Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Facebook IPO 'would value each user at $125

 Facebook is considering raising about US$10 billion (£6.4 billion) in an initial public offering that would value the world's largest social-networking site at more than US$100 billion, according to reports.

 The company is expected to file for the IPO before the end of the year, in a move which would place a value of around US$125 (£80) on each of its 800 million users.
The $100 billion valuation would be twice as high as it was in January, when the company announced a $1.5 billion investment from Goldman Sachs Group and other backers.
At $10 billion, the offering would raise more money than any other technology IPO – dwarfing the previous record holder, Infineon Technologies AG, which generated $5.23 billion in an IPO in 2000.
Facebook expects to be required by U.S. regulators to disclose financial results by April 30, 2012, if it doesn’t go public by then, the company said in January.
Facebook decided to wait until 2012 for its IPO to give Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg more time to gain users and boost sales, sources said.
The news comes as Zuckerberg admitted Facebook has made "a bunch of mistakes" on privacy and agreed to overhaul its policy to make all major changes opt-in, following American regulatory criticism.
Writing in a rare blog post, the social network site's founder and chief executive said he “founded Facebook on the idea that people want to share and connect with people in their lives, but to do this everyone needs complete control over who they share with at all times”.
But he added that while overall the site had a good history of being open about privacy, "I am the first to admit that we have made a bunch of mistakes".
He also admitted that the site's executives "can always do better" on the controversial issue.
His comments came after the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused Facebook of systematically invading user privacy on seven specific counts, including when the social network had changed settings to make more of its users' information publicly visible.
The new plan to settle the complaints marks a major step on the social network’s road to its initial public offering, which had been widely expected to value the company at $100 billion.
Facebook will now be “required to obtain consumers’ affirmative express consent before enacting changes that override their privacy preferences”.
This will effectively make all major future privacy control changes opt in. Facebook must also submit to privacy audits every 2 years for the next 20 years, stop any access to content on deactivated accounts, and present its policies on privacy or security of user data more clearly.


Although new settings can apparently be added without requiring users to opt in, new services will now require users to explicitly give their consent if they are to take part. Facebook Places, for example, which allows users to check-in online to physical locations, was cited as an example of a service that Facebook would not now be able to turn on for all users without their consent.
Zuckerberg conceded that the site had made major mistakes with users’ privacy, citing the launch of the ‘Beacon’ system which showed users’ friends their shopping habits, and the company’s previous changes to privacy policies.
He claimed, however, that “When I built the first version of Facebook, almost nobody I knew wanted a public page on the internet. That seemed scary. But as long as they could make their page private, they felt safe sharing with their friends online. Control was key”.
Zuckerberg put the social network’s success down to making it “easy for people to feel comfortable sharing things about their real lives”.
“Overall, I think we have a good history of providing transparency and control over who can see your information,” he wrote.
"That said, I'm the first to admit that we've made a bunch of mistakes. In particular, I think that a small number of high profile mistakes, like Beacon four years ago and poor execution as we transitioned our privacy model two years ago, have often overshadowed much of the good work we've done.
"I also understand that many people are just naturally sceptical of what it means for hundreds of millions of people to share so much personal information online, especially using any one service."
He added: "Even if our record on privacy were perfect, I think many people would still rightfully question how their information was protected. It's important for people to think about this, and not one day goes by when I don't think about what it means for us to be the stewards of this community and their trust.
Facebook has always been committed to being transparent about the information you have stored with us – and we have led the internet in building tools to give people the ability to see and control what they share.
"But we can also always do better. I'm committed to making Facebook the leader in transparency and control around privacy."
The new agreement with the FTC “means we're making a clear and formal long-term commitment to do the things we've always tried to do and planned to keep doing – giving you tools to control who can see your information and then making sure only those people you intend can see it”, Zuckerberg said.
The social network will now also have two Chief Privacy Officers; former lawyer Erin Egan will be responsible for Policy, while Michael Richter will become Chief Privacy Officer, Products. Richter is currently Facebook's Chief Privacy Counsel.
Overall, the changes are set to alter Facebook’s development of new products, as well as its attitude to users. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said ”Facebook’s innovation does not have to come at the expense of consumer privacy. The FTC action will ensure it will not.”
The proposals will now be put to a 30-day consultation period. They are likely to meet the majority of the concerns raised be European privacy regulators, although those issues remain unresolved.








