Valuations!!!

Dot-Com Bubble of 2000 springs to mind for many people when we consider the ongoing valuations of a number of tech companies. With sites such as Facebook which is ranked second most visited site on the Alexa rankings do we think that the valuation of $85bn (based on the sale of 100,000 shares on SharePost) is justified seen as it is supposedly nearing 750m users.

If we consider this to be growing and the recently reported drop in figures in some area's of the world to be just a minor blip.The increase in users of the internet world wide will flock to social media as they go online should see the company hit 1bn users. The site is a daily destination for a large number of users and Facebook has data on its users that other companies could only dream of knowing. So Facebook can innovate, develop and bring new features to market very quickly which if managed properly I think we could see them beat Google to that number one ranking (unlikely but possible if Facebook improves services).

On the other hand companies aren't about just rankings and users because in the long run they need to make a profit with their users. Many of these companies are asking for more funding and these are inflating valuations, at the end of the day these companies need to give value to their investors. So obviously investors are taking the risk because they don't want to miss being part of what could be very profitable. (Groupon reported value $25bn)

When I last wrote about Myspace I spoke about my thoughts on redeveloping the product and didn't mention the price which I feel now is better suited to the company. The company which now has the real opportunity to look at the gaps in the market and what their users want but don't have from a different perspective. The £22m price paid for a failing company which was once valued at $580m and still couldn't compete with Facebook. could we see this happen again to some of our other giants? I expect so...

To be continued, Let us know what you think...

MySpace... What's the future?

The news that Myspace has been taken over by Specific Media makes me question the future of Myspace more than before. Myspace was previously owned by News Corporation and they paid too much for a failing business that didn't develop fast enough and allowed Facebook to take market share, well that's kinda Sean Parker's view in a recent interview at the NExTWORK Conference.

Now bought for £22m ($35m) and Justin Timberlake is said to be involved, could this be a real chance to change the product on offer for the better or see Myspace to the grave. Its rumoured to help artists to connect to fan but I have seen this before. So what could Myspace do with their reported 50m followers, whom are using it because its the "leading social entertainment platform". Well many of the people I know who use it have it as a kind of music portfolio to extend their fan base and get discovered. Now YouTube has taken this role with people such as Justin Bieber getting discovered here and many other celebrities. Visiting the site recently with my old log in I felt that the site had changed too much and the features were too rich on the homepage, it had no immediate call to action - but several. Myspace needs to redevelop in to a proper entertainment platform where talent can be discovered easily and incorporate a search feature for venues. The platform should allow bookings for artists and connect presenters, musicians, bands, actors etc with those who need them. This is risky but Myspace could turn themselves in to the worlds largest "undiscovered" talent agency which will give people who need talent access to those by location, price, rating and so on.

Social Features? Yes keep the social features, just develop the product better and enter the gap which YouTube has left which is more filtered search and booking features similar to that of peopleperhour but for talent. I don't think that Myspace has finished being a social network and it's not good enough to compete with Facebook which is it's main problem. Look at existing users and create something that can generate more revenue from them and work on creating a product people want. Whether it would work or not is to be seen and tested but they need to have a big shake up to stop the demise of what was the biggest social network back in 2006.

Tell Me What You Think...

Google+...Should LinkedIn be scared?

OK this story was broken a while back but I have received an invite to try it out. I have seen some cool features with the new google+ which I think is going to be really helpful for some business people. Their idea to give invitation has only made the buzz more appealing because we can see the product but only a number can touch it.

The first cool feature is the hangouts which I think is going to be really helpful for any conference calls which if you want this service at the moment many people use Skype's group video calling which costs around £5 per month (not much but still...).

I have also seen sparks now this can be quite cool for sharing news stories perhaps industry news with colleagues and can also help you to collectively gather cool stories that you'l find benefit the people you work with.

Circles has got to be one of the coolest things because this will allow you to put your contacts into what can only be called "circles" so that you can share certain information with those who you wish to target. In a business sense (which this article is targeted to) the circles will be great for putting your contacts in to different circles such as media contacts, editors, directors, programmers & so on. this could be great for finding new staff, getting answers, marketing the business etc...

My conclusion is that the odds are stacked against Google+ becoming the next Facebook but I think it will be one like Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn and so on because it will be used "as well as" not "instead of". Remember though I haven't actually tried Google+ yet. With all these useful features for business as well as people I believe that allowing integration with a company like Linkedin will give Google+ a strong position for a more mainstream social growth if it doesn't grow that way at first.

Let me know what you think...