Sebastian Troen
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11 months ago
in Defining Social Platforms on Social Times
Interesting post Nick, but I'd like to suggest that the idea of Social Platforms extends well beyond facilitating the viral distribution of applications. That the current crop of platforms revolves around this does not limit the definition of Social Platforms.
In my opinion, Social Platforms leverage the power of social connectivity to facilitate social connections (aka the Social Graph), which often entails the point-to-point and viral distribution of things (for the sake of argument, let's call them "Social Things"), such as applications, photos, notes, thoughts, ideas, information, etc. To me, status updates are a great example of a Social Thing that needs a Social Platform to survive and be really valuable.
In my opinion, Social Platforms leverage the power of social connectivity to facilitate social connections (aka the Social Graph), which often entails the point-to-point and viral distribution of things (for the sake of argument, let's call them "Social Things"), such as applications, photos, notes, thoughts, ideas, information, etc. To me, status updates are a great example of a Social Thing that needs a Social Platform to survive and be really valuable.
12 months ago
in Crappy Apps Infect Facebook on AllFacebook
We're starting down the 'long tail' path of Facebook apps where the long tail is infected with lots of 'craplets', mainly because they're easy to develop and they offer a predictable growth curve and success path.
But that doesn't mean we're only seeing crappy apps on Facebook, there are a number of apps that are beginning to provide real value to users, not least is Eat-A-Rama, our new restaurant sharing and discovery app that has the largest number of real restaurant listings in North America, over a quarter million at last count. It's an example of how you can offer people real utility that takes advantage of the social connections that Facebook has built in to its platform.
On another note, I recently looked at the Top 20 apps, according to Adonomics, and there's an interesting shift going on there. The list is populated with well-known apps like Super Wall and Graffiti and Vampires, etc. These are the juggernauts of the app world in terms of how many usere they have but what was interesting is that over 75% of them appear to be on the decline and not just a one-week decline but they appear to trend downward. Not sure if this will rectify itself but it could mean that a change is taking place. Who will take over the top spots? Who knows, but it could be apps that offer real usefulness. I, for one, hope so!
But that doesn't mean we're only seeing crappy apps on Facebook, there are a number of apps that are beginning to provide real value to users, not least is Eat-A-Rama, our new restaurant sharing and discovery app that has the largest number of real restaurant listings in North America, over a quarter million at last count. It's an example of how you can offer people real utility that takes advantage of the social connections that Facebook has built in to its platform.
On another note, I recently looked at the Top 20 apps, according to Adonomics, and there's an interesting shift going on there. The list is populated with well-known apps like Super Wall and Graffiti and Vampires, etc. These are the juggernauts of the app world in terms of how many usere they have but what was interesting is that over 75% of them appear to be on the decline and not just a one-week decline but they appear to trend downward. Not sure if this will rectify itself but it could mean that a change is taking place. Who will take over the top spots? Who knows, but it could be apps that offer real usefulness. I, for one, hope so!
1 year ago
in My Reliance on Facebook is Dangerous on AllFacebook
My account got banned back in August because of an FB bug and a misunderstanding. My colleague, David Ascher, blogged about it:
The most recent and spectacular challenge we had was when our marketing lead, an avid Facebook user, had built a Facebook group to communicate with a group of people who’d signed up to be our alpha testers. Due to apparent bugs in the group communication mechanisms, he tried to send them each a message to let them know that the app was live and that they should go ahead and start testing it. This promptly triggered a spam filter in facebook, and got his account banned. An appeal with customer service failed miserably (apparently they don’t seem to even review appeals), and it looked for a while like he had lost his personal Facebook account (with all its data) because he was trying to do his job as a Facebook application developer. Not good. Luckily, friendly folks on the #facebook IRC channel, including a Facebook employee, helped to get that resolved. It did drive home the point that we’ve all felt that there’s something problematic about the complete ownership of personal data by Facebook. That control, combined with a hair-trigger banning without warning and a probably overwhelmed appeals process, is scary.
To read the whole post, go to http://ascher.ca/blog/2007/08/17/a-facebook-story/
Some form of data backup will have to be created, otherwise FB will be more susceptible to the open social network movement. I'd be surprised if we don't see something on this front in the next 3-6 months...
The most recent and spectacular challenge we had was when our marketing lead, an avid Facebook user, had built a Facebook group to communicate with a group of people who’d signed up to be our alpha testers. Due to apparent bugs in the group communication mechanisms, he tried to send them each a message to let them know that the app was live and that they should go ahead and start testing it. This promptly triggered a spam filter in facebook, and got his account banned. An appeal with customer service failed miserably (apparently they don’t seem to even review appeals), and it looked for a while like he had lost his personal Facebook account (with all its data) because he was trying to do his job as a Facebook application developer. Not good. Luckily, friendly folks on the #facebook IRC channel, including a Facebook employee, helped to get that resolved. It did drive home the point that we’ve all felt that there’s something problematic about the complete ownership of personal data by Facebook. That control, combined with a hair-trigger banning without warning and a probably overwhelmed appeals process, is scary.
To read the whole post, go to http://ascher.ca/blog/2007/08/17/a-facebook-story/
Some form of data backup will have to be created, otherwise FB will be more susceptible to the open social network movement. I'd be surprised if we don't see something on this front in the next 3-6 months...
1 year ago
in Facebook to Cross 5,000 Applications Today on AllFacebook
Hey Nick,
It's early days yet and I think we're going to see an acceleration of new apps as more developers test the waters and established developers get into their 2nd and 3rd apps. This next iteration of apps is going to be more efficient and likely more profitable.
Down the road (6 months, a year?) I foresee a wave of consolidation as the cost of developing a (good) app that stands out of the crowd becomes more and more expensive (and likewise, the rewards become bigger and bigger).
The investment in our first app, Up4, was quite large compared to most apps currently on the market, mostly because we spent a long time working on providing real utility for users rather than creating yet another pyramid marketing-schemey app. However, it was still a fairly low investment. Fast forward a year from now that will likely change as the landscape will be much more competitive.
Love the blog, keep it up!
Cheers,
Sebastian
It's early days yet and I think we're going to see an acceleration of new apps as more developers test the waters and established developers get into their 2nd and 3rd apps. This next iteration of apps is going to be more efficient and likely more profitable.
Down the road (6 months, a year?) I foresee a wave of consolidation as the cost of developing a (good) app that stands out of the crowd becomes more and more expensive (and likewise, the rewards become bigger and bigger).
The investment in our first app, Up4, was quite large compared to most apps currently on the market, mostly because we spent a long time working on providing real utility for users rather than creating yet another pyramid marketing-schemey app. However, it was still a fairly low investment. Fast forward a year from now that will likely change as the landscape will be much more competitive.
Love the blog, keep it up!
Cheers,
Sebastian