Gawker
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startups
Sun Valley's Lusty Old Men Are Fickle
Allen & Company is doing its annual thing in Sun Valley, Idaho, in which old moguls shamelessly ogle the most supple young internet startups. This year, everyone's drooling over Twitter. Last year's trophy companies? Not looking so sexy. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by raincoaster: Not ONE J*l*a A*l*i*o* reference. It IS a totally New Gawker. more » | Other threads
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nerdfight
The Facebook Faithful Turn Against Mark Zuckerberg's Redesign
When will Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wake up and realize he made an idiotic mistake by copying Twitter? The Facebook-loving masses loathe the new look — as do Facebook's best pals in Silicon Valley. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by i'm a bottle: The worst thing about the redesign is people's quiz results showing up constantly in the news feed because people have... 11 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
Max Levchin gives Slide a new business model, again
Max Levchin is onto his third business plan for Slide. Levchin's startup just signed a deal with content distributors Time Warner, Warner Bros., CBS, E!, Hulu and others to turn Slide's FunSpace application — formerly known as FunWall — into a video-sharing, video-distribution channel targeting social network users. Opening a New York sales office soon, Slide will sell ads against its partners' videos as well as share in some of their revenues. Levchin's investors say Slide is worth $550 million, but they're obviously investing in Levchin's ability to will Slide's 160 million users into a valuable asset, no matter how many times the company stumbles. More »
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Comment by SwapnasundariSparrow: I don't get the comparison to Reader's Digest. Reader's Digest subscribers pay real money to subscribe; Slide subscribers do not.... 3 Responses | Other threads
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max levchin
Please don't post photos of my wedding to Slide
Slide founder Max Levchin made longtime lover Nellie Minkova an honest woman on Saturday. The ceremony was held at San Francisco's St. Regis Hotel, and featured HotOrNot cofounder James Hong as best man, with fellow PayPal mafioso Peter Thiel another groomsman. Gracious enough for the couple to refuse gifts besides books and wine, considering how many zeros Levchin can count toward his (and now their) wealth. However, rather ironic that the bride and groom asked guests not to upload any pictures from the ceremonies online for "privacy" reasons. More »
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By Jackson WestComment by Shadowlayer: Wealth? wasnt he broke before slide? Does VC meant for Slide, not the founder, counts as personal wealth now? ¬_¬ 3 Responses | Other threads
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Next Establishment
Once again, Vanity Fair leaves geeks at the kids' power table
Preeminent among the magazine world's kingmaking power lists is Vanity Fair's New Establishment, which appears in the October issue — on newsstands in L.A. and New York today, but not in the Bay Area for another six days. Silicon Valley gets similar short shrift: The names who make it there are predictable bigs like Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison, or Hollywood-crossover types like Jeff Skoll, eBay's first employee turned movie producer. Walt Mossberg, now employed by New Establishment perennial Rupert Murdoch, also squeaked in. The consolation prize Vanity Fair offers: Its "Next Establishment" list, reserved for the likes of Twitter's Ev Williams. It's a marvelous piece of New York media trickery — flatter the geeks by making them feel included, but corral them into a side room so the real power brokers aren't offended by comparison. True, the "Next Establishment" suggests that these are people who might matter in the future. But in saying that, Vanity Fair's editors are also sending the message that right here, right now, its "Next" nominees are nobodies. On this year's list: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Robleh: I doubt they would put Murdoch's wife on a list of nobodies. more » | Other threads
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online advertising
How much money can Facebook apps actually make?
DeveloperAnalytics, a research firm which analyzes Facebook applications, put out an appealing bit of linkbait this morning that purports to show how much money popular applications could earn each month. It calculates the metric based on "hundreds of real CPM, and CPA/Virtual Goods revenue data points collected directly from developers and partners." That's CPM as in "cost per thousand" — the traditional way ads are sold, based on the number of people they reach — and CPA as in "cost per action," which is usually based on linking payment for an ad to its generation of sales, signups, or other results. Virtual goods? Those are the cheesy little icons you can send your friends on Facebook. Yes, some people pay money for them. More »
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Comment by Hello_Newman: Yes, become an underworld crime syndicate, who is gonna know, what harm could possibly come from doing that? It's right... more » | Other threads
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party report
Slide shows off the wealth at third anniversary
Attention, rival Facebook-application developers: Slide has money in the bank, and your widget startup doesn't. Such was the unsubtle message of Slide's third anniversary, held last night at San Francisco's newly opened Contemporary Jewish Museum. It was the first tech-company party held at the sleekly modern spot, a block or so away from Second and Mission, San Francisco's new dotcom epicenter (Slide is based nearby, as are Yelp, Socializr, and others.) It was Slide's first big party since raising $50 million earlier this year. CEO Max Levchin has not let wealth go to his head — he was happily recounting how, when he first moved to Palo Alto, he had to fast-talk his way into an apartment lease from a paisan named Vinnie, since past startup failures had thoroughly wrecked his credit. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by VirgilWolf: Slide is actually ignoring it's consumers on superpoke pets. The forum is full of complaints which are not... more » | Other threads
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your privacy is an illusion
Facebook redesign exposed birth dates
Here's a good way for Facebook to keep its demographic young: IT security firm Sophos reports that early on during Facebook's beta test of a new user-profile design, the site revealed its members birth dates, even if members had set that information to private. That'll keep the Olds who turn 43 every year off the site. Facebook needs to be very careful when it comes to privacy — the site would like to figure out a way to target ads based on user's personal data, and wants to make sure users are comfortable inputting accurate information. And Facebook is being hypocritical: When Slide's Facebook Top Friends app revealed users' birth dates, Facebook temporarily kicked the app off the website. Of course, we won't hold our breath waiting for Facebook to suspend its entire website. But maybe it could back down from its holier-than-thou pose that the platform is a level playing field and Facebook is just another player? Yes, please.
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Comment by Nicholas Carlson: @macbeach: How do you think we really lost Jordan? more » | Other threads
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facebook apps
The Valley's Facebook frenzy fades
They can't say they didn't have it coming. But widgetmakers are angry all the same about Facebook's decision to clone Slide's Top Friends application as a feature in its latest redesign. "It would be insane for a new developer" to begin creating new apps the platform now, says an executive at one of the many Facebook-applications firms watching the story. The exec says the VCs widget startups pitch for funding know it, too, and are closing their wallets. He blames Facebook's "new regime," including new COO Sheryl Sandberg and recently-appointed flack-cum-platform director, Elliot Schrage: More » -
widgets
New Facebook feature makes Slide's Top Friends app redundant
If you're the application developer and they're the platform owner, you have to know death can come at any moment: Create a popular, simple application, and the platform owner might just rip you off in their next release. It's happened to Max Levchin's Slide, maker of the popular Facebook widget Top Friends. With its latest profile redesign, Facebook now allows users to specify which friends they'd like to display to profile visitors. (See how Facebook's version works in the image above and you'll note that with the friends I've selected, my goal is to intimidate profile visitors with my powerful connections.) Before you feel too sorry for Slide, note that this is a feature MySpace has long offered. Slide, seeing that Facebook lacked it, promptly cooked up Top Friends, which filled the void. Top Friends is Slide's second most popular application with nearly 1.5 million daily active users. On the strength of those user numbers, Slide has raised $50 million in a recent financing round, and is opening an ad-sales office in New York. We asked for Slide's reaction. They were surprisingly chipper! More »
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Comment by sggrf: agree that these companies are a joke and should all crash and burn! more » | Other threads
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max levchin
Barry Diller reveals he still likes them young in Sun Valley
At Allen & Co.'s annual schmoozefest in Sun Valley, Idaho, there were a lot of regulars, like IAC's Barry Diller — and a few new faces, like Slide CEO Max Levchin. Julia Boorstin of CNBC reports that the two were "lingering" together at lunch. This after Kevin Rose reported how Diller charmed More » -
rumormonger
Did Slide get rival RockYou's Facebook apps punished?
Traffic to RockYou's popular Facebook widget Super Wall declined from 2.1 million to 600,000 daily users over the last few days, as Facebook blocked the widget from sending users notifications and messages, claiming RockYou had violated Facebook's privacy policies. RockYou CTO Jia Shen told Inside Facebook the allegations and their punitive response are "slightly debatable": More »
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Comment by ScalaWag: No surprise here. Facebook banned default spamming of all friends, using notifications. That is when your entire friend list is... more » | Other threads
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your privacy is an illusion
Slide's Top Friends back on Facebook after third-party privacy audit
Facebook's third-most popular widget, Slide's Top Friends, is back after Facebook suspended it on June 26. (The offense: displaying Top Friends' users birthdays and other private information that wouldn't normally be visible on Facebook.) What took so long? Following the suspension, Slide wanted to call its apps the most secure on Facebook. To feel comfortable doing so, it contracted a third-party audit firm to review its applications and source code, Slide exec Keith Rabois told us. "The issue with Top Friends was fixed immediately," Rabois told us, "But as you might imagine an independent audit takes time to perform." Elsewhere on Facebook, Slide's privacy troubles seem to be spreading. More »
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Comment by Ted Dziuba: Excellent. Now slide can get back to profiting wildly from Top Friends. more » | Other threads
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widgets
VH1 and Slide sign deal to create Facebook's killer app — Flavor Flav SuperPokes
On Wednesday, Facebook and MySpace users who have installed Slide's near-ubiquitous SuperPoke widget — the one that lets you throw sheep — will be able to send messages branded with characters and slogans from VH1's stable of reality series such as Flavor Flav from Flavor of Love. It's all an effort to promote the new series I Love Money — which, surprisingly, does not star hypercompetitive Slide founder Max Levchin. Who knew?
