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Mobilize: Money and Friends: Social Networks Panel
GigaOM Mobilize conference: Mobile social network panel
For the mobile social networking panel, I thought it might be helpful to condense the various remarks each speaker made to sum up their particular social network’s take on mobile. Not to say the panelists weren’t talking to each other as well, but I think their individual insights are valuable aside from the conversation.
Noelia Amoedo, VP Mobile, hi5: General take: Mobile is about self-expression. “For many of our users, mobile is not an option, it’s a need.” Mobile browser penetration in the U.S. is 16 — there’s a lot of things that need to happen before mobile web reaches mass market and we reach the (global) 49 percent of users that have mobile phones… Monetization: Many times to get adoption need to offer things for free. Users are very used to mobile billing — there were $50 billion in Q1 mobile content revenues. There’s an easy way for users to pay so it’s about creating an application users want to pay for…Product insights: Too early because we just launched our mobile site three weeks ago. The first version focused on what would be quick to do on the phone when you’re on the move. Didn’t even think about including video in the first version.
Evan Tana, Director of Product Management and Marketing, Loopt: Where the opportunities are: Helping people meet those that they don’t know. SMS is easy and popular. Val-Pak makes a quarter-million dollars…Direct relationships with carriers really important. Being pre-loaded on a handset gives us a 30x increase in downloads. And we get direct access to location APIs…Mobile location-based advertising: The real issue is there isn’t enough inventory.
John Faith, General Manager and VP, MySpace Mobile, MySpace: MySpace Music will be PC for now. We’re looking to aggressively enter that space on mobile as well…Opportunities in mobile: Right now it’s all about communication, getting info and reacting to it. User-generated content has not had social network applied to it for mobile… New products: Video transcends the actual interface between a user having to type something in, being able to upload that to a social network is rather powerful. We just recently announced the ability to upload video directly, so the extension of that on mobile devices is the next step. We purposely left blogs out of our iPhone application because Apple heuristics said stay away from text-heavy apps — so we have developers coding frantically for the next rev… Advertising: We do rev-shares with partners, we try to use mobile to round out the web experience right now. MySpace is very dedicated to creating a fully integrated campaign. Payments: When we first started, mobile had subscription-based model with Helio and AT&T and Danger. In Australia we’re working on billing with carriers where MySpace is part of the up-sell.
Chamath Palihapitiya, VP of Growth, Mobile and International, Facebook: Mobile strategy: Our tools should be available as broad-based and everywhere as possible. Lumping them in can lead to pitfalls. For feature-based services — could be a carrier integrating a photo-based upload service that we built all the way to deeply integrated client experience…Monetization: Revenue comes only after you have a proven usage pattern…New products: Uploading photos from mobile is very popular. Video is the next logical place to go. Qik, Flixwagon — that’s really cool stuff. To the extent that we can enable people to upload directly and then share that with their friends, I think that’s very powerful. Facebook Connect expands Facebook platform to user in any browser, sessions that start on the phone end up elsewhere. Will be available in a matter of months. See also: Facebook to Integrate with Mobile Address Books?
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Hi5 Plucks An App Developer From Its Platform
Second-tier social network Hi5 has acquired app developer PixVerse for an undisclosed amount, just four months after launching its app platform based on the OpenSocial specification.
PixVerse offers several applications such as Pix Chat and Pix Wall, which are Flash-based and run on not only Hi5 but other social networks like Facebook as well.
The company was founded in February 2007 and is financially backed by Venrock. It was also one of the earlier adopters of Google App Engine.
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EMI Music Sues Hi5, VideoEgg and Ten Defendants To Be Named Later
EMI, which is looking less like a music label and more like a lawsuit label, is at it again. This afternoon they filed a lawsuit alleging “massive and blatant” copyright infringement by Hi5, VideoEgg and ten John Doe defendants to be named later. The core of the suit is over copyrighted EMI content that appears on Hi5, particularly music videos.
