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| Facebook IPO: No, It's Not Groundhog Day for the Bubble | |  Facebook's $5 billion IPO is not the biggest of all time, but it's up there, which means it's faced with the same gimlet eye as every other big Internet public offering. The word "bubble" has been floated. That's unfortunate since there is nothing bubble-like about Facebook. People, though, are insistent. "This is the beginning," I've been told. Others put Facebook's filing among a growing chain of Internet IPOs (Zynga, Groupon, LinkedIn), making it like a rather ungainly bauble in a charm bracelet. It's a bad sign, they theorize, because the Internet cannot sustain a bubble. I simply want to tell them they are wrong. Facebook's IPO is about as much like Groupon's or Zynga's as your local food truck stand is like McDonalds Inc., and this is not a rerun of the Turn of the Millennium bad times. How do I know these things? I was inside the original bubble. In 1999, I worked at Deja.com. It was a crazy 12-month ride. The company started as DejaNews in 1995 and was primarily an organized front end for a vast array of UseNet discussion groups. I came onboard just as the company pivoted (we did it before anyone was using the word). The new Deja.com was still about talk, but also wanted to leverage all that chatter into a commerce play. Site visitors were always talking about the best products (especially tech), so why not let them shop for them too? Like most startups at the time, Deja spent a lot of time, resources and money developing its own technology and designs. We built a powerful shopping engine. It looked and worked great. Our goal was to join everyone else online and go public. We were gonna be huge. We weren't profitable or successful, but an IPO would change everything. I owned thousands and thousands of stock "sloptions." I call them that because they were ultimately worth less than the paper they were printed on. Our strategy and product was rejected by virtually every original DejaNews user. Within six months of my arrival, Deja abandoned the IPO plan. Its new goal became "getting bought." In particular, we wanted Yahoo to buy us (I know, that's rib-tickling funny now). It didn't work out. By the time I left, Deja was being sold in pieces to eBay (our shopping engine) and Google (the discussion groups). SEE ALSO: Will the IPO Change Facebook Forever? We weren't alone. Over a span of 18 months, dozens of other Bubble brands went poof, including Pets.com, Webvan, Kozmo, Flooz, eToys, Boo.com, MVP and countless others. Most of these destinations never made it to IPO, but virtually all were planning it. I'm not sure if any of them were even close to profitable, but so many people saw the potential in becoming Internet entrepreneurs and, potentially, Internet millionaires with other people's money. Now, let's look at the new crop of Internet stars. Is there a little too much hype around recent IPOs for LinkedIn, Groupon and Zynga? Yes. I think they're being watched by people who do not understand the process: What it means for a private company to become a publicly traded one. I'm no finance guy, so my understanding is rather shallow, too. Still, I know not to take every stock rise and every fall as a sign of success or doom. Stocks perform over a long haul; not over days, but over weeks, months, years. Facebook, though stands lone. It's clearly bigger than these other IPOs, and with good reason. Facebook has more users (845 million and seems to be adding millions every month), is far more diversified in its offerings and has almost incomparable reach thanks to its Open Graph and APIs. Oh, and one other thing: Facebook is making money. Lots of it. Deja, and many of the companies that went phffft! in 2000 or 2001 were running in the red and had no actual strategy for making money (Deja had one but it did not work). Facebook does. Is it relying a bit too heavily on Zynga? Yes, but that platform for selling virtual goods and using credits to buy real stuff should extend quite nicely beyond Farmville's picket fences. Facebook's $5 billion IPO is not a Groundhog Day-like replay of previous Internet Bubble fiascos. It is, in fact, the start of something big for the world's most successful social brand and a sign that social networking is a real and grown-up business. Bonus: 10 Facebook Investment Risk Factors Additional Facebook IPO Coverage Facebook Files for $5 Billion IPO Facebook IPO Reveals How It Made $3.71 Billion in 2011 10 Giant Things Less Valuable Than Facebook Zuckerberg to Potential Shareholders: Facebook Is on a Social Mission Facebook IPO Filing Flings Open the Social Network Kimono Facebook: Zynga Generates 12% of Our Revenue and We Need Them Sheryl Sandberg Was Facebook's Best-Paid Employee in 2011 |
