Posts Tagged "facebook"

• Would Facebook’s IPO have been bigger if it went with New York Stock Exchange?

  Hots News
  

  The all-computer run NASDAQ could be to blame for a lack of a Facebook stock pop Friday, when the social network started its first day of trading. Orders flooded in for the stock, but overwhelmed computers and glitches slowed trading down because stock orders couldn’t be processed, leaving investors wonder if their orders had gone through. If Facebook had gone with the New York Stock exchange, where there are redundant backup systems, it might have been a different story.

  By now you know that Facebook’s stock didn’t pop in its first day of trading, closing the day at $38.06. Reports emerged yesterday that trading didn’t begin until 11:30 EDT because of computer glitches on the NASDAQ. Investors were left waiting for computer confirmation on their orders and the price they paid for the stock. The NASDAQ’s automated system relies completely on computers that are supposed to be faster and more efficient than human traders.

  On the New York Stock Exchange computers run the show as well, but human traders work as a backup. If the computers slow down or crash, real people keep the trading going and can tell you immediately the status of your order and the price of your stock.

  Keith Bliss from Cuttone & Co. explained the human trading system on the NYSE in an interview with Bloomberg:

  “There is no redundancy inside their (the NASDAQ) market so they’re solely dependent on the computers being able to handle…what’s happening not only inside of the market, but also inside an IPO. Down here on the New York Stock Exchange, we have redundant systems and the redundant systems are the human-based traders who can have an open outcry auction market. If the systems go down, we can get the stock open and get orders into the market, they can execute them and can give you a report immediately.”

  In Silicon Valley, we keep hearing that computers are getting closer to replacing humans as processors get more powerful. Researchers are continuing to work towards the singularity, in which we create computers that are smarter than humans (and probably more powerful too — cue a robot uprising).

  While it will be decades, if not hundreds of years, before a computer has even close to processing power of the human brain, leaders in the industry are praising computers as faster and smarter than human beings. It’s ironic then that the largest tech IPO in U.S. history may have been hurt by computer-based system.

  Do you think if Facebook had chosen the New York Stock Exchange for its IPO that it would have done better? Answer the poll and sound off in the comments.

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• Facebook disappoints on its opening day, closing down $4 from where it opened

  Hots News
  

  At the end of Facebook’s first day of public trading, shares were selling for around 9.5 percent less than their opening price. By the time the closing bell rang, the stock ticker symbol FB sat at $38.06.

  Facebook got off to a rocky start this morning, offering shares at $38. Intense trading volume early in the morning led to an opening price of $42. However, share prices slowly sank back down to the company’s original offering price.

  Analysts who had previously been bullish on Facebook are surprised. Early investors are disappointed. And social media enthusiasts are at least somewhat shocked.

  “Our Private Shares Group traded stock the week before the first S-1 at $45, and we did a lot of volume. The market clearly supported a share price in the $40s,” said Michael Pachter, managing director for equity research at Wedbush Securities.

  “But Facebook showed a sequential decline in revenue in Q1, so it is likely that some investors were spooked and began to question the company’s growth prospects,” he continued.

  “I have a $44 one-year price target, so it’s a great investment below that level, not as good an investment above that level.”

  The Facebook IPO

  Shares were priced at $38

  Bad sign: GM pulls out of Facebook ads

  Facebook employees celebrated the IPO with a hackathon

  ON IPO day, the company get slapped with a privacy lawsuit

  Facebook stock slides, taking other tech stocks with it

  Analysts warn us: This one won’t pop

  Calling the $38 price “fair,” Dunn & Bradstreet tech expert Lee Simmons said before the closing bell, “Facebook was less likely to rocket out of the gates on opening day… My educated guess places Facebook comfortably above the top-end of its price range on Friday.”

  Still, touting the site’s billion-strong userbase, investors are pegging Facebook stock as a good bet for the long haul.

  “I think it is a good long-term investment,” said Mark Siegel, managing partner at Menlo Ventures. “The nature of the product itself makes it difficult to be displaced… I think it’s that kind of a core, bellweather company in a tech sector. It’s gotten there remarkably fast, but it’s there.”

