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Facebook Raises Another $25M
conq writes "BusinessWeek reports that Facebook has just raised another $25M from Venture Capital. Along the same lines, Rupert Murdoch has bought a minority stake in SimplyHired and just two days ago the social networking site, Visible Path said it raised $17M from Venture Capitals."
Who are they?
The latest Slashdot meme.
Is facebook really that great? Everyone I know is on myspace, livejournal, and xanga.
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If you listen closely in the future i hear a loud BANG! as if a big bubble popped. maybe its just me tho!
*gasp* isn't saying stuff like that on here in a similar vein to claiming that MS isn't actually the personification of Satan?
I see all these startups raising rediculous amounts of money and everytime I have to wonder what exactly is the money spent on? Does anyone know? How many developers does it take to maintain something like FaceBook? Just how expensive can their infraastructure and bandwidth be? It just boggles the mind that a site like that can raise so much in venture capital andit is even harder to see how they make enough profit to be able to provide a return on that investment.
Does advertising and/or subscription fees really make that much money for a site? I guess it is just tiny amounts of revenue but spread between LOTS of users.
In the drops - An Aussie's musings on all things cycling
What are some big Venture Capital blunders for this type of company post bubble?
Funnypics
What? Where is this money come from, and why do people think they can make money now over before? Before there were no proven business models, and fresh ideas, now things are all a carbon copy of whatever site Yahoo/Google just bought a few months back. I fail to see how they'll earn money in the long term, save for an aquisition.
fak3r.com
Yes I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but it's precisely because of that 'circus of color, sound, and animation' why so many people despise MySpace. Visiting a MySpace is like playing Russian Roulette, some pages may be benign, but some could scar you for life.
Then again, if you actually were deaf and blind, MySpace's customizability would probably break any sort of standards and thus could almost guarantee any any sort of braille interface would probably die in fits of laughter when it saw a MySpace profile.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Most people I know have both facebook and myspace. I personally can't stand myspace because the profiles are usually too cluttered to be readable. I'm also not a fan of 300 animations and a soundtrack starting up when I view someones profile.
Facebook has a clean, usuable apperance.
Gone!
the ability to mark uploaded pictures as other people alone is priceless.
for those that don't know: userA can upload pictures from an event onto thier facebook profile under EventX. Going through those pictures, they can label portions of the pictures as other users on the site. For instance, there is a picture of userB kissing userC, or another of userC throwing up. When you visit userC's profile, (assuming you are marked as thier friend) you can view all the pictures that other people labeled about them! When viewing those pictures, it then lists all the people in it...
It is 1000x better than anything that myspace has.
I'll see your $25 mil and raise you another $10 mil.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I don't get where all the ad revenue comes from. These sites target the student demographic generally. Are students richer today than when I was in college or something?
I barely had enough money for a beer - let alone for spending on some product that I saw advertised on Facebook.
A call to my parents may be in order about the backdated pocket money I must be owed.
Way to go Facebook. Each extra million brings you closer to your pie in the sky.
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Call me old-fashioned, but the best way I stay in touch with my college friends (I graduated in 2002) is an email list, organized through Yahoo groups. It works great with my Gmail account, since replies are automatically grouped. Most of us on the list have a page at myspace and facebook, but the email list is the best way to communicate.
I really love facebook, the ability to find anyone at my school if I need to contact them or want to know more about them is great. However, it has so many other cool features: being able to find long lost childhood friends, uploading photo albums, announcing meetings and cool events for on campus clubs etc.
The one thing facebook is really missing is a 'rate my professor' system. At the end of each semester a dialog should come up asking if you would like to rate your professors from that semester. Myspace has it for some reason, and some people at our school set up www.collegesucks.net but have professor ratings integrated into facebook is a no brainer.
I understand that attitude completely, but you have to understand there's (at least) two very camps of people: those who actively seek out spicy foods, and those who would reject oatmeal if it were too colorful. Certainly, the latter should stick to thefacebook if it offers them the sterile, sanitized environment they prefer. There's no shame in that.
Yeah, I'm painting in overly broad brush strokes, but so what? This is Slashdot, not a C-SPAN roundtable.
Bonsai Kitten: TNG
I need to start my own social networking site! Apparently teenagers will sign up for anything, and people just throw money at you if you own one, no matter how obscure it is! Awesome!
I don't think you quite understand the differences between Myspace & Facebook. I've used both, and I absolutely loathe Myspace at this point. I currently work at an educational institution, and the Facebook is amazingly widespread.
The way I see it, Myspace is like Frontpage or Geocities for the web of 1998. People are discovering how to "embed", "marquee", and rock out to their horrid animated gif background images. Finally people are saying "Hey, I have a website! Its at myspace.com/whatever!"
