encourages users as well as visitors to share comments, photos and videos, read and write blogs or just hang out.

Learning a new program for self-expression, calculation or collaboration takes a few minutes total today, it doesn't require any skills and within seconds one can take part in a worldwide distributed live-communication using modern Web 2.0 technology like a blog, shared wikis, RSS, folksonomies and AJAX to organize important information in hassle-free Web sites.

Additional today's Web-based platforms let information structure emerge instead of imposing structure, filter, sort and prioritize the information (flood) and set a serious trend for the future. Light-weight collaboration techniques, user-suggested tags, bottoms-up approach are just a few expressions to name in a 2.0 context.


An active creator today can enhance brand visibility and credibility, achieve customer intimacy or just simplify the process to find the latest information about new products and services allowing visitors to subscribe to blogs via RSS and be notified when posting something new.

I think that over the next 10 years many people will spend a lot more time on the Internet using it as a platform to meet, communicate and shop, to participate in virtual 3D events and to conduct business on a level of interaction we have never experienced before. Blurring the virtual and physical worlds just makes me think of how many business opportunities and of course challenges will occur...

Labels: networking

  ¶ 'Trendspotting a Web of User-Generated Content' posted by eA : 5:37 PM  0 comments links to this post

  New Me, My, YoUser Models Share Revenue MySpace, YouTube, iPod, user's most coveted sites have one in common: YoUser-generated content. The new Me-, My-, You-sites give control to the user and benefit from a word-of-mouth spreading through blogs and social networking resulting in an explosive growth. Competition has now generated new models to capitalize on knowledge and popularity: Sharing (ad)revenue.

Shaping a business model based on the idea of a community means to balance the divergent interests of users, artists, the entertainment industry and technology. When I expressed my thoughts about a business model for blogging last year I said:

'I believe, that blogging will have an impact on traditional media in future, we're moving towards broadband blogging like video and audio messaging and as long as marketers need to reach the most coveted audience for media there will be a great chance for new business models...'

Even Google formed several strategic partnerships leveraging network effects, in this case I'm thinking of accessing MySpace's demogarphic user data and combining them with their technology and their latest deal distributing MTV shows through Google Video.

Besides selling one's own products and services current business models for bloggers involve

• Contextual, displayed, targeted and linked advertising
• RSS advertising
• Sponsoring and donations
• Affiliate programs and merchandising

I think that sharing (ad)revenue is a good way to keep communities going. Producing a good video as well as a good site means a lot of work and should be honored.

Labels: networking

  ¶ 'New Me, My, YoUser Models Share Revenue' posted by eA : 3:15 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Solid Business Model for MySpace.com More and more videos, blogs and networks created by amateurs shape the new media landscape today and make the the gravity shift to self-expression and collaboration, participating in a social network centered on user-generated content has become one of the most exiting trends today.
From Google Press:

'News Corporation's Fox Interactive Media and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced a multi-year search technology and services agreement whereby Google will be the exclusive search and keyword targeted advertising sales provider for Fox Interactive Media's growing network of web properties including MySpace.com (http://www.myspace.com)'.

Forming a strategic partnership based on complementing each other' s services usually leads to an effective monetization leveraging network effects, in this case I'm thinking of accessing MySpace's demogarphic user data and combining them with Google technology. Most prominent MySpace members capitalize on their knowledge and popularity requiring a lot of activities. Beside selling their own content, products and services, there is several other business models involved like

• Contextual, displayed, targeted and linked advertising
• RSS advertising
• Sponsoring and donations
• Affiliate programs and merchandising

The WSJ reports:

'Then there's Christine Dolce, whose MySpace page boasts nearly one million friends -- making her arguably one of the most connected people on the Internet. A 24-year-old cosmetologist who until a few months ago worked at a makeup counter in a mall, she now has a manager and a start-up jeans company and has won promotional deals for two mainstream consumer brands'.

Labels: networking

  ¶ 'Solid Business Model for MySpace.com' posted by eA : 7:18 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Hottest Topics: Blogging, Video Sharing, Social Networking Recent news about upstarts like YouTube, Technorati and MySpace make me think if serious online marketing is beginning to shift to an entirely new format.

With that amount of traffic the gravity is about to shift to sites like YouTube, which holds a tremendous amount of the current video market including search, Technorati indexes faster than Google and blogs have become a major source of news and have increasingly enhanced brand visibility.

Well, Google is the leader in search overall and guarantees for innovation, but with focusing on one or two products it's a lot easier to innovate and to compete and the upstarts have beaten Google and of course Yahoo in some of the hottest topics on the Web: Blogging, video sharing, social networking.

• Creating Winning New Media Formats
• Comprehensive List of Digital Video Distribution Networks
• Creating an Atmosphere Sharing Video over the Web
• Socializing on Tech-Based Interaction
• Fascination of Sharing Home-Made Videos
• World Cup Aftermath Challenge Part 5
  

Time to think about

• creating new opportunities for self-expression and collaboration
• complementing and competing in products and services
• leveraging network effects and monetization

Labels: networking

  ¶ 'Hottest Topics: Blogging, Video Sharing, Social Networking' posted by eA : 11:10 PM  0 comments links to this post