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by Simulist » Thu Dec 16, 2010 2:58 pm
The first thing you probably want to know about Facebook's new "tag suggestions" — which uses facial recognition technology to suggest which friend is probably featured in which photo — is that you can turn it off.
by Nordic » Thu Dec 16, 2010 3:41 pm
by madeupname452 » Thu Dec 16, 2010 5:38 pm
by Gouda » Mon Jan 03, 2011 9:30 am
by swindled69 » Mon Jan 03, 2011 9:58 am
by Elvis » Mon Jan 03, 2011 10:48 am
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/howlett/how-does-facebook-warrant-a-50-billion-valuation/2702How does Facebook warrant a $50 billion valuation?
By Dennis Howlett | January 3, 2011, 2:55am PST
As the holiday season comes to a close it is being reported that Goldman Sachs has invested $450 million in Facebook at an alleged market valuation of $50 billion. How does even the mighty Facebook justify such a number? The answer is elusive.
There is no conventional market in Facebook shares though it is understood to be the most popular stock on the so-called SecondMarket. This ‘off’-the-books’ operation is a quasi market when compared to conventional stock markets because it operates behind a veil of secrecy where public information is at best speculative. Any talk about values has to be based not upon public information but the perceptions of those investing.
Over the last year, it is said that Facebook’s value has risen sharply as the number of users has grown. This has coincided with speculation about raises in Facebooks’s income. However, there are other possible explanations.
As part of the most recent reporting, it is said that Goldman Sachs is planning the creation of a ’special purpose vehicle’ that will allow it to pool investor funds into a consolidated fund that owns shares in the companies in which it invests. In this case, it is said that Goldman will create a fund specifically for investing up to $1.5 billion in Facebook.
While there is nothing inherently illegal in this arrangement it makes a laughing stock of the notion of public accountability for the benefit of investors. The SEC is looking into this type of arrangement. When a company has more than 499 investors then it must disclose its financial condition.
Using a SPV might allow Goldman to attract many investors (from which it will draw management fees) but avoid the problem of tipping Facebook over the 499 investor line. However, this is not a done deal. If the SEC decides that it can peer through the SPV then Goldman’s plans will be scuppered. Setting a valuation at $50 billion AND holding out the promise for massive additional investment is a win for Goldman but what about everyone else? What does Goldman know that others do not?
Since the valuations are based on what amounts to the sentiment of a private club then there are only one of a very few possibilities. Let’s a try a few known or near known facts and then speculate about the remainder.
* Salesforce, which is closing in on $2 billion in revenue is valued at $17.3 billion.
* At the end of Q3, Google was reporting revenue of $20.9 billion for the year to date and may hit $30 billion plus for the full year. It is valued at $189 billion.
* Over the last year estimates for Facebook revenue have climbed significantly from a figure of around $1.1 billion in June 2010 to a recent estimate of $2 billion.
* According to Quora, Facebook had 1700 employees in September but now reports 2,000+
Assuming that every one of those employees is paid $150,000 pa then its total payroll for the year can be guesstimated at around $200 million allowing for growth over the year. Why does this matter? Payroll is one the main costs of running a software business. Let’s also assume Facebook is running at average-ish cost of service provision. That could be 8% of revenue. Pick your total cost based upon whichever revenue number you like. Now factor in amounts to fork over for data center operations and amounts paid back to affiliates and the big game builders and what number do you come up with?
Google has been profitable for a long time and regularly records 35% operating margin. 37Signals thinks the earlier $33 billion Facebook valuation was ‘bizarre,’ believing that Facebook could not be making more than 20%. But is that true?
No-one knows for sure but even a highly conservative crunching of the numbers suggests that Facebook has recently become insanely cash positive and profitable. If that’s correct then a $50 billion valuation may not be as outlandish as it sounds. But…but…but…
I have a sneaking feeling that part of this current valuation is tied to Goldman wanting to make a market as a sell side banker. Add in the fact that SPV’s have a dark history going back to the days of Enron and suddenly the valuation takes on a different feel.
