The Facebook IPO: What Does It Really Mean?
Most of you, no doubt, have seen an absolute flood of information coming in about Facebook’s IPO on the 18th. So, let’s break down what, exactly, is going on at Facebook these days.
Facebook Logo
So, first off, Facebook is going through an IPO, or Initial Public Offering, which is a fancy term for “we’re going to sell some of our stock publicly”. This is a big step for many companies, and it also changes the rules a bit. As Google has found out, you can’t just spend money on pet projects without first consulting the Board of Directors. Translation? No more billion dollar buyouts on a whim, Mark.
Second is the price. They set a price range of $28-$35 per share, which valued the company between $70 and $87.5 billion. They soon saw that more people were trying to buy stock then what was available. So they increased the price range to $34-$38 per share, which increases the highest value to about $104 billion.
Then, they needed to release more shares (coming from early investors, not from the company itself), since they had too many buyers in line for stock. Many people are jumping at the opportunity to own a piece of this company, and the price is expected to climb quickly.
In a nutshell, Facebook is on the verge of raising around $16 billion in capital for the company.
But one of the biggest controversies wasn’t about Facebook, but rather Mark Zuckerberg, who showed up to a Wall Street investors meeting wearing a hoodie, rather than a suit. Some take it as a sign of immaturity (negative) and some take it as a sign of keeping their winning formula (positive). No matter how you look at it, Facebook has a glaring problem it will need to address soon: Mobile.
Facebook has been very sluggish in the past with rolling out and updating its mobile applications, and as an added concern, it has no meaningful mobile advertising delivery method to gain revenue. This is concerning when it has been shown that half of its user base accesses the website from a mobile device.
No matter how you look at it, Facebook will be nestled right with Amazon and Cisco as far as market value. That is certainly no small feat, and no laughing matter.
Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson Resigns
And the woes of Yahoo continue, as embattled CEO Scott Thompson resigned amid a resume scandal. You see, he falsely reported that he had a Computer Science degree (among other “minor” details) on his resume, and Yahoo didn’t take time to verify this claim for their top C-suite position. Yahoo’s board has named Fred Amoroso as the new chairman, and Ross Levinsohn as interim CEO. Yahoo, once again, is in a rebuilding phase. They have become an also-ran competitor in the eyes of the media, and many users.
Yahoo Logo
So this ends up as a little off-topic for my blog, but it is very relevant. Yahoo has seen it’s better days. With Google and Microsoft’s Bing, it’s search usage has fallen over the years. Hotmail and Gmail have certainly taken a toll on email users. Social Media has replaced the front page. iTunes rules over their music service. They “seem” to be dead in the water, but don’t count out anyone in the digital world.
They need to find their strengths again. They need to find that one thing that they’re good at, and stick to it like glue.
App Of The Week: CardioTrainer (5-14-2012)
Want an easy way to track your workouts without a gym membership? Enter CardioTrainer. This program uses your GPS to track how far you run, bike, walk, a wide variety of sports (even Zumba, if you do that) and calculates calories lost, time spent, among others. You can even share this information with friends, or just keep it private.
CardioTrainer Logo
It also comes with a music player built right into the app, and a friendly voice to tell you how far you have traveled, how much time you have spent, and similar stats. It’s worth a look!
“Zerg Rush” And Other Easter Eggs
A recent addition to Google’s famed Easter Eggs, Zerg Rush, has captivated workers everywhere. A simple game, where you must destroy Google’s O’s from destroying the search results. All you have to do is type in Zerg Rush into Google’s search engine, and the game will start automatically.
Those of you who have played PC games will see something familiar: Zerg Rush is modeled after, and built in honor of, Starcraft.
Other Google “Games”:
Search for ‘google pacman’ or visit http://google.com/pacman
Other Easter eggs include:
Typing in ‘do a barrel roll’ or ‘Z or R twice’ (doesn’t work in Internet Explorer)
Typing ’tilt’ or ‘askew’ (doesn’t work in Internet Explorer)
Others can be found here.
My First Round With Bottlenose
I opened up Klout this morning to check on my score (since it had a spike of a few points suddenly), and noticed a few Perks I could use, one of which is Bottlenose. Now Bottlenose seemed to come off as being a clone to Tweetdeck, Hoot Suite, or some other feed service, but I figured, as this is my first Perk, that I would give it a try.
Bottlenose Logo
After connecting Facebook and Twitter, it began to analyze my interests, which was my first sign that this was going to be different than a typical feed service. They then recommend streams based on our social media use. Afterwords, you come to the main layout.
Now the layout is pretty clean. There are plenty of views across the left, with folders, filters, suggestions, etc. Not a bad setup. Across the top are two options you can use, Sonar and Newspaper (other than the Reader, which is the default view).
Sonar is a pretty cool feature, where you can see words and relations to them. So, for instance, I have AFD (which is Area Forecast Discussion), which is connected to Area Forecast, which is then split into #ICT (Wichita) and #DDC (Dodge City), which DDC is connected to HWO and Hazardous Weather. Word association, as in what words travel together, can help you understand what kinds of words are popular in your interests, and help you interact more. This also changes in real-time, which is handy!
