Seth Goldstein

I am still not sure exactly how Facebook relates to the Attention Economy. But that has not stopped us from embracing the challenge to develop innovative social applications on top of this new platform. As you can see from the graphic above, we have created enough Facebook applications in the past few weeks to fill the profile above the fold. Our first application for Facebook was Trakzor, which we ported from MySpace, where it has millions of users who use the service to see who is checking them out. Within days, Trakzor for Facebook went from nothing, to thousands, to hundreds of thousands of users. It was such an adrenaline rush to see social media growing at scale; at its peak growth spurt two weeks ago, more than 7,000 people were adding the application per hour.

On the heels of this growth, we decided relax the focus on Attention with a capital A and start developing fun, interactive software that leveraged the implicit social graph of Facebook. And so FoodFight was born.

As “cooked up” by one of my co-founders Dave Gentzel, FoodFight reimagines the archetypal mess hall brawl as a distributed social media game: every day you get $5 for lunch money and can choose from a list of foods to throw at your friends. In perfect social media fashion, users have been (1) asking how to increase their lunch money (read: microtransactions) and (2) coming up with new food ideas to throw at their friends. By the time you read this there will be more than 1,000,000 FoodFight users (in less than two weeks).

Earlier today we launched Tag, which brings Web 2.0 tagging to tag the game we used to play as 2nd graders. In order to find out what you have been tagged as, you need to tag a few of your friends. We are learning to embed the viral coefficient directly into the user experience. It’s not longer just software as a service, it’s now software as a sequence. I bet you will see more and more Facebook applications that do not deliver their money shots until you first agree to share them with your friends. This is the socialization of the Free ipod concept which proved so successful as a cash cow in the online lead gen world.
Whether you think that the Facebook platform represents the reincarnation of Netscape in terms of its impact on the Web, or whether you think that this is just so much twiddling, the fact is that nobody really knows how this will play out. Which is all the more reason to get out there early, learn the language, and start having conversations while other people are still wondering whether they should or shouldn’t jump in. All of us would likely agree that if we had it to do all over again, we would have bought up short vanity domain names before they became trophies, or loaded up on Adwords and SEO early to maximize our Pagerank on Google. I believe that many of us will look back in a few years with similar regrets wrt Facebook if we do not start taking risks now.

As a treat, I wanted to share some tips from Dave Gentzel, founder of Trakzor and part of our AttentionSoft posse that includes Sourabh, Roj, David, Jonas and Ted. He is 24 years old and is quickly becoming the “Tom” of Facebook, friending everbody who downloads one of our apps.

SG: What is the secret to developing a killer Facebook application?

DG: There isn’t a formula at this point. It seems that the most popular applications are the ones that are simplest, already exist in the real world, and live almost exclusively in one’s profile. It goes to show that a good idea, a two minute brainstorming session, and a quick development turnaround is all it takes. Oh, and “integrated social distribution mechanisms.” Lots, and lots of those.

What do kids really want versus what grown-ups think kids want?

DG: Kids want simple applications that their friends will find cool. Profile bling is only worth something if other people see it. There’s always something to be said for being an early adopter and influencing friends, even if it’s with a pet rock application.

What was your key to getting Trakzor to scale on Facebook?

DG: Trakzor is a product that works well if no one else has it, and really well if tons of people have it. This gives people a real incentive to invite their friends and encourage them to get Trakzor, and even if they don’t, their experience is still solid. Lots of consumer demand didn’t hurt either.

What was your key for succeeding with Trakzor on Facebook?

DG: Tens of millions of people know Trakzor from MySpace. Even though the migration to Facebook required that the Trakzor service operate somewhat differently, people were enticed by the prospect of knowing who was paying attention to them and knew Trakzor could assist in that social discovery process.

How did you come up with foodfight?

DG: I’m a day dreamer. There’s really little else I’d rather be doing than thinking about new product ideas. Food Fight and most everything else I’ve ever done was something that just popped into my head at one point or another. The trick with Food Fight was to turn the “throw food” brainstorm lightbulb into a deeper, nostalgic experience. Thus, cafeteria menus were born, lunch money was given, and now even 40 year olds are dying to throw “mystery meat” at their friends.

What Facebook application are you most impressed by?

Graffiti is a winner. Simple, social, self expression.

What is your ultimate goal?

Having somebody recognize me at the mall.

Last Thursday I took my son to the Red Sox vs A’s baseball game in Oakland. Curt Schilling was starting for the Sox; we were celebrating Jacob’s graduation from 2nd grade: it was a perfect day for baseball. We settled into our seats and ended up witnessing the greatest pitching performance I had ever seen.

