MySpace is worth between $3-20 Billion

Wow, you were right Mike.  I remember you telling me a little while back that Facebook was not profitable yet.  Only MySpace has been able to successfully monetize advertising in a complex social networking model.  Turns out Rupert investment of $580M was a maverick move to expand his media empire.  Although MySpace is still larger and more popular than Facebook, I enjoy using Facebook more.  To me Facebook is cleaner, more simple, and more to the point.  MySpace feels a bit cluttered, but it does have the advantage of being more customizable and media friendly.

Three years ago today, Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace and its parent company Intermix for $580 million. That turned out to be money well spent. The last time we ran the numbers, we figured that MySpace alone is worth between $3 billion and $20 billion, depending on how much you value each user. Fox Interactive Media (which is mostly MySpace) accounted for about $850 million in revenues last fiscal year (which ended in June), and is projected to hit $1 billion next year.

It was supposed to hit $1 billion this year, but never mind. Unlike other social networks, MySpace is actually making a profit. The company now employs 1,600 people worldwide, compared to 150 in October, 2005—more than a tenfold increase.

The social network has grown as well. MySpace now has 73 million unique visitors a month in the U.S., according to comScore, compared to 24 million three years ago. (Facebook has 41 million). That means MySpace reaches about 40 percent of the online population, compared to 14 percent three years ago. Those visitors, on average, spend 263 minutes a month each on the site, versus 83 minutes in 2005.

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Sources:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/15/three-years-later-buying-myspace-looks-like-one-of-murdochs-smartest-bets/

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Web 2.0 is dead…blah, blah, blah…

So bad news is everywhere now.  You can’t go anywhere without hearing about it.  I saw Jimmy post this video in Facebook about the “End of Web 2.0”.  VC is slowing quickly, layoffs are starting to hit hard, companies will be shutting down.  Everything that is happening is NORMAL, economies and business trends go in cycles;  this is nothing new, every industry will go through it.  Periods of high growth are followed by periods of contraction to weed out unnecessary businesses.  In my opinion, this is what defines capitalism, i.e. Darwinism of the business world.  For whatever reason, people are making way too big of a deal about this video marking the end of Web 2.0.  You have probably watched it, but if not, check it out below.  It is actually a cool video.  And you know what?  They deserve to be partying after becoming successful creating tech startups in Silicon Valley.  It doesn’t matter that the timing is bad.  This video motivates me to want to become successful and have the time to create a silly video like this.  So all the naysayers right now need to quit being jealous, and start creating their own successful ventures.  Unless there is more to this story that I am missing, I really don’t see how this video definitively “marks the end of Web 2.0”.  And if they are right and it does mark the end, well, Mike lets get ready to be at the forefront of the Web 3.0 curve!

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Sources:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/10/an-ignoble-but-much-needed-end-to-web-20/

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Crowdsourcing and Collaborative Design Brainstorm

So this morning I was thinking of different applications that crowd sourcing and collaborative design could be applied to.  It seems to work with T-shirts, and may work with book writing.  Well what other applications can this be applied to?

My thought is that maybe advertising could be created this way and a preliminary test can be done over the internet to evaluate it’s effectiveness.  People could showcase innovative advertising methods and small-medium sized business could come search for small ad agencies on the site.  Each ad campaign that is showcased would have some type of votingk system or interacive system that would allow others to gauge its effectiveness.  Businesses could analyze the effectiveness of an advertising method through this system and them make offers to employ the advertisers.

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Shortly after coming with this idea, I found OpenAd which is actually pretty cool.  Can you think of anything else we could apply collaborative design and crowdsourcing to?

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IDEA! – Creating Digital Competition in the Workplace

My first tech idea for the Corporate World!!!

I’m going to take you through a step-by-step of my brainstorm so you can follow along and help me improve any of the steps.  I basically worked from a top-down approach on this idea.  I think it’s a decent idea, let me know what your thoughts are.

Step 1: Establishing the Overall Goal of the Idea. For my first enterprise idea, I began by creating a short list of things I would like to accomplish with the idea.   My primary goal is to increase the efficiency of an enterprise, but what is the best way to do this?  I think this can be accomplished by focusing on the following attributes:

• Morale
• Productivity
• Interactivity
• Retention
• Recognition

Step 2: How to Accomplish the Overall Goal. What is a good way to boost these attributes?  My initial thought was trying to find a way to create friendly competition.  This part of my brainstorm led me to flashback to an idea I saw a week or so ago on TechCrunch.  It is called BeTheBetterMan.com.  The premise of the site is to allow members to challenge anyone else to whatever they wish.  Play the fastest guitar solo, juggle the most objects, create the best rap line, etc.  It is a very broad concept, and they have not gone live with their website yet.

