Facebook Archive

So maybe you won’t be rich from the Facebook IPO after all

– May 18, 2012Posted in: Facebook, News

Alright, so when we saw that Facebook had this huge IPO (the largest ever in history), we all thought we were going to become millionaires. OK not really. But we thought that maybe we could bank a bit off of the social network’s stock.

Wrong. For two reasons: 1) there’s a huge line of shareholders and investors (see above image) that helped Facebook in the very beginning that get first priority 2) Those said investors usually overtake 90% of the shares before Mr. Joe Schmo can even think about investing. Bummer, major bummer.

So what about later? Well, good question. It might be good to invest in the future, but as everything goes in the stock market, it’s all about timing and how much you’re willing to invest. Will buying one $38 share guarantee you’ll come out with a thousand bucks? Possibly, but it’s not likely. You also have to consider: will Facebook continue to grow, or will it become obsolete in the next 10 years (think: MySpace)?

So basically, the wealthiest will continue to bank riches off their million dollar investments (Ahem…Bono), while the rest of us continue to Facebook the days away and advertisers steal all of our information, which is really unfair when all is said and done.

(via Gizmodo)

Facebook officially goes public tomorrow and it will be the largest IPO in history

kduffy

– May 17, 2012Posted in: Facebook, News

Facebook will officially go public tomorrow. Now hurry! Everyone get in line to buy Facebook stock!

Shares started off at $38 today, according to Market Watch. Given the high price of the IPO—making it the largest in history—not a bad way to start off, already ahead of the major established tech giants such as Amazon and HP.

Trading under the name FB, the company is selling 180 million shares, with another 241.2 million on the way from early shareholders such as Zuckerberg himself and early bankers.

Demand for Facebook shares were of plenty, which is no surprise. But don’t forget, though, while all of this news is exciting, the fact we can actually invest in our favorite social network, your private information is still at stake, on and offline. But the good news is there is a giant tax bill that comes with the IPO, which will be good for the economy in the end (especially in California).

Crazy to think that all of this happened in a Harvard dorm room, and Zuckerberg being a college dropout, was able to come this far (props to you, Mark Zuckerberg).

(via The Wall Street Journal; photo via Fox Business)

Tags: Facebook officially public, Facebook public, Facebook stock, FB stock, mark zuckerberg

What does Bono have to do with Facebook?

kduffy

– May 17, 2012Posted in: Facebook, News

Who knew Bono got down in Silicon Valley? The U2 lead singer and a few partners—Roger McNamee from Silverlake Partners and Apple board member Fred Anderson to name a couple— started Elevation Partners, which owns 1.5% of Facebook. The guys got together back in 2004 in hopes to “help media and entertainment business develop and market content.”

Despite popular belief that Bono is “the worst investor in America” due to a $460 million investment in Palm, which was later acquired by HP and Elevation only received 1.5%, this is a huge 180.

Initially Bono entered the Silicon Valley world via Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandburg. Bono assisted her in Facebook’s aid initiatives in Africa, then in 2010 Elevation Partners invested in Facebook, a rough $270 million. And now that the IPO is about to take place, Bono’s involvement will make him the richest rock star in the world (yes, taking Paul McCartney’s longstanding #1 spot).

(via The New York Times; photo via Wikipedia)

Tags: Bono, Bono Elevation Partners, Bono Facebook, Elevation Partners, Facebook Elevation partners, Facebook IPO, U2

Skype Emoticons with Personality

khoward

– April 27, 2012Posted in: Apps, Facebook, Internet Trends, Tech

While Skype already has the video advantage over text-only communication, the service is looking to bring even more “humanity back into the conversation” with a Facebook app called Skype Humoticons. Humoticons are basically what they sound like – traditional emoticons (smile, sad face, tongue out) with a human face (yours).

The app encourages users to mimic the usual emoticon options with captured images of their own facial expressions. Humoticons can then be shared via Facebook or Skype’s Humoticon gallery, or saved to share in instant messages. The app even lets you create animated Humoticons composed of five separate pictures.

Whether or not you feel comfortable sharing your personal Humoticons with the world wide web, Skype’s humanized emoticons do look like more fun than their traditional counterparts.

(Image and Story via Ubergizmo)

Tags: emoticons, FaceBook, Humoticons, instant messaging, Skype

The More Social Search

khoward

– April 23, 2012Posted in: Apps, Bing, Facebook, Google, Internet Trends, News, Tech

Since Google’s “Search Plus Your World” left something to be desired at its launch earlier this year (namely social results that weren’t from Google+), other groups have tried to fill in the social search pieces. One such startup, Wajam, is working hard at this new kind of search with a redesign and new service integrations.

