Posts Tagged Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook Unveils New Waste of Time : The New Yorker

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Borowitz Report, Humor/Parody on April 7, 2013


The Borowitz Report

 

APRIL 7, 2013

FACEBOOK UNVEILS NEW WASTE OF TIME

POSTED BY ANDY BOROWITZ

mark-zuckerberg-290.jpg

MENLO PARK (The Borowitz Report)—Before a rapt audience at Facebook headquarters Thursday, Facebook C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg unveiled new software that he promised “will totally change the way you are wasting your life.”

Explaining the development of Facebook’s new phone software, Home, Mr. Zuckerberg said, “Our research showed that Facebook users still had a few hours a day when they were leading somewhat healthy and productive lives. Our new software will change all of that.”

Mr. Zuckerberg said his developers had worked for months developing Home, “which seizes control of your phone and makes it good for little other than Facebook—much like many Facebook users themselves.”

By bombarding the user with status updates on a twenty-four-hour basis, he boasted, “Home transforms Facebook from just a social network into something akin to a neurological disorder.”

As the audience applauded that pronouncement, Mr. Zuckerberg added, “At Facebook, we want to be a million voices inside your head.”

When one member of the audience worried whether Home would give Facebook even more access to private information about one’s life, Mr. Zuckerberg reassured the questioner, “After using Home for several weeks, you will have no life.”

While clearly proud of his latest product, Mr. Zuckerberg gave notice that he did not intend to rest on his laurels: “At Facebook, we will never stop striving to replace real experience with something soulless and empty.”

Facebook Unveils New Waste of Time : The New Yorker.

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Area Man Regrets Investing In Facebook | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook, Humor/Parody, The Onion on August 23, 2012


 

Area Man Regrets Investing In Facebook

AUGUST 22, 2012  

MENLO PARK, CA—Saying that he thought it was a “safe bet” at first, local man Mark Zuckerberg, 28, told reporters Tuesday that—after going what he called “all in” on the business—he now regrets staking so much of his financial future on the Internet company Facebook. “It seemed like a slam dunk—popular company, kids love it, and my financial advisors were telling me this stock was going to be a monster,” said Zuckerberg, who works in computers, and has lost nearly $600 million since Facebook went public in May. “But you know what, I’ll admit there was always a small part of me that knew I was going to lose a boatload on this thing, because, when you think about Facebook, there’s not a whole lot of room for long-term growth there, or any real solid plan for the future. I guess it’s just another one of those overhyped tech stocks, and I bought into the hype.” At press time, Zuckerberg sold his shares in Facebook and invested in GE, which the computer programmer and husband called “a fine, safe American company that never gets too high, never gets too low.”

 Area Man Regrets Investing In Facebook | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.

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Michelle Malkin » As Facebook stock is un-friended, California fears it’s about to be even more broke than initially thought

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Economy, Facebook, Government, Taxes on August 6, 2012


 

 

As Facebook stock is un-friended, California fears it’s about to be even more broke than initially thought

By Doug Powers  •  August 2, 2012 04:58 PM

California’s tax revenue predictions from Facebook might end up being an object lesson in “don’t count your chickens until they accept your friend request”:

 

With shares of Facebook hitting new record lows, the state of California might be more concerned than most.

The social network’s declining stock price could cost the Golden State “hundreds of millions of dollars” in revenue not received from taxes on capital gains, according to a report from the state’s Legislative Analysts’s Office.

The report said the most populous U.S. state’s $91.3 billion budget, approved in June, depended on $1.9 billion in income-tax revenue from company insiders such as CEO Mark Zuckerberg. California had expected Zuckerberg and others to exercise options at a share price of $35.

Facebook’s share price hasn’t closed above its $38 IPO price since its first trading day on May 18. On Thursday, Facebook’s shares sank 3 percent to hit another record low of just above $20. They are now down 47 percent from their public trading debut in May.

Heaven forbid California’s politicians should consider cancelling construction of the train to Farmville though.

Facebook closed at $20 today, and this certainly won’t help matters in the immediate future:

 

Facebook’s share price dipped below $20 on Thursday after reporting slowing growth and an admission of an alarming number of fake accounts.

In a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the social media company said that as many as 83 million of its accounts are fake.

It also reported that as many as five percent of its active users have duplicate accounts.

Facebook members grew to 955 million this year.

It says 1.5 percent of its accounts are likely spam or accounts set up for other malicious activity. The fake accounts are concentrated in developing markets, according to the filing.

It also blames people who set up accounts for non-human entities, such as pets.

There are “inherent challenges” in measuring usage,” the social network said.

Wouldn’t you think Facebook would have been forced to nail down this kind of information before the IPO? Or did they but their data was “inaccurate”?

