The Kontagent Blog

3 out of the 5 FBFund Finalists are Canadian. That got me thinking.

Coincidence? Perhaps. Not reflective of the entire development community? That I’m not so sure. I noticed a strikingly large number of pretty successful non-US/Silicon Valley developers, and have a couple of theories on why we have so many (and arguably, a disproportionate) Canadian and Non-US developers on Facebook:

1) No/Low Capital Required: traditionally, Canadian (non-US/Silicon Valley) b2c startups/developers lacked the resources/venture capital (seed funding esp.) to launch competitive B2C offerings — Facebook Apps take VERY little resources to get off the ground, and their success if usually a function of creativity

2) Low Distribution Costs/Viral Distribution Required: again, traditionally, its been more difficult for Canadian (and non-US/Silicon Valley) ventures to secure high profile distribution partnerships to “get the word out” — the great thing about Facebook apps is that some of the most successful apps are often launched with small to no artificial viral seeding costs. In other words, success comes from optimizing their viral loops in their apps to secure distribution. Heck, they might even be using some pretty cool viral analytics to optimize their K-factor (aka: pass-along rate/viral co-efficient/pick-your-buzzword). Yeah… that was a pretty blantant plug, but come’on, you saw that coming.

And of course, huge congrats to our fellow Canadian FBFund Winners WedSnap and Mousehunt!

(Sidenote: Technically, we’re a US HQ’d startup, but both founders are Canadian and we have a Canaidan presence… so that makes us at least half Canadian, Go Canada!

Congrats to all the winners , and a big thanks to all those that have blogged about the announcement!

This was a result of a ton of hard work from the entire team, and its been a fun process getting here. Thank you for all those that voted, Cat and Julia from the FBfund team, and the judges from the surprisingly enjoyable due diligence discussions from the partners at Accel and FounderFund.

An interesting tid-bit: did you know that the 3 out of the final 5 winners out of the 25 finalists are Canadian (including me and Jeff - both Canucks!). Go Canada! =)

Now that the US elections are over and have some of you have had some pratice voting, come vote for Kontagent in the fBFund contest!

For those of you that have wondered what the live system looks like beyond the screenshots, check this out:

Kontagent in 30 Seconds from albert lai on Vimeo.

(sorry about the lack of audio… we hope to have another updated version soon)

This blog posting is a bit late, but better late than never.

After working with the great folks at Facebook for many months now, we’re happy to announce that we have been selected as a fbFund recipient.

We’re excited to have receive further validation on the value and usefulness of the Kontagent platform, which has now been over a year in development and testing!

Also, of course a big congrats to all the other fbFund recipients!

Here are the latest 25 recipients of the fbFund below:

Kontagent
http://www.kontagent.com
Kontagent is the leading viral analytics platform for social network application developers. Kontagent analytics provides deep social data visualization and analysis that delivers actionable insights delivered via a hosted, on-demand service.

BarTab
No Link yet in facebook
Send a drink to a friend, with Facebook! BarTab allows users to send real drinks to each other for only $1. Drinks are redeemed through the user’s cell phone at partnered bars and restaurants.

Black Drumm
No Link yet in facebook
Black Drumm develops applications that helps users organize events with friends. Whether it is going to a local concert, or planning a trek on Kilimanjaro, the application seamlessly coordinates offline activities; no more chains of emails to sort through, or spreadsheets to maintain.

Bottle Rocket
No Link yet in facebook
Bottle Rocket helps users pick the perfect bottle of wine. Users can compare wines with friends on Facebook or on the Bottle Rocket iPhone application. Bottle Rocket then analyzes the wines users have liked with ratings from their friends to make informed recommendations.

Check My Campus
http://apps.facebook.com/checkmycampus/
Check My Campus makes the college search process easier, better and more fun. The application allows current college students to share photos and videos about life on their campuses, giving high schoolers an inside look at what real life is like at these different schools.

Daikon
No Link yet in facebook
Daikon enables users to build powerful applications on the Facebook platform without writing a single line of code. Daikon produces applications that focus on increasing the enjoyment and productivity of the Facebook experience.

Faith Feed
http://apps.facebook.com/faithfeed/
FaithFeed is an application where users can share about their journey of faith with friends on Facebook. Through the application, users can share praises, prayer requests, resolutions and details of what God is teaching them. Users can also keep each other accountable and support each other throughout the week.

The Game Creators
http://apps.facebook.com/socialarcade/
The Game Creators built Social Arcade, an application which users get creative and design their own game from shoot-’em-ups to platformers to racing games and more. Users can give friends the gift of a game and even personalize it.

