http://www.odeo.com/channels/2106357-SocialTimes-com no Just another WordPress weblog Just another WordPress weblog Just another WordPress weblog en 40 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:10:11 -0700 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:10:11 -0700 ©Social Times, Inc. Facebook, OpenSocial Society Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24954352-Interview-With-Will-O%E2%80%99Brien-Of-TrialPay Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with Will O’Brien of TrialPay to discuss the company’s offering and the current state of offer-based advertising on the web. While there has been the argument that social applications don’t have effective monetization strategies, there’s no doubt that social games have already cracked the monetization nut and are bringing in significant revenue. Zynga reportedly is generating over $100 million and quite possibly closer to $200 million this year thanks to the massive success of FarmVille, which is now the largest game on Facebook. While each application’s revenue varies greatly, the greatest success is coming through virtual goods where offers are being injected into the transaction process. In terms of marketing offers at the point of transaction, this isn’t really anything new but that it’s finding so much success within social games in interesting. E-book marketers have been using these stra... Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with Will O’Brien of TrialPay to discuss the company’s offering and the current state of offer-based advertising on the web. While there has been the argument that social applications don’t have effective monetization strategies, there’s no doubt that social games have already cracked the monetization nut and are bringing in significant revenue. Zynga reportedly is generating over $100 million and quite possibly closer to $200 million this year thanks to the massive success of FarmVille, which is now the largest game on Facebook. While each application’s revenue varies greatly, the greatest success is coming through virtual goods where offers are being injected into the transaction process. In terms of marketing offers at the point of transaction, this isn’t really anything new but that it’s finding so much success within social games in interesting. E-book marketers have been using these strategies for a decade now. Even Amazon has built in similar models in which offers are built into the buying process but the world of virtual goods is still emerging which is why companies like TrialPay (Offerpal, Super Rewards, etc) have such a lucrative future. Developers will naturally build those applications that generate the most revenue and with social games proving to be a relatively profitable business, there’s no doubt that this space has a lot more growth ahead. Check out my interview below with Will O’Brien. Also, if you’re wondering about my current fascination with “injected offers” it’s because I just finished reading “Integration Marketing” by Mark Joyner (a famous internet copywriter and marketer). Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with Will O’Brien of TrialPay to discuss the company’s offering and the current state of offer-based advertising on the web. While there has been the argument that social applications don’t have effective monetization strategies, there’s no doubt that social games have already cracked the monetization nut and are bringing in significant revenue. Zynga reportedly is generating over $100 million and quite possibly closer to $200 million this year thanks to the massive success of FarmVille, which is now the largest game on Facebook. While each application’s revenue varies greatly, the greatest success is coming through virtual goods where offers are being injected into the transaction process. In terms of marketing offers at the point of transaction, this isn’t really anything new but that it’s finding so much success within social games in interesting. E-book marketers have been using these strategies for a decade now. Even Amazon has built in similar models in which offers are built into the buying process but the world of virtual goods is still emerging which is why companies like TrialPay (Offerpal, Super Rewards, etc) have such a lucrative future. Developers will naturally build those applications that generate the most revenue and with social games proving to be a relatively profitable business, there’s no doubt that this space has a lot more growth ahead. Check out my interview below with Will O’Brien. Also, if you’re wondering about my current fascination with “injected offers” it’s because I just finished reading “Integration Marketing” by Mark Joyner (a famous internet copywriter and marketer). tag:odeo.com,2009-08-13,24954352 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:10:11 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, advertising, TrialPay Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24640122-Interview-With-Murti-Hussain-President-of-Peanut-Labs Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Murti Hussain, the President and Co-Founder of Peanut Labs about the company’s advertising strategy and the social advertising landscape in general. Peanut Labs helps publishers monetize their sites (largely game publishers) through survey offers from large brands. The company actually got started through their own gaming site which used peanuts as a form of virtual currency. After turning profitable, the company decided to provide services for other publishers to help them monetize their games. Monetization is one of the biggest challenges for publishers across the web, especially on social platforms. By organizing a targeted demographic within your application, there is the possibility of generating a substantial amount of revenue since at the end of the day, advertisers want to reach targeted segments of the population. As Murti describes during our interview, targeting mothers is currently a huge opportunity on social platforms... Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Murti Hussain, the President and Co-Founder of Peanut Labs about the company’s advertising strategy and the social advertising landscape in general. Peanut Labs helps publishers monetize their sites (largely game publishers) through survey offers from large brands. The company actually got started through their own gaming site which used peanuts as a form of virtual currency. After turning profitable, the company decided to provide services for other publishers to help them monetize their games. Monetization is one of the biggest challenges for publishers across the web, especially on social platforms. By organizing a targeted demographic within your application, there is the possibility of generating a substantial amount of revenue since at the end of the day, advertisers want to reach targeted segments of the population. As Murti describes during our interview, targeting mothers is currently a huge opportunity on social platforms since many social applications are not targeted to them. That’s not to say that mothers is the only demographic to build applications for. XBox for example, continues to pay Peanut Labs for surveys targeted at the younger male gamer demographic. We had the opportunity to speak about a number of other things but I’ll let you check out the podcast below to hear the rest of the conversation. Thanks to Murti for taking the time to speak with us! Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Murti Hussain, the President and Co-Founder of Peanut Labs about the company’s advertising strategy and the social advertising landscape in general. Peanut Labs helps publishers monetize their sites (largely game publishers) through survey offers from large brands. The company actually got started through their own gaming site which used peanuts as a form of virtual currency. After turning profitable, the company decided to provide services for other publishers to help them monetize their games. Monetization is one of the biggest challenges for publishers across the web, especially on social platforms. By organizing a targeted demographic within your application, there is the possibility of generating a substantial amount of revenue since at the end of the day, advertisers want to reach targeted segments of the population. As Murti describes during our interview, targeting mothers is currently a huge opportunity on social platforms since many social applications are not targeted to them. That’s not to say that mothers is the only demographic to build applications for. XBox for example, continues to pay Peanut Labs for surveys targeted at the younger male gamer demographic. We had the opportunity to speak about a number of other things but I’ll let you check out the podcast below to hear the rest of the conversation. Thanks to Murti for taking the time to speak with us! tag:odeo.com,2009-06-02,24640122 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:32:45 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, interviews, Peanut Labs, Murti Hussain Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24453640-Interview-With-Lauren-Bigelow-of-WeeWorld Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Lauren Bigelow, the General Manager of WeeWorld. Recently I’ve become increasingly interested in following the ways that virtual worlds are generating revenue as virtual worlds and social networks have become increasingly integrated. I’m also interested in them because I want to know how social networks and virtual worlds are making money since that’s a fairly important factor in running a business. While Lauren wouldn’t talk about the specific amount that the company is generating she mentioned that they have relatively strong monthly growth which is great considering the current economic environment. As with most other virtual worlds, WeeWorld generates revenue through the sale of virtual goods as well as advertising. All of WeeWorld’s growth has been organic. I discussed the potential for integrating with Facebook Connect and other services and Lauren said the company doesn’t have plans to integrate... Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Lauren Bigelow, the General Manager of WeeWorld. Recently I’ve become increasingly interested in following the ways that virtual worlds are generating revenue as virtual worlds and social networks have become increasingly integrated. I’m also interested in them because I want to know how social networks and virtual worlds are making money since that’s a fairly important factor in running a business. While Lauren wouldn’t talk about the specific amount that the company is generating she mentioned that they have relatively strong monthly growth which is great considering the current economic environment. As with most other virtual worlds, WeeWorld generates revenue through the sale of virtual goods as well as advertising. All of WeeWorld’s growth has been organic. I discussed the potential for integrating with Facebook Connect and other services and Lauren said the company doesn’t have plans to integrate. Currently WeeWorld users can share their personalized avatars across a number of services (including Facebook) with the primary distribution channels being AIM and Skype. The various forms of advertising that WeeWorld has developed are pretty interesting. One of the primary advertising models is through branded virtual goods, something that we’ve seen Facebook adopt in recent years. For actual virtual good sales, the company is growing at a rate of 16 percent a month, the vast majority of which is taking place domestically. Rather than outlining the whole interview, I’ll let you listen to my conversation with Lauren below! Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Lauren Bigelow, the General Manager of WeeWorld. Recently I’ve become increasingly interested in following the ways that virtual worlds are generating revenue as virtual worlds and social networks have become increasingly integrated. I’m also interested in them because I want to know how social networks and virtual worlds are making money since that’s a fairly important factor in running a business. While Lauren wouldn’t talk about the specific amount that the company is generating she mentioned that they have relatively strong monthly growth which is great considering the current economic environment. As with most other virtual worlds, WeeWorld generates revenue through the sale of virtual goods as well as advertising. All of WeeWorld’s growth has been organic. I discussed the potential for integrating with Facebook Connect and other services and Lauren said the company doesn’t have plans to integrate. Currently WeeWorld users can share their personalized avatars across a number of services (including Facebook) with the primary distribution channels being AIM and Skype. The various forms of advertising that WeeWorld has developed are pretty interesting. One of the primary advertising models is through branded virtual goods, something that we’ve seen Facebook adopt in recent years. For actual virtual good sales, the company is growing at a rate of 16 percent a month, the vast majority of which is taking place domestically. Rather than outlining the whole interview, I’ll let you listen to my conversation with Lauren below! tag:odeo.com,2009-04-15,24453640 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:19:01 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24399945-Interview-With-Kevin-Marks-Developer-Advocate-At-Google Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with Kevin Marks of Google about the current state of Friend Connect, OpenSocial, and the future of the social web. Friend Connect was initially seen as one of the methods for “out opening Facebook”. In other words Google was concerned about Facebook’s growing ownership of users’ identities on the web. While the initial steps were made for competitive purposes, OpenSocial has become part of a greater movement to simplify the models for sharing our social data around the web. Friend Connect, oAuth, Portable Contacts, and other standards have become core components of what is now called the open stack. Facebook has been taking an increasing number of steps toward opening up and has signaled that they may soon be willing to operate their services using the open stack. One of the latest steps was to joining the OpenID foundation board back in February. The standardization of the services running behind the scenes o... Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with Kevin Marks of Google about the current state of Friend Connect, OpenSocial, and the future of the social web. Friend Connect was initially seen as one of the methods for “out opening Facebook”. In other words Google was concerned about Facebook’s growing ownership of users’ identities on the web. While the initial steps were made for competitive purposes, OpenSocial has become part of a greater movement to simplify the models for sharing our social data around the web. Friend Connect, oAuth, Portable Contacts, and other standards have become core components of what is now called the open stack. Facebook has been taking an increasing number of steps toward opening up and has signaled that they may soon be willing to operate their services using the open stack. One of the latest steps was to joining the OpenID foundation board back in February. The standardization of the services running behind the scenes on the social web are still being developed including things like activitystrea.ms and DiSo. If you are confused about the standards don’t worry because all of this information will be taking place behind the scenes. All the users need to know is that standards will soon make it easier for all of our social activities to integrate with any service that is connected to the web. In my podcast with Kevin we talk about everything from the state of these open standards to what the future holds. Check out my interview with him in the player below! Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with Kevin Marks of Google about the current state of Friend Connect, OpenSocial, and the future of the social web. Friend Connect was initially seen as one of the methods for “out opening Facebook”. In other words Google was concerned about Facebook’s growing ownership of users’ identities on the web. While the initial steps were made for competitive purposes, OpenSocial has become part of a greater movement to simplify the models for sharing our social data around the web. Friend Connect, oAuth, Portable Contacts, and other standards have become core components of what is now called the open stack. Facebook has been taking an increasing number of steps toward opening up and has signaled that they may soon be willing to operate their services using the open stack. One of the latest steps was to joining the OpenID foundation board back in February. The standardization of the services running behind the scenes on the social web are still being developed including things like activitystrea.ms and DiSo. If you are confused about the standards don’t worry because all of this information will be taking place behind the scenes. All the users need to know is that standards will soon make it easier for all of our social activities to integrate with any service that is connected to the web. In my podcast with Kevin we talk about everything from the state of these open standards to what the future holds. Check out my interview with him in the player below! tag:odeo.com,2009-04-02,24399945 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:16:10 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, social web, OpenSocial, Kevin Marks Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24295702-Interview-With-Playdom-About-Facebook-Expansion Yesterday, Playdom, formerly known as You Plus, announced their expansion from MySpace to Facebook. I took the opportunity to speak with them about their thoughts on the state of social gaming as well as the differences between building on the MySpace platform versus Facebook platform. One of the most interesting things about Playdom is that like other large social gaming networks, they have a large percentage of users returning on a daily basis. As I mention in the podcast, repeat usage is often a very good indicator of how much a social gaming network is making. The company claims that approximately half of their revenue comes through direct payments (people spending money on virtual gifts or leveling up), and half is generated through offer-based advertising networks. It’s clear that social games continue to be the most popular applications on social networks. Earlier this week I wrote about a new company, Twofish, which has built a platform to track all activities within v... Yesterday, Playdom, formerly known as You Plus, announced their expansion from MySpace to Facebook. I took the opportunity to speak with them about their thoughts on the state of social gaming as well as the differences between building on the MySpace platform versus Facebook platform. One of the most interesting things about Playdom is that like other large social gaming networks, they have a large percentage of users returning on a daily basis. As I mention in the podcast, repeat usage is often a very good indicator of how much a social gaming network is making. The company claims that approximately half of their revenue comes through direct payments (people spending money on virtual gifts or leveling up), and half is generated through offer-based advertising networks. It’s clear that social games continue to be the most popular applications on social networks. Earlier this week I wrote about a new company, Twofish, which has built a platform to track all activities within virtual economies as well as help monetize them. The Playdom team said that they already have a proprietary system that has been developed in house for tracking their virtual economies. The company is actively looking for new employees which is why they just came out of the woodworks. If you want to learn more about Playdom, check out my podcast with them below. Yesterday, Playdom, formerly known as You Plus, announced their expansion from MySpace to Facebook. I took the opportunity to speak with them about their thoughts on the state of social gaming as well as the differences between building on the MySpace platform versus Facebook platform. One of the most interesting things about Playdom is that like other large social gaming networks, they have a large percentage of users returning on a daily basis. As I mention in the podcast, repeat usage is often a very good indicator of how much a social gaming network is making. The company claims that approximately half of their revenue comes through direct payments (people spending money on virtual gifts or leveling up), and half is generated through offer-based advertising networks. It’s clear that social games continue to be the most popular applications on social networks. Earlier this week I wrote about a new company, Twofish, which has built a platform to track all activities within virtual economies as well as help monetize them. The Playdom team said that they already have a proprietary system that has been developed in house for tracking their virtual economies. The company is actively looking for new employees which is why they just came out of the woodworks. If you want to learn more about Playdom, check out my podcast with them below. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-12,24295702 Thu, 12 Mar 2009 06:09:32 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, Playdom Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24127258-Interview-With-Tim-Schigel-CEO-of-ShareThis Today I had the opportunity to interview Tim Schigel, the CEO of ShareThis, about the new ShareThis service they released today and what the future holds for the company. We had an interesting discussion about the future of sharing and how Facebook and Twitter are gaining traction at the expense of other “sharing distribution channels”. ShareThis has few competitors aside from AddThis which was recently acquired by Clearspring Technologies, the McLean, Virginia based widget platform company. One of the most interesting things that Tim mentioned was the future release of an API which grants developers access to information about what users are sharing with others. As more content distribution channels open up access to their “sharing information”, I personally believe it will put more pressure on companies like Facebook to open up access to this type of information. While Tim couldn’t speak about the number of users that have accessed the ShareThis widge... Today I had the opportunity to interview Tim Schigel, the CEO of ShareThis, about the new ShareThis service they released today and what the future holds for the company. We had an interesting discussion about the future of sharing and how Facebook and Twitter are gaining traction at the expense of other “sharing distribution channels”. ShareThis has few competitors aside from AddThis which was recently acquired by Clearspring Technologies, the McLean, Virginia based widget platform company. One of the most interesting things that Tim mentioned was the future release of an API which grants developers access to information about what users are sharing with others. As more content distribution channels open up access to their “sharing information”, I personally believe it will put more pressure on companies like Facebook to open up access to this type of information. While Tim couldn’t speak about the number of users that have accessed the ShareThis widget, he was willing to share that the company has over 80,000 publishers active using the widget. While a couple hundred thousand have added the widget, only 80,000 are receiving any form of measurable traffic. The rest of the publishers are far down the “long tail”. We discussed a number of other issues related to the