Probably not that simple: merger ideas
I would love if Twitter and Facebook merged. I already use them both and update my Facebook status with the Twitter for Facebook application. Twitter doesn’t really do shit except for status updates and good mobile integration, and Facebook has the same features but those features seem lost in the mix. Both companies are overvalued, and therefore probably can’t merge or be acquired by anyone, but maybe those valuations will be corrected someday.
Yahoo should acquire Socializr. Yahoo’s Upcoming.org has a lot of great automatically-ingested event information, but poor event creation and customization utilities. Socializr is the Evite killer that never quite hit critical mass, but offers great event organization features, design customizations, templates, ‘copy this event’, and was one of the first sites I saw do a good job letting you import contact lists from your email provider. Someone needs to do for events what GMail did for email. Facebook may be turning out to be the Evite killer, but I feel like it’s still hard to get non-Facebook folk to RSVP to Facebook events. Upcoming.org and Socializr both have good ‘venue’ features; Upcoming has venue-based RSS feeds which are pretty pimp. This could merge well, I think. In any case, both are languishing, and there is still an opportunity in the events space.
Some un-asked-for advice for Flickr (owned by Yahoo). This isn’t about mergers, but this post is just spouting half-formed ideas anyway. Flickr needs unlimited albums for non-premium users. Facebook may host more photos than Flickr, but the resolution on Facebook blows. Most (at least among the set who know that Flickr exists) people seem to expect higher quality, not just in terms of resolution, but in terms of photography, from Flickr. However, the amateur photographer is libel to get tired of Flickr after reaching the 3-album limit. Lots of folks already only post shots on Facebook, which, as I mentioned, is not a very classy image viewing/hosting site. The Flickr app for Facebook should be more badass, and Flickr should be great with Twitter, MySpace, iPhone… whatever. They can and should dominate this space, and they just don’t right now.
Computing and bandwidth keep getting cheaper, and Picasa and Facebook are ahead in recognizing this. Flickr should be pushing to get as many members, albums, and photos as possible. There will always be ways to value-add for professional users, and Flickr has a long way to go toward giving professional photographers more tools for presentation and promotion.
For web start-ups, the goal is often to get as big as possible as fast as possible. I’d hope that Yahoo will see the advantage it has to make long-term investments in good products. With all the eyes they have using Yahoo Mail, Homepage, News, etc., they have a somewhat permanent promotional platform for their products as they evolve. There’s nothing saying Yahoo! can’t make something better than GMail, there’s nothing saying Yahoo (Flickr) can’t again have more photos hosted than Facebook, and there’s nothing saying Yahoo can’t lead in the event/calendar/venue space. They have time and they have a great start.
