Streaming Your Life Reputation

Rivers of Reputation
Daphne Ben Shachar | 16 December 2007, 5:21 pm | tags: Data Stream, Lifestream, Social Aggregators, social networks, tools, web 2.0

It all started in 1997 with a Yale project called Yale Lifestreams and was invented by Eric Freeman and David Gelernter. The original work, Lifestreams dissertation, you can read here.

Many people have been writing about Lifestreams. Some of those people you’ll find when looking for “Lifestream,” are Jeff Croft, Jeremy Keith, and Emily Chang. It is with their writings that inspired me to write this post. While reading their posts and all the comments it occurred to me that many people where enthusiastic about Lifestreams.

lifestream

I think Lifestreams are going to be a very popular “hype” to come. Certainly in combination with Identity 2.0 and OpenSocial. Why? One, because nowadays people have got a numerous amount of social accounts. This could be Hyves, Last.fm, Jaiku, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Twitter, Digg, Technorati, Facebook, Blogger, Wordpress, etc.

To keep track of all your posts and activities on the social software mentioned above, it would be easier to see this activities on one overall page instead of having to go to all the different pages themselves. Also, people are getting tired of registrating themselves and adding their friends every time again on all those different applications. Second, when people are going to centralize their decentralized data streams, it will become interesting for companies, for example recruiting agencies or specific branding companies, as well. “They could each greatly benefit from collecting and broadcasting focused and comprehensive data streams to share activity with their community in ways that weren’t possible before.”1

To centralize all this different data, there are different applications and plug-ins to do so, called: Social Aggregators, see below for some examples:

- Profilactic
- Minggl
- iStalkr
- Correlate.us
- Explode.us
- Spokeo
- Profilefly
- PeopleAggregator
- SocialURL
- Socialstream
- Tabber
- Naymz
- 8hands
- Second Brain
- UpScoop
- ProfileOMat
- MyLifeBrand
- ProfileLinker
- Snag
- Socialnetwork.in
- MyMashable

How to explain Opensocial

How to explain OpenSocial to Your Executives
by Jeremiah Owyang
November 6, 2007

After Google's announcement of OpenSocial—"OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs [application programming interfaces] for social applications across multiple Websites"—many people are talking about it at the developer, strategist, and marketing level. I'm going to take it up for another audience—your boss. Feel free to repurpose this content any way you want.

You: A Web Decision-Maker

As a Web strategist, you are someone who is partially or wholly responsible for the long-term direction of your Web site, or the Web site of your clients. If you have to explain the announcement to your boss (or you are the boss), I'm going to help.

Terms

* Social network: An network or community where people of similar interest share. MySpace, LinkedIn, and Hi5 are examples.
* Mini-application, app, widget: These applications, created by third-party developers or your company, can "sit" on top of or alongside those thriving communities of connected people.
* Platform, container, social network: Where the mini-applications can reside and interact.
* API: The common code shared among platforms and developers of mini-applications.

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Situation: On Nov. 1, the OpenSocial Is Announced

Consumer decisions are made on communities where trusted members share; as a result, savvy companies go where their market is.

We've hit a milestone on how the Web is becoming amorphous: Data is about to be shared easily and quickly in a fluid way.

Google and several other social networks in the alliance launched OpenSocial on Nov 1. Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook are not part of the announcement (yet).

Four months ago, Facebook allowed third-party companies to build mini-applications for its site; this is similar in concept, but now includes many other players.

The platforms or containers where your mini-application can reside: MySpace, Bebo, SixApart, Orkut, Salesforce.com, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle.

What Is Open Social?

Google says: "OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple Web sites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps that access a social network's friends and update feeds."

Translation: Social networks and other Web sites (we can call them platforms or containers) can share mini-Web sites (applications or widgets), which can interact with those online communities.

Example: A company that sells a variety of blenders from its Web site can now create a mini-application that can be shared on any of the social networks that have agreed to participate in OpenSocial. The blender-related application will interact with each of those communities, and could benefit from features of users' sharing, rating, and recommending blenders to their friends. The blender application reaches new audiences that interact with it, thus extending the blender company's reach.

Important Concept: Distributed

Web marketing no longer is limited to your corporate site. Let go of the concept of "driving traffic to your Web site" as a sole measurement of success. The Web, its message, and your battles are now fought on the open and distributed Web.

Trusted discussions and decisions among companies and prospects and customers are made on these social communities and networks; savvy executives need to go there.
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Opportunities

* Efficient development: Since there's standardization in code use (APIs), if you develop an application for OpenSocial that app should be easily re-used on all the social networks that are participating. This greatly reduces development time; you no longer need, say... a "MySpace strategy" or "Bebo strategy."
* Harness existing communities: Since these applications will be plugged into existing communities, the need to build an audience isn't as crucial, as you can leverage the communities where they already exist. Why build if you can easily join?
* Open standards help for the long term: It appears that the standards and development languages are commonly known and not proprietary, so it reduces the chance of vendor lock in. Having a common code (API) across all networks makes movement easier, reducing development and re-configuring in the long term. One should always be cautious, however, as no system is perfect.
* Your existing applications become social: Now, your standalone applications can be shared with communities. If you've already spend resources on creating interactive marketing, large libraries, or other projects, consider how they can be repurposed on these Web sites. You can be efficient with your resources.
* The future will bring social to your Web site: I foresee the trend clearly nodding toward this direction: Social-networking features (friends and connections) will be brought to the static corporate Web site. Soon, there will be customers, prospects, and employees networked on your own corporate Web site. We're not there yet, but start planning on how that might look.

Challenges

* Unproven: We're still at the start of this movement; there's no reason to jump in, as the bugs have not yet been identified or corrected.
* Open data opens risks: It's not fully clear how data will be shared among the multiple platforms. By giving them access to your applications, there is risk in exposing login and other sensitive information. The same applies to user data. The risks are not fully known.
* Inconsistencies may emerge: Just because there is a common set of codes (APIs) doesn't mean all of the applications will behave the same way across each of the platforms. There may be inconsistency, as no user shares the same set of friends (social graph) on each network.
* Cultural differences: Social Networks are adopted in ways that vary by culture. From LinkedIn's business network to Orkut's mostly Brazilian users, no two networks are the same. Expecting an application to work seamlessly for all applications is foolish; expect to research each community before customization.
* Future authority not known: Although led by Google, this alliances appears to be a conglomerate of many different companies. It's not clear what the governing body will be... whether a single group, representatives, or Google itself.

Next Steps

1. Wait and watch: Unless you already have successful widgets deployed on Facebook, wait a bit; no need to jump in; let the alpha teams build and break.
2. Host internal discussion: In the meantime, have a brown-bag meeting with your development team and Web strategy leaders to discuss how existing applications could be repurposed, and what your future deployment road might look like.
3. Develop strategy: Understand that this is a new sandbox, and if you decide to venture in, your efforts should be experimental and you need flexibility . Be sure to bake measurement into the start, so you can gauge and benchmark your progress.
4. Educate: my Web Strategy blog has a new tag called OpenSocial; I'll be posting helpful information.

Related Resources

* Starting point: The official OpenSocial page
* Video: OpenSocial hosted an event on the opening night; this hour-long YouTube video has demos of code and applications
* What matters: Forrester's Charlene Li breaks down what is likely to happen, and why you should care
* Developers: Ted, CEO of Dogster discusses the announcement
* Thinking Bigger: Six Apart sees the forest... that this is a development for the whole Web, not just Google
* Opinions: There are many, many voices on Techmeme if you want more color

Jeremiah Owyang is a Web strategist, speaker, and blogger/videoblogger focused on how companies use the Web to connect with customers. He is active on Twitter and can be followed at jowyang; if you follow him, he'll follow you back.