future of sharing on the web which you can listen to on the podcast below. I’ve also embedded a video of the updated ShareThis button below. Today I had the opportunity to interview Tim Schigel, the CEO of ShareThis, about the new ShareThis service they released today and what the future holds for the company. We had an interesting discussion about the future of sharing and how Facebook and Twitter are gaining traction at the expense of other “sharing distribution channels”. ShareThis has few competitors aside from AddThis which was recently acquired by Clearspring Technologies, the McLean, Virginia based widget platform company. One of the most interesting things that Tim mentioned was the future release of an API which grants developers access to information about what users are sharing with others. As more content distribution channels open up access to their “sharing information”, I personally believe it will put more pressure on companies like Facebook to open up access to this type of information. While Tim couldn’t speak about the number of users that have accessed the ShareThis widget, he was willing to share that the company has over 80,000 publishers active using the widget. While a couple hundred thousand have added the widget, only 80,000 are receiving any form of measurable traffic. The rest of the publishers are far down the “long tail”. We discussed a number of other issues related to the future of sharing on the web which you can listen to on the podcast below. I’ve also embedded a video of the updated ShareThis button below. tag:odeo.com,2009-02-18,24127258 Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:07:47 -0800 no SocialTimes.com podcast, ShareThis, Tim Schigel Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23487188-Interview-With-Seth-Sternberg-CEO-of-Meebo Last night Meebo announced a slew of new partners for its white-label instant messaging service. The announcement also included statements that the company now has almost 73 million monthly users which is most definitely a bold statement. I took the opportunity to speak with Seth Sternberg, CEO of Meebo, about what these announcements mean for his company and what the future holds. We discussed Meebo and potential integration with mobile platforms as well as how his product fits on the social web. Meebo offers a product which is nearly identical to Userplane and heavily resembles Facebook’s new chat client. I spoke with Seth about these similarities and what all of the recent chat services means for the future of chat on the web. Check out our interview below to learn more about the future of Meebo and chat on the web! Last night Meebo announced a slew of new partners for its white-label instant messaging service. The announcement also included statements that the company now has almost 73 million monthly users which is most definitely a bold statement. I took the opportunity to speak with Seth Sternberg, CEO of Meebo, about what these announcements mean for his company and what the future holds. We discussed Meebo and potential integration with mobile platforms as well as how his product fits on the social web. Meebo offers a product which is nearly identical to Userplane and heavily resembles Facebook’s new chat client. I spoke with Seth about these similarities and what all of the recent chat services means for the future of chat on the web. Check out our interview below to learn more about the future of Meebo and chat on the web! Last night Meebo announced a slew of new partners for its white-label instant messaging service. The announcement also included statements that the company now has almost 73 million monthly users which is most definitely a bold statement. I took the opportunity to speak with Seth Sternberg, CEO of Meebo, about what these announcements mean for his company and what the future holds. We discussed Meebo and potential integration with mobile platforms as well as how his product fits on the social web. Meebo offers a product which is nearly identical to Userplane and heavily resembles Facebook’s new chat client. I spoke with Seth about these similarities and what all of the recent chat services means for the future of chat on the web. Check out our interview below to learn more about the future of Meebo and chat on the web! tag:odeo.com,2008-10-14,23487188 Tue, 14 Oct 2008 07:00:14 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, chat, Seth Sternberg, Meebo Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23195161-Interview-With-Chris-McGill-of-Mixx-com This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Chris McGill, the founder of Mixx.com. For those not aware of Mixx, the company provides a social content discovery service. The key offering is that users get to categorize their content via tags rather than have their content forced into pre-determined categories as Digg and Yahoo! Buzz currently do. I also discussed yesterday’s opening of Yahoo! Buzz with Chris and what he though the impact on Mixx was. He suggested that Buzz does not target the same group of users that his site does. Chris also mentioned that the site continues to experience spectacular growth, attracting over 3 million users this month. Much of the growth has been attributed to organic sources (friends telling their friends) as well as the launch of the new Mixx communities. I asked Chris about their monetization strategy and received the expected “we’re not currently focused on monetization” response. This afternoon I also posted that t... This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Chris McGill, the founder of Mixx.com. For those not aware of Mixx, the company provides a social content discovery service. The key offering is that users get to categorize their content via tags rather than have their content forced into pre-determined categories as Digg and Yahoo! Buzz currently do. I also discussed yesterday’s opening of Yahoo! Buzz with Chris and what he though the impact on Mixx was. He suggested that Buzz does not target the same group of users that his site does. Chris also mentioned that the site continues to experience spectacular growth, attracting over 3 million users this month. Much of the growth has been attributed to organic sources (friends telling their friends) as well as the launch of the new Mixx communities. I asked Chris about their monetization strategy and received the expected “we’re not currently focused on monetization” response. This afternoon I also posted that this has become an all too familiar response. If the site can continue to grow by leaps and bounds, the company may be justified in their delayed monetization strategy. I also spoke with Chris about a number of other things, so I definitely suggest listening to the podcast below! This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Chris McGill, the founder of Mixx.com. For those not aware of Mixx, the company provides a social content discovery service. The key offering is that users get to categorize their content via tags rather than have their content forced into pre-determined categories as Digg and Yahoo! Buzz currently do. I also discussed yesterday’s opening of Yahoo! Buzz with Chris and what he though the impact on Mixx was. He suggested that Buzz does not target the same group of users that his site does. Chris also mentioned that the site continues to experience spectacular growth, attracting over 3 million users this month. Much of the growth has been attributed to organic sources (friends telling their friends) as well as the launch of the new Mixx communities. I asked Chris about their monetization strategy and received the expected “we’re not currently focused on monetization” response. This afternoon I also posted that this has become an all too familiar response. If the site can continue to grow by leaps and bounds, the company may be justified in their delayed monetization strategy. I also spoke with Chris about a number of other things, so I definitely suggest listening to the podcast below! tag:odeo.com,2008-08-19,23195161 Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:40:59 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, mixx Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23173833-Interview-with-Sebastien-de-Halleux-Playfish This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Sebastien de Halleux, the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Playfish, one of the top social gaming companies currently out there. The company also has some of the most engaging gaming applications currently on Facebook. Sebastien also discussed plans to expand beyond Facebook to other social networks as well as the iPhone. I also had the opportunity to ask Sebastien whether he thought social gaming deserved the separation from casual gaming. Sebastien argued that it does deserve a clear distinction and that the term means baking social into the game design and making the game an object of social interaction. The games also get incrementally more fun as you add more friends to the game. The social gaming space has been heating up most recently with Zynga’s $29 million round of funding. Currently the cost of social games has been low in comparison to traditional video games which have budgets in the six and seven figures... This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Sebastien de Halleux, the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Playfish, one of the top social gaming companies currently out there. The company also has some of the most engaging gaming applications currently on Facebook. Sebastien also discussed plans to expand beyond Facebook to other social networks as well as the iPhone. I also had the opportunity to ask Sebastien whether he thought social gaming deserved the separation from casual gaming. Sebastien argued that it does deserve a clear distinction and that the term means baking social into the game design and making the game an object of social interaction. The games also get incrementally more fun as you add more friends to the game. The social gaming space has been heating up most recently with Zynga’s $29 million round of funding. Currently the cost of social games has been low in comparison to traditional video games which have budgets in the six and seven figures as Sebastien points out. It’s an exciting time to be part of the social gaming space and Playfish is definitely one of the leaders. To learn more about Playfish and Sebastien’s thoughts on the social gaming space, listen to the podcast! This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Sebastien de Halleux, the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Playfish, one of the top social gaming companies currently out there. The company also has some of the most engaging gaming applications currently on Facebook. Sebastien also discussed plans to expand beyond Facebook to other social networks as well as the iPhone. I also had the opportunity to ask Sebastien whether he thought social gaming deserved the separation from casual gaming. Sebastien argued that it does deserve a clear distinction and that the term means baking social into the game design and making the game an object of social interaction. The games also get incrementally more fun as you add more friends to the game. The social gaming space has been heating up most recently with Zynga’s $29 million round of funding. Currently the cost of social games has been low in comparison to traditional video games which have budgets in the six and seven figures as Sebastien points out. It’s an exciting time to be part of the social gaming space and Playfish is definitely one of the leaders. To learn more about Playfish and Sebastien’s thoughts on the social gaming space, listen to the podcast! tag:odeo.com,2008-08-12,23173833 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:10:41 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, Playfish Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23149112-Interview-With-Hadi-Partovi-President-of-iLike