Crazy Frog millionaires invest in Facebook
Taking on the world, one annoying product at a time
Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery
The three brothers who coined millions from the Crazy Frog phenomenon have followed Microsoft in taking a stake in Facebook.
"Crazy" Mark Zuckerberg.
The German Samwer boys sold their ringtones firm Jamba to Verisign in 2004. It went for $273m on the back of irritating buuh-bud-uh-bu-buuh noises, but Verisign quickly suffered buyers' regret as even idiots got bored and Jamba mined a hole in its earnings.
The brothers have since become start-up investors with their own venture capital fund and were early backers of StudiVZ ("Student Directory"), a German Facebook clone.
The undisclosed personal stake they've taken in Facebook is aimed at helping it crack the German market, where it has yet to make a significant impact against local social networking rivals. The Wall Street Journal reckons they coughed between $10m and $15m.
If the Samwers were stung as badly as Microsoft, which got 1.6 per cent for $240m, they will have bagged a mere 0.1 per cent of Facebook. It seems pretty unlikely that anyone else would be that gullible though. ®
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
COMMENTS
Doomed business model
A business model involving advertising on a website is doomed. Firefox with AdBlock and AdBlock Filterset.G Updater removes advertising from websites automatically and it stays up to date automatically. The number of people blocking adverts is surely only going to increase. Yes its always been possible to block ads but now it's so easy. Biting the hand that feeds the bitten hand that feeds IT.
Rant-athon
Did not the Crazy Frog guys get their arses legally kicked for using it to rip off people by signing them up to some sort of £x per week ringtone club? Always read the small print. If you can read. And if you can read that surely indicates you have enough intelligence not to be amused by the Crazy Frog. So again, stupid people ripped off. Am I bothered?
What I would be bothered by was if every time I went to message someone on FBook and hadn't turned my speakers off I would be subjected to some noise intended to somehow part me with my hard earned pennies. I already have a loathing of those stupid banners (that slip through the net) that have sounds attached, often convincing me there is something bizarre happening over my left shoulder (where one of my speakers is placed). Grr.
Why?
It is kind of strange that they would invest in Facebook, when they are the main backer of the "German Facebook". StudiVZ (not StudioVZ) looks and functions exactly the same as Facebook and has got a pretty big following in Germany/Austria(/Switzerland?)...
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
