Go Big, Go Bold

Does Facebook Want to Become the Gateway to the Web?

Facebook's recent design changes have gotten me thinking about what they might have next...

Imagine a small top navigation bar similar to the one they have now except with a URL and search bar. The bottom chat and apps bar persists across pages so you can bring your friends along with you as you browse the web. Applications no longer are limited to running on Facebook's site but can interact with the pages that you go to as you browse the web.

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That would be powerful. They would be the gateway. Companies that control gateways are incredibly powerful. Imagine a company that controlled the gateway to the web.

Why might Facebook want to be the gateway?

• They can gather and share useful data on what you're reading, watching, buying etc across the web with your friends.
• Your behavioral data could be used to suggest new interesting content to you a la stumble upon both at a friend and aggregate level.
• Your behavioral data could also be used to develop a personalized search engine.
• Monetization. Gatekeepers can influence traffic and many companies will pay for traffic.
• As your social graph becomes more integrated with your web experience it could become more integrated with existing web properties.
• Some really interesting cross site applications that would actually be useful could be developed. Think cross site greasemonkey.

Why might you want Facebook to be your gateway?

• Facebook can help you find personalized, interesting content as you browse the web.
• You can bring your friends with you, chat across sites, share links and experiences more easily.
• Facebook can aggregate useful information that you find or constantly look for across the web on your facebook homepage in a personalized, customizable dashboard.
• Social bookmarking could go mainstream which can help you find out lots of cool things that your friends have found/are finding in real-time.
• And probably a lot more....

So, Facebook could do a lot of this technologically today by loading webpages in an iFrame between the top and bottom bars. There would be complications like some sites popping out of iFrames (really annoying), and the chat windows not being able to be displayed over the iFrame as you browse the web. Also, users probably wouldn't like having two URL address bars/search bars (one from the browser and one from fb).

To do some of the more interesting things and eliminate these drawbacks Facebook would have to be very closely integrated with the actual web browser. They could do this by:

1. Developing and heavily distributing a browser extension that alters the behavior of the browser, the stack, etc
   1. It would be a huge pain to code this for IE and Safari but Firefox is doable.
   2. You'd be surprised just how much access a browser extension developer is given into the internals of the browser... I've dug around in there before. They could really have the freedom to develop a compelling user experience.
2. Integrating with an existing browser
   1. IE comes to mind given how close MSFT and Facebook seem to be. Facebook's heaviest users probably use Firefox and Safari more than IE though.
3. Building and distributing their own browser
   1. This is probably not a good idea but Blake Ross, the guy who coded Firefox as a first or second year undergrad at Stanford, is on their team. It's possible that they could build a better browser but it would take a fair amount of time to get it widely adopted.

I still wonder why they acquired Parakey, Blake's startup. It might very well have been just to get Blake (who is amazing). If not, then a team at Facebook has been working on something new and pretty important to the product for over a year (Parakey was acquired a while ago... right?). That suggests to me that they're digging around in the browser... solid, bug-free development there can take quite a bit of time.

We'll just have to wait and see...

Google's Search UI Secret

Left aligned search results. All the way left.

Why is this important? When we go through search results, we are trying to scan through to find what we are looking for as quickly as possible. Left aligned search results make our monitor/browser a natural stopping guide for our eye as we read.

You don't buy it. Ok. Fine. Open up 3 search windows: Google, Yahoo, Live. Never mind the search term, just try reading them. Which is easiest?

Uh huh... now you see. Notice how annoying all the white is on Live's page? Try reading across multiple pages and you'll be really hurting.

This seemingly small detail can have a big impact on a user's search experience. Search is all about speed and efficiency. Microsoft didn't seem to get the memo... at least Yahoo got rid of the numbers next to their results.

None of These Companies are Making Any Money!

One of the things I have come to realize since moving to Silicon Valley is that 95+% of tech companies aren’t making any money. That’s $0. Zip. Nada. Of the VC backed companies some are making money but nothing close to even $10MM/yr. Forget about the $100MM you need to go public.

Some observations:

1. Social is the hardest to monetize. Social widgets/apps can grab significant page views but the CPM (amount advertisers are willing to pay to reach those viewers) is unbelievably low.

2. Any company that plans to make money off of “advertising” (usually meaning display or text based CPM) isn’t making any.

3. Most people in the valley are like sheep. Everyone jumps on the latest trend and creates a [insert buzzword #1, buzzword #2] startup. Currently that’s social anything.

Industries that do make money:

1. Search.

Good luck against Google but if you get any sort of a hit here you’re golden. Still plenty of innovation to be done.

2. Shopping/E-commerce.

Especially CPC comparison shopping and other lead generation.

3. Advertising.

As in you either built a network or are targeting ads better.

4. Travel.

Similar affiliate based or CPC model to comparison shopping.

That’s about it! The only page view advertising companies that make it are ones that just have an ungodly amount of page views (YouTube, MySpace, Facebook). They are really hard to build and everyone is going after them. High failure rate.

Peter Thiel had it right... to win here you need to be contrarian and right.

Why the PayPal Guys Have been so Successful

In a word: resilience.

PayPal went through many near catastrophes before they ultimately exited to eBay.

Some highlights:

• In the beginning very few people were interested in their original plan of transferring $ via palm pilots.
• They decided to ditch Confinity and switched to providing payment solutions under the brand PayPal on eBay only to be quickly followed by a competitor backed by Sequoia founded by a ruthless Elon Musk.
• The companies merged which caused big headaches, people leaving, tech problems etc.
• Their business model of making money off the float wasn't working.
• They were hemorrhaging money and needed to raise $10s of millions of dollars in a few short months to stay alive. Hackers meanwhile were defrauding them of $10s of millions of dollars.
• Finally their host company eBay was constantly trying to extinguish and replace them with their PayPal clone service Billpoint.

