Instagram Bought by Facebook

Posted by Clive in Social Media

Instagram Bought by Facebook for $1 billion… Another Tech Bubble?

Instagram has announced that it has been bought by Facebook in a deal worth an incredible $1 billion. Incredible because Instagram is only 2 years old, it makes no recorded profit, it has 13 employees and it was up until this month, just an iPhone app (now it is also on Android).

Instagram allows people to take pictures on their smartphone, edit and stylize them using different filters, then share with friends on other social networking sites such as twitter and facebook.

Instagram Camera Filters

Instagram is another company born out of the technology mecca that is California and Stanford University. It was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Kriegar in 2010 out of a love of the old ‘instant’ Polaroid snapshots.

In March 2010 Systrom acquired $500,000 of seed investment and this was followed in February 2011 by another $7 million funding round valuing Instagram at around $25 million. Another funding round occurred this month just before the Facebook announcement.

Instagram managed to raise around $50 million giving it an approx. valuation of $500 million. The Facebook acquisition doubles that valuation, not bad for a weeks investment and perhaps another pointer towards a tech bubble?

In the past few weeks Instagram has launched on the Android platform instantly giving it access to millions of new users and markets.

Facebook obviously swooped in a strategic decision to purchase the company before someone else did. What they are getting for their money is a great app, a very strong userbase that loves the product, enourmous growth potential as other phone platforms are integrated and probably the most important thing for facebook, access to the skillset of the team behind the app.

Normally when Facebook get the chequebook out it is to take the talent over to their own site and shutdown their project. This time it will have to be different. 30 million people is alot of people to upset.

Lets just hope that all of those 13 employees were offered stock as part of their renumeration.

Instagram popular images

Instagram Statistics

Photos: Instagram

Year in Review 2011 (Part 3): A New Country, A New Social Network & New Womens Rights

Posted by Jeff in Opinion

Year in Review 2011 (part 3): The third quarter of 2011 saw some surprises, more scandal and the continuing success of social networks.

Year in Review 2011: July

Petra Kvitova upset the Wimbledon odds to beat Maria Sharapova who is still trying to get back to her best after injury. Djokovic again signalled his dominance with a victory in the mens Wimbledon final.

The phone hacking scandal exploded in the UK and is still being investigated today. The incident caused the closure of the News of the World, one of the oldest & most successful newspapers.

Facebook teamed up with Skype to offer video chat while Google once again entered the social networking market with Google+.

The world got a new country as South Sudan split form the north in a peaceful separation and David & Victoria Beckham celebrated the birth of their baby girl, Harper Beckham.

Dallas returned to our TV screens and the Spotify streaming music service launched in the US while Harry Potter cast a spell over the box office.

Japan won the Womens World Cup final in Germany after beating the USA on penalties and there was another Royal wedding as Zara Phillips married the Rugby player Mike Tindall. On the other side of that particular coin we saw Jennifer Lopez calling time on her marriage to Marc Anthony.

The USA came close to defaulting on its own debt when politicians decided to play brinkmanship with the economy. Doing slightly better were both Apple and Google who both posted record profits. The US also suffered a oppressive heatwave and saw the last flight of the space shuttle Atlantis.

Norway hit the headlines for the worst reasons when a huge explosion rocked the capital, Oslo and a gunman went on the rampage.

The world lost one of the greatest singers of the last twenty years. Amy Winehouse joined other famous singers who died prematurely, the so called 27 club.

Year in Review 2011: August

The financial markets never seemed to be out of the headlines and this month saw S&P push the US down its credit score scale thanks to its enormous deficit.

Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to take social media sites offline in a somewhat knee jerk reaction to rioting in London. This came from a man who had only a few months earlier been praising social media sites for their influence in the Arab uprisings. That’s politics for you.

The Arab uprising continued with Syria becoming a focal point as the international community called for Assad to leave office. Protesters in Syria are still facing the same challenges at the end of 2011. Meanwhile the pressure was mounting on Col. Gaddafi as the rebel army advanced on the capital Tripoli.

