using personal data within social networks

As you can guess, this topic has been intriguing me for a while. Well, in a way, it is a no brainer. It had to happen. MySpace announces it will use users persoanl data to target ads. Brad Stone from NYT reports

"The social networking companies see those pages as a lush target for advertisers — if only they could customize the ads.....

But MySpace, the Web’s largest social network and one of the most trafficked sites on the Internet, says that after experimenting with technology over the last six months it can tailor ads to the personal information that its 110 million active users leave on their profile pages....

They say the tailoring technology has improved the likelihood that members will click on an ad by 80 percent on average."

If this is indeed true, thats a big jump. Improving success rate of your impressions a few percentage points can be quite a feat, here they are talking about 80% jump.

I am sure we will soon see news feed from Facebook claiming similar expertise. It had to happen and is happening as the above article claims. From what I hear, many googlers and yahoogans have been recruited by Facebook. More information here in the excerpts from WSJ. I think what they recently released as Flyers pro is an effort in that direction.

Now the question is, will I as a user of myspace or facebook or linkedin mind if they are mining my personal data. Given that google already does that within gmail and iGoogle and still is very popular web email program and home page, people have come to expect this. If they get a service they like and want, they are willing to compromise their privacy..

But what about giving access to that information to thirdparties.. now that is something which is very dangerous. It is already happening.. it happens. The intent is not to compromise on user privacy, but there are so many loose ends when that happens on the internet that accountability disappears.

naked profiles

Read the story about facebook on mercury news today.

" Four out of 10 users of Web site Facebook unwittingly expose themselves to the risk of identify theft and virus attacks, according to a new study that underscores growing concerns among security experts about online social networking."

you know what I fear the most in this web 2.0 craze, a backlash. And we are all too smart to never underestimate the backlash of the masses. If there is one thing that can puncture the bubble (geez, I meant the euphoria), that would be backlash against loss of privacy individuals/families/mom and pop shops might feel against. Even MSNBC is talking about the dangers of online predators.

As web 2.0 penetrates the masses, crime (and spam and ogling) sophistication will increase. When it will start hurting, there is going to be backlash (like against pop up blockers, spam), people will start educating themselves about how to behave on social networks.. but it might be too late for some.

whats wrong with too many companies trying too many ideas

I was just reading Mike's blog on the excesses in the valley right now.

Everyone will agree on the excesses part. But something perturbed me. Its a madness, but a different kind of madness. Not the one where you burn cash crazy. But the one where there's just too many people experimenting too many ideas. Almost like school projects.

But whats wrong with too many companies trying too many ideas. There are 4X companies now because

- its cheap to build something
- there’s a reward for simple ideas done nicely (youtube, feedburner)
- grip of institutionalization is breaking. Gone are days when ideas had to be big, blessed and would take years before released..

When there’s fire, there is going to be smoke. But its no wild fire like 90’s. I was there back then and I am here now. Difference is I am bootstrapped now. And so are so many others I know. Some might be partying, but no way close to peak times yet.

but it can be overwheming. too many companies doing too many things. There’s so much compeitition for even reaching the early adopters. Just keeping uptodate with TC feeds takes an hour.. and frankly Mike, thats what is happening to you. Covering the valley is/will remain a nerve wrecking job.

and whatever cycle we are in, there will always be good startups with the right idea executing the right way. ALWAYS. remember google was a me too idea as well.

research

my last month has been gruelling. it almost reminds me of my student days. I have almost become a web 2.0 researcher and its hard to summarize the learnings. Well, that sounds like so not web 2.0 like.

I believe we have entered the end of first wave of web 2.0.. there is consolidation, the reality has started to kick in, people are talking about social network fatigue fatigue and fatigue. But on the other hand, technology has just started to penetrate the mainstream. Like always, it starts with geeks, find its way to students and young generation who then teach their elders. Sometimes the gap remains for the worse or the better (now we are entering perception theories).

Now technology has started to penetrate the niches and there is no common theme to it (which again is against the essence of web 2.0). Now people are started to talk about how to adopt these new tools into existing solutions and change the way things are done. For that I am talking about broadcasting, music, publishing, at work (office management , sales, HR, CRM, product management, feedback mechanisms from customers, analysts etc etc), students, lectures, books, products, reviews, trust, friends, parties.. you get the picture.

