Web 2.0 innovator leaps Facebook frontier
Thursday, 8 November 2007
Last Updated: Wednesday, 7 November 2007
By Mike Preston
The debate about how to earn money from Web 2.0 must seem a bit stale to Sydney entrepreneur Robert Beerworth – his web design company, Wiliam, has been making millions out of it for years.
Robert Beerworth has built his company Wiliam’s success on always being slightly ahead of the curve – most recently through being the first Australian web company to develop applications for booming online social network Facebook.
In May this year, Facebook opened its social network platform to external developers, triggering a rush of activity as the global web development industry clambered to create applications that would seize the attention of the more than 50 million people who visit Facebook each month.
Wiliam first hit Facebook several months ago with its blog RSS feeder application, a program that allows people to put their blog into their Facebook profile. It is now in the process of developing several other Facebook applications for clients, including one for the Fox TV program Gossip Girl that allows users to insert their own images and title text into a digital magazine cover mock-up.
Beerworth, Wiliam’s managing director, says at this stage the apps are not big money spinners compared to the business’s bread and butter development work – because they are relatively simple to create, clients are generally only charged a few thousand for them. But the marketing value that comes from being associated with one of the web’s hottest phenomena has already added value to the business.
“We are getting a Facebook inquiry every day now, often from very substantial firms like Foxtel that want an app, and as yet it’s not something most of our competitors are offering,” Beerworth says.
And, of course, there is no telling how valuable a customer base in Facebook development will be worth down the track. After all, back when Beerworth founded Wiliam in 1997, terms such as Facebook, Web 2.0 and online networking either hadn’t been invented or were not widely used.
At that time Beerworth was an 18-year-old student with a bit of creative flair and more time for the internet than his studies. As interest in the web took off, the odd bit of website development work on the side became a steady flow, until the arrival of a couple of big jobs – including one $90,000 job to develop an online restaurant booking portal – made Beerworth decide to go professional.
From there, the business grew quickly – the growing dot-com bubble loosened corporate purse strings and sent a steady stream of work to the few local web developers with any kind of reputation.
In 1999, Wiliam achieved revenue of $700,000 and its first annual profit. Then, in 2000, the dot-com bubble burst, halving revenue and raising serious question marks over the business’s viability.
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