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Eventually people get tired of the walled garden and get over it. Yes, EVERYONE was on AOL for years and then the web opened up and they realized there was LIFE BEYOND AOL. Just like there is life beyond FaceBook.
If you ask me, it's Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot if they keep the garden wall up.
Now then, making BETTER search results available through MS Live Search rather than Google within their Walled garden - now THAT'S something they could do.
I hope the Facebook folks are not stupid enough to let this happen. But yes, money does change everything. Thank god for twitter and friendfeed though!
once again it looks like quality of service is almost irrelevant, it's all about people, attention and data. which facebook has got.
friendfeed has a long way to go though.
might want to fix that up there...
If Google has access to billions of web pages created by over a billion people, why would Facebook's 60 million members make a dent? Almost everybody has more content outside of Facebook than inside it?
But declaring the open web dead if MS's deals goes through, isn't that a bit far fetched?
Isn't this just another FriendFeed is your friend post? =P
Plus, argubly MSFT are more open than anyone else right now (not my words - they're Marc Canter's).
-Jamie
Anyway, stay tuned. I see a ton of pushback. I'll be on the Gillmor Gang this afternoon.
Scary scary times!
I don't believe so. I'll talk about it later after the frenzy calms down a bit.
site:www.facebook.com
Brings up few results. Could it be that Google has no idea as to how to judge the importance of a page in Facebook... possibly. This would go a long way to prove the point that Google doesn't always have the most relevant results.
If Microsoft pull this one off... then good on them, for now. Here in South Africa Google have something silly like 98% of all of the search market. Want to talk monopoly's?
Someone needs to redux the Epic 2015 video ;)
I also don't think Facebook is as cool or cutting edge as it once was. If Microsoft purchased Facebook and Google purchased either Twitter and/or FriendFeed, I'd call Google the winner.
The scenario you outlined is not a strategy I'd risk 10 figures on.
I see now why you're championing FriendFeed; good reason. I've not looked at FriendFeed myself so I'll hold my judgement on it until I've had a better look.
R
Let's trust the market and let the web users decide. We're relatively educated... and when we're not: there's a digg post to educate.
Haven't you heard the latest news: Microsoft is proposing a joint venture with Yahoo, not a takeover. The bid has been withdrawn for some time now.
Facebook is choosing to stay closed. I would. It's in their best interest (relatively).
Who cares? If apps like FriendFeed can still be created (and they can, since they can impersonate you) then it doesn't matter.
This is akin to the "DRM hysteria". New DRM comes out, new format comes out, and everyone freaks out and shouts and blusters. Then in 3 weeks, some guy in northern Europe comes along, cracks it, and then we all go about our business.
And even IF the axis of evil of Facebook, MS, and Yahoo can somehow really lock stuff down - then market forces will decide if that's the good way, or the bad way. If enough people bitch and moan, or more importantly, just stop using the service, then they will be forced to open things up. If I have some content on Facebook that I'm trying to get published, and I can't search for it on Google, then I'm damn sure not going to put it on Facebook again. I'll find the next free service that will come along to compete with Facebook. You know, those guys you interview nearly every other day Scoble?
If the web has proven anything to us, its that the mob will always rule in the end, and if we can't rule, we'll build another one. Scoble of ALL people should know that by now. Chicken little antics and twitter freak-outs are a little bit over the top. Get another cup of coffee and calm down. The web will be there tomorrow.
Also, lets imagine both the deals happen for M$ alone - wont they be slapped with another EU fine of some sorts just because they are involved in a monopoly of data?
FriendFeed is possibly too late. Why? Momentum. People don't move their photos, their videos, their social graphs, once they are created. That's why only a few people cared about the Data Portability issue over the weekend. Yeah, smart people care, but there aren't enough of those who see the long-term consequences.
Most people TOTALLY don't agree with you, by the way.
Well, look at Facebook and what it can lock you out of. Facebook is already the largest repository of photos. Locked out. Largest repository of videos. Locked out. Largest event listing. Locked out. I'm getting tons of comments and messages in Facebook. Locked out. And Facebook has quite an interesting search and application platform. Locked out.
People already ARE putting data into this locked box and are perfectly happy doing so.
I hope that Microsoft buys yahoo search and implement their improved search.
Robert: I disagree with your point ‘People don’t move their photos, their videos, their social graphs, once they are created.’ If you look at the generation that uses this feature of facebook excessively, you will see that they are the people that don’t care about yesterday. They will not go back and look at photos for memories…they preferably want to see the photographic evidence of the bad behavior on the same night or by lunchtime the day after. When seen once, they will not go back. Therefore that does not put facebook in a strong position. Kids experience too much too look back.
To me this all looks like a short term move by Microsoft that they quickly need to convert before the train has left. History proves that Google are significantly faster at adapting to change than Microsoft. Only if Microsoft has really planned this one properly will they have a chance. It might look like Microsoft has been a sleep for the past years…this could be the wake up. Never underestimate a company with that much talent and money in the bank…
Now that the cat is out of the bag, this should push Yahoos price higher and, if it comes off, bring back the kind of dominance MS used to enjoy with the desktop.
But then again, the more time you spent on a social site, the less likely you are liked to change because you have gathered more friends on it nad invested more time and information on it and is more dependent on the features on the social site.
To use a science term, it's less likely to reach critical mass of numbers of people leaving due to the fact that people are unlikely to leave because nobody else is leaving.