For 8 2/3 innings Schilling was flawless. No hits. No walks. Julio Lugo, the otherwise sure-handed Red Sox shortstop, muffed a routine grounder in the 5th inning; otherwise, Schilling was perfect. As the game wore on, the significance of the moment began to emerge. The Red Sox fans around me, who had been so vocal in the early innings, got quiet. They appreciated the significance of this moment- the fact that Schilling had never thrown a no-hitter during his Hall-of-Fame career. Our normal trash talking bravado gave way to an even stronger puritanical superstition: don’t talk about it (the no-hitter) otherwise you will ruin it.

As many know by now, Schilling made it all the way to the bottom of the ninth inning, with two outs, before giving up a solid hit to Shannon Stewart. He retired the next batter and we celebrated the victory, enjoying such a tantalizing brush with immortality. In the days since watching this performance, it has dawned on me that there are many lessons for entrepreneurs embedded in Schilling’s performance.

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1. THROW STRIKES

Do not waste time nibbling around the edges. Don’t be cute. Don’t fall behind. Get up there and hit your target. Get the opposing player in a hole, force him to catch up to you, get him to play your game. Schilling threw 71 out of his 100 pitches for strikes. He walked nobody, and only got to 3 balls on one batter. The entire game lasted a bit over two hours and lost that “drag” that ruins baseball today for all but the most hard core fans.

Corollary: dont waste time up front with branding, market research, business partnerships, investor presentations; get your product to market quickly and hit the problem on the head with a solid solution.

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2. TRUST YOUR DEFENSE

Schilling was not afraid to throw it over the plate because he trusted his defense behind him. This was clear from the first pitch. He may not be the most popular player because of his arrogance, but he is loyal and his teammates trust him to let them do their jobs. Coco Crisp made a spectacular play in the bottom of the sixth inning, leaping to keep Mark Kotsay’s long fly ball from going over his head.

Corollary: don’t try to do everything yourself. Let your people play their positions, and trust that they can support you if you bring them the business.

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3. LISTEN TO YOUR CATCHER

Schilling is blessed with one of the greatest catchers a pitcher could have: Jason Varitek. Varitek possesses a remarkable ability to call pitches and locations, and has a firm sense of pacing and rhythm. Not only does he understand the batters but he also knows how to read his pitcher, sometimes better than the pitcher himself- who may be caught up in the “emotion” of the game.

Schilling took his cues effortlessly from Varitek throughout the game. There were few if any times he waved off his catcher’s sign. The body language between them, even at 90 feet away, was as tight as the best moments of Starsky & Hutch bust. At least up until the very last out, when Schilling’s emotions did in fact overtake him and he waved off Varitek’s call. From Schilling’s own great blog post about the game:

Now comes the infamous ‘shake’. In talking with Tek after the game it’s clear to me that he was 100% spot on with his thought, and I was completely wrong with mine. Why would he take a strike at this point? I had gone to 1 three ball count all day. I wasn’t going to walk him and the only thing you do at that point, by taking a strike, is allow me freedom to use my split. There was no way in hell he was taking. I was sure otherwise. So I shake off the slider, execute the pitch I want, and he lines it to right.

Shannon Stewart promptly swung at the fastball (that Schilling thought he would take) and lined it to right field for the first hit of the game.

Corollary: listen to your board. Listen to your advisors. Listen to your investors. They want you to succeed, they see the field better than you do, they know what you are capable of and whether you are having a good day or if your stuff happens to be “off.” If you listen to them, they can help you compensate for your own weaknesses, or for the strength of your opponent. They can help you match the right pitch, the right delivery, and the right direction to the situation at hand. This is not to suggest that you aren’t in control. These are of course your pitches, your delivery, your mechanics. At any time you can wave off the catcher because of a gut feel, since in the end nobody knows your body (or your vision!) like you do. But don’t make a habit of ignoring or overriding your catcher’s signs, else your mistakes will compound quickly and expensively.

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4. PITCH, DONT THROW

Ten years ago when he was 30 not 40, Schilling had the power to throw balls by people. Today he needs to pitch. Changing locations and speeds are more important, and more efficient, than simply whizzing the ball by batters. During the game, Schilling was locked in. He alternated fastballs with splitters with sliders. He threw strikes inside and then outside. He knew that if he followed his gameplan, listened to his catcher, that he could keep the aggressive A’s hitters off-balance and force them to hit weak fly balls and grounders to his fielders. By the end of the game, his legs were still fresh and he could lean back and hit 93-94 as he did throughout the ninth inning.

Corollary: pick your spots, modulate your energy, don’t try to sprint through a marathon. Like a baseball game, a startup takes a long time to develop and the founder is rarely still around at the end. In order to achieve the equivalent of a complete game, you need to carefully balance your passion and your wisdom: too much of the former and you will burn yourself and your team out; too much of the latter and you will never get up the hockey stick of growth.

