Initial public offering – Gabriel Catalano®

Stories by socialtimes.com

How Quickly Do You Respond to Customer Service Requests on Social Media?

Social media sites are becoming virtual customer service centers, according to the NM Incite Social Care Survey. Currently, 47 percent of people who use social media sites are actively seeking customer service and 30 percent prefer to reach out to brands on social channels than pick up the phone and call. But customer service reps can breathe easy knowing this: 83 percent of Twitter users and 71 percent of Facebook users only expect brands to respond to them within one day of their post. That’s one day, not one hour or five minutes.

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One Day On Earth To Film Life In Every Country Again On 12/12/12

Megan O’Neill

One Day on Earth, the amazing collaborative film project that documented life on earth in every country on 10/10/10 and 11/11/11 is at it again this year. On 12/12/12 they will be launching their largest filming event to date, telling the world’s story in a day once again, and you can be a part of it.

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Social Media Newsfeed: Facebook Gain | Zynga Bounce | News.me Apps

Facebook Shares Nab Biggest Gain Since IPO on Earnings, Analyst Upgrades (The Wall Street Journal)
Facebook on Wednesday posted its biggest daily stock gain since its initial public offering in May, a day after reporting strong revenue and progress on making money from mobile ads. The social network’s shares rose 19 percent to $23.23 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, its highest closing price in five weeks. Inside Facebook Facebook spent $87 million so far this year on business acquisitions not including its Instagram purchase, the company revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. The social network spent $521 million on Instagram — $300 million of which was in cash, the rest in vested shares of Class B common stock. The New York Times/Bits BlogFacebook still trails Google in online advertising, both on desktop and mobile. Analysts say that like Google, Facebook will most likely have to roll out an ad network that allows marketers to reach Facebook users wherever they are — whether they are browsing the Web or downloading a mobile application. Mashable We’re closer to seeing a widespread updated version of Facebook Messages. On Wednesday, Facebook user Interactive Swim posted a picture of the welcome note for the updated Messages which recently hit its page, indicating that the feature may be starting to roll out to additional users. Reuters U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday a Facebook post in which an Islamic militant group claimed credit for a recent attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, did not constitute hard evidence of who was responsible. Read more

La mujer más influyente de Facebook prepara un libro sobre liderazgo

Sheryl Sandberg es la mano derecha de Mark Zuckerberg. La directora de Operaciones de la red social es con toda seguridad la mujer más influyente de Facebook, responsable de la toma de muchas de las decisiones que guían el futuro de la compañía.

Ese poder, esa capacidad de liderazgo de Sandberg, va a quedar plasmada sobre el papel en el libro que está preparando la directiva. Sheryl ya ha comenzado a escribir “Women, Work, and the Will to Lead”, su primer libro, que llegará a las librerías en primavera del año que viene. Concretamente será el 12 de marzo cuando comience a venderse en Estados Unidos. Continuar leyendo «La mujer más influyente de Facebook prepara un libro sobre liderazgo»

La red social “anti-Facebook” ha cerrado

En noviembre del año pasado os hablábamos de Unthink, una red social que acababa de lanzarse, tras tres años de desarrollo, y cuyo lema principal era el ser la red social “anti-facebook”.

Se distinguía sobre todo por su férreo control de la privacidad y por llamar la atención de aquellos que estaban cansados de las normas estrictas impuestas por Facebook.

Unthink llegó a tener cierta repercusión mediática, y aunque para inscribirse había que solicitar invitación, fueron unos cientos de personas las que se decidieron a probarla. Continuar leyendo «La red social “anti-Facebook” ha cerrado»

Twitter Knows How Hot The Facebook IPO Is [Infographic]

Bit Rebels | http://bit.ly/LJ7MHr

So the Facebook stock has now been traded for a whole week. The price has dropped like a rock almost the whole week, and the stock has lost 1/4 of it’s introduction price. It seems to be the reaction to the IPO being valued to high. People are saying it is also a reaction to Facebook not having a clear view of their revenue stream in the near future, or at least how to increase it, which makes it hard to know where the stock is heading. I am no stock market pro, nor am I a day trader, so my 2 cents probably shouldn’t be taken too seriously. However, this is what has been said so far throughout the week. I guess we’ll have to see how the stock does next week.

