Data as a Service (DAS) – Facebook Business Opportunities – It’s about the ‘data effects’ October 9, 2007
Posted by John Furrier in Technology.Tags: data as a service, facebook, fred vogelstein, john furrier, social graph, stu phillips
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One theme coming out of the conference here is the value in the platform – the data and the ‘data effects’. More importantly the Internet Operating System (IOS). Tim O’Reilly pointed this out today at the Social Graph Conference. Here is a great post from Stu Phillips about Data as a service – eg facebook and other social networks. Stu ironically was the key player behind Cisco’s IOS. As we all know Cisco had one of the most sustainable and nested advantages in their routers. I think Stu has a great perspective in looking at the role of the Internet as an operating system. Add higher level stack abstractions and you have Cisco’s IOS + Web 1.0 + Web 2.0 = Modern Web.
If you’re an entrepreneur who is interested in building a business as part of the Internet Operating System you need to meet with Stu who is helping fund and advise startups.
Stu points out the following: “Facebook could find some interesting ways of monetizing that database – not only does it have a detailed set of relationship data, it also has a rich transaction stream – every time you add a friend, change your profile, interact with an application… Facebook generates a transaction. Mining both the database and the log of transactions could provide very valuable data. “
Stu is highlighting an article from Fred VogelStein at Wired. Fred penned an article about Facebook for the La Times.
I think the article cited primarily addresses the modern trend of the web to provide free SaaS services and reap the rewards through the information gained. The most obvious player using this system is Google. Free search & free email = free data for them to exploit. This data also fuels strategies for other ways of generating revenue.
I’m not sure we’re really talking about databases or data as a serice here. In the sort of scenario mentioned the only person benefiting from the data flow is the person in the cloud.