Zuckerberg Weds Longtime Girlfriend, No Word on Prenup (Reuters)
Details of Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise wedding trickled out on Sunday, but mysteries remained, not least whether there was a prenuptial agreement in place that could affect Zuckerberg’s large stake in the company. Zuckerberg wed his longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, on Saturday in the backyard of their modest home in Palo Alto, Calif., with fewer than 100 people in attendance, a Facebook spokesman authorized to speak on behalf of the couple said. CNET However, a woman in India is reportedly divorcing her husband because he committed the cardinal 21st century crime: he didn’t change his Facebook status when they got married. How can a woman trust a man who doesn’t whip out his cell phone the minute the marriage ceremony is over and declare himself to the world? VentureBeat NASDAQ chief executive Robert Greifeld admitted Sunday that the exchange was at fault for some glitches in early trading of Facebook’s IPO but said it had nothing to do with the stock’s uninspired performance. Facebook expected trading to begin at 11 a.m. on Friday, but it did not begin until about 11:30. GigaOM Catching the last five minutes of the Boston University commencement speech by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt on WBUR, I was struck by the veiled swipes (pokes?) he took at Facebook. You know, the company that last week launched the most anticipated IPO in years, and that despite NASDAQ glitches and a disappointing finish, wiped Google out of the record books? Yes, that Facebook. CNET A mother wanted to share a picture of her son on Facebook. He lived only eight hours. Facebook removed the image, deeming it “too graphic.” Much later, the company offered an apology and admitted it erred. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In Facebook IPO, Frenzy, Skepticism (The Wall Street Journal)
Facebook’s coming initial public offering has set off a frenzy of anticipation among Main Street and Wall Street investors desperate to get their hands on the stock. Late Monday, the social network raised the price range for its IPO to $34 to $38 a share, from $28 to $35 a share, said a person familiar with the matter, in a sign of investor appetite for the offering. Inside Facebook Facebook has announced a new design for its mobile newsfeed that displays posts in individual boxes similar to how they appear on timeline. As part of the redesign, photos now appear three times larger than before, which could make browsing more efficient since there is less need to tap to see an image full-screen. Yahoo! News/The Lookout Is Facebook a flash in the pan? Nearly half of Americans think so, according to a new AP/CNBC poll. Forty-six percent of those polled said the social networking giant is likely to “fade away as new things come along,” while 43 percent predict it will be “successful over the long term.” CNBC The poll also shows that 57 percent of Facebook users say they never click ads or other sponsored content when they use the site, with another 26 percent saying they hardly ever engage in such activity AllFacebook Recent college graduate Suleika Jaouad found out that when she opened up about having leukemia on Facebook, there was a community ready to embrace her as she faced this new challenge in life. Caretakers and fellow cancer patients, friends and family all were there waiting to offer support and share advice. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Facebook Tool Helps Organ Donors ‘Share Life’ (ABC News/Good Morning America) In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today the addition of a new tool on Facebook that will allow users to share their organ donor status with their friends. Users can add that they are organ donors to their Facebook timeline, and share their story about when, where or why they decided to become donors. ABC News Conversations over the dinner table with his med-student girlfriend helped Zuckerberg formulate this big idea. And it was his friendship with Apple founder Steve Jobs, whose life was extended by years following a liver transplant, in part, that spurred the 27-year-old Facebook founder and CEO to help put that idea into practice. The New York Times It is a rare foray by Facebook into social engineering from social networking, and one with a potentially profound effect, according to experts in the field of organ donation. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Introducing Google Drive… Yes, Really (Google Blog)
Just like the Loch Ness Monster, you may have heard the rumors about Google Drive. It turns out that one of the two actually does exist. BGR Google on Tuesday unveiled a new cloud storage service being billed as the next step in the evolution of Google Docs. Dubbed Google Drive and built to compete directly with Microsoft’s SkyDrive and other similar services, Google’s new cloud storage solution features 5GB of free space and deep Google Docs integration that allows users to collaborate and share all of their documents. GigaOM The new service will be accessible from a Web browser along with different client devices including Mac OS X, Windows and Android devices (tablets and phones). The iOS version of Drive will arrive soon, the company says. Lifehacker Each user gets 5GB for free, and can upgrade to 25GB for $2.49 a month, 100GB for $4.99 a month or even 1TB for $49.99 a month. If you upgrade, it’ll also raise your Gmail storage to that level. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In Facebook Deal, Board Was All But Out of Picture (The Wall Street Journal)
On the morning of Sunday, April 8, Facebook Inc.’s youthful chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, alerted his board of directors that he intended to buy Instagram, the hot photo-sharing service. It was the first the board heard of what, later that day, would become Facebook’s largest acquisition ever, according to several people familiar with the matter. AllFacebook Zuckerberg negotiated with his Instagram counterpart down from an original $2 billion offer, asking Systrom whether he thought Facebook could one day be worth more than $200 billion, roughly the size of Google. Systrom agreed to the one percent or roughly $1 billion in stock. SocialTimes Normally a deal like this takes several days, if not weeks, to complete, and usually involves more lawyers and bankers than were present during the negotiations. Gizmodo It was a bold strategy, and one that smacks of the kind of approach a small start-up might take. It’s not, however, the way most people might expect a multi-million dollar public organization to conduct business. TechCrunch This just in: According to multiple sources close to the company, Facebook is eying an IPO on May 17th — depending on whether the SEC agrees that all the reams of paperwork (including those concerning its recent acquisition of Instagram) are in order. PRNewser The Ad Age Digital Conference continued Wednesday with a presentation from David Fischer, Facebook’s VP of business and marketing partnerships, whose presentation could be boiled down to this: “Your brand needs an always-on strategy.” continued…

