Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) draws user ire with email switcheroo

Orlando, FL 6/26/12 (StreetBeat) -- Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) has changed your email address. At least that's how many felt after a quiet but vast change in the way the company displays users' contact information.

Facebook replaced the email address users chose when they signed up and changed it to a facebook.com address. The Facebook email accounts allow users to communicate with outside email addresses via Facebook.

The changes were first pointed out by bloggers over the weekend and publicized by media outlets Monday, leading to gripes from users, usually on their Facebook pages.

The company said in a statement in April that it was "updating addresses on Facebook to make them consistent across our site."

Facebook spokeswoman Jillian Stefanki said the site is also rolling out a setting that allows people to decide which email addresses to show on their pages.

"Ever since the launch of timeline, people have had the ability to control what posts they want to show or hide on their own timelines, and today we're extending that to other information they post, starting with the Facebook address," Stefanki said in an email late Monday.

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Why Zynga's Stock (Nasdaq: ZNGA) Fell Off a Cliff

Shawshank, VA 6/13/12 (StreetBeat) -- Zynga's (Nasdaq:ZNGA) stock has fallen off a cliff. It's off 11.5 percent at last check, bringing the social gamingcompany down nearly 50 percent year to date. What happened?

It seems people are choosing more mobile instead of social games.

Cowen and Company issued a report titled "Facebook Gaming in Accelerating User Tailspin," which highlights the fact that Zynga's social gaming daily active users declined by 8.2 percent in May.

Cowen analyst Doug Creutz points to the fact that nearly all of the company's major titles posted "significant" month over month declines in daily active users, and that May marked the second consecutive significant month over month drop.

Despite the launch of hit games, like 'Bubble Safari,' Zynga is continuing its decline in total daily active users. Creutz says it looks like casual gamers are simply moving away from the Facebook (Nasdaq:FB) platform to games on their smartphones and tablets-the quality is high and they have the advantage of being able to play them anytime, anywhere.

But Zynga's drop may be unwarranted-Creutz has a "Neutral" rating on Zynga shares because of Zynga's mobile game business. He points out that Zynga's "advantages of scale and cross-promotion" are limited to the Facebook platform, though Zynga is "aggressively pursuing mobile game development."

In fact, just today Zynga is taking its hit "Draw Something" mobile app global, by launching it in 12 new languages, and partnering with Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez to promote the game as they start their North American Tour.

And Wedbush's Michael Pachter tells me that it's more important to focus on the number of gamers who are paying to play. He says it makes sense that user numbers for a game like Draw Something would drop off - people who aren't good at drawing will simply stop playing. But the people who do stick around are likely to pay more to improve their gaming experience.

But today's slide follows the stock dropping yesterday on what appeared to be a combination of concern about Facebook's slowing growth in April and lower daily active user numbers.

The big question-can Facebook make its gaming experience on the smartphone good enough that gamers will be able to have all the advantages of the mobile gaming experience without having to leave Facebook's platform. Once again, Facebook's future hinges on its mobile experience and expansion.

Please contact www.thestreetbeat.com for interest in our latest investor relations platform the “CEO Interview Series” with its host Steve Kanaval. The package includes a one-on-one interview with a seasoned industry professional; published segment to our web site with embedded audio/video file; and a compressed file that can be easily e-mailed out to your current and/or potential investors. Please e-mail bflautt@gmail.com or call (662) 392-0740 for pricing and scheduling.

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Why Zynga's Stock (Nasdaq: ZNGA) Fell Off a Cliff

Shawshank, VA 6/13/12 (StreetBeat) -- Zynga's (Nasdaq:ZNGA) stock has fallen off a cliff. It's off 11.5 percent at last check, bringing the social gamingcompany down nearly 50 percent year to date. What happened?

It seems people are choosing more mobile instead of social games.

Cowen and Company issued a report titled "Facebook Gaming in Accelerating User Tailspin," which highlights the fact that Zynga's social gaming daily active users declined by 8.2 percent in May.

Cowen analyst Doug Creutz points to the fact that nearly all of the company's major titles posted "significant" month over month declines in daily active users, and that May marked the second consecutive significant month over month drop.

Despite the launch of hit games, like 'Bubble Safari,' Zynga is continuing its decline in total daily active users. Creutz says it looks like casual gamers are simply moving away from the Facebook (Nasdaq:FB) platform to games on their smartphones and tablets-the quality is high and they have the advantage of being able to play them anytime, anywhere.

But Zynga's drop may be unwarranted-Creutz has a "Neutral" rating on Zynga shares because of Zynga's mobile game business. He points out that Zynga's "advantages of scale and cross-promotion" are limited to the Facebook platform, though Zynga is "aggressively pursuing mobile game development."

In fact, just today Zynga is taking its hit "Draw Something" mobile app global, by launching it in 12 new languages, and partnering with Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez to promote the game as they start their North American Tour.

And Wedbush's Michael Pachter tells me that it's more important to focus on the number of gamers who are paying to play. He says it makes sense that user numbers for a game like Draw Something would drop off - people who aren't good at drawing will simply stop playing. But the people who do stick around are likely to pay more to improve their gaming experience.

But today's slide follows the stock dropping yesterday on what appeared to be a combination of concern about Facebook's slowing growth in April and lower daily active user numbers.

The big question-can Facebook make its gaming experience on the smartphone good enough that gamers will be able to have all the advantages of the mobile gaming experience without having to leave Facebook's platform. Once again, Facebook's future hinges on its mobile experience and expansion.