The only way we will find out is if the SEC digs into Facebook and takes a dim view of Goldman’s SPV. Given the SEC’s less than robust history of investor protection, I am not holding my breath.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/howlett/how-goldman-sachs-could-make-28-billion-from-facebook/2710How Goldman Sachs could make $2.8 billion from Facebook
By Dennis Howlett | January 3, 2011, 5:33am PST
In my earlier piece I hinted that Goldman Sachs has a vested interest in building a case for a $50 billion valuation for Facebook that has nothing to do with the open market valuation. Larry Dignan thinks this is the pre-cursor to an IPO. Mark Zuckerberg has been quoted as saying that an IPO is not on the cards anytime soon. Peter Thiel, who originally staked $500,000 in Facebook said in September that Facebook would not IPO before 2012.
Regardless of the timeframe, how much does Goldman make on the deal? The answer is simple.
According to Bloomberg, Goldman took the lion’s share of the 2009 $923 million IPO fees:
Banks increased fees for initial share sales by 62 percent to 5.63 percent from the lowest level on record, even as the amount that U.S. companies raised from IPOs decreased by almost half to $16.4 billion this year, according to Bloomberg data. While the biggest surge in stocks since the Great Depression revived the IPO market and helped enrich bankers, almost 40 percent of offerings sold by underwriters in the second half of 2009 have left buyers with losses, the data show.
Crunch the numbers: at a $50 billion valuation, with Goldman in the box seat as lead banker to an IPO and at the rates quoted in 2009, then it could pocket $2.8 billion gross in fees. And that’s on top of whatever it creams off the $1.5 billion fund it is creating as part of the deal that sees it currently investing $450 million. Assuming an IPO in the next 12 months then by my reckoning, Goldman’s ‘investment’ nets a 6x return.
If Goldman is successful (and remember that the Special Purpose Vehicle covering the $1.5 billion has to get past the SEC first but honestly - do they care?) then what happens to the Twitter’s of this world? Does its investors start clamoring for an exit? You bet.
That can only spell one thing: bubble times are here again.
Side note: Does anyone now think Zuckerberg is running Facebook?
by justdrew » Sun Feb 06, 2011 3:57 pm
Robin Dunbar is now following you on Twitter
This topic is by no means new. It is something that has continued to pop up since Facebook wrapped its arms around the world and was no longer dependent on you have one of the correct institutional email domains and social media became a favoured paranoid discussion topic by print journalists fearing their own impending obsolescence. The discussions are older than that, I would argue, but are being turbocharged by technology.
So to the title. Dunbar’s number is the figure proposed by anthropologist Robin Dunbar which represents the upper limit of stable social groupings. Roughly put at around 150, it is a figure for communities that we see cropping up time and again from the maximum size of a cohesive school-year group, to nomadic tribe groupings in pre-hsitory, by way of the basic unit of the Roman military. Supported by a lot of archeology, and popularised recently by Gladwell (my mother always said if you can’t say something nice about a pop social scientist, then don’t say anything at all…) Dunbar’s number provides an interesting theoretical lens through which to look at how rapid changes in technology have altered and perhaps even alienated us as social creatures.
Gathering these thoughts was prompted by coming across recent (and recent-ish) articles on social networks causing depression. The basic theory underlying this is that when you spend your unfulfilled existence cruising Facebook seeing that so many other people are so much happier, busier, prettier and more successful you develop a deep status anxiety. Social tools allow us to create a platonic conception of ourselves, a creature that, like the Great Gatsby, is created, not born. We de-tag or fail to upload photos of ourselves looking at our worst, or even at our most truthful; status updates reflect all the exciting things that we do, we use to twitter to spread joy or showcase our wit or if our communications are sad, then their are melancholic or rageful to the point of caricature, eliciting hollow sympathetic responses from an army of acquaintances, including the girl from school who never quite fulfilled her own potential and spends her days commenting on the lives of people who are, at least functionally, complete strangers to her. Add to this the aggregate effect that it will be those who are the most busy, most narcissistic, most neurotic, and arguably the most deceitful who you will see most due to their frequency of tweet/post/upload/share then you begin to gain a very skewed world view occupied by 150 active friends who are by no means representative, and one that leaves you thinking your own life is more and more lacking…
But as I said, this is not new. But previously it was a little easier to calm this neurosis as we could contextualise its cause. The cult of celebrity has always had the potential to warp your perception of your social circle. Just as the most active people on a social network, even if you see them once a year, will keep cropping up in updates and feeds which makes these people, on some level, part of that mental space that holds your strong social ties. Following celebrities will do the same. Reading about every intimate detail of Kerry Katona or Jordan or even Jamie Oliver through ever-multiplying media outlets inserts these strangers into your 150, skewing the average. Your idea of what is the norm becomes more out of step with reality with each one of
these anomalous individuals that you are exposed to enough that your primate brain decides to erroneously connect with.
