DISQUS

Allen Stern · 10 months ago

dude u need to lay off the gerber peaches :) good concept tho i like it - next time let me do the "nay" and you do the "yay" lol

Carter Rabasa · 10 months ago

I just got whiplash: http://friendfeed.com/e/60de4d42-3a7e-aa42-3734...

michael silverton · 10 months ago

*yawn* -- deeply appreciative of your work louis; however, it's all make believe and always has been make believe; so as i blustered earlier http://tr.im/cok9 it's the PROCESS that is broken. the entire silicon valley vc community is one big Social Network Poster Child for Group Think Cronyism. i doubt Jeffrey Skilling used the words "get it" vs "don't get it" more than the Sand Hill lot. #broken #fail

Greggish · 10 months ago

Okay. So you did point counterpoint. But what you said at the end of your first post, "but at the end of the day, I would be investing", gives away which is your real post and which is your post playing devil's advocate.

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

Allen, we can do point/counterpoint any time. But I bet you end up being the "counter" more than I do.

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

That said, Gregg, I said in the first that I would ask many questions, and in the second that one should exercise extreme caution. Of course, it'd be wonderful in the first place to have enough cash to be courted.

Allen Stern · 10 months ago

im always the counter, never the countee

Mona N. · 10 months ago

Clever, LG!

Charlie Anzman · 10 months ago

Two drafts? Louis, you know we love you but I think you've done a Scoble overdose or something .... Can't wait to see how this plays out if you leave them both up. (Pretty weird stuff coming from you?!).

Ed Shaz/NextInstinct · 10 months ago

Louis, haven't had time yet, but if it says what I think, remember; they're not investing for 'today'.

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

Charlie, both posts are staying up. There is a definite case to be made for both sides. I want Twitter, FriendFeed and others to succeed, and I am always biased and bullish in favor of the tech sector. That said, I think now is a hard time for anybody to raise money and get strong value.

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

And Ed... the twins are a major reason why I've been "quiet" this weekend. Had them practically all day yesterday and most of today. (Including now) I had a break from 6-7 so ... back to back.

Greggish · 10 months ago

Louis, you can ask the questions. But Twitter won't have any good answers. And to all those wondering about Twitter's super secret plan for a business model. Sorry, to kill the mystery but there is no secret plan. It's advertising, gobs and gobs of advertising, with a healthy dose of data mining sold to marketers.

Ed Shaz/NextInstinct · 10 months ago

I can understand Louis. I often had my 1st 2 like that when they were infant and 2. Different needs, but non stop, and not sleepers. What I'd give to go back for 1 day...

Charlie Anzman · 10 months ago

Still think you should have given Matthew and Sarah the byline for the second piece ... By the way http://friendfeed.com/e/e96837d9-b23e-48c6-909a... Good week my friend ....

Bob Walsh · 10 months ago

I'd counter that. There's no way it's NOT worth $250mm

michael silverton · 10 months ago

in many respects, twitter is like an application-layer arpanet. in addition to whatever other sugary glaze attributed to it, it's also become a public utility, a substrate for extended, augmented social cognition. once again, there are all kinds of vitally positive and powerful human and technological advances that the market would gleefully earmark for infanticide. i understand the anomie and existential angst of the industrial capitalist vc's; i just have no compassion for it.

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

Bob, if that's your take, then this approach is more your style. http://www.louisgray.com/live/2009/01/twitter-i...

AJ Kohn · 10 months ago

@Greggish: Inside info there? If that's the case ... Twitter is going nowhere fast. SocNet CPMs are abysmal, major CPGs (aka Clorox) don't want to purchase in the space and most CMOs are sick of Web 2.0 (and yes, that matters since they have the purse strings.) If I were a potential investor I'd tell Twitter to launch the alpha/beta version of ads so I could see the trajectory. That Twitter doesn't do this ... speaks volumes IMO.

Mike Reynolds · 10 months ago

@louisgray can't go wrong here - and I agree that Twitter is more useful than Google on breaking news.

Michael Fidler · 10 months ago

Does this mean my account isn't worth $42 according to Robert Scoble's math. Kidding. I'm not sure if your right this time. I agree that twitter has potential competition, Facebook being the #1 in my opinion. If Facebook can't strike a deal with twitter, they could easily develop their update service into a full blown twitter app. They could do the same to friendfeed too. I don't think they want to though. With their deep pockets, it might be worth $250 million to have a leader in the space join them. It's a drop in the bucket. I don't think either company is thinking about things in terms of the current economic environment. Twitter's not a company begging for help at the moment.. I think twitter is going to start monetizing very shortly, with the goal of pulling in more money than anyone could imagine. Then they can take their numbers to Facebook , or shop them around and try to create a bidding war, but either way they come out at the end pretty good..
This new freindfeed service sounds very interesting., any idea when it might be ready?

It's 13 Hrs later, and I just found out you haven't lost your mind. I should have read some of the other comments, but I didn't this time. Rob and a bunch of other contributes did the same thing not long ago. I was going to erase this , but I still stick by what I said. I'm just a little embarrassed that I didn't know what was going on. LOL very loud!

Hutch Carpenter · 10 months ago

I'm reminded of Robert's similar no/yes posts on FriendFeed going mainstream: http://bit.ly/1457K (won't) and http://bit.ly/102mM (will).

playerx · 10 months ago

"and the whole process rolls back to AOL instant Messenger, when you would set an "Away" status to say you were "At Lunch" or "In a Meeting". So that's not hard."

Well, in IRC you could set your /away message.

And also all the eggdrop bots with lots of tasks.

Twitter just hooked up SMS and a web interface.

morganb · 10 months ago

The tough economy is going to separate the wheat from the chaff. This means (in theory) that there are fewer mediocre companies who get bet on with venture capital cash. This in turn means that there are higher concentrations of capital to go to the most promising of companies. While Twitter may have a ton of downside they have several attractive assets, not the least of which is buzz, momentum and a growing community in a time of across-the-board downsizing.

Venture capitalists are aware of the global macro economic trends and have surely assessed the downsides to the deal. If they choose to invest it is either because they are privy to plans unbeknown to us that make them confident that Twitter is a good bet in this environment, or they're incredibly stupid. And while the latter is completely plausible the former seems more likely.

When you look at the landscape of standing Web 2.0 companies, many have already been overvalued and funded, making the venture capitalist options as follows: a) sit on money, b) get a tiny chunk in severely overvalued companies (like LinkedIn, etc.) c) reinvest in existing portfolio companies d) try for a chunk of the non-overvalued front runners (Twitter) d) take a flier on a earlier stage firm that is not as established.

It makes the decision more defensible in my opinion.

Richard Cunningham · 10 months ago

I'd agree that it is probably worth more, it seems to be crossing over to mainstream with the Hudson crash ( http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sorry_goog... ) being covered by the papers referencing twitter. With Philip Schofield ( http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs1TwoNgNm4 ), Jonathon Ross & Stephen Fry ( http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/01/23/incoming-wo... ) talking about it on national TV. That's all this month too.