"Entrepreneurial Spirit"

Have you ever asked the question of yourself what does it take to run a business enterprise? Many have asked and even tried their hands at running their own business and have failed. Why did they fail? The answers vary. Many say that one of the main reasons business fail is a lack of capital but conventional wisdom says that most companies fail because of poor management.

This being said we can now address the question that this article is all about: Who are entrepreneurs? In my mind entrepreneurs are the pioneers of the business world. They are individuals who are willing to risk everything to succeed in business. They come in all shapes and sizes. They are well educated and some barely educated at all. But they all have one thing in common they are willing to pay the price and take the risks of launching a business enterprise.

Usually you can determine if it is an entrepreneur running a business enterprise or a wanna be simply by looking at the decisions they make. Entrepreneurs are those who look at the records that have been compiled and make their decisions based upon their inner spirit. They are driven to do what many are afraid to try and go where others dare not go. Entrepreneurs are a special breed of risk takers.

You and I become entrepreneurs when we lose the fear of failure. This trait can be developed but great entrepreneurs seem to be born with this instinct. Therefore you have differences among those who have risen to the legendary status of entrepreneur. So many times decisions are made simply based upon a feeling the entrepreneur has in his heart. He or she follows his or her passion and is rewarded with the prize (whatever it may be).

Also entrepreneurs are those who are persistent. Each time they fail they get right back on their feet and try, try again. If a person is a true entrepreneur they have no quit in them. They see failure as simply a stepping stone to success. Many of them believe that each failure is simply a door that leads to success.

Can you be an entrepreneur? Yes you can be an entrepreneur if you do these three things well. First, can you handle disappointment? In business there is certain to arise some bad days and a true entrepreneur will chalk it up to growing pains and move on with running the business.

Secondly, can you run your business when funds are low? True entrepreneurs find ways to keep the company going even in the face of great adversity. Finally, can you work alone? Leading any enterprise can be a lonely thing but when you are starting a company and success is no where on the horizon and all you have is your dream many fall along the way. True entrepreneur's will continue on in spite of all the pitfalls and obstacles that lie in their path.

A Day In My SocialURL life...

12am work on Executive Summary

2am work on Business Plan

4am sleep...

8am check gmail and socialURL email

9am reading industry updates (Google takes over the world)

10am check out my LinkedIn to see what's happening with my connections

10:30am get on a conference call

12noon have lunch with wife and kids

1pm get back to my emails

2pm get on a conference call

3pm take a walk outside

3:15pm get back to my 20+ tabs opened in Firefox

4pm work on Powerpoint

5pm hang with the wife and kids

6pm eat dinner

7pm get on a call

8pm check emails

9pm put the wife and kids to bed

10pm get back to work on business plan

12midnight it starts all over again...

True Value Behind Social Networks

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Lots of people find the next books they plan to read by browsing the New York Times or Amazon best-seller lists. Others count on referrals from friends and colleagues. But what if you could eye a hot title as it began to climb the best-seller list within your Facebook network? You'd be alerted: "Thirty-one people in your network have bought 'Microtrends.'"

A scenario like this soon will play out on Facebook, as the company is about to unveil plans to make shopping part of its social network.

The shopping feature, according someone familiar with the work Facebook has been doing in this area, will go something like this: When Facebook members buy something at a commerce site, they can let those in their Facebook networks know about the purchase, passing along information on the item as well as a discount or coupon. The service will bring a sort of easily tracked viral element to online shopping. Two other people described it as part of a larger plan by Facebook that will allow data about Facebookers' online transactions and interactions to circulate within their social graphs. Marketers will be able to plug in to the program, enabling consumer interactions such as purchases to become part of the social network. But these people suggested the program won't be limited to shopping and is just a sliver of the larger announcements Facebook will unveil to marketers during an event in New York on Nov. 6. Facebook declined to comment on the feature.

Recommendations
Of course, this social-shopping play comes at a time when marketers are increasingly realizing the benefits of recommendations and word-of-mouth as sales drivers. Allowing users to broadcast their purchases to people in their social networks and act almost as affiliates, passing along offers and discounts, no doubt would be appealing to online retailers and product marketers. According to a recent Deloitte survey, family members' or friends' comments about a product are the second-biggest influences on consumer purchases of new products or brands (after the reputation of the manufacturer or supplier).

"This is a smart move for Facebook because the true revenue opportunity for social networks isn't straight ad serving or interruptive marketing, but rather embedding 'virality' into members' natural purchase behaviors," said Dave Balter, CEO of BuzzAgent, in an e-mail. "This capability may present a glimpse into the long-term value of social networks in general."

But he pointed out possible challenges: The application applies only to online shopping, which limits the number of products that can participate. Also, most people still talk about products in person, so the critical component of offline dialogue seems missing from the solution.

Beyond CPM
Affinity groups are the best ways to market products and content, said Paul Martino, CEO of Aggregate Knowledge. "It's not about an ad but about in-network content or services." He called social shopping "a fantastic idea. ... That's way more relevant than run-of-site CPM ads."

However, he, like Mr. Balter, suggested its limitation lies in its online-only nature. "Ninety-six percent of Best Buy purchases happen in the store and only a fraction online, so there might be a big gaping hole there," Mr. Martino said. "Having the right collection of retailers in your network will be the key to making a product like that work."

Facebook does have ties to online retailers. When CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage in May to announce to developers he was opening up Facebook's platform, Amazon VP Russ Grandinetti was there to talk about launching the book-reviews application. Another e-commerce giant, iTunes, is expected to be part of Facebook's New York advertiser-focused event this week.

MySpace Joins OpenSocial

MySpace, the world’s largest social network, and Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced that they are joining forces to launch OpenSocial— a set of common APIs for building social applications across the web. The partnership spearheads an initiative to standardize and simplify the development of social applications. Today’s announcement underscores MySpace’s commitment to supporting standards that foster innovation in an increasingly social Web.

TechCrunch has published notes from the official press call, where Google CEO Eric Schmidt is reported as saying “we’ve been working with MySpace for more than a year in secret on this”. Wow. That’s got to be one of the best kept secrets in Silicon Valley for quite some time.

TechCrunch says that Bebo have also signed on, adding to an array of partners which now includes: Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.

That’s some serious ammunition to backup Google’s combine and conquer strategy in taking on Facebook. How will the latter respond? As Mike Arrington says, Will Facebook now be forced to join OpenSocial?

Executive decisions

Fundraising has been an eye opener! Things are seemingly coming together all at once and rightly so for SocialURL. We've been growing our community organically and in need of funding to scale to the next level.

Now that the value of the company is starting to take shape the issues around advisors, investors and people who want a piece of the pie are starting to become interesting. A few questions I am faced with currently include: Is Angel investment better than VC? Which law firm is best to engage with Wilson Sonsini, Fenwick & West or DLA Piper? What are your core team's strength and weaknesses? What can you do for work to pay the bills while you wait to get funded?

Some of the lessons in the trenches:

Beware of the sales tactics "BUT": Your startup is awesome "BUT" here are your weaknesses and this is why you need me and I don't come cheap.

Check your own eagerness: In starting up it is often very difficult to separate yourself from the business and doing what is best for the business is often blurry when money is involved.

