Monday, December 08, 2008

Trutap - Riot-E for the IM Generation

I was just commenting on Tom Hume of Future Platform's riposte to everyone's favourite pundit, Ajit, over the rapid and expensive demise of Trutap, when it struck me - Trutap has to be this bubble's version of Riot-E.

For those who don't know, Riot-E were the original mobile badboys/money wasters - these guys were so visionary, they signed up the rights to the Bridget Jones mobile game for a six figure sum back when mobile games were SMS-based (and tiny). They had giant dollops of Nokia cash and they spunked it left, right and centre with little to show for it at the end except some great stories - such as the time the CEO started naked wrestling in covered in olive oil in one of Helsinki's top restaurants, realised he couldn't buy his way out of it, and so led the whole company on a naked charge through the centre of town back to the office. But hey, they do that sort of thing in Scandinavia. The documentary is excellent and well worth a watch for anyone interested in either tips on how to invest VC cash for maximum fun, or an insight into the Finnish psyche (things get messy at the end).

The point being - you have to hope there are some amazing stories of champagne jacuzzis in private jets to explain how that $14.5m got spent, because there is no rational way a boring conventional company should spend that much to create what in the end is a <$1m fancy JavaME IM and social network aggregation client. Sadly I haven't heard any stories of this nature - so Trutap people, if they exist please share!