Techcrunch and Marshall Kirkpatrick reported yesterday on the new API that is being rolled out in Facebook. A section has been set aside for new apps that can be inserted into a Facebook user’s profile. What’s really interesting is that Project Agape is mentioned in the list of organizations that are being rolled out on the new Facebook platform. I haven’t heard much about Project Agape but this is a huge competitive advantage for them if it works the way I think it will work. Project Agape is theoretically capable of leveraging the entire Facebook community into donating to charity and it’s currently the only nonprofit-oriented project in this space. As a result, they have a several month advantage plus this integration will be embedded into their corporate DNA so to speak.
I’ve only just joined Facebook recently and I’m definitely sold on it as much as I’m sold on LinkedIn. However, the addition of a Facebook API that allows for the insertion of your own content into a user’s profile is pretty damn smart. I await the first Salesforce.com + Facebook mashups. Let me give you my take on what that mashup would look like.
There’s already a Ruby library for Facebook called RFacebook that’s been released as a Ruby gem. However, RFacebook doesn’t have the new 2.0 method calls in it because the new Facebook API hasn’t quite been published. However, the old new API is still alive and kicking so it’s worth it to take a look at it and understand it for future work. And yeah, it looks like you can add the developer app as an app in Facebook — very slick.
So here’s the future (less than six months) scenario:
You build a new Facebook App called “My Nonprofit’s Next Walk-A-Thon!”. You create sign-up forms within Facebook for your organization’s latest activity or event. You’d then use RFacebook to pull the data out of the Facebook profile for your user and then you use ActiveSFDC to sync that data with your Salesforce.com records. That’s right, you can leverage one of the biggest social networks for your nonprofit’s events just like Project Agape. Sorry Convio and Kintera users, you’re out of luck with this being done for you in a programmatic way. That can’t happen until Convio and Kintera publish a read-write API for their respective platforms. You can still do this via manual import though.
Update (6/20/2007): I just did a an interview with Joe Green and Chris Chan of Project Agape. It looks like it’s going to be difficult for your average nonprofit to set up a Facebook app especially if that app goes viral.
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It’s time for Face Book to Pay Up.
The End of the Plantation system.
I would like to help a bit in bringing about a new era on the Internet. We can call it web 3.0, or 2.5. I will leave the definition to others that are better at this kind of thing.
This will be the era of a true revolution in the power of site members. An era where members have the power and the ability to be rewarded monetarily for the value that they add and the revenues that are generated from their work and participation.
The recent announcements by Face Book that they are going to be the next OS, or the next platform, or the next goggle, reeks of egotism and self indulgence as well as a master slave mentality. In the bravado of the announcements that spewed forth from the reality distorted world of Face Book what was left out was the untold fact that Face Book would have little or no value if it were not for it’s 25 million members.
The hard fact and truth of the matter is that Face Book makes hundreds of millions of dollars off of the backs of its 25 million members and has no plans to share the true wealth (money) of the revenue they generate with them.
Does Mr.Zuckerberg or anyone at Face Book believe that they add more value to Face Book than the 25 million members ?
If the answer is no then the revenue generated and the value added to Face Book should be shared monetarily with the members that have have generated the revenue and added the value. Without the members Face Book would have little or no Value.
We now live in a technical age where a close to approximate monetary value can be assigned to the value and revenue that Facebook members add to the company. This fact can no longer be hidden, it can be found and it should be known by all of the members that generate the wealth and revenue.
Why cant we see a graph on Face Book that discloses to the members the amount of revenue that is generated from them in terms of revenue generating partnership deals and advertising ?
Why cant Facebook give an equitable portion of its ad revenue directly to its 25 million members ?
Of the revenue that Face Book generates, as a percentage how much is given back to its 25 million members in a monetary form ?
The advertising revenue that is generated by Face Book come from the actions of the 25 Million members, not the Face Book staff, so the members should receive the lions share of the revenue
How much stock in the company do the 25 million members that generate hundreds of millions of dollars for Face Book own. Because the 25 million members generate most if not all of the revenue and value for Face Book, shouldn’t they all be stock owners ?
As a group the 25 million members add value to the company and generate revenue, as a group they should own stock in proportion to the vaue that the add and the revenue that they generate.
How much is Microsoft paying Face book for the rights to serve ads to Face Book members? Since the value of the ad deal is probably based on the amount of members that face books has, it would make sense that the members should be given a share of the money that Microsoft has paid to Face Book for the rights to serve the ads. Mr Zuckerberg and the rest of the Face Book team should give the 25 million members the money they deserve for the value that they add to Face Book.
