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By Tai, April 10, 2009 7:34 pm

I’d suspected that Facebook is moving fast toward monetization.

But Sheryl Sandberg’s confirmation that Facebook has been profitable for 5 consecutive quarters still comes as a nice surprise.

Nevertheless, considering this model, where all the money has been generated is not much a question.

Where else has Facebook been making money on? Will Social Search come next? Will Facebook do Data Mining behind the scene?

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By Tai, March 7, 2009 9:54 am

My first fortnight in Sydney passed and the only social media entity I’m surrounded by is neither Google, Yahoo nor Twitter, but Facebook.

My experience with the University of New South Wales confirms my hypothesis on the Viralization of Facebook:

In UNSW we have over 100 clubs and societies. Student activities and career orientation programs here are organized make use of Facebook as a platform for announcements, discussions, networking and to some extent, information storage.

Newly arrived students are inevitably invited to create a Facebook account, connect to others and join many of the student groups.

Influencers are ubiquitous. And they’re not necessarily the tech-savvy; mainly, they have something to share.

Around 2,600,000 Australian are in Australian network, around 12% of the whole population of Australia.

A quick check on Alexa shows that Facebook is ranking 3rd in Australia, only after the two Google’s properties. Considering their popularity and potential to dominate the web further, I’m not surprised if Facebook wants to shift from relationship-centric to content-centric.

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By Tai, December 14, 2008 11:50 pm

Tai Tran's Lab: Technology As Innovator

Dear Subscriber, if you can't see this presentation in your feed reader, kindly go to the original article to view the content.

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By Tai, October 1, 2008 11:29 pm

Twitter’s success has boiled to the point the even some Twitterers start to wonder how would the service monetize.

Here is the short list of a few ways I can think of for Twitter’s evolution:

1. Same as that of Facebook: display ads in left & right white spaces
2. Same as that of Google Adword: you tweet “I love cold drink”, an ad for Coca-cola is displayed
3. Same as that of faceViet: display ad between tweets
4. Same as that of vietnamworks: service providers pay Twitter to create a Twitter account specifically for brand-engagement / market research / recruitment / sales. This is politically difficult as the line between a service provider and a non-provider is vague
5. Same as that of many popular blogs providing premium subscription: celebrity Twitterer charge followers for valuable tweets, part of the charge goes to Twitter
6. Same as that of a social-C2C-commerce: Twitters become actual seller & procurers

What are your ideas?

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By Tai, July 31, 2008 2:13 pm

The WSJ is reporting that Google is set to launch a venture fund to give it the option of investing in startups instead of just flat out buying them. The fund will be led by Google’s SVP Corporate Development David Drummond and Bill Maris, a long time business friend of Anne Wojcicki, Sergey Brin’s wife. Maris is a tech entrepreneur with a degree in neuroscience and worked with Wojcicki at a San Francisco-based for-profit company called Catalytic Health.

This hasn’t been confirmed by Google, and it’s clear they’ve been thinking about a fund off and on for years. From the article:

The move would make Google the latest technology giant to take on a more-formal role in seeding start-ups. Intel Corp. has had a large venture-capital arm for years, as have Motorola Inc., Comcast Corp. and many others. In the consumer-Internet area, Walt Disney Co.’s Steamboat Ventures has invested in a number of Web start-ups. So has Amazon.com Inc., which has funded a number of young companies without structuring a formal fund.

Their track records have been mixed. Corporate venture-capital arms have been hampered by challenges that traditional venture-capital businesses don’t face. Venture capitalists invest in private start-ups at an early stage, usually in hopes of a big payout if the company is sold or if its stock goes public.

Many start-ups fear that taking corporate money limits their options and comes with strings that could turn away other potential investors — such as a right to buy the company at a later date. Some funds with less competitive compensation have struggled to retain managers, and corporate venture funds often don’t allow senior employees to invest personal money in their funds, while other venture funds typically do.

This wouldn’t be the first time Google started a fund to invest in other companies. In June 2007 they launched Gadget Ventures, a pilot program that, in part, invests seed money in companies looking to develop for the gadgets platform. They have also previously invested through Indian VCs.

Source: TechCrunch