Blog Yellek

David Sacks writes an interesting article over at TechCrunch on The New Portals: It’s the Bread, Not the Peanut Butter. In the article he argues that it is the “bread” of the social network that will make the new portals successful and not the “Peanut Butter” of the applications that are layered over the top. The announcement this week of Facebook opening up their API to widget developers is a way for them to give access to their “bread” whilst allowing other condiment vendors access which in turn drives the adoption of more bread.

I believe, though, that another thing is needed to make the new portals wildly successful: adoption. Myspace and Facebook have achieved remarkable penetration in terms of market share in the social networking arena but they have a long way to go to reach the penetration of services like Google. Both of them have created a user base and a prominence amongst the web2.0 crowd but the web2.0 crowd is not the whole ball game.

Facebook and Myspace bootstrapped themselves initially by concentrating on a particular demographic: Facebook inside colleges and universities and myspace in the music industry. This allowed them to spread virally inside these demographics until they reached second stage prominence with the techno savvy. The challenge for these services now is to go beyond the technically savvy to the general internet population.

Going back to the analogy, say you open a chain of bread shops that also offer a tasty range of sandwich toppings. You start in a neighborhood, build success and reputation and then expand into other neighborhoods, even a whole city. The challenge comes when you want to take your bread shop chain nationally or internationally. The word of mouth advertising that you have been able to generate to date isn’t necessarily going to help you break into new markets where the social connections between the markets you are successful in and the new markets are few and far between. Also you are relying on a critical mass of people within the new “neighborhood” to support your new shop so it can be successful.

From the perspective of someone who thinks of himself as somewhat web2.0 savvy amongst a group of friends who are not, this represents an issue. Yes Facebook or Myspace would offer me value but only if there are enough other people I know who are also involved. Facebook and Myspace need to offer me enough to make me want to join up without necessarily having the rich network that provides the real value and then offer me ways to encourage my friendship network to join. Until then I will stay with the individual services that offer me value like Geni.

Overheard from MLK #1 (she’s 9) to MeLo on the weekend. Kids are priceless .

I wonder how many “boardrooms” ever actually have boards meeting in them?

I have a pet peeve at the moment. There is this add where a guy in his new powerful truck pulls a stump out of the ground with a chain. Cut to a scene in China where a tree disappears. China is not opposite Australia on the earth! The US is more nearly close to opposite China although China is probably closer to South America. As can be seen from this map Australia is more nearly opposite the Carribean.

Yesterday MeLo and I went over to a friend’s place to finally get a game of Settlers of Catan in. I had heard so much about this game as one of the all time greats of Euro Gaming and so it was great to finally get it on the table after all this time. My overall impression was that it was a game that I definitely wanted to play again. We played for 2 hours but it didn’t feel that long and, if we hadn’t had something else planned, I think we would have played again. I had originally thought that being restricted to 4 players might reduce opportunities to play Catan without the expansions but all that means is that Catan is an ideal 2 couple game which was how it worked out.

Initial starting positions are critical in this game and, going last to select a start position, I don’t think I made the best of the limited opportunities that were available. I always seemed chronically short of both wood and bricks which hampered me a lot during the early game. I managed to take the longest road card off of the player who seemed to be the biggest threat at the time not realizing that some subtle politicking was going on to make him seem like the threat whilst his partner went on to win the game by surprise, very well done I thought in hindsight.

A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and I’m looking forward to doing it again.

For those of you that were after photos of me check out the following:

The Revelations of Norm: Watching The 4th Ashes Test

I’m spending some time with the relatives this Christmas as usual and of course given that my parent’s wedding anniversary is just before Christmas the topic of wedding anniversaries comes up. My parents have been married for 43 years which is amazing.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be married for that length of time, what the changes from year to year would be and how the relationship would change and adapt over time. There would certainly be challenges but also a sense of belonging and home that would be hard to beat.

I also feel a sense of sadness because I know, given that I am 38 now, that I won’t be married to anyone for that length of time. I guess it shouldn’t bother me but it does. When I think of it I wonder what that journey would be like and feel the pangs of regret that in all liklihood I won’t experience it.

I just spent a few days with Norm at the cricket and he has decided to start a blog so welcome to The Revelations of Norm