Kara Interviews RockYou Co-Founders Jia Shen and Lance Tokuda
by Kara Swisher
Posted on October 22, 2007 at 8:59 AM PT
When I paid a visit to the offices of RockYou in San Mateo, Calif., recently (see my other video of the office tour here), I interviewed its co-founders CTO Jia Shen and CEO Lance Tokuda.
Here’s my chat with the pair who helm one of the top developers of third-party applications for trendy social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.
I have been attacking such widgets of late for being too faddish and infantile, which we discuss here, as well the trends to come in the fast-moving space.
Onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit last week, after a widget-maker panel he was on slapped BoomTown around a bit, Tokuda offered to make a special app for AllThingsD.com. In this video, his suggestion involves Walt Mossberg and digital cameras being tossed in his direction.
I say: Bring it on!
Comments
Sorry, but what was the point of that video? You just mocked everyone there for 3 min. You came off really immature, much more than the hardworking 20yr olds at RockYou. I didn’t get what the point was at all. You spent most of the video trying to make fun of the kid wearing the suit, why? You could have done something insightful at least…
Posted by George Meredith at October 22nd, 2007 at 5:09 pmwrong video…
Posted by George Meredith at October 22nd, 2007 at 5:12 pmJia had the most insightful comment about how these basic games on Facebook are going to evolve along the lines of virtual gaming. Especially his comment about Facebook (& others) eventually creating a virtual payment system. I’m sure this will unlock micropayments for different things.
Posted by Stanley Wong at October 22nd, 2007 at 9:51 pmThe besuited kid was a joke, aimed at me, which you might have thought funny if you read this blog.
But sorry for being unfunny to you.
Posted by Kara Swisher at October 22nd, 2007 at 10:03 pmYes, for all the hard time I give these widget makers, I think Jia is one of the most forward thinking developers out there.
Posted by Kara Swisher at October 22nd, 2007 at 10:04 pmGreat questions Kara, I chuckled through out – Is this stuff really useful? And will the kids continue to use that cool new wideget for more than 15 minutes.
It sounded like the Rockyou founders had given some thought to apps beyond walls. One of them talked about making apps that would be useful as the facebook crowd grew older.
I suspect they were not tellng you everything.
Posted by Madhavan Thirumalai at November 22nd, 2007 at 10:06 am