I’m off now to tell my dog to “like” this post on his Facebook account. Help is on the way, Governor Brown!

 Michelle Malkin » As Facebook stock is un-friended, California fears it’s about to be even more broke than initially thought.

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Free Wood Post – Facebook Buys InstaBaby for $3 Billion

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Free Wood Post, Humor/Parody on July 15, 2012


Facebook Buys InstaBaby for $3 Billion

By Orbson Rice

Facebook surprised Wall Street insiders today when it purchased the upstart app Instababy for an estimated $3 billion. Instababy was created in 2009 by James and Irene Parker as an app for Facebook that would allow them to create an imaginary baby to appease the demands of friends and family. According to their website, “Almost as soon as we were married our friends and family would hound us about having children. We weren’t ready to take that leap yet, but they kept asking. Finally, we said enough. We created Instababy and the questions stopped!”

Instababy has now delivered over 1 million babies to users and can be downloaded to any Android or iOS5 device. The Parkers have also expanded the app to give a complete child experience from birth to college graduation. By plugging in physical and psychological traits of the prospective parents, Instababy creates a customized virtual baby. Users can then schedule instant uploads to Facebook for special events such as “baby’s first birthday” and their “child’s dance recital”. Instababy will also share photographs and short stories about their “child’s” progress. The app can even insert your virtual baby into vacation photos. According to Instababy user Marjorie Philips, “It is awesome! You know all of those annoying stories your Facebook friends post about how amazing their kids are? Well, now I can do that too. Your daughter just won her science fair? Well guess what, mine just won a research grant with Stephen Hawking.” Some critics however, have questioned the longevity of such a website. Wouldn’t your family and friends eventually find out?

According to Irene Parker, they were surprised at the results. “More than 90% of our Facebook friends and family never found out. We discovered that very few people on Facebook ever see each other and even when they do, they often don’t bring their kids. It seems like the more connected we have become as a society, the less connected we actually are. Interestingly, once we had our ‘children’, people don’t seem nearly as inclined to ask us about them as they were before. The few who did discover the truth were initially disappointed but then they joined in the fun too. My mother-in-law even created an Instababy for herself.”

Though Instababy sounds like a hit, analysts wonder why Facebook would pay the hefty $3 billion price tag for the app. Comments from the recently married Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg suggests he believes that the app “is a good investment for Facebook and fits perfectly with what we are trying to accomplish.” In unrelated news, Zuckerberg and his new wife announced that they are expecting their first child.

The Top 10 Reasons People Love Instababy:

1. Create a photo timeline from birth to college graduation.

2. Schedule automated posts for Facebook in seconds.

3. Always have the smartest and cutest baby of any of your friends.

4. Leverage in hostage situations: “please sir, I have children”.

5. Instant Excuse: “Sorry I would’ve loved to help you move but little Ricky is sick.”

6. Receive gifts that you can return for stuff for you want (like a Jet Ski) and then create customized childlike thank you notes to family and friends.

7. No doctors, no medical bills and no delivery. Instababy is instant gratification!

8. Be able to watch kid’s movies like Brave without being embarrassed.

9. 20% off discount to Hire-An-Actor for the big events like graduations.

10. Save an estimated $200,000+ (the approximate cost of raising a child from birth through college)!

 

 Free Wood Post.

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Welcome to the soon-to-be enormous world of Facebook email spam | ZDNet

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook on June 27, 2012


 

Welcome to the soon-to-be enormous world of Facebook email spam

By David Gewirtz | June 27, 2012

Summary: Thanks, Facebook. You just [expletive deleted] us up the [expletive deleted]. [Expletive deleted] you!

I am pissed off. Like most other Facebook users, I woke up recently to discover I had a Facebook email address. I don’t want a Facebook email address. Frankly, if I were King of the World, I’d boot Facebook into a giant black hole and laugh gleefully as the entire thing burned to a never-to-haunt-us again crispy hulk.

Fine, I’m mixing metaphors. But I’m pissed.

I didn’t pay all that much attention to this until I read Violet’s piece on Facebook email addresses, and then I realized what a nightmare those [profanity deleted] at Facebook are.

See also: Apple iOS 6 and the Facebook email address lock-in?

First, I didn’t exactly want to log into Facebook. I try to avoid doing so more than once a month. But, fine, in I went. Then I looked at my profile settings and my contact settings. I found my previously entered email address (the one I use for everything) and noticed that I’d explicitly marked it as “Hidden from profile”.

I had already told Facebook I didn’t want to share my email address.

So what do the [expletive-deleted] at Facebook do? They gave me a Facebook email address and made it public. Even though they knew I explicitly DID NOT WANT my email address displayed on Facebook.

But that is not the worst of it. Oh, no. Facebook doesn’t allow me to turn off my new Facebook email inbox and refuse mail. They just allow me to hide my Facebook email address.

