Probably the most interesting thing about the Facebook announcement today is that they got AT&T to do a deal with them. Carriers were robbed of $13.9 billion in SMS revenue in 2011 alone. Facebook plays no small part.

A friend who previously led a major division at Nokia said that carriers were, at one point, even refusing to preinstall apps like Facebook because they cannibalize SMS revenue too aggressively.

They’ve obviously garnered the deal because of both the relevancy play (AT&T looks ‘hip’ as they adopt this new technology) and the data usage revenue is likely to be non-trivial. I’m sure all of the high resolution cover images and ads will drain your data allowance. Carriers love selling apps pre installed that increase data usage especially when it allows them to sell their speed as a feature.

If Facebook’s ability to do a deal with a company they are destroying revenues...

I often wonder why an app is launched, to great fanfare, and then almost suddenly dies off. It’s an amazing and fascinating phenomenon and until I moved to Los Angeles, I hadn’t clearly understood why.

There is an industry where there are, much like in technology, investors. They invest in ideas that are not yet proven to result in a hopeful return. They invest large sums of capital into the idea. Better teams get more capital, as they often have a track record of proven results. The capital often helps get even more great, and proven, team members to work on the idea. Sometimes the ideas work, sometimes they’re a flop. The gains from the winners usually fund the next round of budding ideas.

It’s the movie industry. The investors are producers, the teams are actors, actresses and directors. The ideas are scripts and the winners are called Blockbusters. Sounds a lot like the tech...