This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Hadi about the new services being offered by iLike that they announced a couple weeks ago at f8. I actually did an interview with them at f8 but for some reason my recorder didn’t seem to work. This time it worked great and I’ve included my interview below. During the interview we discussed the impact of Facebook Connect on iLike as well as the launch of the new Great Apps program recently announced by Facebook. Hadi also was pleased by the new change in Facebook metrics that was announced today. The company recently surpassed 30 million users on their applications across all of the sites that the are on including Facebook, MySpace and their destination site iLike.com. iLike is also preparing to release a developer API that enables developers to embed the entire version of various songs. Hadi gave the example of an application that creates a wedding playlist. I’m sure there are countless other examples of applicati... This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Hadi about the new services being offered by iLike that they announced a couple weeks ago at f8. I actually did an interview with them at f8 but for some reason my recorder didn’t seem to work. This time it worked great and I’ve included my interview below. During the interview we discussed the impact of Facebook Connect on iLike as well as the launch of the new Great Apps program recently announced by Facebook. Hadi also was pleased by the new change in Facebook metrics that was announced today. The company recently surpassed 30 million users on their applications across all of the sites that the are on including Facebook, MySpace and their destination site iLike.com. iLike is also preparing to release a developer API that enables developers to embed the entire version of various songs. Hadi gave the example of an application that creates a wedding playlist. I’m sure there are countless other examples of applications that can be built with this new API. iLike, which was originally built out from GarageBand.com, is now the most popular social music service on the web. Listen to my podcast with Hadi to learn more. This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Hadi about the new services being offered by iLike that they announced a couple weeks ago at f8. I actually did an interview with them at f8 but for some reason my recorder didn’t seem to work. This time it worked great and I’ve included my interview below. During the interview we discussed the impact of Facebook Connect on iLike as well as the launch of the new Great Apps program recently announced by Facebook. Hadi also was pleased by the new change in Facebook metrics that was announced today. The company recently surpassed 30 million users on their applications across all of the sites that the are on including Facebook, MySpace and their destination site iLike.com. iLike is also preparing to release a developer API that enables developers to embed the entire version of various songs. Hadi gave the example of an application that creates a wedding playlist. I’m sure there are countless other examples of applications that can be built with this new API. iLike, which was originally built out from GarageBand.com, is now the most popular social music service on the web. Listen to my podcast with Hadi to learn more. tag:odeo.com,2008-08-05,23149112 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:09:43 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, iLike Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23127457-Interview-With-Where-I%E2%80%99ve-Been-Team Yesterday I had the opportunity to chat with Michael Dalesandro, CEO and Craig Ulliot, CTO and Founder of Where I’ve Been. The company has been building out a travel destination site off of Facebook and now also has offering on MySpace, Bebo, hi5 and Friendster. They also raised $1 million from angels a few months ago which apparently went unannounced. We are actually the first to publish this information. Additionally the company is looking to raise another round of funding to help expand the company’s efforts to become the social travel vertical across the web. I asked Michael and Craig about their thoughts on the new iPhone platform and they said that they are working on launching the first version of their iPhone application. I’d bet that most companies in this space are working at building something on the iPhone as well. Michael also said that Where I’ve Been is looking for a new round of funding. Listen up VCs! Here is a chance to get some skin in the ... Yesterday I had the opportunity to chat with Michael Dalesandro, CEO and Craig Ulliot, CTO and Founder of Where I’ve Been. The company has been building out a travel destination site off of Facebook and now also has offering on MySpace, Bebo, hi5 and Friendster. They also raised $1 million from angels a few months ago which apparently went unannounced. We are actually the first to publish this information. Additionally the company is looking to raise another round of funding to help expand the company’s efforts to become the social travel vertical across the web. I asked Michael and Craig about their thoughts on the new iPhone platform and they said that they are working on launching the first version of their iPhone application. I’d bet that most companies in this space are working at building something on the iPhone as well. Michael also said that Where I’ve Been is looking for a new round of funding. Listen up VCs! Here is a chance to get some skin in the social web game. Where I’ve Been has over 7 million active users and they are growing daily, not bad stats for a company with $1 million in funding. I also asked them if they plan on tackling the Where Am I Going issue that a number of other web startups (such as WAYN) have already begun tackling. They said that they plan on providing this service as well but under the amount of resources they currently have available it has been challenging. Listen to my podcast below to hear more about where the Where I’ve Been team is going! Yesterday I had the opportunity to chat with Michael Dalesandro, CEO and Craig Ulliot, CTO and Founder of Where I’ve Been. The company has been building out a travel destination site off of Facebook and now also has offering on MySpace, Bebo, hi5 and Friendster. They also raised $1 million from angels a few months ago which apparently went unannounced. We are actually the first to publish this information. Additionally the company is looking to raise another round of funding to help expand the company’s efforts to become the social travel vertical across the web. I asked Michael and Craig about their thoughts on the new iPhone platform and they said that they are working on launching the first version of their iPhone application. I’d bet that most companies in this space are working at building something on the iPhone as well. Michael also said that Where I’ve Been is looking for a new round of funding. Listen up VCs! Here is a chance to get some skin in the social web game. Where I’ve Been has over 7 million active users and they are growing daily, not bad stats for a company with $1 million in funding. I also asked them if they plan on tackling the Where Am I Going issue that a number of other web startups (such as WAYN) have already begun tackling. They said that they plan on providing this service as well but under the amount of resources they currently have available it has been challenging. Listen to my podcast below to hear more about where the Where I’ve Been team is going! tag:odeo.com,2008-07-30,23127457 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:00:38 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23111813-Interview-with-Jia-Shen-CTO-of-RockYou Earlier today I had the opportunity to speak with Jia Shen, the CTO of RockYou about his thoughts on the new platform design and Facebook Connect. RockYou is well positioned to adapt to a changing platform given that they have operated in much more volatile environments in the past. RockYou was launched on MySpace before social platforms even exist, putting their company at the mercy of MySpace who would shut down their applications without notice or explanation. While RockYou recently had one of their applications shut down on Facebook, they now operate in a much more stable environment driving over 1 billion impressions a month. Jia sounds prepared to adapt to the new platform changes and is actually excited about where the platform is going. I also briefly discussed RockYou’s expansion on to other platforms outside of the U.S. Jia said that they are currently on Xiaonei and things appear to be going well there. I discussed much more with Jia so if you’d like to hear m... Earlier today I had the opportunity to speak with Jia Shen, the CTO of RockYou about his thoughts on the new platform design and Facebook Connect. RockYou is well positioned to adapt to a changing platform given that they have operated in much more volatile environments in the past. RockYou was launched on MySpace before social platforms even exist, putting their company at the mercy of MySpace who would shut down their applications without notice or explanation. While RockYou recently had one of their applications shut down on Facebook, they now operate in a much more stable environment driving over 1 billion impressions a month. Jia sounds prepared to adapt to the new platform changes and is actually excited about where the platform is going. I also briefly discussed RockYou’s expansion on to other platforms outside of the U.S. Jia said that they are currently on Xiaonei and things appear to be going well there. I discussed much more with Jia so if you’d like to hear more about the future of RockYou and Jia’s thoughts on the Facebook platform announcements, listen to the podcast below! Earlier today I had the opportunity to speak with Jia Shen, the CTO of RockYou about his thoughts on the new platform design and Facebook Connect. RockYou is well positioned to adapt to a changing platform given that they have operated in much more volatile environments in the past. RockYou was launched on MySpace before social platforms even exist, putting their company at the mercy of MySpace who would shut down their applications without notice or explanation. While RockYou recently had one of their applications shut down on Facebook, they now operate in a much more stable environment driving over 1 billion impressions a month. Jia sounds prepared to adapt to the new platform changes and is actually excited about where the platform is going. I also briefly discussed RockYou’s expansion on to other platforms outside of the U.S. Jia said that they are currently on Xiaonei and things appear to be going well there. I discussed much more with Jia so if you’d like to hear more about the future of RockYou and Jia’s thoughts on the Facebook platform announcements, listen to the podcast below! tag:odeo.com,2008-07-24,23111813 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:49:26 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, RockYou, Jia Shen Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23110515-Mark-Zuckerberg-f8-Keynote-Podcast I gave a pretty thorough overview of the Mark Zuckerberg keynote over on AllFacebook earlier today. If you missed it and would like to listen to the audio version, I’ve included the podcast below. Some of the audio is not that loud but it should come through clearly. I’ll be posting more podcasts over the coming hours. Stay tuned! I gave a pretty thorough overview of the Mark Zuckerberg keynote over on AllFacebook earlier today. If you missed it and would like to listen to the audio version, I’ve included the podcast below. Some of the audio is not that loud but it should come through clearly. I’ll be posting more podcasts over the coming hours. Stay tuned! I gave a pretty thorough overview of the Mark Zuckerberg keynote over on AllFacebook earlier today. If you missed it and would like to listen