WebProNews

Tag: Mark Zuckerberg

  • New Facebook Feature Should Increase Link Sharing

    New Facebook Feature Should Increase Link Sharing

    Facebook is testing a new feature that could (and should) lead to mobile users sharing more links, which in turn, should increase Facebook’s lead as the social media referral traffic king.

    TechCrunch reports that Facebook is piloting “a new way to add a link that’s been shared on Facebook to your posts and comments”.

    Essentially, when you go to post an update, there’s an option to “add a link,” which lets you search within Facebook to find an article to share. If you want to say something about Tom Brady, for example, and wish to share a link with it, you can search for him, and you’ll be presented with popular articles that people have already shared on Facebook, and can choose the one you wish to share.

    It’s true that sharing a link on Facebook from a mobile device can be an annoying task if you’re already on Facebook. If you were in the app and wanted to share something, you’d have to leave it and go find what you wanted to share, then either copy/paste it or use your browser’s share functionality. This feature could be considered an improvement in that regard.

    Some reports, however, are painting this as a feature that should worry Google, effectively making Facebook more of a search engine. I think that’s a little much.

    What some reports seem to be overlooking is how people really share to Facebook. How often do you share links to Facebook by starting with a status update, and then deciding to add a link to it? Isn’t it typically the other way around? Don’t you usually share links you’ve already found? Don’t you read an article, find it interesting, and then share it because of that? Maybe I share differently, but when I post a link on Facebook, I don’t start with a topic, and then look for an article that meets my sharing needs. I just share what I’ve already seen.

    That said, the feature would indeed serve to increase the sharing of links to some extent. It’s certainly not going to make people share any less. For those lucky enough to appear in the top results for these searches on Facebook, it could improve referrals significantly. In other words, Facebook optimization will effectively double as a new kind of search engine optimization for sharing within Facebook.

    I suppose the race is on to rank on Facebook for coveted keywords.

    Of course the feature is extremely limited for now. It’s only being piloted with a few users in the U.S. Assuming this becomes a full-fledged feature, there’s no question marketers will be rushing to break into those search results.

    It would appear that Facebook sharing is already on the rise. ShareThis recently put out a report suggesting that changes Facebook made to its News Feed earlier in the year have already led to an increase.

    “It’s likely that Facebook’s News Feed adjustment increased engagement with the social network and, as a result, sharing activity increased,” says ShareThis’ Michalene Becker. “This quarter, Facebook represented 84% of sharing volume, up 12% from Q1 2014. Blogger, which makes up 5% of sharing volume, also saw a slight uptick in activity compared to last year (+2%). Meanwhile, Pinterest and Twitter saw slight declines in sharing (-5% and -3%, respectively).”

    The report found that smartphone and tablet sharing now account for 20% and 13% of device activity respectively. 77% are using desktop devices for browsing, but they’re less likely to convert to a social action. Only about 7% of sharing is generated by desktop devices.

    The new feature will definitely lead to an increase in mobile sharing, especially considering how mobile usage of the social network continues to climb.

    According to the latest numbers released by the company, 798 million use Facebook from mobile at least once every day. That’s up 31% from the same period the year before. Meanwhile, 73% of Facebook’s ad revenue for last quarter was generated by mobile.

    CEO Mark Zuckerberg talked a little bit about the company’s approach to search during its earnings call last month. He said during a Q&A (via SeekingAlpha):

    So we’re pretty early in this whole thing and there’s so much unique content that people share in Facebook that I think that that is the clear, unique opportunity to go for first, right? I mean there’s – if you think about the overall web, there’s a lot of public content that’s out there that any web search engine can go index and provide. But a lot of what we can get at are recommendations on products and travel and restaurants and things that your friends have shared, they haven’t shared publicly, and knowing different correlations, or interesting things about what your friends are interested in, and that’s the type of stuff, those are questions that we can answer that no one else can answer, and that’s probably going to be what we continue to focus on doing first. And I think what you’re seeing is that as we enable more use cases and as we just get a lot of the basics right around performance and bringing the mobile features into parity and beyond what we’ve been able to do on desktop, the volume is growing quickly.

    I think on a recent earnings call we just announced that we passed 1 billion searches total so now being more than 1 billion on mobile shows some progress that I’m pretty proud of for the search team.

    The company announced in December that it was giving users the ability to surface posts based on keywords in search, and that this would be available for desktop as well as iOS and Android Little by little, Facebook is indeed making it easier to search for content within the social network.

  • Facebook Instant Articles: More Details Emerge

    Facebook Instant Articles: More Details Emerge

    There have been reports for months that Facebook has been looking to get publishers to let the social network host their content so it can show it to users in a quicker, more user-friendly manner, particularly on mobile devices.

    In March, The New York Times reported that itself, as well as BuzzFeed, National Geographic, and others were joining Facebook in testing such a format. Users could reportedly start seeing this content as early as this month.

    The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook is offering to let publishers keep 100% of the revenue from some ads, and that Facebook may seek to require publishers to use its own ad products like Atlas and LiveRail, but that’s not certain. Deepa Seetharaman writes:

    The Facebook initiative, dubbed Instant Articles, is aimed at speeding that process, people familiar with the matter said. Facebook plans to start hosting news and videos from BuzzFeed, The New York Times, National Geographic and other publishers as early as this month, those people said.

    …

    To woo publishers, Facebook is offering to change its traditional revenue-sharing model. In one of the models under consideration, publishers would keep all of the revenue from ads they sell on Facebook-hosted news sites, the people familiar with the matter said. If Facebook sells the advertisement, it would keep roughly 30% of the revenue, as it does in many other cases.

    According to the report, Facebook is still finalizing deals with the publishers expected to be on board, and is still actively reaching out to other publishers.

    As you know, Facebook continues to make changes to its News Feed algorithm that generally don’t favor publishers. One such change was announced a couple weeks ago. Mark Zuckerberg was asked about the relationship between these changes and the Instant Article initiative on Facebook’s recent earnings call.

    He said:

    The North Star for us in News Feed is that we want to produce the best experience for everyone who is using the app and loading News Feed to see what is going on in the world around them…there are lots of businesses on Facebook…our main interest here is the people in the community who are using News Feed, not those guys, right? So of course we want to build tools to enable them to share their content and all of that, but we’re constantly refining the algorithms in order to make it so the experience is the best for you when you open up your phone and look at Facebook and, there are a bunch of things that are going on, we want to make sure that we’re getting what you care about the most.

    We go to a lot of lengths to make sure that we’re getting signals from people in our community to make sure that we’re doing this correctly, in addition to the different signals that we would get from seeing people use the products. We also do a lot of qualitative surveys to see what people, what makes – what people write in that they want to see from us, what people tell us is the most important thing that they saw in Facebook today or saw anywhere in the world today and what they would’ve wanted to have seen on Facebook. And our goal is to just constantly refine this and make it better and we’re going to keep on doing that because we think there’s a lot of upside and there’s a lot more that we can do…If you’re a professional publisher, you need to have the ability to share a version of the content that you’re producing that you’re proud of, that can load quickly, that can be as rich as the tools enable people to see, and we’re working on a lot of different tools for that.

    And you can imagine that as the tools for any of this content get better, people taking photos, newspapers, writing news articles, advertisers, putting out ads for content that they want to sell, the better that content gets, the more people are excited to see it and then that informs the ranking in what the community qualitatively tells us that they want to see from us over time as well.

    In terms of getting content to load more quickly on mobile devices, a lot of publishers may already be addressing this while still hosting their own content, as many have been trying to improve their mobile-friendliness in response to a recent Google algorithm change.

    Page speed isn’t the top requirement for mobile-friendliness on Google, but the company does make recommendations about it in the documentation it referred webmasters to in preparation for the update.

    Facebook’s latest News Feed tweaks include showing some users more content from their friends and less from Pages.

    Image via Facebook

  • Here’s Some Kid Talking About ‘The Facebook’ on CNBC in 2004

    Here’s Some Kid Talking About ‘The Facebook’ on CNBC in 2004

    I dunno who this guy is, but he’s not very good at selling his product, which appears to be some “cyber-matchmaking” service called “The Facebook”.

    The fact that he has over 100,000 users and is looking to expand to hopefully 100 colleges soon is pretty impressive though.

    CNBC unearthed this interview with a very young Mark Zuckerberg, talking about a fledgling service where people can create online profiles, make friends, and then stalk each other. This was 11 years ago today:

    As of now, 936 million people get on Facebook every single day.

    Yes, Dylan Ratigan, I think it’s the next big thing.

  • Facebook ‘Powerball’ Scam Screws Woman out of $10K

    Facebook ‘Powerball’ Scam Screws Woman out of $10K

    Neither Facebook nor its CEO Mark Zuckerberg are ever going to give you money, unless you’re a charity – then you might get a fat donation from Zuck. But for average, everyday people on Facebook, anyone claiming to have money for you is lying.

    Most of us would reply duh to that – but some of the oldest scams in the book continue to rob Facebook users of incredible sums of money.

    The latest hoax to do so involves a so-called “Facebook Powerball” lottery, supposedly sponsored by Mark Zuckerberg himself.

    A Pennsylvania woman was recently duped, and lost nearly $9,500 as a result.

    WTAE says:

    The woman was contacted by a friend’s account, but the account had been hacked. The suspect then told the woman that she had won a Facebook Powerball lottery that was hosted by Mark Zuckerberg himself. The woman was informed she needed to send $1,000 to receive $100,000, $2,000 to receive $200,000 and so on.

    The suspect informed the woman she needed to send $1,000 via Western Union to an individual in Mobile, Alabama.

    After sending the money, the woman was told that the UPS truck that was delivering her money was stopped by the IRS. The suspect then told the woman she needed to wire transfer $8,500 to an account in Atlanta, which she did, after being advised the money would be delivered to her address within 24 hours.

    The ol’ send money to make money scam – for the social media age.

    It was only when the woman was told her money had been seized by the police after her UPS driver died in a crash that she began to get suspicious. Only then.

    I guess I’ll go add ‘Zuckerberg lottery scam’ to the growing list of hoaxes that people keep falling for, inexplicably.

  • Here’s What Mark Zuckerberg Just Said About The Latest News Feed Update And Hosting Publisher Content

    Here’s What Mark Zuckerberg Just Said About The Latest News Feed Update And Hosting Publisher Content

    This week, Facebook announced its latest round of changes to the News Feed algorithm. Once again, it doesn’t exactly sound like great news for people running Facebook pages. While there were three different changes, the one that has people and businesses worried sees Facebook showing people more content from their friends and less from Pages, at least for those who don’t engage with Pages as much.

