BuzzLogic was one of the hits of the
recent DEMOfall 06 event. As Alex Iskold noted in his
original post about the company, its software helps marketers track social
influence among blogs and other web sites. We were as intrigued by BuzzLogic as
everyone else, so Alex Iskold followed up with Mitch Ratcliffe to find out more.
In this interview we discover that Mitch co-founded the company in early 2004
"in order
to find automated ways of analyzing influence." So it's been a long journey to launch - read on to find out how it got to this point and what we can expect in the future from BuzzLogic.
R/WW: What is your company about?
We're seeking influencers in conversational markets, giving them more power and marketers better insight into how to deploy their limited resources to deal with the explosion of incredibly specific feedback that companies, organizations and political campaigns are receiving through social media. The tools we're building will be applied to many of the challenges we talk about with social media, such as valuing individual contributions to the conversation, rather than just traffic - and how to interact through a dynamic personal form of communication in order to get the results you aim for.
R/WW: Why did you start this company?
It actually began with a question about how to deal with a blogger, from a friend who is the CEO of a public company. I found myself drawing maps to explain not just the connectedness of a blogger to others in the market, but the way that a blog's influence varies from topic to topic. It was a short step from that to deciding, with Todd Parsons, to start the company in early 2004 - in order to find automated ways of analyzing influence.
For those busy souls who don't have time to read blogs on a regular basis, here are the highlights from Read/WriteWeb this week. It turned out to be a Social Networking special, with a lot of our posts devoted to the future of social networks.
The founders of Dodgeball and Orkut met recently in a Google cafe
;-)
Earlier this week I analyzed the potential for Google properties Orkut (a social networking system) and Dodgeball (a mobile sns) to merge. I noted the following trends to back up my argument: SNS + Mobile; meta-SNS + Mobile; Co-mingling of data between SNS; similar demographics between Orkut and Dodgeball.
Most commenters though had a differing view. Hashim's comment summed up the general feeling:
"Don't get excited about anything Googe does in the social area. Orkut is clumsy, and Dodgeball has been stagnant. A merge of the two probably won't be much to talk about."
However given Google's current focus on integrating their products, who knows... ;-)
This week we really delved into the future of Social Networking. Ebrahim Ezzy wrote an in-depth post entitled Social Networking: Time For A Silver Bullet. Ebrahim argued that the current state of thousands of 'walled garden' social networks can't continue - we need meta social networks to connect up niche SNS. According to the poll we ran at the end of the post, 69% of you agree.
Alex Iskold followed up with Multiply: A Different Approach To Social Networking. Alex explained that in Multiply, the focus is on how individuals consume information in the social network.
On a similar theme, I did a post about how del.icio.us is turning into a social network - based on an interview I did with founder Joshua Schachter. Joshua took exception to the title I used, noting that "saving links has always been and will continue to be the focus and primary value of the system." Nevertheless, social networking functionality is going to be added to del.icio.us in future - which to my mind will make it an SNS, akin perhaps to Imeem.
There were plenty of in-depth interviews on R/WW this week: blueorganizer, eSnips, HeyLetsGo, and Neil Rimer from Index Ventures.
Our post on a new report entitled The State Of Web Development resulted in some interesting comments. I'd highlighted the report's prediction that Ajax usage by web developers will surpass Flash in 2007, however several commenters noted that Ajax/Flash hybrid use is more likely. As Tom (comment 11) said: "Using the best of both these technologies is most likely the way web development is headed in the next couple of years."
OK, roll on the new week!
Just a bit of admin: we've now introduced RSS feeds for comments onto Read/WriteWeb. On each post you'll see a "Subscribe to comments for this post" link (just under the Comments header).
If you want to subscribe to comments for all posts, there is a single feed for that: http://www.readwriteweb.com/comments.xml
I'm hoping this makes it easier for people to follow conversations on R/WW, because over the past few months there have been some fascinating discussions. Indeed a niche community of Web technology enthusiasts is forming here. So naturally I want to encourage that! If anyone has further suggestions to improve the community aspects of R/WW, please let me know...
References for MovableType users: Niall Kennedy and Phil Ringnalda.
Interesting LA Times article about how Google is re-focusing on improving and integrating its current products, rather than pumping out new products willy-nilly. Included in the article is this quote about 'Google Office':
"The initiative's primary goal is to make Google products easier to use, especially by packaging disparate products. For example, said Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, Google plans to combine its spreadsheet, calendar and word-processing programs into one suite of Web-based applications."
p.s. yes I did jump the gun earlier this week with what turned out to be bogus screenshots of Google Office and other Google mock-ups. I quickly pulled the post out of embarrassment!
Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus.
In our Social betworking
faceoff post we did not cover Multiply.com, but
afterwards we were contacted by the Multiply team and asked to take a look at their
technology. We found it unique and interesting, so we are bringing you this analysis
post. Multiply has recently experienced substantial growth and now has 3M registered
users. The service has been around for quite some time and its core is family
and friends networks. But unlike many social networks, particularly MySpace, in
Multiply the focus is on how individuals consume information in the social
network. Other places focus on socializing first and foremost.
