There are many factors that make up the value of a social network: users, time on site, open development are just a few, but surely one the most overlooked must be PR. Let’s look at Bebo, which is just about to be bought by AOL for £417m ($850m) in cash. A lot of money indeed, especially as most will be going in the pocket of Michael Birch, the British entrepreneur, who founded Bebo and still owns a big stake in the business - so will make a great deal from the sale.
Bebo is the third-biggest social networking site in the US, behind MySpace and Facebook. Whilst also being the second-biggest in the UK it sits at a lowly ninth on the global leader board. But is it worth £417m? Or did they sell too cheap?
Only last year, Facebook sold a 1.6% share to Microsoft for $240m. Is Facebook really worth 62.5 times the value of Bebo? Applying the same value calculation to key sales points we end up with some interesting results:
62.5 x 40m users (Bebo) = 2.5bn users!
62.5 x 78 page impressions (Bebo) = 4875 page impressions, per user, per day!
Now Facebook (despite what they may want us to believe) does not serve 2.5bn users or 4875 pages/ user. What Facebook does have is the ‘darling’ effect. It is the darling of the valley and has a brilliant PR team (and determined investors) who spin everything. Bebo meanwhile sat in the corner just getting on with things. Bebo does them really well too, but it just does not make a song and dance about everything it does. And that failure to project itself as the next big thing - or at least the thing big enough for everyone to talk about - has potentially cost it hundreds of millions of dollars.
Yeah, it’s kinda old by now but I’ve mentioned this video a few times recently and people were asking to watch it - so I dug this out of the archives. It’s not awesome by any stretch, the timing and acting leaves a lot to be desired but there are some great visual gags - like how irritating the Facebook girl is, the drunk MySpace drawing genitalia and the dubious relationship between ebay and PayPal.
here are a few simple rules for ensuring that your Web 2.0 application is a resounding success; culminating in a £1.25bn offer from Google. I thought I’d share these with you. If you need more information you can send a cheque for £4,300 to Neoco for your own individually addressed information pack on Web 2.0.
1. Usefulness; less is more
This is the golden rule for creating a successful Web 2.0 app; always remember that less is more. Ideally your Web 2.0 app should have absolutely no point whatsoever. Sometimes a compromise is needed whereby it will vaguely useful, sometimes, to a small number of people.
2. Beta; for at least a year
All Web 2.0 apps should be in beta indefinitely. This suggests that whilst the app seems to have lots of bugs and very little point, that’s OK, because it’s only in beta - the full app is still to come.
3. AJAX; apply liberally
Ideally your Web 2.0 app should send a single line of HTML to the browser, and the rest of the app should be served via AJAX. This gives the user that slightly confusing feeling when they click a link, because they’re not quite sure if anything is actually happening (preferably nothing should happen).
4. Icons; made to look like Mac icons
Ideally you should just steal the icons straight from the Mac. If there isn’t a Mac icon to suit your needs, just use a different one. All menus should be styled with a two-tone horizontal shadow effect (again think Mac).
5. Logo; always include “2.0″
If it’s a Web 2.0 app, make sure everyone knows about this. Try to use the term Web 2.0 as many times as possible. Try to include “2.0″ in as many different places as possible; eg: “Help 2.0″.
Now get going… quickly. And if Google do buy you for £1.25bn just remember who to thank (cheques made payable to Dave).
