

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

--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.)
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pius
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.

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 _into_ its own product with
little regard to the developers who created them.

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tlrobinson
"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."

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!

Second, that said, I doubt a first year CS student could write a _scalable_
implementation of Super Wall, etc, that would support said millions upon
millions of users.

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 _now_ , they would fail miserably, and
believe me, many have tried.

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aston
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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adamsmith
But super wall has lock in, vis-a-vis the existing posts.

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aston
If there's anything dispensible on Facebook, it's wall posts. Superwall is
popular because people mass migrated from the original Wall, and they'll go
right back if Facebook makes a clearly superior product (or if it integrates
in a way that's impossible for an outside developer).

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mgummelt
really? The features I use the most are 1. pictures 2. wall posts

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imsteve
> 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.

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.

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ekanes
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.

For example, this guy created the core structure of twitter in 170 lines of
Scala and lift. [http://blog.lostlake.org/index.php?/archives/55-Prance-
with-...](http://blog.lostlake.org/index.php?/archives/55-Prance-with-the-
Horses,-Skittr-with-the-Mice.html) That could easily have been done in a
weekend.

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.

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richcollins
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.

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danw
Wasn't superwall made redundant wihtin a few weeks of release thanks to
facebook wall and message attachements feature?

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downer
$10 million checks: Accepted here.