The Kings of Leon sparked rumors about their future by cancelling their tour and taking a break.

Steve Jobs officially announced that he would be stepping down as CEO of Apple as his health deteriorated and Beyonce announced that she was pregnant in a not so subtle dress.

Year in Review 2011: September

As Italian politics leaped from one crisis to another the little town of Filettino decided that it would go its own way and declare independence from Italy.

We saw the 10 year anniversary of the tragic 9/11 events as the redevelopment of the twin towers site nears completion.

There was growing rumor and gossip surrounding the imminent release of a new iPhone, many people were betting on it being an iPhone 5.

The financial markets once again hit the headlines as a UBS trader managed to lose $2 billion on the markets.

REM announced that they were to split after 31 years together and Google became a teenager.

A couple of stories emerged that we never thought that we would see, the speed of light had apparently been broken and women in Saudi Arabia were given the right to vote.

Read more in Year in Review 2011 (Part 4) here.

Prime Minister Cameron Threatens Crackdown on Social Media

Posted by Tracy in Politics

The UK’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, has said that there will be a review into whether to turn off access to social media & phone texting during times of civil unrest.

After days of rioting, looting and violence on the streets of Britain, the Government declared that they will be meeting executives from Facebook, Twitter and RIM (who make the Blackberry) to discuss their ‘obligations’.

David Cameron said that he was “struck by how they [the rioters] were organised via social media”.

He said that the Government would be taking advice from the police, intelligence services and industry figures whether it was “right and possible” to cut off social media being used to “spread disorder”.

It is a rapid turnaround for a Government who, only months earlier, had been singing the praises of social media sites when they were heavily utilized to organise the Arab uprisings.

Back then Government officials were chastising political leaders from other countries for attempting to switch off the internet and suppress the flow of information. It appears that when it is in your own back yard, it may be a different story.

Not that any of the rioting or violence should be excused of course, but a knee-jerk reaction that yet again attacks civil liberties and internet freedom appears to be in full effect.

In a moment of mild ironic comedy during the rioting, over in Libya, a spokesman for Colonel Gadaffi chastised Cameron for trying to suppress the uprising of the people who wish to overthrow him.

Back in London, now the rioting has died down after massive police numbers were drafted in, there have been mass clean-ups organised via facebook, twitter and other parts of the web. In some areas people were being turned away because of the numbers.

The speed of the cleanup has meant that some parts of London were remarked to be cleaner than they have been for decades, and shows the other side of social media’s powerful effect.

An appeal has also been setup for Malaysian student Asyraf Haziq. He was filmed apparently being helped after being hit, but was actually having his rucksack lifted of all it’s possessions. The video has been see all around the world after it was posted on Youtube.

Asyraf has had to have surgery on his jaw and police today arrested a man in connection with the robbery.

In a press conference today Asyraf said that his mother was worried about him and wanted him to go home, but he was determined to stay in London and finish his studies. He added,

“Britain is great. Before I came here I was very eager and I haven’t got any ill-feeling about what happened. I feel very sorry for the people who did this. It was really sad because among them were children.”

Londoners have been keen to show that the actions of the few do not represent a whole community.

Over £12,000 has so far been raised in just 48 hours for Asyraf Haziq and his stolen equipment has been replaced via donations. If you would like to donate then go to the site http://somethingniceforashraf.tumblr.com/

Photo: Alan Stanton

Google Profits Soar to $2.5 Billion in 2nd Quarter

Posted by Clive in Business

The financial results of Google for the last quarter have been published and show net profit rising to $2.5 billion and revenue rising to $9 billion.

These gains are significantly higher than in the same period last year, 36% up on profit and 32% up of revenue. They are the first to be published after Larry Page took over as the Google CEO from Eric Schmidt in April after he had led the company for 10 years.

The results were well ahead of wall street market expectations and shares rose sharply on the news, they had feared that aggressive spending would curtail Google’s profit margin.