Please contact www.thestreetbeat.com for interest in our latest investor relations platform the “CEO Interview Series” with its host Steve Kanaval. The package includes a one-on-one interview with a seasoned industry professional; published segment to our web site with embedded audio/video file; and a compressed file that can be easily e-mailed out to your current and/or potential investors. Please e-mail bflautt@gmail.com or call (662) 392-0740 for pricing and scheduling.

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Zynga (Nasdaq: ZNGA) Users Decline as More Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) Usage Goes Mobile

Orlando, FL 6/12/12 (StreetBeat) -- Shares of online games provider Zynga (Nasdaq:ZNGA) are down 55 cents, almost 10%, at $5 after Cowen & Co.’s Doug Creutz this morning reiterated a Neutral rating on the shares, writing that daily average unique users for its games, such as “Words with Friends,” declined by 4.8 million to 54.2 million between May 1st and June 8th, a sign, he thinks, that usage is declining for social games “across the board” as mobile gaming continues to rise.

Creutz lays out the relevant stats for Zynga:

Zynga saw significant declines in May from nearly all of its existing major games: Words With Friends had its third consecutive down month, losing 600K DAUs to 6.4MM (-8.6% m/m); CityVille lost 1.7MM DAUs to 4.5MM (-27.4% m/m); CastleVille lost 1.0MM DAUs to 4.4MM (-18.5% m/m); Hidden Chronicles dropped 1.8MM DAUs to 3.3MM (-35.3% m/m); FarmVille lost 600K DAUs to 4.0MM (-13.0% m/m); Zynga Slingo lost 600K DAUs to 3.1MM (-16.2% m/m); and Empires & Allies lost 400K DAUs to 1.3MM (-23.5% m/m), falling out of the top 20. Texas Holdem Poker only lost 100K DAUs to 6.8MM (-1.4% m/m). The lone bright spot for Zynga was the launch of Bubble Safari, which rocketed to the #3 slot by adding 5.7MM DAUs in four weeks. However, given the inverse-V trajectories of other recent Zynga launches, we are only moderately impressed by the early performance of the title.

Creutz suggests Zynga is being hit by the shift in Facebook (Nasdaq:FB) usage from the desktop to mobile phones:

We believe that mobile devices may be siphoning off an accelerating number of gamers from Facebook. Facebook itself is increasingly being accessed by mobile devices, however it is not possible to play Facebook-native apps through Facebook on a smartphone. We believe that over the last two months, trends in the casual digital gaming space have swung decisively towards mobile and away from social, at least in Western markets.

Facebook shares today are up 39 cents, or 1.4%, at $27.40.

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Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) Tries, Tries Again on a Smartphone

Northern, WI 5/29/12 (StreetBeat) -- Can a software company build its own smartphone? We may find out soon.

This past week, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) completed its acquisition of the hardware maker Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, which could lead to the search giant's making its own smartphone. But another software titan might be getting into the hardware game as well: Facebook (Nasdaq: FB).

Employees of Facebook and several engineers who have been sought out by recruiters there, as well as people briefed on Facebook's plans, say the company hopes to release its own smartphone by next year. These people spoke only on the condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing their employment or relationships with Facebook.

The company has already hired more than half a dozen former Apple software and hardware engineers who worked on the iPhone, and one who worked on the iPad, the employees and those briefed on the plans said.

This would be Facebook's third effort at building a smartphone, said one person briefed on the plans and one who was recruited. In 2010, the blog TechCrunch reported that Facebook was working on a smartphone. The project crumbled after the company realized the difficulties involved, according to people who had worked on it. The Web site AllThingsD reported last year that Facebook and HTC had entered a partnership to create a smartphone, code-named "Buffy," which is still in the works.

Now, the company has been going deeper into the process, by expanding the group working on Buffy, and exploring other smartphone projects too, creating a team of seasoned hardware engineers who have built the devices before.

One engineer who formerly worked at Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and worked on the iPhone said he had met with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, who then peppered him with questions about the inner workings of smartphones. It did not sound like idle intellectual curiosity, the engineer said; Mr. Zuckerberg asked about intricate details, including the types of chips used, he said. Another former Apple hardware engineer was recruited by a Facebook executive and was told about the company's hardware explorations.

When asked Friday, Facebook did not deny or confirm that a project to build a smartphone existed, but pointed to a previous statement it gave to AllThingsD last year that said in part, "We're working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers."

For Facebook, the motivation is clear; as a newly public company, it must find new sources of revenue, and it fears being left behind in mobile, one of the most promising areas for growth.

"Mark is worried that if he doesn't create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms," a Facebook employee said.

Facebook is going to great lengths to keep the phone project a secret, specifically not posting job listings on the company's job Web site, but instead going door-to-door to find the right talent for the project.

But can a company that is wired as a social network learn how to build hardware? Mixing the cultures of hardware and software designers is akin to mixing oil and water. With the rare exception of Apple, other phone makers aren't very good at this.

The biggest names in consumer electronics have struggled with phone hardware. Hewlett-Packard tried and failed. So did Dell. Sony has never done very well making phones.

"Building isn't something you can just jump into," explained Hugo Fiennes, a former Apple hardware manager for the first four iPhones who has since left Apple and is starting a new hardware company,Electric Imp. "You change the smallest thing on a smartphone and you can completely change how all the antennas work. You don't learn this unless you've been doing it for a while."

He added, "Going into the phone business is incredibly complex."

Facebook also faces hurdles, often of its own making, on mobile. Twitter, for example, is fully integrated into the Apple iPhone and allows people to seamlessly send Twitter messages with photos or article links. Facebook, which has had a contentious relationship with Apple, is still not integrated into iOS.

