Posted on October 4, 2007 | Category: MARS BLOG
The Facebook insanity has officially reached epic levels. In today’s New York Times, the chief executive (Lance Tokuda, pictured below) of the company (RockYou) behind Facebook widget Super Wall tells the paper, “If you told me you were going to write me a check for $10 million, I’d say, ‘Forget it.’” Wait, it gets better. Tokuda then says, “This is a completely new channel of delivering content to users and letting them communicate… Owning that over the long stretch can be worth a lot.”
There’s just one problem with Tokuda’s logic: His company doesn’t “own” those users utilizing his widget–those are Facebook users. Although some like to talk pie-in-the-sky about Facebook as “the new operating system” of the Web, the fact is that it is a closed system in which Facebook could change the rules at any time. Perhaps Tokuda’s irrational exuberance comes from his backing from Silicon Valley VC powerhouse Sequoia Capital. Nevertheless, when one gets their NY Times or Wall Street Journal moment, one hopes it’s a moment that will be remembered as a flattering page in the history books, not as a marker of the tipping point regarding overvalued ventures operating in a frothy Internet market.
If Tokuda is really serious about turning down $10 million for his widget, then not only is he delusional (even “if” he manages to find a sucker willing to pay north of $10 million for one Facebook widget), but he may have just qualified as the poster boy for dot com bubble 2.0.
Photo: merfam
» Filed Under MARS BLOG