FriendFeed Still Has a Lot of Killing to Do
Erick Schonfeld
42 comments »

With Twitter down all the time, the super-early adopters are getting frustrated and looking to FriendFeed as their salvation. Duncan (over at Inquisitr now) argues that it is time for FriendFeed to kill Twitter. And Jason Kaneshiro at Webomatica already has FriendFeed Fever. He thinks it can not only replace Twitter, but also Facebook, Google Reader, and Digg!
FriendFeed certainly has a lot of potential, but it still has a lot of killing to do. Not much data is available for how FriendFeed is actually doing, other than blog headlines on Techmeme. The life-streaming service does not even register yet on comScore, for instance. Compete counts only 150,000 monthly U.S. visitors, versus 1.2 million for Twitter (and that only takes into account visits to Twitter’s Website, not all the other ways people use the service—other apps, mobile, etc.). Just to keep things in perspective.
And, of course, let’s not forget that there are other forces afoot on the Internet at large, specifically the dream of true data portability, that could in turn kill FriendFeed.
So is FriendFeed the future, or merely pointing the way to the future? Only time, and the execution capabilities of the team at FriendFeed, will tell.
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Facebook Platform, One Year Later
Jason Kincaid
32 comments »
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the release of Facebook Platform. We figured it would be a fitting time to take a look at what the platform promised, what it’s delivered, and where it’s going in the future. The summary: Facebook Platform has been a victim of its own success, offering an unparalleled distribution platform that has appealed to both tens of thousands of legitimate developers as well as shoddy shotgun entrepreneurs looking to make a quick buck. Facebook has had its share of missteps, but no matter how much they improve the platform, it is only as strong as its apps (which at this point simply aren’t very good).
Facebook Platform launched on May 24, 2007 to widespread acclaim. It was heralded as the “Anti-MySpace”, which had until then been notoriously closed and unhelpful to many application developers. Suddenly we had a platform that offered unprecedented access to a social network’s API, enough so that 3rd party developers could potentially create apps that would rival Facebook’s home-brewed offerings.
Only four days after the platform’s launch, iLike (then the leading 3rd party app) had accumulated 400,000 users - nearly 5% of all Facebook users had it installed. Initial results were promising enough that a number of venture capital funds were established solely for Facebook apps.
But after a couple of months, the novelty began to wear off. The promised “revolutionary” applications were few and far between, and most of the available apps were really, really bad. Facebook users were also notoriously fickle, installing and discarding apps with abandon. To combat this, some developers chose to create an endless stream of mostly useless (but viral) applications that could be pumped out as quickly as users could get sick of them. The result? Spam. Lots of spam.
Facebook Platform had devolved into a cat-and-mouse game between developers and Facebook, as developers tried to maximize the number of users they could expose themselves to. Many of the most popular app makers, including RockYou and Slide, had resorted to so-called Black Hat tactics, exploiting loopholes to increase their exposure. Many users were constantly inundated with spammy application invites, some of which falsely promised personalized message left by friends.
By August, three months after the launch of the platform, Facebook started to respond to the abuses by changing the rules. Metrics listing the most popular apps began to measure actual use rather than raw install numbers (many popular applications were simply installed and forgotten about). Stricter limits were placed on the number of invites an application could send out. But Facebook didn’t take any steps to punish applications that had gained users through illegitimate means, effectively telling developers they were free to exploit the system if they could figure out how.
On the development side, Facebook Platform also presented a number of problems. Apps that went viral on Facebook often saw their usage rates rise exponentially in a very short amount of time, leading to slow responses and errors. Developers also had to deal with a constant competitive threat from the network itself - at any time Facebook could implement a new feature that could wipe them out of existence.
In September at TechCrunch40, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced fbFund, a joint funding venture from Accel and Founders Fund that would earmark $10 Million for Facebook apps. The project got off to a rough start - Facebook rejected all applicants after deciding to change its application process (it had previously asked for a simple email request).
One of Facebook Platform’s problems had more to do with stupid users than the platform itself. Many people had friends that, for whatever reason, liked to litter their profiles with obnoxious and annoying apps that destroyed Facebook’s classic clean feel. Finally, in January 2008 Facebook relented and allowed users to hide apps from their friends’ profiles. This was an oft-requested feature, and one that should have been available since the platform’s launch.
Facebook continued to further tweak app restrictions. In February the site implemented blocking, which allowed users to prevent a specific app from every contacting them. It also added a “clear all” feature, that allowed users to clear their Notifications box of all invites.
Perhaps Facebook’s most unsettling move came during March Madness, when it introduced the “official” CBS Sportsline NCAA Basketball app. The app was given an unprecedented amount of publicity across the network, and its invite restrictions were far more lenient than normal. Other developers were understandably outraged, as Facebook demonstrated that the rules only applied to the little guys - pay enough, and you’ll get free reign. Facebook has shown little remorse for the debacle, with its Senior Platform Manager stating “I can’t say it won’t happen again.”
Outlook: Who knows. Facebook is planning to introduce a micro-payment system in the near future, which may finally give way to useful, monetizable apps that don’t rely on spamming invites. But the damage has been done, and some users may be too jaded to care about anything the platform has to offer in the future. What’s worse, we probably wont see an end to the junky apps any time soon - a number of venture firms have poured millions of dollars into companies that thrive on cranking these things out, and they’re going to want to see results.
But the important thing to remember is that Facebook Platform is, in the end, all about Facebook. It keeps your data locked up tight under the guise of privacy concerns. What users really want (or what they should want) is to control their own data, and make it known that they, not Facebook, own it. Facebook has taken a few first steps in letting some of that data out. Perhaps if users start to demand more, the trend will continue.

