Ultimate Platform Hotness Smackdown (Twitter, Facebook, iPhone, Native Web / Search)

ULTIMATE PLATFORM HOT NESS SMACK DOWN Startup2Startup / Boulder June 30, 2009 David Cohen, TechStars Dave McClure, Founders Fund Jeff Clavier, SoftTech VC Ryan McIntyre, Foundry Group Howard Lindzon, StockTwits/WallStrip

Platforms: HOT or NOT ?
Facebook
iPhone
Twitter
Native Web (Search)
Social Networks : Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Orkut, hi5, Friendster
Email & IM : Yahoo, MSFT, Google, AOL, Skype
Mobile : iPhone, Palm, Android, Blackberry, etc
Gaming : Zynga, RockYou, Slide, Playfish, SGN
E-Commerce : Amazon (1-Click), eBay (PayPal), Apple (iTunes)
Dev : Amazon (AWS), Google AppEngine, Ruby/Rails, Python/Django, etc
Other : SalesForce, Craigslist, Wikipedia, YouTube

Platform Viability Successful Platforms have 3 Things: 1) Features 2) Users 3) Money Users . . Money Features Growth Profit Profitable Growth Nirvana

Discussion Topics
Distribution
Viral? Paid?
Monetization
Gatekeepers & Trolls vs Support
Stability / Predictability
Reputation / Identity
Demographic
The Future ?

Facebook Platform & Facebook Connect: Big Pimping via Profiles, Apps, Feeds

Facebook Overview
Users : 250M and counting (100M+ in US)
Demographic : college -> everyone (moms, grandmas)
Distribution : Most viral platform on the planet
Monetization : up to you: ads, lead-gen, virtual goods
Gatekeepers : not much, unless you get spammy
Stability / Predictability : stable, but fickle?
Invitations/Notifications: lot s of rules, changes often
NewsFeed: amazing distribution, but algorithm continues to “evolve”
Reputation / Identity : amazing access to social graph
Facebook Connect : portabile identity across the web (+ payments?)

The Good Stuff
Social Networks Viral Distribution via Friends Lists
1) Messaging, 2) Profile Surfing, 3) News Feeds
Social “Gestures” & Communication (pokes, wall posts, emails) drive User Engagement & Distribution
Social Content (notes, photos, videos) can be “tagged” with people data that also drives User Engagement & Distribution
Social Applications are “carriers” for Content & Communication
Facebook Connect enables “data portability” for logins, profile data, friend lists, and other social network content, data, & applications
Facebook Payments is coming… soon?

Facebook Connect, Facebook Payments
Facebook Connect
Standardized User Login for use OFF-Platform (outside Facebook)
Access to ON-Platform data (user profiles, friend lists)
“ Data Portability” -> take my network with me, anywhere on the web
Lightweight app framework for use OFF-network
Possibility : 250M+ users across the web; “1-click” login / “always logged in Internet”, use of FB Connect use by branded sites & retailers
Facebook Payments
Not launched yet; “coming soon” (now in alpha)
On-platform payment option (wallet? Micro-transactions?)
Off-platform payment option (via FB Connect)
Possibility : Social Commerce, “Viral” Products / Digital Goods

Jeff Clavier (aka @jeff) Managing Partner, SoftTech VC Disclosure: Whoopsie, I actually own AAPL iPhone: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

iPhone Platform – The Good
30M devices (iPhone/iPod Touch) as of 12/08(?)
Over 1B downloads from AppStore
Easy referencing (sort of), deployment, update
Baked in monetization: premium apps, subscriptions, in-app commerce
Zero-carrier friction

iPhone Platform – The Bad
Limited discoverability among 56K applications
Tough organic customer acquisition
No internal virality (no contacts/graph)
Challenging economics
Apple’s 30%
Only the head of the tail of applications makes money
Like video, advertising only works for premium content/applications
Proprietary development language

iPhone Platform – The Ugly
Application developers are not managed like an asset by Apple, more like a necessary evil
Lot of crappy apps out there

iPhone Platform – The Ugly
Application developers are not managed like an asset by Apple, more like a necessary evil
Lot of crappy apps out there
Proprietary development language

Twitter

What is StockTwits ?
StockTwits is an open, community-powered investment idea and information service
80,000 twitter subscribers
Our "Human Ticker” adds context
TweetDeck's functionality enables "Social Bloomberg"
Eavesdrop on traders and investors in the “Now Web”
Piggyback on Twitter’s reputation system
Transparency assures meritocracy

Free Model

Tweetdeck Integration

Native Web (Search)

Web / Search: One Platform to Rule Them All
Hotness
Features (yes, all of them!)
Users (1.6B and counting)
Money (lots! GOOG is $22B, AMZN $20B, EBAY $8B)
The search gesture carries more economic value than social/sharing gestures (for now)
The über platform: all interesting apps built on web stack, whether FB, Twitter, iPhone, etc
Big serendipity/surprise factor inherent in the web/search platform
No gatekeeper, no approval process, widest flexibility in developer tools, ease of deployment
Web’s ecosystem of ad networks, payment systems, affiliate revenues, etc. enable monetization for non-developers : publishers, retailers

Web / Search: One Platform to Rule Them All
Coldness
Growing more slowly than FB, Twitter, iPhone, etc
You can build anything. Constraints imposed by FB, Twitter, iPhone platforms can actually benefit developers WRT stability, distribution, monetization
De-facto gatekeeper: Search engine dynamics throttle distribution. Time/money required to build Google juice/SEO and to engage in SEM
Pages not people (links are king, ignores the social, makes distribution hard)
Then, not now (web is archive, not zeitgeist)

Discussion Topics
Distribution
Viral? Paid?
Monetization
Gatekeepers & Trolls vs Support
Stability / Predictability
Reputation / Identity
Demographic
The Future ?

Platform Viability Successful Platforms have 3 Things: 1) Features 2) Users 3) Money Users . . Money Features Growth Profit Profitable Growth Nirvana

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Ultimate Platform Hotness Smackdown (Twitter, Facebook, iPhone, Native Web / Search)

by Dave McClure on Jul 01, 2009

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Ultimate Platform Hotness Smackdown (Twitter, Facebook, iPhone, Native Web / Search) — Presentation Transcript