Friends and Business: When the business is out in the open it will be equally difficult to discern who are your friends because in reality you and your partners are the closest thing to being friends and even then being business partners is just that- its business.

Everything really happens in San Fransisco...if you have a startup- get yourself as frequently as you can up there or move there if you can...

MySpace, Amazon, Ebay, Digg, Flickr, Technorati & Socialurl

In a recent post on Mediapost's Search Insider, writer David Berkowitz enlighten's those still curious about what Search is all about by his recent article entitled, "Search's MySpace Age Arrives"

by David Berkowitz, Tuesday, September 4, 2007

"With search becoming a more ubiquitous activity across the Web, comScore is expanding the market view of the search universe to encompass other searches that occur on the Internet." David writes that it is now unclear now more than ever as to who may be the fourth largest search engines

I've been waiting for this day since August 2006, when I published a column on "Search's MySpace Age." I wrote, "MySpace is much bigger than just a social network; it's also a search engine. ComScore has at times listed it as the sixth largest engine, albeit with less than one percent of searches." The column continued, "The growth of MySpace, which now has more than 100 million registered users, leads me to wonder what would happen if MySpace emerged as one of the top four search engines (my prediction: it will)."

The prediction took a year to come true. ComScore's latest data shows MySpace capturing 551 million searches in July 2007, compared to 438 million for AOL (the whole Time Warner Network, which includes Mapquest, had 971 million searches) and 219 million for Ask.com (the whole Ask Network, including MyWebSearch, had 449 million). By this tally, MySpace only trails Google, Yahoo, and MSN Windows Live when comparing it to the five major search engines.

The prediction wasn't perfect. YouTube had more searches than MySpace -- albeit commandingly, with just over 1 billion searches. By that standard, MySpace is really the fifth-largest engine, topping MapQuest and other AOL properties (which had 533 million searches), eBay (468 million), Craigslist (170 million), and Amazon sites (144 million). (In some ways I've waited two and a half years for this news; I considered branding eBay a search engine in a March 2005 column.)

Meanwhile, MySpace's share of searches has grown exponentially, as it captured 4.12% of all 13.4 billion Internet searches. To compare the figure to last year when comScore briefly included MySpace as the sixth largest search engine, MySpace would have captured over 7% of searches if it was included in the July 2007 "core search" category, ten times the 0.7% share it garnered in May 2006.

For publishers, there's far more at stake than bragging rights. Searching within a site is already tapped as a revenue opportunity, as signified by Google's deal powering MySpace's searches through 2010, which guarantees MySpace almost twice as much revenue as Fox Interactive Media paid for it. Given MySpace's search volume, it's a safe bet that Google will have to pay well over the minimum. On top of that direct revenue, though, couple the searches per visitor with other engagement metrics -- and publishers can make an even better case for advertisers to increase spending there.

For marketers, comScore's framework points to even more opportunity. Part of it lies in media planning, as some of these other publishers can be part of both search and display buys, and the search industry as a whole benefits from a more competitive market. There's even more potential upside for marketers when thinking about search engine optimization. This ties directly into the growing appreciation for universal search, from how Google includes other content in its main search engine results pages to a broader definition that ties into how comScore portrays this vast search universe.

Consider a search on YouTube for "Kabul football club" (without the quotes), which leads to a popular, well-rated short documentary on the Afghanistan soccer team. Enter that query in Google and the YouTube link comes up first, just as it does in Yahoo. Yet in Yahoo, the third link points to the same clip on Google Video, though Google Video doesn't appear within the first three pages of Google's own results for this search. Meanwhile, the YouTube clip ranks first in Google for "Kabul football team," but try that query on Yahoo and YouTube drops to sixth place.

Marketers can take advantage of this trend too. Last December, for example, Kodak released a commercial on YouTube where an elderly man rants about how slowly Kodak embraced digital photography while promoting how nimble it is today. Type "Kodak commercial" (without quotes) in Google and the YouTube rant ranks first, ahead of kodak.com, which ranks sixth. The same search on Yahoo brings up Kodak.com first and second followed by the YouTube video. Try "Kodak rant" on Yahoo and that YouTube video ranks first, but the video doesn't rank in the first three pages of Google for that query. The queries themselves may not be Kodak's top concerns for optimization, but they're examples of how marketers can use these other search engines to increase their touch-points with consumers regardless of how and where people are conducting the search.

This mindset offers marketers clues for how to consider optimizing for all search sites as a way to dominate natural search results in the core engines. The comScore list is just a starting point -- Digg, Flickr, Technorati, and others are all building momentum as search sites while gaining more visibility in the core engines. Of course, it's not all about social media optimization, as eBay, Amazon, and MapQuest are search engines too. It's MySpace, though, that first offered the glimpse into the future, back when it commanded less than 1% of all searches last year. Once you accept MySpace as a search engine, you're ready for much of the change ahead.

Ning and Home Depot

Things that Ning and Home Depot have in common:

1. They are both warehouses
2. They both don't really teach you how to build anything of substance
3. They both prove that you still need a pro to get things done
4. They both are "not cool" by any sense of the word...

Does $45Million in first round buy you a better mouse trap? Playboy recently announced their new social network has been built on Ning's platform. This network is supposed to be private for college students only. Not too sure when we'll be adding this network on SocialURL but its something to keep an eye on and see if it gains any traction (which i'm sure it will).

This brings up the thought of what are game plans are for aggregating social networks on Ning and other DIY platforms...

Another quick thought before i forget- with Amazon making available their dirt cheap Virtual Servers with auto duplicating load balancing...someone or anyone with any knowledge of open source and a passion towards a niche interest could launch a social network and gain 100% of revenue rather than share with Ning or its competitors...so then what will be the ultimate win for Ning and its competitors?

...If Ning or any of its competitors are able to create a stable social network with over 150 members who are always online daily we'll consider them on our network page.

Facebook goes in content targeting

Its about time a social network started to target the content users willingly submit on their social profiles- just a no-brainer if you'd ask me. If you really think about it over 90% of MySpace's revenue comes from search with their Billion dollar Google deal.

After spending 2 days pitching to VC's and hearing the news about Facebook's revelations on search - i realized what had to be done. We have to figure out our potential search gains. With over 10 Million visits to our site to date this could be the missing link for VC's to gain their undoubted "YES"! This was really spawned from my meeting with Mike Brown from Foundation Capital he asked different probing questions about my vision and the future of the web and that felt really nice for a change...I can't wait to sit with him more often to bounce more philosophical theories about where i think the web is going.

Earlier on Thursday we met with Azure Venture Capital it was an associate named Barry Chubrik the pre-screener and numbers cruncher to make sure that we are the kind of stuff Azure would even come close to wanting to hear a pitch from. The first thing he says when entering the room on the 11th floor conference room overlooking all of San Francisco bay was I only have 30 minutes. Albeit nice, he carried with him that arrogance of "I have my MBA from a tier 1 school so my time is much more important than yours" - I found him pretty intriguing nonetheless. He didn't know a thing about our niche, but mustered up a few common names in the industry like NING.

After that meeting I had to yet again make some updates to our next meeting with Mike Brown...which turns out he didn't really seem to care too much about the sale but more about the vision and the genuine interest to want to help. We had talked about a month prior on the phone. I owe my thanks to that intro from Nathan at Limelight.

A few applications and tools we plan on building include email aggregation similar to what a group of developers have done at Fuser out of Boulder and a browser application ...can you tell we're preparing for some new updates before "Back To School" !!!

