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Developers Repeat After Me: App Platforms are Not Your Friend

20 Oct

Remake of Apple's 1984 Super Bowl commercialThe numbers speak for themselves- apps are popular. Facebook now has over 350,000 active apps on its platform with 70% of Facebook’s users engaging with these apps on a monthly basis. Apple recently announced that the number of downloads from its App Store had surpassed 2 billion for the 85,000 applications on its platform. Add in 30,000 apps from Google-backed initiatives Android and OpenSocial, and over 11,000 apps being built off of Twitter’s API, you have nearly half-a-million apps out there across the most popular social platforms!

Consumers have benefited greatly from the entertainment and utility value provided by developers on these platforms, propelling applications to the forefront of the user experience for many of these services. The value to these mobile and web platform providers has been evident in the accelerated user growth these services have seen since opening up access to developers.

Developers for the most part haven’t shared a comparable level of success as these platforms though. With VentureBeat pegging the value of Facebook’s app ecosystem at approximately $500 million this year, similar in size to Facebook’s expected 2009 revenues, little opportunity is left for the remaining 350,000 applications once you get past the success of Zynga, Playfish and Playdom, the leading developers on Facebook and OpenSocial platforms. A similarly distorted distribution of applications and success exists on Apple’s platform where the size of the app economy has been projected as high as $2.4 billion per year by GigaOM. Based on this optimistic projection and assuming only 50% of downloaded apps are free, there still isn’t enough money for the average developer to prosper over the long-term. The opportunity for most developers in the long-tail of the App Store is further skewed when you consider some of the outsized success stories from the most popular apps on the platform. Because Android’s ecosystem is relatively young and Twitter lacks its own business model, it’s too early to see if developers can make a living off of these platforms.

Even the virtual goods sub-economy that has been allowed to emerge on centralized platform ecosystems like Facebook and MySpace, which Inside Network has valued at $1 billion in the U.S. this year- even before Apple’s announcement of in-app purchasing capabilities for all App Store applications, the opportunity is disproportionately concentrated with the most popular applications and largest multi-app, multi-platform developers.

Making matters even more difficult for developers is the not-so-friendly actions being taken by platform companies in wielding power over their ecosystems:

So why do developers keep building apps for these platforms? Because of the effort (low development threshold and time commitment  to launch) and opportunity (built-in, captive audiences) compared to building a stand-alone business. Fortunately for developers who want to build their own audiences, and not be reliant on a particular platform, there are two primary ways to leverage these mobile and web services for their own benefit:

  1. Port your success. If a developer has been fortunate enough to find success on any of these platforms, they should convert those users into visitors of their own domain or service like LivingSocial has done. LivingSocial was a big benefactor of Facebook’s redesign of their home page back in March, vaulting LivingSocial into the top 10 most popular developers on the platform in the month following the change. The company was able to turn some of those users into customers of LivingSocial.com, which saw its unique visitors to the site almost triple between March and April of this year.
  2. Port the platform. Foursquare have leveraged social graph data from Facebook and Twitter via Facebook Connect and Twitter OAuth respectively to enable users to build their own unique social graph on Foursquare.com. Additionally the mobile service encourages its users to send notifications of their whereabouts into their Facebook and Twitter streams, which results in free exposure and viral marketing for Foursquare’s service.

Though the threshold for success will vary for developers, based on whether or not they have taken institutional funding, the risks associated with developing on another entities’ platform or costs associated with developing for multiple platforms remain the same- the long-term value of a product or service cannot be maximized when its business success relies on a platform it can’t control or pay for service level assurances. Look no further than MySpace’s acquisition of iLike this past summer, for a small premium to its invested capital, for market validation of this. While these social platforms should absolutely be leveraged as part of any web or mobile strategy, remember that each platform’s goal is to maximize its own value and not that of the application developer. Luckily, as Andy Weissman, founder of Betaworks, points out, some of the most successful applications can and do become platforms themselves, so a bigger opportunity awaits those developers that understand the ecosystem relationship.