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By Jackson WestComment by Shadowlayer: So a crackhead AND flav are going into the net business. more » | Other threads
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slide
Facebook suspends Max Levchin's Slide over security loophole
Until last night, Top Friends by Slide was Facebook's third most popular widget, judging by daily active users and installations. Today, Top Friends is no longer on Facebook at all. News.com says its because pesky Canadian Byron Ng discovered a security loophole in the widget that allowed any user with Top Friends installed to view more profile information — birthdays, gender, and relationship statuses — then Facebook allows strangers to see. Ng discovered a similar loophole in SuperWall, an app made by Slide rival, RockYou. But RockYou already fixed the problem and SuperWall remains on the Facebook platform. No word on whether this little tidbit has Slide founder Max Levchin in this hospital from punching holes in a wall or two. (We hear the rivalry is a little intense).
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Comment by a1choi: @pepelicious: how about explaining "widget-breaker" on your resume? more » | Other threads
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venture capital
$35 million round wasn't enough for RockYou
Online widgetmaker RockYou is still looking for another $5 million to $15 million in funding, even after it took $35 million last week, at a $300 million valuation. That money was for doubling its staff, moving to a larger office in Redwood City and acquiring more widgets — those annoying add-ons to social-network profiles — for its portfolio, RockYou CTO and founder Jia Shen told Silicon Alley Insider — but it's not clear what the extra cash is for. In March, rumor had it RockYou's lastest funding round would set its value near $400 million, but thanks in part to a sliding ad market and a developer-unfriendly Facebook redesign, investors are said to have turned skeptical, sending the startup's paper value down by $100 million to $150 million. More »
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Comment by Uncle-Sam's Littlle Helper: I heard in the US it was illegal to burn dollar notes (while burning the flag is legal, must be... more » | Other threads
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yelp
New details on Yelp's New York expansion
Social reviews site Yelp isn't nearly as popular in New York as it is in San Francisco and management has been planning to do something about it. "They're gonna pump up efforts to conquer NYC, renting an office in Gramercy area and assign [an] East Coast community leader," a source with new details tells us. Yelp already has an ad sales office in New York's West Village, but our source says those people will move to the larger office further uptown by September as well. Yelp is a cousin to widgetmaker Slide, with Slide founder Max Levchin on Yelp's board. With Slide's own upcoming move to New York and Yelp's city expansion, we'd expect to see a lot more Levchin around the Alley, except, well, we hear he never leaves the office. (And if he did, we'd prefer he say hello to his bride to be first.)
