Molson's Facebook Photos Failure

Keep on the lookout for some changes to PhotoGraph! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

Throughout the Stanford Facebook Class many opportunities have been presented to us. We have collectively seen how interested the corporate world is in Social Networks. Why wouldn't they be? The demographic present on most social networks is very lucrative. Social networks present an opportunity to build your brand in a very trusted and open setting, between friends. We all saw the success of the Dylan app, allowing for self-expression while plugging the upcoming CD. They obviously understood the audience and why users add apps.

When reading about the Molson photo contest, I immediately knew that Molson was walking on a slippery slope. After browsing many photos while developing PhotoGraph I have seen a very prevalent pattern. In the United States Facebook photos is littered with drunken debauchery. Red cups appear in many pictures and there are even dozens of groups dedicated to this college signature. This trend undoubtedly arose from Facebook's background as a college-exclusive social network. College kids don't go on many trips or have families. We study (hardly picture worthy) and party. It seemed funny to me that Molson did not realize that when asking for photos of people partying, they were going to get photos of such drunken mayhem.

Working on PhotoGraph has exposed me to a lot of Facebook photos. They are very fun to browse and laugh at, but nothing to build your brand around.

While social networks have drawn great interest from large corporations looking for new avenues to spread their brand, it is important to understand the cultures of these networks. Social networks are still in their infancy. With the faces of MySpace and Facebook changing rapidly, larger, more mature business are not in a competitive position to venture onto social networks on their own. That is why I think there is room for smaller players that know this arena. As shown by the Dylan app, the smaller consultants who understand the users of Facebook and MySpace can very successfully bridge the gap between big brands and the needs of social network users.

-Mark

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New Version of PhotoGraph

UPDATE: A NEW VERSION OF PhotoGraph IS LIVE.

PhotoGraph got a face lift today! We have been working hard and just pushed out some new, awesome features. The photos should be more recent and relevant. Also, check out the sweet banner and new formatting!

One of the most exciting features that we have pushed out is the search box. Now, if you want to browse a particular friend, just enter their name and click "Go!"
This will load PhotoGraph with a picture of that person and you are free to browse from there. So, if you get stuck in some obscure album, just enter someone you want to see and start over!

Try out these new features and let us know what you think.

-Mark

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Press

Yesterday in class, all the teams presented their creations so far. It was really hectic because we were all writing feedback and trying to think of how we can help each team. With 24 teams to present, that makes for a lot of feedback and good comments.

Not only were the students taking notes, but so were reporters from GigaOM, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch. This was great exposure for the apps. Check out VentureBeat article here and the TechCrunch rendition here. All in all, PhotoGraph got some good exposure, although it would have been nice to have more than a long list. Focusing on and pointing out some of the notable apps would have better rewarded the more prepared teams. With a long (alphabetical) list of 24 apps, most viewers will just check out the first few. On VentureBeat at least we got a photo! We are still waiting to hear from GigaOM, so stay on the lookout.

Thanks to all our users. We have now blown past 2 million PIDs. If you have anything we could do to make the browsing and starring better, let us know. We have a lot of development ideas for the future, but would love to incorporate your feedback as well.

-Mark

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