| Facebook Contest Lets You Pick the NCAA's March Madness Field | |  The NCAA's popular March Madness basketball tournament is annually a cause of groans from know-it-all fans who think they they could have done a better job of picking its teams. But this year via Facebook, the NCAA is giving fans a chance to show that they could, indeed, make better selections. The NCAA's Super 10 contest will select a committee of ten hardcore fans and social media enthusiasts to learn about the process and create their own field of 68 teams before the official committee releases its own picks. The winning entrants will be flown to Atlanta, given an in-depth primer on how teams are selected for the tournament and then turned loose to make their own picks. Fans enter by submitting a 30-second video pitch on why they should be selected to the March Madness Facebook page. NCAA representatives will then select contestants who exhibit the right combination of hoops knowledge and social media savvy. Then a Facebook fan vote will determine the final group of 10. Fans have until 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday to enter the contest. "Everyone thinks they know basketball and they think it's so easy to choose the field, so we thought, 'Why don't we do a cross between dream-job and prove-what-you-know?" Ronnie Ramos, the NCAA's managing director of digital communications told Mashable. Ramos said that the Super 10 is the NCAA's first major Facebook contest, but that the "marriage of sports and social media is a really strong one because of all the fan excitement that surounds sports." The fan committee's picks will be posted to the NCAA's March Madness Facebook page and the NCAA website an hour before the official field is announced. "It's going to be fun to put a group of passional basketball fans together and see how their selections compare the official committee's," Ramos said. Will you enter this contest? Let us know in the comments. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, adamkaz. |
| Glassdoor Can Mine Your Facebook Friends to Help You Land a Job [VIDEO] | |  When you're looking for a job, who are the first people you turn to? Glassdoor, the careers site that regularly serves up lists of odd interview questions, is betting that it's the friends and family in your personal network rather than your professional network. That's why it's introducing a deep integration with Facebook, called Inside Connections. Now when you connect Glassdoor to Facebook and click on a company, you'll be able to see which of your Facebook friends are connected to that company -- either by being an employee or having worked there in the past. You'll also see friends of friends who are connected, too. "Inside Connections is Glassdoor plus Facebook," says company founder Tim Besse. "It's about finding the 'in' you have at a company through the friends you already have on Facebook and combining it with all the information Glassdoor already has -- all of our job listings, reviews, salaries and interview details." Why connect with Facebook and not the possibly more obvious professional network of LinkedIn? Apart from the fact that Glassdoor competes with LinkedIn, Besse maintains that a person's network of personal friends is actually where people turn when they're looking for a job. He also says that Glassdoor's customers tend to be younger, and many are more active on Facebook than LinkedIn. SEE ALSO: 8 Tips for Nailing Your Next Startup Job Interview "We've been taught to think that Facebook is just our personal or social lives and Linkedin is our professional lives, but the reality is that when you're boots-on-the-street looking for a job, some of the very first people that you turn to are your closest friends. And what Glassdoor does is make it really easy to tap into these connections." Besides offering up potential contacts at companies you're targeting, Glassdoor's Facebook integration further personalizes your experience with the site. The software taps into your Facebook history and network to present you with jobs and companies you actually may be interested in as you browse the site. What do you think of Glassdoor's approach? Do you turn to your Facebook network for career help above connections on other networks? Or would you rather see integration with a professional network like LinkedIn? Have your say in the comments. |
| How to Make Your Company More Social | | Wednesday, February 01, 2012 11:45 PM | Mae Karwowski |
|  Mae Karwowski runs social media strategy and oversees community management at Gilt City, a subsidiary of the Gilt Groupe. She also consults for several startups. Social networks are flooded with potential customers. Therefore, today's companies need to foster a socially engaged culture within company walls. A business becomes more inherently social by going beyond the corporate Twitter account and Facebook Page. A social business engages the entire company, from CEO to executive assistant. Take advantage of the opportunity to foster your company's internal community and teach valuable social media skills as the space rapidly grows and evolves. But how do you get everyone on board? 1. Give Interactive Tutorials ?It's hard to get people to tweet consistently when they don't understand what an @mention is. By hosting a few interactive Facebook and/or Twitter tutorials across the company, you can provide a valuable service to your coworkers, both in and out of the office. Have everyone bring laptops and phones to the session to keep it interactive. Try setting tasks at the beginning of the session, such as creating a special tutorial hashtag, and then ask everyone to tweet photos of the tutorial. 