Spiffbox is looking to shake up social networking by rewarding its users with cash for participating. Recognizing that today we are inundated with friend requests, messages, and e-mails, Spiffbox supposed that people could be motivated to respond quickly by offering a financial incentive for doing so.
Spiffbox utilizes Facebook Connect and Twitter and is meant to build on top of pre-existing social networks instead of trying to build their own unique user base. Instead of trying to be another communication platform for you and your friends, it is intended to help you engage with people outside of your social graph. The focus here is on expert advice as well as career promotion and advancement.
In Spiffbox's system, the person sending a message or friend request has to spend points, which can be redeemed for cash, and the receiver gets points for responding. Users are given a set number of points when they sign up and can earn more by responding to messages, completing offers, or purchasing them. At this time, all of the actions on the site have a fixed cost, but Spiffbox is playing around with the idea of letting the sender define how much money they want to attach to a message. Obviously, if there is more money attached to a message, then the recipient will be more inclined to respond.
Spiffbox's friend invite, detailing the effects of accepting the request.
(Credit: Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman/CNET)Spiffbox has some really interesting concepts behind it. We are starting to see a trend of social-networking sites rewarding users for their actions. In September, Vreebit launched their version of the concept, but it awards items (electronics, books, etc.) as opposed to cash like Spiffbox does. There could be a real future in this space.
I am impressed by the thinking behind Spiffbox, however, I fear that some new users might find it to be too complex and intimidating. Once the site irons some of its kinks out and becomes a little more user friendly, then we could start to see some real widespread adoption.
We knew that Facebook had bigger plans for vanity URLs/usernames when it opened them up for registration this summer.
The popular bet was that it would create a mention/reply system similar to Twitter's @replies. That was shot down this week when Facebook launched its mentions system, which uses real names. But on Thursday, Facebook started letting users log in with their usernames.
(Credit:
Facebook Blog)
This might not seem like a big deal at first glance since most Web sites use username log-in. But this is a time saver, compared with typing in your full e-mail address every time. I still suspect that we will see our Facebook usernames being used for more things in the future, though it's unclear what those things may be.
Vreebit is an immensely complex social-networking site, launched in beta on Thursday.
After seeing that it has taken Facebook five and a half years to become cash flow-positive, it seems that founders Michael Fleischmann and Chuck Donnelley are trying to create a new revenue model for their social network.
Vreebit includes a wealth of features, including a calendar, tasks, resume, docs and photos, links, discussions, polls, petitions, expert advice (think Yahoo Answers), and the ability to create your own 11-page Web site.
Upon signing up, users are given 100 "VreeBees," which are a virtual currency that can be used to buy actual goods on the site. You can earn more by participating in surveys, referring users, clicking on ads, and providing expert advice.
The VreeMarket offers a ton of things for users to buy with their VreeBees, ranging from books to video games to clothing. Not only can Vreebit post items for sale there, but actual users can post items as well, setting their price in VreeBees. This section of the site could also benefit from partnerships with some outside retailers.
VreeBees can also be used in exchange for services on the site, such as placing an advertisement, getting expert advice, and creating a survey. All of this activity creates an interesting economy on the site designed to motivate users to participate more.
The elements of this site that participate in the VreeBee economy seem to make sense, if the site can gain enough users. They are pretty unique and will drive more use of the service. However, other aspects of the site may greatly benefit from hook-ins with third-party services.
For example, instead of having to fill out your calendar on Vreebit (which doesn't sound overly appealing) the service could pull from Google Calendar for its content. And even though it is competing with Facebook, I think that Vreebit could benefit from using Facebook Connect, which can speed up account setup, automatically bringing in contact information and user data, as well as maintaining the same log-in.
Although Vreebit might be a bit crowded with not-so-enticing features, and users will likely be a bit wary of being rewarded specifically for clicking on ads (this will surely sink its ad rates through the floor), its virtual-currency model may have some potential.
With the addition of hook-ins for some third-party services, Vreebit may have a chance at becoming a viable social network, but for the moment, some users might be scared away by the amount of site features and the amount of time it takes to set up a new account--not to mention the fact that there's not much incentive to join a social network unless your friends are already there.
Glue, the popular Firefox extension that lets users discuss content all over the web, is releasing a version of its add-on, built for Internet Explorer, today. This is a big step for Glue for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that being compatible with IE expands Glue's potential audience significantly. Net Applications reports that IE currently holds 65.5% of the browser market to Firefox's 22.51%. Being able to reach 88% of the internet browsing population should increase their registered user base of 130,000 significantly.
The other reason why this release is significant is the sheer accomplishment of developing a good, functional IE add-on like this. It took the people at AdaptiveBlue four months of work to bring Glue to Internet Explorer. Instead of taking the cheap way out, they reworked the code for Glue so that 90% of it is the common core that can work on any platform, with the additional 10% being platform specific code. This not only means that the add-on works consistently across both IE and Firefox, but that it will be much easier to develop for other browsers, such as Chrome and Safari, in the future.
If you haven't tried Glue yet, give CNET's initial write-up a read and check it out if you're interested. I'm looking forward to some cool things from these guys in the future.
Facebook's iPhone app gives you access to Facebook Chat.
Viewing Facebook photos is really great in this app. They have implemented the same "flick" style of navigation that the iPhone uses and photos flip over to reveal comments. Overall, the UI is pretty intuitive and uses a lot of the same conventions that Apple does. Taking photos and uploading them to Facebook could not be simpler. Just tap the camera icon, take the picture, and tap to upload.
