fbTown Editors's blog

Today we pulled up good old Alexa rankings and we want to share what we found. Facebook has finally passed mySpace in monthly pageviews. It looks like they are pretty even as it has crossed back over the line (with mySpace leading again). With the growth trajectory of facebook however, we can expect that facebook may take the lead for good. That is unless myspace does something amazing to stimulate their growth.

We think the facebook platform and social graph is a lot more solid than mySpace. For one, facebook's "real people" social graphs are much more long term. You get your friends linked in and no one is really going anywhere. With mySpace, we get bored easily. For one, you don't really have to reveal who you are and your "friends" are much more superficial. It is kind of a race for fake friends on mySpace. Facebook, you add your real friends more slowly but it seems like more sustainable long term growth as new people get invited and then expand their "real life" social graphs.

That is our take on things anyway.

As you have been probably reading, Google has launched their API for their new Open Social developer's platform for social networks.  MySpace, Hi5, LinkedIn, Orkut, Ning and a raft of other social networks are already on board and ready to "gang up" on facebook.  Well, they are trying to but will it work?  Don Dodge has a good article up for the facebook camp.  Bloggers around the net have been saying that it is a game changer for members of social networks.  We think it is a game changer, but not for the users of social networks, for the app developers.  

App developers will now probably focus their energies on BOTH facebook and Open Social.   The 50 million users of facebook are considered to be "real people" and one of the most accurate networks.  This is not to be ignored and these people that have invested time and energy to build their networks on facebook are not about to jump ship and do it all over again on Orkut, Hi5 or any other network.  They are there to stay.  So, the only thing that has changed is for application developers who will get access to multiple social networks with one code base (through Open Social).  

Furthermore, the Open Social API is in early beta and there seems to be some issues.  Also, it is not even live yet, developers can only play in the "Orkut sandbox" to build and test their apps.  There is a great article here that details Open Social vs. the facebook f8 platform .  If you are a developer, you should read it for sure. 

This one is pure rumour so far as it is coming from none other than... Fake Steve Jobs.  Anyway, he says that facebook also took an additional $500 million (on top of Microsoft's $240 million investment) from two hedge funds.  Lets wait and see if it is fact or fiction...developing

Yesterday the rumour mill was finally silenced when Microsoft and facebook announced the $240 Million investment in facebook.  Microsoft's money buys them a 1.6% stake in facebook and gives them international advertising rights until 2011 on facebook's non-usa sites.  What non-usa sites you may ask?  Well, facebook appears to be working hard at getting non-English versions of facebook ready for launch in the near future. 

The Wall Street Journal Online reports that Google was still trying to get the deal up until the last minute.  

The amount invested is far less than the 500 - 900 million dollars that was rumoured but the valuation was rumoured to be between 10 and 15 billion dollars.  This transaction places a $15 Billion valuation on facebook now.  

We think this is a good move by facebook to get some cash in the bank and focus on bringing the property to profitability.  Mr. Zuckerberg has done an amazing job this far, now he has the dosh and Microsoft behind him to continue into the stratusphere.  Lets see if he can deliver.  We sure hope so! 

Now that facebook has opened parts of profiles to be indexed by the search engines, there have been many concerns about privacy of user information.  Now your name and some other (basic) details will be searchable by google.  Shall we say that again?  Lets say someone has a grudge and google's your name and they find you have a profile on facebook, linkedin and other social networking sites.  Now they know which sites you belong to, they can easily begin their attack.  

thisismoney.co.uk has a good article about this today .  They quote a BBC1 consumer watchdog experiment which is quite interesting.   They created a fictional facebook user and then contacted 100 random people to invite them to be their 'facebook friend'.   The result?  35 people accepted.  THIRTY FIVE PEOPLE ACCEPTED TO BE FRIENDS WITH A TOTAL STRANGER.  What happens next?  Obviously, they now have access to the full profiles of 35 people.  Names, hometown, birthdays, friends, family, likes dislikes, relationship status etc etc.  Can you see where this is going?  Well, they continued the experiment a little further and picked out one guy and applied for an online bank account and even got accepted for credit cards in one of their new 'friend's name'.  

An Internet security expert called Tom Ilube helped out with this experiment and says "It used to take two to three weeks to get enough information to steal an identity. Now it takes two to three hours"

This can, and does happen on all social networking sites, not only facebook.

You obviously can start to protect yourself by not accepting friendships from strangers and limiting the information that you put in your profile.  You can also fine tune the security and privacy settings in facebook so critical info isn't revealed.   

Let this be a lesson to us all - SAFEGUARD YOUR PERSONAL DATA on all websites, period.  It may not stop every case but we can prevent the majority of these identity thefts.

The consumer watchdog episode will be airing on BBC1 tonight at 8pm GMT.

As facebook grows and the masses start to use the service, it is inevitable that minors will be logging on more frequently. Facebook has announced on their blog that they are committed to safety and are implementing controls to make it happen.

Here is an exerpt from the facebook blog:

"But right now, we want to make clear some of the things we are working on to prevent abuse from happening through Facebook. We are automatically moving complaints about nudity or pornography, and harassing or unwelcome contact to the top of our queue for Customer Support to address within 24 hours. We are limiting certain search functionality as it applies to minors. We are making sure that minors know explicitly when they are in contact with someone who is an adult."

This is great news for all users and 3rd party developers. It is good to know that (hopefully) our facebook experience won't be faced with adult content and spam.

The original post from facebook is here .

You might find this interesting.. facebook is now number 4 in the world for page views per month (in September 2007), of ALL sites!  Only Yahoo!, MySpace and Google top facebook now. 

The numbers are from comScore Media Metrix (but we got the graph from Valleywag's Orkut article as we don't have a comScore account! Thx Valleywag).

