Comments for Who Can Compete with Facebook?

Who Can Compete with Facebook?

2007-05-25T22:50:05Z

I've been thinking a lot about the Facebook Platform (who hasn't?), and about who is in the best position to take them on. The obvious answer is MySpace, still the giant of the social networking world with about 4 times as many users as Facebook. If MySpace created an API and opened up its user base to third party developers, there's no doubt that developers would jump at the opportunity. But MySpace would likely require a significant redesign in order to be able implement something like the Facebook Platform as fluidly as Facebook has.

The next logical answer is Google or Yahoo!, both of whom have huge user bases, extensive developer APIs and the resources to pull off. But Google and Yahoo! lack the cohesion that Facebook has -- there's nothing really tying their users together. Then I had a crazy thought: What about Netvibes and Pageflakes?

]]> That sounds absurd, I know, but bear with me. Both Netvibes and Pageflakes already act as platforms, with sophisticated developers APIs for creating widgets and programs to interact with their users. Both companies allow users to customize their pages, and inject personality into them. Both companies also already encourage users to share their creations (Universes and Pagecasts). Perhaps, the next step beyond sharing should be interaction.

What's to stop either of those companies from adding social networking features? Or what's to stop a third party developer from creating a widget that lets you link up with other users, or converse with one another via your Universe or Pagecast? It's also a safe bet to assume that most of the companies that will be jumping on the Facebook Platform already, or will in the future, have a presence on Netvibes and Pageflakes. Pageflakes actually already encourages users to share Pagecasts as a group, allowing people to coalesce around a specific topic or idea. I think the next logical step is to add full on social networking features.

Netvibes has reported recently that it has 10 million users, and while Pageflakes is a little less forthcoming with their stats (I put in an email to Dan Cohen seeking that info, but had not heard back at press time), it's probably safe to assume they're a bit smaller. Either of these services is a far cry from the more than 20 million Facebook users (apparently growing by 100,000 per day and generating 40 billion page views per month), but my idea has less to do with user numbers and more to do with technology. Whereas Facebook is just launching their platform, Netvibes and Pageflakes each already have an evolved and popular platform ecosystem in place. What they lack is the social scene.

Is my idea totally off the wall or am I making some sense? Who do you think is in the best position to compete with Facebook?

Comment from Emre Sokullu on 2007-05-25

2007-05-25T22:13:33Z

Yes social networking can be a feature. But there can be only one social network where one will stay in touch with all his friends - a central social network. You can't keep moving from one to another all the time, create new profiles etc. Therefore Facebook is not comparable to startpages IMO; but yes both Facebook and NetVibes may add social networking features, but this should not be a priority, there are more important things we need - like a mobile-friendly UI and personalization features.

Comment from mrshl on 2007-05-25

2007-05-25T22:43:22Z

The problem Pageflakes and Netvibes face is in some ways more difficult than the redesign facing Myspace. Adding social features is the easy part; designing them in a way that attracts and encourages growth is more difficult. When you already have a critical mass of users already interacting with each other (as Myspace and Facebook do) throwing more features at those users is a natural step.

But if your users are silo-ed (i.e., Netvibes and Pageflakes), your feature set won't necessarily translate into user interaction. Yahoo provides a helpful example. Damn near everyone on Earth has a Yahoo account. Yahoo's mail and start page are nearly ubiquitous. I would have expected them to leverage that user base into something like what Facebook has done. Photos, messaging, games, and fantasy sports; all are natural hubs of interaction. But the hub they created, Yahoo!360 is a virtual ghost-town. Google is in a similar situation. Neither Google nor Yahoo! has found a way to leverage their disparate properties into a cohesive network. It would seem even more difficult for Pageflakes or Netvibes to succeed because they lack Google's and Yahoo's mail and messaging hubs.

Comment from Joseph Price on 2007-05-25

2007-05-26T01:09:09Z

Aside: I wonder if Facebook's growth is seasonal and their recent stats ("100,000 per day") reflect that. Across the country seniors are graduating high school and enrolling in colleges who give them email addresses. That staggering rate might lessen as we get closer to September.

Main Point: Google has the most to lose from the growth of Facebook. Facebook is a closed system and Google can't crawl it. If people start putting most of their personal content there, Google's search becomes much less useful.

Comment from Josh Catone on 2007-05-25

2007-05-26T02:11:01Z

But if your users are silo-ed (i.e., Netvibes and Pageflakes), your feature set won't necessarily translate into user interaction. Yahoo provides a helpful example. Damn near everyone on Earth has a Yahoo account. Yahoo's mail and start page are nearly ubiquitous. I would have expected them to leverage that user base into something like what Facebook has done. Photos, messaging, games, and fantasy sports; all are natural hubs of interaction. But the hub they created, Yahoo!360 is a virtual ghost-town.

You make a good point, but I might argue that Yahoo! is a bit different in that their services are siloed from one another -- they're all disconnected. There's no connection between Flickr and del.icio.us and Yahoo! Sports, for example. (MyYahoo! ties them in, I suppose, and I might suggest the same thing to Yahoo! that I do for Pageflakes and Netvibes.)

