I just came across a blog written by Josh Kopelman, Managing Director of First Round Capital which I found to be very interesting.
First Round Capital has quite an interesting portfolio of companies including the winner of Tech Crunch 40 Mint Software that I had previously mentioned. It looks like Mint has done it again with winning the Financial Innovation (FINOVATE) Award.
Of course that got me side-tracked into reading more on these innovative companies that have secured VC funding to see what I can learn.
Chris Fralic is also a partner in First Round Capital and he too has an interesting blog called nothing to say. What got me side-tracked there is an interesting post on LinkedIn vs. Facebook, which leads to David Pogue's take on the subject of LinkedIn. I have a LinkedIn profile but have not really gotten around to doing much with it unlike Facebook where I have invested (or wasted) just a bit more time.
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
The Facebook Economy
Facebook has it's 3rd party developers generating revenues from it's social networking site where MySpace has yet to succeed. Facebook did something MySpace still hasn't done: It opened up its network to developers and made it easy for them to make money from their applications.
What does that mean for an application developer? Since Facebook is sharing with developers a development tool to build a Facebook application this means opportunity.
Development using the Facebook Platform makes it possible to develop your idea and get it marketed to 32 millions users with little effort and startup costs. Success comes quickly for the applications that are easy to use whether or not the are the first ones on facebook.
The place that a Facebook developer should check out is Adonomics.com formerly Appaholic.com. Adonomics breaks down Facebook applications by popularity, growth rate, and even "virality," as measured by growth in a single day.
The key to making your Facebook application a successful revenue generating venture is tying the Facebook application into ad revenue within Facebook and features external to the application where you get to control 100% of the review stream. Another way is developers are letting companies brand their applications. For example an application called FoodFight will soon let you throw name brand chicken, instead of just calling it chicken.
Basically this is what I see as generating multiple streams of income.
The Business 2.0 article gives you details on 4 ways to make money:
There is even one venture capital firm, Sand Hill Road-based Bay Partners, which has set aside more than $12 million to bootstrap 50 new Facebook applications.
This has inspired me to develop some of the ideas I have had for decades now on the Facebook platform. 10 years ago the Internet was not at the level of intergratation with the general public that is now. In the age of Facebook my time has come to implement these ideas which, if successful, will let me retire before 40.
Wish Me Luck!
What does that mean for an application developer? Since Facebook is sharing with developers a development tool to build a Facebook application this means opportunity.
Development using the Facebook Platform makes it possible to develop your idea and get it marketed to 32 millions users with little effort and startup costs. Success comes quickly for the applications that are easy to use whether or not the are the first ones on facebook.
The place that a Facebook developer should check out is Adonomics.com formerly Appaholic.com. Adonomics breaks down Facebook applications by popularity, growth rate, and even "virality," as measured by growth in a single day.
The key to making your Facebook application a successful revenue generating venture is tying the Facebook application into ad revenue within Facebook and features external to the application where you get to control 100% of the review stream. Another way is developers are letting companies brand their applications. For example an application called FoodFight will soon let you throw name brand chicken, instead of just calling it chicken.
Basically this is what I see as generating multiple streams of income.
The Business 2.0 article gives you details on 4 ways to make money:
- Sell Ads
- Attract Sponsors
- Sell Services
- Sell Products
There is even one venture capital firm, Sand Hill Road-based Bay Partners, which has set aside more than $12 million to bootstrap 50 new Facebook applications.
This has inspired me to develop some of the ideas I have had for decades now on the Facebook platform. 10 years ago the Internet was not at the level of intergratation with the general public that is now. In the age of Facebook my time has come to implement these ideas which, if successful, will let me retire before 40.
Wish Me Luck!
Saturday, September 22, 2007
* IDEA * Using Social Network Applications for Business Research
It looks like social networking sites such as Facebook can be used for more than just networking.
I just came across an interesting post by Gerard Ramos who successfully used Facebook to do some business research for Swamble.
I was thinking the same thing a while back when I saw the polling application when I logged into Facebook. I thought it might be a neat way to do some research for new business applications with any overheard costs or having to do much work in setting-up the online survey. This is an innovative way to do some business research wil no cost.
Can social networking sites give you more friends?
According to to a post by Anthony D. Williams, research indicates that the use of social networking sites will not increase you friendships but your lists of acquaintances.
I agree with that.
It also states that on average you will have about 150 acquaintances and 5 friends. I think the amount of acquaintances is a little low... depending on how you actually define 'an acquaintance'. On some sites like have seen people with thousands and thousands of people in their friends list - which is just crazy. I think that those are people suffering from a lack of self-esteem or just feeding their egos. I mean how could you possibly even keep the names of those thousand friends in your head?
The advantage in using social networking sites is that you can develop and maintain existing relationships with ease. It saves you time and allows you to keep in contact with people at all times.
The downside is that sites like Facebook help to promote laziness. People just need to post info once and everyone of their friends can see it. That way people are not making the effort to interact on an individual basis and therefore I think friendship can suffer.
I agree with that.
It also states that on average you will have about 150 acquaintances and 5 friends. I think the amount of acquaintances is a little low... depending on how you actually define 'an acquaintance'. On some sites like have seen people with thousands and thousands of people in their friends list - which is just crazy. I think that those are people suffering from a lack of self-esteem or just feeding their egos. I mean how could you possibly even keep the names of those thousand friends in your head?
The advantage in using social networking sites is that you can develop and maintain existing relationships with ease. It saves you time and allows you to keep in contact with people at all times.
The downside is that sites like Facebook help to promote laziness. People just need to post info once and everyone of their friends can see it. That way people are not making the effort to interact on an individual basis and therefore I think friendship can suffer.
Technology is only as good as the way you use it.
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