So, let’s say I want to send email to someone named Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook. He doesn’t want me to see his Facebook email address. Oh, my, I still want to send him email there.

What could his address possibly be? Hmmm. Well, Facebook takes the first name and concatenates it with the second name. That’s tough to figure out. No, no it’s not. I’ll just send mail to MarkZuckerberg@facebook.com — even though the email address is supposed to be hidden.

Now, imagine you’re a spammer.

You know that, oh, about 900 million people use Facebook — and almost all use their real names. So, you know that if you put a real name (minus the space) in front of @facebook.com, most likely those users will get that email.

See also: Facebook email: pointless endeavor, spammer’s dream, or both?

Now, do those users have email rules? No. Do those users have junk filters? No. Do those users have any defense at all, even the ability to turn off getting email. No. No. No. No.

Thanks, Facebook. You just [expletive deleted] us up the [expletive deleted]. [Expletive deleted] you!

Normally, I’m not a big fan of added regulation, but I think it’s high time we regulated the [expletive deleted] out of Facebook. Previously, I’d mentioned I wanted to prevent employers from demanding access to your Facebook accounts, but I now think it’s high time we explicitly legislate Facebook into making all new features optional and opt-in only.

This [f-bomb] sucks.

 Welcome to the soon-to-be enormous world of Facebook email spam | ZDNet.

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Katherine Losse, the Woman in the Facebook Frat House – WSJ.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook, Work Place on June 25, 2012


June 22, 2012

The Woman in the Facebook Frat House

An early staffer recalls the raucous days of a company in transition from Harvard dorm room to Silicon Valley

By KATHERINE LOSSE

 

The author joined Facebook in 2005 as one of the first members of the company’s nascent customer-relations team. It was just a year since Mark Zuckerberg had moved Facebook’s headquarters from his Harvard dorm room to California. When she arrived, there were 50 employees working from a small office in downtown Palo Alto, and the collegiate culture remained thick. Here is some of what she remembers from those days.

 

[image]

Getty Images

Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2005. The office’s early days were permeated with a boyish vibe.

 

At 11 a.m. on my first day at Facebook, the young, plain-looking guys in T-shirts, gazing at their screens, seemed startled—if not displeased—to see a strange new woman in the office.

The only other woman in the office—an administrative assistant—was more animated, smiling toothily as she welcomed me in. She sat in front of a large piece of graffiti art featuring a cartoonish, zaftig woman with green hair who floated above an ominous cityscape.

Much of the graffiti in the room featured stylized women bursting from small tops that tapered down to tiny waists, mimicking the proportions of female videogame characters. It seemed juvenile, but I wasn’t very bothered—it seemed like the kind of thing that suburban boys from Harvard would think was urban and cool. “We had to move the really graphic painting to the men’s bathroom because someone complained,” an engineer told me as he gave me a tour of the tiny office. He said this with the slight mocking disapproval that was my new colleagues’ default tone in response to anything that resisted their power.

I got it: If you couldn’t handle the graffiti, or the unrepentantly boyish company culture that it represented, the job wasn’t going to work out.

A Stanford grad introduced me and another newbie to the janky application through which users’ emails to Facebook flowed. Once we learned how the software worked, he taught us, without batting an eye, the master password with which we could log in as any Facebook user and gain access to all messages and data. “You can’t write it down,” he said, and so we committed it to memory.

I briefly experienced stunned disbelief: They just hand over the password with no background check to make sure that I am not a crazed stalker?

Security measures would be implemented later that made it impossible for anyone to use the master password without authenticating themselves as an employee. And a year after that, the password would disappear entirely in favor of other, more secure forms of logging in to repair accounts. But at the beginning, there was only one password. For us, as administrators, everything on Facebook really was there for the seeing.

In the winter of 2006, Facebook employees were treated to a vacation in Tahoe, where we all stayed together in a big house. Toward the end of one drunken night, I donned the bearskin, complete with head, which adorned the banister on the stairs. Mark Zuckerberg thought this was hilarious and insisted that I continue to wear the bearskin around my shoulders. One of the engineers naturally took pictures all night of our shenanigans to post to Facebook. In one of the last photos he took, Mark is gesturing at me haughtily like an emperor as I stand doubled over in laughter with the bear suit draped over me.

It was all innocent fun; everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves, but when I saw the photograph appear in a Facebook album that Monday I was struck by the loaded nature of the image, ripe for interpretation, in which Mark appeared to be commanding a female employee to submit.

More interesting than the fact that the photo was taken and posted on Facebook is that it didn’t occur to anyone in the office that there was anything wrong with it, or that it revealed something unattractive about the culture of Facebook. As Mark wrote on his business card with boyish hubris, “I’m CEO, bitch.” The image of me in the bearskin was saying that power wasn’t something to be questioned; it was something to collect and brandish.