Now I have a good reason!
I for one would be happy to be involved in a closed MS-Facebook, venturing out into the open Web only when I have to. As a developer I know how dangerous the Web can be these days - I hate to think of all the poor newbies and grandmas who are just phishing-bait.
I doubt MS could even afford both yahoo & facebook without putting itself at seriously in DEBT, and MS is notoriously stingy and frugal with their cash.
So no, i dont buy that its a fight for the internet. In the unlikely chance that MS is going for this strategy, they will loose and we may see the end of them.
I don't think it's really anything to get that worked up over.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this!
Comcast move on Plaxco, Wi Fi, etc is a convergence of control but like all the BIG the missing element is trust thus the chasm of the ages. see www.relationship-economy.com post this morning.
But, interesting times indeed.
Plus, argubly MSFT are more open than anyone else right now (not my words - they're Marc Canter's) so keeping Facebook closed would be incontrast to their current policies.
Oh, and as someone pointed out previously FB isn't as big outside the states as much as it is inside so even if this didn't happen its not the huge slice of the internet that you seem to think it is.
-Jamie
Facebook is not here to stay as big player.
It doesn't matter. The point is content content content. I have never seen anyone point to a Facebook video when passing a URL, even on Digg. It's always YouTube or sometimes Break.com.
The point is, that with a social network, you only care as far as your circle of friends. With something more loosely tied, like YouTube, you are more likely to care about that stranger's content in that non-social setting.
Are you serious? :)
The general web searchers currently don't see this information.
If it's something we don't have in our search results today, then i'd suggest this is a non-issue. It would take an incredible marketing push to get people to shift from google to yahoo search just so we could see facebook data, and considering most people wouldn't know any better then i see this as a problem.
No, it has virtually none of the features that made Facebook explode. Remember when Facebook took off? When it allowed people to build new applications. FriendFeed doesn't do that. Neither does FriendFeed have groups, which are also a major part of Facebook. Life streaming, which is what FF does, is only a relatively minor part of Facebook.
That's not to say "FriendFeed is bad and FaceBook is great", but the two things really are apples and oranges.
M$ needs to re-invent itself badly, so the Facebook and/or the Yahoo! Search purchases will be very important in defining M$ future. The Facebook deal would give M$ a strong leap forward in the Social Media space, where they have zero market presence, impact or control.
However, these possible deals would spell trouble for everybody that cares at all about privacy on the web. I suppose Social Media sites by nature are more “open” and “social”, but the mere thought of M$ buying Facebook makes me very nervous as an end-user. Same goes for M$ buying Yahoo Search. I’ve lost trust in M$, so these possible acquisitions are making the hair on my neck stand up and freak out!
The revenue potential for M$ is incredibly provocative, so they must be compelled to make a sizable purchase of either or both Facebook or Yahoo! Search. Personally, if I was M$, I’d buy BOTH asap. my 2 cents!
Thank you for bringing us the news and providing such great insight into it REALLY means to the everyday user! Great analysis! :-)
So? First, if people are happy, then where are YOU to decide what's best for them?
Second, I'm not one of "those" people. So, not everyone has drunk the social kool-aid. While I know that there are approximately 16 bajillion million people on Facebook now days, you are sort of in an echo chamber here. Very, very, very many people could really care less.
Third, a lot of people bought DRM'ed music too. Then they tried to copy the music to some unsupported player or another PC and got stuck. This raised their awareness of DRM, and they shifted their music buying. Now a lot of studios, Amazon, and Apple are all offering at least some music without DRM. The market spoke, and it changed - even when the market seemed inevitable.
So, in other words - its not the end of the world. The masses will either like it, or hate it, whenever it is (if ever) they choose to care about it. Once they care about it and it doesn't provide, the market changes, the rules are reset, and everyone moves on to the next big thing.
I don't see the problem that seriously, although I agree that Facebook plus Yahoo Search would be a better fit than the whole Yahoo (which competes with MSN heavily).
Facebook is just one site - there are others. Go to Europe and you see Facebook not playing a huge role. We have dozens of regional social networks that are open. I work for one myself, and we're using Google as a way to gain traffic, knowing that Facebook and others don't do that.
Also, Microsoft won't be able to use Facebook's data in a new Microhoo search engine just like they want - users would go nuts.
Microsoft would profit from Facebook most if they included web search and content into Facebook - including Facebook into search will be very difficult.
Like Calacanis said - you can make tons of money with content and search, but it's very difficult to monetize social traffic. Social traffic can create a lot of content- and search-traffic, though.
That's why Facebook would be a great fit for Microsoft.
@Robert (not Scoble)
A search for site:www.facebook.com brings up 700.000 results. That's about 1% of Facebook's members, without any of the photos, events and videos. Facebook is a big silo, showing me 1 mill of their data on Google won't change that.
Go home and do your homework.
Yeah, and does anyone remember something called "MySpace?"
No, I think its more that Scoble is too much of a user of these networks to react appropriately. In other words "he's too close to the subject." I can sort of understand his freak out if it were all of MY data that was at stake, and I was building my livelihood off of constant self promotion. (Which is fine, that's Scoble's job.) But, for the 99.999% of the rest of us in the world, this really doesn't matter.
But, that's why he blogged this, and is reading the responses. He gets instant feedback and hopefully understands a different perspective on it. Viva la social!