Bridging the gap between MySpace and Facebook

I'm starting a very interesting social experiment with 300 of my "connections" on SocialURL. Inspired by my most recently read book "The Tipping Point", I spent the last 2 days hunting down 300 profiles that had these criterias:

1. People who belonged to both MySpace and Facebook (Connectors)
2. People who had over 150 friends on SocialURL (Salesmen)
3. People who had lots of diverse interests (Mavens)

If you've read the book you know that each profile character above represent key people who create an epidemic. What I'm doing with 300 is trying to build personal relationships with them over the next 3 months. Selectively spreading my vision of SocialURL like a religion and out of the 300 the probability is that 40-144 will spread my words around to their existing 150+ contacts.

It is a proven fact that you can move an army with 150 soldiers if you are a great leader with interpersonal skills. Jesus started Christianity in this very same way- with small groups in a very short period of time. The HIV epidemic in the US was traced back to 1 flight attendant who had sex with over 1000 men in the span of 30 days. (last example was a bit random and morbid but you get what i'm hinting at)

It does help that i have experience as a Christian Evangelist during my college days and also have proven network marketing skills with (Quickstar the online extension of Amway). But worry not- I no longer sell soap or spread religion (at least not in that particular order:)

SocialURL and RembrandtVC.com

Our advisor (Anne Donker) set us up for a pitch meeting with RembrandtVC's general partner and principal Richard Ling today. We provided the venue for the meeting at an office space that belonged to Anne's friends. (won't mention names) Anyhow, I managed to come up with 3 additional slides to the powerpoint that i did not originally have and all within an hour prior to Richard's arrival!

Luckily he was about one hour behind schedule...:) Lessons learned:

1. Should have said "I don't know" at some point to make clear that funding would help us to get to that place of "Ahah...I know!"...this is often more about financials and profit models (those of you starting your own companies know what i'm talking about)

2. Sell what makes sense to your investors- not what you think makes sense to your ambitions...

3. Never pitch alone...always have an advisor or partner...

4. Get a haircut at Addy's he is an awesome hair stylist that will make you feel like $1MM bucks at $25 bucks! (promised i'd plug him)

5. Always Be Prepared...even when you don't feel like you are...act as if!

6. Be thankful for the opportunity even when its not in the form of a check!...working towards something you can't see, feel, smell or touch is one of the most profound experiences in the known universe...it is what separates Entrepreneurs, from the rest of society and the masses...not knowing when, why or how at times but moving along with determination, passion and conviction...

Updates for August 2007

First we want to welcome 2 new team members, Krishna Kashyap (Operations Director) and Max Young (Creative Director) You can visit their SocialURL profiles to find out more.

Secondly, We're excited to have Anne Donker our Chief Advisor on board who has gotten us a meetings with Rembrandt VC and Azure VC. We know that there are no guarantees in life but there is much more to startUps than guarantees and that is something you learn from day one.

Thirdly, we have made some updates to the site that we feel are pretty exciting...

"Stalk the stalker" feature is a member's only feature that allows you to see how visitors got to your profile...pretty cool huh? Imagine the kind of data you can collect as a member!

"Network" page update...we've finally cleaned this page up and we're pretty happy with the UI- we've gotten rid of the partner link exchange because too many sites were not sending us traffic back! So now we are selling premium ad space and if you have a social website and want some presence its going to be $$$ per 145x145 and its a flat upfront package...ya dig?!

Bolt.com is Out of dot biz!!!!

http://techfunked.com/web20blog/2007/08/16/boltcom-going-out-of-business-files-for-bankruptcy/#comment-3

This one has been a couple weeks coming… Bolt.com has officially announced it is ceasing operations. After copyright lawsuit debts amounting to $10 million, and the news on August 1st that GoFish.com was not longer in the hunt for Bolt, it’s over.

I’m just not understanding the economics behind this one. If anyone has any financial states, I would love to see them. I don’t put much faith in silly website rankings, but there’s no joking around with a Compete rank of 112. I’m assuming the copyright lawsuits also included cease and desist judgment for much of the content on the site. But still, with all the money being thrown around right now, it seems as if someone could’ve turned such a high trafficked site down a new path. Oh well, I guess that’s just more traffic that has now become available for the rest of us, right? :-\

New Ideas Not New Technology

Knowledge at Wharton has a great article with which i'm going to expound on paragraph by paragraph:

Venture Capital Firms Set Their Sights on New Ideas -- Not New Technologies
Published: August 08, 2007 in Knowledge@Wharton
This article has been read 1,498 Times

It has never been easier to start an Internet company. Create a web site, begin a "viral" marketing campaign to grow word-of-mouth and acquire an audience, garner some ad revenues, generate venture capital funding and sell out to a web giant such as Yahoo or Google. Startup costs can be minimized by using standard technology and by outsourcing corporate functions such as advertising sales. The business model, at least initially, is optional.

This blueprint is becoming increasingly common among so-called "web 2.0" companies -- web-based communities that facilitate collaboration and sharing. Companies like Facebook, the fast-growing social networking site, and Twitter, a popular mobile messaging service, didn't introduce break-through technologies, but they have become phenomenal success stories nonetheless. According to Wharton faculty and other experts, these companies have altered the traditional venture capital formula, which used to count technology differentiation as a key requirement for web companies. In many cases, technology has become a commodity, and a big idea can go a long way provided there's a rapidly growing audience.

Wharton management professor David Hsu says that in today's venture capital environment, ideas are valued more highly than innovative technology. "Is it the technology or the idea that matters? With the new round of companies founded in the last few years, both are viable. The barriers to entry have been lowered. I can grab technology off the shelf if I have a good idea."

"It is much cheaper to get a web 2.0-based company off the ground and running," says Jeffrey Babin, a lecturer in engineering entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania. "The entrepreneur doesn't need as much money so he can do a lot more bootstrapping. He can build more value before even going to a VC."

New companies face risks in this kind of environment, however: If they are successful, firms may not be able to defend themselves against the myriad competitors that will inevitably spring up around them, Hsu notes.

For now, the VC funding keeps rolling in. PriceWaterhouseCoopers' Money Tree survey revealed that first-quarter venture funding was $7.1 billion, the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2001. Of that sum, Internet-specific companies garnered $1.3 billion, the highest level in five years. While the initial public offering market has been difficult in recent years, buyouts are prevalent. In 2005, News Corp. bought social networking site MySpace for $580 million. Yahoo purchased del.icio.us and Flickr. Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006. In May, CBS acquired Internet radio and social music platform Last.fm for $280 million. On August 2, Disney bought Club Penguin, a virtual world for children, for $350 million. Those deals are just a few among a bevy of recent acquisitions. Meanwhile, Facebook could be worth anywhere from $4 billion to $10 billion depending on the Wall Street analyst crunching the numbers.

Wharton management professor Gary Dushnitsky says there is an excess of liquidity -- not only from VCs, but hedge funds and private equity firms -- looking for a home. "The financing market has changed a great deal," he says. "There used to be a few dozen venture capital players. Now there's pressure from hundreds of private equity firms encroaching on VCs. The VCs feel more pressure among stages of investment. This money has to be invested or returned."

But as VC firms look for new targets, several questions come into play: How should companies be evaluated when they rely on technology that is easily replicated? How much value does a big audience carry? What's the preferred exit strategy?

