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What Web 2.0 bubble? Widget maker RockYou has landed an additional $17 million in funding, tapping Japan's SoftBank and South Korea's SK Telecom. The round, which builds on RockYou's $35 million Series C round in June, lifts the startup's total private funding to $67 million. Apart from RockYou socking away more money for a rainy year, the important news here is the company's push into Asia. The startup, which is backed by venture capital heavyweights DCM, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Partech International, is teaming with SoftBank to form a joint venture that will make widget and application tools for Web users in the Asia-Pacific market. RockYou has been pushing hard in the region, including hooking up with social network Xianonei, otherwise known as China's Facebook Inc. As always with Web 2.0 companies, the big question for RockYou is whether it's impressive growth will translate to major revenue. RockYou monetizes those PVs with ads for widgets produced by other companies. It earns 40 to 50 cents every time someone clicks on an ad served by RockYou and installs the advertiser's widget. That could add up to real dough given that RockYou today claims to reach 100 million monthly unique visitors and to generate over 8 billion page views. Rogelio Choy, senior vice president of business development at RockYou, told us last year that the company's best advertisers can attract 10,000 widget installs per day. Great! So why does it need another $17 million? To go global, presumably. And perhaps to futher broaden its revenue stream? Certainly, Choy sounds bullish as ever in this recent post. "A lot of folks continue to heavily discount social platforms' potential for developers and their overall monetization," he says. "Let me be blunt. There's a massive opportunity in this space, and RockYou continues to see material, growing business from agencies, advertisers and virtual goods alike. Social networking/engagement is the fastest growing and now primary activity on the web (and soon the phone)." --Alain Sherter See Nov. 3 RockYou press release from Marketwire See June 7 post on RockYou's Series C funding round from TechConfidential See Nov. 3 post from VentureBeat See Oct. 4 post on RockYou's business model from Tech Confidential For more see GigaOm and Mashable
Comments
From: Alain,
Actually, in some ways the dot-coms of yore made more sense--they sold goods over the Web. Advertising, given its vulnerability to consumer whim, is arguably a trickier affair. And can the sale of "virtual goods" ever sustain a business in the way the sale of software or chips once did? I doubt it. Alain
Posted on:
November 4, 2008 6:35 PM
From: Dtownie Detroit blog,
Detroit makes sense for any company in the music industry but what is this Web 2.0 company planning on doing in their Detroit office?
Posted on:
November 29, 2008 4:08 PM
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I am astounded that we are right back where we were in the late 90's, investing in the internet. I have been trying for quite awhile to figure out what this company does that can actually have any long term value and I am at a loss. Is every one still on the ad model, wow, very inventive.
No wonder we are, were we are with the markets. Either no one remembers or no one cares. More power to them.