Singapore Entrepreneurs

The era of online content distribution and generation for example, YouTube and Flickr dominated, has moved into a new phase after they are being acquired by Google and Yahoo!. Of course, the virtual worlds are lurking in the shadows to take over the reins from Web 2.0. Yet, the coming year will be dominated by the battle of social networks. It started when Facebook released their API to the world. Within weeks, the growth of Facebook widgets grew quickly. With Linkedin joining in the game by making their platform public, is this the year of online social networks?

Of course, after the release of the facebook platform, programmers and developers have started developing interesting widgets. In a very short time, Facebook is now the talk of the town. In the recent IX Conference, most trend gurus are now looking to Facebook for the next year. If you are planning to move into the internet industry, here are a few things you need to take note in the year of online social networks:

• Can you build a widget for (name your social network)?: If you login to Facebook lately, everyone is adding new widgets. I have seen widgets built using the Facebook API: Hot or Not, TechCrunch, Flixster and etc. I have been asking people working with their current web 2.0 applications whether they can build a widget of their application for Facebook.
• Online Social Networks let you access users quickly: Why should we do that? With a huge number of users, your widget is a good way to luring people to your web application. Even though Linkedin.com focuses on a niche market, it cannot help but to release their platform as well. The best way to think of it is that these online social networks provide you quick access to many customers in a very quick time. Based on recent reports by several analysts, the number of users increase by about 10% since Facebook make their platform public in the first month. Some people do not believe that Linkedin should worry about Facebook given their different demographics. However, if you think about it, since Facebook focus on colleges and universities, there is a relative chance of spilling over users from linkedin to facebook than the other way round.
• People give away information too easily: What is the revenue model behind online social networks? The basic way of raising money from investors is to tell them how many users you have and how often they use your network. In addition, you will usually talk about advertising (particularly if you have seen A Small World) or subscription. It is also a good place to conduct market research. With people giving away information about their likes and dislikes through the widgets, you realize how easy you can generate profiles of different users and understand their consumption easily. So, you can start thinking Facebook alternatively as a market research company.
• What about the other online social networks?: With Facebook and Linkedin getting so much attention, what about other social networks, for e.g., MySpace.com, Friendster and Ning (which allows people to create their own social networks? There is still a potential market for niche online social networks, for example, hackers or professionals (lawyers, doctors and even politicians) may form their own social networks. The real question, as I like to pose to many web 2.0 entrants lately, is “What makes an offline user come to the online world?” or indirectly, “What is your value proposition?”.

Of course, since “You” are the Man of the Year for last year, what about this year? Can it be the online social networks who is holding all the “You”s out there? I will leave that to your own thoughts.

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