Also, a surprise, Google's Orkut is number 5 just after facebook.  If we combine Google and Orkut (Google owns Orkut) then Google becomes number one with approx 67 billion page views, then Yahoo, MySpace and then our beloved facebook would come in number 3.  Or we could also combine Live.com and MSN (both Microsoft) and facebook moves back to number 4.  Which ever way you dice the numbers, facebook is serving up the fourth most page views in the world, each and every month.  Impressive. 

Following up on the last post, we know there is a huge race race going on between the social networking sites. We decided to do a little rundown on five of the main competitors and their page view stats from Alexa.

MySpace . With more than 200 million users and with one of the highest usage minutes per day, myspace is the leader (ok this is disputed by many but lets give them the benefit for now). As you can see it is also the leader in page views. For now, that is. Facebook is catching up very quickly and if the trends continue it will be a matter of months before facebook will overtake myspace. The myspace application platform has been announced now and we think developers aren't going to be able to resist the chance to get access to 200 million users. Even if the site is flash, tacky and horrible looking. 200 million pairs of eyes. Wow.

Bebo . Can't see their stats? ‘Nuff said. Ok, no seriously, they are the flat yellow line at the bottom. Although it doesn't look rosey for bebo from the page view stats, they have a huge following in the UK and they claims to be the largest social networking site in the there, Ireland and New Zealand. They also claim to have 35 million users. They have inked various partner deals with yahoo, apple and skype. Don't count them out yet... but they better get some growth going to catch up to the leaders of the pack. Oh, and they have $15 in VC capital, which is a pittance compared to the deep pockets of newscorp, google and facebook.

Hi5 . Has been a huge hit almost everywhere in the world other than the USA. Their strategy of providing multiple languages and an easy to use platform has paid off in the form of 70 million users. As you can see by the graph, they have been climbing steadily alongside facebook for the last six months. The other networks don't have the language capability and are all mostly English only. Ok, myspace is venturing into new countries, but there has been low adoption rates for most of those ventures. They now have a beta API for developers and they will be a serious contender if they keep doing things right.

Orkut . Is a bland offering that is happily going along with about 30 million users. The stats say that traffic has dropped off in the last 2 months a bit but it doesn't really matter. They will be a contender. Why. Google owns them of course. They have piles of cash and have also announced that they will open up their social graph and access to their users via a ‘facebook like' platform. They have the cash to fight it out and once they start integrating the social graph into the rest of the google apps... they are going to have some SERIOUS functionality and the social graph. Orkut is the dark horse that will likely step up and run a great if not awesome long term race.

Facebook . The graph says it all. They are the fastest growing social network in town at the moment. Everyone has been reading about it, discussing it and joining up to get hooked up with old friends and new. This is not a fad, old and young alike are joing by the millions to see what this facebook thing is about. Some may say throwing sheep and turning your friends into zombies is stupid but that will wear thin after a while. Whatever the naysayers say, facebook's f8 developer platform is a runaway success and the other guys are racing to build one too and lure the builders of all the applications for their users to interact. As we know, there are deal talks going on with several very large companies going on right now. If one of these mega deals goes through, facebook will sell a small portion of the company and have a HUGE warchest of cash to keep the growth rolling. We like it so much for the long term, we started a whole website about it!

Yes, we know there are lots of sites that have been left out, leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments and we may write about the other ones later!

With the exceptional success of the facebook f8 development platform rumours have been abound that other social networking sites will follow their lead and build their own platforms. The rumours included hi5, myspace, linkedin and google. Three of those now look like they are about to become reality, and soon.

Myspace and hi5 are the two that seem to be imminent. FT broke the myspace rumour in June and another again today by TechCrunch. They claim that third party developers have been contacted for input on the system and they also claim that they have info that the platform will be launched next week at the web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

Hi5 already has a portion of its API posted and they have a small group of developers already making widgets and application for the network. So far they have said that facebook star developers Rock You and Slide are involved.

Also it has been supposedly leaked by a secret industry meeting (and then reported here by TechCrunch) that google will open up a platform for developers starting with their social networking site orkut and igoogle. They may also have plans to open it up for their other apps later on too. This is supposed to start on November 5, 2007!

And Linkedin? There have been indications from their CEO that they are going to do something but it doesn't sound like it is clear what or when. They are much more business focused so most of the fun apps and ideas will not likely work there. New business-like apps and innovation is going to have to be developed for linkedin.

What does all this mean? For one, we still have social networking 'silos'. A handful of closed networks are ruling the roost and the dream of an open social graph is not yet apparent. One where the Internet itself is the platform and all networks can integrate so it won't matter which network any friend or colleague is on. A social graph without walled gardens where everyone can connect with anyone they have a relationship with. It looks like a pipe dream for now and the top networks are going to have to fight it out for some time yet.

As for the third party platforms, right now facebook is the only game in town for third parties to access the social graph. Once the other networks launch their platforms however, the game is going to change. There is going to be flurry of innovation for the developers to access hundreds of millions of new users for their applications. It won't be easy though as they are going to have to maintain multiple sets of code and adhere to standards and rules (these networks do have a lot of rules and have ultimate control of course). Also how will the networks treat their developers? Will they compete with them and just develop the best ideas and functionality themselves? Or will they support and nurture them and prosper alongside them?

Fasten your seatbelts, it is going to be a fun ride!

iLike, the intensely popular facebook application with 8.75 million users has started a new service targeted directly at musicians. They are launching an Artists Platform to enable fans and artists to communicate better. The artists can add media and songs to their profile, add event dates and also track stats for who adds their songs to their profile.

iLike is currently the 7th most popular application on facebook, if they can get the artist on board, they may have something here.