Socially immobile markets

WSJ reports that venture firms are still funding social networking sites. Geoff Wang of Redpoint Ventures suggests:

“Social networking is probably overfunded if you’re going afer MySpace. … But it hasn’t reached its potential if you are thinking about it as a function of what people are going to use [to communicate] online.”

Of course the main reason for excessive capital flowing into this area is on page 1:

Social-networking site Facebook is in serious talks to sell itself to Yahoo for an amount that could approach $1 billion after having held separate discussions with Microsoft and Viacom.

And it looks like Yahoo is negotiating in good trust with, from all appearances, a punk:

“At one point in the Yahoo negotiations, the talks extended into the weekend, says a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Zuckerberg, this account continues, said he couldn’t take part because his girlfriend was in town. Others pointed out they were closing in on a billion-dollar deal. Mr. Zuckerberg said it didn’t matter: his cellphone would be off, this person says.”

I was watching CNBC and the anchor chimed in with a reminder about punks from an earlier era, the founders of TheGlobe.com.

In addition TechCrunch reports that YouTube wants to be bought out, but will not settle for anything less than $1.5 billion. And there are some who think an Apple-YouTube merger is a great idea. Not! There are many things that have been said about Steve Jobs, but I don’t think the term “schmuck” applies.

The Deal reports:

Forty-nine Web 2.0 companies raised a combined $262.28 million in venture capital in the first half of this year. That eclipses the $199.14 million in venture capital that 52 startups raised in all of 2005, according to VentureOne. Among the largest Web 2.0 deals this year are Facebook, which received a $25 million second round, and Zimbra, which received a $14.5 million later round.

Let’s just hope all this isn’t just additional revenue for eBay. Via Techcrunch: