It's actually a well known economic phenomenon when there is an auction situation and for sure FB managed to organized an auction: the "winner curse"...
Actually I was a Corporate Finance / M&A guy. Per user multiple is pretty standard for pre-profit companies. Not saying it is the most accurate way to value a company but at this stage of profitability it's a good comparison measure.
(to clarify, I'm the author of the post)
teej, I understand that some people don't like flash. It was actually a key decision that we had discussed a lot internally, notably given that flash is not open source. But we came to the conclusion that to build what we wanted to, we needed flash. What is Pearltrees about ?
First, Pearltrees enables to map and organize your web. It is an easy and powerful way to store and retrieve the valuable contents you find in your every day navigations. While browsing, you record contents whenever you want and at the end Pearltrees shows you the map of your surf. By simple drag & drop, you can easily re-organize/re-order this map, make intersections, delete useless items, etc. to build the story you want to on the topic. You can also enrich your map with those of other users by simply including them in your own map. A map organization gives a structure and a meaning to these contents. A bit like the curator of a museum puts arts pieces in a certain order on a given path to tell a story to the visitors. Basically you have crystallized your thinking on this topic.
Second, you can guide your friends on the web. By building your map, you have cut through the "noise" of all contents on the topic to build a story with what you think are the most relevant contents. This has value to other people that you know. With those maps, you can make a point, have people laugh, prepare a trip, etc. (we even had a wedding invitation sent via Pearltrees). You can share maps with other users, via one link by tweet, embed it on your blog, etc.
Third, you can discover new contents close to your interests. Your maps will cross other maps, you can then navigate from your map to other users’ maps along the same line of interest. Even if there is no direct crossing, you can also see the closest maps to yours so as to broaden your horizons with maps build by people that have similar interests than yours.
Very clearly the platform can be improved, simplified and optimized. It is still a very early alpha. We are working hard on it with the community of users and I'm sure it will get better. It is already a very powerful tool for my everyday web usage (though I’m of course biased as I’m part of this team).
nonrecursive, thanks for this feedback.
It is strange that it took so long to upload because it usually works correctly on Safari. Could you maybe tell me your OS and browser versions so that we look into it? Thanks
As to what you ended up on, it was the map on ad revenue model (if you went via the pearl in the post). To read the map's content, you can just click on the play and the arrows buttons in the left bottom corner.
Pearltrees works with flex so if you have a flash/flex blocker it may explain the issues to read it.
The big advantages of Pearltrees is that it makes it very easy for me a) to keep all the contents as I come across them, b) to organize them in a certain order and c) to share them with one link so as to guide others through those contents in the order I think subjectively is the one that makes most sense. As jessep points out, it does allow to organize these contents in a structured way which a list cannot do. Finally, I can discover other related contents done by other pearltrees' users on the same topic, (i.e., users that cross my map on a same web page notified by a yellow circle), and hence discover other point of views on the topic.
Of course the tool can be improved and simplified. The team is working hard on it and I'm sure it will get better. But it is already a very powerful tool for my everyday web usage.
I think it's pretty clear from the text above that I'm part of Pearltrees (not a tech guy though... hence "the team"). It's also clearly stated on my blog.
Some of the feedbacks above are very useful. There are bugs that we are working on to avoid some of the issues stated above.
As long as you show clearly what is sponsored or not, you do not lose the trust of your users. In addition, it needs not be the one paid most that gets more promoted but a mix of price and endorsement/quality - basically the same caveat as sponsored linked on Google.
It's much more than a set of links. Links are just a list of independent items with no relation between them. You'll notice that there is a relation between the different pearls in this map, that there is the perspective of a VC and the one of an entrepreneurs, or that of a VC that likes exec. summary and another one that doesn't. In other words, this map is not a random "set of articles" but a story of the different dimensions and opinions on the VC funding process. You may not have noticed it but by organizing the map in the way I did, I've basically guided you through the web on this topic and by doing so I've put forward certain ideas and not others.
Now, that being said, to be able to easily manipulate these pearls and create maps, flash is required. You can record and turn your navigation into a map, drag&drop pearls, erase them, switch orders, write comments, change titles, indicate crossings, etc. And without flash, it's not possible. The power of a map is way way way bigger than that of a list: to you use the yellow pages to find your way in a city or do you use a map?
In addition, Pearltrees allows you to see other maps that cross my map on VC funding overall process and approach. In this case there are none (at the moment) but if there were you would see a yellow circle to indicate that an other map is crossing this map. You can then basically navigate from map to map, from gudie to guide and you will discover an entirely new, humanly edited web.