Thankfully PayPal survived but clearly it wasn't easy. Lesser companies would have folded at any of the above challenges but not these guys. In many ways being a successful entrepreneur is about overcoming and learning from a series of failures. Max Levchin has remarked that his "never never never surrender" attitude, borrowed from Winston Churchill, helped him and his colleagues push through the madness.

What's the takeaway? VCs should invest in people who are used to emerging victoriously from consistent setbacks. Entrepreneurs should never give up, always keep an open mind and approach road blocks as surmountable challenges. It's your choice. Sink or swim.

Google's 10 Design Principles

Found a link to Google's 10 design principles on Tumblr. According to Jon Wiley, Google's User Experience Designer for Google Apps, good design is:

1. Useful: focus on people - their lives, their work, their dreams.

2. Fast: every millisecond counts.

3. Simple: simplicity is powerful.

4. Engaging: engage beginners and attract experts.

5. Innovative: dare to be innovative.

6. Universal: design for the world.

7. Profitable: plan for today’s and tomorrow’s business.

8. Beautiful: delight the eye without distracting the mind.

9. Trustworthy: be worthy of people’s trust.

10. Personable: add a human touch.

It goes without saying that design is one of the hardest and most important aspects of a web business. These principles are a must.

Who's Building for Joe Kansas?

It's amazing how many companies here in the valley are building products without 1) a business model or 2) solving a real, existing need of your average American. There are plenty of companies solving pain points for very techy people but what about everyone else? What about Joe Kansas?

Who is Joe Kansas you ask? Well, he doesn't blog. Or digg. He's your average American. He's intimidated by technology. He uses the web to consume information (search, news), connect with friends (IM, email), entertain himself (music, video) and occasionally make purchases (products, tickets). If you can make something this guy 1) likes 2) will somehow find out about and 3) upon receiving it be able to understand/use, you may get meaningful adoption. If you can monetize that, you may have a business.

In general there are a lot of innovative things that have been/are being built in the valley. I think that there are opportunities for companies to de-tech this stuff, apply it to a pain, wrap a solid Joe Kansas compatible user experience around it, figure out the business model and distribute it to the masses. GreaseMonkey, for instance, is a good example of a web based innovation has the potential to be completely game changing but will never, at least in it's current state, leave techdom.

Just my two cents. I'm all about Joe Kansas. Build for him.

Barriers to Entry for Web Based Companies

I have been giving a lot of thought lately to what builds sustainable value in web based companies. Clearly you have to build a product which is very valuable to a large number of users and continuously innovate on it which is no easy task, but even if you've managed to do that and get adoption the game is far from over. Any firm can replicate what you have done and steal your user base.

Why might a user stay with you? Well, there are a few reasons:

1. You have a superior offering. This might be because:

A. You built a better mousetrap (Google Search, GMail, GMaps, iPod, iPhone, Macbook Air). There is still the risk that someone else will build a better one than you did which means you need to continuously innovate to beat them to it. This of course is very difficult.

B. Your service gets better with each additional user (eBay, Craigslist, StubHub, Facebook, MySpace, AIM, Skype). In B-school this is referred to as a "Network Effect" and works particularly well for marketplaces and communication products. IE in the classic case of eBay each additional listing attracts more buyers, which attracts more sellers, etc etc.

2. It's painful for a user to switch to another service (switching costs).

I think facebook is an example of a company with great switching costs. Think about it. How long would it take to re-add all of your friends, re-upload all of your pictures, re-do your wall posts, fill out another profile, etc etc to switch to some new social network? A long, long time... so you probably won't... especially if you've been on facebook for as long as the initial, core users have.

3. Here's one that I don't think many people focus on: your users trust you/love you more than your competition.

To me, this seems key for the web. Trust is everything. As long as your users are happy with your product and they trust you, why would they use some random new company's stuff? This is especially true in cases where there is some perceived risk on the part of the user when using the service you offer. For instance, people trust big brands like Amazon, Best Buy and Wal-Mart to provide quality service and safeguard their credit card information enough to be willing to pay an average premium of 15% over an unknown, low-priced merchant.

I am curious to hear any of your thoughts on the topic. It's very, very important stuff!

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

I recently discovered a treasure trove of videos of interviews with and talks given by technology leaders on Stanford's section of iTunesU. It's fantastic stuff. I highly recommend you check it out.

One video that has stuck with me was Steve Job's 2005 commencement speech. In his speech Steve explores passion, life and death. Deep stuff. And his advice for all of us? "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish". I like it.

The Importance of Adventure in Entrepreneurship

Should I take the plunge? What if I fail? What will people think of me? These are all questions that plague anyone considering an entrepreneurial path.

I have been thinking about the role of risk and adventure in enterprise while reading Richard Branson's book Losing My Virginity: How I've Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business my Way. Its got me thinking a few things:

1. Richard Branson is absolutely nuts and I love it
2. I need to go on more adventures
3. Taking risks (or adventures) in business is very important

Virgin has been one giant adventure from start to finish. Many of its successes and failures can ultimately be traced to some adventure Richard wanted to go on. The most famous example of this was when he decided to give the airline business a go. His investors, managers and everyone else thought he was absolutely crazy, but he did it anyway. He succeeding in turning his small label and music retail business into a major international airline and ultimately building the enduring, much loved brand Virgin.

What caused him to take the jump and why did he ultimately succeed?

• He was passionate about the opportunity
• He was well aware of the risks, but equally aware of the potential reward
• He gave it his all
• Most importantly, the (ad)venture became just as much a part of him as anything else. In other words, it became personal.

My takeaway: don't be afraid to take risks and when you do be sure to put yourself fully behind your decisions. The day that you get comfortable is the day that you and your company stop growing. And while you're at it, have some fun!