Widget maker RockYou announced today that it has nabbed a $17 million investment from two Asian firms, SoftBank Group and SK Telecom Ventures.

The investment will be added to $35 million from the Redwood City, Calif.-based start-up’s C round in June. Overall, RockYou has raised a total of $67 million and–before the current econalypse–had previously reported a $400 million valuation.

In a video with BoomTown, the company’s co-founders, CEO Lance Tokuda and CTO Jia Shen, said the new funding would be used to expand into the Asia-Pacific market, add offices and staff and make acquisitions.

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Tomorrow, when it rolls out its new platform, one of the more interesting pieces of news from Facebook will be its initiative to dub certain of its third-party app developers more special than others.

The social-networking site has selected just two, in fact–Causes and iLike–to receive “preferred” status. While BoomTown is unclear as to the details, several sources said that this initiative has to do with developing in a way more in line with the goals of Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

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Project Granola?

Apparently, that’s the jokey nickname that’s been given by some in the company to Microsoft’s new online strategy, in the wake of its failed efforts to acquire Yahoo that ended in a big heap of mess this past weekend.

Now, sources tell BoomTown, it is all about “organic”–hence the image of a healthy handful of granola (except for the fact that, in my experience, nobody really likes granola after eating it as much as they think will before).

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Who’ll get Digg? (Odds-on favorite and sources tell me much sooner than later: Google.)
And who might make a bid for Slide, RockYou, LinkedIn, Meebo or imeem? (It might be smart for News Corp. [NWS] to double down in the social- networking space, if it can’t trade MySpace for a piece of Yahoo.)
And what about a [...]

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Last night, BoomTown loaded the kids into the car–you try finding a sitter on a Tuesday night!–and went early to a pair of dot-com parties being thrown at some trendy spots in San Francisco related to the Web 2.0 Expo taking place this week.
Our quest was to find out what some savvy Web 2.0 types [...]

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RockYou, widget maker, is the latest example of a sane valuation heartbreaker, as it is undertaking efforts to secure an investment from mainstream financing firms that would value the company at between $300 million and $400 million.

First reported by Valleywag last night, the start-up, said one source, “is being squired around Wall Street” by investment behemoth Morgan Stanley, in search of the same kind of deal its rival Slide got in January.

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It’s Bubble Time!
As BoomTown broke the news in its post earlier today, Slide grabbed a big pile of cash from new investors–$50 million from Fidelity and T. Rowe Price–which puts the value of the company at $550 million.
In our post, we said the San Francisco start-up, whose widgets are among the most popular on Facebook [...]

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Call it the Facebook Funding Effect.

I am still collecting details, but Slide–the San Francisco start-up whose widgets are among the most popular on Facebook and MySpace–is completing a round of funding that could value it at many times a multiple of its most recent $60 million to $80 million valuation.

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So there is a lot of swirl out there about a spate of companies and their supposed plans.
In the interest of time-saving, we will group them all here in one easy list that you can clip and save.
DEALS AFOOT?:
Yes, there is always a lot of sniffing around out there, especially given that a lot of [...]

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So I recently ventured into the heart of the empire of toddler developers with a visit to the San Mateo, Calif., HQ of RockYou, the super-popular maker of third-party apps on hot social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.
I have been on a bit of a grumpy tear of late about the juvenile nature of [...]

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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 [...]

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The ankle-biters have spoken and it seems that I am completely wrong in my estimation in several recent posts where I wrote that Facebook widgets are–how shall we put it delicately?–exceedingly inane.
Why? Apparently because inane is the goal! Well then, I guess: Mission accomplished!

At an appearance at the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday, a group on [...]

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