Facebook Camera App Launches for iOS (TechCrunch)
Facebook began rolling out a standalone photos app Thursday with which users can shoot, filter and share single or sets of photos and scroll through a feed of photos uploaded to Facebook by your friends. Facebook Camera for iOS lets users rapidly pick one or more photos, apply filters, tag friends and locations, add a description and post. Gizmodo iOS users are used to pulling down at the top of apps to refresh a stream, but this action reveals your iPhone’s photo album, instead. This takes getting used to, as does the process of selecting multiple photos to upload or changing your mind and removing one. Wired The product highlights the company’s commitment to its mobile business. But considering Facebook’s recent purchase of the photo-sharing app Instagram, it’s hard not to compare the two. Silicon Valley Mercury News Facebook agreed to acquire Instagram on April 9 for cash and stock then valued at $1 billion, but the value of the stock has widely varied after the Menlo Park, Calif.-headquartered social network went public last week and has experienced volatility on Wall Street. The deal has not closed, and Facebook recently changed wording in its Securities and Exchange Commission filings that indicated it did not expect the acquisition to be complete in the current quarter. Reuters Less than a week after its IPO, Facebook is already facing multiple lawsuits by disgruntled shareholders who claim that the company and its underwriters told only select institutional investors about the social media company’s weakened growth forecast. This is not the first time investors in a hot tech company’s initial public offering have alleged that underwriters favored their regular clients at the expense of the little guys. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Facebook Faces Shareholder Lawsuits (AP)
Facebook’s fourth day of trading as a public company saw an increase in the company’s stock price and shareholder lawsuits related to the social network’s botched initial public offering. Several shareholders who bought stock in the IPO have filed lawsuits against Facebook, its executives and Morgan Stanley, the IPO’s lead underwriter. Reuters Meanwhile, Facebook is considering a stock-listing proposal put forward by the New York Stock Exchange, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters, in the wake of a disappointing initial public offering last week on the rival NASDAQ bourse. Facebook has exchanged phone calls and emails with NYSE Euronext and are considering their pitch, the source said without elaborating on specifics. CNET Facebook plans to open its first Middle East office in Dubai next week, according to the Associated Press. This United Arab Emirates city is considered the Silicon Valley of the region, so it makes sense that the social network would put its Persian Gulf hub here. The Hill Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday began to look into the debacle of what was supposed to be the social networking company’s crowning achievement. Lawmakers want to know whether institutional investors got a sneak peek at an updated analysis, written just before the initial public offering, that gave a more pessimistic assessment of Facebook’s future revenues. AllFacebook Some Facebook page administrators are seeing messages in the top-right-hand corners of their timeline pages urging them to create Facebook ads and containing a “promote your page” button. Have you seen similar messages on Facebook pages you manage? Mashable A Facebook page and a six-minute video tell the story of a 12-year-old girl whose mother died when she was 3 years old, grew up being abused by her father and bullied on her Facebook page. Eventually, the girl commits suicide. There’s just one problem: this is all fake. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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.

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. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Study: Google Ads Work Better Than Facebook’s (Boston Herald)
Facebook may be this week’s stock market darling, but when it comes to online display advertising, search engine Google provides advertisers with “significantly more value” than the social media giant in terms of growth rates, performance, targeting options and formats, according to a study released Tuesday. The study compares the value of Facebook advertising to Google’s Display Network. PC Magazine Facebook moved quickly — again — to address concerns that it wasn’t doing enough to satisfy mobile users, buying the developers of the Lightbox Android photo app. However, the company also made it clear that Facebook was not acquiring the company or the photos that users had stored on the Lightbox website, just the developer team. AdAge General Motors said Tuesday that it is “reassessing” its spending on Facebook advertising — about $10 million — but “remains committed” to the social network as part of “an aggressive content strategy with all our products and brands.” Meanwhile, Scott Monty, Ford’s head of social media, said that the automaker is bullish about Facebook ads — particularly “sponsored stories” that contain a social layer — and intends to “accelerate” spending on them. AllFacebook Facebook followed up last week’s introduction of its app center with two new metrics to its insights for applications: app ratings and negative feedback. The new app ratings dashboard will bring developers information on how users rated their apps with the five-star ratings system Facebook recently implemented. The negative feedback feature shows developers how many times stories from their apps have been hidden or reported as spam, as well as how many times the app itself has been blocked. Mashable Two Colombian criminals almost got away with robbing an Internet cafe, but one of them checked Facebook first — and ended up being identified and arrested because he forgot to log out. The two men whipped out guns at the cash register to demand money and made a clean getaway on a motorcycle. After the men escaped, an employee at the cafe called the police turning in information from the Facebook page that led to his arrest. continued…