"Advances in information and communications technology have opened up innovation in processes, products and services. There is a vast array of opportunities. How many of these will stick remains to be seen," says Raffi Amit, a management professor at Wharton.

Looking for Viral Growth

Amit says an evaluation of any company's prospects starts with the track record of its founders and management team. For instance, Joost -- which promises next-generation television service via the web -- has been able to attract funding because its founders, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, also co-founded Skype, which was sold to eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005. Joost raised $45 million in venture capital in May.

After that, the evaluation comes down to the basics, Amit says -- cash burn, addressable market, competition and profit potential.

For the latest generation of web startups, other qualities need to be considered as well, says Andrew Chung, a senior associate at Lightspeed Ventures. Chung looks for three items when sizing up new companies: viral growth, potential to sell advertising and transaction revenue. "The differentiator is no longer technology -- it's more [like] parts of a triangle," he says. "For instance, a company like professional networking site LinkedIn has all three [of these qualities]: It has viral growth, can sell advertising and garners transaction revenue with subscription services."

Gaining an audience is the precursor to advertising and transaction revenue, Chung says. Hsu notes that viral growth enhances the so-called "network effect," in which the cost to gain an additional customer decreases as users are added.

One of Lightspeed's investments is Flixster, a movie site that meets Chung's criteria. Flixster has seven to eight million users, sells advertising and its audience buys DVDs and other Hollywood content. In addition, Flixster can command higher advertising rates compared to mass market sites because of its focused audience. Other current Lightspeed investments include MyBuys, a behavioral marketing company, Wikio, a personalized blog and media search company, and Gmedia, a mobile Internet commerce startup.

Chung says that not all investments turn out well, but the beauty of the web is that losing companies are sorted out quickly. He looks for declining traffic, an inability to monetize page views and competitors gaining ground as signs that a company may not be worth the investment. "The companies we invest in are on the uptick. We don't invest in companies that have no traction. We're looking for guys on the way to an inflection point. If that viral leg doesn't hold up, you're in troublesome territory."

Amit notes that VC firms usually don't give all funding to a company at once. If a business misses key milestones, VCs won't lose all of the investment. "Venture capitalists overall seem much more cautious compared to the late 1990s," says Amit. "They are conducting their due diligence."

Business Models: When, Not If

While Wharton faculty and other experts agree that business models are important for new ventures, the question is timing: Should web 2.0 startups focus on a business model right away? Or should a revenue model be added later, once critical mass is achieved?

At the 2007 AlwaysOn Stanford Summit on August 1, Roger McNamee, managing director and co-founder of venture capital firm Elevation Partners, characterized the second view. "We are beginning the third wave of the web -- the first [was] aggregation; the second, indexed search; and the third is finding things based on references. I haven't any idea what business models will emerge, but I'm confident it will be big," said McNamee.

Mobile messaging service Twitter announced on July 26 that it had received an undisclosed amount of funding from Union Square Ventures and Charles River Ventures. Fred Wilson, a partner at Union Square Ventures and one of Twitter's investors, wrote on his firm's blog that business models aren't the most important item in an early round of funding. "The capital we are investing will go to making Twitter a better, more reliable and robust service. That's what the focus needs to be right now. We'll have plenty of time to figure out the business model, and there are many options to choose from."

Babin largely agrees with Wilson, especially in light of the fact that, these days, less capital is needed to launch a company. In other words, an entrepreneur can launch a company, see what customers do and adapt a business model accordingly. "You launch a site and then see the answers to questions like: Can I make this interesting enough for people to come back? What's the interaction? Are people coming to see something and doing something with the site?"

The answers to those questions will provide clues about what kind of model will work, Babin says. If a number of people visit the site to view something, perhaps advertising is the core revenue stream. If customers engage with the site, a model based on transactions could work.

Dushnitsky agrees that business models for web startups can be delayed a bit. "It's clear that whoever survives must have a business model, but a lot has changed between 2005 and 2007. There has been a shift from fixed costs to variable costs when starting up a venture. That means you can almost run a company like a hobby, with a low cash burn rate, and see what happens. The financing that went into YouTube was a fraction of what would have been required just a few years ago. That has shifted the timing of when you need a business model," Dushnitsky says.

However, Amit believes that business models are critical from the start. "You have to worry about the business model right off the bat. You have to think about how you will do business, enter a market and compete."

Hsu notes that companies need to ponder a business model so they can notify users of what's coming in the future. Given that next-generation Internet companies depend heavily on their "communities" of avid users, they need to build potential revenue generators into their services. If a web company becomes popular and then hits users up for dollars, customers could revolt, he points out.

"It's better to worry about business models as soon as possible," says Hsu. "It's a multi-front battle. We want people to love the site, but companies do have to worry about the revenue model early on. If you can anticipate and be clear about a model, your users will accept it. You can't switch midstream."

The Exit Strategy

Once a startup gets its business model right, VCs will start pondering their "liquidity event," or a way to cash out. In the late 1990s, the primary liquidity event was an IPO. Today, VCs are more likely to cash out via an acquisition.

"We now have [a situation that] we didn't have before: Yesterday's web startups are mature companies looking for opportunities to expand and grow," says Dushnitsky. "In the past, we had less acquisition opportunities. Now we have the Yahoos and Googles of the world with cash and looking to acquire. You also have other media companies looking to the Internet."

McNamee, however, noted during his talk at the AlwaysOn conference that acquisitions are rare relative to the number of web startups. "How many web 2.0 companies can be bought by Google or Fox [News Corp.]?" he asked.

Meanwhile, companies are less inclined to pursue an IPO. Entrepreneurs would rather stay private due to Sarbanes-Oxley requirements and public scrutiny, according to Bill Gurley, a partner at Benchmark Capital, which has invested in eBay, Palm Computing and Friendster, an early social networking site that has been eclipsed by MySpace and Facebook. "The fear I have is the lack of executives that want to be a CEO of a public company," Gurley noted at the AlwaysOn conference.

Many experts agree that entrepreneurs shouldn't think about exit strategies before they build a business. If startups evolve into viable enterprises, the liquidity events will follow. "While we want to see exit strategy, we want you to build a business," says Babin. "If you're focusing on an exit, you're not building anything."

McNamee agrees that a longer-term view is required. "If you're an entrepreneur, just do the things to make your company more valuable and be prepared to do it for a while," he said.

Brands are a Conversation

Yesterday I received an invite from John Battele of Federated Media to attend a conference in SF that involves "Brands as a Conversation" - how social networks and social media view Brand interaction with consumers.

Just a minute ago I also got an update from Red Herring that a social platform called Passenger received $8.3MM in funding to pursue white labeling for brands.

One of the notions is that Brands can communicate better with consumers if they had their own platforms. Although that is true it is only partly true. Brands as an isolated network to consumers is not as interesting as a private network that is connected to a larger open network.

I'm not going to give more detail as to how this can be leveraged and implemented on Social Networks as I have an idea that will be very exciting to implement on SociaURL based on this thought.

Me Too!

So its been about six months since we launched and boy o boy I've learned so much in this short period. For example, people who ping you to say they want to invest and help out have other agenda's...tread carefully!

Example 1: Pete Cashmore from Mashable did us a great favor by putting a blog on us when we launched and then he emailed me to ask about possibly investing and being an advisor. A few months later after I shared some of my vision thinking it would be safe because he approached me as an investor/advisor...he launches MyMashable and uses Converdge to copycat our platform.