Good Call Sports
No Link yet in facebook
Good Call Football is an app developed by Good Call Sports that allows users to predict each offensive play during a televised football game, in real time, and compete nationwide based on the accuracy of their predictions.

GroupCard
http://apps.facebook.com/groupcards/
GroupCard lets users celebrate any social occasion by sending friends a card from the whole group. GroupCard helps organizers rally their friends to sign the same printable online card and delivers the card on the special day. Each friend can add a message, upload photos or audio, and even make a gift contribution. Thousands of groups worldwide have already used GroupCard.

HitGrab
http://apps.facebook.com/mousehunt/?_fb_fromhash=05ec3c5ce0a1643c855e3d8c398e4d82
MouseHunt, a HitGrab creation, is a game of epic proportions. Players are hunters, hired by the king to trap mice that infest his kingdom. For each mouse caught, users will find a reward, bringing them closer to being the best MouseHunter in the land!

InfraBlue Technology 
http://apps.new.facebook.com/twentycricket/index.php?m=9&
Twenty20 Cricket, an Infrablue Technology app, was developed for cricket fanatics around the world to connect and share their passion via an exciting online cricket manager game. Users compete to be the best team by training their players, and then challenging their friends and other team managers!

Koofers
http://www.koofers.com
Koofers helps students create and share information that helps them with their classes. Users can share old tests, quizzes, and study guides; view current and past grade breakdown and average GPA for every class and professor; review professors and read ratings before signing up for new classes, and get help from other students in the same class.

NewsBrane
No Link yet in facebook
Newsbrane recommends news stories and other online content to users based on their interests. Vote items up and down and Newsbrane learns the stories a user wants to see.

Party Buzz
http://apps.facebook.com/party_buzz
Party Buzz is your source of information for what’s happening offline amongst your friends. Check out your friends’ events, discuss weekend plans, and find the best parties. Bonus feature: for each event check the median age, guy-to-girl ratio, number of singles, and more!

Pongr
http://apps.facebook.com/pongrbag/
Pongr is a mobile price comparison service that lets you check prices online and at nearby stores. While shopping, users can share items with their Facebook friends. Pongr mobile apps, texting, and image recognition makes bargain shopping fun!

ProfessionalProfile
No Link yet in facebook
Professional Profile leverages a user’s existing social connections into a professional network.

RealGifts
http://apps.facebook.com/realgifts/
RealGifts is a social gifting application that allows users to send their friends real, tangible gifts in the mail, without needing to know their friends’ delivery address. Combining “virtual gifting” and eCommerce, RealGifts is the most convenient way to send real gifts to your friends.

Socialfly
http://apps.facebook.com/socialfly_vone/
Socialfly helps users keep track of all their interactions with friends and connections. Through Socialfly, users can write their own notes about people, set reminders to talk to friends, and plan fun activities together. Socialfly will soon be available on both Facebook and the iPhone.

Teach the People
http://apps.facebook.com/teachthepeople
Teach the People is an open educational platform. Teachers get the tools to share their expertise, allowing their knowledge to go viral, attract an audience, and be monetized effectively. Students get access to high quality, low cost education in Facebook’s social environment.

Thankster
No Link yet in facebook
Thankster helps you appreciate the people in your life. From Facebook, your cellphone, or anywhere you’re connected, you can send the people around you digital awards that recognize them for the nice things they do in everyday life.

TrailBehind
No Link yet in facebook
TrailBehind helps users find great places to hike. Avid hikers can explore maps, plan trips, log their travels, and work together to build better maps of the outdoors.

vDream Racing 
http://apps.facebook.com/vdreamracing
vDream would be Henry Ford’s favorite application on Facebook. vDream offers users access to real cars, real parts, real performance specs, and the ability to connect and compete with other car enthusiasts.

WedSnap
http://apps.facebook.com/wedsnap_wedding
WedSnap created the Weddingbook application, a social network on Facebook for those preparing for a wedding. Brides and grooms meet on Weddingbook to get advice, support, and inspiration during their engagement and wedding planning process.

WildFire
No Link yet in facebook
Wildfire enables consumers to discover, share and engage with interactive promotions like contests, sweepstakes and give-aways and enables companies to easily create their own attractive, branded promotions that are automatically integrated with Facebook’s social features.

