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Slide.com is worth five billion dollars, yes five billion

Today I came across a Businessweek article about how slide.com could be worth $500 million dollars based on its latest $50 million dollar venture capital infusion. The writer, Sarah Lacy, also expresses doubts and concerns about Slide’s ability to justify its ‘lofty’ valuation in the face of adversity from competitors. Also, she cites that the $500 valuation is indicative of a bubble.

However as I have stated before we’re not in a web 2.0 bubble. I wrote about this months ago, and my argument is as robust then as it is now and will be in the future.

We’re in a second internet boom in Silicon Valley, and it won’t be anding anytime soon. Slide.com is worth five billion easily ,and as this social networking web 2.0 rally continues its valuation will only increase, and justifiably so.

Slide.com has near domination of the widget market. Its biggest competitors are photobucket which offers similar photo widget features and possibly rockyou, but since the widget market is growing at such an phenomenal, unprecedented rate there is room for multiple companies to thrive.

With regards to the article in Businessweek, Sarah Lacy, who ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, writes

But let’s get back to the question of whether Slide is worth $550 million, its evaluation including the most recent funding. At this second, the answer has to be no, by any normal valuation math. But if Levchin’s plans succeed, Slide will be worth far more. And obviously, investors are paying a premium for the team. The barriers to entry for building a widget are so low it is a Darwinian fight, and Levchin thrives in that type of situation.

She is completely wrong. Even business schools don’t churn out people this stupid.

I propose that Slide easily worth five billion dollars, ten times her low ball estimate because it has a massive, rapidly growing audience, and an iron grip of the widget market place. True the barrier to entry is very low, but it would be virtually impossible for another company to displace Slide’s enormous lead. Trying to compete with Slide is like going toe to to against Apple’s Ipod, Google, Ebay’s Paypal or Microsoft Windows. You can’t.

A company with as large of an audience as slide can be treated as a full fledged media company like CNN or Fox News. As long as you have the eyeballs you can serve ads and make money. And Slide.com has millions upon millions of them with no end in sight. CNN can charge advertisers based on their reach, thus leveraging their audience to make money. Slide is no different.

Where do I derive the five billion? Facebook is worth $15-30 billion and myspace is worth between $10-30 billion. Those sites have between 60-300 million users, so would it be a far stretch to assume that based on those valuations that slide.com is worth at least five billion dollars? If Slide was offered $500 million dollars for a buyout I can guarantee they wouldn’t take it because there is still so much potential.

Each and everyone of these web 2.0 doubters and bubble heads who try to dismiss everything as a bubble remind me of the same people that wrote off Amazon.com off for dead in 2002 when its stock was at $10 (it now trades at $80). Or the people that said facebook wasnt worth a $1 billion in 2006 (now worth 16 billion). They were wrong then, are wrong now, and will continue to be wrong in the future.

Bay Area real estate is going to keep going up. Palo Alto and San Jose. Mountain View, home of the googleplex, and Menlo Park. Silicon Valley world capital of innovation and technology. Gas $5 a gallon soon. $7 Starbucks espresso lattes. The new era still lives on. The revolution is as real as Slide’s $5 billion dollar valuation.