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By SuperUser Account on 5/18/2012 8:37 AM
Posted by Janet I. Tu (This article is running in the print edition of The Seattle Times May 17, 2012. - Janet I. Tu) When Facebook completes its initial public offering this week, Microsoft certainly will benefit financially. At the high end, Facebook could be valued at up to $104 billion, which means Microsoft could see its original investment in Facebook grow in value from $240 million to up to $1.6 billion. Microsoft, which now has a 1.8 percent stake in Facebook, is also planning to offer 6.6 million of its 33 million shares in the IPO. If valued at the high-end estimate of $38 per share, that means Microsoft would make some $250 million. Not bad for what was a relatively small investment, for Microsoft, back in 2007. But probably more important to Microsoft than the money is the partnership the two companies have built over the past six years. They've made mutually beneficial moves in the fight against their common competitor, Google. "Facebook has been really valuable as a way for Microsoft to reach customers it couldn't get to otherwise," said Rob Helm, an analyst at independent research firm Directions on Microsoft. "It's an asset for Microsoft's business products as well." | By SuperUser Account on 5/11/2012 8:51 AM
In an effort to outdo Google's social search integration, Microsoft has tagged Facebook. Here's what the move means. By Thomas Claburn  InformationWeek
May 11, 2012 09:05 AM Search is going social, like it or not. In a few weeks, Microsoft plans to roll out a revised version of its Bing search engine that includes a way to involve Facebook friends in the search process. While the move looks like a response to Google's Search Plus Your World social integration, announced in January, it's more than that. Microsoft believes it can make search better by enabling Bing users to pose questions during the search process to Facebook users. This functionality will be available to users shortly through a new sidebar interface. Bing will also be aggregating content posted on social networks and services like Twitter, Foursquare, Quora, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Blogger, and presenting that content when relevant."You can post a question to get help from your Facebook friends as you search," explain Bing corporate VPs Derrick Connell and Harry Shum in a blog post. "You can 'tag' friends Bing suggests might know about the topic. In a few simple clicks you can share your search and your friends can reply to your question on either Facebook or Bing." [ See Google Marries Google+ To Search Results . ] All the major browsers support some form of privacy mode. Internet Explorer looks like it will be the first to get a publicity mode. Nonetheless, Microsoft insists it has made an effort to maximize privacy protections. The company says that while you're using Bing and signed into Facebook, Bing will only reveal content that friends could access through Facebook directly. | By SuperUser Account on 8/22/2011 1:32 PM
BY AUSTIN CARR The reaction to Skype's proposed acquisition of the New York City-based group messaging service GroupMe for $85 million has been nearly universal: Good for Skype. It's the latest in a string of high-profile gambits in the world of social grouping technology. Google+ has made Circles central to its social efforts. Apple has announced plans to launch its own group service, iMessage. And Mark Zuckerberg, whose company recently acquired the group messaging service Beluga, has called grouping friends "the biggest problem in social networking." In all that excitement it's easy to overlook the fact that Skype is also in the process of being acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion. That means any decision Skype makes should be viewed as a decision Microsoft would make as well. And Microsoft was well aware of Skype's acquisition of GroupMe, Sandhya Venkatachalam, Skype's head of corporate development, tells Fast Company. There was visibility at all levels of Microsoft including CEO Steve Ballmer. "This is something that's very important for Skype and for our mobile and overall social strategy," says Venkatachalam. "Of course, if and when the acquisition with Microsoft closes, we want to bring this functionality and this strategy to Microsoft and their mobile offerings." Which means you can expect GroupMe to play a prominent role in Microsoft's social efforts as well. When I recently spoke to Skype product VP Neil Stevens, he spoke at length about how Skype would become central to Microsoft's mobile efforts. He described how Skype will add deep integration with Windows Phone, at a greater level than with any other mobile OS, and how it will become a unifying force between various Microsoft products such as Windows, Windows Mobile, and Xbox. | By SuperUser Account on 6/7/2011 11:52 AM
Microsoft and Facebook are throwing their weight behind the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile merger that would consolidate the wireless industry. "The FCC must seriously weigh the benefits of this merger and approve it," the companies wrote in a Monday letter to the Federal Communications Commission. Several other companies signed on to the letter, including phone technology company Avaya, software and server company Oracle, Blackberry maker Research in Motion, mobile chip maker Qualcomm and Brocade. Microsoft provided a copy of the letter. Missing in action on the letter: Google and Apple. Out of all the big technology companies, Apple has the most intimate working relationship with AT&T because the iPhone was for a long time exclusive to the AT&T. Google's Android software is the fastest growing mobile platform with 100 million users. | By SuperUser Account on 5/16/2011 3:06 PM
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| New social features in Bing let users make decisions with help from their Facebook friends. |
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REDMOND, Wash. — May 16, 2011 — Bing is adding 500 million new friends, and they’re all going to help the search experience become a lot more social.
