Facebook and iPhone Don't Just Shape Reality; They Are Reality

TechFlash reports: The rise of Facebook and the iPhone mark the "dawn of two new platforms"—in the same league as the IBM PC, Windows, and the Internet in their potential to support new types of applications and companies, RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser said yesterday at the FiRe Global West Coast 2009 conference in Seattle.

"Anybody who's an entrepreneur, leader of an existing company, involved in new product innovation in any form, if you don't immersively understand these two platforms, you are becoming a dinosaur," Glaser said during an on-stage interview with TechFlash's John Cook at the conference. See a video excerpt above.

RealNetworks is betting on the iPhone in part through its recently released Rhapsody app for the device. Glaser said the app has now attracted "nearly half a million" downloads, which would be up considerably from the approximately 200,000 downloads RealNetworks reported two weeks ago.

At one point later in the interview, John asked if RealNetworks would ever consider selling its stake in the overall Rhapsody music service, which is part of a joint venture with MTV Networks. BusinessWeek recently suggested such a move, saying that RealNetworks might be better off focusing on other parts of its business.

"How much you wanna pay?" Glaser joked in response.

He continued, "I would say, in the current economic environment, it's much more appealing, generally speaking, to be buyers of assets than sellers of assets," Glaser said. "In this particular business, the challenge is, we've tried a number of different ways to be partners with music companies. We are constantly looking out for ways to have more flexible relationships with them, and if there's a way to have a more flexible relationship with them…we'd be open to doing that. But that would be the kind of thing I'd be thinking about, mostly."