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Comment by Ted Dziuba: The name 'Yelp' has always weirded me out. I have these visions of a neighborhood cat who just got... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Display advertising spending grows, but grows slower as inventory gets cheaper
Spending on display advertising — banner ads and other graphical Web come-ons — increased 8.5 percent in the first quarter over last year to $2.92 billion, reports ad-measurement firm TNS. At the same time, the Internet's "reach" — a rough measure of media consumption and, therefore, advertising inventory — has grown 66.6 percent since April 2007, according to ZenithOptimedia. Shall we do an exercise in basic economics, folks? More »
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Comment by G2GdoB2B: Truth is that as technology and other aspects are changed (in the advertisement industry), the ads become more and more... more » | Other threads
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widgets
Slide to stop making Facebook apps
Slide VP Keith Rabois says the widgetmaker is done making widgets — at least for Facebook. Rabois told SIlicon Alley Insider that Slide wants to focus on improving its existing apps, like SuperPoke and Top Friends. The company also knows it needs to start figuring out how to make enough money to justify its $550 million valuation. Last week, Slide hired AOL's former director of national sales, Jason Bitensky, to head up a new New York office. Money aside, Slide's announcement may be little more than politicking. More »
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Comment by BobDope: I didn't even advance to the 'look at the API' documentation with FadBook's API. I'm really great at time... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Slide comes to New York, cap in hand
Widgetmaker Slide hired AOL's former director of national sales, Jason Bitensky, and opened a New York office in the West Village, Kara Swisher reports. Slide CEO and founder Max Levchin says his company followed the bright lights to the big city because More » -
your privacy is an illusion
Facebook's widget security? You could throw a sheep through it
Linking up social websites, as proponents of "data portability" would have us do, can be hazardous to your privacy. And Paris Hilton's, and Lindsay Lohan's. But even the widgets on a single social network can leave us exposed. SuperPoke, a popular application made by Slide, will show you who's thrown a sheep at anyone, as long as you have their Facebook ID — the unique numeric identifier which shows up in the URL of their Facebook profile. Mark Zuckerberg's SuperPoke feed is here; substitute the number of another Facebook user for Zuckerberg's "4", and you can see every last sheep he or she has been involved with. More » -
geek love
Facebook's Julia Lam and Slide's Doug Sherrets like to SuperPoke
While people are busy complaining about Facebook's "Orwellian" redesign, you won't hear a peep from Doug Sherrets, who works in business development at widgetmaker Slide. Why? We hear Sherrets and Julia Lam, who works in platform product marketing for Facebook, are now — as Facebook profilespeak would have it — "in a relationship." Could that be a conflict of interest? Maybe, but you obviously can't credit all of Slide's success to Sherrets's abilities to sleep with the frenemy. Slide's most popular widget, SuperPoke, is said to be both sticky and fun.
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Comment by Fidel on the Roof: Whoops!! Spoke to soon!!! [valleywag.com] more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Sheryl Sandberg defends Facebook's invisible ads
Facebook applications don't really do anything special yet. Neither, for that matter, do Facebook's ads. But that's OK, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg insisted yesterday at the D6 conference. Some of the applications, like Slide's SuperPoke, are really popular. Just like Elvis, she says.The comparison fails on two counts. More »
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Comment by DrewCadillaxing: Great sense of humor! Where did you get it, I wonder? (Ha ha) Insightful article! more » | Other threads
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max levchin
Start a company now, says Max Levchin — so he can buy it
Slide founder Max Levchin believes Web 2.0 is about to bust. Funding will evaporate and revenues won't materialize; companies will fold and employees will lose their jobs. The lucky few that can will sellout to larger companies. All of which means "this is the perfect time to start a company," Levchin told the Financial Times. Why does Levchin believe this? You know, other than the fact that he's a well-documented masochist who works 15 to 18 hour days and, despite a fear of the water, forced himself through a triathlon? More »
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Comment by Barce: @HowardHughes: In Wagner's "Die Meistersinger," being-for-itself, being-for-others or the mit-sein, and being-in-itself all surged into Being as balance, or the... more » | Other threads
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wantrepreneurs
Web 2.0 living on borrowed money
The bad news? While a few startup stars like Twitter and Slide can get venture cash on little or no revenue, the expiration date on your "it's [blank] with a social network layer" pitch may be well past. "There is going to be a shake-out here in the next year or two," Battery Ventures partner Roger Lee told the Financial Times. Mitchell Kertzman of Hummer Winblad was a little more succinct: "If you look at some of the valuations, you wonder what fantasy of revenues they're based on." The kinda good news? Google will help subsidize the cost of entry for early-stage online projects with infrastructure — you'll just have to use their Web Apps cloud and their Gears and Android clients developing browse and mobile applications, respectively. (Photo by Edward O'Connor)
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By Jackson WestComment by AdineSimon: Hi, I'd prefer it if you didn't use my photos in your posts. Thanks. Ted more » | Other threads
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poll
What should Max Levchin do with his forgotten $100,000?