By 2008, there were rumors of an important new hire that Mark had made to the executive team. That Friday, he convened an All Hands to introduce Sheryl Sandberg, a high-powered, multimillionaire advertising and operations executive from Google, as chief operations officer. “Sheryl and I met at a party and we immediately hit it off,” Mark announced.

“We began talking for hours,” he went on. “She asked me questions about how I was running the company. I was really impressed with how smart she is.” Mark spoke with an uncharacteristic smile and glow, not flirtatious exactly, perhaps a function of some kind of sense of relief, as if he had been seeking someone like Sheryl for some time. “When I met Sheryl, the first thing I said was that she had really good skin,” Mark continued, “and she does,” he said, gesturing toward Sheryl, whose face had an admittedly creamy tone. She was smiling and didn’t flinch.

“‘I’m so good that I make things happen and no one

even knows about them,’

Sheryl Sandberg smiled.”

At a one-on-one meeting with Sheryl weeks later, I found out that she had an interest in the topic of women at Facebook and in Silicon Valley generally. She scheduled individual meetings with all the women in engineering. By that point, they numbered about 15 out of hundreds of engineers.

I told her that there were a few situations involving men in the department that I thought she should know about. For example, one of the senior managers had been known to proposition women in the company for threesomes. I also had an issue with an engineer who behaved, by turns, dismissively or aggressively toward female product managers. As I said to Sheryl about this second situation, “I was told by an engineering director to go in and talk to the guy and try to resolve the situation myself, but when I did that, the engineer somehow twisted things around and called me a bad feminist, as if to distract from the conversation at hand, and the conversation didn’t go anywhere. It was pretty unpleasant.”

“Offense as defense, I get it,” Sheryl commented.

“Yeah, exactly,” I concurred. Sheryl is cool, I thought. She gets it.

“Well, thanks for talking to me, I really appreciate it,” Sheryl said, winding up our conversation.

I didn’t hear back immediately about any of the issues I had raised with her, until she stopped briefly by my desk one day a few months later and in the low, succinct office voice that she mastered, said, “I just want you to know that the situations you told me about have both been handled.”

I had heard nothing about it. “You see, I’m so good that I make things happen and no one even knows about them,” she said with a smile. Sure enough, the manager who propositioned employees had been subtly demoted and the aggressive engineer moved to another team.

I left in 2010. Since then, I’ve become accustomed to a world in which Facebook is one of the primary mediums through which people communicate and interact. To most of its users, Facebook seemed to come from nowhere; to me, it had meant long and sometimes very exciting hours—and some difficult experiences that didn’t belong on my Facebook “wall.”

 Katherine Losse, the Woman in the Facebook Frat House – WSJ.com.

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Sherry Turkle Says Younger Kids Can’t Handle Facebook Because Teens Fret About Looking Cool Online | Techdirt

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Social, Social Media, Society on June 22, 2012


Sherry Turkle Says Younger Kids Can’t Handle Facebook Because Teens Fret About Looking Cool Online

from the oh-the-unprecedented-horror! Dept

 

There have been many different definitions of “childhood” in history. Often, it meant “a series of fevered illnesses preceding a constant fight for survival,” or if you were lucky, “a brief period of unpaid labor in preparation for a life of poorly-paid labor.” The nominal modern notion of an extended formative stage of life, and the fact that it’s actually possible for some people, seems like quite the accomplishment in that light—but it’s noteworthy that, on the whole, every generation of children has managed to muddle through somehow, adjusting society’s norms and standards as it goes. And the culmination of all that change is modern humanity: still far from perfect, but no more or less fundamentally flawed or fundamentally gifted than we ever were.

So how likely is it that Facebook is going to be the thing that finally ruins children forever? Well,according to Sherry Turkle in a recent interview with TechCrunch’s Greg Ferenstein, it’s a very serious concern—so serious, in fact, that she can talk about it for almost fifteen minutes without really saying anything (watch the full video below).

Now, I wouldn’t wish her non-specific wrath on anyone, but Mark Zuckerberg must have known he’d be getting a dose of Turkle-talk when the news broke that Facebook is considering new access systems for kids under 13, who are currently technically banned by the rules. Never mind that nearly 40% of 10- to 12-year-olds are already on Facebook, often with the knowledge and support of their parents—in fact, apparently Facebook should be working to correct that errant behavior, not recognize and accommodate it. Why? As Turkle so eloquently puts it, “what Facebook does is it forces you to have a Facebook profile.”

Indeed. And according to her, kids just can’t handle that. This is apparently based on her conversations with kids over 13, who report getting stressed out about the identity they present online:

This is something that’s difficult enough for high school kids. Should I say I like Harry Potter because that’ll show that I’m cool, does that show like I have a childlike side and that’s cool, or is that too nerdy, or…? Just agonizing over decisions like this.

