Yoni Avital - Blog

Long Tail of Facebook apps

According to great post by Tim O'Reilly, 87% of the usage of facebook applications goto only 84  applications, which means that out of 5000  apps only 84 have more than 100,00 active users.

Facebook: The New "Tamagotchi" Relationship Phenomena

Social networking sites are becoming increasingly popular as they allow users to easily share content, connect to old friends, and add new friends to a personal network. Users feel socially active - for some avid members maintaining a virtual life on the web is almost a part-time job. But is it really the social life we want? 

In 1996, Aki Maita created the “Tamagotchi”, a virtual pet. You could “feed” it, check on its “status”, and even find out how it “feels”. The purpose was to create a relationship with a virtual device, which would make users feel as if they had a pet without actually having one. The buzz around it was great, as people got excited over the idea of caring for an “easy” pet, one that you can take for a “number two” without having to physically take it out for a walk. It was a huge success, but not for long.

A similar phenomenon began ten years later with Facebook. Millions of people got addicted to updating their mini-feeds, adding friends, adding applications and “poking” old friends. Maintaining virtual networks is exhausting and time consuming, and one can feel like it’s real networking. But how efficient are those sites in helping to connect people in real life? Can anyone say that your extended friends on Facebook are all people who will order you a drink at the bar? Or will there more likely be a virtual “martini gift” on Facebook?  So it will just be another great platform to replace emails and IM.

Although the benefits of virtual relationships can be argued (you might have 500 friends, get 50 virtual gifts and 11 pokes per day), the question is whether or not they could lead to an experience in real life or extend your network of real friends.

Another issue is reliability. One of the main problems with online networking is that there is no way to determine whether a user is interested in getting connected or is interested in selling you something. It is a fact that many event promoters, groups, bogglers, and service owners want to reach out to as many people as they can for free. Their interest in joining your social network is to market their services, rather than to socialize over the weekend.

Even though virtual networking is a phenomenon that continues to grow, I believe that the effort to maintain it coupled with its limited benefits will make it difficult for virtual networking to survive. It is no surprise, then, that many users are now abandoning the sites that promote web-based friends (the human “Tamagotchi” relationship) and are looking for more productive sites that will answer their real, social needs. At the end of the day, that should be the purpose of any good social site: to connect and to make real friends in real life.

 

MatchActivity is now wannago.com

Thanks for all of your support! We have officially change the name of our site to
Wannago.com. So now on log on Wannago.com to find events/things to do and to find
people to join you. 

As a courtesy we are giving you an invitation with full access to Join Wannago.com
If you are already a member share it with your friends...

What do you think on the new name?

Reality Check - by Guy Kawasaki

So, it is Saturday night and I am checking out how well we performed on Guy Kawaski’s -“Reality check” blog posting, about the concept behind MatchActivity. I surfed a bit through some older postings on his site; for the most part, to get a better sense of what to expect from Guy’s readers.After checking the stats, I was pleased to see that we got quite a good response, over 75% Said that they really liked MatchActivity.
   

Free PR is always a good thing

It is great news to hear that your company's service or product was pitched successfully to any TV station for a segment that is more than just few seconds; but it's even better to realize that without having the money to spend for any PR effort there is a small chance that someone will find you.

MatchActivity's segement is on NBC... see below

Can Innovative Coasters Stimulate People’s Approachability in Bars?

This unique marketing initiative was created by MatchActivity team and started as a just branding gimmick but become an unexpected social phenomenon hit in various bars in Los Angeles.  At some of the trendiest bars in LA, people who are sitting on the bar flipping the coasters to signal their desire to socialize or not when they return either from the rest room or a smoke. One side of the coaster is red and reads, “This seat is taken/(so am I).”  The other side is green and reads, “This seat is taken/I, on the other hand…” People in bars seemed very amused by the very different coaster.

I really like it since it’s very much in keeping with MatchActivity.com’s mission to help people meet more easily.

At this time I would like to say thank you to the Seat Saver’s inventors (ET and Danny)  and for the great design made by Netcraft (Uzi and his team).