One Facebook employee said the phone project had been rebooted several times because Facebook originally thought it could figure out hardware on its own. The company has since learned that it needed to bring in people with phone-making experience, several people said. So it is hiring hardware engineers to work with a phone manufacturer and design the shape, style and inner workings of a Facebook phone.

Despite the difficulties, Facebook seems well positioned in certain ways to enter the smartphone market. It already has an entire operating system complete with messaging, calendar, contacts and video, and an immense app store is on its way with thousands of highly popular apps. There's also that billion-dollar camera app, in the form of Instagram.

If Facebook fails with its own team of engineers, it could buy a smartphone maker. The company took in $16 billion from its bumpy I.P.O. It could easily scoop up an infirm company like Research in Motion, which is valued at less than $6 billion, and drop a beautifully designed Facebook operating system on top of RIM's phones. HTC, which is upset with Google for buying Motorola, is worth about $11.8 billion and becoming cheaper by the day.

Facebook would not necessarily challenge Apple if it entered the smartphone marketplace. Instead, it could be Facebook vs. Google, which makes the Android operating system, with both companies going after a huge number of buyers of lower-priced smartphones.

"When you offer an advertising-based phone, you're targeting all the users on prepay that are budget-conscious of their communications costs," said Carolina Milanesi, a vice president and analyst for the Gartner Group.

Ms. Milanesi said that at a mass market level, both companies could take the same approach as Amazon, offering low-cost hardware, like the Kindle, and subsidizing some of the costs through advertising.

After all, both Facebook and Google make their money through advertising. If the companies have the opportunity to continually put ads in front of people on a smartphone screen, you would think the only question left would be to pick the right ringtone that makes that ka-ching sound.

Please contact www.thestreetbeat.com for interest in our latest investor relations platform the “CEO Interview Series” with its host Steve Kanaval. The package includes a one-on-one interview with a seasoned industry professional; published segment to our web site with embedded audio/video file; and a compressed file that can be easily e-mailed out to your current and/or potential investors. Please e-mail bflautt@gmail.com or call (662) 392-0740 for pricing and scheduling.

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Firefish (OTCBB: FRFS) Expands in Rapidly Growing Mobile Ad Market in India

Palm Beach, FL 5/23/12 (StreetBeat) -- India represents one of the hottest mobile advertising markets in the world. Research by industry expert InMobi over the last two years continues to show steady growth trends that are accelerating each year. In a 2010 report, James Lamberti, VP of Global Research & Marketing at InMobi, said "The Indian mobile advertising market continues to show rapid growth due to the improving ad ecosystem. Major publishers are bringing their media into the mobile channel while brands are simultaneously discovering the power of mobile advertising. This healthy ecosystem along with 3G network infrastructure improvements will position India as one of the most influential mobile markets on the globe".

InMobi certainly knows what they are talking about. The five-year-old Bangalore mobile advertising company recently attracted $200 million in funding from Japanese Internet giant Softbank in a placement that outsiders figure values InMobi at close to $1 billion.

Mobile campaigns are feeling a boon in the region unlike anywhere else in the world, with the mobile medium outstripping online advertising by more than three-fold.

The reasoning is pretty simple. As an emerging market, more sophisticated phones by mainstream brands have now penetrated the countries. In addition to the huge organic growth of mobile internet users, these popular handsets further promote usage and visibility in advertising by bundling applications like Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), Foursquare, Angry Birds, Flickr, and more.

Mobile devices are not a fad. They are the future of internet usage because accessing the web is far more convenient as compared to a PC. By the end of 2012, some experts predict that the number of mobile internet users will more than double that of PC internet users in India. The paradigm shift is in full swing and there are limited companies here in the U.S. that have established roots in the Indian markets to capitalize on the burgeoning mobile advertising field.

Firefish, Inc. (OTCBB: FRFS) is the mobile advertiser of choice in Mumbai city due to its large and highly segmented database, which currently has 2.5 million numbers in Mumbai. With its legacy programs advertising everything from jewelry to health services to consumer electronics, Firefish has even conducted mobile advertising programs for political organizations and religious institutions. The company's portfolio of services includes multi-city and nation-wide mobile advertising campaigns.

Engaging the targeted demographic is the key to success in any campaign. Firefish designs high-recall, high-engagement mobile advertising campaigns and provides detailed campaign delivery reports and analysis; setting them apart from competition and earning repeat customers.

Firefish's online platform allows retailers to log into their account, choose a consumer segment to send their advertising message to selecting age, gender, location and income levels, compose the advertising message to send, personalize the message via addressing the consumer by name, and schedule the message for later delivery. Retailers can also pay online. In addition, retailers can also call Firefish to fully manage their advertising campaign.

A diversified firm, Firefish also offers educational services to young learners and young adults in India, including the English Olympiad - an annual English competency program and competition for young learners. The company also owns online social networking platform www.ionisee.com. Ionisee.com offers all of the traditional features of social networking, with additional features that include the ability to communicate extensively with the platform over mobile phones and the ability to communicate with others in many languages.

With its primary launch area of Mumbai gaining momentum, Firefish has plans to expand its range of marketing and education services to the top 25 Indian metropolitan areas, which have in the aggregate more than 200,000,000 people.

Because the deal-flow is starting to roll-in, we are taking a closer look at Firefish. In March, the company reported two new orders from the government of Chhattisgarh, a state in central India, for books and services. The orders are being executed in partnership with the Cambridge University Press and total about $170,000 for the Firefish coffers. This week, the company disclosed that it has been selected as a marketing partner by the International Institute of Financial Markets (IIFM) for their nationwide marketing campaign. IIFM services are used by several of the premier trading companies in India.

