What’s Next for RockYou?
ADOTAS – Is RockYou really rocking? Well, the social networking widget maker certainly isn’t dying, especially with a spanking new $35 mill in their coffers – the third round of funding was led by venture capitalists DCM, with a handful of private backers also throwing money into the pot.
But they’re still not on top – Slide holds that coveted spot. (Slide rang in the New Year with a $50 million infusion). And this new round come amid whisperings online and offline that RockYou is in the throes of the big decision all burgeoning onliners must face: bail out now with a respectable, but relatively minor valuation, or push ahead and hope it can beat out Slide and other up-and-comers (like Meebo and Ning) in the social networking ad game?
While widgets have been installed on zillions of users’ pages, monetizing the space with ads has proved to be an almost Sisyphean task. Also, Facebook is about to unveil a significant redesign, making it harder for applications and widgets to go viral – which could be good or bad news for more established brands (it will definitely stymie the small fries).
Reader Comments.
No comments yet
Leave a Comment
Article Sponsor
More News
-
Loading ...
Features
- Automakers Need to Become Better Conversationalists July 2nd 2009
- Affiliates can win in the media buy game July 2nd 2009
- Crowd-Sourced Ads: A Measured Response June 28th 2009
- Is the government coming for you? June 28th 2009
- Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It June 25th 2009
Latest News
- Readers weigh in on ATT, ad networks and the iPhone July 2nd 2009 ADOTAS — In our weekly poll, readers overwhelmingly said that [...] more »
- Hiring, promotions, location, partnerships and product news July 2nd 2009 ADOTAS — Internet Oldtimers Foundation, Jumptap, eXelate, Kampyle, The Digital [...] more »
- OPA large ad units unfurl across the web July 1st 2009 ADOTAS — The Online Publishers Association said a group of [...] more »
- Email spam in June worst since 2007 July 1st 2009 ADOTAS — MessageLabs Intelligence released its numbers for June, and [...] more »
- Joost becomes YouTube roadkill, starts layoffs July 1st 2009 ADOTAS — Despite reworking its technology to work in a [...] more »
- Ad networks, not websites, choked on Michael Jackson news July 1st 2009 ADOTAS — The news of the pop star’s death saw [...] more »
- StrongMail doubling down on social media, buys PopularMedia July 1st 2009 ADOTAS — StrongMail has announced that it acquired PopularMedia, a [...] more »
Spotlight
Trust Me – I’m a Professional … SEOADOTAS — At WebMetro we typically provide SEO Action Plans as part of campaigns. As the name implies, an SEO [...] more...
Reader Favorites
Layoff Tracker
- AOL - 700
- Apple - 50
- Clear Channel - 2,800 total (1,000 currently)
- Google - 340
- IBM - more than 7,800
- Joost - about 90
- MySpace - in June, about 720
- World Avenue - 30 percent of workforce
- Yahoo - 2,220 total, about 700 currently
- Zango - closes, about 90, in addition to earlier layoffs
Classifieds
Recent Comments
- Josette Davids: Great article and an amazing time was had by all at this event. I'm an
- Mike Poserina: There is also a tragic flaw rumored in Bing's ad placement engine. When resolved,
- Andy: Erin, Never mind the commenters who can only see the negative side of things. I thank you
- pkohler: We've also noticed that ads frequently adversely affects the performance of a Web page. As