It’s been 2 months since our last blog post and we’ve been radio silent.  We’ve been busy.  Really busy.  Well, after our initial select group of beta test customers, we learned a lot.  Over the past 2 months, we’ve taken the experience from the initial test group and have been working hard at making improvements to make Kontagent much easier to install and much more robust.  As well, we’ve done a major rehaul of the backend (you can think of it as a ver. 2) that has much improved performance and allows us to make improvements and add new features much more rapidly.  Over the next few months, you’ll see a lot more product features release and improvements from us.  Lastly, we’ve spent a lot of time polishing the UI and getting everything working on all the browsers out there and fixing the slew of bugs that were there in our early release.

We’ve also been testing a set of new RoR libraries from the rFacebook and Facebooker frameworks which will be available shortly.

Now a quick update on the Beta Signup List.  First off, thanks to everyone who signed up and have shown immense interest in our product.  We’re sorry for the wait, but we wanted to make sure everything was solid before opening it up to more customers.  Over the new couple of weeks, we’ll be opening up the product to many more developers that have signed up for the Beta Signup.  Fairly soon after, we’ll be opening up the product to the public.

Enjoy the new product, we hope you find it useful ; )

Due to an overwhelming response to the launch of our beta program, we’ve been (happily) swamped with applications and have been trying to keep up with everyone’s inquiries.

If you haven’t received a direct response from us yet, its not because of a lack of interest on our part to have your involvement in the program.  In fact, we would love to have everyone on board, but we are unable to process everyone’s requests immediately due to the limited number of slots and resources available for this initial testing program.

Please be patient, and we’ll attempt to get back to you as quickly as possible.  We’ve been working very hard to get as many of you involved as possible (heck, I can’t remember the last time I pulled this many 18-20 hour days in one week), and we promise it’ll be worth the wait. =)

Thanks for understanding, we’re eager to hear your feedback and we hope to be in touch with all those who applied for the private beta program soon!

Many thanks from the Kontagent Team.

It was great meeting so many awesome developers over the past several days.

First as a partner/sponsor at F8, then as a demo/sponsor at the recent TechCrunch Party, and then the folks at the Facebook Changeathon.

We’ve been hard at work at getting more folks into the private beta, and please be patient with us as we ramp up to support more of you.

Welcome to the Kontagent Blog.

Welcome to the Kontagent Blog.  Check back here to keep up to date and find out what’s up with the Kontagent platform and team.  In the mean time here are some frequently asked questions — and their answers… of course:

Who Are We?

Kontagent is the leading viral analytics platform for social network application developers. The Kontagent platform has been built from the ground up to provide deep social data visualization and analysis that delivers actionable insights delivered via a hosted, on demand service. The Kontagent platform works directly with the Facebook API, and will soon support OpenSocial and the MySpace platform. Kontagent was founded in 2007 by serial entrepreneurs Albert Lai/CEO (5th startup, most recently founder/ceo of BubbleShare) and Jeffrey Tseng/CTO (2nd startup, most recently founder Aevena) . The company is headquartered in the SOMA district of San Francisco, California with a presence in downtown Toronto, Ontario.

What Platforms Do You Support?

Currently Kontagent supports Facebook. Support for MySpace and OpenSocial is coming soon.

What does Kontagent Track?

Filter on:

• Age
• Gender
• Location (by country and by state/province for the US and Canada)
• Number of friends
• Engagement: page views, unique visits, time spent on site, recency of visits

Cohort Analysis:

• User demographic to social behavior correlation analysis
• Traffic source cohort to user behavior analysis
• Application version cohort to user behavior analysis

Virality:

• K-factor (a.k.a viral coefficient)
• Track each viral channel’s growth contribution (k-factor for invites, notifications, feeds, profiles)
• Non-viral channel effectiveness (ad networks, ad creatives, promotional partners)
• Notification and invite channel limits
• Invites sent per user
• Invite/notification conversion rates
• Invite response delay analysis
• Viral growth predictive modeling and projections

A/B Testing:

• Framework for template A/B testing
• Template acceptance rate
• Average outbound invite events per template
• Accepted invites per invite template event
• Response delay analysis (for viral generation time frame analysis)

What About Privacy and Personal, Identifiable Data?

Kontagent respects application users’ privacy and does not collect personal data, such as names or e-mails, from Facebook.

How does Kontagent Work?

Kontagent provides a wrapper for the Facebook client library. This wrapper extracts relevant information from Facebook interactions and transmits it to Kontagent’s analytics system using a REST-based interface.

How Much Does it Cost?

Kontagent is free for independent application developers. Premium services may be added in the future, but all existing features will remain free to existing users.

How Do I Get Hold Of You Guys?

Please feel free to send us an email at info@kontagent.com. Our mailing address is 611 Mission St., 2nd Floor, San Francisco 94105.