Before PayPal and Slide founder Max Levchin moved from Illinois to Palo Alto in 1998, he'd started three companies and sold the last for $100,000 — not a tiny amount of money, especially for a young entrepreneur. But after selling PayPal to eBay for $1.54 billion, these days Levchin is worth around $100 million. Six figures no longer merit that much of his attention. It's such a paltry amount that in Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, Sarah Lacy reports Levchin actually forgot about the money until 2006. "In just four years," Lacy writes, "$100,000 would go from being unfathomable riches to pocket change." Levchin is no longer interested in the purchasing power of money, but we are. So let the young multi-millionaire know how he should spend that $100,000 in "pocket change" in our poll. More »
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Comment by Uncle-Sam's Littlle Helper: Levchin should give the 100,000 US$ to me! I will garantee him a good karma for the rest of... more » | Other threads
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developers, developers, developers
MySpace bans the spam tactics that ruined Facebook apps
Little-known MySpace "cofounder" Kyle Brinkman announced new rules for application developers on the social network's platform today. They're meant to prevent the spam bubble Facebook went through after it launched its platform last year. In response, Facebook tightened up its rules, and offended developers in the process. MySpace's new rules: More »
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Comment by ScalaWag: What idiot would waste time developing on MySpace after these changes? Most of successful apps are games with a point... more » | Other threads
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widgets
Bezos-backed Kongregate moves to Facebook platform
Kongregate, a sort of YouTube for Flash games backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos as well as Greylock Partners, will adapt some of its 4,500 games to Facebook's platform this week, Kongregate CEO Jim Greer told Inside Social Games. Kongregate makes money, or tries to, through advertising it shares with third-party game developers. Facebook doesn't need more gimmicky games, but with other widgetmakers like RockYou and Slide asking for (and getting) nine-figure valuations, don't expect the deluge to let up any time soon. -
keith rabois
Slide exec on widgets: Fun is where the money is
This decade's greatest Internet hits — Google and PayPal — make so much money because they help money change hands more efficiently. The next great wave of moneymakers on the Web won't be nearly so utilitarian, Keith Rabois, VP at widgetmaker Slide, argues in a guest post to AllThingsD. Rabois says the Web's next mint will be made on fun — a very underrated commodity, he says. To demonstrate his point, he harkens back to the week of April 21 and the electoral contest that captured all of America's attention. Not the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, Rabois writes. "I'm talking about American Idol." Then he lays down some convincing numbers: More »
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Comment by dailycandor: ConFlamingo: [news-service.stanford.edu] It's most certainly real. I was a (gay) Stanford freshman at the time. A good friend of mine dropped out... more » | Other threads
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venture capital
Hyped widgetmaker explains the widgetmaker hype
Union Square Ventures funded Mark Pincus's casual games maker Zynga with $10 million not long after Max Levchin-founded widgetmaker Slide raised $50 million. Competitor RockYou wants a round of funding that would value it at $400 million. We like to scoff at these purveyors of online sheep-throwing tools, but that's serious scratch, people. In this excerpt from a longer interview with Kara Swisher, Zynga's Mark Pincus explains what widgetmakers see in our future — and shows us exactly what kind of pitch VCs are going for these days.
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Comment by longtimereader: He's the guy who was smart enough to buy, with Reid Hoffman, the Six Degrees social networking patent. more » | Other threads
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once you're lucky, twice you're good
L is for Levchin, who never goes slow
Max Levchin, the cofounder of PayPal and the CEO of Slide, measures nearly everything, down to the optimum price to pay for an engagement ring. If he needs a metric for self-importance, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, Sarah Lacy's new book about Web 2.0, provides one. He occupies 78 out of 294 pages, more than anyone else. Here are the index pages for "F" through "M": More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by plushmessiah: It's amazing that this shit is actually called "book". more » | Other threads
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geek love
Slide CEO Max Levchin soon to wed Nellie Minkova
Hidden in Fortune editor Andy Serwer's stream-of-capitalism blog was this nugget: Slide CEO Max Levchin will soon wed longtime girlfriend Nellie Minkova. Minkova, pictured here with Levchin, works at Clarium Capital Management, the hedge fund of Peter Thiel, Levchin's cofounder at PayPal. For more of Minkova, see this excerpt from a New York Times video where she discussed domestic life with a boyfriend who works 18 hours a day: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by CharBo: Gee, why would you marry someone who's never around? more » | Other threads
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widgets
MySpace charges $50,000 to $100,000 to feature apps
For the past two days, only applications from Max Levchin's Slide have appeared in MySpace's featured application page. Smaller developers asked why, the Social Times reports, and found out it's because Slide pays. On the order of around $50,000 to $100,000 per week, these developers say. Facebook does not charge application makers to feature them, ranking apps instead on user activity and feedback. The Social Times notes that MySpace's Sponsored App program could keep small developers from gaining popularity on MySpace. Whatever it takes to keep Vampires and Zombies at bay, we say.
