U-Lik's cofounder Raphaël Labbé on Virtual Identity 2.0, or perhaps 0.2?
About a month ago at an HEC Paris Alumni association Entrepreneurs & Business Angels social event (I was there for the fun of it, but Raphaël’s currently fundraising for U-Lik, a virtual library sharing service), Raphaël showed me a brilliant attempt to map 2.0 websites dealing with building one’s virtual identity. Raphaël had given me this little marketing leaflet with this very diagram. I found it in my pocket yesterday morning, and thought I had to write my thoughts about it. Here it is by the way:
Although some choices in this typology are questionable (such as classifying FaceBook in the ‘Professional’ category, strange), I found Raphaël’s stance saying Yahoo! was best positioned to become and remain a leader in the Internet industry quite intriguing. Although the company has well managed its shift from pure content to much more profitable software business, Yahoo! in my opinion still lacks a clear strategy saying ‘this is where we’re going in this much time’ – unlike Google, Apple and Microsoft who state things pretty clearly in their annual reports I encourage you to read all.
So I asked Raphaël to clarify his stance. And this is what I got: according to U-Lik’s co-founder, Yahoo! is the only company that fits in almost every category in this matrix.
What if this Virtual Identity 2.0 (or 0.2? Is the virtual identity business at dawn?) mapping attempt were actually Yahoo!’s strategy? A hint: Yahoo! acquired MyBlogLog last week (10m$: cheap, clever move by Yahoo!).
Links:
- On his blog, Raphaël (nickname on the Internet: leafar) posted a little something about this typology as well.
- For those who read French: a good recap of what U-Lik is on Olivier Ezratty’s blog (Olivier is an angel investor in U-Lik). To those, English-speakers only, who feel like knowing more about U-Lik, I’ll blog about it when I believe I have something value additive to say.
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Jeremy, thanks for the quote.
So, first of all let me explain why facebook is in Pro. Facebook was in the pro section because of its University approach. And the way you introduced me in your post is a great example of it. I am an Alumni and this matter really in a professional environment. The fact that you could check my alumni identity is great part of Facebook uniqueness.
Then, Yahoo. I am not sure yet it’s a real strategy for the group. It’s at least a strategy for M&A team. I’ve confessed about this in a previous post: http://ulik.typepad.com/leafar/2006/11/maybe_i_was_wro.html
Mybloglog is a perfect example of it. Cheap buy, nice identity puzzle piece. Facebook is also one of Yahoo’s Target. I’ve selected companies in the puzzle with no intention of describing Yahoo. But it just happened that Yahoo is interested in nearly all of them.
I’ve made a version of the puzzle with Yahoo position …
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ulikleafar/358089596/
The title of the puzzle is Identity 0.2 because I think it’s only the beginning of it (it’s also a marketing pun) … and Yahoo is poistionning on it very early. It’s probably already the only company that could really leverage this trend. As always it does not mean it’s cash at the end of the day. But if you believe in it, you have to acknowledge that Yahoo nails it very strongly.
For U.[lik] you should visit the Web2Fr Wiki (it’s a wiki describing French Web2.0 start-ups).
http://www.web2fr.com/U-lik
Thanks for the clarification Raphaël. Although I disagree on the way you perceive Facebook. Talk to American students and you’ll realize it’s mostly used for a dating purpose! Not really a professional sort of activity.
As I said, I too believe that Yahoo! lacks a clear vision. Or maybe I haven’t understood what it was. A pity since they’ve been havin some really good customer SaaS recently + strong development capacities.
See here to read more about Yahoo!’s current situation:
http://jeremyfain.wordpress.com/2006/11/03/is-yahoo-agonizing/
http://jeremyfain.wordpress.com/2006/11/10/yahoo-share-buy-back-a-financial-explanation/
http://jeremyfain.wordpress.com/2006/12/12/why-microsoft-should-never-think-of-acquiring-yahoo/