But with social media, it is much harder to remind yourself that these people are anomalies, because they are not, they are like you, they are people that you have met. But their online persona does not reflect their own reality or, for that matter, the norm, and the ones who deviate from this most, are the ones who you are exposed to most, because of their misleading activity patterns.
An article here claims that Dunbar is simply irrelevant because the author now has thousands of followers and friends, and that this means that he can connect with so many more. I have a sneaking suspicion that this may mean that he has never really had a friend at all or been part of a close, non-familial extended social group. In truth, you can probably only have real connections with even fewer than the theoretical 150 and with the ability to follow so many more, a nearly limitless number, our number of close ties is even further reduced. Dunbar’s own work posits that 150 only works in extreme situations, drought, famine, threats to survival communities under these sorts of pressures come to a number of about 150. In times of plenty, the nomadic communities that Dunbar looked at would split down to smaller units, 30, 40, 50, and only come together at that ‘magic’ 150 in times of pressure. So in fact we are more likely to be in the mid range of our capacity rather than redlining, so if we can maintain 60 ‘good friends’- I define good friends as someone you would actually phone- then we are doing well. Technologists and self-proclaimed Gurus and Ninjas testify to the power of loose connections. These can be incredibly useful, but they are not rewarding, spend too long chasing after these and we neglect our real connections only further skewing our perception of the social milieu which we are part of.
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There are a few considerations for brands which arise from these meandering thoughts. It is very unlikely that as a brand we will punch into the inner circle of someone’s closest links, if we do, then great, but our aim should never be to act like someone closest connection. Apple’s fanboys probably consider apple as part of their family, a favourite uncle or a first cousin which you have an unhealthy attraction towards, but for a company to act like that is intrusive and assumptive. There is a disruptive possibility for brands to act anti-socially, or rather honestly, showing an intentionally downbeat, rather than cheer-leading face, to act in a way more truthful and holistic than most of the consumers actual friends. How much do we want to post? How can we increase the salience of interactions? What will add, rather than just further skew and disrupt the consumers busy landscape of interactions? How does a brand that is trying not to cheer-lead acquire fans and elicit engagement? All these questions are loosely connected and remind us that we should make sure we have people and their needs at the forefront of our thought when we try and engage them- what their relationships mean to them, what they can relate to, what they want to relate to, rather than just try and foist the key objectives for a brand’s social media strategy upon them.
by Plutonia » Sun Feb 06, 2011 4:40 pm
Type in Unity for Egyptian Freedom
Share · Public Event
Monday, February 7 · 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Location Your Computer
Created By Brian T. Baker, Sal Cossari
It is time that we, as HUMAN BEINGS, support the Egyptian people in their pursuit of freedom. Read below to find out about the situation in Egypt and WHAT YOU CAN DO THIS MONDAY to save Egyptian lives and support freedom.
The Situation
As of January 25th, the people of Egypt have taken to the streets to protest against their corrupt government and dictator Hosni Mubarak. Having lived the past thirty years under oppressive “Emergency Laws” the people of Egypt have been subjected to limited civil liberties, poverty, hunger, lack of jobs, and no representation within their government.
Egyptian citizens have vowed that their protests will not cease until Mubarak surrenders his presidency, and allows for a new, democratic government in Egypt; a government that will be determined by free election.
Unfortunately, what started out as peaceful demonstrations against the oppressive government have turned violent. With clashes between Mubarak's police force and protesters, looting and destruction of property, and at least 100 people dead and 836 injured since January 25th, the situation in Egypt is getting worse by the minute.
As World Citizens, we CAN NOT to turn a blind eye to the evils in Egypt. We can not let our fellow human beings continue suffering and dying in a situation that calls for immediate action. It is our duty to side with the people of Egypt in their demand for equality, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. We all have a VOICE, we must let the world know:
"WE SUPPORT THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE IN THEIR PURSUIT OF FREEDOM.
WE, THE CITIZENS OF WORLD, DEMAND THAT HOSNI MUBARAK RESIGNS!”
