Facebook et. al. losing their steam?
According to a report from BusinessWeek, social network sites seem gradually losing their steam.
Here’s a 50-words version:
- The good: Global ad spending on social networking sites in 2007 was up 155% to $1.2B. It is expected to grow 75% to $2.1B this year.
- The bad: According to ComScore, the average amount of time each user spends on social networking sites has fallen by 14% over the last four months.
- The ugly: No killer app to advertise and monetize social networks yet; click rate is about 4/10,000 vs. 20/10,000 on the Web. People on MySpace and Facebook et. al. are more interested in interacting with their friends than clicking on ads.
Your thoughts?
The All-New Gmail
Human Computing in the Web era! :-D
P.S. In case you don’t understand Russian: this is an Russian advertisement for Gmail by ad agency Saatchi Moscow.
Yahoo + Microsoft = ?
Just read a post Some Microsoft/Yahoo Overlap You May Not Have Considered by Nathan Weinberg. Several areas that I’m most interested in:
- Yahoo Search vs. Live Search: “Both are big dogs, and both are struggling to catch Google. Both will survive, at least for a while, with Microsoft trying to find a way to combine the market share of the two eventually. Most likely, the search engine will fall under the Yahoo brand, but itcould go either way.“
IMHO, Yahoo Search is much better Live Search even though the gap has been diminishing in the past two years. I see this area as one big potential winner from the M&A if the two teams combine force. Given the advantage of Yahoo’s existing search infrastructure, I agree with Nathan that it would be best to have the Yahoo guys do the search job.
- Flickr vs. Live Spaces: “Flickr will become tied to Live Spaces, with the millions of Live Spaces photos becoming part of Flickr. The two will thrive on each other and grow exponentially more successful. This will be the immediate crown jewel of the acquisition.“
Crown jewel of the acquisition. Well said and totally agree. Bottom line: I’m all for Flickr to stay independently run as it does right now. Putting a Live login on Flickr will most likely kill it.
- Yahoo ID vs. Live ID: “Yahoo’s ID system, while good, is nowhere near as powerful or versatile as Microsoft’s. Microsoft’s multi-account switching and Windows Live Sign-In assistant would win anyday. Either way, Microsoft sticks with its own technology, so Yahoo IDs are dead.“
My experience with Yahoo’s ID system is limited to the use of my Flickr account, so I cannot say much here. However it appears to me that Live ID sucks from time to time, i.e. login to Live Messenger or Live Spaces can fail for no reason.
- Yahoo Maps vs. Live Maps: “Not even a question. Microsoft loves Live Maps, and has invested heavily in it. Yahoo Maps is dead, but its engineers and some of its code may work for Live in the future.“
I agree; Live Maps rocks, even better than Google’s offering.
- Yahoo Mail vs. Live Hotmail: “Live Hotmail is one of Microsoft’s most important, strongest projects. Microsoft will avoid killing Yahoo at first, but development on Yahoo Mail will cease. Microsoft will offer Yahoo users the option to migrate their accounts to the ever-improving Hotmail, and eventually Yahoo Mail will phase out and die.“
While I have never used Yahoo Mail seriously, I had been a Hotmail user for a few years until 2004 when they stopped supporting HTTP access in Outlook. Recently I have sporadically tried out Live Mail and I think it is OK. But it still looks less attractive to me than Gmail. Tying a premium version of Live Hotmail with the business-oriented Office Live products may be the right way to go.
Facebook Finances Leaked
According to Kara Swisher
- 2007 Revenues: $150 million
- 2008 Revenues: $300 to $350 million (projected)
- 2007 Headcount: 450
- 2008 Headcount: 1,000 (projected)
- 2008 Capital Expenditures: $200 million (i.e., infrastructure purchase)
- 2008 EBITDA: $50 million
- 2008 Cash Flow (EBITDA - CapEx): negative 150 million.