Yes, you read that right: teenagers are worrying about how to look cool. It’s shocking, I know. Turkle thinks that this pressure is now greater than ever because kids have a central online identity, which makes them less able to experiment with different ways of defining themselves—and that they will later be haunted by digital records of their past. There’s some truth to that notion, but it’s hard to see it as much of a problem—we’re talking about broad, shifting trends in the way people communicate, and such trends are the progenitors of societal norms, not slaves to them. If, in 20 years, there is no such thing as a political candidate without an embarrassing photo lurking online, then we can fairly assume society will not be so excitable about such photos; if, when today’s nine-year-olds enter the workforce, they all have to ‘fess up to that [insert silly subculture] phase they went through in high-school, it’s not going to cripple them all emotionally—it’s going to foster an environment where people are less embarrassed and judgmental about such things.

As for having this start a few years earlier, it’s still hard to see the problem—especially when so many kids are already doing it. Obviously nine-year-olds shouldn’t be completely unsupervised on Facebook, nor should they use it without some guidance and advice from their parents—but there aren’t really many things that nine-year-olds should do completely independently anyway. Plus, part of Facebook’s whole plan for new children’s access is to provide better parental controls and simpler, more emphasized privacy settings—so all those young kids who are already using Facebook can hopefully do so more responsibly. Will there, as Turkle fears, be some parents who are overactive in defining their child’s online identity, making personal decisions for them and living through them? Probably—and that might be concerning if it was a new issue, and not one of the oldest and best-known tropes in the parenting-mistake canon.

But then there’s Turkle’s corollary fear, which is that kids aren’t learning human interaction:

At that age anything that takes time away from what you learn face-to-face, the skills of negotiation and being attentive to tone and the delicate kinds of things that you learn when you’re with kids and you’re with your friends and horsing around and really learning how to be a friend face-to-face and the messiness and complexity of human relationships, that’s not good. This is a time when kids need to be encouraged in every way to spend that time face to face, and even suggesting that Facebook is something they might want to do just presents the wrong signals.

Maybe Turkle is unaware, but for most of us, online social skills are now really, really importanttoo. There are unwritten rules and codes of etiquette, and hard-to-define skills of empathy and intuition, in the digital world as well—and online etiquette is only going to be more nuanced and complex when today’s kids are all grown up. Facebook and other online communication is now a pretty big part of the “messiness and complexity of human relationships”, and keeping kids away from it is definitely not going to alleviate social confusion. It also seems likely to create an immediate sense of exclusion from both their peers and society in general—but Turkle doesn’t think so:

First of all, the notion of ten-year-olds and nine-year-olds being ostracized for not being on Facebook – I think that’s a pretty quick jump. 

…

The argument for why kids need it is: that’s where the social events are posted, that’s where kids are sharing where the parties are, where the events are. I’m saying that at ten, it’s better that those things happen in person. Parents should be encouraging children, as much as they can throw their weight behind it, for those things to still be happening in person at that age.

I’m not sure how it’s any kind of stretch to say that kids will feel ostracized for not being allowed to do what their friends are doing—and we’re not talking about jumping off a cliff here. And apparently it’s not enough that kids are still going to each others’ birthday parties—as in, events where they spend all day engaging in face-to-face socialization—Turkle thinks they need to be told about them in person too. I guess that way they’ll be prepared for the adult world, where we all hand-deliver our invitations.

The simple reality is that, yes, Facebook presents new and different social challenges to kids. Every generation has faced unique challenges, because the social landscape is always changing. Every change also presents new opportunities, and while Turkle is worrying about kids getting less face-to-face interaction, those same kids are building whole new kinds of communities that cross traditional borders. Some things will be lost, of course, and to sometimes pine for a “simpler time” is a natural thing in moderation, but Turkle actually wants to talk about the “cost-benefit analysis” of broad social change. How is that even possible with something that can’t be quantified? As a psychologist, Turkle should spend her time looking at ways to maximize thegood aspects of social media, instead of fearmongering about the supposedly bad ones.

 Sherry Turkle Says Younger Kids Can’t Handle Facebook Because Teens Fret About Looking Cool Online | Techdirt.

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Is it time to leave Facebook? | Comment is free | The Observer

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook on June 16, 2012


Is it time to leave Facebook?

 

Amid plans for a $10bn share offering, the social networking giant has come under fire for its controversial ‘Timeline’ feature. Two Observer writers discuss the merits of logging off for good

 

 

Mark Zuckerberg speaking at a conference in in San Francisco, September 2011.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: ‘evil, cat-caressing genius’? Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

James Silver, writer and journalist I could blame it on the launch of Timeline (Facebook’s now mandatory reboot of users’ profile pages) or the forthcoming mega-IPO. Or even claim I was taking some high-minded stance (a social suffragette perhaps?) on how social media gnaws away at our privacy/sense of self-worth/ability to enjoy simple pleasures such as reading a book.

