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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
Jun 30 2009, 03:49 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Facebook is becoming one of the most dangerous places on the Internet. According to Reuters, “scammers break into accounts posing as friends of users, sending spam that directs them to Web sites that steal personal information and spread viruses.”
Since Facebook has, by some measures, more than 200 million members, the problem is extremely serious and could undermine the growth of the social network and cut into the time that current members spend on the site.
The cybercrime issue could also damage Facebook’s reputation with marketers, a reputation is just beginning to build in the hope of increasing its modest revenue by bringing in large national advertisers. Industry sources suppose that Facebook will lose a modest sum of money on $500 million of revenue this year, a tiny sum compared to the size of its audience.
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Posted
Aug 12 2009, 03:54 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Twitter had another hacker attack yesterday. Several media outlets reported the micro-blogging system was down periodically though the early morning and afternoon. The service had more severe problems last week. There have been rumors that the target of the attacks is a blogger in Georgia who has been critical of neighboring state Russia.
It is difficult to see what advantage the Russians gain by upsetting the tens of millions of people outside Georgia by shutting Twitter down, many of whom may actually think well of Mr. Putin and his fellow comrades.
The Twitter outage introduces the concept of whether anyone would really miss the service if it went away. Financial experts have argued that Twitter is not worth much even with its 30 million or so unique visitors, a number that varies wildly depending on the source. The press has carried stories over the last few months reporting that the service is growing 1,400%, 500%, and, in some cases, is barely growing at all. Ars Technica recently reviewed Twitter research done by HubSpot. The tech website reported that “HubSpot’s analysis of Twitter’s 4.5 million accounts revealed that 54.9% of users have never tweeted and 52.7% have no followers whatsoever.” Put more simply, many of the people who sign up for Twitter accounts never use them.
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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
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
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
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
Apr 01 2009, 03:09 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Ousted General Motors (GM) boss Rick Wagoner might consider this an April Fools' joke, but The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is looking to ease the distressed automaker into “controlled” bankruptcy -- that's "somewhere between a prepackaged bankruptcy and court chaos, by persuading at least some creditors to agree to a plan that would cleave the company into two pieces."
Essentially, the government plans to use its considerable leverage of being the de facto lender of last resort to calm the fears of potential creditors. GM's new chief executive, Frederick "Fritz" Henderson, also telegraphed the government's plans in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, saying, "They think that I can lead this company inside or outside of bankruptcy court."
The administration appears to be drawing in part from its experience with troubled banks, the goal being to create "a new, healthier GM, but leaving behind its liabilities and less valuable assets, perhaps for liquidation," writes the Times.
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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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Posted
Apr 01 2009, 03:59 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The business of having online sites with content created by amateurs to be viewed by other amateurs never had a reasonable chance of making money. The fact that Facebook once had a $15 billion valuation, and that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS) bought MySpace, and that Google (GOOG) bought YouTube only proves the “greater fool” theory.
YouTube was started in 2005 and MySpace in 2003. Normally, having a social network where people go to share profiles of themselves, write blogs and submit videos would not seem like much of a business. But MySpace has well over 100 million users. People viewed over 5 billion videos at YouTube last month.
Investors assumed that any medium with such a large number of users had to become a huge business. Millions and millions of users must be worth something. They can’t be worth nothing. That couldn’t be possible.
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