Fifth Generation Systems Takes $5.3 Million Series B
Duncan Riley
6 comments »
Fifth Generation Systems, the company behind social homepage creator Zude has taken $5.3 million Series B in a round that includes Irwin Lieber and Barry Rubenstein of Wheatley Partners, Persistency Capital, and Gund Investment.
Zude offers a “social webpage network” that allows users to create their own personalized webpage from modules that hold personal content or clips grabbed from the web. Each module can be placed anywhere on the canvas, edited, layered, and have its transparency adjusted.
As part of the deal, Dan Bricklin, co-creator of VisiCalc, and Barry Rubenstein of investment firm Wheatley Partners, will join the Fifth Generation Systems’ board of directors.
Roslyn Heights, NY based Fifth Generation Systems said they would use with new round to accelerate product development and expand its user base.
Read our April 2007 review of Zude here.
That’s such a Zombo’esque logo! They have at least one thing going for them.
oh my god i love Zude!!!!
WOW! Not meaning to be rude but ….. Zude seriously sucks. I mean, it’s a major step backward in terms of design. All of the Zude pages I have seen look like the mismatch nightmare web pages that were everywhere in the mid-90’s. I also found their marketing approach (”even your granny can use our system”) pretty awful. I am amazed that they’ve been able to raise sop much money on what I think is a very flawed concept.
Your not being rude, Chris. You’re just offering your opinion. I would agree that when you place a blank canvas to a bunch of people and pass out the art palettes, you’re gonna get a bunch of “interesting” results. But, if you look hard enough, you’ll also find some pretty awesome stuff.
As far as Zude goes: Check out Leslie from Australia, an artist that hade made Zude her home for her online presence and her business — http://www.zude.com/LesleySmitheringaleFineArt
Or, Stephanie from Canada, who created a mashup of pictures, animations, and videos about Mermaids — http://www.zude.com/4FB07111220363547211
Don’t forget ANNA NALICK, the award winning musician that calls Zude home: http://www.zude.com/AnnaNalick (or any of the other numerous artists on Zude)
And, lest we forget, a 68 year old grandmother first introduced to computers 3 years ago: http://www.zude.com/RockinGrandma (she has created over 70 pages in Zude — many of them SPECTACULAR)
and of course, there’s a bunch of ugly ones too! But, we can’t all be critics, and after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Congratulation to Zude but really I do not get this. There are services much more designed, useful and powerful as Wixi http://www.wixi.com or Jooce http://www.jooce.com... Steve, I am sorry but even the pages you linked are not so nice and do not make any sense for me. Zude will maybe join the list of popular services I dont get: Multiply, eSnip…
Also, look at this: http://siteanalytics.compete.c.....?metric=uv
Anyway, good luck to all these companies!
What is Zude?
(according to Dave Jag, our communications guru)
There are probably as many answers as there are Zude users (a.k.a. Zuders). I think all would agree that Zude is an “enabling technology” that allows even novice web users to take advantage of the latest web technologies. Zude blurs the line between your personal desktop and the web. Okay – I’m ducking the question, aren’t I? Let’s try this approach…
When you visit the Zude home page and sign up for your free account, you instantly become part of the larger Zude community. As a Zuder, you have the ability to create unlimited web pages, so there is no need to try and do it all on a single unmanageable page. We get what you want to do with your profile, so that’s why we extended the flexibility of Zude way beyond that of social networks.