MySpace has NOT lost leadership. They're still more used, make more money, more profits (even if they didn't reach their goals). Facebook gets more hype, though.
No or just very little MySpace-users left for Facebook, though. MySpace simply serves a different audience than Facebook.
So no, MySpace is not evidence that users switch sites if something better comes along. MySpace is the very evidence that people tend to use crappy websites, if only their friends use it, too.
That's my point exactly. In another 3-5 years, Facebook will either be a "utility" like Google, or Amazon, or some sort of defacto standard, because they did what people want; or MySuperHappyFunPlace.com will be the new "standard" and we'll all be bitching about how THEY don't get social either. The web spins round and round... and there are NEVER any absolutes here.
And when you think about it, would you really expect any website that requires a username and password to access it, have its information publically available to search engines. I do a lot of fell running and am a member of fellrunning.org which has listing of all this years races, but i wouldn't expect the details to show up in google. Are we saying because facebook is huge that they should share all of our data...or am i missing the point?
If Microsoft wants to build a bigger badder silo as Robert suggests, they will lose. People don't want lock-in. They want features and freedom. If what MS gives them doesn't work for them, a workaround will be constructed or people will vote with their feet. Same for Google or anyone else.
As far as FB is concerned, while it may be useful to millions of Robert's friends, it has always seemed useless to me. They can have all my Funwall comments and stupid spammish invitations. Lock it all up and take it away. You'd be doing me a favour.
Google already has a product which could be used as a basis to build something that does everything FriendFeed does, in the shape of Jaiku - and it already (now) runs on Google's App Engine platform. Given that, I doubt that they'd bother buying FF.
In terms of marketing, I believe facebook is more powerful. The average facebook user has more spending power than the average myspace user. But now we are moving of the subject.
I'm not trying to pick on you, Robert, but this is your issue, not ours. You want to use services like Facebook as marketing tools that will allow you to turn "friends" into perceived prestige and influence... "hey, LargeCo, give me money or access, because I have the attention of all these people!" The Wall gets in the way of you executing your career plans.
But for the rest of us, Facebook is just a place to hang out and connect with people. Keeping the world out is exactly what we want.
This notion that it's somehow scary to force people to sign up to a site before allowing them to search / interact with it - so what? It's up to Microsoft if they want to explore this high risk strategy. Publishers have been doing it for years. If that content is so compelling that it gets people to sign up, then well done. If it's not, people will leave.
And remember - Facebook has always been walled. It's a business not a chairty, and it needs to sign users up to improve its advertising offer to brand owners. If you want searcheable open web content, why not go to Wikipedia? But even they need donations / need to make money.
I think they'll all go this way. What will be the only truly free / public web community in years to come? The BBC website.
I think a closed-off Facebook/Microsoft is not a good thing, but a lot of Facebook's users wouldn't think it was a big deal at all. (Of course, the response is that they wouldn't care until they wanted to move elsewhere, but if Microsoft/Facebook kept up the things they like about Facebook - perceived privacy and security from web-wide Google searches - why would they?)
If Facebook can be more powerful for marketing, how comes that MySpace is the company that makes one deal after the other with big brands? Every big brand is using MySpace to advertise their stuff. I know several people (not big brands, just normal people) who use MySpace for promotion, none who use Facebook.
A lot of people are bored with it, don't get it, or understand how it can be really beneficial. I have observed people joining, then there friends, and then friends of friends however it doesnt reach critical mass in a good way. It peters out once they get bored of throwing sheep at each other (and other such vacuous activities).
Mike Ashworth
Marketing Consultant
Brighton and Hove, Sussex, UK
Seriously, this idea is so crazy, I can't believe you've managed to find enough people to buy this to stir up the hornets nest this way. I'd be interested in how this is helping your bottom line, because it's obvious that's what you're up to.
The majority of the web users don't use Facebook. Hell, most of them have never even heard of it. Microsoft isn't so stupid as to try and buy it out in order to attempt some sort of vendor lock in. The chances of that working are slim and none, and slim didn't come to town. The attempt would be a PR disaster on a scale we've never seen in this industry... and Microsoft is smart enough to know that.
add me on facebook and we can have the discussion there - I can give you several examples.
In the past it was regulators that kept Microsoft in check, because competitors were trounced. Recently, however, Yahoo! put the kibbutz on a Microsoft proposed megamerger (purchase), despite major outcry and pressure. Similary, Microsoft can't just buy Facebook because it wants to. If Facebook decides that it does wish to sell (rather than staying independent and going public route) Microsoft would have a mega mega competitor for the purchase with Google (and secondarily also Yahoo). I'm not at all sure that Microsoft would win that.
Microsoft has made many purchases (including a relatively recent one for $6 billion) but that does not necessarily alter the landscape as well. Markets are so large, so multifacted etc., and innovation and catch up occurs so quickly, that gaining and keeping a competitive advantage is so difficult.
Also, users are more powerful, making companies less so. The Data Portabiliy issue is an interesting one. I do not agree with Arrington (expressed on The Gillmor Gang etc.) that key influencers/early adopters (namely Arrington and those like him) can force the companies to be fully open. Users have power but they don't have all the power. Companies retain some power, and they won't be totally dictated to (they'll appease and negotiate, but make sure that they still retain some competitive advantages etc. -- the smart and able ones anyway).
