The CEO Game

On Facebook’s new move which just might change the Web as we know it.

Facebook wants it all: the popular social network is expanding and seeks to take over the Web. As the first day of Facebook’s annual “f8″ developers conference got underway this Wednesday in San Francisco, Facebook revealed its plans to take over the entire Internet. The means: integrating its social networking service into all websites and deepening the connection between the Web itself to its users. In short: Facebook will be wherever you look, whenever you look. A revolution?

Puts people at the center

After making an entrance which is reserved only for rock stars, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg got down to the business of explaining what their plans are all about. He then rolled out a bunch of changes that are all apart of an “unavoidable evolution” in people’s interactions, activities, events and interests all folded into their online identities who follow them all across the Web.

The crown jewel of the new Facebook platform is what Zuckerberg likes to call the “Open Graph”, “the most transformative thing we’ve ever done for the Web”, according to him. “Today, the Web exists as a series of unstructured links between pages,” said Zuckerberg, whose social network boasts more than 400 million users around the world. “The open graph puts people at the center of the Web”.

The concept, is basically to map out user behavior across various corners of the Internet. He explained that this can be achieved by using information gathered from a user’s general online behavior. Thus creating “a smarter, personalized Web that gets better with every action taken”.

He then gave the example of a Facebook user who clicks on a news story in CNN and then automatically sees which of their friends liked that piece. In addition, a Facebook member could visit Pandora (an online radio station) or ESPN online and instantly share “likes” or “dislikes” about the song being played or game news with their friends in Facebook. “Pandora will start playing music from bands you have liked all across the Web,” Zuckerberg said. It’s a revolution in the way we experience the Web, everything is interlinked and any page can become a de facto Facebook page.

Moreover, Facebook vice president of engineering Mike Schroepfer believes the move could turn websites into digital age versions of “Cheers”, the old TV comedy show set in a bar where everyone knows each other. “It’s like Cheers, the bar where everyone knows your name,” Schroepfer announced.”People can have instantly social and personalized experiences everywhere they go”, Zuckerberg added.

Facebook’s move is a strike at their competitors (like Web searching giant Google) who constantly fight for people’s attention and advertising bucks. Zuckerberg said that Facebook seeks to benefit by strengthening bonds people have to the social networking service. “The more people use Facebook the stronger the bond”, he added.

Finally, the new tools have one downside- they could mean less and less people will visit the Facebook site itself. “How do we create a world where when we show up anywhere our friends are there?” Facebook vice president Chris Cox asked rhetorically. “Our answer is an open platform and to give these tools to developers”. A one which just might change the Web as we know it.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game

What’s all the fuzz about?  Now that Google’s Buzz has struck root in our Gmail and after some few days of everybody playing around with it and publishing nearly 10 million items, its advantages, weak-points and bugs are become more and more apparent. The truth, we are kind of mixed up here at theceogame.com so we decided to go and check out what others think about the Buzz.

What's all the fuzz about?

Here are some opinions we gathered from users who already made up their mind about Google Buzz:

• Google CEO must apologize: “Whoever made the decision to make all our contacts visible to all other contacts in Google Inc. should apologize profusely, because that person doesn’t have a clue about what privacy means. If the person, even if it is the CEO, doesn’t apologize, he/she should be fired.”
• Excellent work Google: “Who would have thought it’d be possible to juxtapose Google and Microsoft for the roles of “evil corporate entity” and “solid technological concern!” Wow, you out evil’ed MS just as they started getting their shit together and are bringing competitive tools to the table. Fantastic!”
• Like having a really terrible day- every day: “Facebook is you stepping out to greet the day with shoes, socks, pants, a full tummy, some coffee and a shower. Buzz is you being dragged effing directly out of bed and onto the front porch naked at 5am.”
• Force-fed features are a NO-GO: “I did not want. I immediately scrolled to the bottom to turn it off. It of course it re-loaded the next time. I am REALLY mad about the privacy issue.”
• Breach of trust: “I am a lawyer. The names of clients, witnesses, investigators, and expert witnesses are all confidential, and Google just breached the trust that my clients have in me to keep ALL of their information confidential. I signed up for email. Not social networking. We can no longer trust Google. They do not appreciate our privacy. Lawyers must immediately cease using Google provided services since they breach our client’s privacy.”
• What happened to Wave: “What happened to Google Wave, a seemingly far superior service, one that could actually change the way we socially network and not merely augment e-mail with broadcasting? Wave is way better- more private, more content, better interface. Why they forced Buzz on people but have kept Wave in sem-private beta is beyond me.”