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Posted by on October 20, 2009 in Business Model, Platforms, Social Media

 

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Making User Profiles Public: The Case Against Facebook’s Acquisition of FriendFeed

12 Aug

friendfeed-facebookBefore I play devil’s advocate, I will state that I am a fan of Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed from both a business and strategic perspective. Most tech journalists have already provided great coverage on the value of the deal from an acquisition of talent, feature capabilities and search functionality perspective- so I won’t rehash it here. That being said, only Marshal Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb commented on the potential downside of the acquisition as it relates to Facebook’s other big move from the same day- launching improved search functionality across its website. With these two announcements, Facebook officially entered the fray in the battle with Google and Twitter over real-time, socially relevant search.

In the process Facebook also signaled its intent to make user profiles and associated content more public- and therein lies the potential problem. Facebook’s success as a social networking platform has been built on the philosophy of having users connect with one another using their real digital identities, which is in contrast to MySpace and many other social networks that allow users to create anonymous identities. This has led to Facebook evolving into a platform where people connect and share their personal interests and experiences with actual friends and family. This creates a sense of privacy within and beyond Facebook’s walled garden (Google can’t index the site’s content for search purposes) that isn’t found on MySpace, Twitter or FriendFeed where user profiles and content are publicly accessible.

By introducing ways for strangers to initiate and participate in conversations with other users in real-time and enabling search along these same lines, both core strengths of FriendFeed’s service, Facebook risks alienating the core audience that has made it the largest social network in the world. We’ve already witnessed the privacy backlash Facebook faced over Beacon, which attempted to push users’ activity from across the web into Facebook. So it’s not a reach to think users might react similarly to their data being made available outside of their social graph on Facebook.

Since Facebook’s core audience of college-aged users are more interested in extending their current relationships online than meeting new people outside of their school and personal social circles, the company is left with a data set problem. Facebook needs its users to expand their social graphs to include casual connections as well as enable consumption of additional content channels (creating additional link value) to better position its social search results with a richer and larger data set than is available today (just do a keyword search on Facebook and compare the results to that of Twitter’s to see the current data set disparity).  As Facebook attempts to broaden its reach and associated monetization opportunities, it risks compromising what has made it so popular and differentiated from other social networks. The worst case scenario for Facebook is that the push to make users and profiles more public creates the larger, richer data set to compete with Google and Twitter but in the process drives Facebook’s core, more private, users off the platform, neutralizing the growth of its public data set.

Luckily for Facebook there isn’t a viable alternative to the site that could capitalize on this potential opportunity in the near-term (we know teens and college kids are under-represented on Twitter due to the same identity and trust issues present on MySpace). That doesn’t mean Facebook can’t or won’t be overtaken someday as Friendster and MySpace were before them. It will be interesting though to watch the timeline for rolling out FriendFeed features on Facebook and whether the next generation of social network users (high school and junior high school students) flock to Facebook or look for alternatives. At the end of the day though, maybe Facebook doesn’t care about these younger users as it becomes large enough to focus its efforts on the older portion of its audience that controls the discretionary spending advertisers are so eager to reach. Time will tell how this case is resolved.

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Posted by on August 12, 2009 in Product, Social Media

 

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Ad-Supported Facebook Applications Are In For A Rude Awakening

24 Jun

Rude Awakening

Dear Facebook developer, if you’ve banked your livelihood on banner ad-supported applications get ready for a rude awakening. The deceptive advertising practices that have increasingly permeated Facebook applications, and driven effective CPMs on banner ad units to double-digit levels in some cases, are starting to get noticed outside of Facebook (Nick O’Neill of All Facebook has done a great job of covering this topic), which is leading to involved parties being shut down in the process. The longer-term ramifications of this put into question the business viability of many developers on Facebook’s platform.

How Did We Get Here. As recently as the 2nd half of last year Lookery, a Facebook ad network at the time, was guaranteeing developers a mere $0.15 CPM for their application inventory. The combination of inexpensive banner ad inventory and access to Facebook users’ friends (via the social graph) was all savvy direct marketers and ad networks needed to test converting Facebook users into unknowing subscribers of mobile services (among other things) costing upwards of $20 per week. These very well integrated ad experiences that imply your friends’ usage of certain applications and services (as in these examples) QuizCrushare converting well enough on a an impression basis to generate upwards of $10.00 effective CPM for many large Facebook developers. Several ad networks have beem more than happy to deliver these ads since they are in turn getting paid roughly $15 to $25 CPMs by the underlying advertisers. It’s rather amazing actually that in the midst of an overall global recession that has seen the broader U.S. market indices fall around 30%, the effective CPMs Facebook application developers have received has grown upwards of 6500% over the same timeframe!

