RockYou!

Infobox Dotcom company
company_name = RockYou!
company_
company_type = Private
foundation = Late 2005
location = Redwood City, California
key_people = Lance Tokuda and Jia Shen, co-founders
services = software applications
revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees =
url = [http://www.rockyou.com/ www.rockyou.com]


caption =
website_type = social networking
language = English
registration =
launch_date =
current_status = active RockYou! (originally known as RockMySpace), based in San Mateo, California is a publisher and developer of applications and other social network services. As of December, 2007 it is the most successful widget maker for the Facebook platform in terms of total installations.

History

RockYou! was founded in 2006 by Lance Tokuda and Jia Shen, who had worked together on a photo slide show project for software developer Iconix. The company's first product was also a slide show service, designed to work as an application widget. The founders' former employer obtained a federal injunction against the company in late 2006 in connection with ownership of intellectual property, but the parties quickly settled the matter. Later applications included various forms of voice mail, text and photo stylization, and games.

In May, 2007, RockYou! was one of the companies invited to participate in F8, the event at which Facebook announced an open platform allowing third parties to develop and operate their own software applications on the Facebook website. Applications made for Facebook include Super Wall, [cite news|publisher=New York Times|accessdate=2007-12-23|title= In Facebook, Investing In a Theory|author=Brad Stone|date=October 4, 2007|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE0D91E30F937A35753C1A9619C8B63] "Hug Me", Likeness, Vampires, Slideshows, Birthdays, MyGifts, and Emote, among others. [cite news|publisher=San Francisco Chronicle|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/03/BUG14RTHD31.DTL|title=Widgets add flair to dress up Web sites|author=Ellen Lee|date=September 3, 2007]

RockYou's investors include Sequoia Capital [cite web|url=http://www.sequoiacap.com/company/rockyou/|title=Sequoia Capital funds RockYou] , First Round Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Partech International.

As of late 2007 RockYou! was the principal competitor to Slide.com [cite news|publisher=New York Times|accessdate=2007-12-23|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/business/28invent.html|title=After Succeeding, Young Tycoons Try, Try Again|author=Gary Rivlin|date=October 28, 2007] . The company was also developing widgets for MySpace and Bebo.

References

External links

* [http://www.rockyou.com rockyou.com] - official website