No Summary This Time:
In the latest sign of a frothy market, Snapvine raised $10 million from venture firm I’ve never heard of (where do these guys come from? Totally out of the woodwork it seems… then again I haven’t memorized the lastest list of fourth/fifth/sixth tier firms to get there yet). (Ah, correction, just read Bridgescale is a new firm. Plus I see they invested in Digital Chocolate, which is solid I heard, but have no idea really. IMVU I know is solid, I hope at least, so whatever, that doesn’t excuse this investment! If they keep up Snapvine type investments, they better hope their Bridgescale doesn’t collapse under the weight of falty investments. Ok, bad joke, but seriously, Bridgescale’s bridge is probably only as strong as that one in Pirates of the Caribbean part 2 or 3, one of those two, or those other absurd rickety bridges… I’m still talking about this? Now I know this blog is going down before it even starts…).
The Wow This Company Sucks Reasons List:
(1) Anyways, Snapvine is so pathetic I find it hard to zero in on a particular weakness, so let’s start with the most obvious one: no unique competitive advantage people! None, at all! It’s comical reading what the original VCs plus their angels said when they raised their first round. No, I’m not going to take the time to dig up that link and provide it here. Frankly it’d be a waste of your time. But if you’re in the mood to see some of the most bizarre babble about revolutionizing communications, read that, then go to Snapvine and listen to the inane crap people post there.
(2) Snapvine basically takes all the worst parts of MySpace. The anonymity, the sex banter, the desperation, the stalking. All while taking none of the good of Facebook. (Yes, I just wrote a couple incomplete sentences, so sue me?)
(3) The only thing you need to know about Snapvine is that the business as it is today is very weak. There’s no reason for someone to leave voice comments on peoples’ profile pages. If there is, then they’re not going to make money on it, or someone else is going to compete with them and do it better.
(4) Where the heck is the $10 million going to go? A yacht? Seriously people. Absurdity! I hope you guys have a Google Alert for your company and read this post. Please post in the comments how you feel about my sentiment. Other than the clips of a few thousand people saying absolutely nothing of value to anyone including their friends, what’s the deal for Snapvine? (Seriously, go use Snapvine for a sec. People say stuff on there that is not specific to their friends because it’s posted for everyone to hear, and so the result is it’s totally irrelevant to everyone!)
(5) It’s very hard to impossible to monetize that and the worthlessness of companies like Snapvine is going to become apparent as more social networks open up their platforms. Yea sure Snapvine did a deal with Bebo? So what? Build an app on Facebook that let’s you record your voice and store it. Then build an app on Bebo and Orkut when they open up. Does it matter it’s not calling long distance and leaving it on a machine? Let the users decide. Companies that have to survive by getting into feature wars fail. Yea, maybe Snapvine can buy some partnerships with their $10 million, but “buying” things isn’t sustainable without cash flow in.
(6) Seriously, unbelievable. The only thing more stomach turning was Ning raising $40+ million. The Ning fundraising is so outrageous that even with the Mr. Wall blog’s dedication to the great and worst companies it is hard to find a low enough peg to place Ning. Anyways, I’ll figure out later if I really want to post about Ning.
Does this post have structure? Not really. Is it a list of reasons? Hardly. It’s as meandering as the investors sound in describing what they expect out of it. All I have to say is thank goodness the original VCs didn’t lead the next round, and I’m sorry to the latest group of investors. Because I don’t want to drag their firms’ names through the mud, I will not mention the first round investors. Hey, I guess that’s why early stage is a bitch sometimes. I just have to wonder what institutions invested in the fund that led the second round, because really at some point you should just return your money to investors rather than put it in hail mary garbage like this. I mean c’mon, it’s the SECOND ROUND, you have a chance to see it’s garbage, so why invest? Was it between this and funding a funnyordie.com clone? Shucks.
Yes, this is my second post and yes I’m saying things without spending a lot of time writing supporting statements. But you know what I kind of enjoy this free flow of writing. Does it capture “voice”? Let me know in the comments. I do genuinely appreciate you stopping by to read this. This blog is still taking shape, and you have a chance to make a big impact, so let me know if this blog post is a waste of your time, really great, or somewhere in between. Admittedly the stream-of-consiousness approach understandably creates a lot of filler words. My defense of filler words is that without them it just becomes a boring post summarized as “Snapvine sucks.” My hope is to add some personality to this blog. It’s supposed to entertaining. If it’s not, tell me what you want to see or how it can be entertaining. Thanks!!
This is Mr. Wall signing out. Remember, I’m doing this because I want to provide a frank, candid and personal perspective on some of the great and pathetic companies out there. Help show your support by returning to this page, adding my RSS feed and telling your friends. No, Mr. Wall will never have ads. I said it — *never*. By the way, I actually spent 30 minutes writing this post. Honestly I probably should have just said “Snapvine sucks” and been done with it. Agree?
Posts I Disagree With (Not Necessarily On the Details Because I Probably Didn’t Read Them, But Just Because They Are Generally Supportive of Snapvine) (aka, PIDWNNOTDBIPDRTBJBTAGS):