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 IPO Week: The Basics (PC Magazine)
Big news for Facebook this week — and no, not just because the company is testing new ways for its users to annoy each other in the form of paid-for “highlighted” posts. Actually, it’s Facebook IPO week! The significance of this fact carries a ton of importance if you’re an institutional investor, a small amount of importance if you’re a neophyte investor, and absolutely no meaning whatsoever if you think the stock market is little more than organized gambling. ZDNET Going public brings with it all new pressures. For venture-backed companies such as Facebook, it means a difficult transition from the multi-year expectation on delivering returns to the quarterly results horizon. Even in the extremely fast-moving world of Internet companies, this can come as a shock to the system. AP He famously wears a hoodie, jeans and sneakers, and he was born the year Apple introduced the Macintosh. Today is his 28th birthday. With eight years on the job, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, has logged more time as leader than the average CEO, whose tenure is a little more than seven years, according to executive search firm Spencer Stuart. Bloomberg News Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said he will buy shares in Facebook when the social networking company sells stock to the public. Wozniak, who built the first Apple computer with Steve Jobs and co-founded the company with him in 1976, said he would buy Facebook’s stock regardless of its valuation. Mashable Facebook, infamous for its changing policies and confusion among users about what they’re getting themselves into when they use the world’s largest social network, has finally aggregated all its terms and policies under the same roof. That roof — Facebook.com/policies — contains, in the words of Facebook, “Everything you need to know, all in one place.” continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Bing Reinvents Social Search and Discovery (Mashable)
Bing has been reinvented, offering enhanced search results that tap into the power of social media. Microsoft has done this by pulling people out of search results and putting them in their place: A right-hand social column that will eventually include Facebook, Twitter, Google+ Quora and LinkedIn integration, as well as people who may know something about your most recent Bing query. AllFacebook The new Bing will gradually be rolled out to users, and those interested in getting it earlier can sign up. The search engine makes its suggestions based on information in friends’ Facebook profiles, their likes and photos they have shared. The New York Times Strengthening the ties between Bing and Facebook is a sign of how Microsoft and Facebook are working together to provide a counterbalance to their common adversary, Google. While Google is by far the dominant player in the Internet search business, it also competes with Microsoft in productivity applications and with Facebook through its Google+ social network. The Wall Street Journal Microsoft’s share of U.S. Web search was 15.3 percent in March, according to comScore, while Google had a 66.4 percent share. Combined with Yahoo!, for which Bing also powers search, Microsoft had a combined 29 percent market share. Forbes In 2007, Microsoft spent $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook, which goes public next week. And the two nabbed headlines in October 2010 by announcing their plan to team up on social search. 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.

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.” continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Facebook IPO Pitch: Can it Win Big Investors? (Mashable) Looking ahead toward its much-anticipated IPO later this month, Facebook has produced a 30-minute video pitch to show big-time investors why sinking money into a publicly traded Facebook will be a good idea. It’s an interesting take on the normal business investment pitch video — instead of a heavy emphasis on dry finance numbers, Facebook plays to the heartstrings. Reuters In the presentation, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said mobile is a key area of growth for Facebook, and that the company would use sponsored stories to generate more advertising income. Advertisers pay Facebook to highlight certain stories. These sponsored posts recently started running on the News Feeds of Facebook mobile users. Financial Times Pricing for Facebook’s premium “social” advertisements continues to rise, two recent studies have found — a positive indicator that could offset concerns about a dip in advertising growth and help sentiment towards the internet company’s initial public offering. A report to be released today by Marin Software, a digital marketing platform that processes more than $100 million worth of spending on Facebook, found a 26 percent increase over the last year in the cost per click for “premium” ad formats. AllFacebook Facebook’s initial public offering slated for May 18 hasn’t slowed its acquisition frenzy, as the social network gobbled up location-based mobile application Glancee for an undisclosed amount. Glancee, an app for Apple iOS and Android devices, allowed users to sign in with Facebook and discover other users within a specified distance with similar interests. Fortune The economy is improving. Berkshire Hathaway’s stock is undervalued. And Facebook is a crapshoot. That was the general feeling at a gathering of investors on the eve of Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.