The company is looking for liquidity, as shown by a recent 10 for 1 forward split in an attempt to create more robust trading activity. Combining the new orders, expanding business model in a massive market and corporate efforts to generate liquidity, is the reason that we encourage our members to begin their own due diligence on Firefish, Inc. and promptly add it to their watchlist.

Please contact www.thestreetbeat.com for interest in our latest investor relations platform the “CEO Interview Series” with its host Steve Kanaval. The package includes a one-on-one interview with a seasoned industry professional; published segment to our web site with embedded audio/video file; and a compressed file that can be easily e-mailed out to your current and/or potential investors. Please e-mail bflautt@gmail.com or call (662) 392-0740 for pricing and scheduling.

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Where are Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) friends? Stock sinks on 2nd day

Shawshank, VA 5/21/12 (StreetBeat) -- Facebook's (Nasdaq: FB) stock is sinking nearly 7 percent, falling below the $38 IPO price, in the social network's second day of trading as a public company Monday.

Investors and technology industry watchers are closely tracking the Menlo Park, Calif., company's shares. The world's largest social network was one of the most anticipated initial public stock offerings ever, and now serves as a bellwether for other social media companies.

Facebook's market debut Friday suffered some hiccups, with trading on the Nasdaq delayed for a half hour and issues with traders' orders. The stock closed Friday just 23 cents above where it priced Thursday night, when many investors had hoped for a big first-day pop.

Facebook Inc.'s stock is down $2.62 to $35.61 on Monday.

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Overhyped Social Media Stocks Highlight Value in CrowdGather (OTCBB: CRWG)

Palm Beach, FL 5/17/12 (StreetBeat) – There is a lot of activity surrounding social media stocks with the Initial Public Offering of Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) coming on Friday. The new listing, which could see the company valued at as much as $100 billion, has investors and analysts already concerned that the world’s largest social network could be overvalued from the get-go. Rather than try to ride that wave, savvy investors are looking to other social media and networking-related stocks that may offer a larger upside potential. An assessment of book value to price and shareholder equity/deficit of companies such as LinkedIn Corporation (NASDAQ: LNKD); IZEA, Inc. (OTCQB: IZEA); and CrowdGather Inc. (OTCBB: CRWG) reveals some stark differences and showcases where true value propositions may be found.

LinkedIn has become a household name and posted overall gains since its IPO in May of 2011. As the world’s largest professional network, revenues more than doubled in the first quarter; jumping net income to $5 million from $2.1 million in the year prior. The challenge is that LNKD already holds a huge market capitalization of $11.6 billion and is at the top-end of its price range since it IPO’d. Even though it has raised guidance and boosted revenue, many analysts still feel that the market cap is heavily weighted on where the company can be in 5 years or more, which has mushroomed the market cap to a position that the company may not be able to meet expectations for growth. The company has built a balance sheet that is nothing shy of impressive, though, with $873 million in assets and only $248 million in liabilities; giving them a book value of $624 million and a book value per share of $6.05. Total stockholder equity rings-in at $951 million. Shares of LinkedIn are trading at $111.95 each.

IZEA has certainly been making waves across the web as well recently. The company is focused on social media sponsorships (SMS), a growing segment within social media, where a company compensates a social media publisher to share sponsored content within their social network. It’s a broadening space, but the company seems undercapitalized at present. IZEA has amassed a net deficit of $18.1 million since inception and only has $225,000 in cash after a nearly $4 million loss in 2011. Book value per share is (-0.047), yet shares are trading at $0.37 giving IZEA a market cap of $14.31 million. IZEA has experienced momentum in its share price based upon provided guidance for significant growth in revenues for this coming fiscal year, but it does not have an appealing balance sheet.

CrowdGather Inc., a leading network of forum communities on the Internet and developer of innovative advertising technologies to monetize them, has been unnoticed by investors and may offer substantial upside, as justified by their finances and business model. The structure of being focused on forums may give CrowdGather a competitive position amongst Internet companies that are engaged in monetizing traffic from advertisements placed alongside user generated content like Twitter, Yelp, or Facebook. Forums, one of the original social media platforms, attract a different type of crowd that somewhat eschews places like those where posts are extremely short or social in nature. Forum users are focused on long form, in-depth discussions that serve as a valuable resource for people seeking knowledge about specific topics. While not as widely publicized, the industry is thriving with users. CrowdGather not only owns highly trafficked forums, but it also provides several easy-to-use platforms for members to build their own forum for their topic of choice. As per Google Analytics, during the third quarter ended January 31, 2012, CrowdGather’s traffic averaged 231 million monthly page views and 16.8 million monthly unique visitors across all properties.

While other Internet microcaps are burning through money like it is free, CrowdGather has a very high gross margin business that should make it easier for them to deliver bottom line results when revenues exceed expenses. In the most recent quarter, the company realized revenues of $549,750 for the three months ended January 31, 2012, as compared to revenues of $380,212 for the three months ended January 31, 2011. The absolutely stunning part: cost of revenue for the three months ended January 31, 2012 was $4,793, as compared to cost of revenue of $44,186 for the three months ended January 31, 2011. CrowdGather delivered a gross profit margin of almost 99% in their last quarterly results filing. If the company is able to maintain margins anywhere close to this as they scale, shareholders could see significant net income and EPS from the company in the future.

Insiders are not missing the big picture with CrowdGather as evident in the buying activity last year at higher prices than current levels. While other Internet micro caps are diluting to raise funds, CrowdGather is sitting on cash. Further, beta testing for its ad server is nearly complete with a launch planned for this fall, which could increase revenue momentum over the long term as the company will be able to more effectively target all of their hosted forums for advertisers seeking a specific vertical or demographic.