And it should be that way -- a balance I believe. Companies are not inherently evil. They employ people. They offer services. That is the heart of capitalism. But they also require - like governments or politicians or any souce of power - checks on their activities.
I don't have anything against Facebook. I tried to embrace it but what's the point if my social circle didn't? Have stick to email and I'm happy with that. Should it disappear of the face of the Earth tomorrow it would take me a good while to notice.
We'll all be fine. There's more to the web than one blueish website.
And if this is Microsoft's play to crush Google, again how does one dominate web search by buying up a popular service and keeping it out of web search results?
The fact that a growing web service is not indexed by Google is certainly worth noting, but buying it up and keeping it closed doesn't look like a winning strategy for winning in web search to me. What am I missing?
Loic knows that his demographic is on facebook, if he would have put up a listing for a plain old cuckoo clock how would the result have been....
So MS will buy search, what will they get, they will only get an enhancement on some markets and internationally neither MS or Yahoo search matter a lot...
To be honest, if ms search start showing the data where Google can't how long do you think before someone has written a screen scraper to fetch the data out of Microsofts search results....
Nah, if this happens, it's plain old stupidity which makes no business sense at all.
As another poster pointed out, there are a billion people on the web and 90M on facebook.
Facebook data already doesn't show up on Google, and nobody complains because Facebook events and such aren't externally important--nobody cares if folks don't stumble across it during a Google search.
Also, isn't this just more speculation? Isn't it based on rumors that MS may buy Yahoo!/Facebook?
and
"This is a scary company [Facebook] and if it gets in the hands of Microsoft will create a scary monopoly."
Instead of saying you are an idiot I'm going to say these two statements are true lunacy.
1) Locked out of the web? If M$ purchased Facebook and then closed the data and made it hard for people to export data or for search engines to search then they would be cutting their own throats in the long run. In fact, since I own M$ stock if they spend 20 billion on Facebook I'm going to sell because it will truely show how stupid they've become. As for loosing the open web, I'd worry more about ISP filtering and packet shaping than social applications hoarding data. Users can walk to other applications, but it is damn hard to deal with packet shaping.
2) "Scary Monopoly". Sounds like the crying of the little boy on the hill tasked with sheparding sheep. Unfortunatly, with the web and with social applications there IS NO SUCH THING AS A MONOPOLY. I'd venture to say Myspace is as big or bigger than Facebook and when users (consumers) get mis-treated they aren't dumb, they'll walk with their money and data in hand, even if they have to re-import into a new application.
Keep it real as M$ and Facebook is just another way to throw hard earned money into the Pit they call the WWW. Remember in 1999 when the WEB was everything and the money flowed like wine? I'd say the past 9 years have softened people's memories and so now stupid has reared its ugly head and is unleashing its rath once again.
With Facebook and Yahoo Search, Microsoft would NOT end up with a monopoly! Microsoft would probably buy its way to be up to par with Google, but not more.
No need to cry for regulations here, although I'm usually a fan of government regulation. (Pure capitalism is very bad for a market economy, even if it sounds a bit strange. We would have one company in every industry, little innovation and high prices. And don't tell me that Silicon Valley is the example for the opposite. The Valley is the economic powerhouse it is BECAUSE of government regulation. (Especially the military and intelligence funded a lot of stuff here. Including Keyhole/Google Earth, for example.))
I also agree with a comment above about climbing those walls, that's a requirement, there need to be "manageable" ways in and out. Like it or not, security of personal stuff is something the masses value (I think the hyper-connected worry about that less).
Final point, who do you trust...one company or everyone? Who has YOUR money, one bank or lots of individuals?
Why did you leave Microsoft then?
Furrier> ... Yahoo and Microsoft teams are bunkered down in a Palo Alto hotel
Go make the Valley's biggest picket line around that hotel.
Robert, Google's PR has always been excellent. Now that so many ex-Googler's are working at Facebook, they are obviously pissed, and now take any chance to create problems for Facebook. You have just fallen to their spin.
Wake up.
BTW: just noticed *your* copyright notice under the "Submit Comment" button. YOU OWN MY COMMENT NOW??? How is that for data potability?
or maybe not. Although lets face it (not facebook it) this is a "net quake" at the moment, and there is lots of hype especially in the "Hype Gravity Center" of the US. It's easy to get into a frenzy.. I wonder if this is similar to the "early" days where MS started to dominate the desktops and office apps.
Either way, the web needs to stay open for sure, but again, if facebook are keeping google out, then if MS buy facebook, what would change there? I agree with a few of the comments that either way, MS cannot afford to keep in a locked environment for long.. as you say, the likes of friendfeed and such other aggregators will always find a way.
Also, as also mentioned, take the whole world into account here.. facebook is one social network - albeit popular etc.. the other question is what would happen to Yahoo if their search was sold to MS - what would Yahoo be?
Always interesting debates...
These points are real and relevant but I have to say this is another old debate. We had this debate over 10 years ago.
YOU THINK GOOGLE IS THAT DUMB?
Who cares if stuff is "Googlable" ?? Let them figure out another business model that doesn't sit fat on top of my content, reaping dollars from every ad blaring right alongside. I get so sick of those in my Gmail that I'm moving to a live account or something else with no ads...