What’s Going to Happen Next. Before getting to the ‘what’ we need to understand ‘why’, which is actually quite simple- Facebook wants to go public. For this to happen, Facebook needs to show potential Wall Street investors that it has a growing, sustainable business model (so the stock price will go up) and that it runs aclean operation (so as not to make the stock price go down).

From a business perspective, among other well publicized initiatives, Facebook needs to get traditional brand advertisers to spend some of their $550 billion in global ad dollars on its platform in an effort to fuel revenue growth and justify what is sure to be a high earnings multiple it will trade at. As long as there is a perceived risk of tarnishing a brand’s image by placing ads on the same website where deceptive offerings are being run, agencies won’t allocate brand ad dollars to Facebook. In terms of its operations, investors need to feel comfortable that Facebook can effectively monitor its platform and ecosystem to avoid any potential public relation embarrassments or legal issues (privacy concerns aside) that could adversely affect the company’s profitability and trading mutiple.

In terms of the ‘what’, Facebook will become increasingly active in policing ads, networks and advertisers in their ecosystem in an effort to eradicate any potential issues that could affect the ‘why’. A prime example of this was the recent banning of ad networks Social Hour and Social Reach from advertising on Facebook applications. Facebook might even consider launching its own ad network for developers, to ensure the quality of advertisers remains high, at the expense of other ad networks.

The result of these types of actions will be a significant decrease (over 50% in many cases) in revenues seen by developers as the remaining ad networks on Facebook will have to deal with an increase in application inventory in conjunction with a decrease in advertiser demand (as deceptive advertisers are removed from the site). While I am definitely not suggesting effective CPMs will crater back to Lookery guarantee levels, like the stock market, there will be a reversion to the mean for ad prices. Regardless of where CPM rates eventually settle, there will be a flight to quality from an advertiser, as well as user, perspective. Bad experiences with certain applications will drive ad dollars and users away from applications that continue these practices, creating a death-spiral scenario in some cases (the situation where fewer users lead developers to place more ads on their applications to make-up for the lost revenue, which in turn leads to a further decrease in users due to a worse user experience, and so on).

What to Do. If you’re a developer, here are your options:

  1. Stay the Course. Continue to accept these deceptive ads in an effort to make as much money as possible until these ad practices and/or networks are shut down by Facebook. If the user and/or platform backlash doesn’t kill your application business, then try one of the remaining options or follow these ads and networks to the next social platform for exploitation.
  2. Go Virtual. If it makes sense, incorporate virtual goods into your applications. Game developers like Zynga have built successful businesses around the selling of virtual items to their user base, which alleviates the need for, or at least reliance on, banner ads for revenues.
  3. Try Fremium. This option is more geared towards utility-based applications, but up-selling features and functions for your applications (especially if you can tether it to a service or experience outside of Facebook) makes a lot of sense since it establishes a recurring revenue stream.
  4. Get Professional. Build a great application experience that makes users want to use your applications over the long-term. Work with established, reputable ad networks that have broader web reach than just Facebook applications (like Rubicon Project), inventory rep firms (like Appssavvy) or gain access to individual engagement opportunities (through the like s of my company Clearspring) to build credibility with advertisers and increase the perceived value of your applications’ ad inventory. Once you have the user base and operational scale, consider building out your own sales team (like Watercooler) to get a larger percentage of campaign CPMs.

Let’s hope Facebook application developers take the high road on this one.

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Posted by on June 24, 2009 in Advertising, Business Model, Monetization, Social Media

 

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What Will It Take to Become the Bloomberg Service for Social Media?