But just how hot is the Facebook stock in terms of interest? Well, that question could actually be interpreted several different ways. I could be about how much the stock is traded (the volume) and whether it is sold or bought. Another angle would simply be how many people are talking about the stock in general. The latter is quite hard to research without the use of some global database of individual opinions and comments. And where do you find that in the world of the stock market? Well, there is none.

However, there is one thing better, and that is our social networking sites. There can be quite a lot of data derived from just a little group of people. It can actually be as much as you want it to be. To find out about this, IDV Solutionspulled the data from Twitter, a formidable source of opinions. They searched for the words “facebook” and “fb” on the day the IPO launched, and the result is quite clear. Continuar leyendo «Twitter Knows How Hot The Facebook IPO Is [Infographic]»

Google’s Brand Value Slips Again, While Facebook’s Soars 74%

marketingpilgrim.com | http://bit.ly/JqV9OV

Frank’s taking a needed break today, so you’re stuck with me. Remember me?

Of course, it doesn’t take much to get me back in the saddle, especially when a report is released about branding.

MillwardBrown has released its annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Brands in 2012. Among the findings are two little nuggets that caught my attention.

First up, news that once again Google has slipped in its rankings. Just two years ago,Google was the top brand on the list, but this year its gradual decline continues, with a drop to #3. I know, I know, that’s still pretty impressive, but a drop two years in a row sure does look like a trend to me. In fact, Google is dangerously close to being overtaken by McDonalds!

Also worth noting is Facebook’s meteoric rise up the charts. A whopping 74% increase in brand value sees Facebook “liking” its #19 rank in the report… Continuar leyendo «Google’s Brand Value Slips Again, While Facebook’s Soars 74%»

Twitter hits 10m UK users, 80% use mobile

http://econsultancy.com

Facebook may be the subject of all of the headlines with its public debut looming this Friday, but another major player in the social networking space is reminding the world that it’s still growing too.

Twitter, which has built a company that one day might go public too on the back of 140 character messages, has waived its hands in the air by announcing that it has surpassed 140m users worldwide.

As reported by The Guardian, 10m of those users are in the UK. That’s good enough to make the UK Twitter’s fourth largest audience behind the US, Brazil and Japan, and explains why the company has a 30 person strong office in London.

Although Twitter’s userbase can’t compete with Facebook’s, the service’s impact on society has arguably been nearly as significant, and in some areas, perhaps even more significant. As The Guardian’s Charles Arthur notes, «over the past year [Twitter] has been blamed for inciting riots – a charge that was disproved – and of undermining superinjunctions involving, among others, Ryan Giggs and Jeremy Clarkson.» And, as Arthur points out, Twitter has become a key platform for prominent figures, celebrities and brands to interact with the public. Continuar leyendo «Twitter hits 10m UK users, 80% use mobile»

INFOGRAPHIC: Humorous Look At Facebook’s IPO

http://allfacebook.com

With all of the serious news and analysis surrounding Friday’s Facebook initial public offering, Victoria, British Columbia-basedForbes blogger Greg Voakes chimed in with Facebook MBA, a humorous infographic based on Facebook’s timeline profile.

We particularly enjoyed the fictional status updates and comments from Facebook Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, legendary investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, and MySpace Co-Founder Tom Anderson, among others.

Pay To “Highlight” Your Facebook Status Updates To More Friends – A Reckless New Ads Test

http://techcrunch.com

Only 12% of your friends see your average status update, but Facebook is testing an option called “Highlight” that lets you pay a few dollars to have one of your posts appear to more friends. Highlight lets the average user, not Pages or businesses, select an “important post” and “make sure friends see this”, but not color it yellow as Stuff wrote when it first spotted the feature. A tiny percentage of the user base is now seeing tests of a paid version of Highlight, but there’s also a free one designed to check if users are at all interested in the option.

Highlight could show Facebook’s willingness to try more aggressive ways of making money, which should delight potential investors. But Facebook is playing with fire here. The service has always been free for users, and a pay-for-popularity feature could be a huge turn off, especially to its younger and less financially equipped users who couldn’t afford such narcissism.