Advertising isn't lucrative on social networking sites, anyway - which is why Zuckerberg is probably willing to sell now. But selling business social networks could be very lucrative, esp. alongside office apps. Facebook has a proprietary API, is MS-friendly and skews older than Myspace, but still has a sizable audience. It's viable as a platform and familiar enough to be attractive. Developers would pay fees to offer MS certified enterprise apps. Everything would be subscription-based. So in the future, maybe Facebook replaces Google Docs, MS Office, monster.com and corporate intranets. That would be a new business monopoly and a familiar one for MS. Plus, real killer content for search: your own work content served alongside live.com results.
MS provides potential customers, the legal framework and experience with the enterprise market. Facebook provides the platform and the brand. It would never work, since it cannibalizes roughly 90% of MS.
Disgusting.
You think Google can figure out how to spider something that has a TOS and blocks it? Riiiggghhhhtttt.
Of course it would be easy to point out that Microsoft has committed to working towards Data Portability, but that fact kind of cuts into your fearmongering a bit, so let's not mention it. Much easier to scare people when you leave out a fact here and there and start screaming about walled gardens and DEATH of the Interwebs.
The one thing Microsoft does believe in is the privacy of your data as a *default*, whereas you keep telling us "privacy is dead" and we should just get over it. Presumably because private things interfere with Google's ability to index them, and anything that interferes with Google is by definition Evil, and must be stopped!
If you drink the Google Kool-Aid on a red-eye flight, does the lower air pressure & dehydration make it go to your head faster, or something...?
BTW, didn't the use of the word "TOTALLY" go out around 1986? Grow up in the San Fernando Valley, did ya?
Microsoft won't buy Facebook. It instantly loses its "cool". At the most, Microsoft will invest in it as much as possible without people perceiving that they own it. Look at Google & AOL as an example.
At the same time, Google has no respect for privacy. As Eric Schmidt said in London: Google wants to know what I will want tomorrow. Well, I don't want them to know. I don't even want to know myself.
Everything you said in this article makes Google look good, and Microsoft and Facebook look bad. And the only other property that looks good is FriendFeed -- which could well be a Google property in disguise, given who runs it.
And regarding Google's recent Connect thingy: It used to be that when a software company was significantly larger than another, it would have talks about cooperation before interfacing. If that didn't work, it would buy the smaller company. Why is Google not buying Facebook, if they can't come to an agreement with them?
Lastly: When paying the 240M USD to Facebook, Ballmer made very clear that he did not accept Facebook's "valuation" of 15B USD. He didn't quite say he could build Facebook on a weekend, but something close. And, Microsoft better than all the people locked in the Valley, knows that Facebook's internationalization strategy was too little, way too late. Much like eBay back in the day, Facebook will have to buy all the national Facebook-look alikes -- and that will be expensive (and would be even more so, with Facebook owned by MSFT). [For example, the two largest web properties in Germany are Facebook rip-off's owned by one of the large media houses.]
One more thing: in the last couple of weeks several blogs were saying that Facebook needs 50,000 new servers this year, MSFT will buy 120,000 servers in 2008, and Google 500,000. Facebook already needing 10% of the compute power of Google does not look like a well-scaling implementation. Plus, it's a huge waste of electricity just for throwing sheep...
This is the proverbial buying of an anvil to do the backstroke with:)
The real tragedy in such a desired scenario would be the impact on Yahoo!.
Yahoo! needs to receive the mind-staggering offer since it has the secret sauce to pull all of the entire concept together.
All else is ego-driven fantasy by executives involved:)
Got that?
If Microsoft (#3) hooks up with Yahoo (#2), This represents a danger to Oceania and our way of life Oceania has always been at war with East Asia.
But if Google (#1) hooks up with Yahoo (#2), that's great, because, um, their tech teams "have a really good dynamic," and the advertisers contacted him when they started seeing Google Ads show up on Yahoo's site. The prices are set fairly because "AdWords is an auction," and having more inventory for advertisers is a GoodThing. "We really believe in companies having choice about their destiny," Brin said. "...we want to make sure they have as many options as possible."
So when Microsoft cozies up to Yahoo, it's evil, THEY'RE evil, they're limiting choices, they're destroying the very foundations of the Interwebs and freedom that the blood of our fathers was spilled to secure.
But when Google cozies up the Yahoo, it's great!!! It's a win for everybody! You can choose whether your ads appear on Google, or Yahoo, or both and pay whatever random price the market will bear.
For those of you who don't understand how this works, the Ministry of Truth will be holding a Doublethink refresher course tonight, after a brief Two Minutes' Hate feature an image of Gates. Those handing in copies of programing books that are not about Python will be enouraged to throw them on the Google Campfire. Victory Beer will be distributed to all Party Workers, and a doubleplusgood time is guaranteed by all!
Onward to Victory!
Or do you believe Face book will take over the web anyway?
I'd be very surprised to see FB get anywhere near $15B, but stranger things have happened. The problem is that Facebook loses tremendous good will in the hands of Microsoft. It's already bleeding brand equity in the wake of FriendConnect and emergence of OpenSocial.
But I see history repeating: just as Netscape was destroyed by Microsoft after it exited to AOL, the same will happen here. Only it will be Google who kills Facebook by making social networking obsolete as a business. It never was a business. And there are more lessons to be learned in the amount of market share Firefox has taken from Microsoft. Open is more competitive and better for everyone. The evil empire will fall. They always do.
But that is not to say that, perhaps, Scoble might be on to something. Orkut is the single most visited website here in my country. Their data portability also sucks. Google at least had the decency of not allowing itself to crawl its own website beyond login and help pages, but still it could make itself even more powerful here than it already is by simply allowing people to search Orkut through its main index.