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Comment by Scott: It really surprises me that smart companies like MySpace miss the essential problem with taking money from the underfunded developers... more » | Other threads
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developers
How widgetmakers hijacked Zuckerberg's Facebook redesign
Facebook's redesign — originally planned for early April, but delayed due to objections from widgetmakers like RockYou, Slide, and Zynga — is no longer a Mark Zuckerberg production. Third-party developers have hijacked it. A source close to the redesign process tells us "Facebook has made some changes to the original design, reflecting developer concerns." Below, screenshots of Zuckerberg's original plans for the redesign, annotated with the objections Facebook-application startups raised. More » -
online advertising
Slide's Max Levchin: It's time to shift away from advertising
Worried about an upcoming recession, PayPal cofounder Max Levchin told News.com that his company, Slide, is "trying to shift away from advertising partially" and go "direct to consumers" for its revenues. "It cuts out one more party from the equation," Levchin said. "During a recession time you don't have to worry so much about building an enormous scale, you just have to build up a loyal base of fans that pay you a little bit." Slide's revenues today are generated mostly from ads on mini-applications embedded on Facebook and MySpace pages. Levchin is not the first to have come up with this idea, but having just raised $50 million from large investors for an ad-supported business, Levchin's shift in thinking is either a wise caution — or a brilliantly devious headfake for rivals who have yet to raise a big round of venture capital. More »
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Comment by notyoutool: His next project, selling subs to the anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous Facebook app he describes here: [www.news.com] Think about all of... more » | Other threads
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developers, developers, developers
Widgetmakers successfully gut Zuckerberg's Facebook redesign
When we ran screenshots of Facebook's new profile pages back in late February, what you saw was a classic Mark Zuckerberg production. A source close to Facebook tells us the profile redesign was Zuckerberg's pet project, his baby. Well, that baby is dead. More »
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Comment by Fidel on the Roof: @Norcross: It is not a bad thing... it just proves you have no acne. Outside of here, you and I... more » | Other threads
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real estate
RedEnvelope failure frees up SoMa space
The likely closure of troubled online retailer RedEnvelope has a benefit for space-hungry startups near its SoMa headquarters at 149 New Montgomery. Yelp and Slide are among the rapidly expanding companies in the neighborhood. I asked Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman if he was going to swoop in on the space. "I wish 'cause it looks like a cool building, but we recently added space at 706 Mission so I think we're locked in there for a while," he told me. No word from Slide CEO Max Levchin. RedEnvelope signed a five-year lease in July 2004, with a base rent of $51,332 a month for 28,000 square feet. (Photo by Google Street View)
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By Owen ThomasComment by w00zy33: Anyone know when the garage sale is going to be? I could use a new Aeron chair. more » | Other threads
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bubble 2.0
No one has any idea how much Facebook applications are worth
SuperPoke is worth $13 million according to Facebook application tracker Adonomics. The site awards applications like Slide's Top Friends and RockYou's SuperWall values in the tens of millions of dollars — which provides some of the basis for the 9-digit figures that Slide has commanded, and RockYou hopes to get, in venture capitalists' estimates of their worth. Adonomics' numbers are as sketchy as those valuations, however. Facebook's homegrown Video application only has 807 active users, according to Adonomics stats. Something's off here, and I don't think it's just Facebook's $15 billion value. More »
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Comment by microserfin: Zuck and crew will be eating crow by next year once they all realize the FB crack pipe they... more » | Other threads
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deals
Is Slide worth half a billion? Only if Facebook buys them
In January a pair of money managers, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price, bought 9.1 percent of Slide for $50 million. Fortune asks, "Are these widgets worth half a billion?" The mag doesn't come up with anything more than "maybe," but I'm willing to go a little further. Slide worth $550 million? No, despite its huge traffic numbers. While it's true that advertisers are desperate to reach the 18-24 market, I hardly think SuperPoke is what they had in mind. More » -
rumormonger
Morgan Stanley trying to get $400 million for RockYou
RockYou, the widget maker best known for Facebook's Super Wall application, has hired Morgan Stanley to raise a new financing round at a $400 million valuation, according to a hedge fund manager whom the investment bank solicited for the deal. Slide, a competitor, recently raised a round and is now worth $550 million, at least in its investors' fantasies, which sets a high bar for RockYou. Slide is the biggest reason why RockYou might actually get the financing. After it struck its deal, cofounders Jia Shen and Lance Tokuda could argue for a comparable value. But not all is rosy for Shen and Tokuda. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by sggrf: Show me the MONEY! What I really mean is: Show me the revenue model --- now! How can anyone buy... more » | Other threads
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