At the end of the latest quarter, CrowdGather had roughly $2.7 million in cash and $16.8 million in net shareholder equity. There are very, very few companies that post positive shareholder equity in the Over The Counter markets. Total liabilities only equal $83,000; giving CrowdGather a book value of 29 cents per share. Shares closed on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 28 cents each which equals a market cap of $16.3 million.

Breaking it down:

Taking the facts and ignoring the hype often results in a clearer picture of value. Pitting CrowdGather toe-to-toe with any of its micro cap Internet or Social Media peers shows a small, but sound business strategy with solid margins and wise financial sense. It also shows that the company is only trading at the value of its cash and assets without any real regard for its growth prospects. The numbers don’t lie.

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Facebook boosts IPO size by 25 percent, could top $16 billion

Orlando, FL 5/16/12 (StreetBeat) -- Facebook Inc increased the size of its initial public offering by almost 25 percent, and could raise as much as $16 billion as strong investor demand for a share of the No.1 social network trumps debate about its long-term potential to make money.

Facebook, founded eight years ago by Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room, said on Wednesday it will add about 84 million shares to its IPO, floating about 421 million shares in an offering expected to be priced on Thursday.

The additional shares will be sold by early investors including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Accel Partners' James Breyer and investment manager Tiger Global Management, the company said in a filing.

The company itself has not increased the number of shares it will sell.

Zuckerberg's voting power will be reduced to about 55.8 percent from about 57.3 percent after the IPO as a result of the issue of additional shares, the company said.

The expanded size, coupled with Facebook's recently announced plans to raise the IPO price range, would make Facebook the third-largest initial share sale in U.S. history after Visa Inc and General Motors.

The social networking company is drumming up massive demand for the offering even as slowing revenue and user growth spur questions about the long-term Facebook story.

Those concerns over revenue growth were underscored on Tuesday, when GM said it planned to pull out of advertising on Facebook.

"This is much more a spectacle, a media event and a cultural moment than it is an IPO," said Max Wolff, an analyst at GreenCrest Capital. "This is not a game of models and fundamentals at this point."

GM's announcement, while ill-timed for Facebook, should not seriously hurt the IPO's reception for now as it may not be representative of advertisers' overall attitude, said Brian Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research Group.

"The demand for the IPO probably won't be affected materially by this," he said, adding, however, there were probably a lot of calls between underwriters and investors following GM's announcement.

The IPO, Silicon Valley's largest, eclipses the roughly $2 billion debut by Google Inc in 2004.

Facebook raised the target price range to $34-$38 per share in response to strong demand, from $28-$35, according to a Tuesday filing. That would value the company at $93-$104 billion, rivaling the market value of Internet powerhouses such as Amazon.com Inc, and exceeding that of Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc combined.

The increased price range made it very unlikely that Facebook shares would double on their trading debut as they might have if the company had come out at the low end of its initial price range, Wolff said. He expects a first-day gain of about 10 percent.

"No rational person thought they were buying the stock for $28," said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Patcher, noting Facebook had traded as high as $44 in the secondary markets in recent months.

Facebook said in Tuesday's filing that it arrived at the higher IPO price range after one week of marketing the offering - part of a cross-country roadshow in which CEO Zuckerberg has taken the stage to lay out his vision for the company's money-making potential and its top priorities.

The price range hike, coupled with strong results from internet and social media players Groupon Inc and China's Renren Inc, contributed to a dotcom rally on Wall Street on Tuesday. Shares of Pandora Media Inc rose 10.3 percent, Zynga Inc was up 7.7 percent, Groupon climbed 3.7 percent and Renren gained 6.4 percent.

LONG-TERM GROWTH

Before the IPO size was increased, Facebook would have raised about $12.1 billion based on the midpoint price of $36 and the 337.4 million shares on offer originally.

At this midpoint, Facebook would be valued at roughly 27 times its 2011 revenue, or 99 times earnings. Google went public at a valuation of $23 billion, or 16 times its trailing revenue and 218 times earnings. Apple Inc went public in 1980 at a valuation of 25 times its revenue and 102 times earnings.

Facebook's IPO comes as some investors worry the company has not yet figured out a way to make money from a growing number of users who access the social network on mobile devices such as smartphones. Meanwhile, revenue growth from Facebook's online advertising business, which accounts for the bulk of its revenue, has slowed in recent months.

With some 900 million users, it had $1 billion in net income on revenue of $3.7 billion in 2011.

The company has also extended the time frame for its $1 billion acquisition of mobile app maker Instagram, projecting the deal would close this year instead of the second quarter as it previously indicated.

It provided no reasons, though a source familiar with the matter told Reuters last week that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has reached out to Google and Twitter as part of the agency's standard review for deals of that size.

Facebook is scheduled to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday. A host of Wall Street banks are underwriting the offering, with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs serving as leads.

Please contact www.thestreetbeat.com for interest in our latest investor relations platform the “CEO Interview Series” with its host Steve Kanaval. The package includes a one-on-one interview with a seasoned industry professional; published segment to our web site with embedded audio/video file; and a compressed file that can be easily e-mailed out to your current and/or potential investors. Please e-mail bflautt@gmail.com or call (662) 392-0740 for pricing and scheduling.

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It’s Zuckerberg’s World, Facebook Shareholders Just Live in It

Northern, WI 5/1/12 (StreetBeat) -- Social networking goliath Facebook (FB — pending) announced today that it would "encourage" users to advertise their organ donor status on their home page. While not legally binding, advocates hope the initiative will lead users to register themselves as official organ donors the next time they renew their driver's licenses.

