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Posted
Oct 16 2007, 11:12 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The headline "Facebook's got Google running scared" makes me giggle.
I love Facebook, but it's a ridiculous notion that this overhyped and overvalued social network is making Google execs wet their pants. Facebook is the current belle of the social networking ball, grabbing more attention and notoriety than any of its predecessors. These networks fall in and out of favor (remember Friendster, anyone?) but Facebook has taken some truly ingenious steps to stay at the top. Its best move was making it easy for people to develop applications for use on the site.
Microsoft and others are vying for a small stake in Facebook, and 23-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly juggling term sheets from suitors these days. A stake of less than 5% is going for $300 million to $500 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. What an outrageous valuation.
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Posted
Oct 25 2007, 08:06 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
So Microsoft spent $240 million for a 1.6% stake in Facebook. Big deal. Microsoft spends that kind of money the way most of us shell out for a grande latte. It means nothing.
That hasn't stopped people from freaking out about Facebook's valuation. Microsoft's investment values the social networking site at $15 billion. But understand this: no one is buying Facebook. That $15 billion is an empty figure. It also means nothing.
I read this deal two ways. First, Facebook got a nice chunk of change from Microsoft without having to give much in return. Second, Microsoft made an advertising business deal and that's it.
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Posted
Oct 30 2007, 09:53 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
There have been rumors far and wide that Google is working on its own social network. Turns out the company is working on something better, though it's no threat to social networking darling Facebook.
OpenSocial, which Google will introduce this week, lets programmers make applications for many different social networking sites at once. Doesn't sound like a big deal. But first you have to understand that part of Facebook's appeal are the 5,000 programs people have built for the site. You can compare movie tastes with other users, share music, ask questions and pick your top friends. Those programs -- as silly as some of them are -- keep users on Facebook and keep the ad revenue flowing. They're a big reason why Facebook is raking in the cash from Microsoft and others right now.
Developers are busy creating programs for Facebook and ignoring all the other social networking sites out there, including Google's own Orkut, a network popular in Brazil but not in the U.S. So Google bands together with other social networks and figures out a way that developers can write programs for all of them at once.
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Posted
Nov 07 2007, 07:47 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Facebook is going to have its members start shilling for products. The idea is brilliantly evil.
How does it work? If I tell Facebook that I like Diet Coke, all my friends on Facebook will start seeing ads for Coca-Cola with my picture and the fact that I like Diet Coke.
What's more, companies will be able to track what Facebook users are doing on the Web and send them targeted ads. If I buy something from a retailer like Amazon, my friends will know about the transaction.
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Posted
Nov 30 2007, 04:13 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Social networking site Facebook is finally backing away from its overly aggressive and ill-conceived advertising strategy. To understand how maddening this ad push was, consider what happened to Forrester analyst Charlene Li. As she explains on her blog, she recently bought a coffee table on Overstock.com. Then she logged into Facebook and saw this on her page:
She used her personal e-mail address to buy the table and had no idea the purchase would show up on her Facebook news feed for all her friends and work contacts to see.
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Posted
Dec 05 2007, 09:16 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The Facebook debacle-in-the-making may have peaked today, now that founder Mark Zuckerberg has come out of hiding and apologized. To quickly recap: The social networking upstart rolled out an advertising push that was so invasive and abusive that 50,000 members signed a petition to protest the move. The ad program, called Beacon, ushered in a tidal wave of bad publicity for the company. Read my earlier post for more on Beacon.
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Posted
Dec 19 2007, 03:52 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This year has been a disaster for some tech companies. Oh sure, it's been a fabulous ride for Apple, Amazon and Google.
But this post is about the losingest losers out there. The train wrecks. The Lindsay Lohans of technology. Here are the companies, and their "oops" moments, that made 2007 memorable:
Yahoo
Share performance: Down 30% since the end of October.
Oops moment: Launching a public soul-searching in the form of a 100-day self-examination to craft a strategic plan.
What happened: The 100 days ended with no big announcements. Yahoo is too large and too laden by its own bureaucracy to be nimble. What's more, the company lost valuable search market share to Google this year.
Chance of recovery in 2008: Moderate. Yahoo is overhauling some core services, including e-mail and photo, but has been unable to monetize a user base that numbers some 475 million. Lots more work to do.
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Posted
Nov 25 2008, 06:27 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Google's obscene five years of hyper-growth may be coming to an end. So far, the evidence of that in only anecdotal. Here and there advertisers are saying that the search engine does not get them the kind of results they are used to. Maybe it is the recession.
To further disturb those who worry about Google earnings, the internet company said it would be cutting contract workers. The could be a lot of people. Google has about 10,000 freelancers. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google Inc. said Monday that 'it is "significantly" reducing the number of contract workers it uses, but the Internet search and advertising company said it has no plans at this time to lay off employees.'
Of course, the internet is not dead. But, it becomes more wounded every day. Search is supposed to be the engine which drives online revenue growth forward. Traditional display advertising is not doing as well as it used to. That leaves Google. If its earnings for the current quarter are poor, the league of one will have been disbanded.
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Posted
Dec 15 2008, 06:36 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
OPEC wants to see oil prices higher, much higher. Some of its member nations are running huge national deficits now that the price of crude has gone from $147 last summer to under $50. Several experts think it could go lower due to falling global demand. Even the Chinese are using less oil.
Americans are dreaming of $40 crude and $1.50 gas. OPEC members of dreaming of the Yankees sitting in their cars in long lines which snake for miles while they wait to buy a gallon of gas for $5.
Someone has to be wrong about what is going to happen to oil prices. Every day it looks a bit more like OPEC will have its way.
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Posted
Mar 02 2009, 02:14 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Six months after first stepping in to save American International Group (AIG), the U.S. government has once again agreed to bail it out. The federal government will offer an additional $30 billion in taxpayer money to AIG just hours before the "battled insurer" is expected to announce a $62 billion loss, the biggest quarterly loss in history. Given that the government already owns nearly 80% of AIG's holding company, it's not surprising that this latest plan will expose U.S. taxpayers to more financial risk. Yesterday's agreement raises the prospect of breaking up the 90-year-old giant into various units and relaxes the stringent loan terms set in September by "wiping out interest in hopes of preserving AIG's value over a longer period," writes the Wall Street Journal. Simply put, with credit-rating agencies on the brink of downgrading AIG's shares, the Treasury felt it had no choice but to prop up AIG "because its business and trading activities are so intricately woven through the world’s banking system," writes the New York Times. Now that we the people have a majority stake in AIG, perhaps it might reconsider the lawsuit it filed Friday against the federal government over a disputed $306 million in taxes, interest, and penalties?
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