Phreadz - A Little Like Seesmic, But Trying To Do More
Mike Butcher
22 comments »

On first look, Phreadz does appear to be aping Seesmic. Threaded video conversations and an invite-only Alpha are just two of the similarities. But you won’t find any of Seesmic’s code in this new UK-based “social multimedia conversation network,” reports TechCrunch UK.
Firstly, it is going further than Seesmic by pushing the envelope on the concept by interweaving video, images, text, audio and links all into these video conversations. Secondly Phreadz was built in entirety by “Kosso”, a British developer/entrepreneur who - as many players in the UK scene know - has been gestating the concept for some time. Phreadz is also sending media outwards. It’s capable of cross-posting your content to Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, Livejournal, Flickr account, Blip.tv and links via Twitter. It will also automatically encode recorded Flash to MPEG4 (and other formats). And you can also send it photos, audio or video via email from you mobile phone (Nokia N95 or iPhone) or embed widgets of threaded conversations, as below.
Whether all of these extra features means Phreadz moves away from the pure video experience offered by Seesmic, and therefore loses focus, remains to be seen. For now its early closed Alpha status means many of its features have been tested by only a small audience. Meantime, it’s one of the more originally-backed startups - being bootstrapped with the proceeds from a blogging system Kosso built for Second Life users. As an ex-BBC Online guy, Kosso previously built a mobile blogging system for the BBC News site’s coverage of CeBit in 2004, later leaving the BBC to become CTO/sole-lead architect at Podcast.com which he recently left.
There’s a longer review of Phreadz on TechCrunch UK.

Akimbo Jumps Into Deadpool, Takes $56 Million With It
Jason Kincaid
20 comments »

Akimbo, the online video provider that never seemed to establish an identity, has closed its doors. The sudden move is surprising, given that the site raised $4 million in funding less than three months ago.
Akimbo launched in 2002 as a hardware-based VOD company. Using a hard-drive equipped settop box, users could download a variety of shows from 200 content partners. In October 2005 the company shifted directions and introduced Akimbo for Media Center, which did away with the hardware and allowed users to use Akimbo through a plugin on compatible computers. Finally, last February, the company reinvented itself once more, and became a whitelabel video service provider.
Given Akimbo’s multiple personalities, it’s not surprising that it has run into trouble - but why give up after only three months in a new space? The company has seen management issues (the former CEO left, and disagreements apparently arose after his replacement with Thomas Frank). But that still doesn’t explain why the company would give the whitelabel space such a half-hearted effort.
According to VentureBeat, the entire staff has been laid off, save for three members who are staying on to facilitate the company’s shutdown. The company had raised $56 million over multiple rounds of funding, with investors including AT&T and Cisco. Akimbo has been added to the Deadpool.
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Mark Hendrickson
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GigPark: Recommendations From Your Friends
Erick Schonfeld
19 comments »