According to Organdonor.gov, more than 114,000 people are waiting for an organ donation, 18 of whom die every day. It's unquestionably a good cause, but with Facebook set to raise more than $10 billion, it's hard not to take a somewhat jaded view of the announcement.

In the attached video, Breakout welcomes our Daily Ticker colleague Henry Blodget to discuss Facebook and the possible motives behind founder Mark Zuckerberg's announcement.

Blodget says the project itself is unambiguously about the social good, but it's also something of a warning, or at least a reminder, to would-be Facebook shareholders. As Zuckerberg wrote in history's most famous S-1 filing, Facebook serves a social, not a financial, mission.

"That is the opposite of most companies," says Blodget. "That letter is really a warning to shareholders that Zuckerberg is going to be doing the social mission thing—not the business." Public company or not, "Facebook is still a Mark Zuckerberg production."

Zuckerberg's total control is a mixed bag for shareholders. Citing Amazon, where Jeff Bezos has a similar power, Blodget says it's no coincidence Amazon was one of only a handful of companies to survive the dot-com era. With Bezos running Amazon in accordance with his vision rather than that of Wall Street, he was able to steer the company away from the trap of short-term thinking. (Note: Jeff Macke owns shares of Amazon and wrote about the company last week.)

If you're a long-term shareholder, by which Blodget means five to 10 years, "you can't ask for a better ownership structure," according to Blodget. Zuckerberg has clearly proven "he's the right guy for the job."

The timing of the initiative, coming as it does on the eve of the IPO, may be a PR stunt with a twist. Zuckerberg could very well be hitting the rounds not to hype the stock but to demonstrate one final time that he's not going to be taking his head out of the sand for publicity, to talk up the company, or for any reasons other than his own social agenda.

Shareholders looking to ride along with the enigmatic Zuckerberg and his Facebook are going to be welcomed aboard once the company goes public. If they don't like the direction Zuckerberg takes the company, they can't say they haven't been warned.

Please contact www.thestreetbeat.com for interest in our latest investor relations platform the “CEO Interview Series” with its host Steve Kanaval. The package includes a one-on-one interview with a seasoned industry professional; published segment to our web site with embedded audio/video file; and a compressed file that can be easily e-mailed out to your current and/or potential investors. Please e-mail bflautt@gmail.com or call (662) 392-0740 for pricing and scheduling.

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Facebook buying Instagram for $1 billion, won't cut off access to Twitter

Shawshank, VA 4/9/12 (StreetBeat) -- Facebook has agreed to purchase the photo sharing application Instagram for $1 billion.

The app lets users take photographs, add a filter, and then share them to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. After gaining 27 million users on the iPhone, it recently was made available on Android.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised to preserve Instagram's ability to share photos to multiple social networks beyond Facebook. "We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience," Zuckerberg said in a blog post. "We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook."

Zuckerberg didn't say how Facebook will make money on Instagram, which doesn't yet have advertising. He did note that it's the largest acquisition Facebook has ever made when measured by the size of its user base. Zuckerberg added that Facebook will try to boost Instagram's capabilities "by using Facebook's strong engineering team and infrastructure." The acquisition is expected to be completed before the end of June.

Please contact www.thestreetbeat.com for interest in our latest investor relations platform the “CEO Interview Series” with its host Steve Kanaval. The package includes a one-on-one interview with a seasoned industry professional; published segment to our web site with embedded audio/video file; and a compressed file that can be easily e-mailed out to your current and/or potential investors. Please e-mail bflautt@gmail.com or call (662) 392-0740 for pricing and scheduling.

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Facebook

Northern, WI 2/2/2012 (Streetbeat) -- FaceBook (NYSE:FACE) -- I searched to see if (Nasdaq:FACE) was available and I am speculating that FaceBook will choose the symbol (NYSE:BOOK) and clear business at the NYSE vs Nasdaq. I really don't know I am guesssing like everyone else.

But knowing Mark Zuckerberg as I do.... he will do it his way...just like Sergey and Larry did at (Nasdaq:GOOG). Zuckerberg is a comet worth watching. I can't help watching the Social Network Movie over and over again. Facebook is raising 10 Billion in it's upcoming IPO, but Zuckerberg changed our Culture for- ever, for -always !!!!

As with almost anything crafted by lawyers and bankers, the 197-page prospectus that Facebook filed is filled with boilerplate legalese and mind-numbing numbers. But there were some juicy details in there, too.

Documents confirmed what everyone had been hearing: Facebook is very profitable and getting stronger. The company Mark Zuckerberg started in 2004 has seen its annual revenue soar from $777 million in 2009 to $3.7 billion last year. Facebook's earnings have grown at a similar rate too, ballooning from $122 million in 2009 to $668 million last year. Facebook ended 2011 with $3.9 billion in cash. That's a relatively small amount compared to the nearly $45 billion that Google has in the bank.

Facebook has become so addictive that more than half its audience — 483 million users — log in every day.
Facebook's revenue total disappointed some people who pored through the documents. One reason: The company generates about $4.39 in revenue per user. "That is a surprisingly low number," said University of Notre Dame finance professor Tim Loughran, who studies IPOs. Google's annual revenue of nearly $38 billion works out to more than $30 per user of its services.

"Facebook needs to find more ways to get revenue from their users," Loughran said. Facebook listed its most promising expansion opportunities as Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea. The company, based in Menlo Park, Calif., eventually hopes to make its service available in China if it can navigate rules requiring online content to be censored if the Chinese government considers it to be objectionable or obscene.
The IPO filing gives some clue when Facebook is likely to surpass 1 billion users. If it can add users at roughly the same pace as last year, Facebook should surpass the 1 billion mark this summer.