to the audio version, I’ve included the podcast below. Some of the audio is not that loud but it should come through clearly. I’ll be posting more podcasts over the coming hours. Stay tuned! tag:odeo.com,2008-07-23,23110515 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:29:18 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, Facebook, mark zuckerberg Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23098706-Interview-With-Mike-Jones-CEO-of-Userplane Earlier today I had the opportunity to speak with Mike Jone of Userplane. We had time to discuss Userplane’s recent partnership announcement with Converdge. I also explored what services Userplane currently offers, what sort of monetization models Userplane currently uses and how Mike sees chat platforms evolving over the coming months. One thing I brought up during the conversation was the recent launch of Meebo’s competing platform and what his thoughts were. I also suggested that AOL work on acquiring Meebo to integrate into Userplane. Mike couldn’t confirm that an acquisition was in the works unfortunately! Mike took time to discuss some new features that Userplane will be releasing in the coming weeks as well as discuss his thoughts on how Userplane fits into the social application space. Listen to my podcast with Mike to hear more! Earlier today I had the opportunity to speak with Mike Jone of Userplane. We had time to discuss Userplane’s recent partnership announcement with Converdge. I also explored what services Userplane currently offers, what sort of monetization models Userplane currently uses and how Mike sees chat platforms evolving over the coming months. One thing I brought up during the conversation was the recent launch of Meebo’s competing platform and what his thoughts were. I also suggested that AOL work on acquiring Meebo to integrate into Userplane. Mike couldn’t confirm that an acquisition was in the works unfortunately! Mike took time to discuss some new features that Userplane will be releasing in the coming weeks as well as discuss his thoughts on how Userplane fits into the social application space. Listen to my podcast with Mike to hear more! Earlier today I had the opportunity to speak with Mike Jone of Userplane. We had time to discuss Userplane’s recent partnership announcement with Converdge. I also explored what services Userplane currently offers, what sort of monetization models Userplane currently uses and how Mike sees chat platforms evolving over the coming months. One thing I brought up during the conversation was the recent launch of Meebo’s competing platform and what his thoughts were. I also suggested that AOL work on acquiring Meebo to integrate into Userplane. Mike couldn’t confirm that an acquisition was in the works unfortunately! Mike took time to discuss some new features that Userplane will be releasing in the coming weeks as well as discuss his thoughts on how Userplane fits into the social application space. Listen to my podcast with Mike to hear more! tag:odeo.com,2008-07-21,23098706 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:00:17 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, userplane, Mike Jones Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23071634-How-Do-You-Best-Track-Social-Metrics This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Ian Swanson, one of the founders of Sometrics, a social analytics company. Sometrics help developers track additional information about their users in addition to providing a robust ad serving platform. The company is actively building strategic partnerships to expand across multiple platforms and is rapidly increasing their product offering. During the podcast, Ian and I discussed what the current trends are in the social platform space. We also briefly discussed the privacy issues facing social platforms and analytics companies in general. Ian stressed how Sometrics focuses on ensuring that user data is always protected and remains anonymous on their platform. Ian also mentioned future plans for the company as well as some interesting news items that will be released in the coming weeks. Definitely listen to my podcast with Ian Swanson to learn more about Sometrics. This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Ian Swanson, one of the founders of Sometrics, a social analytics company. Sometrics help developers track additional information about their users in addition to providing a robust ad serving platform. The company is actively building strategic partnerships to expand across multiple platforms and is rapidly increasing their product offering. During the podcast, Ian and I discussed what the current trends are in the social platform space. We also briefly discussed the privacy issues facing social platforms and analytics companies in general. Ian stressed how Sometrics focuses on ensuring that user data is always protected and remains anonymous on their platform. Ian also mentioned future plans for the company as well as some interesting news items that will be released in the coming weeks. Definitely listen to my podcast with Ian Swanson to learn more about Sometrics. This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Ian Swanson, one of the founders of Sometrics, a social analytics company. Sometrics help developers track additional information about their users in addition to providing a robust ad serving platform. The company is actively building strategic partnerships to expand across multiple platforms and is rapidly increasing their product offering. During the podcast, Ian and I discussed what the current trends are in the social platform space. We also briefly discussed the privacy issues facing social platforms and analytics companies in general. Ian stressed how Sometrics focuses on ensuring that user data is always protected and remains anonymous on their platform. Ian also mentioned future plans for the company as well as some interesting news items that will be released in the coming weeks. Definitely listen to my podcast with Ian Swanson to learn more about Sometrics. tag:odeo.com,2008-07-11,23071634 Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:52:51 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, Sometrics Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23032645-Interview-With-Jim-Benedetto-of-MySpace This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Jim Benedetto, the Senior Vice President of Technology over at MySpace. We discussed the new MySpace Data Availability which launched yesterday. Jim and I discussed MySpace’s position in relation to competing platforms as well as some of the underlying technical issues pertaining to the new service. The podcast was probably one of the shortest one ever since Jim was very concise in responding to my questions. Earlier I asked people on Twitter, Plurk and Facebook what questions they would like to have answered and most of them were responded to. One reader asked if the iPhone works with the new MySpace Data Availability service. While I assumed that the service works with pretty much any web-based technology, Jim confirmed that the new service does indeed work with iPhones. Does this mean we’ll soon see a number of mobile implementations? Probably but I’m not so sure how soon we’ll see this being implemented. ... This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Jim Benedetto, the Senior Vice President of Technology over at MySpace. We discussed the new MySpace Data Availability which launched yesterday. Jim and I discussed MySpace’s position in relation to competing platforms as well as some of the underlying technical issues pertaining to the new service. The podcast was probably one of the shortest one ever since Jim was very concise in responding to my questions. Earlier I asked people on Twitter, Plurk and Facebook what questions they would like to have answered and most of them were responded to. One reader asked if the iPhone works with the new MySpace Data Availability service. While I assumed that the service works with pretty much any web-based technology, Jim confirmed that the new service does indeed work with iPhones. Does this mean we’ll soon see a number of mobile implementations? Probably but I’m not so sure how soon we’ll see this being implemented. I’ve already spoken with a number of mobile services who said that they plan to build software around the new services being offered by Facebook and MySpace. Check out my interview to with Jim to learn more about the new Data Availability service. This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with Jim Benedetto, the Senior Vice President of Technology over at MySpace. We discussed the new MySpace Data Availability which launched yesterday. Jim and I discussed MySpace’s position in relation to competing platforms as well as some of the underlying technical issues pertaining to the new service. The podcast was probably one of the shortest one ever since Jim was very concise in responding to my questions. Earlier I asked people on Twitter, Plurk and Facebook what questions they would like to have answered and most of them were responded to. One reader asked if the iPhone works with the new MySpace Data Availability service. While I assumed that the service works with pretty much any web-based technology, Jim confirmed that the new service does indeed work with iPhones. Does this mean we’ll soon see a number of mobile implementations? Probably but I’m not so sure how soon we’ll see this being implemented. I’ve already spoken with a number of mobile services who said that they plan to build software around the new services being offered by Facebook and MySpace. Check out my interview to with Jim to learn more about the new Data Availability service. tag:odeo.com,2008-06-27,23032645 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:10:40 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, myspace, Data Availability Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22589749-Interview-With-Scott-Rafer-of-Lookery This week I had the opportunity to speak with Scott Rafer of Lookery. Lookery is a social media ad network which launched when the Facebook platform launched. Scott and his business partner began building a basic backend to connect the advertisers and the inventory. In contrast to one of my previous podcasts where the ad network was focused on generating the maximum CPM, Lookery focuses on filling bulk inventory. In turn this means that their CPMs are closer to the bottom than the top but the bottom line is that they can fill inventory and in a world of limitless inventory, that’s an important role. Scott was very straight-forward during our podcast with Lookery’s model of generating revenue and what their business model is. One of the things that stood out to me during our inventory was that Scott suggests that focusing on trying to target people with demographic data really isn’t working currently and this is something they aren’t focused on. While they do ... This week I had the opportunity to speak with Scott Rafer of Lookery. Lookery is a social media ad network which launched when the Facebook platform launched. Scott and his business partner began building a basic backend to connect the advertisers and the inventory. In contrast to one of my previous podcasts where the ad network was focused on generating the maximum CPM, Lookery focuses on filling bulk inventory. In turn this means that their CPMs are closer to the bottom than the top but the bottom line is that they can fill inventory and in a world of limitless inventory, that’s an important role. Scott was very straight-forward during our podcast with Lookery’s model of generating revenue and what their business model is. One of the things that stood out to me during our inventory was that Scott suggests that focusing on trying to target people with demographic data really isn’t working currently and this is something they aren’t focused on. While they do try to provide a basic level of targeting, they