To people who are thinking about starting a company, this is a great time to start a company. No, you are not too late. In fact, the time to start a company is when the technologies have been validated, the solutions become apparent, the curtains have been raised.. now its all about execution, take a problem and solve it to its core.. I believe the next wave of startups will be dealing with the niches, taking to the masses. To me web 3.0 is not about read/write/execute in the technology front, but taking the read/write web 2.0 and executing the ideas which will take the technology to the masses.

why to not say no to startup?

Paul Graham has written an excellent essay about starting a startup. He illustrated many points which a entrepreneur joggles through..
and I still maintain, one of the single big mistakes many potential would be entrepreneurs do is "not taking the first step of actually starting" the company. Too much time and energy is wasted is thinking about the process and consequences. The decision should be taken and if it is to start, company should be started asap. Failure is not a taboo, as long as you have thought about that as well.

demographics of evolving web2.0 users

interesting stats from hitwise. I have been digging and researching to understand the demographics of evolving internet app usage post web2.0. One topic which often comes into my discussions is whether web 2.0 has entered mainstream and if yes, to what extent.

Firstly, very good work in defining customer segmentation from Claritus, which can be very useful when planning/thinking /designing your web app idea, especially in this web 2.0 era.

Secondly, when it comes to scope of web 2.0 apps today, the word is still "informainment". Is that it? How do you take this movement to the next level?

On Blogging, Dave Sifry says

Technorati is tracking 70 million blogs now, at a rate of 120,000 new blogs per day - 1.5 million new posts per day. He compares to "an enormous amoeba". He says there are 15.3 million "active" blogs (21%). He also notes the mainstreaming of these technologies - and that people may not even notice they're reading a blog. 12% of the top 100 sites 6 months ago were blogs; but now he says it is 22%. Mainstream media is still at the top (NY Times etc), but there is growth in the blogs.

He looks now at the behaviors of the top bloggers. He says these are effects, not necessarily causes. He notes that influential bloggers post more frequently, on average twice a day. Whereas "magic middle" bloggers (about 3M) post on average once a day. Also influential bloggers have been at this at least 1-2 years. Finally, 88% of the top 100 is different than one year ago - i.e. it's very fluid.

In language, Japanese is now the top language - 37%. However there are undercounts: French, Korean and Chinese. English is now 33%, only one third.

Tagging has become a mainstream acitivity in blogging, according to Sifry - 230 Million tags over two years, with 37% of blog posts using author tags.

clipped from www.readwriteweb.com Next Bill looks at participators vs viewers. Some 'visits to media upload' ratios: 0.16% for YouTube, 0.2% Flickr, 4.59% Wikipedia (entry edits). Dave Sifry notes that the creation percentage - I guess I'd call it the read/write ratio! - is certainly a lot lower than the old 80/20 rule. Bill drills down into the participatory figures, which shows for Wikipedia that older users are much more likely to be participatory (35-55) whereas the younger users are the viewers. However for YouTube it is the 25-54 yr olds that upload videos - however note that Hitwise doesn't track <18. The gender breakdown shows that 76% of users are male on YouTube, but a 60/40 male/female split for wikipedia.

public blog?

I was never a writer.. I have had private blogs but never found the need to share.. until now. I guess its easier to follow the trend than to create one. A cursory look at my private blog and I knew it will need many edits before making it public, given it had a lot of propreitary knowledge of many startups I have worked for (Business Signatures, Escalate, Electron Economy to name a few). So I thought I would start my public blog from scratch.

creating blog was easy, previewing template was not. I am surprised half the URL's to preview were bad links. Either not many people care about templates or I just had too much time on my hands.

I strive to keep this simple and to the point. One of the reasons I started was not that I wanted to publish (strage isnt it), but that I wanted to find value in the feedback which will come back my way. I want to be able to blog questions and opinions and see what sticks to the wall and what is outrageously bad idea.

well for starters, this blog is ready to be lost in the crowd..