There will always be a few entrepreneurs who have the technical genius or unlimited salesmanship to realize their vision without needing to change a thing; but most of us need to grind it out one pitch at a time and adjust our strategy accordingly. To achieve as a startup what Schilling achieved on the field last week is to balance a complex set of priorities- vision, engineering, distribution, monetization, without taking a single customer, partner, employee or investor for granted. It does not happen often, but when it does, it is inevitably a combination of raw talent, hard work, and a few lucky plays by your defense.

There is usually so many things I want to write about that I end up overdigesting my ideas and write very little… and when I do write it tends to be long and expansive and hard to process in one gulp.

I had drinks last week with Josh Kopelman and Rob Hayes of First Round Capital. I have the unique distinction of having Josh as an investor in companies I founded (Majestic Research, Root Markets), of being an investor in Josh’s fund as an LP, and of investing directly alongside of Josh (del.icio.us and Aggregate Knowledge). Suffice it to say that Josh knows my many sides and so I appreciated his perspective on my blogging: “Seth, all you ever seem to write are long, esoteric posts about… Attention. You have such great, funny perspective to share.” He wanted to know not what I thought of metadata ownership, but rather my off-the-cuff reflections as a recent New York transplant in Silicon Valley.

I told Josh and Rob how enthusiastic I was about the Facebook ecosystem that seemed to be bubbling up like thick layer of foam over a double shot of Google. It is as if in a matter of months, both the high end of LinkedIn and the high-end of MySpace had been absorbed into the Facebook social graph. LinkedIn is suddenly no longer the social network of choice for us chic geeks. Yes, we learned how to tell our professional stories these past few years in the LinkedIn profile fields, but- as in summer of our 8th grade- we are now ready to lose the awkward friends we had accumulated , and start from scratch in a new environment.

Meanwhile, the kids who treated their MySpace profile, and concomitant friend requests, with the same reckless abandon that we have done with our LinkedIn profiles, have now de-camped for Facebook. While I don’t have fresh data on hand to support this hunch, the well-sourced rumor I heard last week ab out MySpace scrambling feverishly to open their API’s reinforces what is becoming obvious: MySpace’s Kremlin-esque behavior towards 3rd party widget developers -”we buy them or we crush them!”- is on a crash course with the debauched dirty-dancing going on amidst the MySpace spring-breakers. As these kids move from junior high to high school, from high school to college, and from college to the work force, they are increasingly choosing the meritocratic social logic of Zuckerberg over MySpace’s “hot or not?” popularity contest

There can be little doubt now that Facebook is a platform for social media, as opposed to simply a web site community. Time will tell whether it can continue to scale through opening up its audience to 3rd party developers like Microsoft did in the 80’s. This weekend I watched the Gates/Jobs conversation from D on my iPod. The elephant in the room that nobody really discussed was the fact that competition stopped at a certain part in their relationship, Microsoft became a monopoly, and Gates became the richest person in the world.

This was not an accident, but was in fact a direct result of the platform strategy that Microsoft so successfully pursued. Back in March, 2005 in a blog post, I recounted a meeting that taught me more about platforms than anything since:

In 1999 I sat down with Brad Silverberg of Ignition VC who Microsoft recruited out of Borland in the early 90’s to become the lead developer and project manager of Windows 95. Never has there been a more valuable platform. He described 3 things that platforms needed to have:

• wide distribution
• application developers making money
• good tools

Let’s test those three axioms against the preeminent platform play of our time, Google:

• Wide distribution? YES
• Application developers making money? YES (if you count all the adsense publishers)
• Good tools? YES (all the adwords and adsense self-service goodness)

Now let’s test these axioms against Facebook:

• Wide distribution? YES
• Application developers making money? NO (at least not yet, I will comment on 3rd party Facebook developers such as Slide, Rockyou, and AttentionSoft)
• Good tools? YES

So, the question for establishing Facebook’s value as a platform is no longer whether Facebook itself can make money but whether its developers can do so. And in a world where retail software sales are no longer a legitimate business model for developers, the default assumption is that these developers will make money through advertising. Which begs the question as to whether there is a pragmatic alternative to Google adsense (no) and therefore suggests that Facebook will need to create this for its developers.

Later in that post from March 2005 I related platform strategy to API structure:

Nobody controls the web as a platform the way that Microsoft controlled the desktop. But certain parties do control enormous pools of user data and direct their behavior…API’s are fountains of data, mostly consumer meta data, that are the byproduct of some other functionality… The value of a web service API is tied to its ability to convert granular feeds of individual data into useful social media contexts.

I wrote this before I had ever used Facebook but the implication is clear now. Google does not offer this Social Media API. Facebook does. Here is an example of its API syntax:

facebook.friends.areFriends

Returns whether or not each pair of specified users is friends with each other. The first array specifies one half of each pair, the second array the other half; therefore, they must be of equal size.

What could be more useful as a social media context for a software application than being able to ask whether two users are friends with eachother?