MySpace v. Facebook: “It’s Not A Decision. It’s an IQ Test”

Venture capitalist Josh Kopelman rips into MySpace today as he applauds Facebook’s new developer platform.

Facebook’s timing is perfect. They just released an API that gives third party developers deep access to Facebook functionality and it’s 20 million users. Not only can these third party startups get a widget placed on people’s Facebook profiles, but they can also get viral distribution through users’ news feeds and access core Facebook features. Using the tools that Facebook made available, developers could build new versions of some of Facebook’s own applications, like Facebook Photos. Users can then remove those default applications and add the new ones. Like Microsoft with Windows, Facebook is now competing with application developers on its own platform.

This isn’t all just talk, either. The most popular third party application, iLike, has nearly 400,000 users just a couple of days after launching and 10x what they had just last Friday. That means nearly 5% of Facebook’s users have now included it on their profile.

Kopelman’s post looks at the new reality from the perspective of a startup. MySpace is a minefield - startups want access to their users but suffer from the very real possibility of being banned, either temporarily or permanently.

Facebook is viewing things from exactly the opposite position: they are giving startups access to Facebook’s core feature set, and allowing them to show advertising and conduct transactions with users without even asking for a cut. This is exactly why I called Facebook the Anti-MySpace last week. Kopelman goes on to say:

Think about it. If you ran a venture-backed company and had to decide whether you wanted to focus your effort on: (a) a property that welcomed you in and let you keep 100% of the revenue you generate or (b) a company with a vague policy that doesn’t let you generate any revenue, which would you choose? I don’t think it’s even a decision. It’s an IQ test.

Kopelman estimates that $250 million has been invested in widget companies in the last 18 months. When these startups think about where to spend their resources, they’ll be weighing MySpace’s relative size advantage (MySpace has 100 million users, growing by 300,000 or so per day. Facebook has 20 million users, growing by 100,000 per day) to the open and transparent nature of Facebook’s approach. On balance I agree with Kopelman. Startups can build a very large business on the back of Facebook. The MySpace path is much riskier.

DRM-free iTunes set this week?

Apple is prepared to launch its DRM-free catalog of music from EMI this week, according to French sources familiar with negotiations for multiple online music stores. The seeming delay for introducing the new tier of content has been primarily attributed to a desire to offer the entire catalog at once in the unprotected format rather than a gradual rollout. The companies' technicians are simply in the later stages of encoding and hosting the files before they go live, the contact says.

Apple's terms will require that whole albums be offered as a second tier of 256Kbps AAC files without the iTunes-only FairPlay copy protection scheme, necessitating that the company revisit existing master copies on an individual basis. The iTunes Store itself was not described as an issue with the upgrade.

Legal issues may also have contributed to the relatively late debut, with Apple and EMI having reportedly signed a final deal only last week following negotiations of similar contracts with both the just-announced Amazon store and Europe's VirginMega service. Both Apple and EMI are nevertheless hoping to "ideally" have the change implemented before the end of the month, the report says. Whether or not this will meet Apple's regular Tuesday update schedule is currently unknown.

Firefox keyboard shortcut to retrieve closed tabs

I can’t count the number of times I have been closing windows or tabs and have accidentally a tab that I wanted kept open. In the past, it has been annoying at best and disastrous at worst, but now I no longer have any issues… why you may ask? Because I know a keyboard shortcut that is perhaps amongst the most useful in Firefox… Command-Shift-T . Yes that’s all you need, the next time you accidentally close a tab and you want it back, simply hit Command-Shift-T and the tab will magically reappear again! Now that you know it, try to live without it.