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Tag: Zuckerberg

  • Westboro Baptist Picks Fight with Facebook and “Jewish Friend” Zuckerberg

    Westboro Baptist Church publishes a schedule for where they intend to picket daily. This tactic is in keeping with the group’s overall strategy of stirring up discord by saying they will appear somewhere, even if they have no realistic plans to do so.

    Why announce picketing plans if you don’t plan to be there? The group wants to give the impression that it is everywhere. It wants the nation to think that it is a constant gadfly that needs to be stopped. The hope is that towns and localities will try to pass laws or ordinances that limit or prohibit their picketing activity. Then, when those rules are in place, Westboro actually does show up, announces that their civil rights are being violated, and sues the city.

    “Ahhhh. It’s a profit deal!” – Navin R. Johnson

    For example, Westboro’s picketing itinerary for today, announced as part of their “God Hates the Media Tour, part 2”, includes:

    * NBC Universal in New York, NY September 10, 2014 8:15 AM – 8:45 AM

    * CBS Headquarters in New York, NY September 10, 2014 8:50 AM – 9:10 AM

    * ABC in New York, NY September 10, 2014 8:50 AM – 9:10 AM

    * Time Warner Inc. in New York, NY September 10, 2014 9:20 AM – 9:45 AM

    * Univision in New York, NY September 10, 2014 10:30 AM – 11:00 AM

    * Buzz Feed in New York, NY September 10, 2014 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM

    * Tumblr in New York, NY September 10, 2014 12:10 PM – 12:35 PM

    * Vine in New York, NY September 10, 2014 12:50 PM – 1:20 PM

    * Huffington Post in New York, NY September 10, 2014 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM

    * Facebook in New York, NY September 10, 2014 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM

    * AOL Headquarters in New York, NY September 10, 2014 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM

    * Harper’s Magazine in New York, NY September 10, 2014 2:10 PM – 2:35 PM

    * Scholastic Publishers in New York, NY September 10, 2014 2:40 PM – 3:10 PM

    * Foursquare in New York, NY September 10, 2014 2:45 PM – 3:10 PM

    * Gawker in New York, NY September 10, 2014 3:15 PM – 3:45 PM

    * Comedy Central in New York, NY September 10, 2014 4:15 PM – 4:45 PM

    That’s a pretty full itinerary for a church with only 75 people, some of whom are kids, and several of whom have jobs with the Kansas Department of Corrections.

    Some of Westboro’s longest rants are directed at Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. In their online announcement, they went after Zuck.

    “Facebook is famous for sending nasty-grams to anyone that dares to publish the Word of God, if it gets cross-wise with our rebellious Jewish friend, Mark Zuckerberg.”

    Apparently, the Westboro folks are regularly faced with Terms of Service violation notices from Facebook, due to their anti-gay propaganda. Westboro begs to differ.

    “God Almighty owns Facebook and he loaned it to you rebels for a VERY SHORT while. You are required by God to use that resource to speak truth to your neighbor and to preach the Word of God. Any other use, will be required by God, from you, when you stand before God in that Great and Terrible Day of Judgment that is in sight now.”

  • Zuckerberg Has Trouble at the ATM

    With Zuckerberg’s billions, you would think he would know how to use an ATM. This video from Italian TM News shows Zuckerberg going up to the ATM, which doesn’t work for him. He then asks people around him if they know if there is something wrong with it. Then finally gives up and leaves in a taxi.

    He is on his honeymoon in Italy with new wife Priscilla Chan, who looks indifferent to the fact that they can’t get any money out. It’s surprising that he doesn’t carry about 20 freshly minted 200 Euro notes in his wallet at all times. He could have stuffed that backpack full of them and called it chump change.

    Some people have pointed out on Gizmodo’s discussion board that a lot of European ATMs will only identify cards with security chips in them. The U.S. is behind on this technology, only offering the chips on some cards – Which pretty much makes them useless, as most ATMs don’t recognize them.

    Zuckerberg simply ran into one of those inconveniences that sometimes happen during travel. I’m sure he went to a bank or other money transfer service and had no problem walking out with stacks of cash.

    [via: Gizmodo]

  • Facebook and IPO Underwriters Sued by Investors

    If you thought Facebook was in the news a lot for their patent lawsuits, welcome to IPO litigation. Interested parties are crawling out of the woodwork to contest the bullshit events that surround Facebook’s IPO and everyone involved. As we just reported this morning, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has subpoenaed documents pertaining to Morgan Stanley’s revised revenue forecast the week before the Facebook IPO. The gist of that report is a decreased ad revenue projected for the company spanning the remainder of 2012.