Example 2: Dan Cohen from a DenverStartUps and TechStars (w/Brad Feld) catches wind about us a month or two after and he invites me to Boulder to talk to him on the same premise of being an investor/advisor. After we meet and I give him my pitch about where my vision is and how i'd spend my money I never hear back and next thing i know he sponsors a group called SocialThing that uses all of our colors and theme and market approach.

I've had 30 Angel investors tell me "NO", 3 VC's tell me this is too early, 2 "Let's keep Talkin" but examples above are ones that tug at you not because of any potential competition but because they make you feel like you've been suckered by those who you respect in the business.

My advisors are telling me its a good thing that these respected figures in the industry thought highly enough to copy our ideas to the tee but it also shows that we are running short on time. I'm down to my last few pennies and also moving myself with the wife and kids back to California to be near my partners and to be closer to potential investors from So.Cal and N.Cal.

I will be keeping up this blog more regularly with some reviews of recent startups on the web and my thoughts about each...Thanks for the IDEA PETE and DAN!

At least there is internet in Grand Junction

This week i went to visit the guys and gals at Lijit.com - Stan and his team there have closed their second round of $3.3MM. Lijit as he defined it is a human search engine like Mahalo.com but users rank the people that give search results. This is also in line with EONS search engine which is called Kranky.

My question is, "Where do the results come from when the ranking individuals or 'Humans' provide the results?" if not from Google or Yahoo? Do they manually search the world wide web over thousands of websites, search engines, blogs, etc.? Maybe SocialURL will join this hype and get some money out of it:) or maybe not.

If you checked out the site recently we added iFrames around your 'Social Web' - go to my socialurl.com/socialurl and click through any of my links and you will see what i'm talking about.

We have our Facebook App launching soon along with every other start up on the net- but i think ours will be very unique and will announce soon and crossing our fingers that it will drive a ton of traffic. (Ilike launched theirs and gained 3MM users in less than 30 days...but no idea if they returned)

I'm writing from Grand Junction - took my wife and kids on a road trip through VAIL and along side the beautiful gorges of the Colorado River. We'll be uploading some pictures soon.

Barcamp Chicago and other updates

Quick Updates:

1) We added advertising on SocialURL and are actively seeking sponsors and advertisers. We're currently using Google's Adsense and Adbrite but are in process of finding a few advertising agency RFP's to fill.

2) We are working on a few applications...can't say much about it due to competitive reasons

3) We are looking to put together our SURL STreet Team and are accepting applications for Team managers in major cities

4) Wish i was in Miami for Ad:Tech with my pals from Investingprofs.com

5) Wish i could make it to BarCamp Chicago with my pal David Dalka http://www.daviddalka.com/createvalue/2007/06/23/at-barcamp-chicago/

SocialURL in BusinessWeek

In case you haven't read it we were mentioned in a round up this week on BusinessWeek (CLICK ON SIDELINK)

Thanks to our friend Pete Cashmore from Mashable for mentioning us a few weeks back. These last 2 weeks i took my wife and kids out to California with me while i attended a few very interesting meetings.

I wish i had more time to write and procrastinate but just basically updating the BusinessWeek link and also letting everyone know we're working on a FaceBook App and also working on advertising technology as well as a few secret aggregation projects we have up our sleeves for future release.

Stay tuned...

Henri Duong

Valuation, Aggregation and Everything in between...

What a crazy week it has been! On the fundraising front everyone around us seems to be able to raise money but us...we've been shopped by the CEO of Reunion.com only to find out that he only wanted to get insight to our product and while discouraging us to go for $10MM in Series A round of funding he turns around and gets himself $25MM from Oak Venture Partners. Granted, his site has been around longer and supposedly profitable with some great business advisors including the CEO of MySpace.

We're not experiencing quite as much luck the last few months but our team pushes on with the launch of online Video. We were also recently shopped by a company out of San Francisco by a seemingly nice entrepreneur but I'm learning fast that shoppers are pleasantly nice...investors are indifferent and will invest in you if they like you or if you went to Stanford or live in San Francisco which is near Stanford. Valuation of your company is way off they say...so why don't you tell me why and let's make something happen!? I truly wish it could be this easy...

On the Aggregation front: lots of things are brewing in the online social networking space and in search. Recently launched "Human-Generated" search engine called Mahalo.com is claiming to be the first of its kind although anyone who has been around the web block knows its just a fancy way to commercialize existing projects like DMOZ.org which was and is the true first "Human-Generated" search engine curated by volunteers. One might also argue that Wikipedia, Digg, and other web2.0 functions have been doing the same thing like "Tagging".

Google aggregates DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion and MSN aggregates aQuantive...ad networks have become great targets for acquisitions lately, especially those that have collected "Clickprint" from web surfers on the net will show tremendous value all to find out your behavior.

Can you see our SocialURL brains ticking??? Can you imagine the upset if we could do what took years for companies like DoubleClick and aQuantive to achieve and build our valuation off of their recent purchase? What if it was as simple as asking users what social networks and what social media sites they belonged to and aggregate it? What if it was as simple as aggregating your emails so you can manage them in one simple interface at SocialURL? What if it was as simple as allowing you to create your own social networks and go mobile?

On everything else in between:
1. I'm no longer consulting on the premier sports social network MVPspot.com - business is truly a double edged sword.
2. I'm no longer working on Urecho.com- three's company doesn't work when there is lack of trust and communication.
3. My 15 month old daughter received 4 stitches on her perfect forhead from having her big brother shove her into a corner of a side table while they were climbing furniture.
4. My wife is getting the runt of my venture frustrations
5. My 4 year old son is grounded for a year
6. GenBB is moving fast and looks really great.
7. Bootstrapping a business is not an easy thing to do.
8. When potential investors don't respond to your emails...it means they are not interested.
9. Be in LA for 2 weeks meeting with the team and some potential partners
10. Can't wait to go surfing with my friends...

FaceBook Confirms MarketPlace for SocialURL

Facebook threw a big party for all the folks in the SF Valley this past week and I missed it. Facebook to take on Google!? That is fairly ambitious...this brings up the question: Do all web roads lead to SEARCH?

Anyone who was anyone was at this developer conference and it seems that Facebook could have made a quieter splash but I guess there is nothing stealthy about the fact that they are looking to allow completely open widget capable user profiles. This is somehow supposed to change the web and have more people using Facebook for search???

I'm not convinced...Open html for custom profiles and open APIs are nothing new since many other social networking sites like TagWorld have been allowing users to do this for years. I guess it will be interesting because they are the 6th most visited website in the US or maybe it was because they were able to hold a conference about it...

This move though has allowed a bigger question...how will Social Aggregator websites like socialURL take advantage of such moves? I sense some new releases coming for SocialURL members - this is truly exciting and its only the beginning...

Angel FundRaising Hell...or maybe more like Pergatory

So I've been spending the last 3 months chasing around angel investors and here is what i've learned.

1. Even if you have the background and experience, the team, the product, the traction...doesn't guarantee you anything...

