Monday, November 19, 2007
Kindle Images And Video
The Nearly Never Ending Market for Niche Social Networks
A niche social network for people recovering from addiction, called SoberCircle, hit Del.icio.us popular this morning and it made me think - "my goodness, the market for niche social networks must be nearly infinite." SoberCircle has never been profiled on any of the top web 2.0 blogs and we haven't received any press releases announcing their support for OpenSocial - but the site is yet another social network that made a mark on the web today.
Most people who follow new developments in web applications closely contend that MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn are so dominant, and their tiny challengers so numerous, that launching Yet Another Social Network is among the most foolish things an entrepreneur today can do. I disagree.
What is a social network? Typically, it's just a website that offers users a profile page, the ability to publish to the web, to add other users as friends and to send user-to-user messages, or sitemail. That's simple but powerful stuff; it's functionality that countless real-world organizations will benefit from in the coming years as turnkey solutions become increasingly visible.
Here's my 6 reasons why I believe that SoberCircle and many of the other seemingly random, obscure niche social networks online are in fact viable businesses in a huge, untapped market.
- There are huge numbers of users in play.
The sheer number of people online already and coming online every day cannot be ignored. Many niche content sites, from sites about street drag racing to obscure medical conditions to drag racing while suffering from obscure medical conditions, that already receive traffic on more than monetizable levels. I talk to companies regularly that see substantial traffic to sites few of us here have likely heard of.
If your niche website is not receiving significant traffic, and I know that many startup web app companies are not, then there's something wrong with your marketing, your product or your luck. It's probably not that your target market is saturated - there's very few that are.
- In-group communication is key
People will share information with groups of people they know they can relate to that they never would share in a general public forum. We all seek empathy and many of us have life experiences that cannot be meaningfully discussed outside of a context of shared understanding and a base of common experience. People in recovery from substance abuse is one such huge market, people with communicable diseases another, the insanely wealthy yet another - and the list goes on.
Groups on existing social networks may satisfy some of this demand, but not the way that dedicated, topical "walled-gardens" will.
- Privacy is in High Demand
Talk to the people at Vox, at Multiply, at Tumblr and elsewhere and they will tell you that there is substantial demand for social networking and content publishing functionality behind a wall of permission.
The idea that "privacy is gone" is itself an illusion. People choose what they publish to the open web and many choose to publish to closed pages for family, friends or even just personal consumption.
- Sex sells - on a plane, in a train, among stamp collectors and cheese aficionados.
The page that drove so much traffic to SoberCircle today? A prurient tale about "the most dangerous drug in the world," used in various crimes related to sex. (Not linking to it here, but you tried to click, didn't you?)
Every niche that has its members has its scandal. People will come to your site if they can find that scandal and if they are interested enough in the niche, they will return. Fetishes themselves are infinite. I swear though, I read Valleywag daily for research purposes only!
- Many people don't want to participate in general interest social networks.
They will for work or a particular hobby, though.
- Data portability can enable a scalable soc net ecosystem.
From OpenID to OAuth to Open Widget - I mean Google's Open Social - many, many people are working to make it easier to move from one social network to another.
When, in the glorious future, you can explore a new network with an existing login - knowing that if you choose to leave it you can take your new friends, writings etc. with you back to your home base, then social networks will flourish. When I can easily post one blog post to both my Facebook notes and my SoberCircle profile (example only!) and another post to SoberCircle alone - then market conditions will have arrived for niche networks to truly thrive.
Let's go forth and network!
I really believe that this industry is just in its infancy. None of the incumbents are guaranteed total domination into the future and there's no reason to believe that the long tail of niche social networks won't prove economically, individually as well as in aggregate. Of course most startups in this sector will fail, that's the case in any sector, but as startup tech markets go I think it's a very smart market to be getting into right now.
Viddler's New Tag-Based Advertising System
Rondee Launches "Evite" For Conference Calls
Q&A With Bezos About the Kindle
Kindle: First Impressions
OpenSocial Has Been Good To Plaxo
Blockbuster Sees Future in In-Store Kiosks, Movie Downloads
But Blockbuster CEO James Keyes doesn't see it that way. While he admits that pursuing Netflix hard with its Total Access service (by giving away free rentals that cost the company $29 million in the third quarter) was a mistake, he doesn't think the end is nigh.