Yesterday at the Mesh conference in Toronto I met Noah Godfrey, one of the founders of GigPark. A social recommendation Website that launched last February, the site recently pushed out a major redesign. It’s like Yelp, but only with recommendations from people you know.
The point of GigPark is to collect and share recommendations of local services with your friends. You import your contact list from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, or Hotmail. Or add it as a Facebook application. Then you can start asking questions. Does anyone know a good doctor, lawyer, plumber? What’s the best Thai restaurant in town? And you can start giving your own recommendations. All of these questions and answers appears as a consolidated feed from you, your friends, and the friends of your friends.
It only works with friends who have joined GigPark or added the Facebook app, but you can make your page public to share it with friends who are not members. Here’s Godfrey’s public page.
The site also lets you search for specific services, like restaurants or dog walker. And you can see who recommended what.
For each recommendation there is a page with the original recommendation and contact information. Comments can be made on any recommendation, and they can be added to your favorites as well. Most of the features work within Facebook as well. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather get recommendations from people I know or who I can ask about than from anonymous strangers.
GigPark has been bootsrapped so far with $200,000 from Godfrey and his co-founder Pema Hegan. It competes with Trusted Opinion, which has raised $3.6 million.

Mobissimo Has Raised 1/223 The Capital Of Kayak (And Out Executes Them)
Michael Arrington
37 comments »
Connecticut startup Kayak has raised $223 million in venture capital and employs 58 people to build and grow its travel search site. Its chief competitor, San Francisco based Mobissimo, has raised $1 million and has just 15 employees. Mobissimo also became profitable last year, and the company doesn’t have to raise more money unless it’s to fuel faster growth or acquisitions.
It’s also clear even from a cursory comparison of the two sites that Mobissimo is trying harder than Kayak to help you find exactly the flight and hotel you are looking for. Kayak is largely similar to other travel search sites - enter where you want to go and get back results from a number of providers, sort by price, etc.
But Mobissimo has implemented a number of just plain smart features that provide the kind of travel options that you usually need a human operator or travel agent to get to. In addition to normal search results, for example, users also see options for the lowest priced non-stop fares, the lowest priced alternative dates, and the lowest priced business class fares (without doing new searches). And if there’s a train between the two destinations, Mobissimo will show those results along with the flights - you may get there faster and cheaper that way, and you’d never think to search for train schedules separately.
And even better, the service will look for related destinations and show you the lowest fares there, too. For example, a search for flights to Poland may show other Eastern European destinations if the prices are a lot lower. Or if you are looking for flights to an airport near a beach, Mobissimo will show you other flights to other beach destinations, perhaps thousands of miles away (and skiing, and wine regions, etc.). It’s very hard to find these kinds of travel options with online searches. If you are flying to Warsaw, you just don’t think to do a search to Prague, too, to see if it’s vastly cheaper.
And if all you want to do is find a quick getaway to gamble, play golf, drink wine, go to a beach or just about anything else, you can search primarily by activity, too. Mobissimo also has widgets on the site that pull in third party information about the destination. Weather, Flickr photos and (soon) travel guides are included in the left sidebar.
All of this isn’t to say that Mobissimo has more traffic or sales than Kayak - see the Comscore chart here for their relative sizes. But Mobissimo is a solid, profitable startup with a great user experience. And they’ve done it with next to no financial resources.
The company was founded by Beatrice Tarka in October 2003.
maximize

Hints of a Facebook Operating System In New Design
Erick Schonfeld
79 comments »
It’s become a common trope to say that Facebook and Google are vying to become the operating system of the Internet. But there are some very clear hints of that in Facebook’s upcoming new design, which it just opened up to today in a developer sandbox. (You can see it at http://www.new.facebook.com, although you’ll need to download some libraries to start testing apps with it).
It appears that Facebook is moving closer to becoming a Webtop application, fusing elements of the desktop into the Web experience.
Eagle-eyed TechCrunch reader Ryan Merket (above) noticed something vaguely familiar about the new design. See the menu bar above his profile? Look closely. Its got some handy menus on the left that take him to his profile, his friends, applications, and inbox.
And on the right of the menu bar is a search box. That is the same visual metaphor you find in the menu bar on desktop operating systems.
The menu choices are different than on you desktop, because these tap into Web applications and resources. But the navigation is the same.
Menus on the left.
Search on the right.
And don’t forget the chat bar on the very bottom that, like a status bar, shows you how many of your friends are online and lets you chat with them.

