Facebook is now open to anyone with an email address. Of note is how they are focusing on privacy controls and communicating this change properly to their users.

It will be interesting to observe how this change plays out.

Joe reports that openBC is changing its name to Xing.  It will be interesting to see how that plays out. At SelectMinds, we were working with Accenture when they went through their name change from Andersen Consulting.  That change provided an opportunity to speculate on the value of a name, since Accenture had paid Arthur Andersen (I think) about $1b to continue using the name Andersen Consulting for a year.

There will be implicit costs for openBC through this name change.  Obviously they think that  it’s worth it.

Paul Kedrosky has a good list of tips for start-ups presenting their businesses.

UPDATE: Here‘s some more…

The IAB came out with 2006 First Six Months numbers on online advertising.  One interesting phenomenon that endures is the concentration of advertising revenue at the top.  The Pareto Principle does not apply to this case (in that it is even more concentrated than the 80/20 cliche.  The top 25 advertisers (NB: NOT the top 25%, but the top 25) pull in a whopping 84% of all online ad revenues.  Reminds one of the Turkish TV advertising figures…

This is a bit late but it looks like while I have been away, WSJ reported on rumors of an M&A conversation between Yahoo! and Facebook, with a price tag around $1b.  There is much conversation on the topic in blogland, so I’ll let you read the various viewpoints yourself (if you have not, already) here, here, here and here.

I think, just like $580m a year ago, the $1b number is blowing people away. One needs to look at the deal from the acquirer’s perspective.  I think it would be a mistake for Yahoo! to pay $1b for Facebook.  As many have pointed out, their problem is not reach.  However, the same deal, in my mind, makes more sense for someone like Viacom, who’s got the content and is starving for attention.

David Byrne is predicting a need for music search in a recent journal entry:

Soon enough a site will open that is like a Google search for music
downloads — downloads that are not copy-protected but you still pay for.
…
Consumers don’t care who they buy them from if the interface is easy
and intuitive. Soon enough iTunes consumers will find they have reached
the 5th authorized player on their tracks and the frustration will set
in when they can’t listen to the music they paid for. They’ll start to
look elsewhere.

I have been watching ROOT for some time now.  I think it is founded on a very basic, sound concept and I am convinced it will be successful.

However, it has been a slow development.  I am surprised by this because, at this point:

• Internet traffic is liquid
• There’s broad acceptance of keyword buying
• There are existing players arbing out keyword price differences
• So, the next natural step is the creation of a marketplace/exchange to further remove remaining frictions in this area.

Seth Goldstein has just announced that the Chicago Board of Trade has invested in ROOT.  That’s great news and it is one more step in the completion of the above process.

MIT’s Technology Review compiles an annual list of young innovators in science, whose work is changing our lives, all under the age of 35.  This year the list includes a Turk, Utkan Demirci, 28, whose development of  disposable AIDS  diagnostic tool earned him the spot.   

NYTimes and Forbes are reporting that Facebook is lowering its admission requirements.

The move is meant to help the site expand, but it risks undercutting one of its attractions: it has been more exclusive and somewhat more protected than MySpace, its larger and more freewheeling rival.
…
Under its new system, Facebook will create new networks for 500 geographic regions, and it will allow anyone to join them. In the default setting, people in the region — like the New York City area — will be able to see the full profile of other members in the same region. Facebook has long offered a series of options that allow users to expand or contract the information shown to various sorts of people.

I tend to think of openness not in terms of who can join, but what hurdles does one need to jump to access content.  In those terms, Facebook is still a closed community and I think that tends to create an advantage for MySpace.

With the enormous awareness on social networking, you’d think companies would have embraced the concept much sooner.  A new article on Business Week summarizes the current state of networking in the enterprise, calling attention to a few major tacks companies take:

1. Encouraging employees to get more connected online (LinkedIn, OpenBC)
2. Creating stand-alone networks, such as alumni networks (SelectMinds)
3. Mining employee communications for network analysis purposes (Contact Networks)
4. Marketing networks, user communities and loyalty programs

Having been away from the enterprise services area for about a year now, it is still striking to see how fragmented the field remains.  Our vision for SelectMinds, when we founded it in 1999 was that there would be tremendous value in creating intra-company networks (in the shape of alumni programs) and ultimately linking them up in one unified professional network.
LinkedIn and OpenBC have been tackling the unified network area, but as the article points out, there are reasons for companies to be nervous.  The inside-out approach of starting in the enterprise may be the more successful model.  I think SelectMinds is in a unique position to accomplish that in the US market.