But in the end it was the soul-crushing ennui that led me to deactiviate my Facebook account last week. The sheer bloody listlessness logging on to the site produced in me in those final, dreary visits. “Steve listened to ‘Death of an Interior Decorator’ by Death Cab for Cutie on Spotify for Facebook.” “Bob and Sophia commented on Mark’s photo album University of Loughborough Reunion 04.” Not forgetting that other classic: “Nigel likes Cordelia’s post Me and My Cat Archie Eat a Tuna Flan.”

It’s not that I dislike social media. I know at their best these platforms can help spark the overthrow of despots, raise cash for medical research and share brilliant links. I’m a big fan of Twitter, which has become a primary news source for me. LinkdIn is a bit of an odd duck, but I can see what it’s for. But Facebook? It’s just white noise. A time sink. If you want to tell your life story, as the Timeline tagline has it, then go and write your autobiography. No one would read it. But that’s kind of my point.

Elizabeth Day, Observer writer and author For me, the key to social media is that it’s, well, social. What I value most about Facebook is the ability to keep in touch with friends, wherever in the world they find themselves. Although James is bored by the endless videos of cats eating tuna flan, I actively like being able to see the latest photo of my goddaughter in Hong Kong or having an instant messenging chat about the best way to eat panettone with my friend in Milan (thinly sliced, with a cup of tea is his take).

Perhaps it’s because I have a strange form of phone-phobia. I hate the faux cheerfulness I have to assume when I call someone; the awkward pauses; the way you can never hang up until you’ve put the next social rendezvous firmly in the diary; the anxiety that you might be boring them. The thought of Skyping, where you can actually see someone’s face, is enough to bring me out in a rash. I prefer communicating through Facebook – I like the jokes, the bonhomie and the sense that you’re part of something (especially because, as a writer, I often work from home). And if the whole tuna-flan-feline thing gets too much, the true joy of Facebook is, of course, that you can always log out.

JS Is Facebook really the best platform with which to browse photos of your goddaughter or discuss how to eat Italian fruit bread, Elizabeth? Photo and video messaging on your phone would do just as well for the first (or one of the picture sharing sites) and if you could summon up the nerve to use Skype for video calls, you could even watch each other eat a whole variety of southern European cakes. In real time. Hell, you could even live tweet it.

I take your point that you can always log off, but what about your privacy when you’re logged on? Unless you have a PhD in machine learning, you are unlikely to be able to operate Facebook’s privacy settings, which means a disgruntled ex is just a couple of clicks away from checking out his former girlfriend’s new man, and people who are “friends” – but only in a Facebook sense (ie they met once on holiday in Magaluf in 1997) – have an access-all-areas pass to each other’s Facebook back-story.

But my problem with Facebook is not so much utility as ubiquity. From the IPO filed on Wednesday, we know the platform had 845 million monthly users, and 443 million daily, by the end of 2011. The next target is one billion. In fact, from its filing statement we learn that Mark Zuckerberg has plans for global domination: “There are more than two billion global internet users… we aim to connect with them all.” (Don’t you love that insidious word, “connect”?)

When will they be satisfied? When there are only six people in Africa who haven’t connected with Facebook? When they’ve hardwired the Facebook “like” button into toddlers’ teeth?

ED I know it’s tempting to view Zuckerberg as an evil genius (especially after he wore pyjamas to a board meeting in The Social Network), but I don’t personally feel his goal to “connect” people is all that sinister.

Of course, if you choose to leave your Facebook privacy settings wide open, if you choose to befriend someone you only met once on holiday to Magaluf, and if you then compound the error by posting (or failing to detag) a photograph of yourself in a compromised state with a vodka luge, then there might be certain drawbacks.

But I don’t understand why everyone has got in such a tizz about the Timeline. It only organises the data that is already on your profile. If you want something to remain private then – here’s a handy little tip – don’t put it on the internet. On Facebook – unlike Twitter, which allows anyone to follow you – I am friends only with people I know and like. I have customised my privacy settings (truly not that difficult) so only certain of them can view my posts. Because of this, I find it a brilliant way of sharing photos, keeping in touch with lots of people in a time-effective way and using status updates for shameless self-promotion when I have a book out (Scissors Paper Stone, out now in paperback if you want to buy a copy, James).

JS Actually, I don’t buy into the “Zuckerberg equals evil, cat-caressing genius” theory. I’m merely arguing that Facebook’s plans smack of hubris. Yes, Google, Microsoft and Apple have flourished, but the evidence suggests that social networks come and go, as fashions change. Between 2005 and 2007, MySpace was the dominant player. Bebo, too, showed early promise. Friends Reunited once had 15 million users.

