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Posts Tagged ‘multiple-social’

Here’s a question that’s been running through my head ever since Michael posted about FriendFeed being in danger of becoming the coolest app no one uses: exactly how many startups out there are trying to be the one social networking service aggregator to rule them all, and how many is enough?

It seems like every day startups come up with new applications, be it for desktop, Web and/or mobile phone, that essentially want to be the gateway to our online lives. In reality though, there are not that many people who want - let alone need - continuous access to multiple social networking services, and even if they do, how many people (outside of the tech industry) do you know who are genuinely waiting for a extra third-party that helps them manage all their online personas?

Is this a sucker’s game? Is it a battle worth fighting?

For example: how many clients exist that basically aim to lure you away from using Twitter’s standard web interface by adding more features to the core micro-sharing functionality and throwing in more eye candy? And yet, the Twitter website remains, by far, the most popular way for users to update their message streams, with dozens of apps like TweetDeck, Twhirl / Seesmic Desktop, PeopleBrowsr, Sobees, Streamy, Tweetie, Nambu, TwitterBerry, and HootSuite trailing in its path (and there are many more where that came from).

Don’t even get me started on the plethora of apps that syndicate FriendFeed feeds alongside Facebook and Twitter to deliver the best-user-experience-known-to-mankind when it comes to updating your social graph on your current status. It’s the ultimate social networking service aggregator update management tool, baby!

All these applications appeal to only a fraction of the users of the more popular social services, many of which are still trying to figure out how to turn all that attention into cold hard cash themselves. I’m not necessarily saying that that’s a reason not do get into that business, I’m just saying chances are little that they’re ever going to be able to turn it into something even remotely profitable.

I sincerely think we’ve seen enough of these social network aggregators, and while I’m sure one or two will live on, get acquired or turn out to be a successful venture in another way, most are destined for failure like most startups in any other market, especially if they’re as saturated as this one has quickly proven to be.

I’ll sure be pointing back to this post when the next contestants in this particular arena find their way to our inboxes.

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Let’s face it, most people are sheep. It is much easier to follow than to lead, and on Twitter it is no different. A full 80 percent of Twitter accounts have fewer than 10 followers, according to an analysis of seven million Twitter accounts provided to TechCrunch by Web security firm Purewire (which operates TweetGrade). What’s more, 30 percent have zero followers.

Does this mean nobody is using Twitter? Or that they are using it more as a one-way information consumption service?

The fact that an estimated 32 million people around the world visited Twitter.com alone in April certainly indicates that there is something going on there. It just may be that Twitter really isn’t as much about two-way micro-conversations as it is about one-way micro-broadcasting. Indeed, a recent Harvard Business School study suggested that the top 10 percent of Twitter users produce more than 90 percent of all Tweets.

Here is how Purewire breaks down activity on Twitter by number of followers, followings, and Tweets:

Followers
Accounts with 0 followers: 29.4%
Accounts with 1 to 9 followers: 50.9%
Accounts with 10 or more followers: 19.7%

Followings
Accounts following 0 people: 24.4%
Accounts following 1 to 9 people: 43.4%
Accounts following 10 or more people: 32.2%

Tweets
Accounts with 0 Tweets: 37.1%
Accounts with 1 to 9 Tweets: 41.0%
Accounts with more 10 or more Tweets: 21.9%

What stands out from this data is that about a quarter of all accounts are not following anybody, nearly 30 percent have zero followers, and more than a third have not posted a single Tweet. The problem with all of this data, however, is that it includes abandoned accounts (as most likely does the Harvard data as well).

Like any popular Web service, millions of people create a Twitter account, try it once, and never come back again. The Purewire data shows that about 40 percent of users have not sent out a Tweet since the day they created their accounts. You can compare this with the 60 percent abandonment rate claimed by Nielsen. But even these may not be the true abandonment rates. Just because you are not Tweeting does not mean you are not listening.

After getting rid of the dead accounts and spam accounts (24 percent of accounts follow nobody), what do we have left? All the activity on Twitter is coming from the remaining people who stick around—that 20 percent with more than ten followers and the 32 percent following more than ten people. If you look at active accounts—which Purewire defined as those with at least 10 followers, 10 followings, and 10 tweets—it shows that Twitter is still filled with sheep. Of those active accounts, 63.6 percent follow more people than they have followers (2.8 percent have the same number of followers as followings).

