Facebook is adding a lot more new ads to their pages, while their stock keeps sliding on its 3rd day of trading.
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Facebook (FB) - 3rd day of trading (22 May 2012)
Facebook is adding a lot more new ads to their pages, while their stock keeps sliding on its 3rd day of trading.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Facebook loses 6M U.S. users in May, plans a $100 billion IPO in early 2012
Facebook continue to gain users in developing countries, but the world's biggest social network is actually losing users in the U.S. and other developed countries.
Facebook gained 11.8 million more users last month alone, according to a study by Inside Facebook. While that's a lot of new users, it's less than the 13.9 million new users who joined the site in April, or the 20 million gain during some months in the past year.
And while Inside Facebook reports that the social network is approaching 700 million users worldwide, the number of U.S. users has dropped. The study found that Facebook lost 6 million U.S. users in May.
The study noted that Facebook had 155.2 million U.S. users at the beginning of May but 149.4 million at the end of the month.
Other countries showed losses as well; Canada dropped by 1.52 million and the U.K. dropped by more than 100,000, but the U.S. showed the biggest loss for Facebook last month.
A Facebook spokesperson, in an e-mailed statement, said Facebook is pleased with its growth. "From time to time, we see stories about Facebook losing users in some regions. Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn't designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook. We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook on any given day."
Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, said he's not surprised that Facebook is having a dip in growth and he doubts that Facebook executives are worried about it.
"Currently, Facebook has more than 150 million users in the U.S., which is more than half of the total population. That's a very big number," said Olds. "The growth rate is naturally going to tail off when penetration gets that high. We're also going to see some ebbing and surging over time as the user base stabilizes and matures."
Related story : Facebook planning a $100 billion IPO in early 2012
Social networks around the world, June 2011
Related story : Facebook planning a $100 billion IPO in early 2012
Monday, February 21, 2011
Facebook's Web of Frenemies
Facebook Inc.'s growing ambitions are redrawing battle lines in Silicon Valley.
As the seven-year-old company ramps up its hiring and adds new features to its social network, it is disrupting the businesses of established companies like Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. and putting even more Internet firms on notice.
Facebook, which has more than 600 million users and was valued at $50 billion in a recent funding round, is grabbing online-advertising from Yahoo, Myspace and others. The social network is a potential rival in electronic payments to eBay Inc.'s PayPal, while partnerships Facebook is cementing with smartphone makers set the stage for competition with Apple Inc. and Google in mobile services.
Meanwhile, Facebook is tussling with Google and Microsoft Corp. for top engineers.
As a result, many Silicon Valley companies increasingly have to decide whether to treat Facebook like a friend whose reach and user data can help propel their own growth, or a foe that can become a destructive force.
"Facebook is both a great competitor and a benefactor here in Silicon Valley," said David Cowan, a venture capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners in Menlo Park, Calif. "Anyone who's trying to get the attention of the young Internet user now has to compete with the dominant position that Facebook has there. On the other hand, they have opened up a lot of opportunities."
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704593604576141350618351030.html#ixzz1EbQyZSmh
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Facebook tops Google for top-visited site in 2010
In yet another example of its massive popularity, Facebook was crowned the top-visited site in 2010, toppling Google, according to Experian Hitwise.
Facebook accounted for 8.93 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010 while Google ranked second with 7.19 percent of visits. Yahoo Mail, Yahoo and YouTube rounded out the top five.
Facebook was also the most searched term, along with variations Facebook login and Facebook.com.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Facebook's Russian Campaign
(Bloomberg.com)The world's No. 1 social network wants to move up from fifth place in Russia, whose citizens spend more time on social networks than any other nation
Facebook is the world's largest social network site, with 500 million-plus members at last count. However, there are plenty of big markets where Mark Zuckerberg's creation isn't dominant. In Japan, Facebook doesn't rank in the top three, and the site isn't much of a force in Brazil or China, two populous countries where Internet usage is off the charts.
The outlook for Facebook in Russia may be more promising, despite the popularity of homegrown social network sites. Facebook officially launched its site in April and only ranks No. 5 so far, according to Internet tracker comScore, but its growth has been impressive. From January until August in 2010, its Russian operation has racked up a 376 percent increase in users, to 4.5 million, according to comScore data.
Early last year the company cut deals with Russian wireless carriers Beeline and Mobile TeleSystems, so that their subscribers could tap the mobile version of Facebook. To overcome the language barrier, Facebook allowed users to suggest translations for the name of features not easily understood in Russian such as "poke" (as in trying to get another Facebook user's attention), and then let the site's members vote them up or down. "Russian is a very complex language, so we allowed the users to translate the interface themselves so that it captures the complex grammar," says Javier Olivan, a London-based Spaniard who holds the title Head of International Growth at Facebook.