2. No matter how prepared you think you are...its not enough

3. Don't try it if you have a family...it is already difficult enough to try to raise capital while you are single.

4. find as many partners as you can

5. find as many advisors as you can

6. Its ok to say No to partners

7. Save enough to live off of for 12 months

Be aware of things unseen...things that are not so obvious...read, read, read or invest in an ipod to listen to ebooks while you are working

Vertical Social Networks

May 13th, 2007
Big or Bullshit: Vertical Social Networks by David Cohen

"...So what happens when there are just too many social sites for a regular guy deal with? Perhaps we’ll see the emergence of social aggregators and the centralization of identity and trust (these last things need to happen anyway). You see some examples already. Sites like Profilactic, SocialURL and soon, we hear, the much anticipated product from Jared Polis’s new company Confluence Commons are trying to help by aggregating existing social content. But as these social networks proliferate, one thing that would be incredibly helpful would be a “write once, use many” centralized user profile. I would love to see OpenID go in this direction (or someone leveraging OpenID) by allowing users to create their base profile in one place rather than having to constantly enter it into every network they want to check out. Tools like these will abound, and the key is that these tools should be in a unique position to truly understand each users preferences, affinities, and social webs. This may even be the way that the attention economy initially develops: rather than getting users to volunteer their click-streams, it’s far easier to simply study what they’re already telling you.

I don’t believe that MySpace, Bebo, and FaceBook have yet fully harnessed the profile information freely offered by their users for laser targeted advertising, but they will. If you believe that, just imagine for a second what the aggregators can do! Of course, they’ll need the users, but I believe that there are enough benefits to users in this scenario that they’ll flock to the aggregators.

When I think about what’s likely to happen, I think that the vertical social networks will proliferate and become a useful part of the web. But in terms of their potential as an investment - I guess I’ll have to call Bullshit. Look to the aggregators and the toolsets that emerge around identity - I think that will be Big.

We’ll know what Brad thinks soon. But pick a limb and come hang out with me. What do you think about vertical social networks?"

http://coloradostartups.com/2007/05/13/big-or-bullshit-vertical-social-networks/#comments

I think David is right on for the most part and that aggregators will have most of the true opportunities for "BIG" but there will be specific brands that will come out of the vertical social networks that will also be "BIG" simply because of certain founders involved. Thanks David for mentioning SocialURL on ColoradoStartups.com

SocialURL Video brings you daily popular videos from YouTube, Google, Grouper, Metacafe, Break and iFilm.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could just get your favorite top 10 videos from your favorite online Video sites? Stop wondering and go to www.socialURL.com/video and get more out of your web life:)

SocialURL Gains Three New Acquisitions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
SocialURL Gains Three New Acquisitions
Company joins forces with three business tycoons as they assemble the board of advisors

Los Angeles, California, April 30, 2006 – SocialURL, a leader in online social networking, is pleased to announce the arrival of three new board of advisors. Established in 2007, SocialURL is determined to help young audiences manage their multiple social networks and profiles in one organized location.

Donald Maycott, currently the VP of Operations and Professional Services at Universal Business Solutions LLC, will be assisting in SocialURL’s endeavors. With over twenty four years of expertise in the start up world, it is apparent that Maycott’s knowledge and technical skills will be positive to the board. Maycott is also known for his talent in building IT service organizations for an array of successful companies. RedHat INC (which sold for $47 million) and International Network Services have both led him to generate extraordinary results.

Joe Hurd, an additional business professional with a plethora of experience, is also joining the SocialURL board of advisors. Currently the VP of Business Development at VideoEgg; Hurd is responsible for settling distribution deals with outstanding social networking websites. In addition, Hurd is the Founder and Managing Partner of Katama Group. Focusing on international strategy and business development techniques for consumer websites, it is evident that Hurd will make a lasting impact on this expanding company.

SocialURL is also pleased to greet Travis Savo, presently CEO of Verse Studios Incorporated. With more than twenty years of experience in Computer Programming, Project Management, and Computer Science, Savo is ready to tackle upcoming endeavors. Moreover, his position as Chief Technologist at The Sindome Group, has allowed him to contribute to establishing its technology for remarkable role playing text games. Past roles such as Lead Technological Engineer at IFilm and SpaceQuest7 have certainly put his skills and expertise on SocialURL’s radar.

About SocialURL
SOCIALURL is a social community platform which enables users to organize their online identities. Currently known as a trend setter in the media realm, SocialURL offers free photo uploads, and the ability to form networks. For additional information, please visit: www.SocialURL.com

CONTACT:
Henri Duong, CEO/Co-founder
SOCIALURL
720-985-9282

Social Media Ventures Update

Dear Friends and Family,

There are some very exciting events that have happened since we launched SocialURL and I wanted to take a minute to share it with you.

Since March 1st Launch of SocialURL "the social media directory" here were our stats last month...

* 95% US based
* 4K members in 30 days
* 65% daily returning members
* 35% daily new visitors
* 150K average daily impressions
* 4.6 Million pageviews ending total
* 30 average pageviews per user
* 200 average daily new member sign ups
* $0 spent in advertising

Business-2-Business Update: We have 3 private label brands contracted to launch in April

* www.urecho.com
* www.genbb.com
* third will be announced April 23rd

Be on the lookout for our next update at the end of April which will include our initial market valuation. If you know any private angel investors interested in the opportunity in seeding us while we're bootstrapped and in our early stages please feel free to contact me

Case of the Mondays!

What a crazy Monday yesterday, I missed my 6am flight got a standby to LAX and got axed for my standby so American Airlines put me on coupon flight on United Airlines which then sat in Taxi Mode for 1.5 hours!!!

Got to my meeting 2 hours late...luckily Jeff (CEO of Reunion.com) was really cool about it and was very hospitable to myself and my partner at his office.

I have meetings with Studio411 and TVGuide today and those meetings should be very interesting.

SocialURL is growing

Some images of our new office studio space for SocialURL and VIABUZZ. Our neighbors are all very talented people in graphic arts, designers, video production people, podcasters, painters, fashion designers...


It's been the most exciting 5 weeks watching SocialURL grow. We have since brought on two new white label clients including URECHO and GENBB. Both are very unique in their own and we will soon have press releases around the newest addition to the family of social networks powered by SocialURL.

David Vs. Goliath

Its been 5 weeks now since SocialURL has launched and 1 week since i walked away from my day gig to do this full time...the notion of David Vs. Goliath hits me everyday now that i'm not supported by a corporation.

I bring this up because today i went to one of my favorite stat sites on the web called "www.alexaholic.com" ( a site that allows you to enter competing domains showing you traffic ranks from each in a nifty graph via feeds from Alexa.com) only to find out that it was shut down by big company Alexa/Amazon.

Ok, granted it's not the best idea having a business from someone elses business- but what is the web if not just that? Look at Google, Yahoo, and all these major companies that became what they are now because they advertise other people's business voluntarily through search and then put ads around the results. Alexa/Amazon needs to take a closer look at their own company and see what is going on...what was the last innovative thing either of them have created? Something to think about there...

In any case, the people have risen and are mad! 363 Diggs to date and growing...I think what it shows is big company's are threatened and the only way around it is to sue or taken down creativity and innovation. To that end i say that is F'd up! I wish Ron Hornbaker the best and hope that David in this case prevails...

SocialURL loves the underdogs! Long live StatsAholic.com!

Social.com Fell Victim to Social Engineering in the Biggest Theft Since Sex.com

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Social.com our Infatuation with Domains

If you came from the webworld and worked in our industry you'd know that a domain could make or break you just as much as whether or not you have a good CEO with any vision.

My partners and I have been recently infatuated with this domain Social.com which is up for bidding at Sedo.com. We were imagining all the wondrous things we could do with such a domain...then it hit us...its going to be $100K + down the drain right off the bat!

Imagine the practical ways that all those funds could be going towards on SocialURL.com? Marketing, Research & Development...guess we'll just have to wait to it goes up for auction the next time around when we have a few hundred thousand to spare...