  However, Siegel noted at in the short term, he expected “volatility” in Facebook’s performance and said there was “no way, not a chance” it would see the eight-fold growth that competitor Google has had since its 2004 IPO.

  “There’s going to be a lot of crazy demand by people, but I don’t think it’s going to get to $60 [any time soon],” the VC continued. “In the next couple years, it might trade at $60 per share, but… I think institutional investors would start getting heartburn before it got up that high.”

  But this low closing price isn’t necessarily a bad thing for Facebook, points out Gartner analyst Ray Valdez.

  “Well-managed IPOs reward initial sellers (early investors and the company itself) with robust prices that don’t leave too much money on the table,” he said.

  “Facebook’s revenue model is still a work in progress. The mobile sector will remain a challenge for Facebook in the short-term. Over the long-term, Facebook has a good chance of cracking the code of monetizing user engagement across platforms, but accomplishing this will require significant innovation in both business and technology domains.”

  David-Michel Davies, president of The Webby Awards and co-founder of Internet Week New York, had the honor of ringing the closing bell at the NASDAQ stock exchange. “There’s been a huge focus on… what this means for the future of the web and what this means for other IPOs,” he told us in a phone conversation.

  And despite the social network’s inauspicious debut, Davies and millions like him remain optimistic about the future of Facebook and of other, smaller social media companies.

  “At the end of the day, its hard to overstate how important social is to the web. We’re living in a world where people have changed behaviors in a significant way. People now will start their day in a social environment and make a lot of important decision for their life there — what to buy, what to eat, where to go at night, what books to read.

  “It’s a really big change, and it’s not going away… This is definitely a big moment, and this IPO showcases how big that change is.”

  We’re honoring FB at the Webbies on Monday… They won the Webby for people’s vote for social change.

  Filed under: VentureBeat

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• 7 ways BYOD will boost your business

  Hots News
  

  If you haven’t already heard of the bring-your-own-device trend, then get ready, because you’re going to be hearing more and more about it over the coming year. What’s more, this trend isn’t just a matter of employees wanting to use their own tablets and smartphones at work; they want to bring the social apps they’re familiar with into the enterprise too.

  The result of this merging of business and consumer applications is a new class of general and vertical apps that are as social as they are powerful. These new applications are increasingly easy to use, collaborative, and based in the cloud.

  While IT managers may cringe each time they hear “can you help me connect my iPad to the company server,” here are 10 reasons businesses should embrace the consumerization of IT.

  1. Real-time communication In their personal lives, people are becoming more and more accustomed to web-based communication channels outside of email. When people are used to FaceTime, chat, and instant messaging at home, the act of sending an email to a vendor, or even sending a fax to a lawyer, seems like an artifact from a different, and far slower, era. If I can chat with my friends on Facebook, why can’t I interact with co-workers on our CRM system? Why I can’t I have a secure instant message session with my lawyer?

  The socialization of enterprise applications gives workers, clients, colleagues, customers, and vendors better tools to communicate in real time. These tighter communication loops should ultimately drive key performance goals for any business, including employee productivity, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

  2. Greater accessibility While traditional enterprise systems trap data in a single location, the cloud makes applications and business data available to more users on more devices in more locations. For employees, this can be a game changer, as the information they need is right at their fingertips – whether they’re at a client location, on route to a meeting, at home, or on vacation.

  3. End-user buy-in Ultimately the success of any technology initiative hinges on the ability to convince employees to actually use the software, device, or process. When employees clamor to bring their own tools into the workplace, there’s no risk that a new tool will sit idly by.  Throwing employees in front of a stodgy application is hardly a recipe for success. Rather, end users are more likely to use those tools that evoke the same look and feel of their friendly social networks and consumer apps.

  4. Shorter end-user learning curve A savvy workforce, familiar with its own favorite tools, can dive right into technology that leverages consumer elements in the corporate environment. Training costs go down, and employees can be productive with their new tools right out of the gate.