The installed application is a great improvement over the previously released web based version, which does not offer as high a level of functionality or as fluid of an interface. While I was initially skeptical as to the benefits to a standalone Facebook application, as opposed to just using the web based one, features like photo uploading and chat justify its existence.
Facebook has built an extremely slick iPhone application. My first impressions are extremely positive and Facebook has definitely earned a spot on my first page of icons. Its navigation is very fluid and the feature set is complete and easy to use. It was important for Facebook to have an application at launch for the iPhone App Store, with competition coming from a variety of other social networks, MySpace included, so it's good to see them bring such a solid offering to the table.
The online gaming site, Kongregate, makers of some of the best time sucking games out there, is adding a challenge platform to its Facebook application on Monday. As of Tomorrow, Facebook users will be able to challenge their friends to a variety of Kongregate games, which are playable through embedded versions in Facebook. Right now, you are able to challenge your friends to eight different games.
The implementation here is really great. Kongregate makes it very easy to throw down the gauntlet against one of your friends and see who is really the best. You earn points for doing a variety of activities, including beating your friends in a challenge. The whole thing is rounded out by leaderboards which are broken down by friends, networks, and all players. Given the extremely addicting nature of Kongregate's games, I think that this application will catch on really well. As we saw with Scrabulous, games have great potential on Facebook and Kongregate really nailed it with their challenge platform.
I had a lot of trouble pulling myself away from these games to write this post, so I think that people are really going to enjoy this. Some of the most successful applications on Facebook are those that bring out people's competitive nature. We saw that when Facebook's developer platform first launched with iLike's music quiz and I think that we are going to see that again with Kongregate.
Qlique's Facebook ad
This will, of course, remind a lot of people of when Jason Calacanis offered the top Digg users money to submit content on Netscape, back in 2006. The fundamental difference between these two situations is that in order for Qlique to be a valuable service, a very high percentage of users on the service have to write quality content. In Netscape's case, taking from Digg's model, most of the content comes from a very small percentage of the users, so it was a little more understandable to be paying top submitters.
Any way that you slice it, this is not good for Qlique's image. Paying people to use your service in this situation is not a good practice, even if it is just to ramp up to a launch. The fact that they are being so discrete about this recruitment of college students, with no public announcement of any kind, leads me to believe that they wanted to keep this under wraps and make it seem as though the site was gaining some real momentum. They might be able to buy some content now, but they just can't buy our love.
Inside Facebook is reporting today that Facebook is set to launch three new features in Q1 of 2008. These features include:
- Friend list privacy controls
- Facebook in new languages
- Blasting messages to groups with more than 1,000 members
Friend list privacy control is a no-brainer. If you separate your friends into work and personal lists, you want to be able to control what each group sees. It's just a logical step for Facebook and a feature that probably should have been implemented before the launch of Friends lists.
Again, translating Facebook into new languages makes a huge amount of sense as well. Facebook is getting bigger and bigger in the international market and one of the things that's stopping them from bumping off more localized social networks is the language barrier. Maybe this will push them over the top.
Finally, we have one of the most requested features on Facebook. Not being able to send messages to groups with more than 1,000 members has been a huge headache for a ton of people trying to spread news throughout their groups. Perhaps that problem will be rectified with this impending update.
While none of these new features are shockers, they are welcome additions and should add some much needed functionality to the site.
A post on the My Yahoo! Blog today informs us of the availability of a nice new Facebook module for your page. We all know that Facebook is the social network of choice right now, but what bugs me here is that the My Yahoo team chose provide first party support for Facebook prior to supporting their own social networks. If they are not willing to get behind their own offerings, how can consumers be expected to do so?
That said, the actual module fits in nicely on the page and is very informative. It's also nice to see Yahoo supporting the tech community's favorite social networking platform. However, I can't help but think that the Mash, 360, and Kickstart teams must feel a little bit snubbed.
Yahoo is looking to change the game with their new social job network, Kickstart. They are currently conducting research surveys among college students to find out what they think of this new service. Yahoo asks this question to the participants, "Wish you had an 'in' to find the job of your dreams?" Kickstart is all about finding that "in."
Yahoo Kickstart connects college students with alumni at the companies that they are interested in. As you can see in the screenshot above, this student's "in" at Nike is an alumni named Dave Bottoms. Dave has expressed an interest in helping out students and connecting with alumni. He also knows one of your friends, went to your school, and shares a common interest with you. That's a really powerful networking tool. Presenting specific connections like this adds a whole new value to this job network.
Aside from showing your "in," company pages also provide some useful information about the company as a whole, broken down into key points such as industry, size, location, contact, and description. Anyone who is connected in any way with that company is also displayed.
As you might also expect, everyone who signs up with Yahoo Kickstart gets their own profile page, where you can build a mini resume and add a quotation to give the profile a more personal feel. Everything here is pretty standard for a social network, but there is a definite professional focus, much like LinkedIn. The personal profile isn't anything revolutionary, but it certainly gets the job done in this situation.
The third and final main component to Kickstart is the university page. This is very similar to what Facebook does with their "network" pages. It displays some basic information about the school and provides space for discussions, bulletins, and events.
Yahoo Kickstart is currently a concept and is being researched, so the things that you see in these screenshots may or may not make it into the final product. When I asked Yahoo for a comment on the service, they responded by saying,
"...We're continually checking the pulse on customer response to potential concepts on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes our research leads to the development of new product offerings, but not all concepts we research are formally developed and rolled out to our larger audience."
I personally think that Kickstart is a really solid concept and that it's a possible game-changer in the professional networking space. Hopefully we'll see Yahoo kickstarting some careers in the near future.
