SocialStartups.com

While on the subway heading back to Brooklyn - I had gone to see Iron Man at Union Square, it was great - I was thinking about Microsoft. I was trying to imagine what exactly Microsoft could do that 1) doesn’t have an entrenched player, and 2) they might be able to be successful at. Search the Google way, in my opinion, does not satisfy either requirement, even if they bought Yahoo. So what else?

I considered Tim O’Reilly’s suggestion of investing in pieces of an “Internet Operating System”, which could be the answer although they’d have to fight Amazon, Google, Cisco and others for the bragging rights. Requirement (1) no, (2) yes.

I considered gaming, hardware, healthcare, social networking, and others…. but Microsoft is always involved there with mixed success. Is there anything left?

I’ve got a crazy suggestion. And yes, your own personal blog is the perfect place for crazy suggestions. So here it is - Microsoft should work to be the #1 destination site for vertical searching of the “organic web” (I just made that phrase up). The organic web would be defined as information that is continually changing. One example is airline ticket prices. Another is real estate, and another is classifieds. Microsoft should go out and develop / acquire any company who currently has the following properties: (1) The relevant data changes continuously, (2) The site is a leading player in their vertical, and (3) search is the main user activity on the site. Examples I can think of are Farecast (they bought this one), Craigslist (good luck there), and Redfin. With insider access to the data, Microsoft could provide superior search experiences to Google. Microsoft could then create a search portal that would be the first place everyone would go to search for data in these areas. Google’s crawlers can only go so fast - if Microsoft could provide a “real-time” search engine customized to a particular vertical, they could differentiate themselves in a very powerful way.

That’s it, keeping it short tonight since I’ve got a meeting in 10 hours with the CEO, COO, a few others.

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Google OpenSocial: Technical Overview and Critique

Dare nails it. I agree with every point.

If OpenSocial can make universal identity work, combine it with granular privacy controls, and in a way that doesn’t require me giving all of my data to Google for Google’s commercial use, then I’ll get excited. In the mean time, I’m going to go watch some football.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: google, opensocial, facebook, identity, privacy

Will Google “Friendster” Facebook? « Scobleizer

Scoble makes a really interesting point. He says “Can the social graph be componetized so that I could add a social network to my blog, for instance?”

OpenSocial is blasting open the door to the long tail of social networks. Every blog on the planet can roll it’s own “MyBlogLog”-like social network and applications that work with it.

So many angles to think about. How fun.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: facebook, google, opensocial, blogs, social networks

Google’s Response to Facebook: “Maka-Maka”

Amazing, I was just writing up something like this yesterday. I said:

For good measure, you could also add in GPhone data - who is in my address book, what I’m saying over SMS and phone conversation (transcribed into text via a service like Jott), and my location. The only part (and I admit it’s a crucial part) that I don’t understand is how Google will benefit by “out-opening” Facebook. My guess is that more data = googly goodness. Google will know more about you if you take Google with you, or bring the places you visit to Google.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Google, social networks, platform

Web Warrior - Forbes.com

This article reminded me that the Facebook vs. MySpace vs. Google platform wars may be a little premature. The biggest platform, outside the OS, is the browser. Everyone uses it, and through the browser, everyone accesses all other sites. Your browser stores your account information, commonly submitted form fields like email address, street address, credit card numbers. There are already a multitude of extensions.

This article reminds me that Google is working on a Google-branded Firefox browser. My guess is that this ties right in with Google’s claim to release a platform that is more open than Facebook’s. What if they centered it around the browser?

Here’s how this would work. Google knows my social network from Gmail, GTalk, and Orkut (if I use Orkut). Google knows all of my login credentials for all sites on the internet because every time I log into a new site, Google asks me if I’d like to save that information with them so that I don’t have to be bothered with logging in to Amazon, Netflix, eBay, etc. Google has access to my areas of expertise by applying semantic analysis (like what Twine does) to my emails (Gmail), documents/spreadsheets/presentations (Google office suite), and local files (Google Desktop). Google knows my financial portfolio (Google Finance). Google knows what areas I’m interested in (Google Reader, iGoogle, and my browsing history).

Mozilla could do this too - Combining Thunderbird (email) and Sunbird (Calendar) with Firefox  would get you a social network, areas of interest, and login credentials. Various extensions have been created for RSS aggregation, messaging, bookmarking, etc. I think it would be a hell of a bold bet, but an interesting one.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: facebook, google, firefox, platform

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a few weeks now, and have finally decided to do so now that a number of posts are coming out about Facebook replacing email.

Facebook has the potential to replace a lot more than just email.

Facebook could be the next Internet platform. One built upon interconnected social networks.

How about:

• classifieds (Craigslist)
• used and new products (Ebay)
• personalized start pages (Netvibes)
• social bookmarking (del.icio.us)
• video (YouTube)
• news aggregators (Digg)
• search engines, except the one inside Facebook

That scares me. Why? Because it’s a black hole - what goes in doesn’t come out.

Data is everything. If you own it (and have a LOT of it), you have a HUGE advantage. Just look at what Amazon can do with it’s recommendations.

Social networks, because of the network effect, are winner take all markets. Move everyone to the platform, build all of the apps on top, add trust, filter out all of the crap/spam, and you’re left with an Internet sized bundle of content with nothing but good stuff.

Which is wonderful, except the lock-in part. Facebook shouldn’t own all of the data built on top of it.

Do you trust Facebook?

Solar powered data centers

Now that’s a good idea. One of the biggest costs for any large internet company is cooling and powering their datacenters. Why not use free, clean, sustainable energy as a way to reduce costs? Amazon’s largest fulfillment center, based in Coffeyville, KS, is 750,000 square ft and has a flat roof. If we just covered that roof with solar paneling, I would think we could generate a noticeable amount of energy. Kansas gets a fair amount of sunlight as well. Our fulfillment center in Reno, Nevada would also be an excellent candidate. Although our datacenters are on the east coast, which is less ideal for solar paneling, using this kind of technology to reduce costs might make the idea of creating a datacenter in the Southwest or California more appealing.

PS - Google announced that becoming carbon neutral is a company goal. Why not Amazon?