    Now, Reuters has gotten word that some of Facebook’s largest shareholders have filed a suit in New York claiming top executives involved in the IPO concealed critical documents during the IPO’s promotional investor roadshow. Which, actually, we already know they did. The lawsuit was filed today in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Obviously the investors are suing for losses and damages stemming from what can only be called a “bad investment”. The complain reads,”the value of Facebook common stock has declined substantially and plaintiffs and the class have sustained damages as a result,”. On Tuesday, a similar case was filed in California relating to the exact same issue.

    As I mentioned this morning, It seems the reaction to the reduced earnings projections was to issue more shares and increase the price of them. If you remember, Facebook added over 50 million shares to the IPO just days before the offering. Now even more suspicious, is the huge amount of shares voluntarily offered by Facebook insiders and early investors, also just before the IPO. It seems like they knew the stock would decline shortly after the offering.

    So it appears a lot of people got rich off the IPO, but unfortunately for some, a lot of people are also going to be sued. So much for the much anticipated Facebook IPO. It may not go down as one of highest revenue generating offers, but it may be one of the biggest scandals. We’ll keep you posted as new information becomes available.

  • Instagram Worth $1.2 Billion After Facebook IPO

    It’s common industry knowledge that Facebook recently acquired photo sharing platfrom Instagram for a quick billion, and it’s common general knowledge that Facebook today filed its IPO. Now it’s been reported that said IPO has added about $243 million in value to Instagram – the platform is today worth $1.243 billion, to be more precise.

    Zuckerberg and Co. payed about $300 million in cash and roughly 23 million Facebook shares for the company in April. Now with the IPO, the stock added the extra value. Interestingly, Systrom initially asked Zuckerberg for $2 billion for his company. Time will tell if the stock adds another $750 million in value.

    Business Insider reports that Instagram’s bump in stock value makes it worth more than:

    –Jack in the Box – purveyor of fine chicken teriyaki bowls and hamburgers.
    –The Finish Line – an athletic-apparel store.
    –P.F. Chang’s – the Chinese fast-food chain.
    –Zillow – the online real-estate website.
    –TiVo – the digital video-recorder company.
    –Netgear – the wireless router maker.

    Facebook’s shares have so far failed to skyrocket to $70 as some predicted; I bet $57 at facebookipodayclosingprice.com:

    Mike Fossum
    @michaeljfossum     I predict $ 143,258,735,607 ($57 a share) as the Facebook IPO day closing valuation http://t.co/8AoCZc6h
    3 hours ago via facebookipodayclosingprice.com · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    For more extensive coverage on Facebook’s IPO, go here.

  • Mark Zuckerberg: How Much is He Really Worth?

    Mark Zuckerberg: How Much is He Really Worth?

    This is the latest news on the real worth of Mark Zuckerberg when taking into account the real money raised by Facebook’s IPO and Zuckerberg’s stake in the company. If you consider the $16 billion raised in the initial IPO, and the fact that Zuckerberg owns 28% of those shares, you get an estimation of about $4.5 billion dollars. If he sold all of his shares, and others bought them at current trading value, he would have $4.5 billion cash in hand. Or “in vault” as the case may be.

    Zuckerberg worth

    Obviously, this isn’t going to happen. Zuckerberg as CEO – selling all of his shares would not be a good thing. If the founder and CEO were to sell his shares at the beginning of the IPO, all confidence would be lost and stocks would plummet. If he could even find someone to buy them, without raising a bunch of eyebrows.

    Instead, what this is, is a more realist interpretation of the kind of buying power Zuckerberg now has. Some estimates put his worth at around $28 billion, representing his 28% stake in the companies $100 billion valuation. But in terms of buying power, this $4.5 billion estimate is much more accurate. If Zuckerberg now chooses, he has a lot of options for personal investments.

    If it were me, I’d take out enough to buy a personal island. That’s the only way you can get away from Facebook these days.

    source: click here for a large version of the infographic at Visual.ly

  • Viddy Growing by 1 Million Users a Day

    Last week we reported that Viddy is currently undergoing a round of fundraising that puts valuation of $370 million on the company. A report today from the Wall Street Journal via Mashable puts a value of the company a $200 million. Either way, the company is still undergoing fundraising efforts after hitting 26 million users.

