Senin, 28 Maret 2011

HTC Facebook phone

HTC will release a phone with a Facebook user interface next month, according to Cityam.com, a London based news website. HTC’s m.facebook.com phone, it is said, will run a tweaked version of Google Android OS.

HTC’s Facebook phone, and if Facebook is targeting a larger plan of deployment in smartphones, then even its software for mobiles, will likely be unveiled at MWC 2011 a few days from now. Speculation on the Web has it that HTC’s m.facebook.com phone is similar to Google’s Nexus series, i.e., Facebook has chosen HTC to create a prototype Facebook phone; similar to how Google had chosen HTC to make the first Android prototype, Nexus One.

Of course, that both companies chose HTC (assuming that m.facebook.com has indeed done so,) is probably just by chance. However, Cityam.com says HTC will release two Facebook phones at MWC 2011 (is there even a need for two prototypes?). Also, Facebook recently announced having bought mobile ad platform Revel8tion to serve ads to its existing 200 million mobile app users.

My lg rumor touch facebook app is not working correctly ?

Henry Blodgett says he heard that Facebook Co-Founder Eduardo Saverin sold $500 million in Facebook stock.

He didn’t name his source and said point blank that Business Insider hasn’t been able to confirm the rumor.

Good luck with getting that confirmed, Henry. We know that Facebook has a policy of not commenting on matters of speculation, and we said as much in our request for a comment from the company. If we hear anything other than a variation on “no comment,” we’ll be sure to update you all.

We completely understand why Facebook spokespeople don’t want to comment about matters of speculation. For instance, back on March 3, rumors circulated that one of the co-founders of m.facebook.com was trying to unload 10 million shares. That same Friday, another rumor had it that General Atlantic may have bought 2.5 million shares. The following Monday, SharesPost announced it closed an auction of m.facebook.com holdings at the second-highest price ever fetched for the shares.

Many people assumed that the rumors preceding the SharesPost announcement might have transpired during the auction. So maybe it’s not too big of a leap to wonder whether we might learn that Saverin’s sale might have occurred on SecondMarket, for instance.

Readers, what do you make of the latest rumor about m.facebook.com shares?

Rabu, 16 Maret 2011

m.facebook.com rumor

This is a busy time for the social networking business called Facebook.com. It's a site where you can post information about yourself and read about other people, but not everybody is able to see everything - a specific group, like students from a particular school - have to join up.

Nearly 10 million members post photos and personal details to share with their friends - real or virtual. The Wall Street Journal reported Facebook is in quote "serious talks with Yahoo!," which wants to buy the site for close to one billion dollars. And this is the potential billion-dollar CEO.

Mr. MARK ZUCKERBERG (CEO, Facebook.com): I'm 22. I started Facebook when I was a sophomore in college.

INSKEEP: His name is Mark Zuckerberg and he launched Facebook with only his fellow Harvard students being invited. Later, other colleges got involved and other high schools, as well as businesses.

Starting today, anybody can join, which has provoked a backlash among some members who have used Facebook itself to petition against the expansion. To find out why, we met some of the members offline, in the flesh, at the University of Southern California.

Rumor has it that one of Facebook’s

Rumor has it that one of Facebook’s co-founders wants to sell up to ten million shares of the company’s stock.

We crave substantiation of this rumor, and have asked Facebook for confirmation, knowing full well that the company has a policy of not commenting on matters of speculation. So let’s talk about this whole thing hypothetically, rather than presume it to be true.

Garrett Sloane of the New York Post cites a “source close to the situation” as saying “at least one dealmaker has been approached by reps of the co-founder to unload up to 10 million shares of common stock in Facebook.”

Facebook has four co-founders, and only one of them still works for the company, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg. We suspect he’s not the one trying to sell up to 10 million shares, assuming the rumor proves true, of course. A CEO’s best interests lie in propping up the value of the stock, not starting a sell-off in the private market.

The other three co-founders have gone off on their own, and thus seem much more likely to sell stakes, simply to lock in profits. Dustin Moskovitz launched Asana; Chris Hughes started Jumo, and Eduardo Saverin has led the investing in the startup Qwiki. The three each have lower single-digit percentage stakes in Facebook, and one might argue that all would have good uses for the proceeds from selling 10 million shares. The money could fund the expansion of any of their respective business ventures.

Senin, 07 Maret 2011

Winklevoss brothers attempt to reverse $65m Facebook settlement

Last year The Social Network was probably one of the best films I have seen and it told the story of the founders of Facebook and how three Harvard graduates Tyler/Cameron Winklevoss and Divya Narendra were suing Mark Zuckerburg for stealing what they believe was their concept.

In the end the above parties were silenced after Zuckerburg settled on a lump sum of money involving $20m in cash and $45m in stock based on a valuation of $36 a share.

You would think that this was enough money, but no, millions of dollars is just not enough for the trio as they are looking to re-open the case. They feel at the time of the settlement the stock price was mis-represented, thus robbing them of millions.

Today the parties involved will ask the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to undo the settlement above, this they hope will allow them to re-open the case in an attempt to get more money and gain an admission from Zuckerberg that he stole their idea.

It’s a big gamble, but if the trio win they could make a shed load of money, but if they lose they would likely forfeit the $65m which they secured in the original settlement.

Personally I feel this is more to do with principle, rather than money, after all why risk $65m otherwise?

