Facebook, I don't get it.

When it comes to keeping up with what's in, in social networking technology, I am lost. I rely on my nannies to know what is hot. I call it the tech nanny-dar. If the nannies say it is in, it is in.

It started two years ago I noticed that the two nannies we took to Majorca, both in their early 20's couldn't wait to log onto MySpace in their free time. Meanwhile for the younger generation we took this year, it was all "Facebook, Facebook, Facebook!" Clearly MySpace was passé. Stuff for porn-stars and musicians, and, like, really ancient people, like, if you're older than 26 and all.

I tried to remember the first time I had heard about Facebook. Then, I remembered, it was Peter Fenton, one of our VCs. He mentioned it to Nathalie and me back in 2004 over dinner. He was all excited and hyped up on it, probably because Accel had just signed on as their lead investors. At the time, I drew a complete blank. I just didn't get it. I thought it was a passing fad, whose hotness was due to an average user profile closer to Girls Gone Wild rather than your typical IT software developer. The very fact that I thought software plumbing was more exciting than Mindy from Chico State, whose interests are "beer pong, beer pong and weed", is probably why I didn't get it in the first place...

Recently Facebook is trying to position itself in the application infrastructure space, closer to my middleware background. According to the founder of Facebook, it is not "just" a social networking site anymore, it is this whole, uh, big, uh, unified, new API thing. You know it's a platform for the future, the web operating system, and whatnot. Hmmmh, where have I heard that before... First of all I always think "uh oh!" when companies start claiming they are no longer "just" what they actually are. That just tells me they do not know what they are anymore. Second, I have seen enough of these to not get too excited quite yet .

Maybe the kid has an API for modern applications, maybe... I haven't looked at it. Remember, I don't really give a shit. But Billionaire Marc has. From Marc Andreessen's blog, it appears that the APIs from Facebook have gone from "hip" to "passe" in a matter of 4 weeks. Obviously the internet's middleware layer would have to show more stability than that for it to be considered "the internet's middleware layer"... no?

Whether Facebook's APIs are indeed real or not is somewhat irrelevant. Facebook is a phenomenon, a phenomenom that has already attracted a Billion dollar offer from the likes of Yahoo! The 20 something founder and CEO turned down the offer.

My instinct would be to "take the money!" and come to think of it, it would also be my advice even without knowing anything about the company or the market... I don't know, turning down $1Bill... is a ballsy move. I wouldn't do it.

Whether the company is worth 1, 2, 4 bill or frankly $40 mill, selling your company is the difference between a personal net worth of zero and a lot of money. That binary step is a lot of mental pressure. Nobody wants to wake up when they are 40, thinking "I coulda, shoulda".

Meanwhile the latest from the nanny-dar is that the girls have graduated and have started cleaning up their Facebook walls, what with finding their first jobs, looking more professional, and what not. And so I wonder, what will the new-new generation nanny-dar say next summer?

Comments

Wayt said…
I take this as a sign that it's time for you to get back in The Game. Please get back in; Atlanta's entrepreneurs need you. And your attitude and cojones. They really do.

Re Facebook, the train left the station 3 months back:
http://www.bigthinkr.com/2007/05/31/facebook-kool-aid/

Or if I don't have the street cred, take it from Billionaire Marc:
http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/analyzing_the_f.html

wayt king
adt43wt342 said…
wayt,

thanks for the cheerful invitation but I will pass :) at least for another year, too many mountains to ski, too many kids to look after.

Interesting group blog you guys have with Jeff Hayne and co, enjoyed reading some of it.

Re: Facebook, the was announcement that was 3 mo ago, but has it seen any uptake? I am not so interested in the hardwire news angle here but whether people say they use it today, make money, i.e. whether there is anything beyond the announcement of 3 mo ago.