The Facebook is totally different. You cannot make your page play music, blink, or CSS the hell out of it. The Facebook is clean and extremely easy to navigate. The most interesting features in my mind are the following:
Bulk uploading of pictures - You can then tag them (by making boxes around people's faces) and later, you can search for that frat boy you've been wooing. You can then enjoy seeing him falling over drunk in 50 other people's photo galleries. At my particular school, the stats show that 1300 pictures have been uploaded today alone!
Pulse - This is simply an aggregator for everyone's favorite things (books, movies, etc). It functions like a stock exchange, and is updated daily. You can watch "Family Guy" move up the charts as more people add it as their favorite TV show. These kind of statistics (per school, no less) would be priceless to any marketing agency.
So sure, Myspace give you freedom to tinker with the ugly layout, but the Facebook revels in its simplicity and navigability. Its a well-built voluntary student directory, and it sure functions amazingly.
Well, myspace isn't really that messy when you consider it's customizable. Granted most people do not take full advantage of this, but when they do I see profiles that look far better than the generic facebook profiles out there. With all these social networking sites popping up, I have to think that either A) someone will make a program that lets you manage them all OR B) some gold standard will arise, and most of the others will fade from usage(google-keeps-track-of-my-whole-life-and-sell s-it.com?)
Wow, you must be BadAnalogyGuy in disguise!
Comparing food to website customizability is like comparing Apples to Non-Newtonian fluids, it makes no sense.
Facebook isn't a sterile, sanitized interface, it's a well put together clean and smooth interface that doesn't break and is consistent on every page you visit. It's the Google of the social networking sites.
MySpace on the other hand, good luck finding anything on a page, much less trying to find the stop button on JRandomCrapSong that plays when you load a profile, or any sort of standard navigation menu.
Again I digress, I should stop feeding the trolls.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
They're trying to convert it to a big demographic study/advertisement thing. They recently have this area where you can pick your favorite brands or products. Who in the hell cares what products or brands are my favorite, and why would I advertise that from my profile unless I was being paid something for click-thru or whatever? Totally awful exploitation of the customer base, IMHO.
stuff |
Ability does not flexibility make ... sure, you can twist the mess of tables to different colors, but you're lucky if you have 1) background 2) table-body and 3)table-border colors. The result is indeed a circus, but the ringmaster's been trampeled by angry elephants.
Who doesn't like free music?
On a more critical note, let's face it, those people who are obsessed with myspace and facebook and make those sites what they are... well, it says something who's being targeted by all that venture capital.
On an even more critical note, jesus fucking christ -- has no one learned anything from the last burst bubble?
Anyone who points out an alternative viewpoint is a "troll"? It's no wonder you can't handle MySpace.
Bonsai Kitten: TNG
Nope
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Facebook's infratstructure is getting overwhelmingly big. They included a photo uploading section because, well people obviously love photos. But their original plan was to distribute the photo load by allowing users to locally host their photos and use a program called Wirehog (I believe) to turn their computer into a share point. This failed because of the complexity and security. The also are looking to hire many people to code and develop as well as maintain their servers (stripped down fedora). I'm not sure what their profits are, but this 25 mil sounds really justified.
To be honest, one of the reasons I started Appleseed is because of all of the ads that people are bombarded with on sites like MySpace. The whole experience just seems crass.
Right now, social networking is being approached as if the users involved are merely demographics, potential markets, or advertising recipients. And that's really kind of sad for a technology which has so much sociological, political, and even economic potential for change.
I really honestly think that we won't see real social networking until we have an network of open source websites which all work together using some kind of standard commication protocol. Would the web itself have worked if there had only been six or 7 places to host a website? Where would email be if you had a dozen different proprietary methods for sending and recieving?
Why is social networking any different? MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, as far as I'm concerned, these are all the proof-of-concepts, but they're not the way the future will look.
Social networking, by definition, can not be monolithic and centrally controlled.
Don't get me wrong--I have, or had, a profile on thefacebook too--but isn't it telling about its audience that thefacebook enforces such a bland consistency? I mean, if you want a directory, use LDAP. There's nothing wrong with exploiting the Web to its full potential, and MySpace lets everyone do just that.
I've seen lots of MySpace profiles with piss-poor taste, but at least they give you the freedom to experiment. And I've seen many MySpace profiles that make the One Facebook Way look utterly repugnant by comparison.
thefacebook is a coop apartment building where the board imposes strict restrictions on your every move. MySpace is a converted open-plan warehouse with free spraypaints, a stage, a mike, and an invitation to do your worst.