The official statement from Facebook on this is:

“We’re constantly testing new features across the site. This particular test is simply to gauge people’s interest in this method of sharing with their friends.”

I doubt Facebook is going to see positive reactions to Highlight, but if it did it could turn into an unpredicted revenue stream. Just the fact that Facebook would test this could bolster confidence for potential IPO investors. They want to know the company is interested in striking a more advertiser-friendly balance between a pure user experience and the goals of advertisers. That’s especially important now, as yesterday Facebook had to warn investors that its ad business is in jeopardy as more users access via mobile where it doesn’t show nearly as many ads.

But the problem is the potential for Highlighted updates to reduce the general relevance of the news feed. Facebook’s news feed sorting algorithm is designed to show you posts by your closest friends or that have received a lot of Likes and comments. Highlight distorts this, and will encourage news feed spamming club promoters, musicians, small businesses, or anyone else with something to gain from more clicks.

HOW HIGHLIGHT WORKS… Continuar leyendo «Pay To “Highlight” Your Facebook Status Updates To More Friends – A Reckless New Ads Test»

Reviving Entrepreneurship

America’s economic culture has traditionally been distinguished by a willingness to pursue opportunities; a parallel willingness to adopt new products and services; social, legal, and economic tolerance for failure; and the ability to efficiently redeploy people and money. All this has led to a highly evolved system for allocating human and financial capital to entrepreneurial ventures, which has brought the U.S. enormous advantage.

But this entrepreneurial engine is showing serious signs of weakness. Considerably fewer new businesses are formed in the United States today than in the past, creating fewer new jobs. Venture capital funding has contracted in both amount and breadth, and initial public offerings of small-cap companies have sharply declined. In other markets, including China and Brazil, those indicators are moving in the opposite direction.

As U.S. policy makers wake up to the need to reinvigorate entrepreneurial ventures, they must recognize entrepreneurship as a process, not an act. Their decisions change the climate for new enterprises at each stage of that process, sometimes dramatically—whether or not those decisions are made with entrepreneurship in mind.

Spot an Opportunity

Basic and Translational Science
U.S. government funding of basic research has paid off handsomely in the past. Private capital has been able to leverage federally supported discoveries, allowing them to be translated into valuable commercial applications. But the level and nature of government research funding are problematic today. As resources tighten up, decisions about what to fund grow ever more conservative. Labs have difficulty obtaining capital for the projects with the greatest potential societal payback, because those projects tend to be highly speculative and to challenge conventional wisdom. The U.S. needs to find a way to facilitate the right kinds of “risky” research.

by Josh Lerner and William Sahlman http://hbr.org/2012/03/reviving-entrepreneurship/ar/
Photograph: Topical Press
Agency/Stringer/Getty Images: Orville Wright lands a glider, 1911
America’s economic culture has traditionally been distinguished by a willingness to pursue opportunities; a parallel willingness to adopt new products and services; social, legal, and economic tolerance for failure; and the ability to efficiently redeploy people and money. All this has led to a highly evolved system for allocating human and financial capital to entrepreneurial ventures, which has brought the U.S. enormous advantage.

Spot an Opportunity

Zynga en números – infografía

Zynga responsable de juegos sociales tan famosos comoFarmville, CityVille o Mafia Wars, es responsable del 12% de los ingresos que obtuvo Facebook en 2011, según informó la propia red social en suformulario S-1. Y es que la compañía tuvo unos ingresos de 1.140 millones de dólares a lo largo del año pasado.

Esto lo consiguió gracias al aumento en los ingresos por usuario, que pasaron de 0,51 dólares en el último trimestre de 2009 a 1,76 en el mismo período de 2010 y 2,03 dólares el año pasado.

Además, la compañía consiguió sumar 153 millones de usuarios únicos al mes(240 millones de usuarios activos) y 54 millones de usuarios activos al día, según muestra esta infografía realizada por Statista.

http://www.ticbeat.com
TICbeat

Zynga responsable de juegos sociales tan famosos comoFarmville, CityVille o Mafia Wars, es responsable del 12% de los ingresos que obtuvo Facebook en 2011, según informó la propia red social en suformulario S-1. Y es que la compañía tuvo unos ingresos de 1.140 millones de dólares a lo largo del año pasado.