Microsoft today announced new features in Bing that bring together Facebook and search to offer users personalized results based on the opinions of their friends. The new social features, which are available today, surface the stories, content and sites that their Facebook friends “like” right on the results page.
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| Today, Bing is bringing the collective IQ of the Web together with the opinions of the people you trust most, to bring the “Friend Effect” to search. Starting today, you can receive personalized search results based on the opinions of your friends by simply signing into Facebook. |
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By marrying fact-based search results with the opinions of trusted friends, Bing aims to help people make better decisions, said Sean Suchter, general manager of Microsoft’s Search Technology Center in Silicon Valley.
“We partnered with Facebook to basically allow Bing users to bring their friends to search with them,” he said. “That means they’ll be able to make decisions not just with facts but with the opinions of their friends. With almost any task on Bing, if your friends can help you out we’ll bring them right there with you.”
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| By SuperUser Account on 1/19/2011 11:36 AM
NEW YORK: Google strengthened its hold on the global search advertising market last year, but a rising "social threat" from platforms like Facebook may influence the company's future trajectory.
IHG and Screen Digest estimated the revenues delivered by Google's paid-for listings climbed 20%, to $25.3bn ($18.7bn; £15.8bn), in 2010.
The search industry as a whole was worth $30.4bn worldwide, a 17% expansion year-on-year, giving Google an 83% market share - an uptick of two percentage points.
When supplemented by display - where sales rose 61% - and mobile, Google's total revenues were placed at $28.9bn, a 22.5% increase.
Vincent Létang, senior analyst and head of advertising research for IHS, argued this constituted a very impressive performance.
"2010 seemed like it might be the year that Google would surrender some of its dominance in the global search advertising market," he said.
"However, even amid these challenges, Google managed to outgrow the overall market."
One obstacle was the... | By SuperUser Account on 1/4/2011 11:03 AM
The best properties always look too expensive. Market leaders command the highest prices. It is only a year or two later that they look like great deals. The experts thought Microsoft was crazy when they invested $240M in Facebook at a $15B valuation. Crazy like a fox. Digital Sky Technologies invested $200M in Facebook in May of 2010 at a $10B valuation. The "experts" thought the Russians had gone crazy. What do they think now? Just 7 months later Goldman Sachs is investing $500M at a $50B valuation. No one ever called Goldman Sachs crazy. I learned this lesson from my father-in-law who built a 40 store chain of tire and auto part stores. In the process he bought a lot of real estate for store locations. He told me "great properties always look too expensive." "It is only five years later that you look like a genius and the purchase price looks cheap." Technology moves much faster than real estate. Kleiner Perkins is reported to be placing a market cap of $4B on Twitter for a new round of funding. Techcrunch reported that Facebook has been valued at $50B based on sales on Second Market.Techmeme has stories every day of startups with rich valuations, or later round financings with multi-billion dollar valuations. Paying premium prices for the best property usually pays off. However, extrapolating the valuation of the market leader down to a much smaller player or clone company almost never works. Market valuations are asymmetric. Many investors forget this simple truth. Market leaders demand much higher valuations than smaller players or clones. The reasoning goes if Groupon is worth $6B, then my Copypon.com is worth at least 1% or $60M. Sorry, but that is not the way it works. The market leader has huge market share, higher margins, and much higher vaulation than the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th place player. Typically the top four companies in any market own 95% of the market. Everyone else fights for the remaining 5% of the market and loses boat loads of money. | By SuperUser Account on 1/3/2011 10:00 AM
BY ANDREW ROSS SORKIN AND EVELYN M. RUSLI  Tony Avelar/Bloomberg News Facebook, the popular social networking site, has raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor in a deal that values the company at $50 billion, according to people involved in the transaction. The deal makes Facebook now worth more than companies likeeBay, Yahoo and Time Warner. The stake by Goldman Sachs, considered one of Wall Street’s savviest investors, signals the increasing might of Facebook, which has already been bearing down on giants like Google. The new money will give Facebook more firepower to steal away valuable employees, develop new products and possibly pursue acquisitions — all without being a publicly traded company. The investment may also allow earlier shareholders, including Facebook employees, to cash out at least some of their stakes. The new investment comes as the Securities and Exchange Commission has begun an inquiry into the increasingly hot private market for shares in Internet companies, including Facebook, Twitter, the gaming site Zynga and LinkedIn, an online professional networking site. Some experts suggest the inquiry is focused on whether certain companies are improperly using the private market to get around public disclosure requirements. | By SuperUser Account on 12/29/2010 10:19 AM