If yahoo would have acquired face book for one billion dollar, would any of this money be given to the 25 million members that have given Face Book the one billion dollar valuation ?
For a one billion dollar acquisition that is by and large based on membership size as well as advertising revenue generated by the members; it seems that giving each of the 25 million members 1 million dollars would be an almost equatable reward for their participation.
There is little difference between how Face Book treats its members and the share cropping schemes that were used to generate wealth for rich land owners on the backs of poor people and slaves. At least in the old share cropping schemes the works received a small portion of revenue, in the current situation members receive none of the revenue from the content that they create. Face Book and other sites that do not share the revenue and wealth that members create for them do not understand that the times have changed and the plantation game will no longer work. Now members have the ability to leave the plantation and to either create their own communities or to become members of communities that will pay them an equitable portion of the revenue and value that they create. This is one of the key revolutions of technology. There are no barriers to owning the means of production. Members are the means of productions, and are the value add. The pyramid that had members who are content creators and add value on the bottom has now been turned upside down. Unlike slaves that could not break free of the wealthy plantation owners bonds, members now have the ability to demand their equitable share and if they are not given it they can leave without retribution.
It is time that members demand to be equitably rewarded (in the form of money) for the revenue and value that they generate.The 25 million Face Book members as a group should demanded to become stock holders and to be given a part of the revenue that they generate from advertisement clicks as well as a portion of the revenue that is generated from partnership deals based on their action and their numbers . If the members do make this demand and they are not rewarded in an equitable manner they should leave Face Book and any other site that will not reward equitably for the value and revenue that they generate.
From Wikipedia
“Sharecropping typically involves a relatively richer owner of the land and a poorer agricultural worker or farmer; although the reverse relationship, in which a poor landlord leases out to a rich tenant[2] also exists. The typical form of sharecropping is generally seen as exploitative, particularly with large holdings of land where there is evident disparity of wealth between the parties.[attribution needed] It can have more than a passing similarity to serfdom or indenture, and it has therefore been seen as an issue of land reform in contexts such as the Mexican Revolution. (Sharecropping is distinguished from serfdom in that sharecroppers have freedom in their private lives and, at least in theory, freedom to leave the land; and distinguished from indenture in sharecroppers[][]entitlement to a share of production and, at least in theory, freedom to delegate the work to others.) Sharecropping is often described as a never ending cycle of debt.
Sharecropping agreements can however be made fairly,[attribution needed] as a form of tenant farming or sharefarming that has a variable rental payment, paid in arrears. There are three different types of contracts.
1. Workers can rent plots of land from the owner for a certain sum and keep the whole crop.
2. Workers work on the land and earn a fixed wage from the land owner but keep none of the crop.
3. Workers can neither work for nor get paid from the land owner, so the worker and land owner each keep a share of the crop.
There are three different types of tenant farming. According to A. Alkalimat, renters who were to hire land for a fixed rental to be paid either in cash or its equivalent in crop values; share tenants, who furnish their own farm equipment and work animals and obtain use of land by agreeing to pay a fixed percent of the cash crop which they raise; share-croppers who have to have furnished to them not only the land but also farm tools and animals, fertilizer, and often even their own food, which they had to pay back with a larger percentage than shared tenants. Tenant farming was a way in which to keep African Americans and other poor groups under control but make them feel like they had some importance. Though many blacks participated in tenant farming they still were looked at and labeled as the lower class.
Because of the high rate of illiteracy among blacks at the time, they were often taken advantage of. Poor, illiterate and intimidated by post Civil War violence, many former slaves agreed to sharecropping contracts that were designed to keep them poor [PBS]. Eventually this exploitation led to violence. Courts would usually rule in favor of landowners when these incidents were brought to court.
While I share many of your concerns, I would say that the difference between sharecropping and social network participation is that you can opt out. And people have and done that if the community gets awfully abused - such as the one disintegrating over at JPG Magazine.
I think monetization through an open API is actually yet another approach for social networks to get sticky — I’m too cynical to think that it’s for anyone’s good but the owners of the social network. That’s why I find it funny when people refuse to do the open platform thing. It’s really just another way to make money. Right now, open platform and open API strategies are not about sticking it to the Man, they’re about making the Man everpresent in your daily life.
Project Agape + Facebook = ??? - Non-Profit Tech Blog…
This is an early post about Project Agape and Facebook. I’ll be making a more full evaluation of the Causes app on Facebook very soon over at http://www.nonprofittechblog.org….