    The update doesn’t come as much of a surprise, as Facebook has made multiple changes over the past year and a half or so that have cost Pages a great deal of the organic reach of their posts. Still, that doesn’t exactly make it easier to swallow for Pages that have spent years gaining followings on the social network.

    There has also been a lot of talk about Facebook’s reported efforts to get publishers to let it host their content, which Facebook sees as a way to deliver content to users more quickly, particularly on mobile devices, where more and more of Facebook’s traffic is coming from. This has been another controversial topic.

    On Wednesday, Facebook reported its earnings for the first quarter, and on the ensuing conference call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked about both of these things in one question.

    He said that “the North Star” for Facebook in News Feed is that it wants to produce the best experience for users, and that businesses and professional content producers are not their main interest. They want tools for the businesses and content producers to make it easier to share good content, which he acknowledged is an important part of the experience, but basically, the priority is making sure users see what they want to see. They’re constant refining the algorithms.

    Yes, you’ve pretty much heard it before.

    “We go to a lot of lengths to make sure that we’re getting signals from people in our community to make sure that we’re doing this correctly, in addition to the different signals that we would get from seeing people use the products,” he said (via Seeking Alpha’s transcript). “We also do a lot of qualitative surveys to see what people, what makes – what people write in that they want to see from us, what people tell us is the most important thing that they saw in Facebook today or saw anywhere in the world today and what they would’ve wanted to have seen on Facebook. And our goal is to just constantly refine this and make it better and we’re going to keep on doing that because we think there’s a lot of upside and there’s a lot more that we can do.”

    “Now, at the same time, in order to make this experience good, there also needs to be good content in the system, right, so we need to make sure that people have the tools to able to share the moments that they care about,” he continued. “But if you’re a professional publisher, you need to have the ability to share a version of the content that you’re producing that you’re proud of, that can load quickly, that can be as rich as the tools enable people to see, and we’re working on a lot of different tools for that.”

    “And you can imagine that as the tools for any of this content get better, people taking photos, newspapers, writing news articles, advertisers, putting out ads for content that they want to sell, the better that content gets, the more people are excited to see it and then that informs the ranking in what the community qualitatively tells us that they want to see from us over time as well. So it’s just a constant cycle on that.”

    Zuckerberg talked more about organic reach in a November Q&A. He went into more detail about Facebook’s approach in that. Even though it was significantly ahead of this latest update, it’s worth taking a look at.

    Image via Facebook

  • Facebook Talks ‘Anthology’ And Other Video Efforts

    Facebook Talks ‘Anthology’ And Other Video Efforts

    Facebook just announced the launch of Anthology, a new marketing program that gives brands access to a group of well-known video publishers to improve the quality of video ads.

    This group of publishers includes Vice Media, Vox Media, The Onion, Funny or Die, Electus Digital, Oh My Disney, and Tastemade.

    “As video consumption continues to grow on Facebook, it is important to keep videos relevant and engaging — including video ads from brands,” a spokesperson for Facebook tells WebProNews. “Given this trend, today Facebook is announcing Anthology, a Facebook Marketing Partner program which brings together leading video publishers and Facebook’s Creative Shop to produce outstanding advertising content that drives value for brands and resonates with people.”

    The publishers, according to Facebook, will “lend their creative storytelling expertise and video production services to brands, and as Facebook Marketing Partners, Anthology publishers are trained on how to get the most out of Facebook to drive business results.”

    The spokesperson adds, “In addition to creative ideation and development, the Anthology program leverages Facebook’s unique insights and scale; for each Anthology campaign, Facebook’s Creative Shop partners with brands, agencies and publishers to provide audience planning, insights, distribution plans and measurement.”

    Facebook reported its Q1 earnings on Wednesday, and during the conference call, the company talked a great deal about video. For one, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook reached a new milestone of over 4 billion daily video views in Q1. This was apparently helped by a recently launched embedded video player. He said 80,000 videos have been embedded on third-party sites.

    “Looking ahead, we believe video will play a significant role in bringing more marketers to mobile,” said COO Sheryl Sandberg. “More than 75% of global video views on Facebook occur on mobile – and we believe mobile video will become more important to marketers over time. Lionsgate’s Age of Adaline premiere is a great example. To promote the film, Lionsgate targeted young women on Instagram with multiple video ads over the last few weeks. This week, since the film opens on Friday, they will be retargeting the audience from the Instagram campaign on Facebook. We expect more marketers to put mobile video at the heart of their campaigns in the future, and we’re well positioned to drive this shift.”

    She later said, “We’ve always believed that the format of our ads should follow the format of what consumers are doing on Facebook. So many years ago when the homepage ticker was in vogue, we never did that. And so the fact that there’s so much consumer video, that gives us the opportunity to do more marketing video as well. It’s still early days and we’re very focused on quality and it’s worth noting that not all of the revenue from video is incremental, because the video ads take the place of other ads that we would have served into News Feed. That said, we’re really excited about the opportunity I talked about, increasing the entertainment and media vertical and brand marketers, particularly. But I think all marketers have the opportunity to do video, and that’s pretty exciting, including SMBs who would never be able to hire a film crew and buy a TV ad. We’re seeing those put videos in. Over 1 million SMBs have posted videos and done really small ad buys around them. And that’s pretty cool because I don’t think there are probably 1 million advertisers who have bought TV ads in that same period of time.”

    Asked about the potential for studio and professionally-driven video content, Zuckerberg said, “Right now, a lot of what people are sharing are their social videos and content. There a lot of public figures who have pages often with millions or tens of millions of followers producing unique and really high-quality content that they’re pushing out to all their fans on the network today. So, yeah, we’ll continue looking at ways to grow that and it’s – the product experience that we have right now is growing quite well so we feel good about it.”

    Asked about video ad pricing, CFO David Wehner said, ” video is effectively winning in the auction if it’s higher priced. So if somebody’s willing to pay more for a video, it’s going to get served before another type of format ad. But there’s not really a price differential you’re paying for a video, it’s just what are you willing to pay into the system. So there’s not differential pricing by product, it’s just what are you willing to bid for the format that you want to show to the people that you want to show it to and that’s how the system works.”

    Seeking Alpha has the full Q&A transcript here.

    Image via Facebook

  • Zuck Discusses Facebook Search On Earnings Call

    Zuck Discusses Facebook Search On Earnings Call

    Facebook reported its Q1 earnings on Wednesday, and while it wasn’t talked about a great deal, the subject of Facebook’s efforts in search did come up during the ensuing conference call.

    In his prepared remarks, CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned that Facebook is now seeing over a billion mobile searchers per day.

    The mobile search number is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. For one, Facebook only updated is mobile search functionality to reflect its efforts in desktop search in Q4. The company announced in December that it was giving users the ability to surface posts based on keywords in search, and that this would be available for desktop as well as iOS and Android.

    The second reason the amount of searches happening on mobile is significant is that this is a largely untapped opportunity for Facebook to increase its ad revenue in the long term. The more searches that happen on Facebook, the bigger opportunity this will be for the company and its advertisers.

    Zuckerberg also mentioned search as one of three ways it’s “continuing to build a new generation of Internet services that are more useful, intuitive, and immersive (with the other two ways being artificial intelligence and virtual reality platform Oculus). He said Facebook will have more to share about all of these over the coming months. That’s pretty much all he had to say about search until the audience Q&A portion of the call.

    Asked more about Facebook’s search efforts during the Q&A, Zuck said (via SeekingAlpha’s transcript of the call):

    So we’re pretty early in this whole thing and there’s so much unique content that people share in Facebook that I think that that is the clear, unique opportunity to go for first, right? I mean there’s – if you think about the overall web, there’s a lot of public content that’s out there that any web search engine can go index and provide. But a lot of what we can get at are recommendations on products and travel and restaurants and things that your friends have shared, they haven’t shared publicly, and knowing different correlations, or interesting things about what your friends are interested in, and that’s the type of stuff, those are questions that we can answer that no one else can answer, and that’s probably going to be what we continue to focus on doing first. And I think what you’re seeing is that as we enable more use cases and as we just get a lot of the basics right around performance and bringing the mobile features into parity and beyond what we’ve been able to do on desktop, the volume is growing quickly.

    I think on a recent earnings call we just announced that we passed 1 billion searches total so now being more than 1 billion on mobile shows some progress that I’m pretty proud of for the search team.

    Personalized search is no doubt an area where Facebook should be able to compete with other services. Yahoo is working on something to that effect, and apparently thinking it can make a big impact with ages-old Yahoo Mail messages. I think Facebook’s ridiculous amount of personal data has a lot more potential to make such an impact. Yahoo has been talking a lot about the value distribution partnerships. It may want to look at Facebook for some opportunities.

    One analyst asked Facebook if it Facebook expects to leverage its 2 million advertiser relationships against third-party search queries: “For example, when a user searches on, say, Yahoo! or maybe some Apple device, Facebook might tap in to advertisers to provide relevant sponsored results.”

    COO Sheryl Sandberg simply stated that the company has no plans to work with marketers in such a way.

    On the company’s previous earnings call, Zuckerberg noted that its recent search changes at resulted in indexing a trillion posts. And that was a quarter ago.

    You can read more about what Zuckerberg has said about search in the past here.

    Images via Facebook

  • Mark Zuckerberg: Vaccines Work and Are Important

    Mark Zuckerberg: Vaccines Work and Are Important

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is wading into the vaccination debate, as his newest book club choice tackles “anti-vaxxers” and disproves their various arguments – without actually focusing on the anti-vaccination movement by name.

    Zuckerberg has chosen On Immunity by Eula Biss, one of the New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2014. And in his recommendation, Zuckerberg has made a clear, succinct plea for the power of vaccinations.

    “Vaccination is an important and timely topic. The science is completely clear: vaccinations work and are important for the health of everyone in our community,” says Zuckerberg in a Facebook post. “This book explores the reasons why some people question vaccines, and then logically explains why the doubts are unfounded and vaccines are in fact effective and safe.”

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

    Though the science behind vaccinations couldn’t be clearer, a growing group of parents are choosing to forgo their children’s vaccinations. Recent outbreaks of measles have thrust the topic of vaccinations to the head of public health debate.

    Zuckerberg weighing in on this is even more timely, as a recent report from WIRED suggested that Silicon Valley is particularly fond having their kids of forgo vaccinations. Whether the data on daycare vaccination rates shows a legitimate trend in Silicon Valley or just lagging record keeping is still undetermined.