2. Focus on Fun Ways to Use Twitter Show your employees how to use a hashtag that they can relate to. For example, follow funny Twitter commentary while watching an episode of The Bachelor. Or show the foodies on your team curated lists of food truck Twitter accounts and how to see where they are parked. Provide examples that demonstrate how Twitter can organize information and news for just about any job or industry. Once they learn the basic tools and creative uses of social media, they will naturally see how they can gather more information applicable to their jobs as well. 3. Find Influencers Within the Company ?Chances are you already have several employees that love social media, whether they're Pinterest fanatics or live tweet their entire weekends. Recognize these employees internally for their mastery of social media by highlighting their content. For example, the team member with the most active Instagram account could be in charge of documenting your company's product launch party. Once you start finding way to feature and utilize the social media prowess of employees, more of the team will chime in and participate. Encourage the team to @mention the corporate Twitter feed when they find pertinent industry news and content. This will generate more content and a larger social media presence for the company as a whole. It's important that your internal experts feel their social skills and expertise is appreciated by the company. These people will naturally start helping and encouraging other employees to do the same. 4. Launch a Fun Contest or Internal Campaign Once you've taught employees the basics and highlighted the company's influencers, it's time to get everyone involved in some straight-up fun. Try launching a contest: Record everyone's Klout score and see who can improve hers the most within a month. Or announce an Instagram photo contest, in which the office chooses the winning photographs, and frames the winning entries as office art. Or host a company room on turntable.fm and vote on the company's best DJ. That person could DJ the next office party. Be sure to follow up with incentives and recognition, crucial aspects of any competition. Social media allows for a great deal of creativity, so take full advantage and set the contest up as a fun outlet for the company. 5. Engage As you encourage your company to become more social media savvy, make sure to foster a sense of community. People want to learn information from social networks, but they also want to communicate with one another. Social media channels provide a way to do this outside the normal confines of cubicle culture, and can boost overall company moral by augmenting the experience of working together. Occasionally highlight team members' tweets, Facebook posts and content from the corporate accounts (with content, make sure to get permission). If someone has an especially funny or relevant tweet, draw attention to it. This activity not only shows employees and onlookers that team members are valued, but also personalizes and gives your brand authenticity. Plus, company employees will be more excited to share and listen to the company within social media channels. 6. Get creative! ?The opportunities to infuse social behavior into your company only increase with engagement. You'll be able to create more advanced tutorials, educate about emerging platforms, launch new initiatives that bring everyone closer together, and much more. Ask your employees what types of contests and initiatives they'd like to be a part of. Social media provides a company a way to have some fun at work, so make the most of it! Convincing newbies to jump headfirst into social media can seem challenging, but by demonstrating value and communicating enthusiasm, your company will take off into social media stardom. If you explain how to use a social media channel, show its potential, and reward creative participation, you are well on your way to creating a company with social values built into its foundation. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pixdeluxe, Flickr, geckoam |
| Twitter Users Campaign for Britney Spears 'Modern Family' Cameo | | Wednesday, February 01, 2012 10:36 PM | Samantha Murphy |
|  If we've learned anything from massive campaigning on the Internet recently, it's that the Web has the power to get things done. The latest campaigning effort comes in support of Britney Spears, as many tweeted on Tuesday to let the pop superstar appear on popular TV show Modern Family. The hashtag #GetBritneyOnModernFamily started to trend worldwide on Twitter. The campaign started when Britney Spears -- who has dabbled in acting over the years, from films such as Crossroads to the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother -- sent out a message on Twitter, saying "I know everybody is excited about the Super Bowl, but I personally can't wait to see the next episode of Modern Family! Funniest show on TV." Modern Family actress Sofia Vergara retweeted her message. Spears' manager Adam Leber asked fans on the site for their input on a possible Spears cameo: "BritneySpears on Modern Family? What do you guys think?" Twitter users jumped on the bandwagon, with many urging producers to get her on the show. "I bet if Britney was on Modern Family, she would give the show its highest ratings to date!" one tweet said. Spears -- whose cameo appearances have given shows a huge jump in viewership -- took a screen shot of the trending hash tag and posted it to Facebook. "You all are at it again -- look what's trending!" Spears said. Responding to fans on Twitter, she said: "Ahhhh I would love to be on it!" |
