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"If you told me you were going to write me a check for $10 million, I'd say, 'Forget it'"

4 pointsby fleaflickerover 17 years ago
--Lance Tokuda, the chief executive of RockYou, which developed the "Super Wall" Facebook application.<p>I have a difficult time seeing the value in an application that can be developed by a first-year computer science student in one weekend.<p>Also, if Facebook ever decided to enhance their Wall feature, Super Wall would become obsolete. (Facebook would never cannibalize its highest profile developers like this. At least not yet.)

8 comments

piusover 17 years ago
Of course, Lance is saying that because no one is actually stupid enough to write him a check for $10 million right now. Not for Super Wall, at least.<p>Most Facebook-only apps are in absurdly precarious business positions: they're features, not products, they've got a low barrier to entry for competitors, and they exist at the whim of a shrewd, aggressive company with a history of "incorporating" applications on its platform <i>into</i> its own product with little regard to the developers who created them.
tlrobinsonover 17 years ago
"I have a difficult time seeing the value in an application that can be developed by a first-year computer science student in one weekend."<p>First of all, the value doesn't come from the technology, the value comes from the users. RockYou's applications have millions upon millions of Facebook users, each of which can generate revenue via... advertising!<p>Second, that said, I doubt a first year CS student could write a <i>scalable</i> implementation of Super Wall, etc, that would support said millions upon millions of users.<p>Basically, RockYou is like HotOrNot... not very technologically exciting, but managed to get a critical mass of users. If another company tried to duplicate what HotOrNot or RockYou has done <i>now</i>, they would fail miserably, and believe me, many have tried.
astonover 17 years ago
I assume that was $10 million for more than just Super Wall. RockYou's not poorly positioned in this whole widget/app/gadget/plugin space. Meanwhile, Super Wall is a Facebook developer's boring weekend away from irrelevance.
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imsteveover 17 years ago
&#62; I have a difficult time seeing the value in an application that can be developed by a first-year computer science student in one weekend.<p>I have trouble believing that billions of gallons of oil discovered in 5 minutes by a 5 year old should be worth anything. Wait, that reasoning makes no sense at all.
ekanesover 17 years ago
I agree SuperWall isn't worth $10 million, but wanted to point out that "could be created in a weekend" doesn't mean anything at all. A lot of successful startups could be written in a weekend. <p>For example, this guy created the core structure of twitter in 170 lines of Scala and lift. <a href="http://blog.lostlake.org/index.php?/archives/55-Prance-with-the-Horses,-Skittr-with-the-Mice.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.lostlake.org/index.php?/archives/55-Prance-with-...</a> That could easily have been done in a weekend.<p>Often you start with something fast/tiny and iterate like mad to fill in the gaps, but the basic concept is often easy to start.
richcollinsover 17 years ago
I'm a little skeptical when their main revenue source is selling users to other facebook applications. Feels like the whole subprime thing to me.
danwover 17 years ago
Wasn't superwall made redundant wihtin a few weeks of release thanks to facebook wall and message attachements feature?
downerover 17 years ago
$10 million checks: Accepted here.