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Type in Unity for Egyptian Freedom on Monday, February 7th, at noon. That’s Noon EST, PST, and anywhere in between. Make your lunch break matter by supporting the Power of the Egyptian people. Show the world that you value freedom, and will not allow your fellow human beings to be denied theirs.
Spread awareness and support the Egyptian people's pursuit of freedom through Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
1) Every five minutes, from 12pm - 1pm (12:05pm, 12:10pm, etc) post Facebook status in support for Egypt. Some examples:
Humans Support the Egyptian People
Democracy In Egypt NOW
We Wouldn't Have Waited Till September, Neither Should The People of Egypt!
Yes to Stability
A Safer Egypt NOW
To Stop the Death and Violence Mubarak Must Resign Now!
2) Every five minutes, from 12pm - 1pm (12:05pm, 12:10pm, etc) use Twitter to tweet your support of the Egyptian people's protests and pursuit of freedom. Use the hashtags #egypt #freedom #Jan25 #StabilityNow and #MubarakMustResign with the goal of promoting awareness through Twitter trends. Retweet all posts relevant to Egyptian freedom.
2) Throughout the day, google the words "Mubarak Must Resign." and "Egyptian Stability NOW". The goal is for this to become the top predicted search text.
SPREAD THE WORD! INVITE ANY AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO PARTICIPATE. You only have to type to join this digital rally for freedom!
Type in Unity on Monday, February 7th, at Noon.
Stand up for Democracy.
Support Justice for All People, Everywhere.
by 82_28 » Sun Feb 06, 2011 5:07 pm
by justdrew » Sun Feb 06, 2011 5:48 pm
82_28 wrote:Thanks justdrew. That article is precisely my argument I have when people ask me why I won't join facebook and when I tell them they should close their account as well. Now I can send them that article.
by 82_28 » Wed Apr 13, 2011 12:40 pm
The explosion of social networking commerce will lead to the unlikely candidate of Facebook becoming the world’s biggest bank by the middle of the decade, according to a technology observer and entrepreneur.
People who don’t have a Facebook account should get one or risk having a financial profile created for them says founder and president of Metal International, Ken Rutkowski.
“My Facebook rank is number 29 of all the users and I have raised $100 million in funding for a few different companies,” Rutkowski said.
“Old school media companies have a market capitalisation of $US241.7 billion but the new school media companies are worth $319.7 billion,” he said.
Of the “new school” media companies Google has the largest share with Facebook coming up behind it. Facebook, however, has more ambitions in its sights than just social networking.
“Facebook has 680 million users and that’s massive,” he said. “Who doesn’t have a Facebook profile? Let me tell you why it’s important why you do.”
“Facebook will be the largest bank by 2015. I hear you say ‘how can they be a bank’ what’s going on?”
According to Rutkowski, Facebook credits allow people to play games and Facebook is already doing deals with the banks for credit profiles.
“If you play games on Facebook, which, by the way 40 to 50 per cent of the time spent on Facebook is playing games, and those games – like Farmville and Mafia Wars – are paid for and you have to buy credits for that and they are called Facebook Credits.”
Rutkowski cited the company Zynga that created Farmville as being worth almost $12 billion now and it “didn’t even exist 18 months ago”.
“In China and a lot of the Asian areas right now that is becoming a massive revenue source and that currency is going to start spreading and Facebook is doing deals with banks around the world right now to create an exchange mechanism,” he said.
“Why is its important to have a profile? They are going to start using that to determine what your credit worthiness is.”
“By the way, if you don’t have a profile they will make one for you so it’s better for you to create it and manage it then them. That’s why you want to be selective with what you put on there. If you have kids that are being idiots online make sure you stop them right away as they are creating a pretty negative profile long term and it happens often.”
Rutkowski runs the Founder Institute in Los Angeles which launches about 1000 companies year and prides himself as being the fist person to coin the term “Web 3.0” during a press conference with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Rutkowski asked Schmidt what Google was doing with “Web 3.0” and Schmidt replied Web 2.0 was just a marketing term and that he was “the inventor” of Web 3.0.
“If you have a bricks and mortar business or website you have to move people to where you are at. Then you have to manage then, then you have to measure then and then you have to monetize them,” he said.
In an interesting turn of events, Apple, an IT company, now has the most profitable retail business in the world.