  5. Affordability Cloud-based applications shift the financial costs from the upfront capital expense of purchasing software licenses to an ongoing operating expense. When calculating the total cost of ownership, the benefits of cloud-based tools go beyond the cost of subscription vs. software seat to include: lower management costs, lower provisioning and upgrade hassles, and lower hardware costs. A 2009 report from Forrester Research concluded that Google Apps costs less than a third as much as on-premise email for equipping 15,000 employees with email.

  6. Security While data is often the chief concern holding businesses back from the cloud, web-hosted applications can actually increase data security, particularly for those small to mid-sized companies that don’t have proper in-house technical expertise or resources like a dedicated, lockable server room. In these cases, off-premise storage removes the company’s sensitive data from on-premise risks, such as access by cleaning staff, employee error, even physical threats like earthquake and fire.

  7. Productivity Consider for a moment who is behind the consumerization of IT. While Apple may benefit greatly as iPads and iPhones cross over to the enterprise, it’s the employee and not Apple who is pushing to use these devices for work. At the heart of this trend is the simple idea that employees know which tools can make their work day easier and, hopefully, happier.

  The key question to ask is: If employees are asking to use their own tools so they can be more productive in the office or catch up on work after hours, is that such a scary prospect?

  Jack Newton is CEO and co-founder of Clio, a Vancouver-based company that offers web-based practice management software for solo practitioners and small-to-medium sized law firms.

  [Top image credit: Goodluz/Shutterstock]

  Filed under: cloud, enterprise, mobile, social

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• Zuck’s dawdle in the NY Sheraton bathroom, a sign of things to come

  Hots News
  

  That little anecdote about Facebook’s roadshow meeting in New York was  widely reported this past week, but it’s being picked up as symbolic of Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s indifference to Wall Street.

  For those of you who missed the report, Zuckerbeg was still in the men’s room as the audience of Wall Street heavy-hitters waited for him outside in the ballroom of the Sheraton hotel on Monday. His deputy, Sheryl Sandberg was apparently forced to get started with questions and answers while they waited for him. When he did come out, he wore a gray hoodie, which was considered a snub by some of the buttoned up suits of Wall Street. Here was Zuckerberg, supposedly trying to sell the street on the merits of Facebook’s IPO, and he just wasn’t taking them seriously.

  The anecdote anchors the NYT story this morning about Zuckerberg.

  Arguably, it’s exactly Zuckerberg’s defiance, and his focus on doing what is important to grow his company, and impatience with formalities that interfere with that focus, that make him such a strong product leader. Investors in Facebook better get used to it, because this isn’t going to change.

  Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Securities, also in widely reported remarks, said Zuckerberg’s actions were signs of immaturity. Pachter likened him to Steve Jobs, in that he’s an eccentric leader who doesn’t want to answer anyone. Pachter says Jobs’ attitude was a big reason he was forced out of Apple early in his career. Jobs was able to return only after learning some lessons. And only then did he lead his company to its greatest heights.

  It’s that worry, about whether Zuck is mature enough to lead the company, that accounts for the different accounts going on right now about how Wall Street is embracing Facebook’s IPO plans. Some are saying there is robust investor demand for the IPO shares, while other reports suggest that there is weakness. In fact, those two reports can be compatible, because the latter one referred mainly to Wall Street institutional investor appetite, and was simply citing a few representatives of that group of investors. If Facebook decides to rely on individual investors — the non-suits — there’s plenty of interest in the IPO.

  Despite his critical comments, analyst Pachter is recommending investors buy the company’s stock — and that’s even though he doubts whether Zuckerberg is the right person to lead the company.

  For now, Zuckerberg will be firmly in control, and he’s done very well so far along the road. At just eight years old, Facebook is about to be valued somewhere close to $100 billion as a public company, one of the biggest, if not the biggest accomplishments of an entrepreneur yet. It’s just way too early to start asking whether this guy is fit to run the company. He’s already come a long way as a leader, as I documented three years ago.

  As long as Facebook continues to grow revenue and profits decently over the next few years, my guess is there won’t be any serious question about his leadership. But if he fails to execute, you can be sure eyes will soon turn toward the more polished Sandberg for direction — and no, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if the board has to orchestrate a coup to put her in that leadership position (like what happened to Jobs).

  [Photo credit: Reuters].