In conclusion, although Google’s shot at creating a social network seems like a bright idea, many users have already turned away from the service. The most recurring comments talk about a breach of trust or how Google simply did what it preached against all along.

So if you have been Buzzed, and want to share as well like these guys did on the web, please tell us how it made you feel, whether you liked or disliked it, whether you found some bugs or just made a revelation about the service that everybody has got to know.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Following our latest article on Brazil, Brazil Only Second to the US, in which we discussed just how Brazil has become the leading and biggest economy in South America, The CEO Game moves the focus to the Brazilian communications and the possible effects of the 2016 Olympic games to be held in Rio de Janeiro, on them.

Brazilians are the world's surf champions.

Beside being well famous for their wave surfing skills, the Brazilian people are also the world’s record holders of web surfing. Why are we telling you this? Good question. The answer is that Brazil is booming in terms of communication, everywhere you look around there are investors who are bringing in big bucks. Take GVT’s acquisition for instance, GVT is a communications company operating in Brazil, which was bought last month for 4.2$ millions. Big bucks indeed. Their success is protruded by the country’s status ten years ago, when vast areas of Brazil lacked telephony infrastructure like the rain forests and the Amazonas.

Until a couple of years ago, the situation in the big cities resembled the one of a developing country in the 70’s: the citizens would have to wait for years in order to get a phone line in home and would suffer from poor and sluggish services. Today, Brazil has got 140 million mobile users, 40 million registered phone lines and more than 10 million broadband Internet users.

Considering the fact that 192 million people live in Brazil, these three “quotes” are still far from fulfilling their potential. In the field of mobile phones, the most satiated field of all three, 80% of the users- most of them belonging to the low class, do it by a prepaid card. If Brazil continues to grow, it is obvious that the number of users who pay monthly to the cellular companies will rise. In the end of the 90’s, the government had decided to expand the wired communications infrastructure in the country by increasing the competition.

Therefore, Brazil began creating “mirror auctions“, which allowed private companies to found all across Brazil, rival phone companies that will compete with the big government’s companies which ruled over all the place. “The transition that Brazil has made in the field of telecommunications, goes hand in hand with the vast changes the country is going through in the last decade”, explains the CEO of the aforementioned GVT. “What happened in GVT- couldn’t happen in a different developing country- the rise in the life quality of entire demographic layers, created a huge demand and market, which is growing on a daily basis” he added.

One of the reasons for the competitiveness in the field is the very existence of a strong and independent regulator. This regulator answers to the name of Anatel and is composed from 5 officials that where appointed by the Brazilian congress and cannot be fired. Sweet working conditions. “A strong regulator can make decisions that don’t serve the companies’ interests and no communications company can stand in the way“, the CEO says. The Brazilians are notorious for being web addicts, like mentioned above they lead in the number of surfing hours per person. Yet, only 10 million citizens are surfing via a broadband connection and even in the main cities it is sometimes hard to find wireless networks.

They surf by using a regular phone line. This antique method of surfing, has a different tariff from a regular phone call and in the weekends and nights the prices are real low. The Brazilians simply prefer this because the price for a broadband connection is 30$ a month. Many companies earn millions of dollars just from the customers who use the phone line in order to surf the web.

The Olympics and the World Cup soccer games are expected to give a huge bolster to the broadband connection. In fact, the government has initiated a new national project its goal- in the year 2014 some 90% of the population will have a broadband connection (hurray). The project is just another step for the telecommunication market in Brazil.

In conclusion, as far as the Brazilian communications go, there is still a huge potential. After the mobile phones and Internet bandwidth, the next profitable area will be cable TV. Because of legal problems, there is only a small infiltration of cable TV in Brazil. In spite of it, there are signs that things are starting to change and there is a big chance for profits.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.