That said: aren't all those above-named companies somehow on their way out?
Don't WE really want the grassroots to be where it's at and to make it happen there?
FB really does seem close to dead. MS isn't exactly loved. Creating closed systems between the two won't really help 'em, eh?
This *is* the chance for FriendFeed et al.
Case in point is I live in a city of 230,000 in an metro area of some 1.5 million however FaceBook has a total of less than 35,000 in the local network. That's what around 13% of the city population or 2% of the total metro area? Out of that 2% a quick search shows a huge number of these Facebook users are under 21, most under 18 so is that 2% of teenagers really "The Internet"?
Microsoft has money to burn so go ahead and let them make another billionaire instead of putting their money to a real use of developing products the consumer actually wants, a product that actually works and a product that doesn't take a Quad core PC which dims the lights just because you launched Notepad. Then in two years time when everyone is still on XP and Server 2003 maybe they will get the hint.
Come on Robert the world is not Facebook, Twitter and whatever other new tech startup the valley boyz can think up. The famous Bulbble 2.0 video hits the nail on the head more and more each freaking day, "here comes another bubble, it's a monster rally all around the valley"!!!
Facebook, with its lockouts, has a strategy that may or may not bode well for its future. The example Scoble gives re: LeWeb's 400+ responses within Facebook versus the external 100+ is a point well made. However it irritates me that so many sites within Facebook are unavailable on the open Web; that I can't see things referenced to without signing up. Hate to be forced to do anything!!
Maybe I should just drop it and join up. After all, I guess Facebook is no longer a fad....
Just today, Zuckerberg says that he wants to work with Google: "Facebook said today that it’s willing to sit down with Google to explore a way forward. Talking at a news conference in Tokyo to launch a local language version of the site, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “We want to talk to Google about this and see if there’s a way we can make it work”, reports Macworld UK."
http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=502
If this is the case, we needn't worry about the straw man. It's small chance that Facebook will remain closed to Google.
But it's important to be on top of these topics, which get to the very core of what today's Internet is about.
Google is turning into MSFT, who has been jipping us consumers for years. The amount of money spent on Vista and XP should have produced better results. Open sources products with little funding have been producing tight releases whereas Microsft
with a host of other sites moving to open standards, it would only be a matter of time when the developer & user base of the other 2-3 Social apps would equal facebook, and at that point, facebook would need to open up, or see its share erode... This walled garden has to fall - it cant last long. And any merger that is based on the assumption of this walled garden continuing is also bound to fail.
On a parallel note, came across this site which had an interesting take on the MS - Yahoo deal
http://ameteurtooner.blogspot.com/search/label/...
So Google isn't a scary monopoly?? I think they are the most frightening of all, and I'm all for any strong competition that can keep them from getting 100% of online advertising.
There was a bug that let you get a csv out of all your friends with all their details... Wish more people had read my blog post on how to do it!
A company full of A-Types, hungry for success, and fame, isn't Google the MS of the 80's? We will see...
What fraction of the general public will search for Le Web 08? Far greater numbers are searching for things like 'cure for ' and 'how to ' and so on - where Google search results will continue to be far better than YHOO+MS+FB. Once MS owns YHOO search and FB, then it might be possible that their search results for things like Le Web 08 and friendfeed vs twitter be more relevant to you than Google's but only 0.05% (I made that up) of the world will know or care. The rest will keep using Google to find instructions to plant fruit trees.
One of the problems they'll face is that Microsoft would want to keep out competitors from all fields. Imagine all of those Facebook users no longer being able to pull up the Facebook iPhone app or access their account on their iMac because Microsoft makes the site unusable for Safari.
Facebook becomes irrelevant, and becomes just another crappy Microsoft property that underperforms/dies on the vine.
Your black-helicopters conspiracy rant is loony-bin material, this is not a Microsoft takes over the world play, it's more, MSN is so seriously horrible that Microsoft has to do something, anything.
Microsoft buying Facebook: Irrelevant buys irrelevant. I guess it must look like a brilliant move to them.
They might make some money in the meantime, but eventually they will turn out to be nothing but aberrations in history.
I'm still hoping for Nokia to buy Yahoo. I think they could be great together. They could become as nicely integrated as Apple, while still keeping user choice.
Yahoo Web Search would not matter much to Nokia. Yahoo could buy Yelp to strengthen it's local position. Imagine the vertically integrated mobile, local experience...
In a free market competition ultimately serves the consumer. Bring it on and let the market do what it does best.
It would be within MSFT's best interest to stop being themselves when it comes to making decisions on the Internet. This is an open community that doesn't work off of a fixed platform, and there are already more than a dozen ways to do the same thing. In that respect they should do something they don't do... Connect with the people that actually use their stuff and build something that relates to a greater percentage of those that have influence. Change our minds about their horrible business characteristics, change our view point about their stance on computing; that's how they win.
These mid-90's computing tactics will still work. For how long? Who knows... I'd prefer to see someone as influential as MSFT not be douche bags about the whole thing... yet again.
On the one hand I kinda like the idea to be able to "hide" from Google and strangers on the web, and be in my own playground - as e.g. in Facebook. On the other hand I do certainly NOT want to be "sold" as a cattle to Bill, Steve and his crowd. I do want an open web, but I also want to be able to connect to whom I want - and not let it be a wide open space where everyone can look at what, and who my friends are. And this is exactly what social networks are all about - There is no such thing as a "free ride" it seems.