Esto lo consiguió gracias al aumento en los ingresos por usuario, que pasaron de 0,51 dólares en el último trimestre de 2009 a 1,76 en el mismo período de 2010 y 2,03 dólares el año pasado.

Además, la compañía consiguió sumar 153 millones de usuarios únicos al mes(240 millones de usuarios activos) y 54 millones de usuarios activos al día, según muestra esta infografía… Continuar leyendo «Zynga en números – infografía»

LinkedIn Revenue Surges Over Analyst Expectations; Stock Jumps

The non-GAAP net income for the quarter was $13.3 million which represents an increase in profitability. For the fourth quarter of 2010 the net income was $5.2 million. LinkedIn earns it’s revenue from a variety of products. They have Hiring Solutions, Marketing Solutions and Premium Subscriptions. Looking at the fiscal report, we can see that revenue increased in all three areas. A promising factor here is also that they are a diversified company: they are increasing revenue on all fronts.

Hiring solutions, which are their tools which help recruiters find solid candidates using the network, increased over Q42010 by 136% to $84.9 million. Marketing solutions increased 77% to $49.5 million. Revenue from Premium subscriptions increased 87% to $33.3 million.

http://socialtimes.com

LinkedIn has announced that revenue has more than doubled in the last quarter and they’ve increased their 2012 revenues, and the stock has jumped accordingly. The social network reported $167.7 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, beating the average analyst estimate of $159.8 million in the quarter. The good news also comes at a time where people are piling into social media stocks, with Zynga hovering around 30% higher than it’s IPO price and LinkedIn now almost 200% over it’s $45 IPO price, placing it’s market cap at $8.67 billion.

What does your choice of social networking site say about you?

People who used Facebook mostly for socialising tended to score more highly on sociability and neuroticism (consistent with past research suggesting that shy people use the site to forge social ties and combat loneliness). Social use of Twitter correlated with higher sociability and openness (but not neuroticism) and with lower scores on conscientiousness. This suggests that social Twitter users don’t use it so much to combat loneliness, but more as a form of social procrastination.

As an informational tool, Facebook users «seek and share information as a way of avoiding more cognitively demanding sources such as journal articles and newspaper reports.»

Twitter users are the opposite: they use the site for cognitive stimulation without socializing:

The researchers interpreted these patterns as suggesting that Facebook users seek and share information as a way of avoiding more cognitively demanding sources such as journal articles and newspaper reports. Twitter users, by contrast, use the site for its cognitive stimulation – as a way of uncovering useful information and material without socialising (this was particularly true for older participants).

What does your choice of social networking site say about you?
www.bakadesuyo.com

Facebook is more likely to be used to forge social ties and combat loneliness. Twitter is more about social procrastination.

Via the excellent BPS Research Digest:

As an informational tool, Facebook users «seek and share information as a way of avoiding more cognitively demanding sources such as journal articles and newspaper reports.»

Twitter users are the opposite: they use the site for cognitive stimulation without socializing:

Facebook and Goldman Sachs: Inflating a New Bubble?

More than a decade has passed since Time Warner (TWX) and America Online (AOL) merged in a $180 billion deal, marking the peak of the Internet bubble and beginning a long drought for technology stocks—a drought that has arguably been broken only by Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG). Now Facebook seems to be taking the lead in the next wave of tech-stock enthusiasm, with Goldman Sachs (GS) reportedly investing $450 million in the social network, giving the company a theoretical market value of $50 billion and positioning it for what seems like an inevitable initial public offering. That may be good for Facebook and Goldman, but will it be good for investors?

Goldman’s gambit, of buying Facebook shares before they go public, values the social network at a hefty $50 billion

By Mathew Ingram
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2011/tc2011013_185170.htm

Crowd Mechanics

From our friend Niel at Trada… awesome blog post which offers excellent insight, particularly the seven crowd learnings. A key point from our perspective: “In our model, we want the crowd to work together”… something Chaordix continually strives to make happen. – SK

Trada recently celebrated its second birthday. It’s been an amazing ride helping our company grow and learning – in real time – about the product that we’re making. Any good organization these days is a learning organization, and I think in general we have a pretty humble attitude about how far we’ve come. While we think we’ve innovated dramatically in the paid search space, we have many things to refine in the subtleties of our marketplace, advertiser onboarding, optimizer engagement, and service delivery.