Now, in the newspaper mode, it turns your feed into a newspaper (yes, I just stated the obvious). I like the concept of this layout, but I’m not sure if I’m crazy about the way it lays out the paper. Some of the images appear much to big, but after awhile, it seems to compile more information together, adding more stories, and thus, making the images smaller.
I really think this has some great potential, but on the downside, it is still in closed beta, and I am a primarily mobile user. I also would like to see the addition of more networks, but that will come with time. I will definitely keep checking back with this product!
AT&T, iPhone and Unlimited Data
Once again, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson talks about unlimited data. On this particular occasion, he was speaking at The Milken Institute Global Conference, but he hit on a point that was an odd strategy. “My only regret was how we introduced pricing in the beginning, because how did we introduce pricing? Thirty dollars and you get all you can eat,” he said, adding “And it’s a variable cost model. Every additional megabyte you use in this network, I have to invest capital.”
The point is everyone went with this $30 all-you-can-eat way of doing business. And when they ended that model, there was a very vocal backlash, but has since increased profits. But, he sees declines in other areas of the mobile business, noting “You lie awake at night worrying about what is that which will disrupt your business model,” he said. “Apple iMessage is a classic example. If you’re using iMessage, you’re not using one of our messaging services, right? That’s disruptive to our messaging revenue stream.”
For any business, a sudden change to the business model can rock a company to its core. Yet AT&T has seen several of these large shifts (benefiting them greatly), and I am surprised that they are taking time to talk about how they don’t like decisions they’ve made, and how they must, yet again, change their business model.
LinkedIn buys SlideShare for $119,000,000
The first thing that strikes me on this deal is the size of the buyout is not monumental in the scale of the recent purchases that we have seen. Also, as LinkedIn is a public company, it releases quarterly earnings statements, which shows LinkedIn to be profitable, and above what analysts expected from the company.
LinkedIn Icon
Now, LinkedIn is buying SlideShare, which is a pretty cool catch for a professional social network. SlideShare allows you to share PowerPoint slides, among other documents, giving it a nice way of sharing presentations with other clients, customers, and anyone else nice enough to take a look at what someone has to say. It also has powerful embedding features where you can insert slides into your webpage.
This seems to be a good match, strengthening opportunities for them as a combined force!
App of the Week: Shazam (5-7-2012)
How many times have you been around town, in a friend’s car, or listening to a radio at your house, heard a song, and thought ‘Who is that? That’s a good song?’ only to find out that you missed the title and artist name? Enter Shazam. This free app can help you get the name, artist, album, lyrics, music video, or any other info on the spot. It even has shortcuts to your favorite music apps (like Spotify, Pandora, Amazon MP3, etc) so you can listen or download the song.
Shazam icon
This is an app that no phone should be without! You would be surprised how much you could use such an app. Even if you know the song, you may want to pull up the music video to show your friends. And, since it’s free, what’s the downside?
All you need to do is open the app, click on the logo in the center, let it listen to the music, and it will get all the info for you. It’s that simple!
The Enemies of Your Computer: Dust
One of the silent killers of computers is dust. It’s surprising on how many people don’t think about dust inside of your computer. We have filters on our air conditioners, cars and vacuums, all to keep out dust. And we change them out on a regular basis. (If you don’t, you should probably check your filters, now!) Dust does two main things to computers: It insulates, and it blocks airflow.
Computers need constant airflow to get rid of heat that builds up in the system. CPUs, without airflow, can crack and melt from the stresses of heat buildup. The heatsink, which sits directly on top of the CPU, is built to draw the heat out and away from the CPU where air can then cool the heatsink. However, dust can get inside the heatsink, causing airflow to diminish, if not block it entirely. It also makes it harder for the heat to escape, which makes the CPU stay hot.
Another threat of dust is where it can get into. Dust can build up in the bearings of fans and cause them to run slower, making the motor work harder, and ultimately can either stop the fan from turning, or burn out the motor that turns the fan. And if a fan stops working, we can lose some, or all of our airflow!
You can get compressed air from most places that carry office supplies. However, if you don’t feel comfortable doing this yourself (since it involves opening up a computer and getting a little dirty), give us a call or stop by!
Swain Computer Services
2203 Cone St, Suite B
(620) 259-7309
So, What’s With This Klout Thing, Anyway?
Alright, so I’m writing about Klout. I really don’t want to, but I finally feel it’s necessary to do so.
Klout Logo
Ever since Cain and Abel, there has been competition in the world, and someone must keep score. In the world of Social Media, consider Klout to be the (ultimate?) scoreboard. It keeps track of the people you talk to, what you talk about, who they share your comments with…In a nutshell, your influence. Now, for most of you this matters very little. You don’t care how many people can see your message and how many people you can reach. But, what if you were in charge of a company’s or organization’s brand? Suddenly you would care about the Coke vs Pepsi or Pizza Hut vs Papa John’s battles.
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