Facebook faces many bumps in the road, not least competition and regulatory issues, particularly over privacy. To those I would add the likelihood of new rivals appearing, seemingly from nowhere. Just a couple of years ago, few of us had heard of (games developer) Zynga or (deals site) Groupon – both titans now. As everything goes social, we can expect new, niche networking sites to emerge.

Leaving Facebook is a bit like quitting a cult: you can leave, but you’re never truly free. Yes, my account is deactivated, but my details, friends, “likes” and even those dreaded status updates are merely mothballed in some underground server farm, waiting for that moment of weakness, where I log on once more… For now my resolve is strong. But you never know when the urge to “like” pictures of household pets eating savoury snacks may strike once again.

ED I’m sure all of this is true (not least the likelihood of James logging back on for those cat videos) but the fact that Facebook might face future challenges doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of the site as a user at the moment. I’m on Twitter as well but for different reasons – as you say, it’s a great way of getting the latest news developments. But Facebook performs a different role. It is more sociable – there is less pressure for constant 140-character updates and less competition over the number of followers/friends you have. Interestingly, whenever I speak to teenagers, they generally tell me they use Facebook but don’t see the point of Twitter, which suggests Zuckerberg and his henchmen will be around for a while yet. So James, if you are ever lured back to the light-blue land of “likes” and Scrabulous, I’ll be the first to request a friendship add.

 Is it time to leave Facebook? | Comment is free | The Observer.

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Facebook smartphone? Dumb idea

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook on June 3, 2012


Facebook smartphone? Dumb idea

Farhad Manjoo

June 3, 2012 – 2:30PM

Wrong message ... Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg checks his phone. 

Wrong numbers … will Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg get the message?Photo: AP

 

 

If you’re looking for a cheap, ad-heavy phone based on a dubious business model, you should rejoice.

 

THERE are two ways to make money in the smartphone business. There’s Apple’s way: 1) Make premium products that people clamour for; 2) Sell the devices for substantially more than it costs to make them; 3) Figure out what to do with your rapidly accumulating stockpiles of cash.

And then there’s everyone else’s way: 1) Spend a lot of money to make lots of different kinds of phones; 2) Sell them for rock-bottom prices, sometimes even for free; 3) Chalk your losses up to long-term strategy.

Google is the primary exemplar of this second approach. The search company gives away its Android operating system to phone makers around the world. The free OS has allowed manufacturers to create lots and lots of Android smartphones, some of them really good, most of them quite bad. Phone makers sell Android phones at low margins, sometimes even below cost, hoping to make a fortune on all the people who are switching from dumbphones to smartphones and are looking for a good deal.

But while the pricing strategy has made Android the world’s most popular smartphone OS, it hasn’t resulted in much of a windfall for anyone. According to Horace Dediu, who runs the phone-industry analysis site Asymco, Apple now collects 75 per cent of the profits in the phone business. And Google makes twice as much money from ads it displays on Apple devices than from those on Android phones.

Now there are fresh reports that Facebook is planning to enter this terrible business. The New York Times’ Nick Bilton says the social network has been stealthily recruiting smartphone hardware engineers — including former Apple staffers — in an effort to build its own phone. Bilton’s report is the latest in a series of stories about Facebook’s long-in-the-works, on-again, off-again phone. TechCrunch first reported on the project in 2010, and last year All Things D disclosed several more details about the phone.

It’s obvious why Facebook would want its own phone. A lot of the social network’s users log in to the site through their mobile devices, and Facebook hasn’t found a good way to make money on small, ad-free screens. There’s also the access threat — if most people come to Facebook through devices controlled by Google and Apple, Mark Zuckerberg can rightly fear that at some point, his rivals might somehow make it harder for people to get to his site. As one anonymous employee tells Bilton, “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.”

But when you puzzle out the economics of Facebook’s entry into this market, you inevitably come out scratching your head. How could they possibly make money from the phone business?

Let’s say that Facebook tries to ape Apple’s business model by building an amazing, one-of-a-kind phone that can be made at low prices, in high volumes, and will be snapped up at premium prices. OK — stop laughing. Apple’s phone was the result of years of research and the sort of design, marketing and production expertise that comes from decades in the hardware business. What’s more, when it launched in 2007, the iPhone was unlike anything else on the market, and it was thus something people were willing to pay a lot for. There is just no way that Facebook, a company that has never made any hardware, will come up with something like that.

Zuckerberg likely understands that, and is thus probably thinking of Facebook’s mobile plan as a variant of the Android model. Facebook would create the operating system and would work with a third-party phone manufacturer to build the actual phones, which would be priced low enough to gain a large foothold in the market. The device would offer deep integration with Facebook’s services, and Facebook would hope to make money through all of that increased usage — and the advertising that comes with it.