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Facebook, Google, And Brand Bombing

Tallahassee, FL 12/12/11 (StreetBeat) -- Brand recognition is key to company's success--you know, in addition to quality goods and services--and the Internet provided an enormous new landscape upon which to build via advertisements.

Advertisements are everywhere--storefronts, snail mail, Web-based email, TV, radio, streaming media, social media, and just about every webpage you visit--and whatever one may think about them, they pay for just about everything, including those things we enjoy for free and rely upon on a daily basis.

Two of those things include Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Facebook, and both are about to introduce us to heavier doses of branding.

Facebook, which has been gradually introducing more branded/sponsored content over the last year or so, is going to start putting sponsored content in your Newsfeed. According to comments made by Facebook spokesperson Annie Ta to ClickZ News, the social network will be introducing Sponsored Stories to Newsfeeds as early as next month.

Essentially, it’s a way for the brands you or your friends have liked or pages you’ve interacted with to reach you. "You will only see Sponsored Stories in your news feed about your friends or people you are connected to. You will never [see] a post from a page you are not a fan of, or from people who are not your friends," said Ta.

This is already occurring in a roundabout way; when a friend likes a page or checks in to a business, that can be turned into a de facto ad in your Newsfeed or on your ticker. You see “So-and-so likes Widgets R Us” and the company’s logo underneath the post.

Now, however, if your friends check into a Starbucks, you might just see a Sponsored Story for Starbucks in your Newsfeed. And you can’t opt out. Purportedly, these ads will have limits--Ta mentioned one per day--but that very well could turn into more.

Google, in an effort to direct Web traffic to its own Google+ social network, is putting brands’ Google+ Pages in regular search results. We knew this was coming, but now it’s gradually rolling out.

It of course makes sense that a brand’s social network page shows up in Google search results--that’s already been the case with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. However, the G+ result appears to rank higher, and in a different place, than it probably should.

For example, a search for “AT&T” brings up AT&T’s own website first, with some of the site’s sub-pages indented underneath. The company’s G+ page is under the sub-pages with the same indentation. Again, this makes some sense--the G+ page is an official AT&T page, so it’s nice to have it lumped in with other official AT&T pages, but so is AT&T’s Twitter feed and Facebook page--which are closer to the middle of the search results. (In a search for “Toyota”, the Facebook page doesn’t appear until the middle of the second page of results.)

Not only does the G+ page get included with the official company website, you can add the page to your G+ Circles, effectively ensuring that you’re on the hook for receiving messages from that brand. Further, the G+ Pages result includes a sentence or two with the link, giving brands a chance to throw out something like a promotion to draw you in.

In Facebook’s case, the social network is making money off of letting other brands bomb you. Granted, the brands you'll see more of are more likely to be ones you're actually interested in, and companies will no doubt offer some sweet deals and specials with this method, so there's a slight benefit there.

In Google’s case, the brand being bombed is Google itself. Google's money will come from increased Web traffic, which its competitors are not going to be happy about.

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Facebook gearing up for 2012 IPO

Palm Beach, FL 11/29/11 (StreetBeat) --Facebook, the world's largest Internet social network, is preparing for a initial public stock offering next year, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Facebook is exploring raising $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday. It hopes the offering will value the company at more than $100 billion, according to WSJ, which first reported the story. Facebook's Chief Financial Officer, David Ebersman, had discussed a public float with Silicon Valley bankers but founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg had not decided on any terms and his plans could change, the Journal said.

The social network, which now claims more than 800 million members after seven years of explosive growth, has not selected bankers to manage what would be a very closely watched IPO. But it had drafted an internal prospectus and was ready at any moment to pull the IPO trigger, the Journal cited people familiar with the matter as saying.

At $100 billion valuation, the company started by Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room would have double the valuation of Hewlett-Packard, the Journal said. A formal S-1 filing could come before the end of the year, though nothing was decided, the newspaper added. A Facebook representative declined to comment.

Silicon Valley start-ups have this year begun to test investor appetite for a new wave of dotcoms. If it does debut in 2012, Facebook's IPO would dwarf that of any other dotcom waiting to go public.

"Farmville" creator Zynga has filed for an IPO of up to $1 billion. In November, daily deals service Groupon debuted with much fanfare, only to plunge below its IPO price within weeks. LinkedIn and Pandora are now also trading significantly below the levels their stocks reached during their public debuts earlier this year.

Facebook has become one of the world's most popular Web destinations, challenging established companies such as Google Inc and Yahoo Inc for consumers' online time and for advertising dollars. Facebook does not disclose its financial results, but a source familiar with the situation told Reuters earlier this year that the company's revenue in the first six months of 2011 doubled year-on-year to $1.6 billion.

Eric Feng, a former partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers who now runs social-networking site Erly.com, said that the cash Facebook will get in an IPO would allow them to make more acquisitions and refine or work on new projects, such as a rumored-Facebook phone or a netbook.

Having tradeable stock will also allow Facebook to attract more engineering talent who might have been more attracted to the company in earlier days when it was growing faster but now perhaps might be attracted to other companies. "It'll be a powerful bullet for them," said Feng.

Investors have been increasingly eager to buy shares of Facebook and other fast-growing but privately-held Internet social networking companies on special, secondary-market exchanges. Facebook said in January that it will exceed 500 shareholders this year, and that in accordance with SEC regulations, it will file public financial reports no later than April 30, 2012.

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Tweet Beat Gaining Traction

Oxford, MS April 28, 2011 (PennyPayDay) -- Tweet beat is a website that uses an advanced technology that categorizes tweets by being able to understand relationships without the use of hash tags and keywords. With this, users can see the tweets that have the most relevance to the subject.