Facebook 2011

Excuse me for raining on the Facebook parade, but yesterday's news about the $450 million investment by Goldman Sachs (GS) and $50 million from Russia's Digital Sky Technology didn't move me the way it seemed to move others. This despite the suggested $50 billion valuation, as big and beautiful a number as the stock market has seen in some time. I am certainly not moved in the same way it appears to have moved Goldman's own clients: the Wall Street firm has pledged to line up another $1.5 billion in sales to its high net worth investors, who are said to be champing at the bit to get a piece of the action, which starts with a $2 million minimum. Not that I have $2 million lying around, but I wouldn't buy this stock if I did.

Reason #1: Someone who knows a lot more than I do is selling. While the identities of the specific sellers remain unknown, the current consensus seems to be that most will be from venture capital investors like Accel Partners, Peter Thiel, and Greylock Partners. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg will kick in $50 million or so himself, just for some fooling around money.

But it's not a dilutive primary offering from the company. "Facebook needs no cash!" say its cheerleaders. Okay, fine. Let's just say for argument's sake that it is early stage investors who are selling. Why would they sell? Because they're in need of cash to invest somewhere else? The way the social network is talked about these days, it's the best investment opportunity in town. So why would anyone want to forsake it? And don't give me that crap about VCs being "early stage" and wanting to cash out of a "mature" investment. These people are as money hungry as any other institutional investor, and would let it ride unless….they saw something that suggested that the era of stupendous growth was over.

Facebook reached 500 million users in July. There's been no update since, even though the company had meticulously documented every new 50 million users to that point. Might the curve have crested? And let's not even talk about the fact that they don't really make much money per user — a few dollars a year at most. (Its estimated $2 billion in 2010 revenues would amount to $4 per user at that base.) I certainly haven't spent any money on the site, despite being a fairly regular visitor. And any advertiser who is trying to target me on the social network is wasting their money. But that's just me.

Reason #2: Goldman Sachs. I've got nothing against Goldman Sachs. Hell, I worked there. But when Reuters' Felix Salmon says that the Goldman investment "ratifies" a $50 billion valuation, he's only half right. That is, someone, somewhere—perhaps the Russians at DST Global—might just believe this imaginary number. (It's hard to see why, though: DST got in at a $10 billion valuation in May 2009. Facebook's user base has more than doubled since then. So its valuation should…quintuple?) But concluding that Goldman Sachs believes in a $50 billion valuation is poor reasoning. As Salmon does point out, Goldman has likely earned the lead book runner slot in any initial public offering.

Consider a 20% sale of the company in such an event – or $10 billion at today's "valuation" – and a 2% underwriting fee of $200 million. Goldman would have to share such spoils, so let's call it $100 million into their pocket. Subtracting that underwriting fee from the Goldman investment, and you could easily make the case that for a net purchase price of $350 million, Goldman's ante only values Facebook at $39 billion. Hey, that's just off by $11 billion, so don't worry about it. Buy your shares where you can get them. In other words, go open a $10 million minimum private client account at Goldman Sachs. (Who says Goldman didn't learn its lesson about shafting its own customers? This time around, they've managed to get the customers to line up the shaft themselves.)

Reason #3: Zynga. For all the success of the largely-Facebook-hosted games of Farmville and Cityville, it's hard not to wonder what the success of the anachronistic game maker Zynga really means. Do people really miss their Atari that much? I doubt there's any crossover between the people playing Farmville and those playing the technologically advanced Call of Duty: Black Ops. Which is fine – to each his own. But all the Zynga games make me think about is Wal-Mart (WMT). Which is also fine – there's nothing wrong with being compared to one of the world's most successful companies. But here's the disconnect: if Facebook's future success depends on aiming for the lowest common denominator with the most people possible, that implies pretty slim margins a la Wal-Mart. You think they're going to justify a $50 billion market capitalization through banner ads? Are you kidding me?

Reason #4: The niggling details. Important question: Just what are Facebook's numbers? Important answer: Who the hell knows? In November, Zuckerberg told the world not to hold its breath for an IPO. No worries, Mark, because I'm not. Google (GOOG), if you recall, was pretty open by the end of its life as a private company – everybody knew what it was doing and how it was doing it. Facebook (and, in the same sense, Twitter) reminds me of Kozmo.com during the dot-com boom. Kozmo, you will recall, somehow had people convinced that they were going to make tons of money doing something remarkably pedestrian – that is, delivering Ben & Jerry's by bicycle to Manhattanites. (I remember sitting in the offices of Flatiron Partners way back when. Someone ordered some ice cream on the Web, and – voila! – half an hour later some delivery guy shows up. Kind of like what would happen if you called the deli on the phone. The future was ours to see!) Facebook reportedly pulled in $2 billion in revenues in 2010. I don't know about you, but I'm disinclined to pay 25 times revenues for anything, let alone a company the finances of which I know pretty much nothing about.Tautan

Reason #5: Warren Buffett. The legendary investor cautions those looking at outsize valuations to consider one's purchase of company stock in a different way than price of an individual share, whatever it may be. He suggests one look at the total market valuation – in this case, a sketchy $50 billion – and to consider: Would you buy the whole company for that price, if you had the money? The market value of Goldman Sachs is just $88 billion. I'd take more than half that company over the whole of Facebook any day of the week. I bet Warren Buffett would too.

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