DISQUS

VentureBeat: Q&A with Max Levchin of Slide, on e-commerce, APIs, feeds, and a Russian rock band

  • Amar · 1 year ago
    I wonder why most of the web2.0 companies never reveal any numbers when it comes to revenue or profits. I guess it's due to lack of anything to shout out. The number of fallouts from the current boom in funding will easily dwarf the mother of all bubbles in 2000. I think 2009 is the year to watch out to see if there is any real economic sense to the all the cool widgetry.
  • Macaroni Mike · 1 year ago
    You said it, and this time, the pie's bigger, thicker and no one's invited to Da Private Party.

    When Facebook rubs its face in, the fit will hit the shan as it always does. 2009 will be the year.
  • Frank Church · 1 year ago
    "Will they feel comfortable giving a widget their credit card number?
    ...
    This is a pretty lofty story, but somebody will do this..."

    The fact that Max doesn't know, or admit to knowing, that a couple companies are doing this already is interesting. They are companies without presence or credibility, but I couldn't imagine him not knowing this.

    He also doesn't mention anything about FB's coming ecommerce capability (you failed to ask) or if they intend to leverge it, and in what way.

    You can tell Max is dialed-in and smart, but Slide has some reputation issues to deal with. A company cannot simultaneously have the user's and marketer's interests at their core. The need for revenue will always jade the outcome in the end.

    Game on.
  • socialmediaguru · 1 year ago
    3 corrections:

    1. Facebook did not invent the newsfeed, Friendster actually launched it back in 2005 well before Facebook or any other social network

    2. Hi5 is not the fastest growing network overseas, according to CNET Asia, Friendster is:
    http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/geekonomics/post.htm...

    3. Xiaonei has 7 million global unique users, most of which are in China, according to comScore March 2008 worldwide data
  • Eric Eldon · 1 year ago
    Correct this, socialmediaguru

    1) Friendster's implementation of its news feed was patently different than Facebook's. It didn't include the mini-feed for example.

    2) Max said hi5 was POSSIBLY the fastest-growing network, and the comScore numbers you reference show hi5 and Friendster pretty evenly matched in terms of unique monthly visitors (pageviews aren't a great measure, because Friendster's interface may force users to click through more pages than other sites).

    3) I'm not sure exactly where Max got Xiaonei's 22 million number from, but it may have been from here: http://www.pacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=1218...