iLike was once the most popular music application of Facebook, with close to 10 million active users generating 1.5 billion page views per month. On Tuesday, it finally shut down. Its demise proves once again that online music is a tough business to be in. Read More »
Tech
News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch’s comments about piracy reinforce the sense that the billionaire media and entertainment mogul doesn’t understand how content works in a digital era, and that he is continuing to try and impose the scarcity that media companies have had in the past. Read More »
MySpace, the grand daddy of social is still wheezing along, comScore says. In fact it is bigger than Tumblr and Google Plus. Infact, people spend more time on MySpace, a dying platform than on Google Plus. Pinterest just cracked the top ten list! Read More »
Google’s new social network offers a nice collection of features and a great design, but none of these things is enough to create a social network that people want to keep using — that requires a critical mass of users, and Facebook is leading that particular… Read More »
Tumblr, the combination blogging platform and social network, continues to grow at a phenomenal rate — racking up more than 8.4 billion pageviews a month, which puts it in the top 25 sites in the world. But will it ever figure out how to make money? Read More »
As Turntable.fm has shown, a new era of social music may be upon us, one that is less about scaling wide, but more about going deep. The third era of social music is about immersion as sites add more immediacy and intimacy to the experience. Read More »
Markets with network effects tend to have explosive growth, and part of the excitement driving LinkedIn’s IPO last week comes from investors associating social media with that principle. But assessing the competitive positions of social media companies depends on knowing which network effects are actually present. Read More »
Most Internet analysts suggest Myspace fell from grace because it crumbled in the face of stiff competition from Facebook. But a Reuters report suggests it may have been Google that dealt the fatal blow by accident as long ago as 2006. Read More »
Facebook and search engine optimization are still useful marketing tools for online startups wanting to build audiences. Let’s examine how a startup making consumer apps or online services can get that much-coveted first million or two users as cheaply as possible. Read More »
Human beings naturally belong to a variety of networks based on different contexts like shared interests, work, school, geography and the like. So it seems logical that there is room for specialized or niche social networks oriented around those specific groups or activities. Read More »
After cutting 500 jobs, Myspace boss Mike Jones has finally admitted that it’s time to spin off or sell the struggling social network. But Rupert Murdoch’s stubborn misunderstanding of the Internet means it is way too late for the site to make a worthwhile deal. Read More »
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