Bonsai Kitten: TNG
My group of friends keeps in touch a few different ways:
Email for planning bigger events (bachelor parties, etc)
AIM for planning what we are doing that weekend
Cell phones for planning what we are doing that night
Xbox Live for general BS/Gaming (bankshot billiards is great for casual game/bs with friends)
Hm, now that I think about it, that is alot of contact info to keep track of. Good think most of those services keep track of buddies/contact lists for you. I dont understand why cell phones don't do this yet.
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
There's nothing like the smell of burning Venture Capital in the morning!!!
In-cubicle massages will be commencing in: 5...4...3...
No matter where you go... there you are.
Before I begin, a brief introduction. I'm a member of a fraternity that in years past has run afoul of certain members of my schools administration, nothing terrible, but the end result being that we became unrecognized by greek life. This occured around 1998, and at the time we were a small chapter and nobody was really bugged by it. Since then we've done better with our recruiting and are again at a size where we've begun the process of being re-recognized with our campus' greek life; however, one of the major obstacles we had to overcome was our public image with the administration.
We realised, as I'm sure lots of college students eventaully will, that it's not just students on facebook, but rather anyone that can get an email address from the school, including campus police, administration, greek life, etc.
One of our brothers, notorious for his "liberal" views on drugs and alcohol (college kids do these things, even frat boys???) created a facebook group for our fraternity, and invited all the brothers to join. Several of whom were members of other groups with wonderful titles like "4:20 all day", "Keg stand team", "Party 24/7", you get the idea.
One day we recieved word from the administration that they were considering us for reinstatement on campus, however they strongly suggested we cleaned up our facebook profiles before we submitted our paperwork because, this person felt, that the image we were presenting of ourselves was not conducive to our being reinstated on campus.
I've heard worse horror stories where students have even been brought up on judicial charges for pictures posted to some facebook profiles.
Also employers who are alumnus of universities on facebook have begun using it as a tool for researching potential hires, all stuff to keep in mind, and nothing on the internet is private so be careful what sort of image you project about yourself. While it might make you seem cool now, in four years time you may be hating yourself or that person you really aren't.
Sig withheld to protect the innocent.
No. They didn't. People have a short memory when it comes to disasters. It lasts less than 10 years. This year we had flooding in California and everyone is now going on about how this never happens and how could we have known we shouldn't have built there. The last event was 1997. The one before that was 1986. Each time it happens they suddenly remember about the last one. Come 2016 they'll have forgotten again.
Brought to you by: "Al"toids - the curiously weird mint.
Yesterday, the quote at the bottom of the /. page said something like:
"The girl with a future studiously avoids the man with a past."
You wanna write that down somewhere?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
But who cares? The streets of web2.0 are paved with gold now.. start something and go raise some silly money of your own to ride the wave.. it wont last, it never does.. but maybe you will be lucky and your startup will survive.
If your startup doesn't survive its no big deal.. you got a year or two of fat vc financed salaries and perks and learned a few lessons to apply when the web3.0 bubble comes around.. which it will, sooner or later.
The Trump Tower or something?
In the drops - An Aussie's musings on all things cycling
What happened then was that while the features and everything were all new and great, unfortunately the thing that had made those systems initially great was their large user bases. This is the same thing with social networking sites.
What I'm wondering is if there are any plans for something that can merge the data between them...kind of like an aggregator between all of your social networking sites you are signed up on.
Why should I have to go to 15 different sites to check my messages and scrapbook entries when there could be a way for me to go to one site that has my login info for all those sites and aggregates them nicely....perhaps in an RSS feed.
I guess the only thing really preventing this kind of interoperability is the proprietary nature of these sites and the fact that their business models rely on you visiting their sites and being bombarded with ads.
But can anybody here think of a way around that? Perhaps there could be some sort of software that lets you drop a line of code into the CSS of your page and have it send updates to your aggregator feed or something. Any body have any info on this? I'd prefer your comments over your mod points.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I know southern CA real estate took a big hit in the early 90s because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and resultant cut in defense spending, but I don't see anything happening on that scale any time soon. Has the US real estate market as a whole ever suffered any serious decline? If so, what caused it?
Like most people my age where I live, the thought of homeownership is getting farther out of reach. The one thing that makes me feel a little better at the moment is that my rent is only slightly more than what an average homeowner would pay in property taxes here.