But that is what you’d expect. When only 22 percent of accounts have more than 10 Tweets, people who bother to Tweet on a regular basis will attract more followers than people who prefer to sit back and read. Twitter is no different than any other form of participatory media. A small fraction of users produce the overwhelming amount of content, even if it is just 140 characters at a time. Everyone else just drinks from the stream. Baaaa!

(Photo credit: Flickr/Stacie Brew )

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Ning is going to be reaching a big milestone this week, when it sees its one millionth social network created on its self-serve platform. Ning, which had its initial beta launch in 2005 and ‘full’ launch in 2007, makes it easy for people to create niche social networks focused on the topics they care about.

Ning continues to grow steadily despite the fact that it banned ‘adult’ social networks late last year (some had suggested that the site relied on these adult networks to drive a significant amount of traffic, which isn’t the case). Ning now reports 22 million registered users overall, 700,000 of whom have created their own networks. Of the 1 million networks created, 200,000 remain active, across which 2.5 million new pieces of content (including comments and photos, and other media) are added per day.

Recently the site has been adding a number of new features that help its network creators spruce up their networks, including a persistent chat feature similar to Facebook Chat. The site also recently revamped its homepage at Ning.com to make it easier for users to manage their activity on multiple social networks and to discover new ones. Network Creators can also access a new directory of OpenSocial applications which run the gamut from games and Ecards to enhanced messaging services.

Because many of its users (particularly network creators) tend to be quite passionate about the sites they’ve built, Ning hasn’t been without its share of controversy, but its continued growth seems to indicate that most users are satisfied.

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I’m very pleased to announce a new startup investment program today called The TechFellow Awards in partnership with Founders Fund. The goal is to honor technology innovators and stoke new investment in great early stage ideas.

The TechFellow Awards program will grant at least twelve fellows $25,000 each to invest in an early stage startup of their choice. Founders Fund will invest an additional $25,000 alongside those investments and request an additional right to invest another $250,000 when the company raises its next round of financing. In all, Founders Fund expects to devote around $3.6 million to the program.

The fellows will have few restrictions on the companies they invest in. The fellows will be selected from four categories of experts: engineering leadership, product design and marketing, general management and disruptive innovation.

Nominations for TechFellow Awards are open to everyone; information on submitting people you think would be excellent award candidates is available here and on TechFellow.com (self nominations are welcome). Nominations will be open until Friday, May 8, 2009.

We’ve also gathered an amazing group of people to help select winners of the TechFellow Awards, which will be formally granted at an awards dinner in June:

• Marc Andreessen, Co-Founder and Chairman, Ning
• Michael Arrington, Founder / Editor TechCrunch
• John Battelle, Chairman, CEO, Federated Media
• Ron Conway, Special Partner, Baseline
• Chris DeWolfe, Co-Founder and CEO, MySpace
• Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure
• Caterina Fake, Co-Founder, Flickr
• Shawn Fanning, Co-Founder, Napster, Co-Founder SNOCAP, Co-Founder Rupture
• Reid Hoffman, CEO and Co-Founder, LinkedIn
• Joi Ito, CEO, Creative Commons
• Max Levchin, Founder and CEO, Slide, Co-Founder, PayPal
• John McKinley, CEO and Founder, OurParents
• Jonathan Miller, Chief Digital Officer, News Corp
• Tim O’Reilly, Founder, O’Reilly Media
• Sean Parker, Co-Founder, Napster, Plaxo, Facebook; Managing Partner, Founders Fund
• Geoff Ralston, CEO, LaLa and former Chief Product Officer, Yahoo!
• Terry Semel, Chairman and CEO, Windsor Media and former Chairman and CEO, Yahoo!
• Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, SearchEngineLand.com
• Peter Thiel, Managing Partner, Founders Fund, Former CEO, PayPal
• Jeff Weiner, Executive-in-Residence, Accel Partners and Greylock Partners
• Michael Yanover, Business Development, Creative Artists Agency
• Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook

The full press release is below:

TECHCRUNCH, FOUNDERS FUND LAUNCH FIRST ANNUAL ‘TECHFELLOW AWARDS’

$50,000 “Genius Grants for Geeks” to Invest in Emerging Companies

SAN FRANCISCO—April 16, 2009—TechCrunch, a leading technology blog, and Founders Fund, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, today announced the TechFellow Awards, a new annual program honoring technology innovators for achievement and excellence in high-tech entrepreneurship.

