Web X.0

Funny money

I was messing around with Compete.com (competitor of Alexa.com), and got a kick from this chart comparing the traffic on Facebook to that on the AdSonar network (that's Quigo's ad network):

Now lets see... WSJ is reporting that Facebook might be valued at $10B+, and we're practically head-to-head on traffic... Hmmmm... ;-)

In case you want to get rich and/or work for Yahoo

Regardless of what happens on November 5th, and regardless of whether we end up calling social networks a "graph" or not... -
It's fairly clear that Yahoo will soon be scrambling to find a company that takes your Flickr friends, del.icio.us friends, Yahoo Mail contacts, IM contacts, etc, etc and merges them all into something that makes sense. A "social graph" perhaps.

This probably won't be a multi-billion-dollar acquisition, but it will almost certainly happen.

I don't recommend building-for-flipping, but if you're an entrepreneur and are eager to work for Yahoo with a nice signing package - here's a nice opportunity for you.

If you do use this tip, please send me a small comission in 6-8 months... :-)

{image captured here}

Implicit Social Networks

{Image CC by jared Thanks!}

Rogel rants about social networks here and here. We (=outbrain) are often categorized as being a social network focused on sharing of blog content. I had this question come up on several occasions, especially with VC's, and I get annoyed every time. After all, I've been known to quote this...:

"As a matter of fact, I think I know more social networks than people..."

I always argued the notion of outbrain being a social network. That's exactly what I was trying to avoid! I didn't want to enter my contacts in the 173rd site where my only real practical use would be invitation management... I have enough of that on LinkedIn and FaceBook, etc, etc!

But it kept bugging me... after all, it is true that outbrain is a platform for social recommendations of blog content... hmmmm - did we fall in the trap we were trying to avoid?

Then one day, my co-founder Ori made a brilliant observation:

outbrain is an implicit social network

That's it! The world of social networks breaks into 2 categories: explicit networks and implicit ones. I think they can roughly be categorized as follows:

• Explicit Social Network - a person is defined by the people s/he connects to
  (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace are good examples)
• Implicit Social Network - a person is defined by his/her interests
  (Last.FM, Amazon, Netflix and outbrain are good examples)

The power of implicit social networks is that they are not limited to the people you happen to know. Their weakness is in letting algorithms make social decisions for people. If the algorithms are good and the data set is comprehensive, magic happens. We're getting there...

Paul Graham on college

Great post by Paul Graham on the importance of getting the right college education... Finally I don't feel stupid for not having an academic degree... ;-)

"Practically everyone thinks that someone who went to MIT or Harvard or Stanford must be smart.  Even people who hate you for it believe it.

But when you think about what it means to have gone to an elite college, how could this be true?   We're talking about a decision made by admissions officers—basically, HR people—based on a cursory examination of a huge pile of depressingly similar applications submitted by seventeen year olds.  And what do they have to go on? An easily gamed standardized test; a short essay telling you what the kid thinks you want to hear; an interview with a random alum; a high school record that's largely an index of obedience.  Who would rely on such a test?"

I particularly relate to this part:

"...Because how much you learn in college depends a lot more on you than the college.  A determined party animal can get through the best school without learning anything.  And someone with a real thirst for knowledge will be able to find a few smart people to learn from at a school that isn't prestigious at all."

Anyhow - good post, especially if you're hiring people.   Go and read the whole thing here.

Tevel Angel Club

I've recently volunteered to join the executive committee of a non-profit organization called Tevel. Tevel is the first angel club established in the US, focusing exclusively on bringing US angel investors together with young Israeli startups.

Tevel was founded by Oren Fuerst and Oren Heiman (more here). What got me interested in this project is Oren's (Fuerst...) description of why they started Tevel:

They floated the idea last summer, around the time of the war in Lebanon. Being Israelies in NY, they were approached by friends asking how they can help the community in Israel in a 'real' way (ie - not by giving a donation to a random organization without ever knowing if/how that helped anyone specific). Oren, coming from a business background, thought the best way to contribute would be by helping the economy, and the best way he knew was by supporting entrepreneurs in the beginning of their ventures.

With Tevel the idea is to introduce young and promising Israeli entrepreneurs to American investors. While the hope is that the investments yield investors great returns, the primary goal is to help support the entrepreneurs and through that help support the Israeli economy.

We're now looking for investors who are interested in joining the club, and entrepreneurs looking for early seed investments. If you're interested, shoot me an email (yaron [at] galai [dot] com) or go directly to the Tevel website - www.tevel.org