VatorNews executive brief on FriendFeed

Want to know more about the company Facebook just paid $50 million for?

FriendFeed - which had a $20 million valuation last year - was just acquired by Facebook, for $50 million, $15 in cash and $35 million in Facebook shares. See FriendFeed's blog or Facebook's release.

VatorNews has been following FriendFeed since its early days. From the start, we always considered FriendFeed a better version of Twitter. It's not surprising therefore that Facebook would buy this fast-growing startup.

For entrepreneurs who want to get more insight about this company, particularly one of its co-founders - Paul Buchheit (the Google engineer behind Gmail) - and learn what it takes to build a company to a rapid and successful exit, there's information to be gleaned from these segments and interviews, conducted over the past year. What's especially useful is to hear Paul's advice to entrepreneurs, as well as our discussion on Vator Box, where we determined that there would be an audience for such shared experiences and discussions. We said the challenge would be FriendFeed's ability to make a business out of its service.

From what we can tell, FriendFeed isn't monetizing just yet.

FriendFeed - the ultimate e-spectator sport 

March 24, 2008 - In a world where self-expression is increasingly encouraged and exploited, a new type of activity has formed – observing the online activities of friends. Recently-launched FriendFeed is an extremely easy-to-use service that lets you see the content across the Web your friends or people who randomly end up in your network are sharing. It’s a mash up – to use the au courant term – of more than two dozen sharing and communication tools. In this segment, Co-founder Paul Buchheit tells Bambi Francisco that FriendFeed raised $5 million for a post-money valuation of $20 million.

FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit's lessons to entrepreneurs

April 3, 2008 - Paul Buchheit, ex-Googler, and co-founder of popular FriendFeed, shares his lessons as an entrepreneur. The first lesson is to get products out to consumers "as quick as possible." Once out in front of an audience, an entrepreneur should iterate quickly. As for what makes a great entrepreneur? Buchheit believes it's someone with "determination" and the will to succeed. It's those that stay in the game are the ones who succeed.

Vator Box analysis of FriendFeed

April 6, 2008 - Our Vator Box (Ezra Roizen, Ackrell Capital and Strategyfx, and Drew Curtis, CEO of Fark) coverage of FriendFeed was pretty accurate. We all agreed that there is value in having shared experiences and shared discussions around those experiences. We were skeptical, however, about the monetization prospects for the company.