Scrabulous vs Scrabble, Round Two

Scrabulous You know what reminds me of that clueless little kid who always gets the joke after everyone else has gotten it, laughed, and moved on to another topic?

Hasbro (HAS) and Electronic Arts (ERTS). (No offense, guys.)

They just announced that they are going to be launching a Scrabble Facebook application later this month. Too bad everyone’s been playing Scrabulous for the last year.

“Millions of Facebook users who have been playing it are unlikely to make the switch,” writes Caroline McCarthy of CNet. “Who says they’ll even notice the presence of the new game?” Too true, too true.

Technically, Electronic Arts is going to be the one actually building this app, since they own the rights to the digital versions of the board game. The rights to the board game seem to be a bit convoluted. While Hasbro owns it here in the US, Mattel owns it elsewhere. Weird.

To be fair, the dynamics of large publically-traded companies make them slower to react to new phenomenon like this. They probably already have a wish list of a thousand things they want to, and need to do. And a Facebook Scrabble game just wasn’t on that list.

That doesn’t change my opinion that they missed a really cool social media marketing opportunity though. They missed it, and a smaller player—Scrabulous—beat them to it.

Facebook Marketing Can Help in Unexpected Ways

To the non-web marketers out there: If you have any teenagers in the house, you can bet they’re on Facebook or MySpace (NWS). But did you know that, for the sake of your business, perhaps you should be too?

This past February, Entrepreneur Magazine included a piece about one small business owner’s unexpected findings through Facebook:

After Alicia Rockmore’s Ann Arbor, Michigan-based organizational products company, Buttoned Up Inc. scored shelf space at Target, Rockmore began doing research to keep the big red bull’s-eye happy. A friend invited her to join social networking site Facebook, so she created an individual profile touting her business. She hit pay dirt when she found an existing group of Target customers on Facebook.

“They talk about what they like, what they hear is coming from Target,” says Rockmore, 42. “It’s like free market research.”

That’s my favorite price. Free. Aw yea.

This is part of a new phenomenon called “social media marketing“, where you use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to reach out to current and potential customers. Sites like this aren’t just for teenagers anymore. If used correctly, they can augment the power of word-of-mouth marketing and make your brand louder and stronger.

It’s a tricky new field though. If you come across too corporate and have no personality, or have a truly awful product, it can backfire. Some companies have faced harsh criticism and negative publicity doing this.

That’s why Rockmore’s approach is a safe middle ground. Even though she created a profile to promote her business (which can attract loyal fans as well as competitors and detractors), she didn’t see the value of Facebook until she found a group of consumers similar to the demographic she was trying to reach.

There are hundreds of groups on Facebook. All are formed by motivated people covering any number of topics, hobbies, and interests, such as:

There’s bound to be a group that fits your target demographic on Facebook. Once you create an account and find a few relevant groups, join them and monitor their discussions for a couple of weeks. Get a feel for the temperament of the participants. You may be able to gleam lots of information just by reading their rants and raves.

When it comes time for more direct information, you can be more proactive and write a message to the group. Ask them for their opinion or suggestions. Be careful not to come across too corporate though, or you might be labeled as working for “The Man.” Also keep in mind basic netiquette, which are a set of informal do’s and don’ts in online communication.

You may be thinking, “That’s great for Rockmore, but my customers don’t use Facebook.” If that’s true, then you’re right, don’t waste your time or brain cells. But if there are potential customers sitting there right now, tweaking their Facebook profiles and complaining about your products, then maybe it’s worth it.

Currently, about 84% of Facebook’s members are between 14 and 26 years of age, according to MarketingHub.info. About 30% of their members have a household income of over $100,000, according to iMedia Connection. There’s some more data on Emergence Media too.

Does that sound like a demographic you want to reach? If so, then perhaps, for the sake of your business, you should get an account. And if you’re not sure how, just ask that teenager of yours.

Top 10 Reasons to Use Facebook

Facebook

  1. All of your 20-year old 30-year old and higher friends & coworkers are on it
  2. Some people post scandalous photos or news on their profiles
  3. Some events require you to RSVP through Facebook
  4. Networking opportunities abound
  5. Waste time playing games like Scrabulous
  6. Join groups like I Dont care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like A Dumbass
  7. Make money with Facebook apps
  8. Find a date for Friday night
  9. Facebook stalk your friends or secret crushes
  10. PR Professionals think it’s a fad, so it must be cool

Don’t Post Naked Photos of Yourself on Facebook!