14 Apr

social-bloombergThere has been a lot of development and press coverage in the social aggregation and activity-streaming space over the last month, which peaked last week with the release of Nambu, Seesmic Desktop, Sideline by Yahoo, enhancements from TweetDeck, a redesign of FriendFeed and an iPhone app from TweetStack, that lets you import your TweetDeck columns, to boot. All of these services are trying to solve the growing problem of managing your personal and/or professional activity across various social networks. Twitter is the one constant network across all these applications though, due to its focus on enabling activity streams, growing popularity and ecosystem that turn the river of Twitter’s network noise into useful streams of information. It’s because of the 3rd-party service TweetDeck that I’ve actually started using Twitter on a regular basis over the past month even though I’ve had an account for almost two years (if you’re unfamiliar with TweetDeck, the New York Times had a nice write-up on it last week).

What has struck me in the process of TweetDeck becoming a permanent fixture on my computer is how I use it like a Bloomberg terminal from my years in finance. For the uninitiated, Bloomberg is the de facto system for finance professionals to monitor and analyze real-time financial market data movements, place trades and communicate with other Bloomberg users. Replace ‘finance’ with ‘Twitter’ in the previous sentence and the services sound a lot alike- instead of following stocks it’s users/topics/events and instead of the NASDAQ stock exchange it’s Twitter streams.

With TweetDeck’s recent integration of Facebook Connect, it got me thinking about what a service would look like that brought the best aspects of the Bloomberg terminal to managing a social media experience. Here are my requirements for the ultimate social media terminal:

  • Real-time. Information streamed in real-time, or in near real-time is a must. The “more results” notification Twitter search provides is fine, but I don’t want to have to refresh my browser every so often to get the latest streams from Twitter or Facebook (which is supposedly being addressed by Facebook in an upcoming release) or any other platform- I need it delivered as it occurs.
  • Multi-platform. Access to multiple networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) is also key since I use each one differently (for industry, personal or professional communications respectively) so I need to be able to respond to information en mass or uniquely by network or by user across networks- which can’t be accomplish through just one network (though Facebook is trying!).
  • Filters. The more networks you tap into and greater access you have to other user’s information streams, the more important filtering of information becomes. Without filters it becomes unmanageable noise once again.
  • Neutral. My social media terminal should be built by a 3rd-party and not by one of the underlying networks it provides access to. This ensures, or at least provides the appearance of, neutrality in how streams are handled and delivered. It also frees the terminal provider to build a client that is unencumbered by any legacy interface or platform functionality, and instead optimized for the stream aggregation experience.
  • Actionable. Just aggregating or customizing the presentation of information is not enough- I need to be able to respond and react to this information in real-time leveraging each network’s native functionality (or at least what they expose to 3rd-party services) through a single interface. A dumb terminal is a non-starter.
  • Intelligent. While the first 5 requirements are valuable from a time management and user experience perspective in making it easier to see information, understanding that information in a way that helps you make decisions is the value-add requirement in the list- and leveraging analytics is the best way to achieve this. While there are plenty of Twitter tracking and analytic services, there isn’t a single solution that allow you to define reports or alerts on an ad-hoc basis that automates the tracking of sentiment (positive and negative) or velocity (increased and decreasing) around people/topics/events (though Juice Analytics has an interested blog post on this topic). I would imagine individuals and corporations involved in social media would consider this service a must have to be successful and would pay a premium for it.

TweetDeck has made a good start in meeting these requirements for me to date (not too surprising since its founder, Iain Dodsworth came from the finance industry), but still has some work left to do on the multi-platform services side and especially analytics (though I haven’t seen anyone who has addressed this functionality yet). As such I give TweetDeck, which I feel is currently the best of the bunch, a 4 ½ out of 6.

Because TweetDeck leverages APIs that are readily available to other companies in building its service, it does face a growing number of competitors focusing on Twitter as its entry strategy (though according to Twitstat it is currently the most popular 3rd-party Twitter application in terms of usage) as well as on the social aggregation side. You can also be sure that Facebook will use its amazing size and mindshare to try and own this space (especially in light of their failed attempt to acquire Twitter).

Bloomberg was in a similar situation but succeeded in part due to the value added services its users received from using Bloomberg’s proprietary platform (by way of its in-network email service, trading capabilites, etc.). If TweetDeck or anyone else can figure out what its value added service is to its networked users, in addition to meeting the 6 requirements I highlighted above, it has a great chance of building something special.

    So what does your social media service look like?

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    Posted by on April 14, 2009 in Product, Social Media

     

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