are not trying to revolutionized the advertising world with their business model. They simply fill inventory and fill it effectively. Check out the podcast below to here more about Lookery’s business model and Scott’s thoughts on the future of advertising on the social web. This week I had the opportunity to speak with Scott Rafer of Lookery. Lookery is a social media ad network which launched when the Facebook platform launched. Scott and his business partner began building a basic backend to connect the advertisers and the inventory. In contrast to one of my previous podcasts where the ad network was focused on generating the maximum CPM, Lookery focuses on filling bulk inventory. In turn this means that their CPMs are closer to the bottom than the top but the bottom line is that they can fill inventory and in a world of limitless inventory, that’s an important role. Scott was very straight-forward during our podcast with Lookery’s model of generating revenue and what their business model is. One of the things that stood out to me during our inventory was that Scott suggests that focusing on trying to target people with demographic data really isn’t working currently and this is something they aren’t focused on. While they do try to provide a basic level of targeting, they are not trying to revolutionized the advertising world with their business model. They simply fill inventory and fill it effectively. Check out the podcast below to here more about Lookery’s business model and Scott’s thoughts on the future of advertising on the social web. tag:odeo.com,2008-06-06,22589749 Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:00:32 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, Lookery Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22579920-Interview-With-Patrick-Chanezon-of-Google Last week I spoke with Patrick Chanezon, evangelist for OpenSocial at Google. He speaks frequently at events around the country to educate people about how to take advantage of OpenSocial and a few of Google’s other products. I spoke with Patrick about the recent rifts between Facebook and Google, the future of monetizing OpenSocial applications and a number of other things. While Patrick couldn’t speak about Google’s intention in providing monetization opportunities for OpenSocial applications, it is expected that Google will provide their own monetization solutions for OpenSocial apps. During our conversation Patrick discusses the benefits of Google Friend Connect and OpenSocial and addresses some criticism which has arisen over the new standard. If you want to learn more about the OpenSocial program and where it is headed listen to our podcast. Also here is one of Patrick’s recent presentations on OpenSocial and Google’s various APIs. Last week I spoke with Patrick Chanezon, evangelist for OpenSocial at Google. He speaks frequently at events around the country to educate people about how to take advantage of OpenSocial and a few of Google’s other products. I spoke with Patrick about the recent rifts between Facebook and Google, the future of monetizing OpenSocial applications and a number of other things. While Patrick couldn’t speak about Google’s intention in providing monetization opportunities for OpenSocial applications, it is expected that Google will provide their own monetization solutions for OpenSocial apps. During our conversation Patrick discusses the benefits of Google Friend Connect and OpenSocial and addresses some criticism which has arisen over the new standard. If you want to learn more about the OpenSocial program and where it is headed listen to our podcast. Also here is one of Patrick’s recent presentations on OpenSocial and Google’s various APIs. Last week I spoke with Patrick Chanezon, evangelist for OpenSocial at Google. He speaks frequently at events around the country to educate people about how to take advantage of OpenSocial and a few of Google’s other products. I spoke with Patrick about the recent rifts between Facebook and Google, the future of monetizing OpenSocial applications and a number of other things. While Patrick couldn’t speak about Google’s intention in providing monetization opportunities for OpenSocial applications, it is expected that Google will provide their own monetization solutions for OpenSocial apps. During our conversation Patrick discusses the benefits of Google Friend Connect and OpenSocial and addresses some criticism which has arisen over the new standard. If you want to learn more about the OpenSocial program and where it is headed listen to our podcast. Also here is one of Patrick’s recent presentations on OpenSocial and Google’s various APIs. tag:odeo.com,2008-06-03,22579920 Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:50:37 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, google, OpenSocial, Patrick Chanezon Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22519396-Developers-See-12-CPMs-on-Facebook Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Chris Cunningham of AppsSavvy. AppsSavvy is a company based out of New York which focuses on building monetization opportunities for social application developers and building custom branded experiences for companies. They do this by connecting brands with the application developers that have the proper demographics to match up with the client’s campaign. They have successfully executed campaigns for movie companies, TBS, Adidas and a number of other large organizations. The company is heavily focused on providing sales support for the developers that don’t have the resources to reach out to brands on their own. I have spoken on a number of panels where I emphasized that the best ROI for application developers will come from reaching out directly to brands rather than relying on the traditional CPM model that most developers are currently relying on. AppsSavvy is surprisingly the only company which is currently focused on pro... Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Chris Cunningham of AppsSavvy. AppsSavvy is a company based out of New York which focuses on building monetization opportunities for social application developers and building custom branded experiences for companies. They do this by connecting brands with the application developers that have the proper demographics to match up with the client’s campaign. They have successfully executed campaigns for movie companies, TBS, Adidas and a number of other large organizations. The company is heavily focused on providing sales support for the developers that don’t have the resources to reach out to brands on their own. I have spoken on a number of panels where I emphasized that the best ROI for application developers will come from reaching out directly to brands rather than relying on the traditional CPM model that most developers are currently relying on. AppsSavvy is surprisingly the only company which is currently focused on providing branded campaigns for clients. As Chris says during my interview with him, there is currently limitless inventory on Facebook and not all of it is being filled. Companies that are focused on continuously building distribution won’t win in the long run because there are already plenty of distribution channels. This goes back to the developer dilemma that I spoke about on Wednesday. Chris and the AppsSavvy teaming are helping developers that build valuable applications connect with brands and they have continued to see growth since their company launched. Listen to my podcast with Chris to learn more. I forgot to mention one other thing: Chris and his team are currently seeing average CPMs of $8-$12! Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Chris Cunningham of AppsSavvy. AppsSavvy is a company based out of New York which focuses on building monetization opportunities for social application developers and building custom branded experiences for companies. They do this by connecting brands with the application developers that have the proper demographics to match up with the client’s campaign. They have successfully executed campaigns for movie companies, TBS, Adidas and a number of other large organizations. The company is heavily focused on providing sales support for the developers that don’t have the resources to reach out to brands on their own. I have spoken on a number of panels where I emphasized that the best ROI for application developers will come from reaching out directly to brands rather than relying on the traditional CPM model that most developers are currently relying on. AppsSavvy is surprisingly the only company which is currently focused on providing branded campaigns for clients. As Chris says during my interview with him, there is currently limitless inventory on Facebook and not all of it is being filled. Companies that are focused on continuously building distribution won’t win in the long run because there are already plenty of distribution channels. This goes back to the developer dilemma that I spoke about on Wednesday. Chris and the AppsSavvy teaming are helping developers that build valuable applications connect with brands and they have continued to see growth since their company launched. Listen to my podcast with Chris to learn more. I forgot to mention one other thing: Chris and his team are currently seeing average CPMs of $8-$12! tag:odeo.com,2008-05-16,22519396 Fri, 16 May 2008 06:00:26 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, AppsSavvy, Chris Cunningham Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22497491-Interview-With-Craig-Dalton-of-Hook-Mobile Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Craig Dalton of Hook Mobile. Hook Mobile has developed a platform which helps integrate MMS technology with social applications. They’ve already launched one application on Facebook called PicToPhone. The application enables users to view their friends photos on a daily basis through MMS technology. The application has been used as a demo so that developers can see how to integrate MMS technology into their own applications. Throughout the podcast, Craig and I discussed the various challenges facing the convergence of social and mobile technology. We also discussed the various ways that businesses are trying to monetize applications in the space. Just yesterday, Nielsen released statistics that in the first quarter of 2008, 1.6 percent of all mobile users in the United States had accessed a social network via their mobile device. While it is only 1.6 percent, this space is growing rapidly and could become one of the most dominant a... Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Craig Dalton of Hook Mobile. Hook Mobile has developed a platform which helps integrate MMS technology with social applications. They’ve already launched one application on Facebook called PicToPhone. The application enables users to view their friends photos on a daily basis through MMS technology. The application has been used as a demo so that developers can see how to integrate MMS technology into their own applications. Throughout the podcast, Craig and I discussed the various challenges facing the convergence of social and mobile technology. We also discussed the various ways that businesses are trying to monetize applications in the space. Just yesterday, Nielsen released statistics that in the first quarter of 2008, 1.6 percent of all mobile users in the United States had accessed a social network via their mobile device. While it is only 1.6 percent, this space is growing rapidly and could become one of the most dominant areas for social technology to expand into. Listen to my interview with Craig Dalton below to hear more about how the social web can leverage mobile technologies. Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Craig Dalton of Hook Mobile. Hook Mobile has developed a platform which helps integrate MMS technology with social applications. They’ve already launched one application on Facebook called PicToPhone. The application enables users to view their friends photos on a daily basis through MMS technology. The application has been used as a demo so that developers can see how to integrate MMS technology into their own applications. Throughout the podcast, Craig and I discussed the various challenges facing the convergence of social and mobile technology. We also discussed the various ways that businesses are trying to monetize applications in the space. Just yesterday, Nielsen released statistics that in the first quarter of 2008, 1.6 percent of all mobile users in the United States had accessed a social network via their mobile device. While it is only 1.6 percent, this space is growing rapidly and could become one of the most dominant areas for social technology to expand into. Listen to my interview with Craig Dalton below to hear more about how the social web can leverage mobile technologies. tag:odeo.com,2008-05-09,22497491 Fri, 09 May 2008 08:19:33 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, Hook Mobile Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22475284-Interview-With-Naval-Ravikant Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with Naval Ravikant, an investor and entrepreneur based in the Silicon Valley area. I wanted to talk to him about trends that he is seeing in the industry and what sort of pullback, if any he has been seeing from the economic downturn. You can listen to the podcast to find out what he said but for him, there has been little economic impact in early stage investing. Additionally, Naval spoke to me about what types of teams he makes investments in and why. We also discussed the challenges of creating a startup outside the valley versus creating a startup in the heart of the valley. Naval is always a great person to speak with, especially when discussing social technology as he made a number of investments in Facebook application companies. Naval also writes the Venture Hacks blog which recently launched a “Recommended” section which indexes venture capitalists as well as startups. The point is to help entrepreneurs find inve... Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with Naval Ravikant, an investor and entrepreneur based in the Silicon Valley area. I wanted to talk to him about trends that he is seeing in the industry and what sort of pullback, if any he has been seeing from the economic downturn. You can listen to the podcast to find out what he said but for him, there has been little economic impact in early stage investing. Additionally, Naval spoke to me about what types of teams he makes investments in and why. We also discussed the challenges of creating a startup outside the valley versus creating a startup in the heart of the valley. Naval is always a great person to speak with, especially when discussing social technology as he made a number of investments in Facebook application companies. Naval also writes the Venture Hacks blog which recently launched a “Recommended” section which indexes venture capitalists as well as startups. The point is to help entrepreneurs find investors. Listen to the podcast to hear Naval’s insights on investing and what the best way is to approach getting funding. Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with Naval Ravikant, an investor and entrepreneur based in the Silicon Valley area. I wanted to talk to him about trends that he is seeing in the industry and what sort of pullback, if any he has been seeing from the economic downturn. You can listen to the podcast to find out what he said but for him, there has been little economic impact in early stage investing. Additionally, Naval spoke to me about what types of teams he makes investments in and why. We also discussed the challenges of creating a startup outside the valley versus creating a startup in the heart of the valley. Naval is always a great person to speak with, especially when discussing social technology as he made a number of investments in Facebook application companies. Naval also writes the Venture Hacks blog which recently launched a “Recommended” section which indexes venture capitalists as well as startups. The point is to help entrepreneurs find investors. Listen to the podcast to hear Naval’s insights on investing and what the best way is to approach getting funding. tag:odeo.com,2008-05-02,22475284 Fri, 02 May 2008 06:25:44 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, Naval Ravikant Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22455659-Mike-Lazerow-CEO-of-Buddy-Media Earlier this week I had the opportunity to briefly speak with Mike Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media. I must disclose that Buddy Media is one of the sponsors of our site. They also are one of the few companies in this space with a proven business model that continues to generate substantial revenue for their company. Buddy Media focuses on helping brands navigate the social networking and social media space and create an engaging experience for users. This contrasts with typical advertising campaigns outside of social networks which currently offer substantially less interaction. It’s straight-forward and it makes a lot of business sense. Buddy Media has an impressive client list as you will hear in the podcast. They also recently launched the Buddy Media ad network following a substantial round of funding that we wrote about on this site recently. It’s refreshing to hear from a company like Buddy Media given their legitimate business that consistently generates revenue from t... Earlier this week I had the opportunity to briefly speak with Mike Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media. I must disclose that Buddy Media is one of the sponsors of our site. They also are one of the few companies in this space with a proven business model that continues to generate substantial revenue for their company. Buddy Media focuses on helping brands navigate the social networking and social media space and create an engaging experience for users. This contrasts with typical advertising campaigns outside of social networks which currently offer substantially less interaction. It’s straight-forward and it makes a lot of business sense. Buddy Media has an impressive client list as you will hear in the podcast. They also recently launched the Buddy Media ad network following a substantial round of funding that we wrote about on this site recently. It’s refreshing to hear from a company like Buddy Media given their legitimate business that consistently generates revenue from the company. Listen to the podcast to hear more! Earlier this week I had the opportunity to briefly speak with Mike Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media. I must disclose that Buddy Media is one of the sponsors of our site. They also are one of the few companies in this space with a proven business model that continues to generate substantial revenue for their company. Buddy Media focuses on helping brands navigate the social networking and social media space and create an engaging experience for users. This contrasts with typical advertising campaigns outside of social networks which currently offer substantially less interaction. It’s straight-forward and it makes a lot of business sense. Buddy Media has an impressive client list as you will hear in the podcast. They also recently launched the Buddy Media ad network following a substantial round of funding that we wrote about on this site recently. It’s refreshing to hear from a company like Buddy Media given their legitimate business that consistently generates revenue from the company. Listen to the podcast to hear more! tag:odeo.com,2008-04-25,22455659 Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:00:44 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, Buddy Media Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22451127-WooMe-Wednesday-Interview-With-Stephen-Stokols Yesterday was Twitter Tuesday so I figured it would be good to make today WooMe Wednesday. Yesterday afternoon I spoke with Stephen Stokols, the CEO of WooMe, an online casual speed dating platform. I’ve tested out the platform with my friends before and I have to admit that it’s pretty entertaining. I also had the opportunity to check out the WooMe Facebook application called WooMyFriends. The application enables your friends to make video introductions to friends of theirs that you are interested in dating. It’s a pretty cool application but unfortunately none of my friends are using the app so I haven’t had the opportunity to test it out. Currently the WooMe website has over 250,000 registered users. They’ve seen rapid growth given their launch toward the end of last year. The company is backed by “Niklas Zennström’s (Skype Founder) Atomico Investments, the original investors in Skype (Mangrove Capital), and Klaus Hommels (Europe’s ... Yesterday was Twitter Tuesday so I figured it would be good to make today WooMe Wednesday. Yesterday afternoon I spoke with Stephen Stokols, the CEO of WooMe, an online casual speed dating platform. I’ve tested out the platform with my friends before and I have to admit that it’s pretty entertaining. I also had the opportunity to check out the WooMe Facebook application called WooMyFriends. The application enables your friends to make video introductions to friends of theirs that you are interested in dating. It’s a pretty cool application but unfortunately none of my friends are using the app so I haven’t had the opportunity to test it out. Currently the WooMe website has over 250,000 registered users. They’ve seen rapid growth given their launch toward the end of last year. The company is backed by “Niklas Zennström’s (Skype Founder) Atomico Investments, the original investors in Skype (Mangrove Capital), and Klaus Hommels (Europe’s Investor of the Year, 2006).” The site continues to prove itself as a great platform for meeting people. One of the cooler features of their Facebook application are the video introductions that you can send via messages. It’s a pretty cool application and I’m sure it will be successful. Learn more about their company in my podcast with the CEO. Yesterday was Twitter Tuesday so I figured it would be good to make today WooMe Wednesday. Yesterday afternoon I spoke with Stephen Stokols, the CEO of WooMe, an online casual speed dating platform. I’ve tested out the platform with my friends before and I have to admit that it’s pretty entertaining. I also had the opportunity to check out the WooMe Facebook application called WooMyFriends. The application enables your friends to make video introductions to friends of theirs that you are interested in dating. It’s a pretty cool application but unfortunately none of my friends are using the app so I haven’t had the opportunity to test it out. Currently the WooMe website has over 250,000 registered users. They’ve seen rapid growth given their launch toward the end of last year. The company is backed by “Niklas Zennström’s (Skype Founder) Atomico Investments, the original investors in Skype (Mangrove Capital), and Klaus Hommels (Europe’s Investor of the Year, 2006).” The site continues to prove itself as a great platform for meeting people. One of the cooler features of their Facebook application are the video introductions that you can send via messages. It’s a pretty cool application and I’m sure it will be successful. Learn more about their company in my podcast with the CEO. tag:odeo.com,2008-04-23,22451127 Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:55:55 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, WooMe Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22437108-Interview-With-Charlene-Li-Author-of-Groundswell Earlier this week I had the fortune to speak with Charlene Li, one of the premier though leaders in the area of social computing and is a leading analyst at Forrester Research. Practically every conference I go to, Charlene is always one of the speakers there. I spoke to Charlene about her new book, Groundswell, winning in a world transformed