29 Dec 2010 08:54 AM - by Janice Vanos, Contributing Writer; Image: Facebook and Twitter, along with other social networking sites, are facing an SEC investigation that may require them to go public Social networking giant, Facebook, is facing an Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation that end with the company having to go public. Twitter, Zynga, and LinkedIn are also facing a similar investigation. The investigation is centering on the private stock holdings of the companies in question. By law, no privately-held company can have 500 or more stock options available. Recent websites, such as SharePost and SecondMarket, facilitate the share trading of privately held companies, such as Facebook. Many executives and company officers who have been with Facebook, and the other social networking companies, for several years have begun selling their private shares of the company through these sites and through other methods. According to sources close to the investigation, reported by the New York Times, this sharing is likely to have pushed some of these companies over the 499 shares threshold, meaning that they must make a public offering and disclose financial information publicly. The same happened to Google in 2003 and to Microsoft in 1986. Bill Gates, CEO and founder of Microsoft, originally opposed the move for the public offering but was forced into it and wound up becoming one of the richest men in the world. | By SuperUser Account on 12/28/2010 10:05 AM
Apple will sell somewhere around 12 million iPads in 2010, and hardware makers will ship about 350 million PCs to users around the world. But both of these newsworthy markets are dwarfed by the user base of a single online service, Facebook, which counts over 500 million members and emerged in 2010 as the single most important onlinedestination in the world. Of course, Facebook is famous--perhaps infamous--for other reasons: It's emerged as the single-biggest personal privacy hole online as well. How the service balances the not-so-subtle difference between serving the needs of its users while simultaneously working explicitly to share their private data with advertisers and other third parties is what makes Facebook so intriguing. In fact, aside from Apple's antagonistic relationship with its biggest customer base (i.e. Windows users), there's little precedence for a company like Facebook. | By SuperUser Account on 12/15/2010 11:09 AM
by David John Walker Twenty-six year old Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of social networking giant Facebook, was named Time’s “Person of the Year” for 2010. Zuckerberg, who is one of the world’s first billionaires, owns about 25% of Facebook’s shares, and has also distinguished himself as an important new philanthropist. 
Zuckerberg joined Giving Pledge, an organization led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffet to get the richest people in America to increase their charitable contributions. Earlier this year Zuckerberg promised to give $100 million to the Newark, NJ school system over the next five years. Time’s “Person of the Year” title is given to someone who has most affected the culture and news throughout the year, for good or bad. Time said it named Zuckerberg “Person of the year “For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a news system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives,”. Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke last year was named Time’s “Person of the Year”, President Barack Obama received the honor in 2008, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was the winner in 2007. View Original Article | By SuperUser Account on 12/11/2010 9:55 PM
 A judge has dismissed Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s lawsuit against Google, Apple, Facebook and others for patent infringement.
Back in August, Allen originally claimed that 11 different companies, including YouTube ( ), Netflix and AOL, had violated four different patents associated with web search and e-commerce. These patents are tied to both software and business methods. Now, however, a court has sided with Google et al. in a motion to dismiss the case, saying Allen’s claims were too vague and lacked “adequate factual detail to satisfy the dictates of Twombly and Iqbal” — two cases that are precedents for requiring adequate evidentiary support. | By SuperUser Account on 12/11/2010 9:44 PM
By David Richards | Sunday | 12/12/2010
Microsoft who is struggling in the Smartphone, browser and desktop OS markets is now trying to buy their way into Twitter according to several sources.
The Company who is 2007 offered $15 Billion to buy Facebook but were knocked back are desperate to buy an entity that will give them growth.