    Launched just a year ago, Viddy has benefitted from celebrity endorsements, including a video posted by Mark Zuckerberg of his dog Beast, and its integration into Facebook. The company’s celebrity backers include Will Smith, Shakira and Jay-Z, all following the example of Zuckerberg.

    Sold as an “Instagram for video”, the service has seen competition from the likes of Socialcam, who now sits at around 36 million users. With a growth rate of about 1 Million a day, Viddy may soon catch up.

    Both Viddy and Socialcam lead the way for the virally trending video sharing apps on the market today. Some investors are waiting to see how this plays out, however, as video takes up a lot of bandwidth when compared to images. Once subscribers see the change on their wireless data costs, they may not be so keen on using the app anymore.

    As the Wall Street Journal reports, monetization also seems to be a big problem right now. Viddy now charges for extra tools like filters and effects, but haven’t seen a lot of revenue from these add-ons. Then there is the problem of advertising on mobile phones. Customers are often impatient with intrusive ads on such a small screen, especially when it comes advertising on user generated content.

    Then again, Viddy may not be looking for big advertising dollars right now. If they grow large enough and fast enough, they may draw the attention of major players in the industry. Instagram saw this kind of success when they were bought by Facebook earlier this year.

  • Facebook Study In Sweden Shows Social Giant Grasp

    We already know that Facebook is the fastest-growing thing on the Internet, ever. It claims 10% of the world’s population as its members. Now, a new study out of Sweden fills in some more detail about how Zuckerberg’s baby is faring in the land of Dragon Tattoos. The study was based on data collected from more than 1000 Swedish 18-73 year olds from June to September 2011 via a web-based questionnaire.

    The surveyed women spend an average of 81 minutes per day on Facebook, whereas men spend 64 minutes. Low educated groups and low income groups who spend more time on Facebook also report feeling less happy and less content with their lives. This relationship between time spent on Facebook and well-being is also salient for women, but not for men. These are some of the results of Sweden’s largest Facebook study ever, a project led by Leif Denti, doctoral student of psychology at the University of Gothenburg.

    Facebook is a habit-forming activity – 85 percent of the respondents use Facebook as part of their daily routine. Almost half of the respondents indicated that it is difficult to stay updated and on top of things without Facebook, and one quarter responded that they would feel ill at ease if they didn’t get to log in on a regular basis.

    “Facebooking may become an unconscious habit. A majority of the respondents log in every time they start their web browser. This may even develop into an addiction,” says Leif Denti, doctoral student of Psychology at the University of Gothenburg.

    Women are generally more active than men on Facebook. On average, women spend 81 minutes per day Facebooking, whereas men spend 64 minutes. Users with low income and low education use Facebook more than other groups. Within these groups, users who spend more time on Facebook also report feeling less happy and less content with their lives. This relationship is also present for women, but not for men.

    One third of the male respondents stated that they provoke others on Facebook. That is about twice the figure for women (one fifth). One quarter of the respondents use Facebook to brag.

    “Facebook is a social tool that is clearly used to manage relationships with friends and family. But users won’t write just anything – most of the content they share has something to do with major events, positive events and when feeling good. Only 38 percent write about negative emotions and events,” says Leif Denti.

    Facebook statistics from the study:

  • The average user spends 75 minutes per day on Facebook
  • The average user logs on to Facebook 6.1 times per day
  • 70 percent log in every time they start their computer or browser
  • 26 percent feel ill at ease if they do not get to log in regularly
  • Women spend on average 81 minutes per day on Facebook
  • Men spend on average 64 minutes per day on Facebook
  • Facebooking is primarily a habit among young users
  • Older Facebook users use Facebook to get to know more people
  • 67 percent of young users use Facebook to kill time
  • 38 percent share negative information in their status updates
  • Women write more about emotions and relationships
  • One third of the men try to provoke others on Facebook, which is twice the figure for women
  • More women who use Facebook report feeling less happy and less content with their lives
  • One quarter of the respondents brag on Facebook

  • Will Music Marketing Be Hurt By Facebook Messaging?