But that strategy also makes little sense. For one thing, Facebook is already deeply integrated into most smartphones. Facebook’s apps — the main social networking app, as well as its add-on apps for messaging and its new Camera app for photos — are some of the most popular add-ons on the iPhone and Android. Many Android phones also allow you to hook in your phone more directly, for instance by syncing your address book with the social network. And because it relies on advertising revenue, Facebook can’t afford to offer preferential treatment to its own phone over other phones — it’s got to work really well everywhere, because Facebook only makes money if everyone uses it. Consequently, it’s hard to see how the Facebook phone can ever hope to be better at Facebook, supposedly its main function, than any other phone.

So what would be the point in using the Facebook phone? Well, remember, it will be cheap. But so are lots of Android phones. If Facebook makes a phone, then, the device will necessarily spark a battle for the low end of the phone market, with each company offering ever-cheaper devices in the hopes of cashing in on some future advertising bonanza. If you’re looking for a cheap, ad-heavy phone based on a dubious business model, you should rejoice. Otherwise, try to stifle your yawns.


 

Facebook smartphone? Dumb idea.

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Would the Facebook IPO have bombed if Mark Zuckerberg had an MBA? – The Washington Post

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook on May 30, 2012


Vivek Wadhwa

Vivek Wadhwa

Columnist

Would the Facebook IPO have bombed if Mark Zuckerberg had an MBA?

By Vivek Wadhwa, Published: May 29

The lawsuits and Congressional reviews resulting from the Facebook IPO make me wonder if the outcome would have been different had Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg completed an MBA.

Zuckerberg would have better understood the rules of corporate finance and capital markets and the importance of ethics and corporate governance. He might have learned the need to build long-term value and share his company’s financial upside with the public. He would surely have developed better social skills and not have exhibited seemingly awkward behavior during the IPO roadshow – behavior such as hiding out in a bathroom, forcing the audience to wait or taking the stage wearing a hoodie.

Silicon Valley frowns on MBAs. Some in the Valley even debate whether entrepreneurs need to complete undergraduate degrees. Angel investor Ron Conway went as far as to say that the best entrepreneurs to invest in are 17 or 18 years of age — in other words, kids fresh out of high school. This is the type of thinking that sews the seeds for disasters such as the Facebook IPO.

It is true that many people have achieved success without a formal education and that some degrees at elite colleges are not cost justified. It is also true that most university courses don’t bear direct relevance to what you do in the workplace. The value of college education, however, is in more than the curriculum. For the majority of the population, higher education provides the foundation for lifelong learning and success. It teaches you what you don’t know and where to look for knowledge when you need it; how to discover yourself and how to interact with other people; how to deal with rejection and failure. You develop an understanding of what is and what isn’t acceptable in society and in business.

Take the 101’s of any MBA program. The financial tracks teach the basics of how firms create value— topics such as the functions of modern capital markets, budgeting, discounted cash flow valuation, option pricing, and risk analysis. In accounting, you learn how to read financial statements and monitor corporate resource allocation. Marketing classes teach you how to create awareness of the business and value for customers — about distribution channels, communication, pricing, and understanding buyer behavior. Leadership classes teach the human side of the enterprise — how to manage and motivate subordinates and to build a corporate culture. And the most important topic: the legal, ethical, fiduciary and social responsibilities of business leaders.

Not all of these subjects are relevant when a company is founded, but they become increasingly important as it moves towards an IPO. No one is born with this knowledge and there is little time to learn all of these subjects when you’re struggling to grow a company and survive. I doubt that Zuckerberg ever had the chance.

As far as the fascination that Silicon Valley investors have with young kids, look at what happened to Airy Labs, a company founded by one of the most celebrated Thiel Foundation “20 under 20” award winners (this is the program that offers children $100,000 to drop out of school and start a business). The company received $1.5 million in funding from Google Ventures and other investors in August 2011. According to media reports and what I verified with former employees, the 19 year old CEO, Andrew Hsu, was a child genius. But he was so naïve and inexperienced that he had to rely on his parents to help him run the business. Employees complained about bad management practices, having to babysit Hsu’s younger brother, abusive work conditions, and a lack of ethics. The company laid off most of its 20-person staff in February.

The lesson is that brilliance and vision provide no substitute for education and maturity. You can learn and grow outside the classroom, but it takes more time and is often more painful because you learn by trial and error. Even the late Steve Jobs — a child genius — had to take some hard knocks and leave the company he co-founded before he learned enough to build a great company with lasting value.

 Would the Facebook IPO have bombed if Mark Zuckerberg had an MBA? – The Washington Post.

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