Keyes told the Associated Press that he believes in store rentals will be an important part of Blockbuster's business for at least 5 years (which assumes that Reisingers prediction of impending doom is wrong). Eventually, Keyes says that consumers will come to stores to download and burn movies to DVD at kiosks, or save movies to portable devices like phones or PMPs.
Blockbuster will begin putting kiosks in stores soon, though initially, they will not be able to burn DVDs. The company will also put more emphasis on retail, and begin diversifying its revenue stream beyond rentals by selling electronics, soundtrack CDs, and books. Finally, Keyes plans to make use of Blockbuster's $7.7 million acquisition of the movie download service Movielink.
Movielink, which was a joint venture between Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros., reportedly sold to Blockbuster for far below its asking price of $50 million. That the movie studios have such a lack of faith in the movie download model, and that the market is crowded with mammoth competitors, including Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Microsoft, probably does not bode well for Blockbuster. Further, if the study we reported on earlier today, which predicts a slow down in Internet speeds over the next couple of years, is accurate, it is unlikely that many people would give up discs for bits just yet.
Photo credit: AP.
Though kiosks and movie downloads make sense from a convenience standpoint -- no late fees, no chance a movie is unavailable, potentially infinite selection, etc. -- I'm still not convinced that Blockbuster can compete with Netflix. The major advantage they had over Netflix was the ability to offer free in-store rentals if people returned mailed videos to the store -- a practice that customers loved, but which cost Blockbuster $29 million in a single quarter. Keyes limited the free rentals for the Total Access program that were costing the company so much money, but that prompted 500,000 customers to leave the service.
What do you think? Can Blockbuster ever compete with Netflix, Amazon Unbox, Apple iTunes, and the rest? Or are they doomed?
Facebook Attempts to Acquire Chinese Social Network Zhanzuo.com -- Maybe
The Times of London is reporting that Facebook has made an $85 million offer to purchase Zhanzuo.com. The Times reports that Zhanzuo.com CEO Jack Zhang and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have engaged in talks but that no deal has been completed. Facebook is denying the report.
Facebook's English site already has 100,000 users in China, according to the newspaper. A purchase of Zhanzuo would give Facebook a dominant entry into one of the world's fastest growing Internet markets.
Facebook, however, is denying that they have any intention to acquire Zhanzuo.com -- or any Chinese site, for that matter. Facebook's Director of Communications Brandee Barker told TechCrunch that Facebook has not made any acquisition offers for the site. "No offer has been made and no acquisition in China is being considered by Facebook," said Barker. "And I don't know who the spokeperson [sic] is that they are referring to in the story. The Times never contacted me or my team to confirm the accuracy of this story."
Amazon Sets eBook World Alight with Kindle - Finally, Time For Read/Write Books!
Kindle image via Engadget
Levy wrote in Newsweek that the Kindle " will change the way readers read, writers write and publishers publish." He unleashes other doozies of hyperbole too: "the iPod of reading" and "the first 'always-on' book".
The Kindle will cost USD399, which is $100 more than the Sony eReader. But the wireless Internet connectivity easily makes the increased price worth it. The wireless is via a system called Whispernet - which according to Newsweek is based on the EVDO broadband service offered by cell-phone carriers, allowing it to work anywhere and not just Wi-Fi hotspots. Here's Levy's description of what the device looks and feels like:
"It weighs but 10.3 ounces, and unlike a laptop computer it does not run hot or make intrusive beeps. A reading device must be sharp and durable, Bezos says, and with the use of E Ink, a breakthrough technology of several years ago that mimes the clarity of a printed book, the Kindle's six-inch screen posts readable pages. The battery has to last for a while, he adds, since there's nothing sadder than a book you can't read because of electile dysfunction. (The Kindle gets as many as 30 hours of reading on a charge, and recharges in two hours.)"
The Kindle will be able to hold 200 books, with new releases being offered for just $9.99. Also, apparently blogs will be part of the service - at a cost of either 99 cents or $1.99 a month per blog. Matthew Ingram was appalled that he'd have to pay. I'm awaiting details on this, because it sounds like premium content deals have been made with the likes of paidcontent.org. Either that or Amazon will try to make money from bundling feeds. It may be attractive to mainstream people who haven't gotten into RSS Readers yet, we'll have to wait and see. Like Matthew, I wouldn't pay unless there is a 'premium' offering (in which case I would certainly consider paying).