You have it exactly right, except for you equating GOOG to the WWW. The brilliance of GOOG is that they don't equate themselves to the web. They know they're there to add value to the web, and they're quite good at it. It's comparable to Red Hat / Novell / * vs MSFT on the software front. I do think GOOG should buy out Friendfeed though, while they're still cheap. Friendfeed could very well have found the key to "social search", the holy grail GOOG is after.
I like nothing better than a good rumour and would like to see SOMETHING (anything) happen; to shake Google's near monopoly on search.
If this REALLY does happen - it might do it!
Watch this space...
Jim Connolly
The Tech News Blog
1) Loic Lemeur has 4455 friends, so unless he actively took steps to stop the event creation from his Facebook feed (would be interesting to know either way), this got pushed out to up to 4455 of his friends as an action he took.
So the comparison with upcoming.com may be apples and oranges.
2) Facebook pages currently are public and spidered by Google. Presumably that will stay that way. As such, they represent a better way than FB goups, which are not spidered as far as I can tell, and also don't allow any additional apps other than the default (while pages have the same Discussion and Wall app as the groups). Plus FB groups shut down your "Message All" after you gather more than 1,000 members.
Check out this Google query for the keyword that I happen to know a coach has both a FB Group and Page for (NOT trying to promote this in any way, just the only example I know where someone has both under the same name).
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22get+paid+for+...
The Page shows, the Group doesn't. (The link to the Group is on the Page in case you want to verify that it exists.)
Link bait, nothing more, as it's dry on the press beat, and the real money-making "web" action will be Microsoft-hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint and various other subscription-based services,
Your geeky-myopia, misses the real big picture, but in all reality Microsoft should exit stage left on advertising-based internet, and anything in the consumer space, but they keep lining up for a hit, time and time again, drunk on the failure philosophy, that more tries equals eventual success.
I'd worry more about Red Hat, Fedora 9 and KDE4 and ilk, as Linux us now doable for the Enterprise desktop, imho. Very few shops, don't actually love (or even much like) Microsoft, it's just that they haven't had much alternative. They do now. This whole Google/Yahoo obsession is a cancer.
Sure facebook may be conquering the world and signing-up everyone who has a computer.. But after 3 months are people still using it as intensively as when they signed up, i bet no.
Sure people still log in occassionally, and maybe even daily, but live in it like they once did, well nope.
And to the root of the problem (where facebook become unstuck) its trying to be all things to all people. There are so many different bells and whistles in there, that:
a) i can't figure out how to do the simple stuff.
b) there is so many distractions and changes that i can't keep up
but in the time when the tide was coming in around me, it was either facebook or myspace.. facebook looked far simpler, far more straight forward. fast forward 12 months... uggg facebook has become a nightmare to use. hence i use it less and less.
so the argument that everyone is shifting into the facebook box just doesn't wash with me and my experience. people still search on the outside, they still visit sites of interest on the outside, they still IM on the outside, they still email on the outside, they still twitter on the outside.
facebook is looking more and more like a new secondlife... the hype machine is telling us its the new world to live in, but the more we look at it, the more people like the existing world.
second: facebook content can't be accessed by google. so what? if you want your videos, photos, etc to be searchable by google, don't put them all on facebook. is that too obvious? on the other hand, it's nice to have a place where I can pick who gets to see this stuff. isn't that what a social network is supposed to be about?
third: why would facebook sell? they're not a public company. microsoft can't make a hostile offer. zuckerberg is, what, 12 years old? not exactly ready to retire. when facebook goes public, he'll be a billionaire. if microsoft buys fb, he'll be a billionaire. I think he'd rather be a billionaire who runs his own show, not one who's a lackey to ballmer.
fourth: let's say by some random confluence of events scoble is actually right and microsoft does buy fb, just to keep all its user content away from google. and that means.... what, exactly? that all 60+ million fb users are now slaves to microsoft? or that those of us who've seen what msft does to companies it acquires will simply pack up our photos, videos, and throwing sheep and bring them to the next site?
quick show of hands: how many of you out there who have facebook profiles also have profiles on myspace, linked in, friendster, plaxo, etc etc? I do. is this suddenly going to change? I no think so.
really folks, chill out. there's plenty of actual tech news to think about without going off on breathless speculation.
dan tynan
tynan on technology
the idea that this all comes down to a web schism between microsoft and google for access to social data seems off base.... even if you can make sense of the logic.
I think it's scary!
Good rumour. Very good theory, indeed.
Anyway, I posted something in my blog.
Best regards from Chile.
I am sick and tired of news about Facebook. I became a member and it provided little value. So I get friends writing on my wall, poke me at the stuff.
What's the value of all this nonsense? It's seems it's a site for a kind of entertainment, for young people to hang out. It doesn't provide value that's worth searching by an external search engine like Google.
Personally I also dislike any site that provides content by joining only.
I get an email from someone telling my to watch his kids' photos and the link asks me to join. I hate this. Yes I am talking about sites like Flickr.
Then these sites boost about their membership numbers. Yes.. they did it by 'forcing' people to join to use their services.