Facebook This just in from Caroline McCarthy of Webware: “Report: Facebook threatens to ban Gawker’s Denton“!

So here’s what went down. Just this past Tuesday, Nick Denton, founder of the blog network Gawker Media, published the article “Emily Brill: The Second Generation“, where he featured some very unflattering screenshots taken from a Facebook member’s profile page. This is after Denton “took over as managing editor of Gawker.com this month after several staff departures,” reports McCarthy.

The victim is 25-year-old Emily Brill, daughter of Steven Brill, the founder of CourtTV (I mean truTV), American Lawyer Magazine, and numerous other companies. The screenshots included a set of photos comparing Emily in a bikini against an older college photo where she was “significantly heavier,” adds McCarthy.

Sam Gustin of Portfolio.com writes in his article “Blogger Bullying Draws a Website Warning” that Denton “has violated Facebook’s terms of use… and the social network’s honchos are not amused.”

Facebook’s Terms of Use make it clear that, “Except for your own User Content, you may not upload or republish Site Content on any Internet, Intranet or Extranet site or incorporate the information in any other database or compilation, and any other use of the Site Content is strictly prohibited.”

This could result in Denton being banned from Facebook.

Not surprisingly, this isn’t the first time information from someone’s Facebook profile has been used against them. Back in August 2007, Lucy Morrow Caldwell of Slate Magazine published the article “Daddy Dearest: Rudy Giuliani’s daughter is supporting Barack Obama“. Since both Caldwell and the 17-year-old Caroline Giuliani are both part of the Harvard network, Caldwell was able to see that Giuliani listed her political view as “liberal” and joined the Facebook group “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack).” She has since withdrawn from the group.

Also, back in October 2007, Owen Thomas of Valleywag published the article “Confirmed: Facebook and Microsoft flacks make friends before deal announcement” after noticing that Brandee Barker, head of PR at Facebook, added Adam Sohn, head of marketing PR at Microsoft (MSFT), as a friend. “Just buddies?” wrote Thomas. “I think not. But I’m sure writing up the press release announcing Microsoft’s investment and ad deal will make them fast friends, indeed.”

This almost led to Thomas being banned from Facebook too, his insiders told him.

What’s this mean for you and I? Well, for one, don’t post any naked photos of yourself on Facebook, or anywhere else online for that matter. “Well, duh Mike, that’s a no-brainer,” you say? Sorry kids, practicing safe Facebooking still means you could catch a case of public crabs. (Only abstinence is the true protection, but what’s the fun in that?) Let me explain.

  1. Someone else could upload photos of you

    And if that person tags you in the photos, the photo is now linked to you. Fortunately, you can remove your tag from photos (and videos too). Whew.

  2. Strangers may be able to see your profile

    McCarthy notes that it’s not clear whether Denton and Brill are friends on Facebook, but since both are members of the New York regional network, there’s a chance he could have seen her profile without being directly connected. For instance, if someone pokes you, you can see their profile. So if you poke back, they can see your profile. Fortunately, you can control what they see by altering your Poke, Message and Friend Request Settings.

  3. Strangers could see your photos if they have your album’s URL

    According to Thomas, Facebook privacy is an illusion. Someone gave him the exact URL to a photo album of Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, despite not being directly connected to him. This allowed Thomas (and any of us) to view the entire album. Unfortunately, there’s no way to counter this at the moment, though I’m guessing Facebook’s engineers are working on this.

How does Denton feel about being banned from a potentially plump source of stories? As Peter Kafka of Silicon Alley Insider writes in “Nick Denton’s Gawker Takes On Scientologists, Facebook, Wins“:

Denton tells us he doesn’t care if Facebook boots him off the social network: “I was getting bored of Facebook, anyway.” (Note to Gawker Media employees: Yes, we know Denton forced you all to join Facebook last spring. We don’t know whether this means you’re off the hook, though.)

And for the curious stalkers out there, sorry to dash your hopes, but “perhaps due to the Gawker incident, Emily Brill’s Facebook profile is no longer publicly searchable,” says McCarthy. Which is for the best; this Paris-Hilton-esque spotlight must’ve been Hell for her.

Facebook Scrabulous vs Hasbro Scrabble

Scrabulous Hello, my name is Mike and I’m a Scrabuholic.

