Funny Twitter Video

Twitter has never been mentioned on this blog before and one of us has been quietly hoping that the service would fade into obscurity for some time. I have to admit however that after visiting twitter for the 4th time in just over two years, I finally got the attraction of the service.

The problem (and hilarity) of twitter though is two-fold:

1) People's lives are never as exciting as they think they are.

2) Some individuals tend to tweet unrestrainedly.

The previous two points are summed up nicely in this cute video about Twittering:



Yes, we do realize the hypocrisy in dedicating an entire blog post to irrelevant twitter posts.

Competitors to Clutterme

Just got an e-mail about new features from one of our competitors and it gave us the idea of aggregating all of our competitors and similar services into one blog post and sharing them with you guys, our readers and our users:

The ones listed have received our SEAL of APPROVAL, there are probably tons more out there that we don't know about and we've shown you how to find them as well.

Web Based Website Creators:

Wix.com
Synthasite
Squidoo
Sampa
Wetpaint - My recommendation
MyFamily
Webnode
Jimdo
Jottit
Piczo - for kids
SnapPages
+ more


Web Based Blog Creators:
Blogger
Weebly - Alex's recommendation
Wordpress
Clearblogs
+more

Desktop based software packages:
MS Frontpage (not free)
Dreamweaver (not free)
+ more

How do you find the '+more'?
Do a search for one of the sites on the list on Google. And click on the 'Similar Pages' link you see in the Search result. Below is a screenshot of a search result for Sampa.com and the link you should click on is highlighted in purple.

Thoughts on the new Facebook homepage

Facebook released a new version of the homepage.

My two initial reactions are:

• It's going to stink for apps.
  
• Facebook is killing its own page views

It turns out that I was right about #1. Our apps have seen about 50% less traffic than after the homepage redesign.

I am still undecided about #2. From my personal experience I find myself doing fewer pageviews for the simple reason that all the interesting and good information is... hidden. Well, I know HOW to access it but it's not right in from of me.

Two examples,

I still don't know HOW to access tagged photos of friends from the Photos application. This one I'll need help with.
Easy links to the 'Events' application are nowhere to be found.

As a facebook user, tagged photos and Events are probably 2 out of the Top 5 things I look at the most and I find that in general facebook is harder to mine the data I want to get out of it... what are my friends doing. Facebook seems to have increased the noise for me with the redesign.

Also, Facebook made their own ads smaller and less intrusive, which I found as quite the surprise.

On a positive note I hear Facebook streamlined the mini-feed to be a more accurate representation of the main news feed stories. Meaning that if a story doesn't appear in the mini-feed it won't appear in your friends homepages. The change is a welcome one compared to the mini-feed/main feed ambiguity that preceded it.

The feasibility of $700,000 /mo. on Socialmedia, revisited.

Socialmedia to the best of my knowledge, does not do incentivized offers. Incentivized offers, done by companies such as Offerpal Media, Peanut Labs and Gambit, let users complete CPA offers for points or other forms of currency on a Facebook app. Some CPA networks also provide this functionality in the form of postbacks after an offer has been successfully completed. CPA Storm is an example of such a network.

But Socialmedia, to the best of my knowledge, does not do incentivized offers although its display ads often advertise CPA offers. The $700K therefore must only from display advertising. This will allow us to examine the feasibility of making $700K from pageviews alone, behold.

If you haven't read my last post, I call Socialmedia out as either either proud, lying or stupid. Let's revisit the post, this time with numbers.

The average eCPM for a publisher running Socialmedia ads hovers around $0.40 eCPM for a 645x60 banner ad at the top of the canvas page. Skillfully placed, a developer can probably milk an eCPM of around $2 - from either increasing # of ad units used or by placing them near a button with high click-throughs. Assuming the developer in question is fairly skilled and competent we can grant him an eCPM of $2.

To make $700K from display advertising one therefore needs 350 million canvas page impressions or, assuming 10 page views per visit, 35 million visits, per month. Our own apps, which I consider very page view intensive hover around 6-8 page views/visit per month.

The top app on Facebook, Causes, has only 26 million visits per month. The 'monthly active user' number is a synonym for monthly visits.

