I am sitting here watching my cat chase his tail (what does that say about me?), and it reminded me that I was going to make this post.

This time last year, just as everyone was getting the Facebook logo tattooed on their butt and while my buddies were trying to figure out the science of breaking up with someone they had listed as a relationship on their profile, I went against the grain.

Almost exactly 1 year ago, I took the time to tell you that you were all deluded, that the Facebook Platform made no business sense and that this was all going to come crashing down.

Then, just 4 months later, I got on my high horse (on which I am still firmly mounted) and I wrote that I was right. The house of cards came down even faster than the credit markets.

So, I am back again, thinking I will gloat a little more, and tell you that if you haven’t moved on yet, then you need to get over it. Your relationship with Facebook is unhealthy. It is a fine place to find old boyfriends and girlfriends from High School, but it is no place to make a business.

As your mother would say: I told you so.

Now we are at the point that even the people who were making money off of Facebook applications are willing to admit that the whole thing has gone down the tubes.

Scott Rafer, the founder of Facebook App shop Lookery, recently declared the Facebook Platform “dead” at the Facebook Developer Conference in Berlin.

“Lookery’s own statistics from Quantcast suggest that their publisher traffic has been almost halved since the new site design was released. Ultimately, I think we may see an increase in traffic as users become educated on the new design but there is no doubt that developers were impacted significantly.”

The redesign of Facebook was just the final nail in the coffin of the world of Facebook applications, but it is representatitve of a point I made in my first post on this subject: “You cannot build a business on someone else’s platform when they don’t see you as a partner.”

As an app developer, you were a customer of Facebook. A guest and a test market. You were disposible.

Build for a real platform

What is a real platform? Here are some examples:

The Web.
Yes, all those things you loved about Facebook, The Web has them too, and more, and better,. more better.

The Web has an API, it has users (a lot more than Facebook), and it is pliable and you can apply all sorts of revenue models on top of it. Yes, the web is a wonderful place to put things that have value.

Sure, the web isn’t for lazy folks. It isn’t like Facebook in November 2007 when you could get 50,000 people running your app which displayed various types of mullets, but you know what, if you put a little elbow grease in to it, you just might get 50,000 users, and you might get 5million, and they will be all YOURS.

Microsoft Outlook
I’m not telling you this is a MUST-BUILD platform, but it is worth taking a look at. Outlook has proven itself as a great platform on which to build. From a development perspective I am sure it is a total pain, but once you are in there, you have as much access to someone’s “social graph” as Facebook could ever give you, and your ability to integrate with Outlook is limited only by your imagination and the willingness of your users.

The Blackberry
I might get a rough ride for this one, but the Blackberry is the ultimate platform. Blackberry users are addicted. They are fiends and they ALL HAVE MONEY. Here is the other thing: Blackberry has been getting a lot of grief for not having an app store like Apple does for the iPhone. I have to agree that it seems silly, but there is a reason: RIM does not want to be a gatekeeper. You can install whatever you want on a Blackberry, and through that, RIM ensures that they are not the broker of success on thier hardware. The web is where Blackberry apps compete.

Now, sure RIM recently announced carrier-specific app stores, but those will probably die off, and they are about RIM pleasing the carrier. The ability for anyone to be able to install your app will still live on.

So go on, get out there and build on top of things that care about you, your users and your business.

I am happy to announce that Anthony Lacavera will be speaking at StartupEmpire. Anthony is an example of the kind of guy we can all learn a lot from.

The story of Globalive is really one of true entrepreneurial hustle. Anthony, now 34 years old, has gone from graduation day at the University of Toronto, to over $125million in revenue in just under 10 years. From just himself to over 175 employees and he is now the force behind Canada’s next wireless carrier.

I don’t have to tell you how I feel about the current state of wireless in Canada and how it has a negative effect on mobile startups in this country. Tom has been tracking a lot of that activity on WirelessNorth.ca, and wow are we hurting right now.

There is great news for startups however, Globalive says they will likely release a variety of monthly all-you-can-eat plans, and then open their network up to other brands and cellphone companies. This means more than just a 4th national wireless carrier in Canada, it means a whole new level of competition.