by social technologies , which I actually had a chance to read. The book gives in depth analysis and research about new social technologies and how they are effecting businesses. Not only does the book provide a thorough overview of the current state of social technologies and their impact but it also discusses how businesses can adapt to them. Charlene emphasizes in the book and in my discussion with her that the focus should not be on the individual technologies that shape the social web (and the groundswell) but instead on the relationships. If you know who your customers are you can target them and join the conversation using any social tec... Earlier this week I had the fortune to speak with Charlene Li, one of the premier though leaders in the area of social computing and is a leading analyst at Forrester Research. Practically every conference I go to, Charlene is always one of the speakers there. I spoke to Charlene about her new book, Groundswell, winning in a world transformed by social technologies , which I actually had a chance to read. The book gives in depth analysis and research about new social technologies and how they are effecting businesses. Not only does the book provide a thorough overview of the current state of social technologies and their impact but it also discusses how businesses can adapt to them. Charlene emphasizes in the book and in my discussion with her that the focus should not be on the individual technologies that shape the social web (and the groundswell) but instead on the relationships. If you know who your customers are you can target them and join the conversation using any social technology. Charlene provides valuable data for anybody looking to get a through overview on how to adapt in this rapidly changing environment. While the book focuses heavily on larger corporations, there are also many lessons for small organizations to learn from this book. While your company shouldn’t dedicate all its’ resources to social technology and social media, these tools are extremely powerful and valuable and should not be overlooked. Listen to my podcast with Charlene to learn how to embrace, interact with and energize the groundswell. Earlier this week I had the fortune to speak with Charlene Li, one of the premier though leaders in the area of social computing and is a leading analyst at Forrester Research. Practically every conference I go to, Charlene is always one of the speakers there. I spoke to Charlene about her new book, Groundswell, winning in a world transformed by social technologies , which I actually had a chance to read. The book gives in depth analysis and research about new social technologies and how they are effecting businesses. Not only does the book provide a thorough overview of the current state of social technologies and their impact but it also discusses how businesses can adapt to them. Charlene emphasizes in the book and in my discussion with her that the focus should not be on the individual technologies that shape the social web (and the groundswell) but instead on the relationships. If you know who your customers are you can target them and join the conversation using any social technology. Charlene provides valuable data for anybody looking to get a through overview on how to adapt in this rapidly changing environment. While the book focuses heavily on larger corporations, there are also many lessons for small organizations to learn from this book. While your company shouldn’t dedicate all its’ resources to social technology and social media, these tools are extremely powerful and valuable and should not be overlooked. Listen to my podcast with Charlene to learn how to embrace, interact with and energize the groundswell. tag:odeo.com,2008-04-18,22437108 Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:00:44 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, forrester, Charlene Li, Groundswell Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22409170-Mark-Pincus-CEO-Zynga Earlier this week I had the opportunity to interview Mark Pincus of Zynga gaming network. Zynga is currently one of the most dominant social gaming companies on the web. Social gaming in general is a nascent industry but is gaining a lot of momentum and a lot of attention as participants are attracting millions of users to simple applications. You may have experience playing games such as Scrabulous on Facebook. That’s only one social game (not produced by Zynga). Zynga now has the largest Texas Hold’em poker game on the web with a presence across a number of social networks including Mysapce and Facebook. Back in February we covered the launch of the Zynga gaming platform which enabled developers to leverage some of the traffic being generated by Zynga’s overall network. At the time, Social Gaming Network (a Zynga competitor), also launched their own network. Both systems ultimately provide the same thing but currently Zynga appears to have significantly more traf... Earlier this week I had the opportunity to interview Mark Pincus of Zynga gaming network. Zynga is currently one of the most dominant social gaming companies on the web. Social gaming in general is a nascent industry but is gaining a lot of momentum and a lot of attention as participants are attracting millions of users to simple applications. You may have experience playing games such as Scrabulous on Facebook. That’s only one social game (not produced by Zynga). Zynga now has the largest Texas Hold’em poker game on the web with a presence across a number of social networks including Mysapce and Facebook. Back in February we covered the launch of the Zynga gaming platform which enabled developers to leverage some of the traffic being generated by Zynga’s overall network. At the time, Social Gaming Network (a Zynga competitor), also launched their own network. Both systems ultimately provide the same thing but currently Zynga appears to have significantly more traffic. In the podcast Mark brings up some of the statistics being generated by their network which are substantial. We also had a chance to discuss Mark’s thoughts on the future of social gaming and where this space is headed overall. There were a few points during the interview when my Skype had some hiccups but through context you can figure out what Mark was saying since it is no more then quarter-of-a-second interruptions. Hope you enjoy! Earlier this week I had the opportunity to interview Mark Pincus of Zynga gaming network. Zynga is currently one of the most dominant social gaming companies on the web. Social gaming in general is a nascent industry but is gaining a lot of momentum and a lot of attention as participants are attracting millions of users to simple applications. You may have experience playing games such as Scrabulous on Facebook. That’s only one social game (not produced by Zynga). Zynga now has the largest Texas Hold’em poker game on the web with a presence across a number of social networks including Mysapce and Facebook. Back in February we covered the launch of the Zynga gaming platform which enabled developers to leverage some of the traffic being generated by Zynga’s overall network. At the time, Social Gaming Network (a Zynga competitor), also launched their own network. Both systems ultimately provide the same thing but currently Zynga appears to have significantly more traffic. In the podcast Mark brings up some of the statistics being generated by their network which are substantial. We also had a chance to discuss Mark’s thoughts on the future of social gaming and where this space is headed overall. There were a few points during the interview when my Skype had some hiccups but through context you can figure out what Mark was saying since it is no more then quarter-of-a-second interruptions. Hope you enjoy! tag:odeo.com,2008-04-11,22409170 Fri, 11 Apr 2008 05:00:49 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, Mark Pincus, Social Gaming, Zynga Facebook OpenSocial http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22229462-Ajay-Madhok-CEO-Equals A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak with Ajay Madhok the CEO of Equals. Equals provides a number of services but the first service they are launching is group chat service that enables you to pull in any of your friends on a telephone conversation. In simple terms, the application is meant to create a party line and integrate it through the social graph. The party lines are created via Facebook but you can access any of your party lines via mobile as well. This is really useful and could be leveraged by tele-commuting businesses that want to easily connect their teams together. At the time of this recording I was not ready to launch this podcast and as such the application has already launched since this podcast was recorded. The application has approximately 1,500 daily users and considering that it is a utility based application I am surprised by its traffic. The application is really well developed and designed. If you’d like to create your own party lines for fr... A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak with Ajay Madhok the CEO of Equals. Equals provides a number of services but the first service they are launching is group chat service that enables you to pull in any of your friends on a telephone conversation. In simple terms, the application is meant to create a party line and integrate it through the social graph. The party lines are created via Facebook but you can access any of your party lines via mobile as well. This is really useful and could be leveraged by tele-commuting businesses that want to easily connect their teams together. At the time of this recording I was not ready to launch this podcast and as such the application has already launched since this podcast was recorded. The application has approximately 1,500 daily users and considering that it is a utility based application I am surprised by its traffic. The application is really well developed and designed. If you’d like to create your own party lines for free go check out the Party Line application. Below is my interview with Ajay. Also, I will begin doing weekly podcasts on this site which you can also access via iTunes. I have some really exciting speakers lined up so stay tuned as we begin interviewing the most influential people on the social web. Enjoy the podcast! If you’d like to subscribe to our podcast go check out the Social Times podcast feed. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak with Ajay Madhok the CEO of Equals. Equals provides a number of services but the first service they are launching is group chat service that enables you to pull in any of your friends on a telephone conversation. In simple terms, the application is meant to create a party line and integrate it through the social graph. The party lines are created via Facebook but you can access any of your party lines via mobile as well. This is really useful and could be leveraged by tele-commuting businesses that want to easily connect their teams together. At the time of this recording I was not ready to launch this podcast and as such the application has already launched since this podcast was recorded. The application has approximately 1,500 daily users and considering that it is a utility based application I am surprised by its traffic. The application is really well developed and designed. If you’d like to create your own party lines for free go check out the Party Line application. Below is my interview with Ajay. Also, I will begin doing weekly podcasts on this site which you can also access via iTunes. I have some really exciting speakers lined up so stay tuned as we begin interviewing the most influential people on the social web. Enjoy the podcast! If you’d like to subscribe to our podcast go check out the Social Times podcast feed. tag:odeo.com,2008-04-04,22229462 Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:00:40 -0700 no SocialTimes.com podcast, Equals Facebook OpenSocial