If sites like Facebook go away, I won't miss anything.
http://tinyurl.com/3f57ll
If this happens, you know it'll be your fault for having evangelised FaceBook so much :p
All social networks, to date, are a backwards step to ye olde days of Delphi, Aol, compuserve, they are a closed world, if you join them, you deserve being at their mercy, just like those people who helped create the monster of ebay!
On the other hand, this would leap-frog others, and generally piss off google because this is exactly what it's been working towards, building all these new services over the last 5 years, to create a data-depositary that it can then mine and exploit, across our whole digital lives.
The reason why there is some differentiation from the pre-web1.0 era is because we now have developer platforms, and liquidity, which means that there are some sieve-like gaps to access data, and for new demanded features to be made available dynamically without mobile-like cumbersome agreements and approvals, and thanks to you and your 5000 friends, enough users to allow it to not only sustain itself but continue to grow at every point of impact/touch.
However, in a world of 2 Billion mobile hand-sets, the people who could show a thing to the kids, if only they had the hunger, are the the Vodafone's and Telefonica's of the world.
Yours kindly,
Shakir Razak
re; It’s Facebook and Microsoft vs. the open public Web.
I think you underestimate how big the internet is. Today there are in the region of 6.6 billion people with access to the internet. I believe there are in the region of 70 million people using facebook which is in the region of 0.01 percent of the total web population. For arguments sake lets assume that MS 'own' 4.5 percent of the web the combined entity is 5 percent (MS and Facebook) vs the Open Web at 95 percent. I think I know who the winner might be.
Yes Facebook and MS may be in the forefront of most tech minded and the tech elite but in the real scheme of things they hardly register.
Its a bit like those annoying Twitter conversartions 99.999999999999 percent of the webs population have never even heard of Twitter but the tech elite just keep banging on about it as if it were something important.
jeez
Jason
Paris
"For arguments sake lets assume that MS ‘own’ 4.5 percent of the web the combined entity is 5 percent (MS and Facebook) vs the Open Web at 95 percent. I think I know who the winner might be."
of course I meant "For arguments sake lets assume that MS ‘own’ 4.99 percent"
Im sure you got the picture though.
Jason
Holy god it's annoying to be cyber-yelled like like we're all idiots who can't see what's important for ourselves.
Good writers don't need italics, let alone caps, to convey their tone or their message. It's a crutch.
This might be a pain in the short run, but long term look at how well AOL is doing these days. My experience tells me that people will abandon a service that becomes too much of a pain in the ass to use. If they abandon the content there? Well, calendars have limited historical value. Photos had to be digital to get there in the first place. Same for videos.
Frankly, the only value I see there is if M$ offered search for Web + Facebook where others were just ordinary web.
Also, if you think that Microsoft is just a SOFTWARE company, do some reading. They're charging hard into the advertising market. It remains to be seen if they stumble or break through.
That would be just GREAT, whether they disappear completely or from the open(ed) web. At least, I won't have any effort to do to avoid them :)
I can hear the conspiracy theory geeks gearing up already ... ;)
Facebook will stop being the cool kid on the block in another year, and you'll be pimping the latest/greatest new thing right here on this blog. Then everyone will flock to whatever it is and leave Facebook behind.
The web and it's users gravitate towards openness and no-one really likes the web to be dominated by one force. We thought it was over when MS killed Netscape (remember browserwars). Then we thought it was over again wen push technologies came along where a few channels would dominate the majority of all content distribution. We even thought there was no space for another search engine before Google surfaced (remember the search 'giant' Altavista) ...
Now is a post MS acquisition Facebook going to turn into the next altavista? I don't know but what I do know is that there are lot's of little Zuckerbergs out there waiting to do to FB what Google did to Altavista and MS would have to be darn clever (and not evil) to prevent that from happening.
So I think you got that one wrong, the end of the open web is not in sight for a ling time.
Peter
do you follow me @ http://twitter.com/peterurban
Oooohhh! Somebody wrote on my wall?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I would respectfully disagree with your analysis.
1) Closeness and Propertiory protocol does not work on the Web. Microsoft has burnt enough and now seems to understand that well. That's one of the reasons they have recently made all their proprietory protocols (such as FPRPC and MSDav ) public.
2) Facebook is not as proven as wikipedia. I won't switch my search engine to MSN or Yahoo just because they shows me the profiles from facebook. People will create there profile somewhere else if they don't show up.
Also, I believe all SN sites will give some kind of option to the user if they want their profile to be searchble by BOTS and search engine. If they don't, its a big privacy issue. And if they do, searching SN is no different than a blog search. Its another mean to the end.
Thanks and keep posting and twittering
Sheetal
www.docstree.com
Daniel Solove's Facebook Banishment and Due Process on Concurring Opinions looks at some of the legal issues. How to respond when Facebook censors your political speech on Tales from the Net has a bunch of other examples, including me and MiniMSFT ... and most recently, the ACLU (!).
jon
At some point Microsoft will be able to intersperse results from a user's Live Mesh in with regular web search results. You can imagine a checkbox at http://search.live.com saying "search my Mesh". I think that would be much more distruptive than searching Facebook.
-Jamie
http://dayofideas.com/?p=5
This writer, in particular, has found extreme value in the closed off web that Facebook cultivates. I enjoy being able to interact with the vast network of my social history in a private and none-searchable arena. I enjoy and find value in being able to communicate intimacies, daily life, plans, and stupidities in a digital playground that his neatly tucked out of reach from the tendrils of Google.
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