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Star-struck Japan PM Befriends Facebook’s Zuckerberg (Reuters)
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda frequently entertains dignitaries from all over the world, but he was a touch star-struck on Thursday when he hosted a young billionaire with a whiff of celebrity: Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. As cabinet ministers filed through Noda’s residence for a late afternoon meeting, it was Zuckerberg who drew a fusillade of camera flashes from a hefty media contingent as he strode through the entrance like a movie star. ZDNet It is still not clear exactly what Zuckerberg’s visit to Japan will entail, but it is already appearing more business orientated than his holiday in China. AllFacebook The International Herald Tribune’s Rendezvous blog reported that Zuckerberg and girlfriend Priscilla Chan were spotted in Shanghai Tuesday, immediately fueling speculation that Facebook was making another attempt to gain a foothold in a market where access to the social network is severely restricted. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

There’s plenty of speculation out in the marketplace right now. Let’s take a look at where the seven hottest pre-IPO social media companies currently stand:

1. Facebook: that’s the one everybody cares about, right? And by everybody, I include the folks at Zynga, who have IPO ambitions of their own. Well, here’s the deal: nobody seems to know when Facebook is going public (except maybe Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and a handful of others). In April, however, the social media giant is going to have to file with the SEC because it has more than 500 shareholders. When they are forced to open the kimono, an IPO is expected to follow. That could come in September 2012.

2. Groupon: can you believe these guys are still pushing forward? After several amendments to the SEC documents they filed with the SEC, because CEO Andrew Mason apparently loves to see his own words in the press, several senior-level employees have departed the company. Nonetheless, Groupon remains committed to going public.

3. TripAdvisor: this customer review site for the travel sector filed earlier this year and hasn’t said anything about altering its plans. So, there’s a chance Expedia will still spin it off this year. Of course, there are signs of trouble nearby: Kayak, which also plays in the online travel space, recently revealed that it’s deferring its IPO.

4. Glam Media: could this online advertising platform take the plunge? It’s still in the rumor stage right now, but the company has hired a CFO who has gone the distance before. That’s usually a good sign that the idea of going public is being bandied about internally.

5. Zynga: there are so many reasons for Zynga not to go public, but the company hasn’t pulled back from its filing. In fact, it issued an amended one last week, which left accountants wondering how to depreciate virtual assets. The consensus is that Zynga is a fairly strong company, and its brand will help with an IPO even in a volatile market.

6. LivingSocial: While Groupon is gung ho to go public, its competitor is showing more caution. The latest development may be to accept another round of venture capital money (amounting to $200 million), in lieu of a near-term IPO.

7. Twitter: you’re going to have to wait for this one. The earliest Twitter would go public, according to the rumors going around, is sometime in 2013. This might be smart. Twitter has some work to do developing revenue streams, making smart acquisitions and building out its platform with new features that have been owned so far by its application ecosystem. But, if Twitter can’t pull all this off, it will have missed an opportunity to cash out when expectations were lower.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.