The widgetization of popular culture

Seems there's no stopping the rise and rise of the widget...

This just in from allfacebook.com:

"PC Pro, a UK based magazine, is reporting this morning that the Facebook application development firm Slide has secured $50 million in backers. The article boasts that this is 10 times the normal investment in ‘web 2.0′ company.

Currently slide has 65 employees and is looking to expand to 100 by the end of the fiscal year. Slide applications rank as some of the top Facebook apps with an estimated 143 million users. Some of their more popular applications are: Slide Show, SuperPoke and Funwall.

Slide is boasting that they have the growing power to enter the league of developers like Adobe, EA, and Intuit. What I find most interesting about this claim is how none of the afore mentioned companies play in the same field. While the three companies all developers of software, each firm develops software for a very particular user.

I guess that is where Slide is really banking on growth. Most development firms focus on creating software that meets the needs of one group of people. Eventually the software firm expands its market and its user base, but essentially they all grow from a single type of client.

By utilizing the Facebook user base, Slide is able to successfully market to a much larger segment of the computer using population. I don’t know if this market is worth $50 million, but it is interesting to see how VC’s and the market are treating app developers who focus on the Facebook platform.

Do you think an application development firm is worth $50 million. If so why? If not, why not?

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