EMI is a particularly litigious company. In the recent past, they’vd sued or threatened to sue AllofMP3, YouTube, Apple, MP3Tunes, XM Radio, Infospace (can’t really blame them there) and even The Beatles.
One person close to the litigation says that the parties have been negotiating with EMI for well over a year to avoid litigation, but that they were unable to reach agreement. The shakedown attempt before litigation is standard practice these days. But what is a little different here is that EMI is going deep into the supply chain to find other deep pockets.
VideoEgg, for example, provided video functionality to Hi5 in the past, but the deal ended in April 2008, and they no longer work together. The ten John Doe defendants are presumably other service providers, and/or executives of Hi5, VideoEgg and those other companies. The fact that EMI included VideoEgg in the lawsuit shows that they care little about current infringement - they just want a payoff for stuff that happened in the past.
VideoEgg CEO Matt Sanchez says that they comply with all DMCA takedown demands, but never received one from EMI. VideoEgg also used AudibleMagic , he says, to identify and proactively removed copyrighted material.
The lawsuit complaint, which was filed in New York, is below.
EMI Music v. VideoEgg, Hi5 and others - Get more Legal Forms
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On Mobiles, U.S. Likes to Surf Social Sites
Mobile browsing has clearly moved beyond 9-to-5 users and made inroads among the happy hour set. A recent survey by Opera showed about 40 percent (and about 60 percent in the United States, South Africa and Indonesia) of Opera Mini users visit social networking sites when surfing on a mobile. For those unfamiliar with the Opera Mini browser, it allows a user to see an entire web page and zoom in on desired content as long as they have Java on the phone.
The survey also shows which top 10 sites surfers visited in each country. The U.S. list begins with MySpace and ends with eBay. In between socializing and shopping is more socializing through Hi5 and Facebook, as well as search via Google, Microsoft Live and Yahoo. It looks like even if we aren’t using our phones for talking, we’re still using them to connect — and to settle bar bets. Wikipedia is the No. 8 slot in the United States. As the chart below shows, if users have an easy way to access the web on their mobiles they will. Carriers and device makers take note!
Amount of Data Consumed in MB by Opera Mini Users
Hi5 Gets Ready to Take OpenSocial Global
OpenSocial is gaining some steam. In addition to Yahoo deciding to join the effort, hi5 is going to actually launch its developer platform based on OpenSocial on March 31. The big draw for developers will be to expand their reach globally. Hi5 is the third-largest social network in the world with 38 million unique monthly visitors. While both MySpace and Facebook each boast more than 100 million unique users per month (all numbers are from comScore), Hi5 reaches some different markets. It is especially strong in Mexico and Latin America, Portugal, and Thailand. As an incentive for Web developers to create apps for hi5, CEO Ramu Yalamanchi says:
For the first 100 apps, we are going to provide free hosting and translate them.
As with Facebook apps, developers will be able to place their own ads on the “canvas’ page that hosts the app. And they will be able to tap into the notifications, invites, messages, and friend updates on hi5 to try to make their app go viral.
By adopting OpenSocial, hi5 is hoping to make it it easy for developers to port their apps to or from other OpenSocial Websites (which will include MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, LinkedIn, Ning, Six Apart, and many others). Of course, OpenSocial has to get through its growing pains first. Yalamanchi notes:
The development of OpenSocial may have initially looked a little messy, but it is evolving to a point where there is a solid foundation.
To get things going, hi5 is hosting two simultaneous hackathons on March 15. One will be at the Googleplex in California, and the other will be at a university in Mexico. For more details on the hi5 platform, developers can go here.
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Checkmate? MySpace, Bebo and SixApart To Join Google OpenSocial (confirmed)
Google may have just come out of nowhere and checkmated Facebook in the social networking power struggle.
MySpace and Six Apart will announce that they are joining Google’s OpenSocial initiative. Silicon Alley Insider reported the MySpace rumor earlier today. We’ve confirmed that from an independent source, as well as the fact that Six Apart is joining. Per the update below, Google has also confirmed Bebo is joining.
Google will be making an announcement today. MySpace and Six Apart join Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle as announced Google partners. No word on whether MySpace will continue with efforts to complete its own recently announced platform, but the answer is probably yes. They are likely to simply do both (Update: see below).
Suddenly, within just the last couple of days, the entire social networking world has announced that they are ganging up to take on Facebook, and Google is their Quarterback in the big game.
Update (12:30 PST): On a press call with Google now. This was embargoed for 5:30 pm PST but they’ve moved the time up to 12:30 PST (now). Press release will go out later this evening. My notes:
On the call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said “we’ve been working with MySpace for more than a year in secret on this” (likely corresponding to their advertising deal announced a year ago).
MySpace says their new platform efforts will be entirely focused on OpenSocial.
The press release names Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING as current OpenSocial partners.
We’re seeing a Flixster application on MySpace now through the OpenSocial APIs. Flixster says it took them less than a day to create this. I’ll add screen shots below.
Here’s the big question - Will Facebook now be forced to join OpenSocial? Google says they are talking to “everyone.” This is a major strategic decision for Facebook, and they may have little choice but to join this coalition.
Bebo has also joined OpenSocial.
Flixster/MySpace screen shots:
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Details Revealed: Google OpenSocial To Launch Thursday
Details emerged today on Google’s broad social networking ambitions, first reported here in late September, with a follow up earlier this week. The new project, called OpenSocial (URL will go live on Thursday), goes well beyond what we’ve previously reported. It is a set of common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any social networks (called “hosts”) that choose to participate.
What they haven’t done is launch yet another social network platform. As more and more of these platforms launch, developers have difficult choices to make. There are costs associated with writing and maintaining applications for these social networks. Most developers will choose one or two platforms and ignore the rest, based on a simple cost/benefit analysis.
Google wants to create an easy way for developers to create an application that works on all social networks. And if they pull it off, they’ll be in the center, controlling the network.
What They’re Launching
OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:
- Profile Information (user data)
- Friends Information (social graph)
- Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)
Hosts agree to accept the API calls and return appropriate data. Google won’t try to provide universal API coverage for special use cases, instead focusing on the most common uses. Specialized functions/data can be accessed from the hosts directly via their own APIs.
Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial does not have its own markup language (Facebook requires use of FBML for security reasons, but it also makes code unusable outside of Facebook). Instead, developers use normal javascript and html (and can embed Flash elements). The benefit of the Google approach is that developers can use much of their existing front end code and simply tailor it slightly for OpenSocial, so creating applications is even easier than on Facebook.
Applications can have full functionality on profile and/or canvas pages, subject to the specific rules of each host. Facebook, by contrast, limits most functionality to the canvas page, allowing a widget on the profile page with limited features.
OpenSocial is silent when it comes to specific rules and policies of the hosts, like whether or not advertising is accepted or whether any developer can get in without applying first (the Facebook approach). Hosts set and enforce their own policies. The APIs are created with maximum flexibility.
Launch Partners
Partners are in two categories: hosts and developers. Hosts are the participating social networks, and include Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle.
Developers include Flixster, iLike, RockYou and Slide.
What This Means
The timing of OpenSocial couldn’t be better. Developers have been complaining non stop about the costs of learning yet another markup launguage for every new social network platform, and taking developer time in creating and maintaining the code. Someone had to build a system to streamline this (as we said in the last few sentences in this post). And Facebook-fear has clearly driven good partners to side with Google. Developers will immediately start building on these APIs to get distribution across the impressive list of hosts above.
And they’ll do it soon, too. It’s clear that the developers who arrived early to the Facebook Platform party won easy customers. Those that came later had to fight much harder. Developers found their new gold strike, and they will soon all be there, mining away.
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