Bookmark and Share

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Amazon's Kindle Fire Draws Heat From New Nook !

There's a lot of heel-nipping in the tablet market these days.
Amazon.com Inc. just released the Kindle Fire, the most serious attempt yet to take on Apple Inc.'s mighty iPad 2. Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble Inc. has shipped the Nook Tablet, which in turn takes aim at Amazon.
I've tried both new devices and my conclusion is that there's no clear winner. They're both compact, capable color- screen media-consumption devices for budget-minded users who don't need all the features and functions of a full-blown tablet.
There's a lot to like about the Fire. I like the way Amazon has integrated its content services -- books, magazines, videos, music. I like how it uses the Cloud, in this case, Amazon's remote servers, to store content and make it accessible when I want it, reducing the need for a lot of storage. (The Fire only holds 8 gigabytes -- same as the base model iPod touch.)
Most of all, I like the price: $199, less than half the cheapest iPad.
When I booted up the Fire, all my previous Amazon purchases appeared automatically and Amazon made it exceedingly easy for me to add more content. I bought a couple of books, some songs and a movie for a long airplane ride. All downloaded quickly and efficiently. There's also an Amazon site with some 8,500 Amazon- approved apps, far fewer than Apple has for the iPad, but still respectable.
Prime Content
Users of Amazon's $79-a-year Prime service get access to a library of thousands of TV shows and older movies, somewhat akin to Netflix Inc.'s streaming service. The Fire comes with a one- month trial subscription.
So I like almost everything about the Kindle Fire -except, well, the device itself.
The Fire is plain, a chunky black rectangle with a 7-inch backlit color screen. It's shorter than the Nook Tablet, a bit thicker and heavier. In action, it feels sluggish. There can be a noticeable lag when you're turning pages in an e-book or using an app.
I also had trouble with the accelerometer, the sensor that changes the view from portrait to landscape when you turn the Fire. I sometimes found myself looking at an upside-down app for several moments until the Fire sorted things out. And my loaner fell short of Amazon's claimed eight hours of battery life.
Silk Isn't Smooth
Amazon claims that its Web browser, Silk, has been optimized for speed, but in side-by-side comparisons I couldn't discern any advantage over the iPad's Safari browser. A few times the device told me it was connected to a Wi-Fi network while Silk claimed it wasn't. There's no 3G data service for the Kindle Fire, nor are there Bluetooth, a physical volume control, or a camera of any kind.

The Fire runs Google Inc.'s Android mobile-phone operating system. So does the $249 Nook Tablet, whose earlier version, the Nook Color, remains on the market with a newly lowered $199 price tag.
The Nook Tablet, like the Fire, operates only over Wi-Fi and has no camera. In other ways, though, it is the reverse of the newest Kindle. Where the Fire is physically plain, the Nook is sleek and more visually appealing. The $50 price differential buys you not only twice the memory and twice the storage of the Fire, but also longer battery life and a slot for an SD expansion card.

Smooth Scrolling

Barnes & Noble's one-year head start in developing software really shows: scrolling is smoother, the screen reorients itself faster and the device just generally feels zippier.
Where B&N falls short is exactly where Amazon shines -- in the variety of content available and how well it's integrated into the overall user experience.
Books aren't the problem. The Nook's selection is impressive and it has some nice flourishes. On-the-go parents, for instance, will appreciate not only the kid-friendliness of the Nook Tablet but also a feature that lets them record a child's favorite story in their own voice.
For many other uses, though, the Nook Tablet relies on third-party apps in place of the one-stop shopping approach of Amazon and Apple. For movies and TV shows, there's Netflix and Hulu Plus; for music, Pandora; and so on. Each requires a separate membership with its own login and, in the case of Netflix and Hulu Plus, credit card information.
Like Amazon, Barnes & Noble has its own app store that pales next to the iPad's in terms of both numbers and quality.
Ultimately, the choice between these two devices comes down to Amazon's lower price and ecosystem versus Barnes & Noble's polish and network of brick-and-mortar stores to provide in- person support. In either case, paying half what an iPad costs will require you to decide which half of the iPad experience you're willing to do without.


Bookmark and Share