  Filed under: VentureBeat

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• The newest social media fad? Buying a token share of Facebook stock

  Hots News
  

  “When my kids were born, my dad bought them Disney shares, and we framed them and hung them up on the wall. They’re excited to know that they are a part of Disney.”

  Mike Jones, MySpace’s onetime CEO, told VentureBeat that story a few months ago when we asked him if he planned to buy Facebook stock.

  “People will just want to own the stock,” he said. “People will log into E-Trade and buy Facebook stock because they love it and use it everyday.”

  Buying a nominal number of Facebook shares as a novelty or to “be part of” the company’s history might be the latest social media trend. The company is going public at the end of next week, and the web is buzzing with opinions and early decisions about the IPO.

  While financial heavy-hitters and tech experts are loudly sounding their Facebook-stock-buying plans and giving the proletariat voluminous opinions on how much to buy (and when to sell), normal Facebook users are eyeing the stock in the same way you’d eye a tchotchke in a gift store window at your favorite zoo or theme park. It’s a memento of the day, a reminder of a time and a place when so many memories were made on this one social network.

  To Buy or Not to Buy?

  In a market decline, new tech stocks fall first

  Days away from its IPO, Facebook faces an FTC probe

  Here’s how much WE would pay for Facebook stock

  Facebook’s pitch: Watch the IPO commercial

  Why Reddit founder won’t buy: Facebook supports cyber surveillance

  Whether or not Facebook stock retains its value into the future — heck, whether or not Facebook itself still exists in the future — isn’t of too much concern to these buyers.

  Tech PR pro Brian Kramer said the thought of buying a couple of Facebook shares “has actually crossed my mind, just to see what shakes out.” He continued that he’d be making the purchase as a “novelty for now, but you never know.”

  “You never know” seems to be something of a theme among these casual traders. Twitter user @uberfuzzy told us he planned to buy a few shares “first as a novelty (and to get the financial docs), possibly more later for investment if they don’t MySpace themselves.”

  Most normal Facebook users won’t be buying any shares, but the what-the-heck buyers are almost equal in number to those planning to buy for long-term investment or short-term gains, according to our own limited man-on-the-street polls.

  Shares of Facebook stock are likely to enjoy a quick value growth spurt, especially in the first few days and months of trading. Analysts are comparing this IPO to Google’s in 2004. Google’s share price started at $85 and currently sits at around $600, with the company recently announcing a stock split.

  If Facebook’s stock follows the same trend, these just-for-fun shares could increase their value many times over, potentially ending up worth hundreds of dollars within a few years. One or two shares alone won’t pay anyone’s tuition; still, it’s a fascinating timestamp of the moment when nearly a billion people gathered online at the most important social destination in the world: Facebook.

  Facebook is scheduled to makes its debut on the Nasdaq Friday, May 18, 2012. Shares will start selling in a price range between $28 and $35, but prices are expected to rise dramatically and quickly.

  Filed under: social, VentureBeat

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• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says mobile apps the top focus, we say it’s about time

  Hots Technology
  

  Facebook has been making a lot of promises during a tour to drum up interest in its ever-nearing IPO, but the one gadget-heads have been wanting to hear the most, a commitment to its mobile apps, has been elusive — until now. Everyone’s favorite hooded CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is telling investors in his home ‘burg of the San Francisco Bay that mobile is front and center in his company’s plans. We’re hoping that means new app features, although Zuck is likely referring to money-making as well: shareholders are jittery knowing that Facebook makes most of its money on web ads that it’s not running on smartphones and tablets. Paid titles in App Center will go a long way towards scratching that itch, mind you. As for us, we’ll just be happy if Facebook takes less than a year and a half to produce a major tablet app.

  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says mobile apps the top focus, we say it’s about time originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 May 2012 03:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Your mom is so social, she’s on Facebook and Pinterest right now

  Hots News
  

  With Mother’s Day coming up this Sunday, research firm Nielsen has released a few stats on the online habits of American moms.

  Facebook ranks number one for U.S. moms, something that comes as no shock to the thousands of kids embarrassed by their parent’s status updates. In March 2012, three out of four moms visited the social network, which translates to 27.9 million moms.