Yes, I’m one of them. I’m one of those people who logs on to Facebook everyday just to play Scrabulous. While I only have six games going (as opposed to hundreds by true hardcore Scrabuholics), it’s become quite an addiction. And I know I’m not alone.

Which is why I’m sad to hear that Hasbro (HAS), creator of the board game Scrabble, is trying to shut down Scrabulous. Hearing this makes me a sad panda.

In his article, “Will someone please start a Facebook group to save Scrabulous?” Josh Quittner of Fortune Magazine writes:

I can’t tell if Hasbro… is the smartest company in the world or the dumbest. Over 100 million sets of the game have been sold in 121 countries, in 29 different languages, according to everyone’s favorite source. What a cash cow. …

But all good things must come to an end, which is bad news for Scrabulous fans, and even worse for the [Scrabulous creators]: Hasbro’s trying to shut the site down. “They sent a notice to Facebook about two weeks ago,” Jayant confirmed to me. “The lawyers are working on it.” …

As a tech writer and life-long student of what passes for Internet economics, I’m baffled. Is Hasbro just a stupid Potato Head? Or is this a brilliant game of Stratego?

Jayant, of course, is part of the duo that created Scrabulous, along with his brother Rajat Agarwalla. They were just two rabid Scrabble fans who used to play on Quadplex until it started charging its users. “I’m not sure why Hasbro actually picked on this” Jayant added as he pointed out all the other free online Scrabble clones out there (like gazillions!).

“Because, dude, you’re the best,” added Quittner. Dawww.

These two brothers first built a site called Scrabulous in 2006 that earned about 600,000 registered users in a year. So when Facebook opened up its platform, the brothers launched their Facebook app in June 2007. Six months later, they earned about 2.3 million users. Holy Scrabble Batman! It’s currently the most popular Facebook game out there too (check it out under the “Most Active Users” tab).

So an obvious thought for most people in the web industry is: Why doesn’t Hasbro just purchase the Scrabulous Facebook app? Perhaps they are… “We’re trying to work out some kind of deal,” Jayant added. TechCrunch also picked up this story (“Hasbro Tries To Shut Down Scrabulous“) and one commenter suggested that “just acquiring the app might be cheaper (AND strategically [more] meaningful) than throwing their lawyers at this.”

What would Scrabulous be worth if it was for sale? Jayant said it makes “over $25,000 a month.” Adonomics, an open analytics and advertising platform for Facebook, values Scrabulous at just under $3M. Hmmm.

So say Hasbro purchased Scrabulous. They’d get a major presence on Facebook, some marketing exposure (especially among Facebook users) and a new revenue stream—though it would be a tiny one, compared to their other profit makers, like Cranium or Monopoly.

And what’s the potential downside for them? As another TechCrunch commenter wrote, “Sure, buying them would be an option, but then in some ways you’re rewarding people for stealing trademarks and brand names.” That would certainly set a precedent in the industry for other potential copycats hoping to score big by selling out. Hasbro may not even have the operational capacity or knowledge to support Facebook apps either. They have their Flash-based Monkeybar TV HasbroGames, but it may not have been built in-house. Also, perhaps they simply doesn’t see the gains in marketing and revenue worth the risks of buying Scrabulous.

Being Scrabuholic that I am really makes me hope they don’t shut down Scrabulous. Though if they did, they’d free me of my addiction and give me back oodles of free time. But then, I wouldn’t have Scrabulous. And that would make me a sad panda.

Friend Groups within Social Networks

Six Degrees of Separation Graph There’s been some chit-chat in the blogosphere about how online social networks have “built-in self-destructs.” This was started when InformationWeek columnist Cory Doctorow wrote the article “How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook“. In it, he coined the term, boyd’s Law (which is sort of a homage to danah boyd, a PhD student most known for her research on social networks):

Adding more users to a social network increases the probability that it will put you in an awkward social circumstance.

This is best explained by an example cited by Doctorow, and taken from one of danah’s articles:

A young woman, an elementary school teacher, joins Friendster after some of her Burning Man buddies send her an invite. All is well until her students sign up and notice that all the friends in her profile are sunburnt, drug-addled techno-pagans whose own profiles are adorned with digital photos of their painted genitals flapping over the Playa.

