Facebook’s advertising woes, including the highly publicized departure of General Motors, reinforce the fact that while Facebook may function like a social network, on the business side it looks almost exactly like a media company — and that is going to be a major challenge. Read more »
The Facebook IPO is coming, and it is one major spectacle. Just look at the wall-to-wall coverage on CNBC and Bloomberg, who haven’t met an IPO they didn’t beat to death. So instead to adding to cacophony, I’ve aggregated the best blog posts for you Read more »
Russian investor Yuri Milner plans to sell $1.5 billion of Facebook stock when the company goes public later this month — making more than a billion in profit. But it’s Silicon Valley that should be thanking him, not the other way around. Read more »
Facebook set out more details about its long-awaited IPO in a new filing that reveals that an initial share of the company’s stock will sell for between $28 and $36. Read more »
When Instagram launched its Android app in early April, we said that it would only be a couple of weeks before the company crossed the 50 million mark. Well, it took three weeks (interrupted by its $1 billion dollar acquisition by Facebook) to cross that milestone. Read more »
The debate on whether or not Silicon Valley is in a bubble might not be the right question. Instead we may want to ask ourselves, Has the fundamental notion of tech investing shifted as technology has become more dominated by the consumer market? Read more »
Facebook’s $1 billion blockbuster deal for Instagram may have been motivated by a desire to keep Instagram out of Twitter’s hands. Twitter reportedly offered hundreds of million dollars for Instagram, which prompted Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg to offer a better deal. Read more »
It’s hard to imagine Instagram’s rivals feeling good about the company’s $1 billion sale to Facebook. But at least one competitor suggests that users fleeing from the photo app could actually boost other services. Read more »
One of the great things about Instagram is its passionate community. The news of Facebook buying Instagram for a billion dollars is getting thumbs down from the Instagrammers, once again showing that it is people not corporations that control the social networks and how they evolve. Read more »
What is about Instagram that has made Facebook open up its checkbook and spend nearly a billion dollars in stock and cash to buy up a company only in its third year. There are many reasons, and the biggest one is fear. Read more »
Facebook has acquired Instagram for nearly one billion dollars, the company announced this morning in a blog post. The deal is a combination of cash and stock. With this sale, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, cofounders of Instagram are the newest mega-millionaires in Silicon Valley. The duo […] Read more »
UnboundID raised $12.5 million to build software that allows people and businesses to manage and trade on their identity across professional and social networks in a simple way. In the binary world of computers, writing software to manage fluid human relationships is tough. Read more »
Curation has been a hot topic of discussion. Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest are the engines of “curation” Today, Percolate, a startup put up a video about curation that is worth watching. It is an enjoyable video that explains curation in a simple yet articulate manner. Read more »
When there are so many social media avenues to present yourself, how do you maintain authenticity and manage your identity? Maybe you don’t. At SXSW Interactive this year, the age-old debate over authenticity and anonymity raised voices as identity and privacy took center stage. Read more »
It may not be Silicon Valley but the Boston-Cambridge metro area has a lot going for it — infrastructure expertise, a deep talent pool, and VC funding. Facebook famously went elsewhere, but here’s why other local companies started here (and will stay put.) Read more »
Open-web advocates may long for a revolt against walled gardens, but in the end the success of a social network is determined by the willingness of users to put up with its restrictions. For Facebook, that is both its biggest strength and its biggest weakness. Read more »
This report outlines the myriad issues at play in Facebook’s move, from examining how CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to rewire the world to understanding the company’s infrastructure dependency. But from every angle, it’s clear the effects will ripple throughout the startup and tech communities. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Facebook is in the process of converting all user profiles to the Timeline design. But according to a poll, the majority of people aren’t so keen on the new look. Seventy percent of all respondents disapproved of Timeline, as did 90 percent of people over 65. Read more »
In its IPO filing Facebook mentions the word “mobile” 123 times but didn’t use the term in positive ways. In fact, Facebook’s S-1 filing is one big warning to investors: Its growth is being driven by user behavior that it has so far failed to monetize. Read more »
Even after it goes public, Facebook will still be controlled single-handedly by CEO Mark Zuckerberg through a special class of stock and voting agreements. In other words, while you may own stock in the company, you will have virtually no say in what happens to it. Read more »
