The third day of the 2011 Reuters Global Technology Summit saw a lot of discussion about the valuation and potential of “sexy” social networks and lesser known startups.
Saad Khan, Partner at CMEA Capital, talked about investing in LiveOps and Pixazza, two companies the former which he called “unsexy”, and how they “stitch together the world’s labor force.”
One could say that Real Networks Chairman Rob Glaser, who saw his company’s Real Player go from being the standard used in streaming media on the Web to a bit-player, is familiar with what is and isn’t “sexy”. Here he is talking about revamping his company around phenomena:
And Google Ventures Managing Partner Bill Maris questioned the value of social media startups:
“Are our smartest people working on our most difficult problems?”
“The degree to which a lot of focus is put on social media, which is interesting and fun and great in lots of ways, does take away from a lot of the other companies we invest in like Adimab, or transphorm, or Silver Spring.”
Rhapsody, one of the pioneers of music subscription services, has added more than 100,000 net new subscribers since the company was restructured in April President Jon Irwin (pictured, left) told Reuters. This means they’ve overcome a long period of slow or no growth during which its two major owners Real Networks and MTV Networks tried to figure out what to do with the business amidst the usual issue of conflicting agendas in joint ventures.