You mention ATL guys that were developing facebook apps, were are they at now.
pcleddy said…
yo, yo, yo' link ta marc all got an exta slash, yo
Wayt said…
Marc, re ATL-based developers of FB apps: Suleman Ali is a 25 yr old GT grad; his Superlatives FB app has been installed 2.5M times since launching mid-July; he's turned down funding from West Coast FB-focused VCs and he's building multiple new apps using Argentine coders.
Another example: one of my own companies LastMinuteGolfer (LastMinuteTeeTimes) launched GolfBuds 2 weeks ago and we already have 20k installs from FB golfers, growing 3k per day now; we will monetize when we enable them to book tee times through our service.
Let us know when you run out of mountains - there is a crop of young hackers here who need mentors!

wayt
Anonymous said…
Here is the summary of what’s happened with Facebook Platform over the first three months.
adt43wt342 said…
Sasha,

thanks for a very relevant post. The numbers are impressive the issues the usual: how do you turn users into customers but they wouldn't be the first ones facing that problem, let me see... offer classes on how to use your widget? hmmmh, wouldn't work. Sell the documentation to your widget for 100 bucks a pop? hmmmh wouldn't work either.

Shit, take the money from the VC, or course! he he.
adt43wt342 said…
Wyat,

I like the way you propose to monetize your apps, sounds clever. Get to monetizing quick and if VCs come even without monetizing, what is this with not taking the money?

Part of my advice from the post is "take the money!". This whole trend of turning down investments, attracted even without revenues, hopefully is sustainable. Again I may be missing this whole Facebook phenomena.

We didn't really have that luxury at JBoss since we grew up in the winter days of 2002-2004, so no proof of revenues meant no investment. The flip side was that by the time we went to VCs we had cash flows and we didn't need the money. That was of course a great position to be in. In a case of no-revenues, a VC would exact his pound of flesh.

Remember: at its best, a good VC is a VERY motivated mentor :)

marcf
adt43wt342 said…
"Ali Suleman"... the bile guy is doing Facebook?
Unknown said…
Sounds like the same lame junk with Second Life. If you're selling something to kids with time on their hands, its the most relevant thing ever. If you're not, its lame. Talking to non-related 17-20 year olds tends to be rather boring unless its about video games I guess.
adt43wt342 said…
Hey Andy,

LOL, well I guess I am like a college student these days, what with DJ"ing and playing video games: too much time on my hands, I should take on a real project :)

Judging by the Wayt and Sasha posts, the market place sounds really promising. The numbers are big enough, the crowd concentrated enough that they may get to monetizing soon. The technical angle is almost irrelevant here. The PHP API could be absolute shite, there could be a marketplace here.

It is still too early to call it either way, we just have to wait a bit more for more tangible data imho. I still don't get it , but I won't discard it quite yet<
Unknown said…
You say:

'First of all I always think "uh oh!" when companies start claiming they are no longer "just" what they actually are. That just tells me they do not know what they are anymore.'