These startpages, on the otherhand, in terms of the services they offer, are cohesive. Everything is gathered together around a hub, so they might be in a better position to exploit that socially.

Comment from Clyde Smith on 2007-05-25

2007-05-26T02:52:53Z

I don't know the answer to your question but I like what you're thinking through. Flipping what a company's known for seems to be a big part of the current environment, Google being a great example.

On a related note, I've always wondered what would happen if MySpace offered normal email to its users so they could user their MySpace email account for all their email if they wanted.

Comment from Simon on 2007-05-26

2007-05-26T08:11:37Z

Well your idea makes sense though it's not very original - when Netvibes made they announcement of their second public page, who didn't think about the social u-turn they were heading at ?

From my prospective Netvibes is already competing Google (for being every user's first connexion page) as well as myspace (for being any user's default social site).

Comment from Thomas Maas on 2007-05-26

2007-05-26T10:35:25Z

We have openID, (restful) web-services and some form of semantics like micro-formats. Now all we need is a kind of openREL (some way to create relations between OpenIDs) and the web could be just that framework‚Ä¶

As openID lets you travel with your identity, openREL would let you travel with your social network.

Putting facebook inside the web instead of the web inside facebook looks like the best way forward to me.

Just a saturday morning thought‚Ä¶

Comment from Anand D on 2007-05-26

2007-05-26T12:13:12Z

You fail to see the reason behind Facebook Platform's predicted Success.The major point backing the success of the platform is the 20 million user base of Facebook which makes the platform attractive to the 3rd party developers. And not just 20 millon users,20 million INTERACTING users(social n/w).U need the INTERACTING user community to create,use & recommend & spread the application/widgets. Netvibes/Pageflakes do have 10 m users but NON-INTERACTING. & you can't just add "INTERACTING user community" by adding social features to a personalized start page. Who can compete with facebook ? ANY SOICAL NETWORKING SITE with large userbase for whom releasing an functional API is not a tremendous task & how to compete? Simple.Buy Netvibes/Pageflakes & Integrate the functional module.Done.

Comment from Anand D on 2007-05-26

2007-05-26T12:23:12Z

You fail to see the reason behind Facebook Platform's predicted Success.The 20 million userbase of Facebook makes it attractive to the 3rd party developers.And not just 20 m , 20 MILLION INTERACTING USERBASE.You need a INTERACTING User Community to create,use,recommend & spread your application/widget.Netvibes/pageflakes has 10m users but NON-INTERACTING.You can't just create a large INTERACTING community base by adding a social feature to a personalized start page.Who can compete with Facebook Platform? Any SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE with a large userbase for whom releasing a functional API is not a tremendous task.How to compete ? Buy Netvibes/Pageflakes and intergrate the functional module into the social Network. Done

Comment from Anand D on 2007-05-26

2007-05-26T12:23:59Z

Comment from Robert Dewey on 2007-05-26

2007-05-26T13:55:29Z

Interesting... I think the next step in social networking is strengthening what already exist (like Geni). Facebook and MySpace, whether they like it or not, are geared towards the facilitation of friends. The new Facebook platform isn't really as "open" as everyone wants to think; you still need to hit the Facebook domain for the "open platform" to make sense.

Facebook has a database worth billions, they just aren't using it in the right way. XFN and FOAF are open, but they lack the numbers. By having a network that is open, third-party services like "Google Calendar" or "30 Boxes" could associate data with a specific user. This way, I can still see my contact's schedule information regardless of my service.

Comment from techmine on 2007-05-26

2007-05-26T13:55:56Z

I think Facebook, Netvibes and Pageflakes can live side by side, with NV and PF acting more like parasite sites. They are known and will evolve as a platform of integration of multiple FB like platforms (who knows tomorrow Google opens up Orkut or MySpace creates a similar platform). Without doubt developers will create widgets/gadgets for all the popular ones. Success of these will surely depend on the functionality of the API (not like the Yahoo Mail API joke). I won't mind having a flake on my Pageflakes profile that can display a RSS feed of activity on my Facebook/orkut/myspace accounts. If you know orkut, most of the time users read/write scraps. API for just this will be great....

Comment from Kevin Gamble on 2007-05-27

2007-05-27T11:57:19Z

It's already too late for Netvibes, Pageflakes, and even iGoogle. None of these personal pages have social networking as the core of their appeal. Facebook just walked into their space and delivered them a knockout blow.

Comment from Stephan Miller on 2007-05-28

2007-05-28T18:39:08Z

I think that any one of the three could become a middleman between internet retailers and the users. Allow retailers and others who want to spread the word about something approach users who are already hyping a product and who have opted in to allow retailers to approach them. The sites themselves would then either take a cut or charge a fee. The users would be provided a little cash for doing what they already do. And the system should be smart. For example, if a user is hyping about a new ipod and it could be tracked to a sale, if they have already opted in, they should instantly see a credit in their account. Money with no extra work, that will bring in users by droves, especially when they don't have to change anything they are already doing.