What Doctorow doesn’t cite (or maybe not realize?) is that there’s an easy solution to this. Online social networks need to add the ability to create groups of friends, then allow each group different viewing permissions of the information in your profile. For example, your Coworkers Group sees only your work information and professional associations, your Family Group sees only your family photos and family-oriented blog entries, and your S&M Group sees only your naughty photos and dominatrix blog entries.

So why haven’t online social networks implemented this yet? Technically, can be extremely complex. What they’d need to do is give every single piece of content multiple levels of permissions. That particular photo of your cats may allow “anyone” while that blog entry about your vacation allows both your “Coworkers” and “Family.” It’s not impossible to build, just highly complex. I know because I’ve worked with a team who tried to implement these features.

Some existing social networks already have the beginnings of friend groups and varying viewing permissions too. Let’s take a look:

Social Network Friend Group Features
Facebook Can create a Limited Profile for friends who aren’t really friends. Can limit pieces of profile info to be viewable only by certain networks. Can’t limit views of photos.
MySpace Can limit blog posts to friends or a preferred list. Can’t limit views of profile or photos.
Friendster Can password-protect your blog (for a fee). Can’t limit views of profile or photos.
Bebo Can limit some portions of profile info to direct friends. Can’t limit views of other some portions of profile, photos, and blog.
Yahoo! 360 Can limit pieces of profile info and entire blog to be viewable only by degrees of friends. Can’t limit views of photos.
Orkut Can limit pieces of profile info to be viewable only by degrees of friends. Can create friend groups, but doesn’t allow permissions to be set for them. Can’t limit views of photos.

I’ve heard the idea of friend groups with varying levels of viewing permissions many, many times, since the early days of Friendster. So these social networks are no doubt aware of it. Perhaps it just hasn’t ranked very high on their priority list yet, or perhaps they’ve been building it, but, because of its complexity, it’s not ready for deployment yet. Either way, I wonder who’s going to be the first to implement it; it sure is a highly-sought after feature!

Biz Idea: Money-Making Facebook Apps

Facebook I was thinking about Facebook applications the other day. These new apps are kinda fun and getting a lot of buzz. But can you make money off of them, I wondered? Hmmm.

Here are a few that I think could actually generate money.

  • Fantasy Sports

    Since Facebook doesn’t allow sports bookings or gambling in any form, the business model here would be subscription-based, much like what most fantasy sports sites offer right now. CBS SportsLine Fantasy Sports is one such app.

  • For Sale Lists

    Commerce is always a good way to make money. If you have something to sell, perhaps someone on Facebook will be willing to buy it. Ebay To Go and Garage Sale are two such apps.

  • Freelance Services

    Customers don’t only buy products; they buy services as well. If you have desirable skills, why not offer them? No such apps yet exist, though I’m sure a company like Elance, oDesk, or DoMyStuff.com could offer this soon (wink wink).

What other Facebook apps do you think could make money?

I Tag You, You Tag Me, We’re A Happy Family

MyBlogLog This is cool. Yahoo!’s (YHOO) MyBlogLog just launched a new feature: tagging.

If you’ve read all the press, you know by now how the idea fermented (Yahoo! Research Berkeley, Cameron Marlow, Tagsona – hmm someone’s already taken the domain name).

This is cool because tagging people is a whole lot of fun. As a taggee, you get to find out how friends and colleagues view you (apparently I have madskillz and am an all-around good guy! Cool!). As a tagger, you get to label your friends and colleagues by how you see them. Then there’s the whole organizational utility of tagging. Plus the inside jokes that suddenly get surfaced.

MyBlogLog’s open social network is also another benefit. You don’t have to create a profile in a walled garden like Facebook or MySpace (NWS); you can use any ole’ blog, created on any ole’ blogging tool, and use that as your profile or online identity, so to speak. (Not to say that Facebook or MySpace don’t have their benefits too.) MyBlogLog also differentiates a blog owner from a blog, thereby giving you an online identity that can be tagged.

Which makes me wonder… why don’t traditional social networks like Facebook and MySpace have profile tagging? Hmmm.

There are gotchas though. Surfacing inside jokes that may be misinterpreted by other people could be a gotcha. Unscrupulous people tagging nefariously without abandon could also be a gotcha. But the folks at MyBlogLog realize this and will no doubt have measures to “ungot” the gotchas.

So if you have a MyBlogLog account, tag me! Go on, do it! I’ll tag you back (ooo reciprocal tagging, there’s another interesting behavior).