    “This book was recommended to me by scientists and friends who work in public health,” says Zuckerberg of his choice.

    Despite saying this, some on Facebook are already questioning his motivation.

    “Is this your choice to post this or have you been asked to?” asks one commenter.

    “It’s my choice,” says Zuckerberg. “Who could make me do this?”

  • Facebook Brings Free, Basic Internet to India

    Facebook Brings Free, Basic Internet to India

    Facebook has brought its internet.org app to India, giving free, basic internet access to people in six Indian states – Tamil Nadu, Mahararashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, and Telangana. The deal is a partnership with Reliance Communications.

    By “basic”, we’re talking 38 services – which includes Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Wikipedia, wikiHow, ESPN Cricket Info, Bing search, and BBC News. There are also websites offered that are very specific to Indian interests, like Maharashtra Times and Babajob.

    “Reliance customers in India can access these services in the Internet.org Android app, at www.internet.org, from the start screen of the Opera Mini mobile web browser, and using the Android app UC Browser for Internet.org. Most of the services will be available in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi,” says Facebook.

    There are over a billion people in India who are not connected to the internet in any way.

    “Over the last year we’ve rolled out Internet.org free basic services to countries with more than 150 million people total across Africa and Latin America. More than 6 million people are already connected to the internet who previously weren’t, and we’ve started hearing incredible stories about how the internet is changing lives and communities. But to continue connecting the world, we have to connect India. More than a billion people in India don’t have access to the internet. That means they can’t enjoy the same opportunities many of us take for granted, and the entire world is robbed of their ideas and creativity,” says Mark Zuckerberg in a post. This is why the move into India is the most significant yet – the sheer volume of under-connected people.

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

    “One day, we will connect everyone, and the power of the internet will serve every community across India and the world. That day is coming,” he says.

    In 2013, Zuckerberg launched Internet.org with the stated mission of making the internet available to all. Last summer, the organization launched the internet.org app.

    Image via Dikkoos, Wikimedia Commons

  • Priscilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg Donate Millions to San Francisco Hospital

    Priscilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg Donate Millions to San Francisco Hospital

    Priscilla Chan and hubby Mark Zuckerberg made an incredibly generous donation to San Francisco General Hospital. The couple donated $75 million, which is said to be the largest single donation made by individuals to a U.S. public hospital.

    There was a very personal reason for the donation–at least on behalf of Priscilla Chan. She worked at the hospital for several years as part of her pediatric residency.

    “Day in and day out, I witness the compassion and dedication of my colleagues as they work tirelessly to deliver the best available care to all of our patients,” Chan said in a statement released Friday through the hospital foundation. “Mark and I are proud to support such an important public hospital.”

    Known as “The General,” the hospital is in the process of rebuilding, which will include the creation of a nine-story, 453,000-square foot main hospital and new trauma center. It’s scheduled to open in December.

    “We are so fortunate that our work in connecting the world through Facebook has given us the ability to give back to our local community, our country and the world–and to work to improve education, health care and internet access for everyone,” Zuckerberg said in a statement. “To serve our community in San Francisco, we can think of no better place to focus than The General.”

    Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg will become namesakes as well as donors of money to “The General.” It will be known as the Priscilla and Mark Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. It is set to be fully open in December.

    Kudos to Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan for donating to a hospital that will not only heal the sick but will also provide trauma care to those with life threatening injuries in the San Francisco area.

  • Priscilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg: $75M To Hospital

    Priscilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg: $75M To Hospital

    Priscilla Chan and famous husband Mark Zuckerberg have given $75 million to San Francisco General Hospital, according to CNN.

    Dr. Priscilla Chan worked for years at San Francisco General Hospital, referred to locals as The General, during her pediatric residency.

    Now a doctor at USCF Benioff Children’s Hospital, and wife to the incredibly wealthy Facebook mogul, Priscilla Chan wanted to give back to The General.

    Her reasons?

    Priscilla Chan said in a statement, “Day in and day out, I witness the compassion and dedication of my colleagues as they work tirelessly to deliver the best available care to all of our patients. Mark and I are proud to support such an important public hospital.”

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

    The General is known as a “safety net” hospital that treats many patients who are uninsured or underinsured. The hospital is also the Bay Area’s only trauma center.

    Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg‘s amazingly generous donation comes just in time for The General’s planned improvements. The plan is to build a nine-story, 453,000-square foot main hospital and new trauma center.

    These are scheduled to open in December 2015.

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

    Mark Zuckerberg said of his and Priscilla’s donation, “our contribution … will allow The General to double the size of its new Emergency Room and quadruple the number of beds, and provide state of the art equipment for healthcare providers and first responders.”

    He added, “We are so fortunate that our work in connecting the world through Facebook has given us the ability to give back to our local community, our country and the world — and to work to improve education, health care and internet access for everyone,”

    Their generosity is well documented recently, and The General is only the latest recipient of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s goodwill.

    Zuckerberg said, “To serve our community in San Francisco, we can think of no better place to focus than The General.”

    What an amazing gift! What do you think of Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg’s generosity toward The General?

  • Mark Zuckerberg, Wife Priscilla Chan Give $75 Million to Hospital Where She Completed Residency

    Mark Zuckerberg, Wife Priscilla Chan Give $75 Million to Hospital Where She Completed Residency

    Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have just announced a huge donation to San Francisco General Hospital.

    The couple is giving $75 million to the hospital, which is called The General, to expand the size of the ER and provide more beds for patients.

    “To add some specifics, our contribution today will allow The General to double the size of its new Emergency Room and quadruple the number of beds, and provide state of the art equipment for healthcare providers and first responders,” says Zuckerberg.

    “We believe everyone deserves access to high quality health care. The General is the main public hospital in San Francisco, and it is an important safety net for our community. More than 70% of the families it serves are uninsured or underinsured. It is open to anyone who lives, works in or visits the city … We hope this contribution alongside the great work of other contributors, will help The General to continue to save lives and deliver care to everyone who needs it.”

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

    Chan is a pediatrician. She completed her residency at The General.

    In October, Zuckerberg gave the Centers for Disease Control $25 million to help battle Ebola in Africa. In May, he donated $120 million to help improve Bay Area schools.

    Image via Priscilla Chan, Facebook

  • Zucked: A Recent History of Facebook’s Blunders

    Zucked: A Recent History of Facebook’s Blunders

    Facebook is celebrating its 11th birthday this week – news that’s likely to make you feel pretty old. As a 28-year-old who signed up for Facebook during the summer before college, it’s hard to imagine a world without it.

    We all love Facebook. We all hate Facebook. We all love to hate and hate to love Facebook. Plenty of walks down memory lane could champion the good Facebook’s done in the world – and there’s a lot of it – but I’d like to take a different path.

    The following is a thorough but in no way exhaustive look at the times Facebook really Zucked up – most of which led to some truly pissed off users.

    What do you think is the biggest blunder Facebook has made in the past few years? Let us know in the comments.

    That time Mark Zuckerberg championed free speech but then lol nevermind


    Facebook is not, has never been, and will never be a haven for free speech. It doesn’t have to be. It’s a company that survives on advertising revenue. You can’t expect a publicly-traded company that lives and dies (mostly lives as of late) by the ad dollar to take a stand for offensive content. You shouldn’t expect this.

    But that’s just what Mark Zuckerberg did in early January following the terrorist attacks on French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

    “As I reflect on yesterday’s attack and my own experience with extremism, this is what we all need to reject — a group of extremists trying to silence the voices and opinions of everyone else around the world. I won’t let that happen on Facebook. I’m committed to building a service where you can speak freely without fear of violence,” he wrote in an impassioned note to his 31 million followers.

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.
    At the time, I commented that ultimately, there’s always going to be some whiff of hypocrisy whenever Mark Zuckerberg soapboxes on the promise of free expression. Despite his intentions, which I'm sure are well and good, Facebook just isn’t built to be a free speech haven. Cue the kowtowing. Fast forward a few weeks and Facebook found itself at the wrong end of a Turkish court order. A Turkish court had ordered Facebook to block various pages that it said were insulting to the Prophet Mohammad. The ultimatum? Block the pages or we ban Facebook outright. In the end, Facebook chose to block the offending pages inside Turkey, a move that drew criticism from many free speech activists. The threats worked. Turkey and its 40 million Facebook users retained full, somewhat censored access to Facebook.

    The time(s) Facebook tried to copy Snapchat

     Snapchat has been one of the fastest-growing apps of the past few years, and it was the first to make the idea of ephemeral messaging trendy. Before 2011, most people didn't think they wanted their messages to disappear after the intended recipient read them – but by 2012 Snapchat was all the rage. And so Facebook tried to make their own Snapchat. In an odd rebranding decision, Facebook decided to call their new standalone app "Poke", as in the same name as the widely-derided feature of pre-news feed Facebook (it still exists, by the way) that allowed users to "poke" each other. And then wait to be poked back. And then poke again. And then wait to be poked back... Facebook launched the Poke app in late 2012. It didn't really make a splash, to say the least. In May of 2014, Facebook killed Poke for good, although its death had already happened many months before. RIP Poke. Not content to try and fail to capture Snapchat magic just once, Facebook launched the standalone app Slingshot in the summer of 2014. Slingshot was kind of like Snapchat, but with the interesting caveat of not being able to see what another person sent you until you sent them something back. It didn't go well either. Facebook has tried to keep it on life support by taking it in an entirely different direction, but like fetch, it's just not going to happen.

    That time Facebook made you download an entirely separate Messenger app because tapping one extra tab was too hard

     2014 was the year of the unbundling, with many popular apps splitting up core services once offered inside one, flagship app, and spreading them across multiple standalone apps. Facebook was no different. Apart from Facebook's desperate attempts to capture the Snapchat magic, the company decided to strip its app of one of the most popular features of said app, and force people to download a brand new app to regain its services. So, why did Facebook force another app on you? Here's what Mark Zuckerberg had to say about it:
    We wanted to do this because we believe that this is a better experience. Messaging is becoming increasingly important. On mobile, each app can only focus on doing one thing well, we think. The primary purpose of the Facebook app is News Feed. Messaging was this behavior people were doing more and more. 10 billion messages are sent per day, but in order to get to it you had to wait for the app to load and go to a separate tab. We saw that the top messaging apps people were using were their own app. These apps that are fast and just focused on messaging. You’re probably messaging people 15 times per day. Having to go into an app and take a bunch of steps to get to messaging is a lot of friction.
    Messenger is its own app now because tapping your Facebook app and then tapping one more tab to access chat was very, very hard, apparently. There was some backlash, if you can believe that. Don't think that this trend is going to end. You can expect more standalone apps from Facebook in the future.