Issues: 'Ugliness", DRM, Pricing
There is some debate about whether the Kindle is as beautiful as an ipod. David Rothman, who has been blogging about eBooks for much longer than me, says it's ugly. And judging from the picture above, it doesn't look like something you'd cuddle up with in bed!
David also notes the DRM issues - but then you'd have to say that Steve Jobs managed to circumvent that easily enough with the iPod. Amazon has, according to Newsweek, already gotten all the major book publishers on board. As with the iPod, there are mutterings from publishers about the low pricing. But long term I would expect Amazon to do exactly as Apple did and use their market muscle to easily push forward with the low pricing and DRM.
Another issue that David Rothman brings up could be the one that Amazon gets unstuck on: formats. This is a hobby horse of David, as he is a fierce advocate for an open ebook standard. He asks:
"Will Amazon's Kindle work in the future with .epub files, or will Amazon thumb its nose at the IDPF, publishers and us e-book readers who are sick, sick, sick of eBabel-all those clashing e-book formats."
That's an as yet unanswered question that we'll track.
Books as a Service
What is most interesting though is how Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, is positioning Kindle in relation to the e-commerce bohemoth. Yet again we hear the word "service" being conjured up: "This isn't a device, it's a service", Bezos said in Newsweek. The Kindle is being seen as "an extension of the familiar Amazon store". In other words, the Kindle is shaping up as a highly strategic move by Amazon. Probably much more important to its future business than the Web Services stack that has gotten so much (deserved) hype over the past year. Because the Kindle is literally going to change Amazon's core business model. This will take years to play out, but it all comes down to the dream that eBook fans have held for years: that books delivered electronically can offer much more flexibility, richness, search, communities, etc etc. But it all depends on having a suitable eReader device, which Amazon now claims it has created.
When I wrote my 'goodbye' post for the blog eBook Culture in November 2004 (yikes, is it 3 years since then already!), I noted my key themes in the eBook world: eBooks as a practice, not an object; eBooks and social networking; Remix culture (of textual content, in this case); and finding out what the various "jobs" of eBooks are in different contexts.
eBook Culture logo, circa 2004
I can't wait to get the Amazon Kindle, which must be a good sign that Amazon is on the right track! ;-) I think Amazon will overcome the issues that David Rothman and others have raised - they have to, because the eBook industry needs an iPod-like device and the support of a heavyweight like Amazon to finally get traction. It has to happen with the Kindle, surely. Then we can get to exploring new business models and read/write methods of book-writing.
Polldaddy Gets Serious
- New online survey tool;
- Addition of pro account for $20 per month - gives users more access to the site and allows removal of the link to PollDaddy in their polls;
- New indepth reporting on voters, voter location and IP analysis for fraud detection;
- Many other new little features for the polls tool, such as hiding results from voters once they have voted and ability to change the system text in the poll into foreign languages.
Co-founder David Lenehan [disclosure: David is an occasional writer for RWW] told me that "the main thing about this launch is what it allows us to do in the future". The original PollDaddy, according to David, was an experiment - so the code for the original site was not built to scale. With the new version, they've re-written the entire application from the ground up. So PollDaddy version 2 is, said David, "a starting point to launch PollDaddy as a full blown professional application."
So what can we expect in the future from Polldaddy? Surveys are the first new feature, and in the coming months Polldaddy will build a platform for "collecting data from the web" - which means services such as forms, quizzes, and other user-requested services. David told me that Polldaddy hopes "to build a system eventually that will ask our users what kind of data they want to collect and provide them with a selection of ways to do it."
Polldaddy has 2 full time developers, including David. Their polls are registering 70 million impression per month and they seem to be the biggest online poll provider (but please let us know in the comments if you know of bigger poll services). Polldaddy has around 70,000 registered users at present.
In terms of Polldaddy's integration within social networks, David said they are working on integrating with Google's OpenSocial "before Christmas." Apparently 20% of their polls are used on social network profiles. The other 80% are made up of blogs and websites, such as RWW.