Could this be the work of Facebook’s Parakey acquisition from last July finally bearing fruit? Parakey was the pre-launch startup from Firefox co-founders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt that was working on a “web operating system.” Facebook was rumored to have beaten Google on the deal.
Facebook is already well on its way to becoming an operating system of sorts for the Web. (This time around there will be room for more than one OS). It is the application platform of choice for many Web developers. (Tomorrow, it turns one year old). But why reinvent the wheel on the user interface side when everybody is already trained how to use a menu bar? The aha moment will be when people click on those menus and a whole new world opens up to them.

Newt Gingrich Talks Tech, Presidential Aspirations
Michael Arrington
24 comments »
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is in Silicon Valley today talking about his American Solutions organization, which recently opened an office in Palo Alto. I spent about thirty minutes on the phone with him talking about a wide range of issues: the upcoming elections, tech issues in general and his own presidential aspirations.
The podcast and transcript is below. Last night I asked Twitter users what questions they’d like me to ask, and I added a few of the good ones to the interview.
I asked about his thoughts on the upcoming presidential elections. He clearly supports Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal as McCain’s running mate, and also says there’s a good chance that Hillary Clinton will end up teaming with Obama on the Democrat side of things. How will those two teams stack up? He gives the Democrats a 60% chance of winning.
I also asked Gingrich about his own presidential aspirations: “The other twitter question is, When are you going to run for president? Please run for president.” Gingrich responds that he’s looking at a 2012 or 2016 run: “All I can say is that if they look at American Solutions and they look for the senate transformation, they will see the early stages of how you would write a second contract with America. If you get to the point it is clear enough and powerful enough, and if that point there is a big enough demand whether it is in 2012 or 2016, I will get to the point where I would run. If my mission in life is to be the teacher for the next generation of politicians, then I am pretty happy doing that too. I am going to wait and let the American people sort that out.”

TheRarestWords: Intriguing Semantic SEO Project from Russia
Erick Schonfeld
14 comments »

A mysterious yet intriguing project from Russia has come across our inbox. It is a search-engine optimization analysis tool for Websites called TheRarestWords. For any given URL, like Microsoft’s or Techcrunch’s, it shows you the rarest keywords on the homepage (i.e., the ones most likely to give your site some search-engine juice), other sites with related keywords, and a list of categories the site would fit under based on those keywords. For Microsoft, some the rare keywords it identifies are “silverlight,” “biztalk,” “onecare,” “skydrive, “popfly,” “ballmer,” and “ozzie.” You can try your site by going to http://therarestwords.com/YOURSITE.com.
TheRarestWords then tries to tap into crowd intelligence by letting anyone add a 100-character definition for each keyword, which could give it a semantic edge in trying to categorize each site. This could also be gamed pretty easily, but this looks to be just a Web project at this point. It could also be used to create a Wiki dictionary like Lingoz or Wiktionary, but that does not seem to be the focus of the project.
The developer is a mysterious Russian who does not want to give out his name. You can find more info on his blog and on this forum post. Mircea Goia from MyTestBox dug into it for us and reports:
The author and the sole founder – who is from Russia and wants to have a low profile for now - says it is just a hobby that was started in December 2007 and he calls it a “linguistic experiment”.
Their spider (called TheRarestParser/0.2a) started scouting the internet in May and extracted words from many websites. It looked at which one are used most often on those websites and which ones are rarely used, or not at all. For now it extracts only the words from the first page of a domain. It doesn’t go deeper than that, however the spider managed to index 20 million words from many domains.
The author wants to implement new options like:
* Trend spotting (which of the words are gaining popularity - like “django” is becoming more popular, “python” is still strong, and which are losing it like “perl”)* Help with SEO for mom-and-dad kinds of business sites (it could be useful from this stand point, the author says)* Auto-categorization of your sites against a big list of categories (actually, at this time it has already been implemented, but the algorithm still needs to be perfected)
The interface is confusing the first time you go there, but there is some interesting data you can pull from it. For instance, you can have an SEO fight between any two sites by typing in the address: http://therarestwords.com/vs/your-site.com/competitors-site.com. This feature shows which rare words your site has that your competitor doesn’t and vice versa.
For example, here’s TechCrunch Vs. GigaOm. This is only a snapshot of what is on each frontpage, but we are more likely to get search traffic right now for terms like “friendfeed,” “gamestop,” and “blogosphere.” While they are kicking our butts on “qualcomm,” “powerset,” and “sarcasm.” (At least that was the case before I put up this post. I really can’t let Om beat us on sarcasm).