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Social Network: propaganda (images)

Ties — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:00:15 +0000

Darren Rowse shared this poster and a few others on G+ yesterday. Why don’t you check ‘em out for yourself?

Google + is worthy competition to Facebook; the numbers

Ties — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:35:36 +0000

Great post by Paul Allen (the lesser, according to his header) on the growth he suspects or anticipates that Google + will have and the reasoning behind it.

Over the weekend I conducted an extensive analysis comparing surname and population data from the US Census Bureau to the Google Plus user base profiles. My conclusion was that as of July 4^th there were 511,000 users in the U.S. and 1.2 million outside of the U.S. for a total of 1.7 million users.

But where it gets really interesting is when he starts discussing his own company’s path alongside Facebook.

The “business opportunity” Kopelman referenced is largely gone. Web sites may use Facebook Connect to slightly improve their conversion rates and to generate some re-engagement loops with Facebook, but Connect hardly helps third party applications grow virally. Facebook has seriously restricted its viral effect for new apps, which was the #1 reason why great entrepreneurs and developers wanted to build there in the first place.

This is deep insight into social networking from a developer/industry point of view and I’m 100% sure you will appreciate it.

Read the full article on Paul Allen’s site.

Civilization World release and the few days after

Ties — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 07:59:48 +0000

2K-Games and Fireaxis just released (7th of July) the latest installment to Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise and it turned out to be a Facebook game! Wonder o Wonder! Well not really, the turn-based gameplay of the original Civilization games should be easy to transfer to the social gaming concept and this is exactly what they did. The game turned out great as well, but there is one major problem; you can’t really join it. Every time I join it turns out the server is very stressed out and I at least have to try for a few minutes. Not really worth it for a game that’s supposed to be played in a few minutes.

When I did get in the game turned out interesting! The mini-games are quite fun, although they will bore you when you’ve played them a few times, and the building of your city is easy. Some things are still a little bit unclear, like how to get the highest values in production and the various ways to fight towards victory. As it is right now, growth is most important, where in regular Civ games you could also go for different routes.

Anyhow, I can’t imagine this not to work out, so once they fix the connection troubles we’ll be good to go and I think a lot of people will enjoy it!

Zuckerberg vs. Google+

Ties — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 07:32:30 +0000

Great post on TechCrunch, a must-read if you are into the G+ vs FB debate. A quote from Zuckerberg from last night’s boring announcement of videochat (wasn’t that available 3 years ago on google talk?).

The definition of groups is . . . everyone inside the group knows who else is in the group

If you don’t understand this jab you should definitely read the post on Techcrunch!

Most importantly; Google+ vs Facebook

Ties — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 07:30:36 +0000

Even earlier then I expected Facebook will have to prove itself against one of its biggest possible opponents; Google. While Google’s track record is not great when it comes to social, this effort as an all-in for Google, no mistakes possible. And it’s gaining quite a following already, I’ve been on for a few days now and the VERY active social media nerds are already in high attendance! And there is more reasons (hangout, privacy and sparks) why Google+ will beat Facebook and even the christians know about it:

The Google+ marketing has been so successful that even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has opened a Google+ account. “Why are people so surprised that I’d have a Google account?” Zuckerberg recently texted to tech blogger Robert Scoble.

Many people are wondering: Will Google+ dethrone Facebook just like Facebook dethroned MySpace?

Some other posts in which I discuss the future of Facebook, or better said, the reasons why I don’t think it’ll last:

Facebook so big it will fail (IPO & valuation)
Another nail in Facebook’s coffin (FB Games & Credits)
First sign’s of Facebook’s stagnation (lack of growth)

First signs of Facebook’s stagnation

Ties — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:14:40 +0000

I am a firm believer that Facebook will not be as big as it is today in a few years. I’ve said it before in at least two posts (found below) and the past few days the first signs are surfacing.

Inside Facebook reports a very diffuse image of Facebook’s growth/performance. The graph in this post shows the various measurements by the main sources of statistics.

Facebook has made a statement on these numbers:

From time to time, we see stories about Facebook losing users in some regions. Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn’t designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook. We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook. More than 50 per cent of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day.

I believe the reason for this statement is not that they want to correct a wrong interpretation of statistics but that they want to save their upcoming IPO. I think the expected valuation is way too high and I hope the market will grow to be more skeptical. I do believe Facebook could be a valuable investment, but that should be at a much lower valuation.

My previous two posts detailing why I think Facebook will not be the leading media company it’s clearly aiming to be:

Facebook so big it will fail (IPO & valuation)
Another nail in Facebook’s coffin (FB Games & Credits)

Facebook launching a new photo app?

Ties — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:02:11 +0000

While I’m still waiting for Instagram to be (FINALLY…?) released on the Android platform, Facebook is going to join the fight for the top ranked photo app. TechCrunch reports that Facebook is looking to launch an app that:

Either way, based on the images in front of us, the best way to think about it appears to be Path meets Instagram meets Colormeets (Path’s new side project) With — with a few cool twists. And obviously, it’s built entirely on top of Facebook’s massive social graph.

It’s still guesswork but I’m curious to find out! Read the full post at TechCrunch.