FB Town Blog

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!

Just a quick note to let you know that our designers and web team are working hard to finish the design and new FB Town website. So, in the meantime, sorry for the stock (and boring) look of the site. It will be better soon!

Thanks for your patience.

Flyers Exchange (now known as Flyers Ex) came on the facebook ad scene a couple of weeks ago with with an "in-facebook" application and interface to advertise on facebook. Henrick Shyu was the creator of the network and started off with the developers on the wrong foot. He devised a workaround so that the Ads from his network sat outside the application canvas. What is the harm in that you ask? It violates the facebook Terms of Service and interferes with facebook inc.'s own advertising placement. Everyone complained that it was not allowed and trust wasn't high among the developers. Mr. Shyu then told the developer forum that this practice has been stopped. The editors (of this article) checked and it was still being offered. He was lying to the developers in the forum. A start on the wrong foot I guess you could say.

The network started to go along a little better and ad impressions and clicks were being delivered. Mr. Shyu was on the developer forum constantly slagging the Cubics ad network and pumping his own Flyers Exchange network. People started to tire of constantly hearing his promotional posts on the developer forum but, the network seemed to be growing a little and impressions and clicks were still being delivered.

Then IT happened. It was exposed that Mr. Shyu has code in his Flyer Exchange Ads that hit the cubics server 5 times for every time a Flyer Exchange ad is hit, effectively bringing down and overloading the Cubics server. In the forums there were many complaints of Cubics slowing and even crashing a couple of times. Next, the eCPM started to drop and application developers delivering Cubics ads started to complain about low payouts and loss of revenue.

There are developers boycotting left right and center. He has been reported to facebook. In our view this is corporate sabotage. Trying to overload a competitors servers so his customers get mad and leave is dirty business. Or maybe he was somehow faking to deliver Cubics ads and getting paid, which is stealing. What should happen now? We don't know but there are sure some strong feelings and discussions on the developers forums about it.

Here is a picture of the code..

Update: Henrick Shyu posts a reply to the accusations and the developers are not buying it. Also, no apology. Here is what Mr. Shyu had to say:

"Dear devs,

There's been some bad rumours in the past few hours and we feel like we owe you an explanation. I apologize for not responding earlier. It is a national holiday in Japan.

We here at Flyers Ex take pride in our business, and as amusing as it would be for us to be running our competitors' ads, the profit if any would be marginal compared to the lengthy load times. If you'll remember, Cubics was slow and crashed often long before Flyers Ex launched last week, and we do not like being blamed for our competitor's problems. Also, as flattered as we are for some to think that a 1-week old site has enough users to DOS attack Cubics, the number of users on all of Flyers Ex combined would equate to no more than 10 large apps. For "Facebook's official ad network", that should be no problem.

We are always trying to improve our services, and note Cubics as our primary competitor using a CPM system. The reason we use CPC as opposed to CPM is because of the likelyhood of view-fraud. We noted that they allow no more than 1 of their ads to be shown per page. The Cubics ads you saw on Flyers Ex this afternoon were done in short 6 hour intervals during 2 days in a study to learn more about Cubic's CPM and view-fraud protection system. Obviously our quality rating and CPM on Cubics dropped to near $0.00 but we were more curious than concerned about making a few pennies. We also noted that Cubic's downtimes had NO relation with the times we ran this experiment.

Also, Flyers Ex has never scammed anybody. You've not heard a single post on this board about a publisher not being paid, or an advertiser not receiving points he/she paid for. The conversion rate for points is not "randomly set" as some have speculated, but adjusted weekly on Fridays at 4pm (PST) as stated on the site. The conversion rate depends on the number of publishers/advertisers, and as we just launched, we need the flexibility to adjust it to attract more publishers if there are too many advertisers. Also, using a point system instead of money allows Flyers Ex to serve out its primary purpose of allowing developers to exchange clicks with each other without having to pay a commission on the transaction.

I hope your trust in us is not damaged by such speculation, and we hope to continue serving you in the future as the ad network for developers, by developers. If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Yours truly."

and here are what some of the developers had to say so far:

"So you decided to "test" Cubic's fraud detection system…
Riiiiggghhtt "

"You're doing shady business and this post lacking any kind of apology regarding this "test" shows that you clearly aren't someone to be trusted."

"Its just like you try to rob a bank and say that you were only testing the bank's security arrangements."

"ouch. That's fraud, pure and simple. You are not only defrauding people publishing on your network, but also Cubics. Your ethics are beyond the pale."

"Thats the most bullshit excuse I've ever heard.

I've reported you to Facebook and Dwayne, I hope others do the same. "

Update II - A further response from Mr. Shyu was posted on the facebook developer forums:
"Perhaps I'm missing something, but we promise you a certain rate for placing an ad on your site, and we pay you for it. You get to preview the ad, and when you place it on your site, it loads instantaneously and looks exactly like you expect it to.

What does it matter if there's other information hidden in the ad? For example, all good ad networks track ad views/clicks and referring URLs, and must embed such tracking code in the ad. If we're researching our competitor by placing their ads to track their statistics, that has absolutely no affect on you as the publisher. And as I already mentioned, Cubics was laggy and crashy before we came along. In fact, that was one of the main reasons we wanted to build a new ad network.

We do apologize for the confusion and will be careful to notify publishers of such changes in the future.

Regards."

Update III - After this response Mr. Shyu took a pounding in the forums (some of the responses to follow). Also, he then backtracked and deleted his posts and they are no longer in the thread. Good thing we saved it, one of them anyway! There were three more posts from Mr. Shyu that were deleted, you can see where they have been deleted in the picture below. In one of the posts, he went on to bash appsaholic and accused them of being the crooks because he thought their pay scale was unfair and then went on to basically say that he had done nothing wrong. Have a look at the next dialog and see what you think. (names and faces are blurred to preserve the identity of the other forum posters.)

Microsoft's rumoured interest in facebook has taken a turn, or has it? Ballmer was quoted yesterday as saying "I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there's a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people"

If the rumour is true that Microsoft is looking at investing $500 million for 5% of facebook then this might just be a publicity stunt to play down the value of facebook, and their rumoured looming investment in the company. As we know, Microsoft already has a vested interest in facebook as they are the sole provider of ads to facebook. It can not be that much of a fad if there are already hundred million dollar ad contracts in place.

In the last post, we touched on the dollar value of facebook, but did not elaborate further. There have been many articles in the news and the blogsphere lately that are saying that it is worth a great big pile of money. Just how big a pile you ask? 10 Billion US dollars! Yes that is a big B for billion. Part of the reason for this valuation is the rumor that Microsoft is looking at investing 500 Million dollars for 5% of facebook. But that is just rumour, of course the true value of facebook will be determined by the price someone will pay. There is also much speculation about facebook going to the public markets and launching an IPO. Only time will tell. Stay tuned!

FBtown.com is a new site that is dedicated to all things about facebook, the social networking / social graph platform that is taking the world by storm. At the time of this writing there are about 35 million users of facebook and growing quickly. The value of this "social graph" or network is presently is amazing in terms of both awe and dollar value. Where else in the world do you have 35 million real people and their friends and their friends (and so on) all mapped out? Why would we want our friends mapped out, it is all about relationships. With facebook, it is easier to keep track and up to date with your social network than ever before. Welcome to the world of facebook!

No promises yet for what this site will become but we hope it can be interactive and informative for those interested in facebook.

No one knows where the advent of these social graphs and facebook will take us in a few years, but FBtown.com is here to go along on with you on this amazing journey. Talk with you soon!