  Fifty percent of moms are using social networks through their mobile phones, compared to only 37 percent of women in general. Perhaps they are trying to keep up with their kids’ antics at all time.

  Moms also make up a substantial percentage of bloggers. One in three bloggers are mothers and 52 percent have children under the age of 18.

  Pinterest is another hot website, with 4.9 million moms flocking to the site in March. Mothers are also 64 percent more likely to visit Pinterest than the average American. Considering the site is overflowing with pictures of home decor, recipes, and fashion, it makes perfect sense that millions of mothers are behind all those pins.

  Check out the infographic below for more details and don’t forget to wish your mom, or the awesome person who raised you, a Happy Mother’s Day.

  Mom and kid with laptops image via Shutterstock

  Filed under: social

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• Cmune spreads UberStrike to new platforms and raises funds from Skype founder

  Hots News
  

  Cmune, the maker hardcore 3D social games, has had a big couple of days. It announced that it was spreading beyond Facebook to GameStop’s Kongregate and is developing versions for iOS, Android, and other mobile devices. And now it has just announced that it has raised money from Atomico, the international venture capital firm founded by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström.

  The Beijing-based company made the announcement at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing. Cmune makes free-to-play 3D shooter games such as UberStrike (pictured), which has more than 5 million registered players. It has 1 million monthly active users, making it the largest first-person shooter game on Facebook. It is also available on UberStrike.com and the Mac App Store.

  “We’re delighted to be investing in a China-based company that targets a global market”, said Kelly Poon, Atomico’s Lead in China. “Cmune’s innovation in bringing 3D games to social platforms is remarkable, and it is already leading the way with UberStrike in the popular first-person shooter genre. The company has done a brilliant job at overcoming both technical and design challenges to bring console-quality games to the web.”

  Atomico has investments in 50 companies, including Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds.

  “Niklas is one of the few modern tech entrepreneurs who has built a global company with success in both the East and West. Having co-founded Skype and previously made major investments in pioneering gaming companies such as Rovio, he understands freemium as a business model.” said Ludovic Bodin, chief executive of Cmune.

  At the conference, Cmune showed the browser-based UberStrike running cross-platform between Facebook, iOS, and Android mobile devices. UberStrike features sharp and fast 3D graphics.

  The move to Kongregate will likely add more users, as Kongregate has more than 16 million monthly unique users.

  Cmune now has 20 employees and it is hiring. Meanwhile, it has tapped fans to generate new maps and concept art for UberStrike. Cmune was founded in 2007 in Seoul, South Korea, but most of its team is now in Beijing.

  Rivals include hardcore and mid-core game companies such as Kabam, Funzio, Nexon and Kixeye.

   

  Filed under: games, gbunfiltered

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• Guild Wars 2 hosting a surprise stress test next Monday

  Hots Games
  

  Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Events, real-world, Previews, News items, Guild Wars 2

  Are you in withdrawal after the last Guild Wars 2 testing weekend? Feeling the need to get back in the game, even if it’s just for one night? If so, you’re in luck, as the team has just recently announced that the game will be performing a surprise stress test on Monday, May 14th between 2:00 p.m. EDT until 9:00 p.m. EDT. It’s a chance to log back in, play for a bit, and get more of a taste for the game over those seven hours.

  Worth noting is that the stress test is only for pre-purchasers, but beyond that there are no specific test requirements — you can continue using the characters you created during the beta weekend. Players may experience some slight performance issues, since the purpose is to try and alleviate issues before the next beta weekend rolls around. So if you’ve pre-purchased the game, get ready to head back to Tyria in less than a week’s time.

  Guild Wars 2 hosting a surprise stress test next Monday originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Why Andrew Mason is still wrong about Groupon’s prospects

  Hots News
  

  After an accounting restatement, a shuffling of its board of directors and Groupon’s stock falling to below 50% of its initial public offering price (and 66% off the high it reached on its first day of trading), Groupon CEO Andrew Mason wrote a letter to shareholders yesterday to try to swing the momentum back in the company’s favor. Although the stock jumped briefly, it dropped a little today.