    That time Facebook showed people their dead children in cheery, upbeat "Year in Review"

     The road to bad publicity hell is paved with good intentions. And shitty algorithms. This past Christmas, Facebook was forced to issue an apology after its 2014 wrap-up app, called Year in Review, caused some unintended pain for some users who were forced to relive painful events in their lives. One such user was Eric Meyer, whose experience became national news after he penned a blog post about Facebook's Year in Review app juxtaposing images of partying and having a good time with photos of his dead daughter. "Yes, my year looked like that. True enough. My year looked like the now-absent face of my little girl. It was still unkind to remind me so forcefully," he wrote. "And I know, of course, that this is not a deliberate assault. This inadvertent algorithmic cruelty is the result of code that works in the overwhelming majority of cases, reminding people of the awesomeness of their years, showing them selfies at a party or whale spouts from sailing boats or the marina outside their vacation house. But for those of us who lived through the death of loved ones, or spent extended time in the hospital, or were hit by divorce or losing a job or any one of a hundred crises, we might not want another look at this past year." Facebook promised to work on it – you know, for next year's sake.

    That time Facebook had the slowest goddamn product rollout in history

     You know when you were a kid and your dad promised you something but then he forgot about it and you never got it and then you saw that a couple of your friends had it and you were like wtf dad and so he finally gave it to you but when you opened it you saw that it wasn't the new go-kart he promised but was just a bunch of metal parts and an oily wrench so it was pretty much useless so you sulked a bit and waited around and then finally he gave you the whole go-kart but by then you were a teenager and didn't want it anymore? No? Ok. Well, that happened to you. Not exactly that, but Facebook basically did that with the rollout of Graph Search. Facebook unveiled Graph Search after months of speculation in January of 2013, and immediately put everyone on a waiting list. The company warned the rollout would be slow, and man were they not lying. It wasn't until August of 2013 that everyone in the US woke up with Graph Search. But it wasn't the full Graph Search. At the time, users could only search for things people “liked,” (My friends who like Arcade Fire), photos (Photos of me and Chris from 2013) and other basic profile information including location, work info, and more. From day one, Facebook promised that Graph Search would include post search – the ability to search for things like "John Smith's status about beer" – but when Graph Search proper hit all in the US, post search was nowhere to be found. So we waited. And waited. And waited. And then it was spotted in the wild, but only on mobile. Then Facebook said it was testing the feature, which it promised nearly a year prior. It wasn't until December of 2014, nearly two years after Facebook unveiled Graph Search, that Facebook added it iOS. It also added post search to desktop. Android still doesn't have Graph Search.

    That time Facebook ran a weird emotion experiment on its users without telling them about it

     This one really creeped everyone out – mostly due to the fact that it was just plain creepy as hell, but also because it made us all realize that Facebook can have a legitimate effect on our mental state, which is troubling. Or at least that was the hypothesis. Here's what happened, as written in an official scientific paper with the creepy ass title of “Experimental Evidence Of Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion Through Social Networks”.
    Emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness. Emotional contagion is well established in laboratory experiments, with people transferring positive and negative emotions to others. Data from a large real-world social network, collected over a 20-y period suggests that longer-lasting moods (e.g., depression, happiness) can be transferred through networks…although the results are controversial. In an experiment with people who use Facebook, we test whether emotional contagion occurs outside of in-person interaction between individuals by reducing the amount of emotional content in the News Feed. When positive expressions were reduced, people produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts; when negative expressions were reduced, the opposite pattern occurred. These results indicate that emotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our own emotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-scale contagion via social networks. This work also suggests that, in contrast to prevailing assumptions, in-person interaction and nonverbal cues are not strictly necessary for emotional contagion, and that the observation of others’ positive experiences constitutes a positive experience for people.
    TL;DR: Facebook wanted to see if it could make you sad by showing you sad stuff and if it could make you happy by showing you happy stuff. Consumer watchdog groups called it "unethical", regulators opened probes, and users expressed their outrage at the experiment ... on Facebook. And everyone kept using Facebook because Facebook's gonna Facebook and that's life. It was just poor communication anyway.

    That time Facebook banned cartoon boobs

     In September of 2012, Facebook banned this New Yorker cartoon: A few months later, Facebook removed this photo for violating its community standards on nudity: You don't need to rub your eyes again. That's an elbow. Both of these were reinstated after viral outrage and both came with an apology from Facebook. But these two highly-publicized examples were endemic of a big problem: Facebook had a major breast phobia. Breastfeeding became a huge issue for the site, which faced criticism from mothers who had their breastfeeding photos removed and their accounts banned – even though Facebook's policies stated that nudity in the context of breastfeeding was ok. What was going on – besides simply mistakes by Facebook's mostly-outsourced content moderation units – was that the company had a nit-picky rule about breastfeeding photos. Basically, breastfeeding photos were allowed as long as the exposed nipple was actually feeding the child and you know, not sitting out there willy nilly not doing a damn thing. Lazy nipple. If this sounds ridiculous, that's because it is. That was Facebook's stance for years, until June of 2014 when it finally freed the nipple – the un-babied nipple that is. Still, Facebook has and will continue to remove content in error. In the end, you have to cut Facebook some slack. Just think about how difficult the task of moderating all of that content must be. Of course, no amount of discerning eyes could adequately cycle through the billions and billions of links, photos, and videos shared each and every day. Facebook continues to rely heavily on user reporting, and its crew of outsourced content moderators at multiple global offices have an impossible job – mainly determining what content violates Facebook restrictions, however convoluted they may be.

    That time Facebook maybe, possibly, tried to listen to your conversations

     Facebook already knows everything there is to know about you so I don't quite understand the outrage here, but in June of 2014 people were PISSED about a proposed feature that would let Facebook "passively" listen to users' background activity. According to Facebook, the feature would allow it to easily identify songs, movies, and TV shows simply by sound – kind of like a creepier Shazam – so that it would be easier for people to post statuses about exactly what they're doing (I'm listening to The Police – "Every Breath You Take", for instance). To put it lightly, there were some people out there who weren't buying it. “Facebook says the feature will be used for harmless things, like identifying the song or TV show playing in the background, but it actually has the ability to listen to everything — including your private conservations — and store it indefinitely. Not only is this move just downright creepy, it’s also a massive threat to our privacy. This isn’t the first time Facebook has been criticized for breaching our right to privacy, and it’s hoping this feature will fly under the radar. No such luck for Facebook," read a petition that garnered over 600,000 signatures. Facebook attempted to clear up any confusion about the new app feature, saying, “The microphone doesn’t turn itself on, it will ask for permission. It’s not always listening ... so it’s very limited in what it is sampling." "I wouldn’t want this in my pocket either if it was recording everything going on around me,” said Facebook Security Infrastructure head Gregg Stefancik. Every step you take, I'll be watching you..

    That time Facebook promised you a cool new News Feed but then lol nevermind

     In March of 2013, Facebook announced a huge update to News Feed. Huge. Zuckerberg tossed around words like "personalized newspaper" and "visually rich and engaging". He said that it would be 50% photos and other visual content to "reflect the evolving face" of Facebook. This wasn't just your standard blog post announcement either. Facebook held a big new News Feed event. Like with Graph Search, Facebook warned that this would receive a very slow rollout. Once again, they weren't lying. By December of 2013, reports indicated that in "the small rollout to a single-digit percentage of users, engagement with the new design has stalled." Fast forward to today, and very few people have ever seen a News Feed that looks like the one Facebook made such a huge deal about in 2013. What Facebook did do, however, is incorporate some elements of that redesign into what you see today. It's not the drastic change Facebook promised, but your current News Feed is reflective of some of the elements of the fabled New News Feed.

    That time Facebook yanked a bunch of photos of women post-mastectomy

     Facebook eventually apologized and restored them. See content removal mistakes, above.

    That time Facebook was pretty sure everyone wanted Facebook all over their phones

     You may not even remember Facebook Home or the HTC First (aka The Facebook Phone). That's ok. There's really no reason you should. In the spring of 2013, Facebook held a big event to launch a new experience – one that would put Facebook front and center on your mobile devices. Why just have a Facebook app when your entire smartphone could be a Facebook app. That was the thought behind Facebook Home. Facebook Home turned your Android device into a Facebook machine. Facebook became your home screen. Facebook replaced your lock screen. The UI layer was a lightweight way to make your whole mobile experience revolve around checking your News Feed and chatting with Facebook friends. And if you didn't already have an Android phone, why not buy a phone that comes pre-loaded with Facebook Home? The only problem was that nobody wanted this. That became quickly apparent, as the HTC First, the aforementioned "Facebook Phone", was quickly phased out. And the OS-lite "app family" soon found itself riddled with 1-star app reviews. "What the hell is Facebook home doing?" asked one reviewer. "Cool way to use Facebook, but with no support for my other widgets, it limits my phone. If I wanted a single company to take over my homescreen appearance, I could use an iPhone," said another review. Nice Apple zing, too. A little over a year after the big debut of Facebook Home, Facebook disbanded the crew of engineers who had been working on it. You can still download Facebook Home at the Google Play store and its average rating has improved since the initial onslaught of negativity – but Facebook's grand experiment to make your phone a Facebook machine is on life support, if anything.

    That time Facebook waged a war on Kirk Cameron and tried to silence him

     Just kidding. Facebook accidentally blocked a link to one of his movies for five minutes because so many people reported it as spammy.

    That time Facebook killed everyone's organic reach

     Which is why you probably won't see this article. What a bummer. What's your best, or worst, memory of Facebook over the last 11 years? Let us know in the comments

  • Wouldn’t A Dislike Button Help Facebook Deal With This Issue?

    Wouldn’t A Dislike Button Help Facebook Deal With This Issue?

    Late last week, Backchannel put out a very interesting report on Facebook using a group of human testers to help them figure out the type of content to show in the News Feed. Sometimes algorithms just aren’t enough.

    If your’e interested in how Facebook determines what to show you, you should give it a read. Within it, Facebook execs made some interesting comments about the difficulty of getting a feel for what people actually want to see in their News Feeds. Here’s an excerpt:

    “It comes from the intuition that you can only get so far by looking at online behaviors,” says Cox. “It’s expensive, and it takes time. But what you really want is to sit down with 1.2 billion people, every single one, and ask them to go through and point at ‘I really loved that one.” Why did you really love that one? ‘Well I really liked that one because it’s from a person I went to high school with and I use Facebook to stay in touch with people from high school.’ Why did you hate this one? ‘I really hated this one because I really hate memes.'”