I spoke this morning with Multiply's president and founder, Peter Pezaris, and was quite impressed with Multiply's approach. At first glance, the site is not that different from other sharing sites, but after a careful look it is clear that Multiply has developed some unique and interesting technology that is not available elsewhere. Like many other sites, Multiply has blogs, pictures, video, music, calendar and link sharing capabilities. These features appear on the user profile page, like this one, where other users can look and comment on them. But Multiply also offers a fundamentally different way of consuming personalized information.
All relationships within Multiply network are of a certain type. For example, friends links are different from family links - and even immediate family links like parent and sibling are different from aunt and niece. Multiply utilizes information about relationship types to compute a proximity score between two individuals. Think of the proximity score as a kind of Google page rank, because it allows Multiply to rank the relevance of the content. For example, when another Multiply user posts a picture or a blog entry - the algorithm computes how relevant this piece of information is to you.
All new items that Multiply computes as relevant to you are shown under the Explore tab. When I saw this, I immediately thought of a term that I have been thinking about for sometime: 'a feed for you'. This is an aggregated, dynamic and highly personalized view of news, events, photos, videos and music from all members of your network. The best part is that Multiply computes this automatically, without you doing any work.
I also noticed that the personalized view of activity within your network has some interesting options. For example, you can choose to see more or less content by tweaking the relevancy knob. You can also organize the information by activity or freshness, as well as select to see only particular types of information - like photos or blog entries. The user interface is also smart about understanding what you do not want. For example if you have not replied to a post, it will go away after a certain amount of time. Little things like that make a lot of difference in user experience.
I think the privacy + personalization + automation angle here is clearly a winner. It does not guarantee, however, that people will get it or will choose the site because of this angle. As we know, there are many factors that go into a decision to pick one social network over another. Perhaps adding more flare and features to the site would help the adoption, but the current focus is certainly the key differentiator.
To continue our interview series on VCs and next generation web, today we speak to Neil Rimer - a co-founder and General Partner of Index Ventures.
Neil's
firm Index Ventures is probably best known in the web 2.0 world for investing in these innovative VoIP or WiFi services: Skype, Rebtel and FON. They also have a stake in
Last.fm and Netvibes (and many more!). Interestingly those 5 companies are all
non-Silicon Valley ones - which backs up a point that Neil makes later in the interview,
that "great entrepreneurs can emerge anywhere". He also said that European businesses
"tend to extend beyond their comfort zone and globalize sooner than US ones". There are
more nuggets in the full interview...
R/WW: Looking at upcoming web technologies, which trends do you see becoming increasingly important over the next 12-18 months?
Neil: Over the last 10 years the web experience has altered immeasurably - from a point where it wasn't keeping up with the business innovations because it was too slow or too expensive or too clumsy, to one in which the web experience is pretty good and enables a bunch of new businesses to thrive; that would have previously been constrained by the technology. In this context, we are interested in all kinds of businesses that take advantage of this new technological headroom - to create dominant positions in sectors like retailing, advertising, communications, education and entertainment.
R/WW: In the blogosphere a certain type of 'web 2.0 ' company is endlessly hyped - e.g. Flickr, del.icio.us, YouTube - while other deserving companies struggle to get attention from bloggers. What types of Web products are currently under-hyped, in your opinion?
Neil: I think companies like digg and del.icio.us belong to a category that gets a lot of play because they have managed to hit a nerve - with a small but very vocal, self-referential community that is disproportionately represented on the web.
YouTube and Flickr fall into a different category that resonates with a much larger community of users, whose individual voices may be smaller, but collectively add up to a groundswell.
Both groups of companies are interesting to study because they are clearly doing something meaningful. However I'd rather invest in companies like Stardoll, Netvibes and Last.fm - companies that fall into the latter category.
R/WW: What are the main differences in the Web industry in Europe versus Silicon Valley, other parts of the US, or Asia?
Neil: I don't see major differences. The web is the closest thing we have to a level playing field.
The traditional advantage of US businesses has been that they can tap a huge, monolithic market without dealing with multiple languages, currencies, legal systems and advertising media. On the web, the difficulties of dealing with this complexity is somewhat simplified, which makes it easier for any business to be global on the web.
The reality is
that european businesses tend to extend beyond their comfort zone and globalize sooner
than US ones. And since customers don't know or even care where a web business is
actually based, as long as their needs are met, european businesses have a fair shot at
global markets. Actually, to this day, most people just assume that Skype came from
Silicon Valley!
R/WW: For a Next Generation Web startup, which is more important - building the technology with defensible IP, or just putting your beta product out there and growing your customer base?
Neil: I don't see many internet businesses that have built barriers based on IP. The best ones just do a very good job of getting the essential functionality out there early - and then leverage this to attract a loyal base of users who keep coming back and telling others about the service... because the feature set keeps expanding and the experience never lets them down. Those are the one we look for and that we try to help build. In this context, using open source platforms and exploiting the power of those communities and standards makes a lot of sense - because it allows companies to focus on what really locks in customers, which is rarely only the technology.
R/WW: How does an entrepreneur get on your radar?