BUT nobody said that the money came from only one app. The developer earning $700K per month could theoretically have 10 applications each with 2 million visits per month. Then the number becomes entirely possible via display advertising.

Inevitably the next question becomes, who is it? I'll offer 100 hits in free traffic to anyone who wants to go through the most popular apps in the application database and try to figure it out. Dead serious.

So in conclusion, my initial reaction was incorrect and $700,000/mo. is entirely possible from display advertising alone, and its very possible that Socialmedia serves those ads. However to quell worries that everyone is missing out on the gold rush, ever since facebook redesigned the homepage several days ago, traffic on our applications has halved (and they were already at 10% of their peak traffic in Jan 2008). It also doesn't help that most of our apps are contest based - a recipe for shark-fin type traffic.

Also an addendum to my last post, I forgot to imagine the possibility that Socialmedia wanted to remain anonymous in the leak and maybe TC blew their cover, which in the spirit of the recent The Rules Apply to Everyone post is more than plausible. So that makes Socialmedia desperately stupid.

Mark is the creator of several successful facebook apps.

$700 000/month with Social Media, unlikely.

A couple days ago someone at Socialmedia leaked the news that an anonymous developer was making $700,000/month on their network. After sitting on the pot for about two hours [non medically related emergency] I have this to conclude about Socialmedia's deliberate leak. Someone is either lying, proud, or stupid.

If the post is true, then the amount of publishers Socialmedia stands to attract is marginal compared to what they stand to lose, namely, their $700K/mo. earning publisher.

Risking the exposure of their top publisher is not a wise business decision for a number of reasons. First of all, the publisher risks being poached by another ad network offering more gold. Secondly, the publisher might leave on his own volition, being put off by Socialmedia's brazenness.

Another scenario arises if the publisher for some reason forced the leak with Socialmedia - for pride as an example. Then Socialmedia wouldn't have been smart to oblige.

Socialmedia can get spared one of the titles of proud, stupid or lying if the following scenario holds true, that they had made the leak with foreknowledge that the publisher was going to walk indisputably and imminently.

As a publisher and former advertiser on Socialmedia the leak raised a number of red flags. First, in January eCPMs plummeted to around $0.10 for Canadian traffic as an advertiser. Secondly, publishers globally have been running at an eCPM of $0.40 on average since January.

The reality is that various facebook design iterations and changes to app bookmarking have reduced the prominence and emphasis of applications on facebook - for better or for worse. Few apps are getting more traffic than they were 1 year ago and the forums certainly reflect these somber outlooks. [Ex.]

Mark is the founder of Clutterme Inc. and the creator of 22 facebook applications, 7 of which can be considered successful.

Something that took us 12 months to learn...

Don't write any code for your business unless the code directly relates to one or both of the following...

1) It will make you money.

2) It will get you users.

It seems pretty simple but a lot of our time in 2008 was spent creating features that didn't make us money or didn't get us users. It was a learning experience.

And when you have users, you can add a third bullet point.

3) Keep existing users from leaving.

We probably wouldn't have learned any of these lessons if it wasn't for the success of our facebook apps. We then backported that success to make Clutterme.com moderately successful and ramen profitable.

A new funding model between micro and macro

Incubators such as YC and Techstars are great for first time software-based entrepreneurs. Software entrepreneurs with programming backgrounds can work on their idea without cash, running on adrenaline alone to code their site, but they might eventually need introductions for future funding if that's an option.

Venture Capital is great at addressing the long-term funding needs of a small software start-up or the short-term funding needs of a high capital expenditure start-up such as those you would find in the hardware or high HR intensive fields.

In my opinion the sweet spot for a team of 2 software based entrepreneurs is $350K. A small software team could stretch $350K for 18, maybe 24 months. The per annum expenses can be around:

$25k - office space, Internet, Hydro, chairs, travel
$70-$90k - Founders Salaries
$50-$75k - Lawyer fees, accounting fees, outsourcing UI and design.

After 18 months a good software start-up should have a working product, users, and will hopefully be ramen profitable. Almost as importantly, any start-up prime for investment should have momentum going forward in a broad sense.

So how much should be given up, in terms of equity, for this new funding model?

10-30% would be my answer.