    “If you just watch people eat doughnuts, you’re like, ‘People love doughnuts, let’s bring them more doughnuts,” says Greg Marra, a News Feed product manager. “But if you talk to people they’re like, ‘No actually what I want is to eat fewer doughnuts and maybe eat a kale smoothie….’ Then we can give them some kale smoothies, too.”

    That level of interrogation won’t work for a billion people. But it could certainly be done with 30 people, who would become a pilot project for a broader interlocutory examination of the Facebook population.

    First off, in case you didn’t read the original article, doughnuts refer to content with little value (cute cats, listicles, memes, etc.), and kale smoothies refer to really good content with legitimate value.

    With regard to the difficulty of attaining “that level of interrogation” for a billion people, wouldn’t a dislike button go pretty far? If a person dislikes meme after meme, and never likes one, isn’t that a good indicator that they hate memes?

    It’s one of the most highly requested Facebook features if not THE most highly requested one by users. People have been wanting such a thing for years, but Facebook has said time and time again that it won’t add one.

    The last thing we’ve heard on the subject from the company was when Mark Zuckerberg talked about it in a December Q&A. Here’s what he said (via TechCrunch):

    You know we’re thinking about it, on the Dislike button. It’s an interesting question, right, because there are two things that it can mean. And we’re considering and talking about doing one and not the other. So the one that we don’t want to do: The Like button is really valuable because it’s a way for you to very quickly express a positive emotion or sentiment when someone puts themselves out there and shares something. And, you know, some people have asked for a Dislike button because they want to be able to say ‘That thing isn’t good’. And that’s not something that we think is good for the world. So we’re not going to build that. I don’t think there needs to be a voting mechanism about whether posts are good or bad. I don’t think that’s socially very valuable or good for the community to help people share the important moments in their lives.

    But the thing that I think is very valuable is there are more sentiments that people want to express than positivity or that they Like something. You know a lot of times people share things on Facebook that are sad moments in their lives, or are tough cultural or social things and often people tell us that they don’t feel comfortable press Like because Like isn’t the appropriate sentiment when someone lost a loved one or is talking about a very difficult issue.

    So one of the things that we’ve had some dialogue about internally and that we’ve thought about for quite a while is what’s the right way to make it so people can easily express a broader range of emotions to empathize or to express surprise or laughter or any of these things. And you know you can always just comment, right, so it’s not like there isn’t a way to do that today, and a lot of people are commenting on posts all the time. But there’s something that’s just so simple about the Like button. You know if you’re commenting, a lot of the time you feel like you have to have something witty to say or add to the conversation.

    But everyone feels like they can just press the Like button and that’s an important way to sympathize or empathize with someone in an important moment that put themselves out there to share. And giving people the power to do that in more ways with more emotions would be powerful, but we need to figure out the right way to do it so it ends up being a force for good, not a force for bad and demeaning the posts that people are putting out there. So that’s an important thing. We don’t have anything that’s coming out soon but it’s an important area of discussion.

    Facebook users got their first taste of the “dislike” in the form of a sticker, which you can use in post comments or in private messages, but that doesn’t cater to counting dislikes like a true dislike button would.

    Image via zeevveez, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Zuckerberg Opens Up About Facebook Search

    Zuckerberg Opens Up About Facebook Search

    As you may know, Facebook greatly expanded its search offerings last month when it launched the ability to search posts. You can now search keywords and get back results from people and pages you’re connected to. It instantly made Facebook a lot more useful as a search tool because it gives you access to content that’s not getting indexed by Google. This is often content that’s particularly relevant based on your personal connections to its creators.

    Have you been using Facebook’s new search functionality? Let us know in the comments.

    For example, you can easily find your friends’ posts about soup to get some ideas for your next soup batch. If you have one friend in particular that you consider a soup whiz, you can easily find his or her soup posts.

    There’s a lot of speculation about where Facebook might be headed with search. Facebook released its Q4 and full year 2014 earnings on Wednesday. During the conference call that followed, CEO Mark Zuckerberg talked a little bit about the company’s search efforts.

    While Zuckerberg didn’t exactly drop any bombshells, he did offer his thoughts on the company’s search direction. From his prepared remarks (via SeekingAlpha’s transcript):

    Search at Facebook is another important effort that we expect to create a lot of value over the next few years. In this quarter, we launched updates to Facebook search to make it easier to find content and posts on mobile and desktop. We’re going to continue listening the feedback from our community and commit time to build really valuable products here. We’re optimistic about our ability to deliver value that only Facebook is able to provide.

    During the Q&A session, Zuckerberg was asked to talk more about Facebook’s approach to search. He said:

    So, our view on this is that there is a lot of unique content that people have shared in Facebook, a lot of personal content, recommendations from friends that you can get that you just wouldn’t be able to get through a traditional web search service or other app. And we’re on this multiyear voyage to basically index all the content and make it available to people and rank it well. We started off by launching graph search which I think included more than a trillion different connections in the first system.

    And the second round of the search progress that we just started rolling out at the end of last year was post search, which now has indexed more than I think a trillion posts, which I mean the sizes of these corpuses are bigger than anything in a traditional web search corpus that you would find. So it’s an interesting and fun challenge to make this work. We’re seeing that people immediately understand how they can use this and find content that they’ve seen in News Feed before or that they’ve posted with just a few keywords.

    And we’re excited about that, but there is a lot more to do. So we’re not really thinking about advertising in it yet on the scale that our community operates, a billion searches per day is actually not that big compared to what we think the opportunity here should be. And we’re just continuing to keep on working on it because there is just a lot of unique value that people should be able to get [from] their friends on Facebook search.

    Earlier this week, search marketing veteran Rand Fishkin shared his thoughts on the direction of Facebook search after predicting that the company will start to include web content in its search results this year (in a different way than it has done in the past with Bing).

    “With Bing, Facebook was simply showing external results (like a metasearch engine),” he said. “I think if they use their own crawlers to gather data and a system to serve it, there will be a more holistic, cohesive experience, likely biased/filtered by some of the things Facebook knows about the user(s) doing the searching.”

    On whether or not Facebook’s recent search improvements are having a significant impact on how people find information so far, and whether or not they will in the future, Fiskhin told us, “No, and I think in the next few years, the answer will continue to be mostly no (at least if we’re talking about websearch kinds of information vs. ‘where’s my friend’s party Friday night?’ or ‘What does so-and-so’s new boyfriend look like?’). But, long term, I think there’s a possibility. If their early efforts show promise and a direction, I think we can extrapolate from there. For now, I’m not sold.”

    Facebook has been releasing a lot of standalone apps. Among these are dedicated apps for messaging, for managing Pages, and for Groups. Would they launch a dedicated search app? Should they?

    “No and probably no,” Fishkin said. “I think Facebook’s castle is their social graph and the private postings of people to whom other people are connected. They should continue to release products and apps that help build that moat, but for right now, broad search doesn’t fit that world, IMO.”

    Regardless of whether or not people are actively using it as such, Facebook search gives users new ways of obtaining information. This must mean that businesses, who have suffered drastic declines in organic reach in the News Feed, have some new opportunities to get in front of those actually searching. Fishkin’s advice is as follows.

    “Do remarkable things that people on Facebook want to talk about and share,” Fishkin said. “And if that’s too much, at least make sure all your business details are as up-to-date and accurate as possible on Facebook, and that you’re sharing things your followers/fans on that network will actually care about (even if that’s only a few times a year). Just make sure you don’t make Facebook the center of your online promotional efforts – save that for your website and use Facebook to drive traffic to it. You should never build your castle in someone else’s walled garden.”

    Video was a focal point of much of Facebook’s earnings call. We shared some highlights on that subject over here.

    If Facebook search becomes as big as the company would like it to, that could be a very damaging thing for YouTube, as it currently rules video search. With more people opting to post videos directly to Facebook and watch them there, searching for videos could also become much more common on the social network.

    Do you expect Facebook to make a significant impact on how people find information? Let us know in the comments.

    Image via Facebook

  • Facebook Just Said A Lot Of Things About Its Video Growth

    Facebook Just Said A Lot Of Things About Its Video Growth

    Facebook has been touting its major growth in video this month, and that continued on Wednesday afternoon as the company reported its earnings for the fourth quarter and full year 2014. On the company’s earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook is, on average, seeing more than 3 billion video views per day. Zuck also shared this nice little graphic on Facebook:

    COO Sheryl Sandberg said on the call (via SeekingAlpha’s transcript):

    Today, over 50% of people in the U.S. who come to Facebook daily watching at least one video per day and globally over 65% of Facebook video views occur on mobile. Marketers have followed this trend and are using video to help people discover and learn about their brands. In Q4, we expanded autoplay video ads internationally. During the holiday season, we saw many clients telling their stories creatively through video.

    CFO Dave Wehner noted that Facebook will be investing more in infrastructure, including data centers, network, and servers to help support video and the company’s Internet.org initiative.

    During the Q&A session, Sandberg was asked about the degree she thinks premium video content is or isn’t necessary to opt into when budgets might have otherwise gone to TV. She responded:

    So on video ads what really matters is that consumers are using video on Facebook, because that gives us an opportunity, one, to provide a great consumer experience, but two, to have ads in ad-tech consumer experience. If the other consumer video on Facebook, video ads and new feed will be very joined, as a percentages of the video you’re seeing, video ads gets nicely into that experience. I think it matters as much what the video content is and so well we are certainly exploring some premium content as he said, we have an Annabelle Verizon test out there in the public ad. We’re already seeing pretty exclusive growth without that kind of premium content in the system in large numbers and so we’ll continue to figure out. We’re certainly open to increasing video content either way. But we haven’t quite figured out what the mix needs to be and right now the growth is very strong.

    Because it provides the kind of sharing people want, people come to Facebook to share with their friends and family but they also come to Facebook to connect with everyone from politicians to journalist to celebrities they want to connect with and get news and we definitely seeing public content grow as a percentage of what people get. We also had some nice wins with the Golden Globe this year other things we are doing to get people doing some partnership we did [indiscernible] with CNBC to show how we can help content creators increased their distribution and reach people directly on Facebook.

    One analyst asked about Facebook’s native videos versus those shared from other third-party players (such as YouTube). Wehner responded:

    This thought that we shared of 3 billion a day is all made on Facebook. So there are probably other shares from other video services as well. But the way that there was looking our services or as if there is links to other sites, and the reason why I think made a video is so valuable for people using our service is that when someone uploads a video to Facebook directly we can optimize how it delivers right. So we can make it autoplay. We can find the right quality and bit rate to send down to the person based on their connection overtime. And optimize all kinds of different things. So what I think people are finding from public figures to everyday videos that people are uploading is that the best experience that you can get is by uploading content native to Facebook, which is, I think the big part of the growth that we seeing there.

