Posts Tagged ‘Facebook IPO’

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Massachusetts Joins Growing Crowd Probing Facebook IPO (PC Magazine)
Massachusetts regulators on Tuesday issued a subpoena to Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter for Facebook’s initial public offering, in an effort to get answers about reports that some investors and not others were informed of earnings revisions for the company ahead of the IPO. The highly publicized IPO is facing scrutiny from several quarters for possible irregularities that may have occurred before the stock was floated and continued through the first day of trading. AllFacebook The hopes of collectors who sought to own one share of Facebook stock from its initial public offering last week were dashed, as paper stock certificates will not be made available, after all. CNNMoney reported that Computershare, which handles shareholder records for the social network, alerted GiveAShare.com and OneShare late last week that there would be no paper stock certificate. Reuters Facebook has agreed to settle a lawsuit that alleged the site’s “Sponsored Stories” feature publicized users’ “likes” without compensation or the ability to opt out, according to a court document filed on Tuesday. The proposed class action lawsuit, filed in a San Jose, Calif., federal court, could have included nearly one of every three Americans, with billions of dollars in damages, court documents say. PCWorld Facebook’s Timeline profiles may be getting a redesign, but this one probably won’t trigger a backlash. The new Timeline design, spotted by TPM Livewire, condenses the biographical information at the top of the page, so it’s nested within the user’s banner image instead of appearing below. Links to the user’s friends list, photos, locations and likes are tucked neatly underneath the banner, next to the user’s profile picture. Alongside those links, a new button called “Summary” leads to a list of major life events. CNET A federal judge has refused to order a Norwegian website that describes itself as “the number one socializing porn and sex network” to turn over its name to Facebook. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White last week ruled that the court had no jurisdiction because Facebook, which sued in California, had failed to show that the owner of website Faceporn had targeted residents of the state. Read more

It was a big week for social media. On today’s Morning Media Menu (MP3 link), GalleyCat editor Jason Boog shared his thoughts on Facebook’s long-awaited IPO, speculating on how today’s results will affect the larger social media ecosystem.

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Facebook hit the stock market this morning at $42.05 a share, sparking debate all across the Internet on how the rest of the day will go. On StockTwits, a social network for the investing community, more than half of today’s conversations are devoted to that very subject. Some of these people might even know what they’re talking about.

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Facebook’s IPO One of World’s Largest (AP)
Facebook priced its IPO at $38 per share on Thursday, at the top of expectations. Now, regular investors will have a chance to buy stock in Facebook for the first time. The stock will begin trading on the Nasdaq sometime this morning. The ticker symbol will be FB. The Verge To commemorate the momentous day, co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been invited by NASDAQ to ring the stock exchange’s opening bell. He won’t be at the New York stock market in person, but the ceremony will be carried out remotely from Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters Reuters The scramble for shares in what is one of largest initial public offerings in U.S. history quickly divided the haves from the have-nots on Thursday. Those with big brokerage accounts and a long history as customers of Wall Street firms likely got at least part of their orders for Facebook shares filled, but would-be buyers who had no such ties were lucky to get any. Bloomberg Businessweek The average first-day “pop” for a technology company is 32 percent; if Facebook follows that trend, it’ll be worth $137 billion by day’s end. But there’s little about Facebook that’s average, including its public offering. TechCrunch Facebook kicked off its 31st Hackathon Thursday evening to celebrate the IPO. Hackathons are a company tradition. They’re a place where engineers and other non-technical employees get to stay out all night building concepts into real products that sometimes eventually get shipped. The Huffington Post The big money has already been staked out. Facebook’s founders and early investors own huge amounts of stock. When the company goes public, some will hold on to their stock; others will walk away with cash after selling shares at the IPO. The Daily Beast The $104 billion Facebook IPO testifies to the still considerable innovative power of Silicon Valley, but the hoopla over the new wave of billionaires won’t change the basic reality of the state’s secular economic decline. AllFacebook We now know that Facebook’s initial public offering will open at $38 per share. But what price will it reach at the end of the trading day? Let us know your prediction by taking our poll. The Washington Post On Thursday, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., used the anticipation surrounding Facebook’s big day to talk again about why Congress needs to close loopholes in corporate tax law. Levin objected to Facebook’s decision to issue its employees options to buy company stock in the future at its original issuing price. Read more

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Facebook to Set Final IPO Price Later Today (CNN Money)
Facebook’s long road to an initial public offering is coming to an end. Late Thursday, it will fill in one last piece of the puzzle: Its final IPO price. Mashable On Wednesday, Facebook announced that an extra 84 million shares will be added to its stock pool for sale. The extra shares will come entirely from insiders and early investors, according to the AP. Reuters But investors who want Facebook shares when the No. 1 online social network goes public later this week may have lost the opportunity. TD Ameritrade and Fidelity’s brokerage arm both stopped accepting orders of Facebook shares as of Tuesday evening, according to representatives for each of the companies. CNET Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who is simultaneously becoming one of the richer and more reviled people around, wants to set the record straight. Saverin, who is now a citizen of Singapore after renouncing his U.S. citizenship, said his decision has nothing to do with taxes. Forbes All eyes are on Facebook this week in the lead-up to the social network’s initial public offering, but Google did all it could to steal back a little bit of glory on Wednesday. One of the biggest pieces of news was the search company’s addition of “Knowledge Graph” to its core product, a way to find answers without ever clicking a link and leaving the search results page. Read more