Get ready for a blockbuster — and almost nuts — year of technology in 2012. Why? Because Facebook is doing the mother of all initial public offerings. And like Netscape and Google before, the Facebook IPO is going to change not only the company but also Silicon Valley. Read more »
According to Edward Aten, founder of Swift.fm, Facebook is recreating and competing with nearly every significant Internet product of the last few years. It’s an unprecedented pivot that threatens Facebook’s core products and may eventually benefit the very same startups Facebook is trying to crush. Read more »
In the letter to shareholders included in Facebook’s IPO filing, co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes it clear his vision goes beyond just a social network. He wants to fundamentally rewire the way the world works, from interpersonal interactions to commerce to even government. Read more »
In Facebook’s IPO document filed Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg dedicated a significant portion of his letter to something a bit out of the ordinary: Teaching potential investors about “the Hacker Way” and dispelling the negative connotation the word “hacker” has gotten in the mainstream media. Read more »
The most highly anticipated initial public offering in today’s tech world is officially happening. Facebook filed S-1 documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday afternoon to raise a maximum of $5 billion. According to the filing, Facebook made $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011. Read more »
San Francisco startup 1000memories has integrated its ShoeBox app for scanning and sharing old physical photos online with Facebook’s Timeline user interface. This means that people will be able to easily fill in the gaps on their Timeline between their birthdates and when they joined Facebook. Read more »
Earlier today a Facebook staffer released a browser extension called “Don’t Be Evil,” a not-so-subtle dig at Google’s corporate motto. Unfortunately, both Facebook and Google are two companies who don’t quite understand that “don’t be evil” is more than just words. Read more »
We are barely into the second decade of this century and already one Harvard Business School academic (who is a former CEO himself) is naming his candidate for CEO of the 21st century. His choice may or may not surprise you. Check it out. Read more »
The furor over controversial anti-piracy legislation reached a climax on Wednesday as Republican lawmakers began disavowing the Stop Online… Read more at paidContent »
Contrary to the concerns expressed by the Washington Post’s ombudsman, the last thing the Post — or any newspaper — needs to worry about is whether it’s moving too quickly. If anything, the pace of change in media is speeding up rather than slowing down. Read more »
Moving Flickr photographs over to Facebook is not easy. Goyaka Labs promises a free, automated, fast way to transfer your photos en masse in a three-step process so they can be shared with friends and family. A Picasa version is also on its way. Read more »
If Amazon opens an office in the Boston-Cambridge area as reported, it would boost a high-tech community that often feels overlooked and undervalued compared to Silicon Valley and Seattle. Amazon is recruiting engineers for an as-yet-unannounced Boston area venue slated to open in 2012. Read more »
This week, Facebook held its 28th official “Hackathon,” an all-night event where the only rule is that employees can’t work on their daytime projects. This was the company’s final Hackathon at its Palo Alto campus, and GigaOM has exclusive photos and video from inside the event. Read more »
I started my European tour with a visit to Loic Le Meur’s annual celebration of the Internet, Le Web. If attendees were an indication, startup culture is everywhere. Perhaps it’s the setting, but this celebration of technology and startups reminds me of another creative age. Read more »
Thirty years after Steve Jobs and Bill Gates revolutionized personal computing, there’s a new generation of entrepreneurs focused on bringing people together. Folks like Zuckerberg, Dorsey and Crowley are leading the charge in changing the way people communicate andinteract with each other. Read more »
Facebook co-founder (and Harvard dropout) Mark Zuckerberg returned to his alma mater Monday to talk to a few hundred select computer science majors. But first, he did a drive-by for local media, 300 or 400 of which packed the Harvard Yard outside the Lamont Library. Read more »
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this weekend set the Internet ablaze with his comments that if he started his social network today, he would stay in Boston. I disagree. His being in Silicon Valley and being able to hire the right people contributed to the company’s success. Read more »
What do Belichick defensive schemes, Tom Clancy novels, Google+ and Facebook have in common? The answer is that all are so byzantine that they leave people scratching their heads to figure them out. Somewhere along the way social media lost sight of keeping things simple. Read more »
Share and share alike. The Mark Zuckerberg philosophy now extends way beyond users’ occasional, individual sharing actions. Facebook wants u… Read more at paidContent »
Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) could double its own projected growth rate by feeding out viewers’ usage habits to Facebook, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings,… Read more at paidContent »