    This is all pretty significant to marketers and worth considering in their video strategies. Brands on Facebook are already making more Facebook video posts than YouTube posts now, and these optimization additions Facebook offers will likely contribute to further growth in that trend, which is bad news for YouTube.

    “Since YouTube relies heavily on the traffic Facebook sends to it, Facebook is now keeping that traffic on its own site,” says a spokesperson for SocialBakers, which recently released a report on this subject.

    CNBC shared an interview with Sandberg, in which she talked about video even more. The relevant quotes are as follows:

    Consumer use of video is exploding. From the advertising side, that gives us an opportunity to do more monetization because our ad products always follow our consumer products. When consumers do more video, we have the ability to show more video ads. Video ads are really exciting for marketers because it is a format they are used to and they are very emotionally resonant. So we are seeing pretty broad adoption of video. We are still going to move slowly going forward, but we think there is a lot more we can do to bring video ads to people all over the world…

    We are excited about what video does in terms of its conversion. Conversion for marketers. We also think the format itself really works. You know, if you think back even a year ago on Facebook, most people didn’t see videos on Facebook. And now, video is an increasingly accepted and I think fun part of News Feed. And the same thing is happening with video ads. And I think we are seeing marketers bring real creativity and story telling to the Facebook experience with video ads.

    Read this for some thoughts from a marketing consultant on how Facebook’s video growth should affect your own video strategy.

    Images via Facebook, SocialBakers

  • Facebook Grew Mobile Daily Active Users By 34% Over The Past Year

    Facebook Grew Mobile Daily Active Users By 34% Over The Past Year

    Facebook just released its earnings report for the fourth quarter and full year. It posted a 58% increase in yearly revenue, and a 49% increase for the quarter.

    “We got a lot done in 2014. Our community continues to grow and we’re making progress towards connecting the world,” said Mark Zuckerberg.

    As usual, the company gave an update on its user stats. As of December, it had an average of 890 million daily active users, which is up 18% year-over-year. At the same time it had 745 million mobile daily active users, which is a 34% year-over-year increase. That’s a lot more people using Facebook every day from their mobile devices.

    Monthly active users were 1.39 billion for December, up 13% year-over-year, and mobile monthly actives were 1.19 billion, up 26%.

    Facebook’s quarterly ad revenue was up 53% from the same quarter the previous year at $3.59 billion. A whopping 69% of that came from mobile ad revenue. That’s up from 53% the previous year.

    Here’s the release in its entirety:

    MENLO PARK, Calif., Jan. 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2014.

    “We got a lot done in 2014. Our community continues to grow and we’re making progress towards connecting the world,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO.

     

    Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Financial Summary
    Three Months Ended December 31, Year Ended December 31,
    In millions, except percentages and per share amounts 2014 2013 2014 2013
    Revenue $ 3,851 $ 2,585 $ 12,466 $ 7,872
    Income from Operations
       GAAP $ 1,133 $ 1,133 $ 4,994 $ 2,804
       Non-GAAP* $ 2,219 $ 1,498 $ 7,207 $ 3,948
    Operating Margin
       GAAP 29% 44% 40% 36%
       Non-GAAP* 58% 58% 58% 50%
    Net Income
       GAAP $ 701 $ 523 $ 2,940 $ 1,500
       Non-GAAP* $ 1,518 $ 814 $ 4,713 $ 2,334
    Diluted Earnings per Share (EPS)
       GAAP $ 0.25 $ 0.20 $ 1.10 $ 0.60
       Non-GAAP* $ 0.54 $ 0.32 $ 1.77 $ 0.93
    * Non-GAAP information for the three months and the year ended December 31, 2013 has been updated to exclude amortization of intangible assets to conform to our current period presentation. See the table below titled “Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Results to Nearest GAAP Measures.”

     Full Year 2014 Business Highlights

    • Revenue for the full year 2014 was $12.47 billion, an increase of 58% year-over-year.
    • Income from operations for the full year 2014 was $4.99 billion.
    • Net income for the full year 2014 was $2.94 billion.
    • Free cash flow for the full year 2014 was $3.63 billion.
    • Daily active users (DAUs) were 890 million on average for December 2014, an increase of 18% year-over-year.
    • Mobile DAUs were 745 million on average for December 2014, an increase of 34% year-over-year.
    • Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.39 billion as of December 31, 2014, an increase of 13% year-over-year.
    • Mobile MAUs were 1.19 billion as of December 31, 2014, an increase of 26% year-over-year.

    Fourth Quarter 2014 Financial Highlights

    Revenue – Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014 totaled $3.85 billion, an increase of 49%, compared with $2.59 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013. Excluding the impact of year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, revenue would have increased by 53%.

    • Revenue from advertising was $3.59 billion, a 53% increase from the same quarter last year. Excluding the impact of year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, revenue from advertising would have increased by 58%.
    • Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 69% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014, up from approximately 53% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013.
    • Payments and other fees revenue was $257 million, a 7% increase from the same quarter last year.

    Costs and expenses – GAAP costs and expenses for the fourth quarter of 2014 were $2.72 billion, an increase of 87% from the fourth quarter of 2013. Non-GAAP information for 2013 has been updated to exclude amortization of intangible assets to conform to our current period presentation. Excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, non-GAAP costs and expenses were $1.63 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014, up 50% compared to $1.09 billion for the fourth quarter of 2013.

    Income from operations – GAAP income from operations for the fourth quarter of each of 2014 and 2013 was $1.13 billion. Excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, non-GAAP income from operations for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $2.22 billion, up 48% compared to $1.50 billion for the fourth quarter of 2013.

    Operating margin – GAAP operating margin was 29% for the fourth quarter of 2014, compared to 44% in the fourth quarter of 2013. Excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, non-GAAP operating margin was 58% for the fourth quarter of each of 2014 and 2013.

    Provision for income taxes – GAAP income tax expense for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $413 million, representing a 37% effective tax rate. Excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, the non-GAAP effective tax rate would have been approximately 31%.

    Net income and EPS – GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $701 million, up 34% compared to $523 million for the fourth quarter of 2013. Excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, and income tax adjustments, non-GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $1.52 billion, up 86% compared to $814 million for the fourth quarter of 2013. GAAP diluted EPS was $0.25 in the fourth quarter of 2014, up 25% compared to $0.20 in the fourth quarter of 2013. Excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, and income tax adjustments, non-GAAP diluted EPS for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $0.54, up 69% compared to $0.32 in the fourth quarter of 2013.

    Capital expenditures – Capital expenditures for the fourth quarter of 2014 were $517 million.

    Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities – Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $11.20 billion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2014.

    Free cash flow – Free cash flow for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $1.07 billion.

    Webcast and Conference Call Information

    Facebook will host a conference call to discuss the results at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET today. The live webcast of Facebook’s earnings release call can be accessed at investor.fb.com, along with the earnings press release, financial tables and slide presentation. Facebook uses the investor.fb.com website and Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/zuck) as means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.

    Following the call, a replay will be available at the same website. A telephonic replay will be available for one week following the conference call at +1 (404) 537-3406 or +1 (855) 859-2056, conference ID 53903003.

    About Facebook

    Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

    Contacts

    Investors:
    Deborah Crawford
    [email protected] / investor.fb.com

    Press:
    Vanessa Chan
    [email protected] / newsroom.fb.com

    Forward Looking Statements

    This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding our future business expectations, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors including: our ability to retain or increase users and engagement levels; our reliance on advertising revenue; our ability to continue to monetize our mobile products; risks associated with new product development and their introduction as well as other new business initiatives; our emphasis on user growth and engagement and the user experience over short-term financial results; competition; litigation; privacy and regulatory concerns; risks associated with acquisitions; security breaches; and our ability to manage growth and geographically-dispersed operations. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are more fully detailed under the caption “Risk Factors” in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on October 30, 2014, which is available on our Investor Relations website at investor.fb.com and on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Additional information will also be set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014. In addition, please note that the date of this press release is January 28, 2015, and any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.

    Non-GAAP Financial Measures

    To supplement our consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, we use the following non-GAAP financial measures: revenue excluding foreign exchange effect and advertising revenue excluding foreign exchange effect; non-GAAP costs and expenses; non-GAAP income from operations; non-GAAP net income; non-GAAP diluted shares; non-GAAP diluted earnings per share; non-GAAP operating margin; non-GAAP effective tax rate; and free cash flow. The presentation of these financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. Investors are cautioned that there are material limitations associated with the use of non-GAAP financial measures as an analytical tool. In particular, many of the adjustments to our GAAP financial measures reflect the exclusion of items, specifically amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation expense, and payroll tax related to share-based compensation expense, and the related income tax effects of the aforementioned exclusions, that are recurring and will be reflected in our financial results for the foreseeable future. In addition, these measures may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies, limiting their usefulness for comparison purposes. We compensate for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from these non-GAAP financial measures.

    We believe these non-GAAP financial measures provide investors with useful supplemental information about the financial performance of our business, enable comparison of financial results between periods where certain items may vary independent of business performance, and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in operating our business.

    We exclude the following items from one or more of our non-GAAP financial measures:

    Amortization of intangible assets. We amortize intangible assets acquired in connection with acquisitions. We exclude these amortization expenses because we do not believe these expenses are reflective of ongoing operating results in the period. These amounts arise from our prior acquisitions and have no direct correlation to the operation of our business.

    Share-based compensation expense. We exclude share-based compensation expense because we believe that the non-GAAP financial measures excluding this item provide meaningful supplemental information regarding operational performance. In particular, because of varying available valuation methodologies, subjective assumptions and the variety of award types that companies can use under FASB ASC 718, we believe that providing non-GAAP financial measures that exclude this expense allows investors to make more meaningful comparisons between our operating results and those of other companies. Accordingly, we believe that excluding this expense provides investors and management with greater visibility to the underlying performance of our business operations, facilitates comparison of our results with other periods, and may also facilitate comparison with the results of other companies in our industry.

    Payroll tax expense related to share-based compensation. We exclude payroll tax expense related to share-based compensation expense because, without excluding these tax expenses, investors would not see the full effect that excluding share-based compensation expense had on our operating results. These expenses are tied to the exercise or vesting of underlying equity awards and the price of our common stock at the time of vesting or exercise, which factors may vary from period to period independent of the operating performance of our business. Similar to share-based compensation expense, we believe that excluding this payroll tax expense provides investors and management with greater visibility to the underlying performance of our business operations and facilitates comparison with other periods as well as the results of other companies.

