Tag: facebook

  • The Signal and the Noise

    As a new medium becomes popular its signal-to-noise ratio will fall to a level that renders the medium useless.

  • How BuzzFeed built value by designing awesome experiences inside other platforms

    In some recent client work, an emerging theme is that consumer tech. / media start-ups no longer control the most important bits of their UI.

    Today, if you’re a consumer technology or digital media company, nearly all of your customers will first encounter you through a channel like Facebook, Instagram, twitter, an app store or an email application. In each case:

    1. You, as the app developer or content owner have minimal control over how your application or content looks and works in these platforms.

      This means that you need some very good designers, engineers, and content creators who deeply understand each channel from both a technical and audience perspective. You need to excel within tight constraints, and be able to change your Facebook App or twitter strategy very quickly based on user behavior.

    2. Most of these channels are controlled by incumbents who set the rules for these channels and can change them at a whim.

      This means that you need to grow very quickly, develop your own direct connections with users, and find an early exit strategy that will work.

      BuzzFeed excels at both of these. And between all of the stupid top-N lists, and cat videos, they’re also producing some fantastic long-form journalism. So yeah, I like this deal.
  • Most of Facebook’s valuation is driven by 0.15% of Mobile Gamers

    As you read the breathless reviews of Facebook’s Q2 2014 results, remember that the entire App economy depends on a tiny group of whales who spend hundreds of dollars a month on in-App purchases.

    This is terrifying.

    Facebook’s stock price is the second derivative of in-app purchase revenue. Things are highly geared, and incredibly risky. Which isn’t to say that you can’t keep making money on $FB; just know the risks you’re running.

    It’s only a matter of time before Tim Cook makes a move to capture some of the App advertising market for himself.

    All that said, well done Facebook!

  • Incestuous, Even.

    Silicon Valley, despite being at the center of the digital world, is a hopelessly insular and actually rather hermetic place. Even its famous immigrant culture emphasizes joining the SV way. For all its talk of innovation, it resists almost anyone who is not part of its mainstream.

  • Shame

    Dear Facebook: You are either evil or dumb. You broke our deal.

    I could accept you pushing me to make things public, and share my information with developers. Why? Because I could control what you said to whom. My Facebook profile was still my own. I could pick my friends, group them, and determine who saw what.

    It was a decent bargain: you gave me a friction-free way to keep in touch with my friends and I gave you some data that you could use to target me discreetly.

    You just broke that bargain. And not only with me, but with my parents and friends who won’t even know it. They won’t understand that when they convert their Likes, Interests, Education and Work information it will all become public. And they will get burned. This is the new malware.

    Sic transit, baby.

    How to Delete Facebook Applications – and Why you Should – from ReadWriteWeb.

  • Location, location, location

    I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at local, mobile applications and how they fit into gaming and local commerce. Michael Arrington biopsied the social gaming economy and found it to be quite ill. Marginal advertisers (and I use even that term loosely) are filling these companies’ coffers with cash from shady lead-gen deals.

    In other news Facebook announced an updated advertising policy which, amongst other things, will allow them to target users based on the geotags of content that they post.

    Facebook also announced plans for their Open Graph API which would allow any web page to behave like a Facebook “Page.” This is a big deal. What if I could “friend,” “favorite,” or “fan” every page or story on the internet instead of “sharing” it. What would that mean? Would it have the same semantic meaning as “follow?” Would it be easier for consumers to grasp? People have great difficulty understanding the difference between saving a single item versus saving a stream of items. That’s why more users use bookmarks than RSS readers – or even twitter. If Facebook could somehow use the social graph to help users cross that bridge – or to make it irrelevant – then this could be huge.