While it was true that operating expenses rose sharply, it was more than compensated for by large increases in sales.

Google is no longer just the internet’s search giant, it now has a large operating system presence with over 135 million smartphones and tablets running it’s Android OS.

It is the owner of YouTube, dominating the online video market which is growing year on year, and recently it announced the Google+ social networking platform which marks it’s intentions to draw users away from Facebook.

All of these services are free to use but allow them to get eyeballs to their revenue driving ad network which is a thriving business.

It is a business model that other sectors of business might want to look into, there is no doubt that the biggest players in the online world all follow this model, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Spotify, Android, Zynga etc. They all make their profit on the back end while giving away services and products on the front end.

Yet we constantly see resistance to this model from established businesses, see this article about the free music streaming service spotify. If you are thinking of starting a silicon valley project it is a business model that can succeed, if you can make it work, Google is proof that it will pay off handsomely.

Facebook and Skype Team Up for Video Chat

Posted by James in Social Media, Technology

In a move that looks like an attempt to steal the new Google+ services thunder, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the Skype video chat will be integrated into Facebook.

Skype was recently purchased by Microsoft for $8.5 billion (although still awaiting regulator approval) and MS already have a tie-in with Facebook allowing Bing to be used for search results within FB. Microsoft also, it should be said, have a shareholding in FB.

So perhaps it was inevitable that Zuckerberg would look to take advantage of Skype’s technology and expertise at some point to bypass the huge time and expense of developing something from scratch.

From Skype’s point of view their seems to be the lure of the massive user base that Facebook now commands (Zuckerberg stated that it was now over 750 million users), Skype’s own service offers options for free but also premium services for those so inclined. Presumably this business model will be brought into facebook.

The new features were announced at a press conference today by Zuckerberg and Skype CEO Tony Bates. Zuckerberg mentioned that the launch of Google’s social service Google+ and other services had validated Facebook’s vision of the social web.

I guess the question now will be, which one of your facebook friends do you actually want to talk to?

Google Enters Social Networking Arena… Again

Posted by James in Google, Technology

Google has entered the social networking arena again with their Google+ service, currently invite only. Will it work this time and can they catch Facebook?

The last time Google tried to launch a social network it was called Google Buzz. Launched with a big fanfare, they infuriated their customers by automatically signing them up.

Even worse, the Google Buzz network had some privacy issues which meant that not only were you automatically signed up, you could also come a cropper when it opened up things to others in your network that you didn’t necessarily want to share. Even the FTC got involved concerned that it may have violated it’s own privacy policies.

What was supposed to be a new phase in Google’s business quickly turned into a PR nightmare and subsequently never got off the ground.

More recently there was the Google +1 button launch (you can +1 this article for instance, you can see the +1 button on the left), which in hindsight can been seen as phase one for their new effort, launched with a small fanfare (no press conference, no speeches, just a blog post) last week called Google+.

It was an invite only affair and it seems at the time of writing, demand has meant that even invites are currently closed.

So, tick one in the box for Google PR. Create demand and (Google) buzz for your new product.

So, what is Google+ ?

At it’s heart is a grouping function that they call Circles (as in social), which allows you to group people into smaller sets of friends allowing a more precise type of sharing and interaction.

They also have something called Hangouts where you can pop into a video chat much like you might in a bar or pub.

With the Huddle feature they add the ability for group messaging across your social circles.

Can it catch Facebook?

Well it certainly has the muscle power to compete and as you can see, this time it’s a well thought out product. It sounds like there are promising signals coming from the 1st users of the system and meanwhile, Facebook are facing problems of their own.

To alot of people, Facebook is a platform for people that they used to know, LinkedIn are people that they do know and Twitter is for people that they would like to know. Will Google+ cross all of these boundaries in one giant leap?

Only time will tell and in an ever moving environment, Facebook have hinted that they have a big announcement to make of their own next week…watch this space.

MySpace Sold At A Big Loss By News Corp.