  Mason uses phrases like “reinvent the multi-trillion-dollar local commerce ecosystem” to paint a rosy picture of Groupon’s future. He’s wrong. The company faces a long, tough road ahead. Here is my analysis of Mason’s comments:

  Mason claims that “Groupon is a marketing tool that connects consumers and merchants.” Actually, Groupon’s daily deals business tries to keep consumers from building relationships with merchants. Groupon (like other deal companies) does not provide consumer information to merchants. It’s in Groupon’s best interests to have merchants buy another Groupon rather than reach out to consumers directly through a free mechanism like email or Twitter.

  Personalization. Mason cites deal personalization and targeting as something Groupon is doing right. I still get emails for laser hair removal and hair straightening on a regular basis. The fact is that Groupon does not have enough data to do targeting. Companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and American Express have substantially more data on users than Groupon does. I’m one of Groupon’s best customers (having purchased at least 20 Groupons), but that data is trivial compared to what Google has on me. The typical Groupon customer has only purchased one Groupon.

  Mobile. Mason refers to mobile adoption as an important potential success for Groupon. Here, I partly agree with him. Local commerce will be driven by mobile. But it also gets at one of the biggest flaws I see in Groupon’s path to date: The company spent hundred of millions of dollars on the wrong land grab. It built a giant, very expensive email list; that money should have been spent getting app installs. Now it’s having to spend money again to get the app installs.

  Groupon Now. Mason touts Groupon Now, but the numbers in his own letter disprove its success. Groupon Now has sold 1.5 million Groupons compared with 170 million overall in 2011, according to the letter. That is less than 1%. On a revenue basis, I would expect it to be even smaller because Groupon Now deals are frequently for restaurants, which have lower tickets. LivingSocial, which pioneered the real-time deals product that Groupon copied for Groupon Now, recently shut down its product to focus on better opportunities. There are many structural reasons why Groupon Now will not be a success in the near term. I’ll write about those in a future post.

  Groupon Rewards. It’s too soon to say how Groupon Rewards will perform. But it is an incredibly crowded space, with companies like Facebook, Foursquare, American Express, and Google all having their own offerings. (There are at least a dozen more.) Regardless, Rewards will have much smaller take rates than the daily deals business.

  Groupon Scheduler. It’s a competent, but not excellent product. (See my detailed review.) Getting merchants to adopt this service will be a challenge. Groupon will be competing with vertical players like OpenTable and MindBody that can provide a product that is much better suited to the needs of each type of merchant. Nearly two months after I called Groupon out on it, the company still hasn’t answered the question of who owns the data that merchants put into the system. If a merchant inputs all of its contacts and appointments, can Groupon use that data to sell competing services? Until Groupon answers that very basic question, I advise all merchants to stay away from this product. Yield management is a smart business strategy that small businesses should take advantage of; Groupon has yet to make a credible case that it is a trustworthy partner.

  Groupon seems to be chasing everything that moves without thinking things through. This isn’t surprising given that the company shot up to 11,000 employees (more than three times the number of people Facebook employs) without ever proving its original business model. It needs to focus on 3 or 4 products that it thinks will work, instead of trying everything and hoping it sticks.

  Its core business model is in trouble and the other opportunities it’s going after are hard businesses with lots of competitors. From Mason’s letter:

  Though our transformation from daily deal provider to local commerce platform will not happen overnight, in the coming quarters, we will release the products that we believe complete the foundation for our ecosystem. We look forward to sharing them soon.

  Local has always been an incredibly difficult problem. It doesn’t spin out overnight successes. The companies that have succeeded are relatively small. OpenTable is valued at $823 million. Constant Contact is valued at $679 million. Although the optics of the daily deals business and Groupon’s questionable accounting made it look like a huge success, Groupon will find that the new business lines it is trying to get into take a long time and are highly competitive.

  I stand by my estimate from last August when I told Emily Chang on Bloomberg West that Groupon is a $1-$2 billion company.

  Mason does have one ace in the hole: Given the company’s ownership structure, he doesn’t really have to care about what Wall Street thinks. He could choose to ignore the stock price and do the right things for the business. That might give the company a fighting chance.

  Filed under: VentureBeat

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