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Facebook is Getting its Own App Store for All Devices, All Platforms, All Prices (VentureBeat)
Facebook is launching a new App Center, “a place to find social web, desktop, and mobile apps” — and not just Facebook apps. The App Center will bring Facebook’s 900 million users all the best in iOS apps, Android apps, web apps, mobile web apps and even desktops apps. Facebook Developer Blog Many developers have been successful with in-app purchases, but to support more types of apps on Facebook.com, we will give developers the option to offer paid apps. This is a simple-to-implement payment feature that lets people pay a flat fee to use an app on Facebook.com. CNET The challenge, for a platform like Facebook, is that it has to build a store on top of other existing stores. It is especially tricky to build on top of the Apple App store, which remains the only legitimate channel for users to get apps onto iOS devices. AllThingsD Ironically, on Wednesday, the company submitted another amendment to its S-1 filing to the SEC, further outlining its weaknesses in the mobile realm. The company’s daily active users has grown fast over the past year. But the corresponding number of ads delivered isn’t matching the pace of the daily-active-user growth. CNN Money Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg won’t be the only one collecting billions from Facebook’s initial public offering: Uncle Sam and the state of California are also poised to cash in big. Tax collectors will be taking a giant bite out of the paper millions that thousands of Facebook employees will soon gain. The average tax hit: $1.1 million per employee. Read more

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Government Advises Americans to Create ‘Social Media Wills’ (New York Daily News) If you haven’t thought about what will happen to your Facebook account when you die, the government suggests you get started. Creating a “social media will” is now one of the government’s official personal finance recommendations, listed on USA.gov along with advice on home ownership and money management. USA.gov Like with a traditional will, you’ll need to appoint someone you trust as an online executor. This person will be responsible for closing your email addresses, social media profiles, and blogs after you are deceased. The Atlantic Sounds good, but legally it’s tricky territory. As Naomi Cahn, a professor of law at George Washington University, explained, “Formal wills become public. So you need to be careful what you put in a will, because anyone in the world could have access to it.” Read more

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LinkedIn Spends $119 Million on SlideShare — the YouTube of Slide Shows (Mashable) Professional social network LinkedIn on Thursday snagged presentation-sharing platform SlideShare for $118.75 million. SlideShare now attracts 29 million monthly visitors, while LinkedIn sees 107 million unique monthly visitors. GigaOM The acquisition, which involves 45 percent cash and 55 percent stock, gives LinkedIn another way to connect its users, who are often communicating and promoting themselves through PowerPoint presentations, slide shows and other content. TechCrunch The move makes a lot of sense from a product point of view. SlideShare recently deepened its integration with LinkedIn, and the two companies have compared their relationship to chocolate and peanut butter for professionals. The San Francisco Chronicle The Mountain View-Calif. based company, whose shares have more than doubled since its initial public offering last May, said membership increased to 161 million from 150 million in the fourth quarter. The company is signing up more professionals for its subscription services and attracting advertisers who want to reach the growing user base. CNBC LinkedIn reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street’s expectations. The company posted first-quarter earnings excluding items of 15 cents per share on revenue of $189 million. Net income rose to $5 million, from $2.1 million in the same quarter a year ago. Read more

They might have the golden touch, but even the top tech investors on Forbes’ 2012 Midas List have regrets. In a five-part video series, Forbes takes a look inside the minds of Founders Fund cofounder Peter Thiel, an early investor in Facebook; and LinkedIn cofounder and Greylock partner Reid Hoffman.

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Source: Facebook’s IPO Show to Hit the Road May 7 (Reuters) The roadshow for Facebook’s initial public offering is scheduled to start on Monday, meaning the company’s shares should begin trading on May 18, a source familiar with the process said on Tuesday. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has mostly operated in the background during Facebook’s closely watched journey to public markets, will be involved in the roadshow, another source said. Mashable However, Zuckerberg will only be present for some of the roadshow, sources said. COO Sheryl Sandberg will handle the rest, along with CFO David Ebersman. San Francisco Chronicle Numerous details remain unknown, especially the range where the Menlo Park company expects to price its stock. MSN Money Some are beginning to question whether the social networking giant is worth the investment. Revenue growth is a major issue for investors, according to Boston University professor N. Venkat Venkatraman, chairman of the Information Systems Department of BU’s School of Management. “Other [investors] will focus on Facebook’s monetization machine and question if Facebook could create and maintain the growth in revenue and profits,” Venkatraman said in an email. Read more