    Income tax effect of amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses. We believe excluding the income tax effect of non-GAAP adjustments assists investors and management in understanding the tax provision related to those adjustments and provides useful supplemental information regarding the underlying performance of our business operations.

    Foreign exchange effect on revenue. We translate revenue for the three months and year ended December 31, 2014 using prior year exchange rates for our settlement currencies, which we believe is a useful metric that facilitates comparison to our historical performance.

    Purchases of property and equipment; Property and equipment acquired under capital leases. We subtract both purchases of property and equipment and property and equipment acquired under capital leases in our calculation of free cash flow because we believe that these two items collectively represent the amount of property and equipment we need to procure to support our business, regardless of whether we finance such property or equipment with a capital lease. We believe that this methodology can provide useful supplemental information to help investors better understand underlying trends in our business.

    For more information on our non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of such measures to the nearest GAAP measure, please see the “Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Results to Nearest GAAP Measures” table in this press release.

    FACEBOOK, INC.
    CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME
    (In millions, except for per share amounts)
    (Unaudited)
    Three Months EndedDecember 31, Year Ended December 31,
    2014 2013 2014 2013
    Revenue $ 3,851 $ 2,585 $ 12,466 $ 7,872
    Costs and expenses:
    Cost of revenue 653 491 2,153 1,875
    Research and development 1,111 408 2,666 1,415
    Marketing and sales 624 292 1,680 997
    General and administrative 330 261 973 781
        Total costs and expenses 2,718 1,452 7,472 5,068
    Income from operations 1,133 1,133 4,994 2,804
    Interest and other income/(expense), net (19) (3) (84) (50)
    Income before provision for income taxes 1,114 1,130 4,910 2,754
    Provision for income taxes 413 607 1,970 1,254
    Net income $ 701 $ 523 $ 2,940 $ 1,500
    Less: Net income attributable to participating securities 5 3 15 9
    Net income attributable to Class A and Class B common stockholders $ 696 $ 520 $ 2,925 $ 1,491
    Earnings per share attributable to Class A and Class B common stockholders:
    Basic $ 0.25 $ 0.21 $ 1.12 $ 0.62
    Diluted $ 0.25 $ 0.20 $ 1.10 $ 0.60
    Weighted average shares used to compute earnings per share attributable to Class A and Class B common stockholders:
    Basic 2,761 2,458 2,614 2,420
    Diluted 2,816 2,558 2,664 2,517
    Share-based compensation expense included in costs and expenses:
    Cost of revenue $ 18 $ 11 $ 62 $ 42
    Research and development 685 172 1,328 604
    Marketing and sales 103 42 249 133
    General and administrative 90 48 198 127
        Total share-based compensation expense $ 896 $ 273 $ 1,837 $ 906
    Payroll tax expenses related to share-based compensation included in costs and expenses:
    Cost of revenue $ — $ — $ 3 $ 1
    Research and development 6 4 33 30
    Marketing and sales 2 1 9 8
    General and administrative 5 48 12 54
        Total payroll tax expenses related to share-based compensation $ 13 $ 53 $ 57 $ 93
    Amortization of intangible assets included in costs and expenses:
    Cost of revenue $ 42 $ 7 $ 87 $ 16
    Research and development 10 8 33 36
    Marketing and sales 102 1 105 4
    General and administrative 23 23 94 89
        Total amortization of intangible assets $ 177 $ 39 $ 319 $ 145
    FACEBOOK, INC.
    CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS
    (In millions)
    (Unaudited)
    December 31, 2014 December 31, 2013
    Assets
    Current assets:
    Cash and cash equivalents $ 4,315 $ 3,323
    Marketable securities 6,884 8,126
    Accounts receivable, net of allowances for doubtful accounts of $39 and $38 as of December 31, 2014 andDecember 31, 2013, respectively 1,678 1,109
    Prepaid expenses and other current assets 793 512
     

    Total current assets

    		 13,670 13,070
    Property and equipment, net 3,967 2,882
    Intangible assets, net 3,929 883
    Goodwill 17,981 839
    Other assets 637 221
    Total assets $ 40,184 $ 17,895
    Liabilities and stockholders’ equity
    Current liabilities:
    Accounts payable $ 176 $ 87
    Partners payable 202 181
    Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 866 555
    Deferred revenue and deposits 66 38
    Current portion of capital lease obligations 114 239
     

    Total current liabilities

    		 1,424 1,100
    Capital lease obligations, less current portion 119 237
    Other liabilities 2,545 1,088
     

    Total liabilities

    		 4,088 2,425
    Stockholders’ equity
    Common stock and additional paid-in capital 30,225 12,297
    Accumulated other comprehensive (loss) income (228) 14
    Retained earnings 6,099 3,159
     

    Total stockholders’ equity

    		 36,096 15,470
    Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity $ 40,184 $ 17,895
    FACEBOOK, INC.
    CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS
    (In millions)
    (Unaudited)
    Three Months EndedDecember 31, Year Ended December 31,
    2014 2013 2014 2013
    Cash flows from operating activities
    Net income $ 701 $ 523 $ 2,940 $ 1,500
    Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities:
    Depreciation and amortization 433 274 1,243 1,011
    Lease abandonment — 9 (31) 117
    Share-based compensation 845 273 1,786 906
    Deferred income taxes (180) (58) (210) (37)
    Tax benefit from share-based award activity 499 325 1,853 602
    Excess tax benefit from share-based award activity (504) (324) (1,869) (609)
    Other 2 17 7 56
    Changes in assets and liabilities:
    Accounts receivable (346) (233) (610) (378)
    Prepaid expenses and other current assets (78) (78) (123) 355
    Other assets (58) (107) (216) (142)
    Accounts payable 19 43 31 26
    Partners payable (6) 10 (28) 12
    Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 130 67 328 (38)
    Deferred revenue and deposits 7 2 10 8
    Other liabilities 119 488 346 833
    Net cash provided by operating activities 1,583 1,231 5,457 4,222
    Cash flows from investing activities
    Purchases of property and equipment (517) (483) (1,831) (1,362)
    Purchases of marketable securities (2,889) (3,069) (9,104) (7,433)
    Sales of marketable securities 1,047 555 8,438 2,988
    Maturities of marketable securities 199 609 1,909 3,563
    Acquisitions of businesses, net of cash acquired, and purchases of intangible assets (4,221) (131) (4,975) (368)
    Change in restricted cash and deposits (235) (15) (348) (11)
    Other investing activities, net — — (2) (1)
    Net cash used in investing activities (6,616) (2,534) (5,913) (2,624)
    Cash flows from financing activities
    Net proceeds from issuance of common stock — 1,478 — 1,478
    Taxes paid related to net share settlement (70) (183) (73) (889)
    Proceeds from exercise of stock options 11 6 18 26
    Repayment of long-term debt — — — (1,500)
    Principal payments on capital lease obligations (44) (100) (243) (391)
    Excess tax benefit from share-based award activity 504 324 1,869 609
    Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities 401 1,525 1,571 (667)
    Effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash equivalents (52) 1 (123) 8
    Net (decrease) increase in cash and cash equivalents (4,684) 223 992 939
    Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period 8,999 3,100 3,323 2,384
    Cash and cash equivalents at end of period $ 4,315 $ 3,323 $ 4,315 $ 3,323
    Supplemental cash flow data
    Cash paid during the period for:
    Interest $ 3 $ 5 $ 14 $ 38
    Income taxes $ 77 $ 21 $ 184 $ 82
    Cash received during the period for:
    Income taxes $ — $ 2 $ 6 $ 421
    Non-cash investing and financing activities:
    Net change in accounts payable and accrued expenses and other current liabilities related to property and equipment additions $ 53 $ 22 $ 91 $ 53
    Property and equipment acquired under capital leases $ — $ — $ — $ 11
    Fair value of shares issued related to acquisitions of businesses $ 12,987 $ — $ 14,344 $ 77
    Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Results to Nearest GAAP Measures*
    (In millions, except percentages and per share amounts)
    (Unaudited)
    Three Months Ended December 31, Year Ended December 31,
    2014 2013 2014 2013
    GAAP revenue $ 3,851 $ 2,585 $ 12,466 $ 7,872
    Foreign exchange effect on 2014 revenue using 2013 rates (103) (61)
    Revenue excluding foreign exchange effect $ 3,954 $ 12,527
    GAAP revenue year-over-year change % 49% 58%
    Revenue excluding foreign exchange effect year-over-year change % 53% 59%
    GAAP advertising revenue $ 3,594 $ 2,344 $ 11,492 $ 6,986
    Foreign exchange effect on 2014 advertising revenue using 2013 rates (103) (61)
    Advertising revenue excluding foreign exchange effect $ 3,697 $ 11,553
    GAAP advertising revenue year-over-year change % 53% 65%
    Advertising revenue excluding foreign exchange effect year-over-year change % 58% 65%
    GAAP costs and expenses $ 2,718 $ 1,452 $ 7,472 $ 5,068
    Share-based compensation expense (896) (273) (1,837) (906)
    Payroll tax expenses related to share-based compensation (13) (53) (57) (93)
    Amortization of intangible assets (177) (39) (319) (145)
    Non-GAAP costs and expenses $ 1,632 $ 1,087 $ 5,259 $ 3,924
    GAAP income from operations $ 1,133 $ 1,133 $ 4,994 $ 2,804
    Share-based compensation expense 896 273 1,837 906
    Payroll tax expenses related to share-based compensation 13 53 57 93
    Amortization of intangible assets 177 39 319 145
    Non-GAAP income from operations $ 2,219 $ 1,498 $ 7,207 $ 3,948
    GAAP net income $ 701 $ 523 $ 2,940 $ 1,500
    Share-based compensation expense 896 273 1,837 906
    Payroll tax expenses related to share-based compensation 13 53 57 93
    Amortization of intangible assets 177 39 319 145
    Income tax adjustments (269) (74) (440) (310)
    Non-GAAP net income $ 1,518 $ 814 $ 4,713 $ 2,334
    GAAP and Non-GAAP diluted shares 2,816 2,558 2,664 2,517
    GAAP diluted earnings per share $ 0.25 $ 0.20 $ 1.10 $ 0.60
    Net income attributable to participating securities — — (0.01) —
    Non-GAAP adjustments to net income 0.29 0.12 0.68 0.33
    Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share $ 0.54 $ 0.32 $ 1.77 $ 0.93
    GAAP operating margin 29% 44% 40% 36%
    Share-based compensation expense 23% 11% 15% 12%
    Payroll tax expenses related to share-based compensation —% 2% —% 1%
    Amortization of intangible assets 5% 2% 3% 2%
    Non-GAAP operating margin 58% 58% 58% 50%
    GAAP income before provision for income taxes $ 1,114 $ 1,130 $ 4,910 $ 2,754
    GAAP provision for income taxes 413 607 1,970 1,254
    GAAP effective tax rate 37% 54% 40% 46%
    GAAP income before provision for income taxes $ 1,114 $ 1,130 $ 4,910 $ 2,754
    Share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses 909 326 1,894 999
    Amortization of intangible assets 177 39 319 145
    Non-GAAP income before provision for income taxes $ 2,200 $ 1,495 $ 7,123 $ 3,898
    Non-GAAP provision for income taxes 682 681 2,410 1,564
    Non-GAAP effective tax rate 31% 46% 34% 40%
    Net cash provided by operating activities $ 1,583 $ 1,231 $ 5,457 $ 4,222
    Purchases of property and equipment (517) (483) (1,831) (1,362)
    Property and equipment acquired under capital leases — — — (11)
    Free cash flow $ 1,066 $ 748 $ 3,626 $ 2,849

