Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

#1

Post by leemhoffman » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 3:36 PM UTC

It seems to be common belief in startup land, that if you're smart and lucky enough to build a wildly successful consumer product, by the time competitors (particularly the 800lb gorillas) copy you, your network effects, market ownership, and brand will help insulate you.

It's why, I imagine, Foursquare still exists after Facebook places, why Facebook bought Instagram, and honestly why Facebook even exists in a world of Google's and Microsofts.

But what if at the genesis of every single new product, startups began feeding real time access to their most important stats to those 800lb gorillas? What would happen? Well for a while the big guys might ignore the data and scoff at caring about some insignificant startup numbers.

But then one day one of those startups would probably become really successful. Billion dollar acquisition successful. And all of a sudden the minds that be at the 800lb gorilla would say to themselves - "Wait! Why are we waiting for companies to be big enough that we need to pay $1B dollars! Why don't we just start buying or copying products as soon as they have really high engagement and growth rates before they come close to owning the market?"

And this seems to be exactly what happened with Facebook and Poke. Facebook has acknowledged [http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/21/mark-zuckerberg-voice-of-poke/] they tried to buy Poke a little while back, and when they were rejected decided to build it. And it seems to be working - as of right now Facebook Poke is now holding the #2 spot in the app store, while snap chat is #5.

This is in no way saying Poke has won, but if i were the SnapChat team I would be concerned. In fact, I think anyone that uses the Facebook API should be. I am. The Facebook API is an amazingly useful and powerful tool, but this is an issue that needs to be discussed, and the ramifications need to be understood. Because right now Facebook clearly seems to understand them, even if we don't.

Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

#2

Post by diego » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 4:32 PM UTC

If I were to start a company today, I wouldn't touch the space of "social" with a linked list of ten-foot poles.

Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

#3

Post by kanamekun » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 4:36 PM UTC

The Apple app store rankings are public though... so couldn't anyone have seen that the app was doing well, and cloned it?

Beyond raw resources, Facebook's big advantages seem to be its well-known brand and its ability to incubate new properties. That brand won't always help though - in some cases, a focused brand will have an advantage. And a viral property could negate Facebook's distribution advantages - although perhaps that's less likely given how they've cut back on news feed distribution.

Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

#4

Post by tkahn6 » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 4:42 PM UTC

So here's something that just happened 5 minutes ago.

A girl I've been snapchatting with texted me and asked why the Poke app is just like snapchat. I asked her if it was better, and she said 'I haven't used it much, but it looks much better', and now we're using it instead of snapchat.

Pretty fascinating. She downloaded the app because they're advertising it on their mobile app.

Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

#5

Post by jinushaun » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 4:52 PM UTC

This is true of any API from a for-profit company, just look at the problems with Google Maps and Twitter. If I were making a startup today, I would not piggy back off any of these social APIs for this reason.

Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

#6

Post by dannyrosen » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 4:59 PM UTC

Before we adorn our tinfoil hats and assume that the first thing the Facebook "Biz Dev" guys look at in the morning is their API stats, maybe this is an exercise in "Empowering" internal employees to work on side projects not directly associated with their core product. It also lends for a great headline about their dev culture which in turn attracts more dev talent.

Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

#7

Post by blhack » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 5:06 PM UTC

If you are as confused by OPs talking about 800lb gorillas and soforth as I was:

Snapchat is a picture sharing application that uses facebook's API.

Poke is a competitor that facebook made.

OP is implying that facebook saw Snapchat's beginning success by seeing how many API calls they were making and then copied snapchat, instead of buying them.

Thus: OP is implying that Facebook uses its API to see up-and-comers in the social space, and then copies them.

(Trojan Horse was very confusing here. Typcially "Trojan Horse", used in this case, would mean that facebook was actually controlling snapchat interactions beyond what snapchat intended.)

Personally I don't think that this is a very unique idea, and calling facebook's API a "trojan horse" over it is absurd.

Buying out a company isn't done for honor, it's done for value. Facebook doesn't buy you because it's the "right" thing to do because you "beat them to it" with an idea. They do it because it's easier for them to do so than to build a copy. Maybe this means they're buying some IP, or a community, or some talent or something, but it has nothing to do with "because it's the right thing to do".

---

Snapchat: http://www.snapchat.com/#

Poke: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/facebook-poke/id588594730?mt...

Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

#8

Post by TillE » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 5:12 PM UTC

diego wrote: post #2

If I were to start a company today, I wouldn't touch the space of "social" with a linked list of ten-foot poles.

Honestly, I think the current incarnation of social crap is going to be pretty short-lived. If you really look at it, very little is actually any good at what it does. It's just barely good enough. Google Hangouts is probably the only significant innovation in the past few years.

I'd be very interested in a startup promising genuine innovation, connecting people in new ways and changing the way we can socialize, something that everyone of a certain demographic would want to use. That's basically what Facebook was early on.

But building in line with the current "social" paradigm? Not very interesting.

Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

#9

Post by KaoruAoiShiho » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

Can you tell us how much of the FB API SnapChat was using and if there's a "safe" way to take advantage of FB Graph and other features without leaking too much detail to FB?

Re: Is Poke Proof That The Facebook API Is A Trojan Horse?

#10

Post by biznickman » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 5:26 PM UTC

1. We don't yet know whether or not Facebook's Poke app will be successful.

2. Snapchat has been popular for a while ... why did they just start copying now?

3. Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated a desire to build in what they perceive to be as replaceable features since day 1 of the platform. SuperWall, SuperPoke, Free Gifts, and many more were eventually integrated or blocked. They've tried to replicate Quora (the questions failed), FriendFeed (they copied the "like" and the real-time feed before acquiring them), Instagram (their separate photos app), and more.

--

I think the key risk here is operating in a space that can be easily replicated by the 800lb gorilla. The API is not a trojan horse. It's the platform that enables many of the viral apps to grow. Yes, there's no doubt they get intelligence from their data, but that's not the sole purpose of the API and suggesting so is ludicrous (there are plenty of other sources for data, including the Apple app store).

There are also are plenty of examples where Facebook simply could not replicate some of the other companies' success despite a similar feature set. Blake Ross claims they made the new Poke app in "12 days". (He also was responsible for the failed Questions app).

It's a statement that they believe SnapChat is a feature. That's not yet proven and we'll have to see how this plays out. This is step 1 (test whether or not SnapChat is simply a feature). Step 2 is to become more aggressive with acquisition offers should the Poke app fail AND should SnapChat continue to experience massive growth.