Its founder has made no secret of his ambitions to thrive in Russia, a market where other Western players, including Google, have struggled to get their footing. Speaking at an Oct. 17 event at Stanford University, Zuckerberg said that if Facebook succeeded in penetrating the Russian market, it might have a shot at doing the same in China, the country with the largest number of Netizens. Russians' heavy use of social network sites makes the country an ideal test-case. Russians spend 9.8 hours per visitor on a monthly basis on such sites—more than double the world average, according to comScore.
Why do Russians while away so many hours online? For one thing, there's the climate: Staying indoors and socializing via the Internet is much more attractive when winter lasts a good six months. Then there's the physical isolation, compounded by poor infrastructure, especially in cities like Murmansk, which lies north of the Arctic Circle.
Most importantly, though, there is a long tradition in Russia of relying on informal information networks for simple day-to-day survival. "In Russia, there is no sense that you can rely on the public or the system, so you've traditionally had to rely on a network of friends," says Esther Dyson, a venture capitalist who has been investing in Russia's tech sector for over a decade. In a country with weak institutions, "it's very natural for people to network for what they want." Even in these less oppressive, post-Soviet times, relationships are critical to everything from landing a job to wriggling out of a problem with authorities.
It's no coincidence that the Russian love affair with the Internet has blossomed at a time when citizens are once again seeing their political and media freedoms dwindle. "[The Web] has become a place where you have absolute freedom of speech, where you can say whatever you want, good or bad," says Ilya Krasilshchik, editor-in-chief of Afisha, a Russian lifestyle magazine and website. Afisha was one of the first Russian sites to incorporate the Facebook Like feature, which allows users to share content with friends on the site. Krasilshchik points out that Russia is different from China, where censorship prevails online. "We have this strange paradox where civil society is hemmed in, but its freedoms are limitless online."
Not surprisingly, then, social networks have multiplied in Russia. Odnoklassniki.ru, a site modeled on Classmates.com with 17 million users, is the preferred destination for older, less tech-savvy users, along with being a popular dating site for Russians of all ages. Then there's Moi Mir, similar to News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace, with 20 million members.
The leader of the social networking pack is VKontakte, which is majority owned by Mail.Ru Group, a Russian investment fund specializing in Internet companies that also owns a small stake in Facebook. VKontakte, which has 28 million users, is inspired by Facebook. VKontakte has been dogged by claims that it has allowed the unauthorized posting of pirated music, movies, and other content free on its site. Mail.Ru declined to comment on allegations that VKontakte has engaged in such practices, though the company did disclose in a prospectus for a recent initial public offering in London that it is currently defending itself against several lawsuits. As for Facebook, the company "will not host any content that violates our terms of agreement," says Olivan.
One thing Facebook does have over its Russian competitors is cachet. Whereas Odnoklassniki.ru has become the domain of the older generation, and VKontakte the hangout of young middle- and lower-class Russians, Facebook is the network of choice for the urban and the urbane. Facebook's Russian users are generally of the wealthier, well-traveled, cosmopolitan variety, have foreign friends and tend to live in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Facebook's status received a boost in September, when the company hosted its first developers' conference in Russia. The event, held in Winzavod, an up-and-coming art complex in Moscow, drew hundreds, including some prominent Russian Internet investors. The bulk of the crowd was made up of software developers hoping to transform their Facebook apps into riches.
Anton Nossik, the Russian Web guru who has a number of successful Web startups and used to run the company that owned the popular blogging platform LiveJournal, notes that in Russia sites such as Facebook and Google attract a particularly cosmopolitan set. Both are "for the global Russian, for the circle of people for whom the world doesn't begin and end with Russia."
Facebook is the world's largest social network site, with 500 million-plus members at last count. However, there are plenty of big markets where Mark Zuckerberg's creation isn't dominant. In Japan, Facebook doesn't rank in the top three, and the site isn't much of a force in Brazil or China, two populous countries where Internet usage is off the charts.
The outlook for Facebook in Russia may be more promising, despite the popularity of homegrown social network sites. Facebook officially launched its site in April and only ranks No. 5 so far, according to Internet tracker comScore, but its growth has been impressive. From January until August in 2010, its Russian operation has racked up a 376 percent increase in users, to 4.5 million, according to comScore data.