| Will the IPO Change Facebook Forever? | | Wednesday, February 01, 2012 10:12 PM | Chris Taylor |
|  Journalists can find some pretty weird things interesting, but I never thought a 207-page government-mandated document would keep me turning the pages. That changed Wednesday, with Facebook's mammoth S-1 filing. It wasn't so much an SEC prospectus as it was a peek into the personality of Mark Zuckerberg -- and a field guide to the beast he's responsible for. (The social network, that is, not the dog.) It was all there, Zuck's soul laid bare: his fears of everything that could harm the company (who knew the SEC could act as a therapist?) as well as his dreams for how it could change the planet. "Facebook was not originally created to be a company," the founder wrote. "It was built to accomplish a social mission - to make the world more open and connected." To which I think we can safely reply: Mission accomplished. The scope of Facebook has long seemed breathtaking, but this document still made our jaws drop. There are, it said, 100 billion friendships on Facebook. In other words, the social network has fostered more than 14 connections for every man, woman and child on the planet. It's the Money, Dummy But lest we forget, an S-1 is not a mission statement. It is a means to one end alone: making money. And the sweet smell of greenbacks could be detected on every page. Here is Zuckerberg, the soon-to-be $28 billion man, taking $700,000 worth of plane rides a year. There goes COO Sheryl Sandberg, who made more than $30 million in 2011. And everywhere are the names who are going to cash in, big time: Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Accel Partners, Sean Parker, Bono. Yes, these are richly-deserved rewards, more or less. The employees have worked very hard for them. The VCs took a risk. And the banks take their cut for sailing the IPO ship out of harbor; that's how the system works. But the dollar-drenched pages serve as a timely reminder: Everything is going to be different when the company goes public later this year. From that point on, Facebook will have a solemn obligation to create more value for shareholders. No doubt the social mission will continue to be important. But as a public company, Facebook must try its damnedest to make money before all else. I'm not saying that's right or wrong; I'm saying it's the law. The Long-Term View What remains to be seen is how that focus will affect us Facebook users on a day-to-day basis. Probably not a lot, at first. But how about five or ten years down the line? I used to think Google had made the transition to public company unscathed. The DNA of "don't be evil" ran deep in the organization. But the recent kerfuffle over Search Plus Your World -- which seems a fairly naked bid to push Google+ results above more relevant ones -- made me think twice. Google's founders also wrote a lofty statement of their social mission prior to the IPO. Would Google be so maniacally focused on Google+, to the detriment of its search product, if it weren't legally required to make more and more value for shareholders? Without a time machine that can transport us into an alternate universe where Google remained private, it's impossible to say for sure. But my gut says it would not. The social media landscape is constantly remaking itself. That was another message the S-1 drilled home: competition, technology and infrastructure change all the time. Tiny but vital decisions must be made by Facebookers every day. And the ultimate arbiter of those decisions is about to change from "what makes sense for our social mission" to "what makes sense for our shareholders." The Facebook faithful can only hope that those two goals remain entwined for many years to come. Additional Facebook IPO Coverage Facebook Files for $5 Billion IPO Facebook IPO Reveals How It Made $3.71 Billion in 2011 10 Giant Things Less Valuable Than Facebook Zuckerberg to Potential Shareholders: Facebook Is on a Social Mission Facebook IPO Filing Flings Open the Social Network Kimono Facebook: Zynga Generates 12% of Our Revenue and We Need Them Sheryl Sandberg Was Facebook's Best-Paid Employee in 2011 |
| Facebook IPO: Reactions from the Social Web (and Zuckerberg) | | Wednesday, February 01, 2012 9:44 PM | Zoe Fox |
|  It shouldn't be hard to guess what the largest discussion in the social space was Wednesday -- the Facebook IPO. While Facebook certainly wasn't the first social network to hit the Internet, it's the largest one to date. Along with its hefty user base came a huge reaction -- not just on Facebook but across the web. While Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg posted a picture of his desk with the memo, "Stay Focused & Keep Shipping," others were a bit more excitable. Dave Morin, Path founder and a former Facebook employee, applauded Zuckerberg's long-term vision throughout Facebook's growth. Others, such as Google+ users Jonathan Franklin and Robbie Good questioned the company's valuation, noting they don't view a social network as a solid long-term investment. Needless to say, the social web saw its fare share of humorous reactions as well. We pieced together some of the social web's reactions to Facebook's IPO news. Which discussions did you notice in the social space Wednesday? Let us know in the comments. Additional Facebook IPO Coverage Facebook Files for $5 Billion IPO Facebook IPO Reveals How It Made $3.71 Billion in 2011 10 Giant Things Less Valuable Than Facebook Zuckerberg to Potential Shareholders: Facebook Is on a Social Mission Facebook IPO Filing Flings Open the Social Network Kimono Facebook: Zynga Generates 12% of Our Revenue and We Need Them Sheryl Sandberg Was Facebook's Best-Paid Employee in 2011 Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, skegbydave |
