This article actually makes sense to me, regardless of whether the underlying data is representative at scale. The one advantage of spending with Facebook is that it’s integrated with the web-based Fan Page experience and that gives them an easier way to push content out to their network of fans.
The Rovio team produced 51 other games, many for Nokia handsets, before Angry Birds took flight with more than 36 million free and paid downloads.
Every now and then it’s good to get a reminder of how unexpected / unintended consequences can play out on the Internet.
Little noted fact - they only launched two major games in 2010 thus far (FrontierVille and Treasure Isle).
A more optimistic eye can see that the IPO data is actually improving. This quote from the NVCA’s second quarter update is rather straightforward: Venture-backed company exit activity showed continued momentum during the second quarter of 2010, with the best quarterly total for venture-backed Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) since the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the Exit Poll report by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). The quarter ended with 17 venture-backed IPOs, marking the third consecutive quarter for increased offerings, by number and by dollar amount. Looking at the Q3-2010 NVCA data included above, you can see that 2010 is markedly improved over 2009. We have already tripled all of last year in the first three quarters of this year. Moreover, with a healthy Q4, we could meet or beat the annual numbers from 2005 and 2006. If you limit the data to VC backed companies in the U.S. in high technology (leaving out Pharma and bio med; which is different from the above), there were five in 2008, twelve in 2009, and 25 year-to-date in 2010. These data points are clearly up and to the right. And while they may not hit the bar we are looking from for a cyclical market high point, it surely makes it hard to say the IPO market is fatally flawed. And it unquestionably not “closed.
After reading this post, it feels kind of censored. I wonder if it’s actually worse than Fred mentions in this post.
