As a Facebook Application Development Firm, Lonely CEO Media is able to address the real question behind Open Social (a multi-site initiative to create a unified platform)- will it siphon developers from Facebook Platform? Will it change the competitive landscape in Social Networking?
The short answer? Maybe. But there’s a lot of reasons it won’t change [...]

Even as a Facebook cheerleader, we think not enough sites are giving Facebook a hard time about the true portability of its users.
50 Million active is still a low number worldwide, which means that any all-web network will have a tough time reaching enough customers to be viable. Believe it or not, TechCrunch does the [...]

Hulu, the new joint internet video venture by News Corp and NBC Universal, has launched its beta.
The interesting question? Where’s the Facebook App?
Hulu has “partnered” with MySpace. It’s clear that while Hulu wouldn’t have a guaranteed distribution channel on Facebook, it could at least be in the field. Unless, of course, someone’s holding it back.
Is [...]

In a flurry of announcements, Facebook revealed that it has launched Facebook Platform for Mobile.
It’s a great opportunity for mobile developers- navigating technical and carrier restrictions on mobile is a serious barrier to innovation. But will it pick up on Platform?
The team at Lonely CEO is skeptical. After all- how do most applications spread? Virally. [...]

Facebook quietly pushed out a new search bar feature: Auto-complete for Applications. Since the search bar gets high traffic, it’s a significant move. In effect, it means Applications are becoming as important as Friends.

The web has been circulating with rumors about a “significant Facebook ad initiative” to be launched November 6th. One of the supposed details is that 9 partners have kicked in 300k.
What does 300k get you on Facebook?
Two spots, highly targeted, in the newsfeed. At a high CPM. Or it gets advertisers a group.
Whether the [...]

Hope that your readers don’t know all your news happened a month before.

One of the things that people forget about “virality”- the word comes from “viruses.”
This intelligent panel is very comfortable talking about viral growth, but less open to talking about whether that growth is in the interest of users. Sure, few applications are “useful” in a business sense of the word. But most of the ones [...]

Last night, I read Inside Facebook, a book about life at the company (before it got big).
Written before Facebook sucked up Silicon Valley’s hype, and before FB Platform sucked up developers’  time, Inside Facebook is a great look into the inside of the company (if a little brief).
There’s some key points for Facebook speculators as [...]

What does it mean that MySpace is launching its own platform for applications?
Facebook will have to work harder at keeping developers.
I conducted an informal poll of the Facebook developer community a while ago. Facebook has a leg up- developers are snobs and aesthetes (and we aren’t ashamed of it). Facebook is better than MySpace. But [...]