The twelve initial TechFellow recipients will be chosen from a pool of candidates contributed by the nominating committee with the help of the readers of TechCrunch. This open nomination process starts today on the TechCrunch website. Final fellowship selections will be made in June 2009 and announced at an awards dinner for the honorees.

The awards will recognize individuals for their critical role in developing breakthrough products and services in four categories: 1) Engineering Leadership, 2) Product Design and Marketing, 3) General Management, and 4) Disruptive Innovation.

Each TechFellow will be awarded $25,000 to invest in a new startup of their choice. Founders Fund will match each investment, for a total of $50,000. Founders Fund may also provide additional future investments in these companies.

“Even in a down market, the innovation and entrepreneurship of Silicon Valley continues unabated,” said Michael Arrington, Founder of TechCrunch. “The TechFellow Awards recognize and reward current role models of our industry.”

“In challenging times, focusing on innovation remains a good bet,” said Sean Parker, Managing Partner at Founders Fund. “It’s time to double-down on the future of technology by encouraging the next generation of innovators.”

Public TechFellow nominations launch today on TechCrunch via a Webform available at http://www.techcrunch.com/techfellow and will be open until Friday, May 8, 2009.

The 2009 TechFellow Awards Nominating Committee members are:
• Marc Andreessen, Co-Founder and Chairman, Ning
• John McKinley, CEO and Founder, OurParents
• Michael Arrington, Founder/Editor, TechCrunch
• Jonathan Miller, Chief Digital Officer, News Corp
• John Battelle, Chairman, CEO, Federated Media
• Tim O’Reilly, Founder, O’Reilly Media
• Ron Conway, Special Partner, Baseline
• Sean Parker, Co-Founder, Napster, Plaxo, Facebook; Managing Partner, Founders Fund
• Chris DeWolfe, Co-Founder and CEO, MySpace
• Geoff Ralston, CEO, LaLa and former Chief Product Officer, Yahoo!
• Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure
• Terry Semel, Chairman and CEO, Windsor Media and former Chairman and CEO, Yahoo!
• Caterina Fake, Co-Founder, Flickr
• Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, SearchEngineLand.com
• Shawn Fanning, Co-Founder, Napster, Co-Founder SNOCAP, Co-Founder Rupture • Peter Thiel, Managing Partner, Founders Fund, Former CEO, PayPal
• Reid Hoffman, CEO and Co-Founder, LinkedIn
• Jeff Weiner, Executive-in-Residence, Accel Partners and Greylock Partners
• Joi Ito, CEO, Creative Commons
• Michael Yanover, Head of Business Development, Creative Artists Agency
• Max Levchin, Founder and CEO, Slide, Co-Founder, PayPal
• Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook

For additional information about the TechFellow awards please visit http://TechFellow.com.

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About TechCrunch
TechCrunch is a leading technology media empire dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. Founded in 2005, TechCrunch and its network of websites reach 5.5 million unique visitors and have more than 15 million page views per month. TechCrunch operates a global network of websites including TechCrunch Europe, TechCrunch France, and TechCrunch Japan as well as specialized industry websites including MobileCrunch, CrunchGear, and TechCrunchIT. TechCrunch is also home to CrunchBase, a leading data resource about start-up companies, people and investors, as well as industry events including TechCrunch 50 and The Crunchies, and various meet-ups worldwide serving as community platforms for industry conversation and collaboration. TechCrunch is a privately held company located in Palo Alto, CA. For more information, please visit http://www.techcrunch.com.

About Founders Fund
Based in San Francisco, Founders Fund is an early-stage venture capital firm created in 2005. Founders Fund is run by entrepreneurs who have started and managed their own companies, and is committed to innovation in venture capital using a non-traditional, founder-focused approach to investing. The FF team is comprised of people with engineering, product, design, and online marketing experience from companies like PayPal, Facebook, and Google. If you’re solving a big and interesting problem, we’d like to hear what you’re doing. For more information visit http://www.foundersfund.com.

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