DISQUS

hahaha. amen.

Nice post, MC. Some great points...

Good post, Eric. Some interesting insight here. Obviously, there's no sense in concerning yourself with another person's venture more than yours, but one should clearly be aware of the landscape. Taking the time to analyze it frequently is helpful in understanding what objective adjustments need to be made in order for you to best perform in a competitive environment.

As far as the big guys in the networking space, Facebook has done a tremendous job of attracting users, but I'd love to know what their long term business model truly is. Banner ads are garbage and every attempt they've made to monetize their base has completely alienated a majority of it. Their valuation is simply a PR spin and they are going to have to seriously go back to the drawing board to build a business model, rather than simply touting an enormous base that has no interest in branded groups or banner ads. Advertisers will soon realize how poor the click-through rates are and seek a platform more like CollegeTonight which focuses on the "Line" brand ambassadorship ideology: Online, Offline and the Bottom Line...

Zach

Good post, Eric. Some interesting insight here. Obviously, there's no sense in concerning yourself with another person's venture more than yours, but one should clearly be aware of the landscape. Taking the time to analyze it frequently is helpful in understanding what objective adjustments need to be made in order for you to best perform in a competitive environment.

As far as the big guys in the networking space, Facebook has done a tremendous job of attracting users, but I'd love to know what their long term business model truly is. Banner ads are garbage and every attempt they've made to monetize their base has completely alienated a majority of it. Their valuation is simply a PR spin and they are going to have to seriously go back to the drawing board to build a business model, rather than simply touting an enormous base that has no interest in branded groups or banner ads. Advertisers will soon realize how poor the click-through rates are and seek a platform more like CollegeTonight which focuses on the "Line" brand ambassadorship ideology: Online, Offline and the Bottom Line...

Zach

"Marc Andreessen... has verbally agreed to join the board of Netscape"

interesting...

Banner ads are on a slow march towards death:
http://blog.collegetonight.com/?p=36.

It's also important to remember that Scrabulous.com, which has a top 17,000 Alexa ranking, is popular and has the same functionality as the Facebook app... for those who are complaining about Mattel.

http://blog.collegetonight.com

It would be important when analyzing the slogan that is the meat of this piece, to correctly identify it. It's not “Facebook is a social utility that CONTEXTS you with the people around you." It's CONNECTS. CONTEXTS would be very weird in this context (pun intended). Also, this is more of a description than a slogan. Look at the others you mentioned- The Hi5 and Myspace slogans are memorable. Facebook's is so long that you couldn't even remember it properly... that's probably not an effective "slogan."

http://blog.collegetonight.com

If this event were spreading amongst college students, the event would not have been filled with mid-20 somethings. College students are mostly 18-22. College students actually don't use Facebook for events much at all. As a former club promoter and college marketer, I know the gamut of utilitarian promotional devices available to the public. Basic flyering is much more effective than Facebook Events, which is why we created CollegeTonight. Students may use Facebook Events as a collateral service simply because of the sheer number of users on the site, but it's not effective. Facebook events are about as effective as "Facebook Pages."

Uh... $10 million bucks for an app that facebook can/will build on their own now that they've allowed development to test the viability of the feature? RockYou, see Adonomics... while not entirely accurate, they're probably a lot closer to proper estimate. I'd like to meet the CEO of RockYou... I could use a good comedy hour.

Nick

We appreciate the review! As far as Eric's comment, there was an intern who thought it would be beneficial to post some messages on various boards to raise awareness. Obviously, we explained to him that was inappropriate and to be frank, unnecessary. Our growth has been steady without such messages. There has been no "spamming" since that day and our viral growth continues to blossom. Again, thanks for the review!

Zach

haha... thanks Pete. I'm impressed that you found these strays...

Vote = CollegeTonight