MappingTheWeb //

A friend sent me an invite to Yahoo Mash, so now I have some Yahoo Mash invitations to give out. The service is fairly simple (and similar to Facebook). If you want to check it out, link to my blog or give me a shout-out and I’ll do my best to send you an invitation as soon as possible.

I wrote an initial analysis of Yahoo Mash here: Yahoo Mash review.

When Barry Bonds hit his record-breaking 756th home run, the world stopped for a moment. The milestone is truly remarkable. Another remarkable consideration was how much the ball was sold for at auction - an astonishing $752,467. Whether this athletic feat can be considered legitimate or not is another story. As we all know, the record has been overshadowed by scandal and allegations of steroid use.

So who paid $752,467 for a frickin baseball? None other than fashion designer Marc Ecko. Why did he pay such a large price for such a small item? Some believe it to be a publicity stunt. I can believe it. But what he plans to do with the ball is even more of a mystery - and you are a part of it.

Ecko created a website, http://www.vote756.com/, that anyone can visit and vote to determine the fate of the baseball. Here are the options (as stated on the site):

A)  Bestow it. Give the ball to Cooperstown. The ball that broke Hank Aaron’s career home run record belongs in the Hall of Fame.

B) Brand it. Burn an asterisk into the ball with a branding iron, adding a permanent footnote to the record. Then, send it to Cooperstown.

C) Banish it. Put the ball on a rocket ship and launch it into orbit, a moon shot for the ages. Out of sight, out of mind.

Visitors to the site are highly encouraged to vote, an indirect way of voicing your opinion. So what does this mean? Anyone that visits the site can be a part of sports history. I think that what Ecko is doing is truly the most perfect ending to this ongoing fiasco. Harnessing the power of the Internet and social media, and letting the people decide what to do with the ball is a brilliant concept. Such an idea would not have been possible 20 years ago. Once again, the advent of the Internet has changed the game forever. Oh, and by the way, all voting results will be audited and certified by an independent, third-party auditor, Promosis.

And yes, I voted… but I will not reveal my choice, as this may influence your decision. Having said that, I encourage all readers to visit the site, vote, and be a part of sports history. A chance like this doesn’t come along every day.

Note: Voting ends on September 25th, 2007.

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Any website or service that is dependent upon its users for survival can be categorized as a ’social media’ player. User-generated content (UGC) has formed the basis for numerous successful for start-ups. Without users who submit content, these sites are essentially worthless. What’s Flickr without photos? What’s YouTube without videos?

Two of the best examples are Wikipedia and Craigslist - undoubtedly the web’s two most famous .org’s. Who submits the content? Who does all the work? The users. Sure, the company created the system that facilitates the processes, but this is only a tiny portion of the overall effort. Such a scenario is the reason why small operations can scale on a low budget. Once again though, if users stop contributing, the service is useless. Put in a different context, the company isn’t the content provider, but rather the distribution mechanism. This is the basis for social media.

What if everyone stopped submitting news headlines and interesting articles? We’d have no more Digg. What if everyone stopped uploading videos? We’d have no more YouTube. Worse yet, what if everyone stopped blogging? We’d be stuck with whatever content that traditional media subjects to us. What a pity that would be.

In a future post, we will explore how social media can backfire and work in a counter-productive fashion, potentially destroying the company altogether.

Is it just me or is web 2.0 suffering from a stagnant lapse? Don’t get me wrong - I love the concept of web 2.0 and social media. That definitely isn’t the problem. The lack of innovation and inferior business models are what bother me most. Add to that the fact that ideas are being ripped off and clones are abundant. Honestly, do we need another social bookmarking site or a generic video portal?

This lack of creativity and thought around business models is quite discouraging. A business plan full of buzz words and a flashy PowerPoint just don’t cut it anymore. What users really want is value; they want a service they can use. This seems obvious, but I can’t believe how many ridiculous ideas continue to be funded.

What about revenue models? We all know that a majority of start-ups are dependent upon Google ads as their key income generator. Truly, this is not a sustainable model. Unless a given property is able to generate millions of page views a month, then such a model is impractical. Creating a paid service isn’t difficult. Creating a truly compelling service and convincing the customer that it’s worth the price is the hard part. If there is a stunning value proposition for the end user, they will pay. One thing to keep in mind is the general trend that (almost) all Internet services eventually progress to free.

Having said all that, I am optimistic that the tables will turn. Despite all the clutter in the web 2.0 space, we have witnessed the growth of some remarkable start-ups over the past year, most notably Twitter. I refuse to use the term ‘bubble’ in this context, but I do believe that changes are in the pipeline. Funding will become more scarce and investors will become more selective. Hopefully this will weed out the crap and pave the way for innovative new ideas. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

As Mark Evans points out in a recent post, there is a Facebook application “gold rush” taking place right now. Everyone and their dog is scrambling to launch an app to capitalize on this fad opportunity. Many are seeing astonishing growth - from zero to tens of thousands of users in a mere couple days. But is this truly sustainable? Even more importantly, is it really worth it? I don’t think so. But don’t tell that to Facebook or the application creators.

Anything that vaults to stratospheric popularity levels in a short period of time is bound to see a fall-out or backlash of some kind eventually. In this case, the novelty of apps will eventually wear off. Some may disagree, but I would wager that ’superpoking’ and ‘throwing food’ are only cool for so long. Frankly, I’m already tired of all these ridiculous app invites after only a couple months.

The promise of monetization or a sale is what is driving this boom. But let’s be honest here - how many will actually profit from a sale or achieve reasonable revenues? My guess is under 1%. In other words, Facebook is almost creating a false sense of hope for developers. Subsequently, facebook profits from additional PR, user growth, and developer evangelism.

To me, Facebook applications are no more than a marketing funnel to an outside web presence. If you plan on making the app the entire business, you are walking a dangerously fine line. Forever more, you will be at the mercy of Facebook. If they decide to change course, you could be screwed.

My intuition tells me that the introduction of the developer platform was simply a move by the company to create short terms success and fuel PR ahead of an IPO or potential sale. Let’s analyze this further:

1. Facebook launches the developer platform.
2. Developers experience exponential growth and boast about their success.
3. The press takes notice; widespread PR ensues.
4. More developers jump on the bandwagon.
5. A positive feedback loop is created: success feeds PR, which fuels further applications. Repeat.
6. Eventually, a bubble is created as the app market is saturated and over-crowded. The dilution leads to a fall-out.

In other words, I believe that the developer platform is a short term ’stunt’ to raise awareness and exposure for the company. Over the long term, I see the move as being more detrimental than beneficial. I, for one, am already starting to get disgruntled by the addition of clutter and useless knick-knacks. The Facebook crowd, for the most part, is an older group. Such silly applications should be left for the MySpace or hi5 crowd. They degrade the quality of the experience. A seeming endless amount of scrolling is now needed to browse most profile pages. Is this the Facebook that we all remember?

Note: I refuse to make any parallels to MySpace or Geocities just yet…