Social Media Monetization

Product Placement in Consumer-Generated Videos

ClickZ writes: "Entertainment Media Works, a media firm specializing in product placement, plans to enable "plinking," or product linking, in consumer-generated media. Early plans include revenue shares for content creators. Plinking is the process of adding a product or service link to a visible object or image in a video. When deployed, it will have an interface for users to upload and tag video. Users will freeze a single frame and define an area where the product is located. It can be any product from an iPod to particular jacket or pair of jeans. Once tagged, the item will be clickable throughout the runtime of the video, and will link to an e-commerce page."

The best part: " Under EMW's plans, content viewers and user communities will be able to take existing video and add links for a piece of the revenue share."

There are questions. Would YouTube allow others to plink (nice buzzword, btw) the videos on its servers without getting a cut? Could plinks turn into a horrible automated spam tool that will ruin the videos? But the idea is a very bright one, regardless.

Original Post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2006/10/product-placement-in-consumer.html

It's not the Numbers that Matter with Social Media

There has been a meme floating about social media circles that the measurement of value of new media is not in how many you get to listen to your message, but rather who it is that listens to your message. A podcast that’s listened to by a handful of C-level executives is of more value to a supplier of that business, than one that’s listened to by hundreds on the shop floor. A political blog that’s reaches a single individual in a position to create change is of more value than one that hits thousands of the unwashed masses. A vidcast about better techniques in washing that hits a thousand of the unwashed masses is better value than if it hit a million sparkling clean folk.

You get the idea. Matching your message to the person you most want to hear that message, or to a person best suited to amplify your message, is where the value lies. It’s not how many you know - it’s who you know.

But there’s something even more valuable than having your message heard. That’s having your message acted upon. I will take having my words sway one individual to action over landing upon a million deaf ears any day.

When you set words to the screen, speak into the mike or step in front of the camera - you have a moment of opportunity to reach someone. A chance to make a difference in their life.

Sometimes that difference is small. You gave them a chuckle on an otherwise dreary day. You sent them into a moment of quiet reflection and thought. You convince them to click a link or to take a look at something or to register for some new service.

Sometimes the difference is huge. Your words cause someone to change the course of their life. Inspire someone to take a leap. Propel them out of their chair and out into the streets to bring about an actual change in their own life and the life of others.

In most cases the changes are elusive and near impossible to track. Someone quotes your words at a dinner party. Someone is humming a podsafe tune you introduced them to on the subway ride to work. Someone stays up late into the night reading a book purchased on the strength of your recommendation.

Now when you can match your message to your optimal listener and spark them into action … then you’ve really won the day.

Buzz Word of the Week: Social Media!!!

Everywhere i've been turning seems to me that the progression of social networking and media have converged literally over night...and rebranded itself as "Social Media"!

So i naturally went out and bought SocialMediaVC.com and SocialMediaVentures.com - what great new corporate names for what we're about to do with SocialURL!

Also had some great conversations with potential business partners including Southern Californias' own TVGuide/ Gemstar

Honorable mentions in SocialURL history today go out to the "Le" brothers...you know who you are, Qui Vuong our Sr. Advisor, Abum.com, IcPin.com, Xgenerators.com, Oplove.org for helping us out and for believing in us.

News Alert: Viacom sleighs the dragon Youtube

Buzznet Hits Sweet Spot
according to Mashable today...

"Along with Imeem, the other growth spurt we were alerted to recently was that of Buzznet, a site that we’ve labeled in the past (unfairly) as a Flickr-type photo sharing platform. We were reminded of this steep upward incline today by Hitwise, which points out that Buzznet and Imeem are the fastest growing social networks right now.

Imeem, in fact, ranks 6th in terms of market share, while another site we unfairly overlook - BlackPlanet - is in 4th place. Buzznet grew 148.4%, while Imeem grew 145.7% from January to February 2007. Hoverspot and Bebo are also seeing strong growth. (Remember that all these stats are for the US market - hence Friendster, Orkut and other international successes are less well represented.)

We already told you why Imeem was growing: a nice, open media sharing platform and heavy usage of their widgets on MySpace. Allegations about copyrighted content (by, uh, me - oops!) almost broke that MySpace link, but a music licensing deal between Imeem and Snocap seems to have put them back in the good books.

A source I spoke to a few weeks ago said that Buzznet’s sudden, almost vertical, growth was also attributed to MySpace - some kind of profile tool, perhaps. I haven’t been able to nail down exactly what the service was, but a quick search of MySpace reveals masses of content linking back to Buzznet.

If that’s the case, MySpace isn’t really losing market share - instead, it’s expanding its influence as many of the other social networks come to rely on it. The secret now is to figure out how to embrace and even monetize that flourishing ecosystem, rather than shutting it down.

Movers and Shakers in Web 2.0

Imeem is at the top and TagWorld is at the bottom...whatever happened to TagWorld anyway??? Imeem recently partnered up with SnoCap which i know TagWorld should have done a while back. Insider tip off tells me that TagWorld is now going around and offering their blog technology to music labels. They aren't quite clear as to which direction they are going and if I can guess they haven't really thought of a strategy either...seems like desperate measures to stay afloat.

For all you SocialURL lovers - make sure you visit movers20.esnips.com and recommend us on that hot list!!!

SleazeWatch: The Simple Stink of Pay Per Post

ValleyWag SleazeWatch today had a dramatic article about how Pay Per Post is a big manipulative stink. In some way trying to prove that its some sort of MLM scheme to get the masses buying in. I don't believe consumers are as worried as he is about their own naivity. On the other hand, unprofessional posters aren't going to post about something they don't believe in and at the end of the day its all going to be measurable no matter how crafty a writer may think he or she is.

Adventures In Social Networking

A few days back SocialURL was mentioned on Mashable and we were getting double the traffic and member registration just from his post alone. I had the idea of incorporating a dedicated blog provided by Mashable on Social Networking and Social Media. I believe as SocialURL grows we'll have a much greater possibility of educating our members on the state of online social networking.

My partner and I also have been brewing the idea of offering something that no other social networks are currently giving away and we look forward to being the first.

On another note, domain name social.com will soon be up for auction- how cool would it be if that was our domain?!

Social Badges Now Live!

One of the most successful tools that Facebook has that other social networks are missing are "Badges"!

We felt that same way so we created Social Badges for all the citizens of SU (SocialURL)...take a look


Get your own social badge

We can't wait to see this spread throughout the web!

Enjoy,

Social "URL"

Let the Socializing begin...

What started as a late night idea 60 days ago has now taken flight...Socialurl.com was recognized on Mashable.com as a prime contendor to other competing social network aggregators. Visitors and members alike seem to really like the idea of managing their MySpace, Bebo and Facebook in one place. Beyond the technology jargon of open API's and OpenID's users simply are buying in on the marketed concept from SocialURL.

I think its the simple fact that we fashioned a site that not only serves a niche purpose but is also marketed right in the sense of design and intuitive familiarity to our target demographic age group.

The site is in alpha currently and has had a surge of visitors who are in the majority of southern california socialites. Ethnicity seems to be skewed a bit right now with mostly asian americans and we are targeting for a much more diversified group of people.

A friend of mine (one of the founders of Myspace) recently suggested SocialURL should just focus on marketing to the asian american population. Although, that is an interesting suggestion, i didn't feel that it is fair to corner SocialURL at this point in the game towards a single demographic. The technology and its application is for all citizens of the web who belong to more than 1 social network online.