| Only About a Third of Tweets Are Worth Reading [STUDY] | | Wednesday, February 01, 2012 9:28 PM | Todd Wasserman |
|  Do you ever wonder how people react when they see your Twitter updates? Odds are, most would fall under the category of "meh," according to a new study. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT and Georgia Tech joined forces to get a sense of how most tweets go over. They created a website called Who Gives a Tweet? that was sort of like a Hot or Not for tweets: Users were promised feedback on their tweets if they agreed to anonymously rate tweets for people they already follow. Over 19 days in December and January, 1,443 visitors to the site rated 43,738 tweets from 2,014 accounts. The verdict? Respondents liked 36% of the tweets, disliked 25% and ranked their reaction to the remaining 39% as neutral. "A well-received tweet is not all that common," Michael Bernstein, a doctoral student at MIT who worked on the project, wrote in a blog post. "A significant amount of content is considered not worth reading, for a variety of reasons." Tweets that were part of a semi-private conversation were among the most reviled. Also unpopular: Tweets relating to a mood ("So tired today") or activity ("Just ate a sandwich.") On the other hand, sharing information, asking questions of followers and self-promotion, like linking to a story you just wrote (if you're a journalist) were more likable. The study's authors offered a few suggestions for producing better tweets: Don't tweet old links. Add an opinion or fact to an ongoing story. Keep it short. Don't go crazy with the Twitter syntax; limit use of hashtags and @mentions, etc. Don't tweet about the sandwich you just ate. "Reviewers reserved a special hatred for Foursquare location check-ins," the blog post notes. Provide context. Tweets that are too short also annoy users. Don't whine. Tease content. If you want people to click through, don't give away the whole story in your tweet. If you're a public figure, provide insights, don't gossip or provide mundane details of your life. What do you think? Are there tweets that get under your skin as well? What tips would you offer. Let us know in the comments. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, SimmiSimons |
| Facebook: Competition An 'Ongoing Threat' But 'We Compete Favorably' | | Wednesday, February 01, 2012 8:07 PM | Kate Freeman |
|  Clear as day, Facebook acknowledges its competition in the social media marketplace in the SEC filing document released Wednesday. Despite Google+, Orkut, Mixi, Twitter and the bevy of competing social sites, Facebook say its future looks bright. In the "competition" section of the SEC filing -- about a page long in the 207-page document -- Facebook breaks down the areas in which it competes: Users and Engagement. We compete to attract, engage, and retain users. Because our products for users are free of charge, we compete based on the utility, ease of use, performance, and quality of our products. Advertising. We compete to attract and retain advertisers. We distinguish our products by providing reach, relevance, social context, and engagement to amplify the effectiveness of advertisers' messages. Platform. We compete to attract and retain developers to build compelling apps and websites that integrate with Facebook. We compete in this area primarily based on the value of the tools and APIs we provide to developers to enable them to access our large global base of engaged users and their connections and to drive traffic to their apps and websites. Talent. We compete to attract and retain highly talented individuals, especially software engineers, designers, and product managers. Competition for employee talent is particularly intense in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we are headquartered. We compete for these potential employees by providing a work environment that fosters and rewards creativity and innovation and by providing compensation packages that we believe will enable us to attract and retain key employees. The section ends with Facebook asserting, "While our industry is evolving rapidly and is becoming increasingly competitive, we believe that we compete favorably on the factors described above." Additional Facebook IPO Coverage Facebook Files for $5 Billion IPO Facebook IPO Reveals How It Made $3.71 Billion in 2011 10 Giant Things Less Valuable Than Facebook Zuckerberg to Potential Shareholders: Facebook Is on a Social Mission Facebook IPO Filing Flings Open the Social Network Kimono Facebook: Zynga Generates 12% of Our Revenue and We Need Them Sheryl Sandberg Was Facebook's Best-Paid Employee in 2011 |
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