Neil: So far the challenge has been how to get on their radar! Europe is a big place and great entrepreneurs can emerge anywhere. The best way to get our attention is to show us some concrete evidence that by working with you, we can build something significant. It doesn't have to be pretty or have all of the issues worked out, but it has to be compelling.
We try to make ourselves very available to entrepreneurs who want to talk to us. If they are ready to face the challenges of taking on the world with their business, getting in front of us should be a piece of cake!
Alex Iskold had a chat with HeyLetsGo CEO and Co-founder Roy Rodenstein at DEMO last week. HeyLetsGo is claiming over 90,000 users in its initial launch location of Boston. It is the latest in a number of events-focused social networks. As GigaOm noted during DEMO, others include Renkoo, Socializr, Involver, Skobee. I think this type of product is interesting because it connects the online and offline worlds, which is especially relevant for the younger generation.
Alex: What is your company about?
Roy: At Demo we launched HeyLetsGo as the first social network designed to connect people face to face. More broadly we are about helping people enjoy all that their local area has to offer. This includes fun things to do, as well as interesting people to meet. If you want to know what's happening tonight, and who's going, we want you to think of us.
Polldaddy,
the online
poll tool I've been testing out in private beta here on R/WW, has just launched as a public beta.
It has one of the best designs I've come across in a while, with functionality to
match. Not only does it make it simple to create polls to include on your blog or
website, but you can deliver them via widget and RSS feed as well - essential in
this day and age. I think polls are are an excellent - and easy - way to bring more
interactivity into websites, which is why I wanted to bring this to your
attention. Here is the latest poll running on Read/WriteWeb:
Accompanying post for above poll: Social Networking: Time For A Silver Bullet
Ektron and SitePoint did a survey of 5,000 web developers over the US summer, and have just released the results in a report entitled The State of Web Development 2006/2007. It's packed full of useful data, even in the 25-page preview (which is free). The bits that particularly interested me were the following two charts, showing which web technologies developers and organizations are using now - and plan to use in future.
Interestingly AJAX is not that far behind Flash (which has been around for much longer). See below for more on that trend... Blogs are well-used, while wikis not so - no real surprise there, as blogs are generally easier to use. Syndication / RSS at 36% is still a little low, but I predict it'll be much higher next year thanks to the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo bringing it into the mainstream.
Most web technologies will apparently be used more - in particular Ajax, which next year is predicted to surpass Flash for the first time.
I'm quite surprised that syndication is not planned to be used more next year, as to my mind RSS and syndication has only just scratched the surface of development opportunities. Custom search is another that I pick to be used more - yet it's slated to go down in this report! Microformats are probably a 'long bet', as it's still low on peoples radar according to this report.
I also enjoyed the section about the 'next big thing' on the Web. Some responses:
What are your thoughts on the next big thing on the Web?
I recently interviewed del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter, who is now
with Yahoo after the popular social bookmarking service was acquired last December.
Joshua was recently named as top innovator of the year by MIT Technology Review Magazine.
Tagging is one example of an innovation that del.icio.us pioneered (at least in its
current form). Joshua told me that "del.icio.us was the first app to showcase tagging"
and that now "practically everyone uses tags in the [del.icio.us] system in some
form."
But Joshua has bigger plans for del.icio.us - it will essentially turn into a social network, with more focus on people instead of data. I learned this when I asked Joshua what kind of new functionality we can expect to see from delicious over the coming 6-12 months? Joshua replied:
"One of the amazing things about our users is how smart and far-reaching their interests are. While delicious previously has been very much about just the data, in the future I hope to allow our users themselves to come forward within the system. Additionally, I want to help people connect with others within the system, either to people they already know or discovering new people and communities based on interest."
(emphasis mine)
This points to a social networking future for del.icio.us, perhaps more so than a content bookmarking one (which it currently is). delicious already has a 'Your network' feature, but that basically just connects users' bookmarks. I think what Joshua is talking about is expanding this into a more full-featured social networking system - with commenting, groups, etc. Perhaps similar to Imeem, which combines content browsing with social networking.
It's interesting to compare Joshua's thoughts here to our previous post on Read/WriteWeb - Social Networking: Time For A Silver Bullet. In that post Ebrahim Ezzy talked about how "numerous social networks will proliferate - each with unique form and function." So it's easy to see how a social network based on bookmarking, a la delicious, can thrive.
Recently on Read/WriteWeb we
did a post comparing the
top social bookmarking services, which showed that del.icio.us was behind StumbleUpon
in terms of users. del.icio.us announced a couple of weeks
ago that they have 1,000,000 users, while StumbleUpon claims 1,271,345. I asked Joshua
what he thought the differences were between del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. He replied:
"Delicious is about extending memory and saving things for yourselves and others. Stumbleupon is much more about surfing, like TV, or maybe Tivo."
I also asked about del.icio.us' growth and how they've managed the scaling process. Joshua told me that "because of the explosive growth, we're are always working on scaling", however they are "extremely happy with delicious' growth to this point".
The real interest though is in how delicious makes the transition from a content-focused site, to one where people are more to the fore. I look forward to seeing how Joshua and his team implement social networking features into del.icio.us.