Posted by James in Business, Social Media

The social media website MySpace has been sold by News Corp. to the advertising firm Specific Media for an undisclosed sum, although there are suggestions that it got over $500 million less than it paid in 2005.

MySpace was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in 2005 when it was at the height of it’s popularity and was by far the leading social network. They paid $580 million for the site and it’s millions of users.

Unfortunately for MySpace there were a couple of startups just around the corner which would rapidly steal it’s thunder, it’s advertisers and it’s users. They were Facebook and Twitter.

Speaking from a personal perspective, I looked at joining MySpace around that time but found the site messy, cluttered and confusing; I didn’t use it.

Then along came Facebook which followed Google’s clean design, it was simple, clean and effective; I signed up straight away.

That, in a nutshell was MySpace’s problem. Although it tried to reform (including recently integrating with Facebook connect) and reclaim lost ground it effectively turned into a site that was, in the public perception anyway, predominately centred around music promotion.

Job losses followed and News Corp’s CEO said financial losses at MySpace were unsustainable, hence the sale for a fraction of the purchase price. It is understood however that as part of the deal, News Corp. will take a minority stake in Specific Media.

It is unclear what plans Specific Media have for the site but it is understood that the pop star/actor Justin Timberlake now has a stake in the business and will help develop a strategy.

LinkedIn Hopes To Raise $350 million in it’s Initial IPO Offering

Posted by Clive in Business, Social Media

LinkedIn prices it’s initial share offering at $45 a share today as it looks to raise $350 million.

LinkedIn is a social network aimed at the business professional market and has built up a membership of over 100 million people in over 200 countries, more than half are outside of the US.

The initial public offering is for 7,840,000 shares which will raise $352,800,000 for the company and it’s stakeholders.

LinkedIn will begin trading on Thursday 19th May under the stock symbol ‘LNKD’ in New York and is one of the biggest tech IPO’s in recent years.

The company is part of a select group of tech companies that provide social based services such as Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and GroupOn. LinkedIn are the first to go public and many see it as a testbed for future ‘social’ offerings.

Other, less famous social tech startups that have gone public have struggled to keep their share price above the initial offering and some fear that the LinkedIn price is way above it’s value, citing that it could be another tech bubble.

It will be interesting to see how the market in the following months treat the LinkedIn share price, will they see it as overvalued for a company that made a modest profit or will they recognise the growth the company is rapidly achieving amongst its core membership of influential and monied business people.

Photo: LinkedIn

Cool iPhone Apps (Part 1)

Posted by Jeff in Apple, Technology

We all love our iPhones, and smartphones in general. For me the most startling thing about joining the iPhone generation was the cool apps.

Even the apps that were just versions of their websites were easier to use and more focused, allowing access to the information you wanted much quicker.

So we thought we would highlight some of the cool apps that we have used and liked, it’s not an exhaustive list by any means but it’s a good start.

Let us know what you think in the comments at the bottom. Can you recommend your favourites?

Cool Apps: Facebook

Access to your facebook account and all of it’s features direct from you iPhone. Includes push notifications when you are signed in.

Cool Apps: Convert Units

Convert units allows you to convert anything to anything. Angles, area, data, energy, force, length, mass, power, pressure, speed, temperature, time, volume measurements are all included. You may not need it everyday but at some point it will be a lifesaver. Also, it’s free.

Cool Apps: Peppermint

This app will be a godsend for anyone involved in design. It’s basically a color wheel but with lots of features. Also free.

Cool Apps: Instapaper

A well known app that allows you to save clippings, articles etc for reading later when you have time. Can be very useful for those who like to be organised.

Cool Apps: TV Guide

A quick, easy and free way to find out what’s on the TV (or the goggle box as it’s more aptly known in our house). As with many apps it is much more focused that it’s website big brother.

Cool Apps: TimeOut

If you live in a major city and want to know what’s going on then this app will serve you well.

Cool Apps: Ebay

Ebay access from your phone, as with many apps it is quicker and easier than it’s equivalent website.

Continued…. Some Cool iPhone Apps (Part 2)