Does this apply to the whole Amazon AWS mess? What's your take on things like S3? Have you already covered this?
Anonymous said…
aa片免費看a片線上aa片免費看影片線上aa片免費看短片aa片 免費看aaa片免費看aaa片免費看短片線上aaa片免費看電話交友視訊美女觀看免費成人哈啦聊天室視訊美女觀看免費激情網愛聊天成人卡通電影免費辣妹視訊聊天網成人遊戲區激情網愛聊天成人小說激情網愛聊天成人遊戲區影音Live秀168視訊美女偷窺視訊聊天室影音視訊聊天情人網情色漫畫辣妹妹影音視訊聊天室888視訊聊天室免費音樂試聽網路視訊聊天室網友一夜情聊天室視訊美女影音網路視訊聊天室影音視訊聊天情人網成人哈啦聊天室一夜激情網愛聊天室080辣妹聊天室網愛成人聊天室skype網愛網愛bbs激情網愛聊天網愛俱樂部網友一夜情聊天室ut影音視訊聊天室視訊聊天交友激情網愛聊天一夜激情影音聊天室真人視訊影音聊天華人影音視訊聊天情人網台北一夜激情聊天室外公外婆聊天室孤男寡女聊天室一網情深聊天室情人皇朝聊天室真愛宣言聊天室自拍偷拍影片影音交友一夜情影音交友火辣美女火辣美媚辣妹視訊聊天成人電影下載情色成人影片情色影片下載美女視訊聊天情色影音聊天情色視訊聊天成人視訊聊天sex520免費影片線上 aa 片試看嘟嘟甜心寶貝直播貼片免費視訊聊天室激情成人網愛聊天室線上免費a片觀看免費 a 長片線上看免費線上 a 電影直播線上免費觀看小電影免費色咪咪影片網免費檳榔西施摸奶影片影音Live秀ez網愛聊天室找網愛聊天室888視訊聊天室♀ 真人視訊影音聊天免費影片線上觀賞watchshow TV情色視訊交友s383情人視訊免費視訊聊天室 AV線上影城FF-FST免費視訊聊天網aa片免費看影片免費a片下載金瓶影片交流區Hotsee免費視訊交友聊天美女視訊美女交友視訊錄影彩虹hi視訊交友網免費觀看視訊辣妹脫衣秀免費視訊聊天區台灣辣妹貼圖區1007 免費 視訊 聊天 秀成人免費視訊聊天區視訊辣妹本人的精采照片免費影音視訊聊天0509免費視訊聊天秀一夜情視訊聊天室火辣美媚情色文學色情照片日本a片吊帶襪美女絲襪美女完美女人影音網波波線上遊戲網美女拳我要看美女全身巨乳美女台灣美女 kiss 情網貼圖區3d 美女短片免費試看前進東洋混血美女 莉亞丁字褲美女圖灣美女 kiss 情網貼圖區美女與野獸西洋白虎美女圖台灣美女寫真集圖片館自拍美女聊天室 s383自拍美女聊天室 視訊聊天自拍美女聊天室裸體美女台灣美女寫真貼圖區電眼美女小遊戲玩弄av美女泳裝美女寫真av美女真人美女辣妹鋼管脫衣秀手槍美女賞圖波霸美女小遊戲白虎美女圖庫一夜情貼圖一夜情聊天Google,網上論壇東東成人論壇WO,WO,論壇18禁地論壇Mr.愛愛聊論壇玫瑰公爵成人論壇荳蔻情色論壇exBT成人論壇亞洲情色論壇辣辣情色論壇激突綜合論壇gogobox論壇伊莉論壇討論區不夜城情色論壇日本情色論壇視訊辣妹0509免費 視訊聊天秀洪爺視訊網性感妹妹正妹牆免費a片線上看免費a片免費a片 線上看AV線上影城線上免費a片免費a片線上免費aa片線上看免費a片-線上看免費a片下載免費a片試看小高聊天室小高 聊天室
Anonymous said…
85cc免費影城85cc免費影片免費 a 片台灣論壇免費影片線上免費a片觀看85cc免費影片線上觀賞a片免費看免費A片A片-sex女優王國免費卡通影片線上觀看小魔女免費影城免費看 aa的滿18歲影片免費a片卡通sex888影片分享區520sex貼片區sex520免費影片免費色咪咪影片網免費影片下載aaaaaa片俱樂部成人a影片論壇aaa片免費看短片後宮0204movie免費影片gogo2sex馬子免費影片免費線上a片aaa片免費看短片sex888免費看影片免費 a 片aaa的滿18歲卡通影片免費線上avdvdaaaa彩虹頻道免費影片sexdiy影城aaaa 片俱樂部sex520免費影片85cc成人影城洪爺影城免費線上歐美A片觀看彩虹頻道免費影片免費卡通影片線上觀看臺灣情色網線上免費a長片浪漫月光論壇 sex383線上娛樂場dudu sex免費影片 杜蕾斯成人bbs x693 com sex888sogo 成人論壇plus論壇sex520免費影片sex999日本美女寫真集sex888 freebbs hk85cc免費影片微風成人av論壇亞洲免費影片線上直播日本 avdvd 介紹免費觀賞視訊情色遊戲sexdiy影城免費成人視訊一本道 a片 東京熱情色影片免費影片下載asex888免費看影片論壇sex888movie影城情色小說本土辣妹34c影片直播吉澤明步免費a片av080免費試看免費aa片試看sex888 freebbs hk卡通美女a片免費試看aa的滿18歲影片a 免費影片觀賞aaa免費看影片aaaaa片俱樂部影片5278論壇免費影片觀賞av博物館sex383線上娛樂場日本 avdvd 介紹免費觀賞avdvd無碼情色電影sexy girl video movie亞洲禁果影城卡通aa片免費看383movie成人影城ut13077視訊聊天aio性愛dvd辣妹影片直播金瓶影片交流區免費a片卡通hilive tv 免費電影彩虹頻道免費短片台南援交友留言彩虹頻道免費短片aio交友愛情館a 免費影片觀賞

Popular posts from this blog

$6.66B for BEA: Larry goes Shopping

Thug vs Thug: Porsche 1, Hedge Funds: 0

Quickies #3, protecting IP in OSS