Facebook ads are evil

I really think that Facebook ads are obnoxious and very bothering. See the one below on my personal profile? They even have some that blink in big red letters.

Is this what one should expect of the rising star of the Web2.0 sites?
Is this how they are getting some $80 million a year?

Am I missing something here? Free cash on Facebook??

On usability, adoption rates and deadpool for Web 2.0 services

There's been a number of posts on the net about the fate of RawSugar since we announced that RawSugar stopped its R&D operations. See for example these blog entries:

• RawSugar crashes, sells assets
• RawSugar in deadpool
• RawSugar runs outof Energy
• Tagging Site Raw Sugar Tanks, Put Assets Up for Sale

Besides the journalistic headlines (I felt like David Beckham for a day or two), and the number of good words for the RawSugar team from users; what mostly interested me was the reasons mentioned either in the blog posts or in the comments for RawSugar's failure. Here are the leading causes of failures that are cited:

1. Poor marketing (weak focus on blogs, no differentiation with delicious, poor communication, poor positioning, etc.) - 5 mentions
2. Poor UI design (colors, homepage, coolness, overall usability) - 5 mentions.
3. Simply a victim of the bubble - 4 mentions
4. No business plan (nor revenue plan) - 2 mentions
5. Poor innovation - 1 mention.
6. Ofer Ben-Shachar (Founder/CEO) stubbornness :) - 1 mention.

As RawSugar's former VP Engineering, I find this very interesting to see what people really think about this. The first conclusion I draw is that the technology was not to blame, indeed, as I write this blog, RawSugar's investors are negotiating with several potential buyers of the technology. So I believe that the RawSugar tag-search technology will find a new home and that's a good thing.

However, what stroke me most on the comments of people above is that I don't believe any of these is responsible for RawSugar poor adoption levels. When I look around at other services I see all these points in successful services. See for example:

• Did Youtube have a business plan?
• Did Delicious havea good UI design (starting from the hard to remember domain name)?
• Is gmail a model of usability? Maybe yes, but only after you get it.
• Was Craig's list done with a great marketing strategy in mind?
• Where is the innovation in myspace?

No, I don't think these are the real reasons for RawSugar underperformance. I don't think you need a business plan, a great UI design, a solid marketing plan and a huge innovation to make a winning Web 2.0 service. I am not saying it hurts but I don't think these are necessary nor sufficient criteria.

I have my own explanation but I won't share it on my blog right now, maybe in a later post. What do you think? Leave me a comment.

Frank