BeTheBetterMan.com is an innovative website focused on bringing users an entertaining Internet experience by connecting multiple people and social media sites within one dynamic platform. BTBM is a showcase for “digital challenges”. Its platform allows users to challenge friends or foes on any topic of interest. Users can put their digital media collection [video, pictures & audio] to good use or act as judge and cast their votes for open challenges.

 

So I thought, what if this concept can be modified and shaped to be used in an enterprise setting to increase productivity?

 

Step 3: Implementation. My thought is that a derivative of BeTheBetterMan.com can be created to allow a group of workers in an enterprise to do the following:

 

1. Employees/Management can create challenge ideas (individual or team based challenges)
2. Employees vote to decide the best challenge candidates
3. Management then approves the challenge and assigns an employee as the challenge task leader
4. Task leader monitors the progress and keep stats for the challenge
5. Multiple challenges can take place at the same time and will involve multiple task leaders
6. Recognition is awarded to the challenge leaders along the way and at the end

The overall idea here is to create friendly competition, constant communication and interaction, and  team-building.

 

Example:

The St. Louis Vector Office creates a website called CutcoGatewayDivision.com that utilizes this product to build their  webpage.  Reps log onto the website daily for PDI updates, Sales Tips, team forums, etc.  They can also access the Challenges page.  Some challenge examples might be: Highest punctuality/attendance for team events, most time spent at phone jams, individual sales competition, group based sales contest, most field trainings, etc.  Imagine the possibilities!

 

Step 4: Platform and Compatibility. This product would be capable of being a stand alone entity, but can be directly interfaced with Yammer or SalesForce to allow users to communicate, store information and keep track of ongoing challenges.  As a stand alone entity, the database would have to consist of almost all the same functionality as Yammer as well as some sales or productivity tools — corporate contact list, messaging capabilities, user analytics, searchable conversations, productivity monitoring tools, security and moderator/admin capabilities.

 

Step 5: Monetization. Haven’t fully figured this out yet.  Few ideas for this:

 

• Subscription based: 1 month free trial and then per month charge there after
• Free version with limited functionality, Premium edition subscription to unlock full functionality
• A-la-carte system that allows users to selectively purchase advanced functions to meet their needs
  
• Hybrid option that allows advertising to be displayed to reduce the monthly subscription cost

Any and all criticism is welcome…

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Sources:

http://www.bethebetterman.com

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/bethebetterman-com

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Shifting towards an Enterprise focus

After our conversation today, I decided that it would be a good idea to post this as a focus item for the weekend when we are brainstorming.  I had the same thought and I completely agree with your comment:

Maybe this is what we need to do. Lets just copy someone elses technology and sell it to businesses. It really seems to me that the whole focus right now in silicon valley is to build social networks that only have advertising revenue and then try to sell them. Everyone seems to be stuck on the ’share stuff with your friends’ thing and no one is facing businesses. Yammer did it, and now they might get bought by one of the judges!

The social networking space (apps designed to bring friends closer together) is way too crowded, and even above average projects in this space are only getting ad revenues from a market that is being spread thinner and thinner.  We will have to brainstorm fairly quickly and creatively, because we obviously aren’t the only ones that paid attention to Yammer winning TC50 and are having this brainstorming session.  The keys to this brainstorm will be in focusing on how we can increase productivity and/or efficiency in enterprises.  We will look for existing web businesses that can be modified to accomplish this goal.  Key things to look for in existing businesses include:

• versatile functionality (works with different types of businesses)
• adaptability to a corporate environment (productivity monitoring capability)
• scalability (can grow with an enterprise)
• security features that protect confidential information (encryption)
• licensability (can custom design product for specific applications or allow customer to run it on their own equipment)
• that’s all I can think of right now…

Writing out this post has given me a few ideas, I’ll post them for you to review when I get more time.

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Yammer

I finally had a chance to watch the Yammer demo at TC50, the official winner of the 1st place $50,000 prize.  Terrible name, powerful product.  Twitter adapted to enterprise functionality is a great idea, especially for collaborative projects that are separated by distance.  This is something that we should look into as we develop some ideas and being working more closely on them.  They have already created integrated use with Instant Messaging clients, cell phone text message and are currently working on an iPhone App.

Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you working on?”

As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced.

Anyone in a company can start their Yammer network and begin inviting colleagues. The privacy of each network is ensured by limiting access to those with a valid company email address. The basic Yammer service is free. Companies can pay to claim and administer their networks.

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Sources:
http://www.yammer.com
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/10/yammer-takes-techcrunch50s-top-prize/
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/yammer

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Exploring the Next Wave of Tech

While we have discussed the topic of staying ahead of the curve in past conversations, I thought I would expand on that a little bit more.  The exact moment that Web 2.0 began is debatable, but what is more important is figuring out when we are ready to move on to the next generation.  As I was reading through Demo.com, I found an article on this topic.  Chris Shipley, the Executive Producer of Demo, makes a case that Web 2.0 is drawing closer to its end and the next generation of tech development is right around the corner.

The original “flat” Web was about displaying information, or brochure-ware as the term went in the early days of the Web. Transactions (eBay, Amazon, etc.) helped define the dawn of the term Web 2.0. She then positioned Facebook and the social networking phenomena as the third generation of the Web, an interactive trend that shifted power from site owners to users…Shipley argued that while Facebook, MySpace and other social network sites are used by millions, it’s not a mass market technology.

In her case, she states that there is a lack of transparency and trust, as well as ease of use and choice issues that are preventing MySpace and Facebook from reaching an even larger market than it does now.  She states that in the next generation, barriers will come down and Distributed Web will reach a far greater audience in a personal way through syndication and distribution.  While I wish she could have expanded more on the topic, this is all that was quoted:

Examples of the distributed content trend? Take the rise of SaaS and cloud computing as tech trends. “We don’t get there with a desktop and browser paradigm,” said Shipley.

This is probably the wave we need to explore.  The challenge here is that the ante and stakes may be upped significantly in this new space.

 

ALSO READ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3.0

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Sources:
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3770116/DEMO+Web+20+Is+So+Yesterday.htm

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Social Network for Travelers Idea

Okay, follow me on this idea and tell me if you think it has merit.  After reading through the TechCrunch 50 company list, I see that there are still plenty of Web 2.0 communities being developed, even though there are already a plethora of them on the internet.  The premise this idea is to piggyback on Tim Nikolaev’s idea.  If we can come up with an idea fairly quickly that overlaps Tim’s idea, then maybe we can use the connections that Tim is making, maybe we can make something happen alongside of Tim…

I am referring back to an idea that we came up with a while back, a user-driven community for motorcycle riders that helps people document and share the best routes, stops, restaurants, sceneries, roads, etc.  Also, keep in mind that there is no shortage of travel based social networks.

Here is where we need to brainstorm, can we come up with an idea that is not just dependent on motorcycle riders, but can utilize the same concept to apply to group travel, company trips, roadtrips, vacations, etc.  It may even be more of a Wiki, than a social network.  

***If you think this idea has potential for us to look into, let me know and I will spend more time branstorming and analyzing.  

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Update:

I am doing some exploring on this topic and so far, my results are showing that there is may be some potential, but travel companies realize the importance of this sector.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/07/business/network.php

http://gigaom.com/2006/07/10/yahoo-travel/

There are a lot of sites existing already, but if we can think of a niche market that we could cover that is fairly easy to monetize, it may have a shot, but it would be pretty challenging….

http://www.travbuddy.com/

http://www.gusto.com/

http://realtravel.com/

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18 Month Old Social Thing Acquired by AOL

Wow.  These guys had an idea to create a digital life manager (they were all heavy users of facebook, myspace, flickr, etc).  They were tired of having their content fragmented into lots of separate sites so they decided to create their own one-stop -shop where they could manage and consume all of this info.  They didn’t really have much progress on the actual software but they did have a solid vision which they were able to communicate to investors via TechStars (this is the company Tim went to in Colorado).

Social Thing raised $500K, built a cool program, and sold it in under 18 months.  That seems to be the Tim Nikolaev way of action.  Read the full article at TechStars and let me know what you think.

I was surprised that they were able to go the same way of not really having much real progress but were still able to get the ball rolling because they met the right people. 

 

source: http://www.techstars.org/2008/08/14/socialthing-acquired-by-aol/

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