You can also see the number of tweets in the elapsed time and the number of papers that have articles online about the subject. This is known to the site as “Twitterati”.

As many now know, Wal-Mart has purchased this company that owns and operates this web page. Kosmix was worth was purchased by Wal-Mart to expand in the world of social media and their business.

With the addition of this company, I expect Wal-Mart to expand further as time passes. The social media has become the source of many of the world’s news and gossip. With sites such as Facebook and Twitter, people are becoming more dependent on knowing the opinions of others. This is obviously seen in the business world as well.

I believe that more and more companies are going to jump on the bandwagon without considering that like all trends, this will fade. What I would like to know is what happens to the advertising world when it does.
However, for right now, Tweet beat is a growing site which will help Wal-Mart succeed in social media standings and yield more business tactics.

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Winklevoss Twins Want More Money From Facebook

Portrayed by Armie Hammer, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss got plenty of screen time in movie theaters with the box office sensation and award contender The Social Network. Moving from the entertainment section of the news to the business beat, the Olympic rowers are once again going after Time Magazine’s person of the year Mark Zuckerberg and his multi-billion dollar company, Facebook.

According to the New York Times, the brothers are continuing efforts to reach a new settlement with the company, despite sources telling the newspaper a statement was drafted on Thursday to drop the case.

After a four year battle beginning in 2004, the Winklevoss’ reached a settlement worth $20 million in cash and $45 million in Facebook shares. Their argument now is that they were allegedly misguided on the value of the business empire. Since the settlement was reached, the value of Facebook shares has risen, reaching an estimated worth of more than $140 million.

The new years resolution for the Winklevoss’ is to come to a settlement they feel is fair and just. In January, they, along with fellow Harvard classmate Divya Narendra, plan to ask a federal appeals court in San Francisco to reverse the settlement, so they can reopen their original case. They’d be taking a gamble, risking losing the millions they already pocketed. However, Tyler insisted it’s not about the dollar signs. “The principle is that they didn’t fight fair,” he told the NYT. “The principle is that Mark stole the idea.” Cameron added, “What we agreed to is not what we got.”

Facebook stated the Winklevoss twins have “settler’s remorse.” The site declined an interview on behalf of Zuckerberg, but spokesman Andrew Noyes told the NYT that Facebook would not comment “beyond what is already in our appellate briefs.”

Zuckerberg has long maintained his innocence, claiming he thought of the Facebook concept on his own and the Winklevoss’ social networking website was of a different nature. Aaron Sorkin’s unauthorized tale of the drama-filled events on the ivy filled campus of Harvard to the money-flowing city of Silicon Valley, The Social Network, is nominated for six Golden Globes.

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Facebook Donations

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is apparently a really nice guy. Him and some of his nerdy mates have pledged to give all their stupidly vast fortunes away to noble causes either during their lifetimes or after their death.

Presumably this is so we all forget all the data and privacy problems Facebook has been plagued with recently, plus the way Zuckerberg was portrayed as the world’s biggest bell-end in David Fincher’s film, The Social Network.

Bill Gates, the lord of the geeks and former one man bank came up with the scheme to get the obscenely wealthy to say they’ll give their billions away at some point down the line to benefit the less fortunate, with his wife Melinda and Warren Buffett.

Naturally, the news that Mark Zuckerberg is pledging to give all his cash away to the needy isn’t something you’d traditionally expect people to take the mickey out of, but we aren’t a traditional blog.

Zuckerberg recently rolled out a new Facebook page design, which for once didn’t result in all 500 million members joining groups called, “GET FACEBOOK TO CHANGE BACK, THE NEW LAYOUT IS CRAP!!!11ONE112!” He’s also been on a bit of a PR trail following the release of The Social Network, doing more interviews and public appearances, portraying himself as just a nice guy, albeit a nice guy whose bank statements has more zeros than a list of X-Factor contestants.

Now, we’re not suggesting that Saint Zuckerberg is resorting to the cheap tactic of making a sizeable charity donation in order to raise his public profile. But let’s face it, he probably is.

Maybe we should all go back to Myspace, at least Tom was our friend.

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Google Squares Off Against Facebook

Google isn’t going to share its data with just any company–not anymore, at least. The search giant, known for promoting the open web, is getting stern with its data, especially where it relates to Facebook, reports Reuters. Google is blocking data access to its Gmail and Android contacts lists to any company that refuses to give open access back to Google. In essence, the search company is no longer giving away its data like a charitable person; it expects a gift in return.

The move is a direct attack on Facebook, but there are no stats on how many other companies this block will affect. Until now, someone signing up for Facebook could instantly add Gmail contacts who happened to have a Facebook account to their friend list. This feature will be deactivated by Google.

“We have decided to change our approach slightly to reflect the fact that users often aren’t aware that once they have imported their contacts into sites like Facebook, they are effectively trapped,” Google said in a statement. ”We will no longer allow websites to automate the import of users’ Google Contacts (via our API) unless they allow similar export to other sites.”

A bitter rivalry

Google has accused the social network of trapping user data, like contacts and posts. Though Google has given Facebook free access to its information, Zuckerberg and company have not reciprocated, instead opting to sign a huge search deal with Bing and limit Google’s search access to Facebook information.

“Google is trying to use the leverage that it has to get as much access to the Facebook social graph (network of friends and interests) that it can, so it can provide the best search function that it can. The more data Google has access to the better its search results are going to be,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Lou Kerner.

The battle between Facebook and Google is only getting worse. Facebook continues to launch services like Places that compete with Google products. Google, for its part, is not innocent either. The company is in the advanced stages of creating its own social network that competes with Facebook.