Early last year the company cut deals with Russian wireless carriers Beeline and Mobile TeleSystems, so that their subscribers could tap the mobile version of Facebook. To overcome the language barrier, Facebook allowed users to suggest translations for the name of features not easily understood in Russian such as "poke" (as in trying to get another Facebook user's attention), and then let the site's members vote them up or down. "Russian is a very complex language, so we allowed the users to translate the interface themselves so that it captures the complex grammar," says Javier Olivan, a London-based Spaniard who holds the title Head of International Growth at Facebook.
Its founder has made no secret of his ambitions to thrive in Russia, a market where other Western players, including Google, have struggled to get their footing. Speaking at an Oct. 17 event at Stanford University, Zuckerberg said that if Facebook succeeded in penetrating the Russian market, it might have a shot at doing the same in China, the country with the largest number of Netizens. Russians' heavy use of social network sites makes the country an ideal test-case. Russians spend 9.8 hours per visitor on a monthly basis on such sites—more than double the world average, according to comScore.
Why do Russians while away so many hours online? For one thing, there's the climate: Staying indoors and socializing via the Internet is much more attractive when winter lasts a good six months. Then there's the physical isolation, compounded by poor infrastructure, especially in cities like Murmansk, which lies north of the Arctic Circle.
Most importantly, though, there is a long tradition in Russia of relying on informal information networks for simple day-to-day survival. "In Russia, there is no sense that you can rely on the public or the system, so you've traditionally had to rely on a network of friends," says Esther Dyson, a venture capitalist who has been investing in Russia's tech sector for over a decade. In a country with weak institutions, "it's very natural for people to network for what they want." Even in these less oppressive, post-Soviet times, relationships are critical to everything from landing a job to wriggling out of a problem with authorities.
It's no coincidence that the Russian love affair with the Internet has blossomed at a time when citizens are once again seeing their political and media freedoms dwindle. "[The Web] has become a place where you have absolute freedom of speech, where you can say whatever you want, good or bad," says Ilya Krasilshchik, editor-in-chief of Afisha, a Russian lifestyle magazine and website. Afisha was one of the first Russian sites to incorporate the Facebook Like feature, which allows users to share content with friends on the site. Krasilshchik points out that Russia is different from China, where censorship prevails online. "We have this strange paradox where civil society is hemmed in, but its freedoms are limitless online."
Not surprisingly, then, social networks have multiplied in Russia. Odnoklassniki.ru, a site modeled on Classmates.com with 17 million users, is the preferred destination for older, less tech-savvy users, along with being a popular dating site for Russians of all ages. Then there's Moi Mir, similar to News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace, with 20 million members.
The leader of the social networking pack is VKontakte, which is majority owned by Mail.Ru Group, a Russian investment fund specializing in Internet companies that also owns a small stake in Facebook. VKontakte, which has 28 million users, is inspired by Facebook. VKontakte has been dogged by claims that it has allowed the unauthorized posting of pirated music, movies, and other content free on its site. Mail.Ru declined to comment on allegations that VKontakte has engaged in such practices, though the company did disclose in a prospectus for a recent initial public offering in London that it is currently defending itself against several lawsuits. As for Facebook, the company "will not host any content that violates our terms of agreement," says Olivan.
One thing Facebook does have over its Russian competitors is cachet. Whereas Odnoklassniki.ru has become the domain of the older generation, and VKontakte the hangout of young middle- and lower-class Russians, Facebook is the network of choice for the urban and the urbane. Facebook's Russian users are generally of the wealthier, well-traveled, cosmopolitan variety, have foreign friends and tend to live in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Facebook's status received a boost in September, when the company hosted its first developers' conference in Russia. The event, held in Winzavod, an up-and-coming art complex in Moscow, drew hundreds, including some prominent Russian Internet investors. The bulk of the crowd was made up of software developers hoping to transform their Facebook apps into riches.
Anton Nossik, the Russian Web guru who has a number of successful Web startups and used to run the company that owned the popular blogging platform LiveJournal, notes that in Russia sites such as Facebook and Google attract a particularly cosmopolitan set. Both are "for the global Russian, for the circle of people for whom the world doesn't begin and end with Russia."
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
FarmVille maker hires ex-MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta
The Associated Press -- Zynga, the maker of popular social networking game "FarmVille," has hired former MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta as its executive vice president of business operations.Van Natta, also a former chief revenue officer for Facebook, starts Monday. He'll also have a seat on the board of directors of the fast-growing startup. The board now has five members.
Van Natta left MySpace in February after 10 months on the job after conflicting with parent News Corp.'s chief digital officer Jonathan Miller.
He joins a privately held company that is seeing explosive growth.
According to tracking firm Developer Analytics, Zynga has 367 million users a month on 48 of its applications.
Zynga is also responsible for the top three applications on Facebook, "FarmVille," "FrontierVille," and "Zynga Poker."
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