Om Malik takes a look at Facebook histeria:
Take Bay Partners as an example. A sedate venture fund that typically invests in semiconductor companies and infrastructure start-ups has started a new effort that invests exclusively in Facebook applications. The right applicants can get anywhere from $25,000 to $250,000 as an investment for their applications.
The collateral of this project, imaginatively dubbed App Factory, is interesting, cringe-worthy reading filled with clichés like “application entrepreneurs” and “affect adoption, virality, and usage.” Here is just a nugget of wisdom from the press release announcing this new funding strategy.
A fully baked business model is also not a requirement, as long as there are reasonable theories and approaches that can be explored together.
Putting my newly acquired
HebrewYiddish skills to use, I say, Oy-vey!
Are we looking at another dot com bubble?
Shel Isreal asks the same question, in connection to Ning:
But Michael Arrington says that it’s first external financing round was $44 million and that the company’s post-money value is $214 million. This scares me. It scares me because I cannot conceive of any possible argument that this company is worth nearly a quarter billion dollars. Even considering the value of Marc’s personal brand, the upside expectation seems to me to defy reality.
I am a survivor of the Great Dotcom Bubble. I remember hearing company valuations that seemed silly or worse to me, and I recall being shouted at because “I just didn’t get it.” What I did get was bubble splatter all over my nice PR guy suit, and then a nice long rest from work.
The Ning valuation scares me. I just don’t get it. I hope someone else does
Well? Are We?
Update: AppFactory Q&A here
Random Musings 