It has been an interesting and enjoyable experience moderating an interesting panel for the Facebook Developer Garage II: Face Two event in Singapore. A collection of live blogs and photos can be found here. To conclude from my last post, I will post some of the interesting lessons which arise from the panel discussion with Leonard Lin (managing partner, Tyler Projects), Andrew Wee (Internet Marketer) and Kien Lee (founder, SENATUS). Two things I do want to say, is that the Singapore PHP User Group and Garag3 (E27) have done a great job in making the event (even though flyers came like a week before the event) and also kudos to Chris Ismael to helping us to host the event in Microsoft. (Updated with the video of the panel in this post)
- On Online Advertising as a form of Monetization: Andrew Wee and Leonard Lin laid out pretty clear strategies of online advertising via the pay per click, impression or action. One interesting issue is that Andrew talks about geographical localization of an ad. It would be better if the online advertisements are more specific to the US and Canada, given that there is a propensity of users clicking through them. A member of the audience asked the question about China and India, and both Andrew and I have raised the issue of click fraud occurring from these countries, and may not serve well for those who intends to use online advertising as a form of monetization. Similarly, given Leonard's experience with BattleStations, where they are planning to sell virtual gifts and perhaps weapons that translate with real cash. Another interesting point is the Report Abuse App by Kien Lee, that allow users to report apps that conducts force invitation for 20 users. The other example which came out is how the fun wall is abused to force users to re-add the app and that increases the activity of the app and also does the function of forwarding spam to the other users.
- Kien Lee's Hot Chick Theory: The key to make an application work is to place the right seeds at the right places will push the message out quickly. For a successful viral campaign, the approach is to identify the important people or champions and they will evangelise and push the crowd to you. He related an interesting point that it is no use to send to five friends who just see it the first time and do nothing. Actually, although how to identify such people are not discussed, I will just add using the tipping point analogy: find the connector. You need to find the connector who you know has a key influence over a group or community. The connector can be a person or a community promoting and advocating a certain cause.
- Readiness of the App before Launch and Clone Wars: Before you announce your app in the Facebook Developers' forum, please make sure that your app is fully done and has user traction. Otherwise, someone will clone your idea and take the shameless stance to clone and claim that he or she has done a better app (a duplicate of yours) than you do. The same lesson I believe that internet entrepreneurs out there need to abide: an idea is useless, an beta (or alpha) suffices. Kien Lee made a very good point to the audience that they should learn to learn from the more successful apps (those that has high traction and viral capability) and devise different strategies to push their apps out.
- Is it good to use Facebook to direct traffic to an outside portal? This question is interesting because it drew two different answers from two panelists. Kien Lee argues that the Facebook users tend to stay within facebook based on the way how they interacted within the social network, while Leonard explores the scenario using his app to draw players out to their main site.
- Open Social needs to incorporate PHP to be part of their solution: Somebody brought up the question of Open Social. All the panelists agree that it will take some time for Open Social to morph to a form where developers would start working on it. More importantly, an interesting point that Open Social needs to incorporate PHP as part of the solution.
- Where is the next online social platform to go after Facebook?: Friendster and MySpace seems to be the candidates coming from Kien Lee and Leonard respectively. One interesting mention is that they agree that MySpace users tend to be more tech savvy and sophisticated. A good advice is to identify the correct group of customers. For example, Friendster appeals to an older age group than Facebook. Of course, the point is that everyone is agnostic about picking online social networks to plug in their apps.
I thought the post discussion after the panel is interesting. Kien Lee showed me his latest Grand Phix app and I was impressed by the design and the interface which it interacts. I also recall Kien Lee shared his thoughts about apps like "What heroes ability are you" that it is usually the female users who have the tendency to keep inviting people to add this type of app.
Related Links:
- Live-blogging about the panel from Chin Yong and Nicole.
- For the podcast of the event, you can hear what transpired in the panel in Andrew Wee's site.
You can watch the video here, and it is also in Singapore PHP User Group blog.
Pictures on the Panel (credited to Willy, the photographer for the event): (i) The picture depicted the panelists and myself having a pre-discussion about what we are going to talk in the panel, (ii) an interesting angle of the panel on the stage from the camera and (iii) From the left, Leonard Lin, Andrew Wee, myself (Bernard Leong) and Kien Lee after the panel discussion.
Comments