I invited Anthony because he, to me, represents the sort of ambition and vision that every startup should have. How many folks have the guts to say they are going to be the next national wireless carrier in Canada and then go make it happen? Just one, that is Anthony.

Globalive has not been an easy ride, they have consistently iterated over their business model, have found new markets when the needed them and their brands, such as Yak, have been growing in prominence.

The story of Globalive is also one of uninhibited ambition. When Anthony needed to raise a few billion dollars to bid in the wireless spectrum auction, he just picked up the phone. “I cold-called about 100 parties, from investors to operators to advisors, people that look at the wireless industry.”

That takes guts.

Anthony will be keynoting on Day 2 of the conference. This is your chance to meet one of Canada’s next great success stories.

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I would like to thank our Leadership sponsors, Microsoft and HighRoad Communications.

We are also pleased to announce our champion sponsors,

PriceWaterhouseCoopers
Ontario Centers of Excellence
and JLA Ventures.

Visit www.startupempire.ca for more information on the conference and to register.

This is a guest post by Christopher Pyper Co-founder and Lead Developer of MyWebVine.

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When I finished school and first hit the job market it was right in the middle of the dot-com bust. When I finally found a job it was at a company called Hostopia. The company sold web hosting, email, and application services for businesses through large ISPs and Telcos like Rogers, Bell, Telus, and Verizon. Working there was a very intense learning experience for me. The rapid growth meant I had to learn fast, work even faster, innovate always, and adopt as quickly as possible.

Hostopia was almost entirely bootstrapped by it’s owners – who worked there every single day. It had a solid business model and an awesome core team of employees with whom the founders had worked with in the past (they had previously founded Tucows and Look Communications). Just a few months ago Hostopia was acquired for $124 million, not too shabby for a Canadian tech startup. There is undoubtedly something to learn from a team that can produce three successful Canadian start-ups in a row.

This company succeeded when everyone else was failing during the dot-com bust by having solid fundamentals. Have no doubt that we as Canadians and Entrepreneurs will be hit with the repercussions of this credit crisis. Getting the basics right is even more important now that financial meltdown has tightened a lot of purse strings.

BUSINESS MODEL

Does the world really need another Twitter clone? Is your Facebook application going to stand out from Vampire Bites? Why in hell are you gambling on an acquisition to profit? Are you actually going to make money? If not, go do this right now: Climb to the top of the CN tower – or take the elevator – and look around, you will see businesses and consumers in every direction stretching to the horizon. The world is a big place and there is still plenty of room for good ideas.

Most of the successful web based start-ups I have seen were great because they brought something to the web that was never there before. And they had a way of drawing profits now or in the near future from sales or advertising. In other words, they made money directly from their service. Hostopia resold it services through large ISPs and Telcos. They didn’t give away free accounts, cheapen themselves by fighting for the bottom, or over-hype their products. They simply sold a good reliable service for money.

FUNDING

Too many start-ups burn through too much cash with no tangible results. The fact is, many web-based start-ups actually need very little funding; at least to build their service. Whatever happened to a little sweat equity and bootstrapping? A distributed team can get a lot done collaborating through voip, email, im, and wikis; all while managing source code through tools like Git or CVS. As for hosting costs, those can be easily be kept down in early stages by using a reliable shared hosting service, or a cloud service like Amazon EC2 or Google App Engine. If you do require funding, at least try and develop something tangible to bring to the table. This shows you have enthusiasm, proves your concept, and demonstrates you can deliver – it also greatly increases your chances of securing the sought after financing.

TEAM

You need a great team if you really want to succeed. This goes for every department, not just technology. Your lawyer, accountant, marketing director, and sales people are just as important. Hostopia’s founders have been using the same core team through three successful start-ups (going on four now I think), that’s how important they are. I have seen first hand what a small powerful team can do.

Make sure your team members have the four E’s: Education, Experience, Enthusiasm, and Equity (tangible direct equity in your start-up); otherwise, your just spinning your wheels. Bringing on employees that don’t have the same enthusiasm as the founders is the surest way to fail, the company is just a paycheque to them.

Don’t forget, recessions can mean opportunity for your start-up, if you have nailed down the fundamentals.