ULTIMATE PLATFORM

HOTNESS SMACKDOWNStartup2Startup / Boulder

June 30, 2009David Cohen, TechStars

Dave McClure, Founders FundJeff Clavier, SoftTech VC

Ryan McIntyre, Foundry GroupHoward Lindzon, StockTwits/WallStrip

Platforms: HOT or NOT?

• Facebook• iPhone• Twitter• Native Web (Search)

• Social Networks: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Orkut, hi5, Friendster• Email & IM: Yahoo, MSFT, Google, AOL, Skype• Mobile: iPhone, Palm, Android, Blackberry, etc• Gaming: Zynga, RockYou, Slide, Playfish, SGN• E-Commerce: Amazon (1-Click), eBay (PayPal), Apple (iTunes)• Dev: Amazon (AWS), Google AppEngine, Ruby/Rails, Python/Django, etc• Other: SalesForce, Craigslist, Wikipedia, YouTube

Platform Viability

Users .Users . . Money. Money

FeaturesFeatures

Growth Profit

ProfitableGrowth

Nirvana

Successful Platforms have 3 Things:1) Features2) Users3) Money

Discussion Topics

• Distribution– Viral? Paid?

• Monetization• Gatekeepers & Trolls vs Support• Stability / Predictability• Reputation / Identity• Demographic• The Future ?

Facebook Platform & Facebook Connect:

Big Pimping via Profiles, Apps, Feeds

Facebook Overview• Users: 250M and counting (100M+ in US)• Demographic: college -> everyone (moms, grandmas)• Distribution: Most viral platform on the planet• Monetization: up to you: ads, lead-gen, virtual goods• Gatekeepers: not much, unless you get spammy• Stability / Predictability: stable, but fickle?

– Invitations/Notifications: lot s of rules, changes often– NewsFeed: amazing distribution, but algorithm continues to “evolve”

• Reputation / Identity: amazing access to social graph– Facebook Connect: portabile identity across the web (+ payments?)

The Good Stuff

• Social Networks Viral Distribution via Friends Lists – 1) Messaging, 2) Profile Surfing, 3) News Feeds

• Social “Gestures” & Communication (pokes, wall posts, emails) drive User Engagement & Distribution

• Social Content (notes, photos, videos) can be “tagged” with people data that also drives User Engagement & Distribution

• Social Applications are “carriers” for Content & Communication

• Facebook Connect enables “data portability” for logins, profile data, friend lists, and other social network content, data, & applications

• Facebook Payments is coming… soon?

Facebook Connect, Facebook Payments

Facebook Connect• Standardized User Login for use OFF-Platform (outside Facebook)• Access to ON-Platform data (user profiles, friend lists)• “Data Portability” -> take my network with me, anywhere on the web• Lightweight app framework for use OFF-networkPossibility: 250M+ users across the web; “1-click” login / “always logged in

Internet”, use of FB Connect use by branded sites & retailers

Facebook Payments• Not launched yet; “coming soon” (now in alpha)• On-platform payment option (wallet? Micro-transactions?)• Off-platform payment option (via FB Connect)Possibility: Social Commerce, “Viral” Products / Digital Goods

Jeff Clavier (aka @jeff)Managing Partner, SoftTech VC

Disclosure: Whoopsie, I actually own AAPL

iPhone: The Good,

The Bad and the Ugly

iPhone Platform – The Good• 30M devices (iPhone/iPod Touch) as of 12/08(?)

• Over 1B downloads from AppStore

• Easy referencing (sort of), deployment, update

• Baked in monetization: premium apps, subscriptions, in-app commerce

• Zero-carrier friction

iPhone Platform – The Bad• Limited discoverability among 56K applications

– Tough organic customer acquisition

• No internal virality (no contacts/graph)

• Challenging economics– Apple’s 30%– Only the head of the tail of applications makes money– Like video, advertising only works for premium

content/applications

• Proprietary development language

iPhone Platform – The Ugly

• Application developers are not managed like an asset by Apple, more like a necessary evil

• Lot of crappy apps out there

iPhone Platform – The Ugly

• Application developers are not managed like an asset by Apple, more like a necessary evil

• Lot of crappy apps out there

• Proprietary development language

Twitter

What is StockTwits? • StockTwits is an open, community-powered investment

idea and information service

• 80,000 twitter subscribers• Our "Human Ticker” adds context

• TweetDeck's functionality enables "Social Bloomberg"

• Eavesdrop on traders and investors in the “Now Web”

• Piggyback on Twitter’s reputation system

• Transparency assures meritocracy

Free Model

Tweetdeck Integration

Native Web(Search)

Web / Search: One Platform to Rule Them AllHotness• Features (yes, all of them!)• Users (1.6B and counting)• Money (lots! GOOG is $22B, AMZN $20B, EBAY $8B)• The search gesture carries more economic value than social/sharing

gestures (for now)• The über platform: all interesting apps built on web stack, whether FB,

Twitter, iPhone, etc• Big serendipity/surprise factor inherent in the web/search platform• No gatekeeper, no approval process, widest flexibility in developer tools,

ease of deployment• Web’s ecosystem of ad networks, payment systems, affiliate revenues,

etc. enable monetization for non-developers: publishers, retailers

Web / Search: One Platform to Rule Them All

Coldness• Growing more slowly than FB, Twitter, iPhone, etc• You can build anything. Constraints imposed by FB,

Twitter, iPhone platforms can actually benefit developers WRT stability, distribution, monetization

• De-facto gatekeeper: Search engine dynamics throttle distribution. Time/money required to build Google juice/SEO and to engage in SEM

• Pages not people (links are king, ignores the social, makes distribution hard)

• Then, not now (web is archive, not zeitgeist)

Discussion Topics

• Distribution– Viral? Paid?

• Monetization• Gatekeepers & Trolls vs Support• Stability / Predictability• Reputation / Identity• Demographic• The Future ?

Platform Viability

Users .Users . . Money. Money

FeaturesFeatures

Growth Profit

ProfitableGrowth

Nirvana

Successful Platforms have 3 Things:1) Features2) Users3) Money