Thank you for subscribing to the jam-packed sixth issue of Fresh Insights (delivered 4 July 2011, subscribe to get it fresh). This week we look at Google+, face recognition on Facebook, Zynga's IPO and the true cost of domain names.
Domains Ain't Cheap
Domain names are big business. Your ISP's monthly cap is a loss leader for hosting services with 500% mark-ups. They gave you a generic email address to sell you a nicer .CO.ZA domain for R300+, but what do domains really cost?
The True Cost of New Domains
- .CO.ZA = R50 p.a.
- .COM ~ $10 p.a. (cheaper in bulk)
- .CO ~ $25 p.a.
- .NET ~ $10 p.a.
Not bad, right? Except manually registering a .CO.ZA domain and setting up nameservers is worse than choking on hair. So you pay for admin, but choosing a great name is still the hard part.
Good .COMs go for $25k+ and the price will only go up. Now that gTLDs have been approved, I would wait for the other TLDs to decline before making any big offers on .COs or .MOBIs.
Headlines
Zynga Files $1bn IPO
As expected, Farmville-maker Zynga filed their S-1 on Friday to ride on Facebook's $100bn IPO planned for May 2012. With $995 million in cash on-hand, their financials are solid, unlike those of Groupon's floundering massage-parlour.
MySpace Sells for $35m
News Corp. lost $545m in the sale of MySpace to Specific Media, not four years since its $12bn valuation in 2007. Justin Timberlake's minority stake in the defunct social network is the only juicy part of this dead horse.
Facebook Face Recognition
Facebook now uses a face recognition algorithm to suggest tagging friends in photos, a feature it announced six months ago. Some call it creepy; I call it awesome, but given a history of privacy missteps, Facebook may have taken opt-out too far.
Google+ Facebook Competitor
Google learned from Buzz and carefully parted the veil on its privacy-focused social network, Google+, to near unanimous praise. The best feature is Circles, which Facebook engineers have already copied, along with every other startup.
G+ is a serious threat to Facebook's peaking dominance. Mostly because of GMail, the biggest dormant social network that knows who you're really in touch with.
Now that Google owns a mobile OS, a browser and a social network, your mom won't have a choice not to use it. How will Apple react? Do you think Facebook will buy RockMelt to compete?
Stay Tuned
Next Monday we look at the role of nameservers and speculate on Apple's search engine.
Apple Fans Rejoice
A brand new iFix storefront just opened at a sick location in Cape Town. Tell Simon I sent ya' and demand a free beer.
Developers
If you read this far, you should follow me on Twitter and forward this to someone smart.
Best
Petrus
freshcode.co
@FreshCode