I have been intereseted in the idea of social networks since the "6-degrees" days. I got a friendster account when it was new, before it sucked. When their network preformance was consistantly bad I switched to MySpace. Everyone of my friends is some one I've met in person, and the majority are people I interact with socially IRL regularly. MySpace will let you do anything pretty much on your profile. I hate it when people make god-awful pages, but that's the price you have to pay for openness and configurability. I've never been to the facebook site, because I've never been a college student. I guess it appeals to college students I'm not one so it doesn't appeal to me. Strange how that works. I have several friends who are in college and we use MySpace to communicate sometimes. I think the majority of people don't use myspace a tool for communicating with their friends as much as they use it as a substitute for pr0n.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
Gotta love that it's a rumor site, but according to Valleywag, Greylock Ventures, the guys that just gave them $25 million, actually valued them at $525 million, which is not really that close to the $2 billion that they were rumored to be looking for.
Under the table: Greylock thinks Facebook's worth $525 million
Good think most of those services keep track of buddies/contact lists for you. I dont understand why cell phones don't do this yet.
Your cell phone doesn't keep a contacts list for you?
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Check this out... http://www.encrypted-world.net/?page_id=22
Sigh... Here go a few mod points. Forgive, I meant to mod you up and the stupid scroll-wheel changed it on me right as I clicked "Moderate".
So, I suppose posting this will undo it.
Ya, I saw that once earlier today... wierd. I did a refresh and all was normal again...
All I have to say is I love Firefox. I love how I can make all the ads go away on facebook apart from the "facebook fliers" which are text only and usually pertain to events on campus anyways.
Long-live Adblock for the Ad-Book Facebook.
Some of the earlier posts indicate that it's yet another social-networking type of site, aimed at college students. For those of us who now work for a living, would it have been too much to ask to mention that in the article?
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Man, I hate how I never have mod points when a rare truly insightful post crops up.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
What kind of features require TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS to add?
Need Mercedes parts ?
Take a look at the FOAF XML format. It's a way to provide a feed of social networking info. LiveJournal supports it, I expect other systems do too.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The poster neglected to link to the sites involved.
Here's a fully linked version:
"BusinessWeek reports that Facebook has just raised another $25M from Venture Capital. Along the same lines, Rupert Murdoch has bought a minority stake in SimplyHired and just two days ago the social networking site, Visible Path said it raised $17M from Venture Capitals."
You might want to do a little more research. Housing price bubble bursting has happened before and the signs suggest is is in the process of happening again. Here in Phoenix AZ rents are similar to Austin Texas however house prices are substantially higher in Phoenix. Rents and prices should track and when they don't you know a "correction" is coming. Try www.patrick.net for a nice list of links to check out.
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
The only reason people use any of these sites is to gain yet another glimpse into the life of a person they know nothing about. I never really understood these sites - you post information about yourself that your friends already know and that others shouldn't know. Seriously, what's the benefit?
For everyone who is bothered by the fact that MySpace allows users to customize their pages: Why?... One look, one set of functionality, one way of doing it all, is that what you want? If you're bothered by the existence of what you don't like, or wouldn't have envisioned, get off the internet and watch infomercials; they're made for people like you. Millions of people are learning to code, sometimes badly, but even so, you have to see the beauty of it all. Or not :-)
PS-It's ok, I value your opinion too!!!!!!
Here are the money makers:
Now consider the fact that Facebook will have a constant stream of incoming college freshman joining the site. Graduates (at least for a few years) will remain active, ensuring a separate stream of advertising revenue.
These guys have a business plan and since they're first to market with this idea (maybe not first, but they're doing it better than anyone ever did) they can probably build up a massive user base that will support itself without any advertising.
That's important because a lot of companies burn through amazing amounts of VC cash to advertise their product. These guys have advertisers coming to them.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
that's a perfect analogy...another: seems that myspace is 'open source' and facebook is.....'microsoft'
from the facebook.com homepage...
Look up people at your school. See how people know each other. Find people in your classes and groups
lmao, when I was in school I did that with the people in my school, but using me, not a website...myspace is an AWESOME way to meet new people, and I have met many many people who I would never have met without my having a presence there
We've learned (ok, apparently only I have learned) that ad revenue does not a company make.
Apparently you haven't noticed broadcast radio, TV, print magazines, newspapers, free weekly magazines, billboards, bus stop signs, and probably a lot of other things that don't come to mind in 10 seconds or less.
Those industries all are based on ad revenue. Some print media charge a subscription fee that doesn't approach the cost of producing the magazines/newspapers to give you a small barrier to entry so you don't just subscribe and never look at it. Plenty of others, such as alternative newsweeklies, just give the stuff away in boxes on the street.
I just learned something. So yeah, informative.
I once made it to a test because I was able to look people up who were in the same class as me and call somebody to ask where it was. Also, it's the home base for the campus CTF. Myspace has nothing on either one of those.
If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no God, and Dirac is his Prophet. -Pauli
i share the same feeling about being locked in to systems when they could easily talk together.
i see a future when people make use of xml/rss for data interchange. the goal of your appleseed is already technically feasible.
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,