Search results matching tag 'Facebook'

Is Unprofitable Yelp Ready for their $100 Million IPO?

jdrucker — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 10:08:00 GMT

There's nothing better than traffic when trying to prove a website's worth and Yelp is starting to show some serious gains as they prepare for their initial public offering. The user-generated review site made it into Hitwise's top 10 Social Networks list the week before they filed for an IPO of up to $100 million.

Are they ready? They aren't turning a profit, yet, with losses of $7.4 million in the first 3 quarters of 2011. Traffic is up 63% over last year with 61 million monthly visitors, but they are still behind other less-known social sites like myYearbook and Tagged.com in terms of pure visits. Some critics are pointing to their reliance on Google traffic as a flaw in their business model.

The biggest problem for Yelp is that they are not self-sustainable. It isn't just Google. Yelp is forced to rely on mobile apps, search engines, and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to keep their traffic growing. Unlike other anticipated IPOs for social companies such as Facebook and Groupon, Yelp cannot stand alone. Other companies such as Zynga also rely on the symbiotic relationships they hold with Facebook and others, but Zynga has reached a tipping point that would allow them to stand alone even if major changes happened on their current venues. More importantly, they're profitable ahead of their IPO.

Yelp needs help and in many ways must allow others to control their future. To make things more precarious, Yelp has shown a willingness to fight with bigger companies such as Google despite having a deep reliance on them. Google is pressing hard for Google Places to continue to grow and integrate with Google+ and even purchased restaurant-review specialists Zagat. 23% of Yelp's 22 million reviews are on restaurants.

Facebook has an on-again, off-again opinion about reviews and business listings but will likely push forward to try to be the social sharing centerpiece for everything personal- and business-related. Smaller sites continue to try to catch the review wave as consumers migrate away from "experts" and rely on user-generated reviews.

Yelp has a good potential for a bright future. They seem to be an ideal moderate risk for venture capital, but are there too many landmines in front of them that make them a bad candidate for going public. They have a few months to prepare, but without major changes and a sustainable revenue model, they don't seem like the safest bet.

Google+: The Best Thing That Could Have Happened To Facebook (And Its Users)

jdrucker — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:50:00 GMT

When Google+ first launched and started making waves in the social networking world, many things changed. The perception of Google as a search-only company changed. The way that people viewed social networking as a 1-horse race with a couple of niche players on the side changed. Today, we're starting to see that something else changed.

Facebook went in a new direction based upon the threat that Google+ represents. Today, they announced sweeping changes to simplify and enhance user privacy. People will have more control over how they're tagged in photos and other content with a new feature that allows tags to be reviewed before going live. Perhaps more importantly, they made many of the privacy settings much easier to find. Rather than going into settings, users can now manage things inline through a dropdown menu next to the content on their profiles.

Prior to the change, it simply wasn't very easy. Facebook did their best to make it seem easy, but the reality was quite complicated. "Most of the settings for stuff on your profile were a few clicks away on a series of settings pages," said Chris Cox, VP of Product at Facebook.

On top of those changes, Facebook has been switching gears to focus on improving design and functionality through acquisitions. The prospect of a new Facebook design is always a fun one in the blogging world, as previous attempts have been met with a plethora of negative feedback.

Is it really possible that all of these changes are a direct result of Google+?

It's pretty clear that Google+ did more than register as a blip on Facebook's radar. They immediately launched Skype video calling a week after Google+ and their own video calling feature, Hangouts, launched. Facebook confirmed they were planning on turning the integration into a group chatting feature and today's purchase by Skype of Groupme is the first step towards that goal. The changes in privacy settings mirror Google+ in many ways.

Not everyone agrees.

"Facebook has been a consistent revolving door," said Erin Ryan, Social Media Promotional Director at Hasai. "Perhaps G+ has caused some tweaks to what would have already been a thought out plan. Look at its history."

Regardless of the motives, the real winners will be the users.

Competition is Good for Us

Let's face it. Until Google+ rolled onto the scene, Facebook was practically a monopoly. Twitter has never been a true social network. LinkedIn is focused on business (a niche that Facebook can still take over). Tagged is about making new connections, something that Facebook has avoided. MySpace is heading in another direction altogether. The competitors are so thin, if you combine all of the major social networks users, Facebook would still be larger.

Along came Google+, and for the first time in a couple of years, Facebook is feeling heat from the competition.

Whether you believe that Google+ is the driving force or not, the results have been beneficial. Having the attention of a large chunk of the population has given Facebook the ability to push aside user concerns. They made half-hearted attempts to simplify privacy in the past but have always kept it somewhat complicated. The reason is easy - they don't want things to be private. They want as much information about the users exposed and visible, forcing users and businesses to pay more attention to the site and what's posted on it.

Competition has forced them to pay more attention to the users. They have shown signs of plateauing usage and Facebook growth has slowed in recent months. Google+ has a slicker interface and is built on a more modern platform. Plus, they're Google. Facebook still has a major upper hand as well as control of their own destiny, but fickle social media users will make the switch if concerns aren't addressed.

This renewed focus on improving user experience is due to the Google+ threat. It may be the best thing that every happened to them (and us).

HotHardware, Socially Acceptable and Accessible

Dave_HH — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:56:00 GMT

Social media and social networking is definitely a booming market these days and it stands to reason with a growing Internet audience and the explosion of new web-based services for the readership community. There are virtually thousands of different sites you can dive into but of course, as with anything, some are better than others and still others aren't even worth your bandwidth. Whether you digg, stumble, reddit, propeller, mixx, or flickr, it seems there's nothing quite like the buzz (pun intended) of the collective voice of folks from all walks of life, especially when there's a great web site engine empowering people.

As you've probably noticed, we've also been building out the HH infrastructure here, with both new content sections and new conversational features that allow you to contribute and socialize here as well. And of course we have our standard assortment of RSS feeds and email blasts that allow you to get your HH on the fly and rolled up neat for easy digestion. And of course, we're all about spreading the HH love around to other places as well, so we're now Twittering and on Facebook too!

HotHardware's Tweets (left) and The HH Facebook Page (right)

So if you're a Facebook voyeur or twitter addict, you now can get your HH double shot of technology kick-it-up juice via these two great networking sites. Either that or just come here, early and often. We promise you a heapin' helping of tech gadget love, all day, every day -- even if you're the anti-social type.