Was Facebook’s IPO a flop? Following the social networking company’s rollercoaster week of trading, that was the question at the heart of much of the debate with tech commentators.
©Pascal PerichWhen Josh Silverman received a call last year asking if he would like to work for American Express, he was surprised.
The 43-year-old technology entrepreneur’s life had always revolved around Silicon Valley start-ups. He had been chief executive of Skype and before that held a senior role at eBay. In the late 1990s he had cofounded Evite, the internet invitations company, and sold it in 2001. The thought of working for a 162-year-old blue-chip corporation was alien.
Why a lower share price is good for Facebook
After the breathless build-up, Facebook’s fizzling stock price is drawing plenty of negative reaction this week. But compared to one alternative scenario – a big first-day “pop”, which many investors seemed to have been betting on – this is far preferable in the long run for both the company and its shareholders.
By Robert Cookson in Hong Kong
A Hong Kong-based brokerage is offering free Facebook shares to all new customers in an attempt to cash in on the hype surrounding the initial public offering of the world’s biggest social network.
8 Securities, which launched in March, said customers would receive US$200 of Facebook shares simply by signing up to its online trading platform with a minimum deposit of HK$10,000 (US$1,287), a process it claimed took less than eight minutes.
However, investors hoping to flip the free Facebook shares immediately after they start trading on Friday are out of luck; 8 Securities will buy the shares on the open market in coming days and deposit them in customer accounts within 14 days.
Rakuten CEO on why Pinterest is worth $1.5bn
Rakuten has led a $100m funding round into Pinterest, which values the online “curation” community at around $1.5bn.
The Japanese ecommerce giant won out over major US venture capital firms who were vying for a piece of Silicon Valley’s new sweetheart, which lets users clip images to a virtual pinboard.
The FT spoke to Hiroshi Mikitani, chief executive of Rakuten, about how social discovery can boost ecommerce and the growing importance of images over text on the web.
Stress balls, breath mints, cupcakes and a sponsored “oxygen bar”: yes, it’s Internet Week in New York, the annual feast of branded freebies, parties and panels for the city’s digital media and marketing set.
Today a Yahoo presentation drew the biggest crowd at the warehouse-like SoHo venue. Some were clearly there for an address on “big data” by Billy Beane, the number-crunching general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team and inspiration for Brad Pitt’s character in Moneyball.
Shopping on Facebook for apps will soon be easier with the App Center, a new application storefront for users to buy and discover content. The social networking company announced the App Center this week following an amendment to its S-1 filing that claimed it does not “currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven”. The timing of the App Center news did not go unnoticed by commentators who noted Facebook’s push to conquer mobile.
Judith Masthoff, a Dutch researcher in artificial intelligence, was a doctoral student in the mid-1990s when she came up with her first invention.
The outline of the idea – a way of “enabling a user to fetch a specific information item from a set of information items” – hardly hinted at the starring role her brainwave would play in the legal battles sweeping through the technology industry.
Facebook said the migration of its users to mobile platforms is compromising its ability to make money from them, according to additions the company made to its IPO regulatory filing on Wednesday.
As the company fields questions from potential investors this week and next on its road show, Facebook is once again reiterating its philosophy of prioritising the user experience over generating revenue, particularly when it comes to its mobile offerings.
European technology funding April
Funding Circle, a UK-based online marketplace where individuals lend directly to small businesses raised $16m of Series B financing from joint investors Index Ventures and US-based Union Square Ventures. This brings the total amount raised by the company to $21m. Launched in August 2010, the company now facilitates around £1m in loans each week. The company is planning to use the funds to double its staff over the next year.
Dragonplay, a Tel Aviv-based games developer raised $14m in a Series A funding from Accel Partners. Dragonplay specializes in makes card, casino and board games for smartphones and social networks and is best known for Live Holdem Poker Pro, which has more than 2m monthly active players. The company will use the investment to expand its portfolio of games.
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