“Apple retail stores do $2400 per square metre of floor space compared with Tiffany’s which does $700 per square metre per day,” Rutkowski said.
by kenoma » Sat Apr 30, 2011 8:00 pm
Over 50 political accounts deleted in Facebook purge
Posted on April 29, 2011 by UCL Occupation
There appears to be a political purge of Facebook taking place. Profiles are being deleted without warning or explanation. In the last 12 hours, Facebook has deleted around 50 sites. The UCL Occupation account is still up for the moment, but for how long we don’t know. It may well be that these groups are technically in violation of Facebook’s terms of agreement, but the timing – on the royal wedding and May day weekend – is deeply suspicious. We don’t know for certain, but this purge of online organising groups could be linked to the wider crackdown on protest by authorities in Britain. Either way, it is a scandalous abuse of power by Facebook to arbitrarily destroy online communities built up over many months and years. Ultimately, the anti-cuts movement in the UK will need to start organising through self-hosted, open source platforms to avoid reliance upon the very corporate power structures we are aiming to challenge. In the meantime, we will look into the origins of this and do our best to have these accounts restored. Please join the anti-censorship Facebook page, spread the word and message people in extant groups to warn them. Tell them to get on your email list or Twitter account instead.
Update: We are in indirect contact with Facebook over this. Collaboration with the authorities can still not be ruled out. We need a list of URLs to confront them with to get these accounts restored. Please post URLs here.
Facebook pages that have been deleted – please add any more in the comments:
Open Birkbeck
UWE Occupation
Chesterfield Stopthecuts
Camberwell AntiCuts
IVA Womensrevolution
Tower Hamlets Greens
No Cuts
ArtsAgainst Cuts
London Student Assembly
Beat’n Streets
Roscoe ‘Manchester’ Occupation
Bristol Bookfair
Newcastle Occupation
Socialist Unity
Whospeaks Forus
Ourland FreeLand
Bristol Ukuncut
Teampalestina Shaf
Notts-Uncut Part-of UKUncut
No Quarter Cutthewar
Bootle Labour
Claimants Fightback
Ecosocialists Unite
Comrade George Orwell
Jason Derrick
Anarchista Rebellionist
BigSociety Leeds
Slade Occupation
Anti-Cuts Across Wigan
Firstof Mayband
Don’t Break Britain United
Cockneyreject
SWP Cork
Westiminster Trades Council
York Anarchists
Rock War
Sheffield Occupation
Central London SWP
North London Solidarity
Southwark Sos
Save NHS
Rochdale Law Centre
Goldsmiths Fights Back
Occupy Monaco
It is not yet known how many groups have been affected in total. A Facebook spokeswoman explained that the profiles were suspended because they had not been registered correctly and denied that the removal of pages was politically motivated or instigated by law enforcement concerns before the royal wedding.
Facebook accounts that claim to represent individual people but are in fact groups or organisations contravene the company's "statement of rights and responsibilities".
The company said a number accounts were suspended at the same time.
Facebook uses technology to track relationships between groups and when one "fake" profile is found, pages that have links to it are also checked. This is done to maintain safety and security on the site and the removal of everything from fake celebrities to pages representing pets is a regular occurrence.
by Nordic » Sun May 01, 2011 2:47 am
by Saurian Tail » Tue Sep 27, 2011 9:21 am
Facebook Forms Its Own Political Action Committee
Facebook filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission Monday to form a Political Action Committee called FB PAC. "FB PAC will give our employees a way to make their voice heard in the political process by supporting candidates who share our goals of promoting the value of innovation to our economy while giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected," said a spokesman to The Hill's Hillicon Valley blog. The FEC did not have FB PAC's information on its website as of Monday afternoon.
Facebook has already spent $550,000 this fiscal year on lobbying, up from $350,000 in 2010. Facebook's lobbying pales in comparison to Google and Microsoft, both of which have spent already about $3.5 million this fiscal year lobbying.
Facebook has recently hired a number of GOP consultants, joining tech rival Google in embracing elements of the conservative movement. For Facebook, that includes cozying up to conservative stalwarts the National Federation of Independent Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
"Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy and we believe that Facebook can be a tremendous tool to fuel their growth and success," Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook Chief Operating Officer, said in a statement published in Monday's Politico Playbook.
As part of the gesture, Facebook announced that it would offer small businesses up to $10 million in free advertisements on its site. Every business that joins and redeems a $50 credit will be entered into a contest to get more check-ins and likes.
by madeupname452 » Wed Sep 28, 2011 8:59 pm
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