Last week CEO Steve Ballmer and his Twitter counterpart Dick Costolo were seen having breakfast according to Forbes Magazine.
This has sparked rumours that Microsoft might acquire or at least cut a relationship deal with Twitter.
Last week Microsoft's Senior Director of Corporate Strategy and Acquisitions, Fritz Lanman, confirmed at the LeWeb conference that Ballmer had tried to buy Facebook in 2007.
Engadget said that Microsoft had He offered as much as $15 billion and developed an in-stages plan to buy the company that would have addressed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's desire to keep control. ... | By SuperUser Account on 12/7/2010 11:38 AM
 By: Mike Moran
2010-12-07
Not long ago, there was a lot of discussion about whether Facebook was taking over the hearts and minds of the next generation, where Google has owned the previous one. Much discussion ensued about whether using a search engine to find things would be easier than asking your friends. As usual, the future is more complex than we imagine, because we have all decided that the answer between text search and social networking is...both.
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| Social Search Is Here. Are You Ready? |
It reminds me a lot of the debates of the 1980s (OK, I am old) about whether hypertext or search was the right way for users (that's what we called them) to find information. What do you think was the outcome of that? Yeah, both.
So, as Facebook experiments with features that people think might bethe new SEO, and as Google files patents that tries to take away the human expert advantage of Facebook, a more interesting set of developments are underway in the search engines themselves. | By SuperUser Account on 11/20/2010 4:43 PM
Nov. 20 2010 - 3:16 pm
By OLIVER CHIANG 
The Facebook Keiretsu is the newest in a strong tradition of techies still working together once they hit it rich. Going way back, Intel was founded by refugees from Fairchild Semiconductor, who earlier left Shockley Semiconductor. Former employees of Microsoft have backed startups in everything from office productivity to biotech. After Paypal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, former employees stayed in touch as what became known as “The Paypal Mafia,” investing in each other’s projects and credited for starting the Web 2.0 boom with companies... | By SuperUser Account on 8/31/2010 9:27 AM
Internet companies have appropriated the real estate business’s mantra — it’s all about location, location, location.
But while a home on the beach will always be an easy sell, it may be more difficult to persuade people to start using location-based Web services. | By SuperUser Account on 8/30/2010 9:07 AM
Yesterday, the internet collective noticed that Facebook was claiming some astonishing monthly active user figures on its respective app fan pages. At the time, Facebook was showing just over 100 million users of its Facebook for iPhone app, nearly 60 million BlackBerry users, and a bit more than 12 million using the Android client. | By SuperUser Account on 8/30/2010 9:02 AM
The percentage of U.S. adults ages 50 and older using Facebook and other online communities nearly doubled from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May of this year, according to the Pew Research Center. | By SuperUser Account on 8/25/2010 8:24 AM
With more than 500 million registered users, Facebook is already a force to be reckoned with in the world of social networks. When a service becomes that large, its growth rate often slows, but Facebook’s audience is poised to keep growing at a healthy clip, and not just because of new software features like the recently announced Places. Instead, the trend is for Facebook to find hooks into hardware devices of every type, even those that aren’t always connected or can’t directly connect to the Internet. | By SuperUser Account on 8/20/2010 12:28 PM
 Wednesday's Facebook Places news event was heralded by many as the beginning of the end for dedicated location-based services like Foursquare.