One of the things that makes Trada both beautiful and complex is that it is multifaceted: it’s a marketplace, a crowdsourcing platform, a collaboration system, and a community.

And each of these elements has at least two sides: buyers and sellers in a market, the crowd versus the consumer, etc. This means that the interactions and incentives between each party must be perfected. The more types of parties or diversity of desires of each party you have, the more complex it becomes.

Since day one we’ve fundamentally believed that we could align paid search experts’ goals and advertisers’ goals to create a positive incentive system. I think we’ve done a good job of pointing people in the same general direction. We‘ve also had to invent – literally – mechanisms to overlay an incentive system on a complex paid search ecosystem – for example, how do you deal with differing bid prices in AdWords auctions? How do you deal with shared keywords or organize ad groups in a collaborative campaign? But while we’ve innovated a great deal, we have been learning. And today I want to announce the second generation of Trada and a concept we call Crowd Mechanics.

Niel Robertson
Originally posted by Niel Robertson at trada.com
Via http://www.chaordix.com/blog/2010/12/02/crowd-mechanics/#more-2251

Trada recently celebrated its second birthday. It’s been an amazing ride helping our company grow and learning – in real time – about the product that we’re making. Any good organization these days is a learning organization, and I think in general we have a pretty humble attitude about how far we’ve come. While we think we’ve innovated dramatically in the paid search space, we have many things to refine in the subtleties of our marketplace, advertiser onboarding, optimizer engagement, and service delivery.

One of the things that makes Trada both beautiful and complex is that it is multifaceted: it’s a marketplace, a crowdsourcing platform, a collaboration system, and a community.

Since day one we’ve fundamentally believed that we could align paid search experts’ goals and advertisers’ goals to create a positive incentive system. I think we’ve done a good job of pointing people in the same general direction. We‘ve also had to invent – literally – mechanisms to overlay an incentive system on a complex paid search ecosystem – for example, how do you deal with differing bid prices in AdWords auctions? How do you deal with shared keywords or organize ad groups in a collaborative campaign? But while we’ve innovated a great deal, we have been learning. And today I want to announce the second generation of Trada and a concept we call Crowd Mechanics.

Continuar leyendo «Crowd Mechanics»

LinkedIn Hires Shannon Stubo, Key Exec For IPO Run

LinkedIn has hired Shannon Stubo as their new Vice President Communications, CEO Jeff Weiner tells us.

Stubo, most recently at OpenTable, took that company through their IPO process. Prior to OpenTable Stubo spent seven years at eBay, eventually as vice president of corporate communications.

Companies usually stack their executive teams with people who’ve previously worked at public companies, and execs who’ve actually gone through the IPO process are particularly valued. Stubo will understand the nuances around complicated SEC rules around publicity in a pre-IPO company.

Of course Weiner says he hired Stubo for other reasons, and won’t comment on the company’s IPO plans. But it’s clear LinkedIn is looking to file for an IPO sometime in the next few financial quarters. Unless, of course, one of the big guys makes them an acquisition offer they can’t refuse.

This isn’t the first addition to the LinkedIn team that indicates that the company is looking to boost its experience of advising a company through an IPO. Earlier this year, LinkedIn brought on its first outside board member, Skip Battle, former Ask.com CEO and board member of Netflix, Expedia and OpenTable. While Weiner told us at the time that Battle’s experience advising consumer focused and enterprise companies made him an ideal choice, it’s clear that the seasoned exec’s role in helping lead a number of technology companies through a public offering may have been a factor as well.

by Michael Arrington

LinkedIn has hired Shannon Stubo as their new Vice President Communications, CEO Jeff Weiner tells us.

Stubo, most recently at OpenTable, took that company through their IPO process. Prior to OpenTable Stubo spent seven years at eBay, eventually as vice president of corporate communications.