The service features social status updates and links from Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, which, with the update, appear next to regular Google search results. Support for Bing and Yahoo with this new Wajam format is expected later this week, while users should expect integration of LinkedIn results before the end of the year.

Along with social search results that can now be filtered by network or category, Wajam now features further integration with sites like Amazon and Wikipedia. If Google’s attempt at social search didn’t entirely turn you away – and you prefer your search to be more social, Wajam may just be the search tool for you.

(Image and Story via TechCrunch)

Tags: Google, social networks, Social Search, Wajam

Facebook’s “permanently deleted” photos are still online

kduffy

– February 6, 2012Posted in: Facebook, News

For us Facebookers, it’s no secret that our deleted information is never really “permanently” deleted – our posts are probably lingering around somewhere in Facebook purgatory. But the problem with these “deleted” photos never really disappearing has a deeper underlying issue: they are still accessible via direct link—something that came up in the news through people’s horror stories when trying to hide a specific photo from a specific someone.

“We have been working hard to move our photo storage to newer systems which do ensure photos are fully deleted within 45 days of the removal request being received[.] [...] This process is nearly complete and there is only a very small percentage of user photos still on the old system awaiting migration, the URL you provided was stored on this legacy system. We expect this process to be completed within the next month or two, at which point we will verify the migration is complete and we will disable the old content,” Facebook said to Ars Technica.

Facebook said they are on the verge of officially fixing this longstanding photo problem, and they will truly be deleted from the CDN within 45 days (so they say…), but then again Facebook has claimed to have fixed this problem before but never did anything about it, which leads us to believe these photos will still be available somehow, some way.

(via Mashable & Ars Technica; photo via DreamGrow)

Tags: FaceBook, Facebook photo flaw, Facebook photo removal, Facebook photos, photos

Zuckerberg’s massive IPO also means… giant tax bill!

kduffy

– February 6, 2012Posted in: Facebook, News

Crazy to think it was a year ago Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement that his once dorm room-based Internet website gone berserk would be made into a public offering.

And now that it has, The United States of America can thank Mark Zuckerberg for his IPO for two reasons: it’s putting $1.5 billion in the funds department that wasn’t there before, which is a considerable amount (the currently-held debt the US is $15,320,649,000,000, and steadily increasing—amounting to an average $48,951 of debt per person). Also, it’s gives developers a chance to exceed their brand more through Facebook’s app opportunities.

On top of the federal debt, Zuckerberg will also pay 10% to the state of California. The Financial Times reports, “With the stock changing hands in private secondary markets at nearly $40 a share that is set to leave him with a gain of some $4.8 billion. The profit would rise to $6bn if the company reaches the $100 bn IPO valuation some of investors have predicted.”

This is extraordinary for Facebook, investors, and the general economy. And it looks like things are shaping up job-wise, too—this past January the United States created 243,000 jobs, shrinking the unemployment rate to 8.3%.

As companies like Facebook and Apple continuously succeed, it gives us hope that we’ll be well on our way to some sort of recovery on a larger scale soon.

(via Pando Daily via The Financial Times; photo via Entmoney)

Tags: FaceBook, Facebook IPO, mark zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook IPO is good for the economy

Facebook settles for a $5 billion IPO

kduffy

– February 2, 2012Posted in: Facebook, News, Tech

Not as much as we expected, but Facebook announced their IPO would be for $5 billion (not to say $5 billion is some loose change or anything, but the estimated offering was nearly twice the amount), with a stock exchange symbol of FB.

In a letter from Mark Zuckerberg, he wrote:

“At Facebook, we’re inspired by technologies that have revolutionized how people spread and consume information. We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the television—by simply making communication more efficient, they led to a complete transformation of many important parts of society. They gave more people a voice. They encouraged progress. They changed the way society was organized. They brought us closer together. Today, our society has reached another tipping point. We live at a moment when the majority of people in the world have access to the internet or mobile phones –d the raw tools necessary to start sharing what they’re thinking, feeling, and doing with whomever they want. Facebook aspires to build the services that give people the power to share and help them once again transform many of our core institutions and industries.”

Zuckerberg’s net worth was roughly $17.5 billion last year, and as investors continue to grow it is only expected to increase. Mashable reports “[he also] claims 56.9% voting power in Facebook and owns more than 1 billion shares in the company. The next on the list of top shareholders among company executive officers and directors is James Breyer, a venture capitalist who owns 201 million shares and has 11.4% voting rights in the company. Peter Thiel, another VC, has 44 million shares, which translates to 2.5% voting rights.”

This first step is an exciting move for Facebook’s aim to becoming the social network (wait, they weren’t already?), incorporating more socialization in every aspect and more sharing across the board.

(via Business Insider; photo via WowElle)