| By SuperUser Account on 8/20/2010 12:10 PM
As of last night, our community site (www.PartnerPoint.com) is fully connected to Facebook. Now with a click of a button, you or your clients, friends, employees or coworkers can Recommend your company to their friends on FaceBook. And, every new visitor will see how many others have Recommended your Company. So, be sure to let everyone know so you get the Facebook Love your company deserves.... To check it out, just visit your Company Profile. You'll see a new Facebook Recommend button under your logo. Just click it! (If your not a member and dont have a Profile, just click Register in the upper right hand corner to join. Membership is Free). Here is what it looks like: 
| By SuperUser Account on 8/18/2010 9:31 AM
As Facebook becomes more and more popular, the social network giant is putting more emphasis on the real-time feed. In other words, the activities of your friends displayed in reverse chronological order on your Facebook homepage. In the old days of Facebook - and indeed traditionally with social networks like MySpace and Friendster - you'd visit a person's profile page to see what they're up to. Facebook changed this paradigm in September 2006, when it introduced the news feed as the primary way to keep track of your friends. In October 2009, that feature was re-named the "live feed" and Facebook introduced a more filtered news feed for your homepage. | By SuperUser Account on 8/16/2010 12:17 PM
If you are a web developer, you may have brushed off social networking as a phenomenon that is dominated by teenagers and people seeking relationships. If you talk to non-developers, however, you may have realized that social networking is pervasive, and noticed that most smart businesses have embraced the phenomenon as a way to attract potential customers and interact with their current customers. In this article we'll look at the top 10 social networking sites that you should be aware of as a developer who cares about your clients' businesses. | By SuperUser Account on 8/11/2010 10:16 AM
Microsoft and Amazon have launched a pretty interesting video ad campaign to promote the new Office 2010 suite. | By SuperUser Account on 8/11/2010 9:53 AM
 As a tribute to XKCD’s ‘Map of Online Communities’, we have decided to re-create our own, updated version of this map. The numbers are taken to reflect many new developments in the social networking communities, including Facebook surpassing Myspace as the preeminent online community.
| By SuperUser Account on 7/22/2010 7:30 AM
By Glenn Chapman (AFP) – 17 hours ago SAN FRANCISCO, USA — The number of people using Facebook hit the 500 million mark on Wednesday, meaning one in every 14 people on the planet has now signed up to the online social-networking service. "As of this morning, 500 million people all around the world are actively using Facebook to stay connected with their friends and the people around them," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post. "This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world." To celebrate, the California firm introduced an application that lets members of the online community "tell the incredible stories of the moving and interesting ways they've used Facebook." Examples given by Zuckerberg included NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen jogging with Facebook fans during his term as Danish prime minister and a US woman using the service to battle breast cancer. "Our mission at Facebook is to help make the world more open and connected," Zuckerberg said. "I could have never imagined all of the ways people would use Facebook when we were getting started 6 years ago." Zuckerberg has pointed to Facebook's unrelenting growth to rebuff criticism of feature changes or privacy safeguards at the website. Americans are increasingly obsessed with Facebook and many young women check their page even before using the bathroom in the morning, according to a poll released last week. However, a US study released on Tuesday indicates that while people may be addicted to Facebook they rank it near the bottom when it comes to customer satisfaction. Facebook landed with notoriously despised airlines and cable television companies in the bottom 5 percent of private companies ranked in a 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business Report produced in partnership with ForeSee Results. |
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SMB Nation
Office Location: Bainbridge Island, Washington, United States
Type: Other
Industry Focus:
SMB Nation is a long-time “community” of enthusiastic SMB channel partners who server end-customers with technology solutions including data, voice, cloud and business advice. SMB Nation has three major business units to serve and educate the computer guy and gals:(a) Content. SMB PC magazine, blogs, e-mail newsletters(b) Events. Workshops, conference, webinars Education. The Pocket MBA program in conjunction with Aspen University
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Zeal Solutions, Inc.
Office Location: Naperville, , United States
Type: Systems Integrator,Reseller,Training Firm,VAR
Industry Focus:
Zeal Solutions specializes in successfully implementing Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Small Business Financials, and Microsoft CRM for small, mid-size and Fortune 1000 organizations.
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ACE Microtechnology, Inc.
Office Location: Gainesville, Georgia, United States
Type: Systems Integrator,Reseller,Training Firm,VAR
Industry Focus: Distribution, Manufacturing, Retail and Hospitality
ACE Microtechnology, Inc. is a professional services firm committed to delivering business solutions to medium sized organizations. Our focus is in delivering products and services that improve our clients' business operations. ACE has developed specialties in serving the discrete manufacturing wholesale distribution and hospitality industries
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Massey Consulting
Office Location: Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Type: Systems Integrator,Reseller,Training Firm,VAR
Industry Focus: We are a horizontal partner serving many industries, however, we do have a small niche in the office and industrial furniture manufacturing industry.
Massey Consulting, Inc., a North Carolina based company, specializes in Accounting Software implementations, and maintains a range of business and resource management software.
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Agility Computer Network Service, Inc.
Office Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Type: Systems Integrator,Reseller,System Builder,VAR,Other
Industry Focus: Banking, Healthcare
Comprehensive computer network, I.T. system strategy services firm dedicated to providing high-end services with best-of-breed solutions delivered by our Senior Level Department Staff members. In business since 1994.
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