     

     

    Image via Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

  • Sounds Like Facebook Messenger’s Payments Feature Won’t Be Around For A While

    Sounds Like Facebook Messenger’s Payments Feature Won’t Be Around For A While

    A payments feature in Facebook Messenger has been expected since at least last summer. In June, Facebook hired PayPal President David Marcus to run its messaging unit.

    The following month, the company reported its earnings for the second quarter, and on the conference call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicated that we’d be able to make payments with Messenger eventually. Here’s what he said during the Q&A portion of the call (via Business Insider):

    Messenger will have — over time there will be some overlap between that and payments. But I guess what I’m just trying to say is two things. One is, the payments piece will be a part of what will help drive the overall success and help people share with each other and interact with businesses. But we’re really focused on the interactions overall, rather than the mechanism and David shares that view.

    And the second thing is just that there’s so much ground work that we need to do in order to make it so that people are communicating with businesses and public figures and entities in these other apps that we’re building, which is part of the business ecosystem. And I really can’t underscore that enough that we have a lot of work to do and we could take the cheap and easy approach and just try to put ads in or do payments and make some money in the short term. But we’re not going to do that. So to the extent that any of your models or anything reflects that we might be doing that, I would strongly encourage you here to adjust that, because we’re not going to and we’re going to take time to do this in the way that we think that’s going to be right over multiple years.

    In October, screenshots of of a payments feature taken using a developer tool emerged:

    According to TechCrunch, all Facebook had to do was turn the feature on.

    It doesn’t sound like such a feature will be making its way to the app for people to actually use anytime soon. TheNextWeb spoke with Marcus, who it says “Maintains that there’s no immediate plans to integrate payments into the platform.” From the report:

    “For Facebook it doesn’t make sense to build a payments business, it makes sense to remove friction from payments experiences so that advertisers – and people – can actually get more of what they want,” he said. “Fixing payments across all Facebook properties from an experience standpoint and really making sure it’s frictionless is really important.”

    In short, if (more likely, ‘when’) it integrates payments, it’ll partner to do so.

    It goes on to say that Marcus confirmed that Facebook has no immediate plans to monetize Messenger.

    As you’re probably aware, Facebook recently forced users to download the standalone Messenger app if they wanted to use the messaging feature on their mobile devices. Zuckerberg gave the lame reason that tapping a tab from the main Facebook app was too hard. Common sense suggested it was part of “laying the groundwork” for monetization.

    In November, Facebook boasted that it had over 500 million people using Messenger each month.

  • Mark Zuckerberg Picks Next Book to Send Into Sold-Out Status

    Mark Zuckerberg Picks Next Book to Send Into Sold-Out Status

    Mark Zuckerberg has named the second book to be featured in his new Facebook “book club” called “A Year in Books.” This kiss of approval from Mark Zuckerberg will surely send the book into a sales explosion on Amazon. Speculative investors may want to grab copies now.

    “Our second book is ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature’ by Steven Pinker.
    Feel free to discuss it in the comments here, but please keep all conversation relevant to this book.”

    The book was published in 2011. It is described as “a provocative history of violence.” The full title is actually “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.” It is generally about how, contrary to popular belief and what media saturation might have you believe, the incidence of violence among humans has declined.

    The Amazon description of the book is as follows:

    “Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species’ existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history. Exploding myths about humankind’s inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious book continues Pinker’s exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly enlightened world.”

    Mark Zuckerberg himself described the book this way:

    “Recent events might make it seem like violence and terrorism are more common than ever, so it’s worth understanding that all violence — even terrorism — is actually decreasing over time. If we understand how we are achieving this, we can continue our path towards peace. A few people I trust have told me this is the best book they’ve ever read.”

    What I want to know is: Did Mark Zuckerberg have his staff write an algorithm to weed out irrelevant comments in the book’s discussion thread? If so, can he make that feature available to the rest of us for our own posts?

    One commenter, John Griffin, got the ball rolling with this comment:

    “This book is fantastic, and I just have a couple of comments at the macro level.

    First, this book has deeply affected the role I’d give government (if it were up to me). Imperfect as governments are, they do reduce violence, and before reading this book I tended to focus on the imperfections of government.

    Second, it seems like an issue like violence is pretty low hanging fruit. Humans are so clever and the utopian horizon of what we imagine we can accomplish is fascinating, worthwhile, and compelling, but I think Pinker is right to aim at the low hanging fruit. Maybe we’ll solve issues like civil rights and inequality with political or technological innovations, but first, maybe we could just focus on not killing each other.

    Third, Pinker points out what else tends to happen psychologically when we find out violence is on the decline. It is a hopeful thing to know we are heading in the right direction.

    Love this book. Thanks, Pinker, for writing it, and Mark Zuckerberg for drawing more attention to it.”

  • Facebook Brings Free Basic Internet Services to Colombia via internet.org app

    Facebook Brings Free Basic Internet Services to Colombia via internet.org app

    Facebook has just launched its Internet.org app in Colombia, bringing free basic internet services to the country.

    This is the first time that the app has reached a Latin American country.

    “Before today, only about 50% of Colombians had access to the internet. By launching the Internet.org app on the Tigo network today, we’re giving people free access to basic internet services for jobs, health, finance and communication. By partnering with the Colombian government, we’re also able to include e-government services for the first time, for education and agriculture,” says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

    Through the app, Tigo customers in Colombia can access Facebook, Wikipedia, Facebook Messenger, AccuWeather, and a slew of other basic services for free.

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

    The Internet.org app first launched last summer. Part of Facebook’s goal to get more of the world access to the internet, the app provides free basic internet services without data charges. Over 85% of the world’s population is blanketed with cellular coverage, yet only about 30% access the internet.

  • Why Facebook Will Never Be a Haven for Free Speech

    Why Facebook Will Never Be a Haven for Free Speech

    Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want to let extremists stifle your freedom to express yourself.

    That’s the takeaway from an eloquent post the Facebook CEO made on Friday regarding the terrorist attacks on French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

    Here’s the post in its entirety:

    A few years ago, an extremist in Pakistan fought to have me sentenced to death because Facebook refused to ban content about Mohammed that offended him.

    We stood up for this because different voices — even if they’re sometimes offensive — can make the world a better and more interesting place.

    Facebook has always been a place where people across the world share their views and ideas. We follow the laws in each country, but we never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world.

    Yet as I reflect on yesterday’s attack and my own experience with extremism, this is what we all need to reject — a group of extremists trying to silence the voices and opinions of everyone else around the world.

    I won’t let that happen on Facebook. I’m committed to building a service where you can speak freely without fear of violence.

    My thoughts are with the victims, their families, the people of France and the people all over the world who choose to share their views and ideas, even when that takes courage. ‪#‎JeSuisCharlie‬

    Can you find anything wrong with that statement? I can’t. The “all speech must be tolerated, not just the speech we agree with” argument is an effective one because it’s the right one. Without this, the entire foundation crumbles. If you think offensive speech should be banned, then you’re not an advocate of free speech. It’s that simple.

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

    So – good statement. Well executed. But here’s the rub: Facebook is not a free speech zone. It does not have to be and you should not expect it to be. Still, that’s why you’re likely taking issue with Zuckerberg’s statement, despite its eloquence. Maybe you’re not – but plenty are.

    Facebook does not have to be a free speech haven. It’s not the US government, and it’s not bound by the constitution. Facebook is a business that’s trying to (and currently succeeding in) making money. Facebook can ban whatever content it wants. It might not be good for business, or it might be great for business – depending on the specific content. Facebook walks a fine line. The site has to moderate enough content to keep it advertiser-friendly (no porn, illegal activity) while avoiding stifling the appearance of free expression (breastfeeding photos, offensive political statements).

    But it often fails at that.

    Do a quick Google search for “Facebook bans” or “Facebook removes” and you’ll see a lot of results. Facebook bans user for gun rights post, or Facebook bans post about whatever. Facebook removes a page that offends a certain group. Facebook won’t let you show your nipple.

    Should any of these things be banned on a site that is “committed” to letting your speak freely? No. Were they? Yes. Is this Zuckerberg’s fault? Not really. Many times these errors fix themselves – Facebook apologizes for banning content it shouldn’t have banned, and people move on. Sometimes the content stays banned. It’s an imperfect system.

    As it stands, Facebook’s content moderation is messy and unreliable. Think about the sheer volume of stuff that goes up on Facebook every single day. Now think abut trying to moderate it all. Not only that, but the process of moderation is mostly outsourced and relies on user reporting. The company is also in a constant state of conflict regarding how “free” it lets its users be. And on top of all that, the terms of service (Facebook’s constitution) is painfully vague when defining what kind of content is ok and what kind of content will make trouble.

    “You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.” That’s pretty much the only sentence in Facebook’s terms of service that addresses content.

    Ultimately, there’s always going to be some whiff of hypocrisy whenever Mark Zuckerberg soapboxes on the promise of free expression. The entire concept of free speech is complicated, and you can’t expect Facebook to provide clarity where so many others have struggled. I’m sure that Mark Zuckerberg truly believes every single thing he said today – but his belief in these ideals is not enough to change the fact that Facebook just isn’t built to be a free speech haven.