     Yesterday, Facebook announced their own "modern messaging system" that combines email, text messaging, and instant messages into a single stream that founder Mark Zuckerberg says goes well "beyond email".  The new service, which will debut Monday with an iPhone app and roll out over the next few months, mimics the behavior of teens who are already abandoning conventional email to converse across multiple platforms in short bursts. But Facebook Messaging could also make social music marketing more difficult. Here’s why:

    Messages May Be Filtered Out – While a Facebook.com email address is offered, it’s not required. Whatever the source of email, Facebook promises to use "Friends", "Likes" and other clues to filter email. So a fan who signed up for a band’s email updates, could find their emails automatically shuttled into an "other" folder if they have not also friended the artist on Facebook.

    Facebook says that their system will get smarter over time, so that people that aren’t friends on Facebook but communicate often will show up in the stream. How repeated one way communications like email newsletters will be filtered or allowed to pass into the users main stream is unclear

    Too Much Of The Same – A major selling point of the Facebook’s system is that it unifies email, SMS, IM and Facebook messaging into a single stream somewhat like Google’s failed Wave.  But that means that artist and marketers who automatically post the same updates to multiple channels risk overloading users of Facebook Messaging.

    Is There A Solution? – It’s important not to judge a system that no one has used, and its likely that some of Facebook’s new features will actually enhance the artist/fan relationship.  But a first look at Facebook Messages should encourage artists and music marketers to step up their friending efforts now to avoid flitering later and to closely monitor future developments.

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  • Dissecting Zuckerberg’s Privacy Comments

    For many in the online space these days the words “Facebook privacy” would be called an oxymoron. Then of course there would be the usual calling others at Facebook morons and then it would get worse from there but I digress. Michael Arrington recently interviewed the poster child for the “Privacy? What privacy?” movement, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

    Mashable’s Pete Cashmore tells us:

    Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg claims that if Facebook was starting out now, sharing with everybody would be the starting point, rather than with a small group of friends. Is this more about reflecting social norms or changing them to help Facebook compete with Twitter?

    The statement, made during a livestream of the Crunchies awards, hits on a hot button issue for Facebook: it recently notified users of privacy changes via a pop-up notification. While the message claimed that Facebook was displaying the message to give users more privacy controls, blindly clicking “next” was a way to make much of your data public. And in fact, some data like the Friends List has become more public without any settings changes by users.

    I honestly don’t know where I stand on all of this. I think my only real concern is just how little attention most people pay to these major shifts in social norms especially when they are moved along at rocket speed by something as pervasive and powerful as Facebook. I know that even with the new “everyone needs to see everyone else’s stuff” privacy policy at Facebook, I can go in and lock down my public profile to whatever degree I want. How many of the 350 million supposed users of the service actually know that or even care? I don’t know. I suspect not as many as should.

    An interesting article appeared in the Wall Street Journal today from Jaron Lanier, which is an excerpt from his new book. He is a pioneer in virtual reality technology and has some very real concerns about this new move to the “social collective” and I don’t disagree with him on much of it. Here’s a sample:

    Here’s one problem with digital collectivism: We shouldn’t want the whole world to take on the quality of having been designed by a committee. When you have everyone collaborate on everything, you generate a dull, average outcome in all things. You don’t get innovation.

    There’s a dominant dogma in the online culture of the moment that collectives make the best stuff, but it hasn’t proven to be true. The most sophisticated, influential and lucrative examples of computer code—like the page-rank algorithms in the top search engines or Adobe’s Flash— always turn out to be the results of proprietary development. Indeed, the adored iPhone came out of what many regard as the most closed, tyrannically managed software-development shop on Earth.

    I realize that I am mixing and matching the personal web and the business of the web. They are, however, intricately intertwined especially as we move into the future. When the generation of “open information and free stuff etc, etc” are in the business world (and a lot are already) this new “social norm” that Zuckerberg talks about so casually could very well mean the end to true innovation unless signed off by the collective. As a result that means watered down ideas in most cases. As if it’s not bad enough, the US government is showing socialist tendencies. What if the business world became that way too? Geesh, time to buy some land, make my own clothes and grow my own food. We will all be brought to the middle and the world could be very average.

    Of course these are just my own opinions on this but I am really no that interested in having to depend on everyone “signing off” on one my ideas before it can move forward. I am not thrilled about the idea of things like “search neutrality” that reared its ridiculous head in the recent weeks. I like privacy. I like some semblance of control. Maybe it is time to consider that plot of land and a tractor. That is of course, if it’s OK with everyone.

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