Saturday, January 12, 2013

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Facebook and Google try self-help


    IT turns out you need lots and lots of cement when building internet superhighways.
    Now web heavyweights such as Google and Facebook want to mix their own. That threatens to eat into the profits of large internet construction companies such as Intel and Cisco Systems. Smartly, the latter aren't just going to let the market drive off without them.
    Google and Facebook buy so much tech equipment that it makes sense for them to design their own. This enables them to save money and run their websites more efficiently. Both design their own servers, for instance, of which Google has over a million worldwide, IDC estimates. Besides servers, Facebook designs much of its own storage hardware while Google also designs its own network switches, says IDC.
    Now both these firms are pursuing projects that could help them sidestep Intel and Cisco, two hardware manufacturers that dominate their respective markets, making gross profit margins of roughly 60 per cent in the process.

    Digital Pass $1 for first 28 Days
    Google's project concerns chips. It may make its own servers, but these come packed with expensive processors based on x86 technology from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. Now, International Business Machines will license its own chip technology and has enlisted Google as a partner. Google will be able to use this to design chips for servers, storage and networking gear, thereby potentially reducing its dependence on Intel.
    Facebook's latest project is in network switches. The social network wants to be able to customise them for its needs, but that isn't possible with "black box" switches off the shelf, says Facebook vice-president Frank Frankovsky. These have hardware and software that is tightly integrated. That is great for Cisco, as it can charge high prices for its gear, but less so for customers seeking more control. Facebook is, therefore, working with others to design a switch that decouples software and hardware.
    Facebook and Google are just two customers, but their scale translates into gravity that may pull the market in their direction over time. While Cisco chief executive John Chambers has said his company "waited too long" to do so, it is now giving customers more control over their networking gear via software.
    Intel, meanwhile, is already attempting to head off another threat in server chips. Companies such as Samsung Electronics have licensed technology from ARM Holdings in order to make server chips that are cheaper than Intel's designs and also consume less power. In response, Intel is releasing cheaper, more energy-efficient server chips of its own.
    That both Intel and Cisco are responding to these nascent threats testifies to the disruptive impact they could have. It is sensible for the two firms to do so; tech firms that bury their heads in the sand tend to suffocate themselves. Still, by helping to bring alternative products to the markets, web giants could still put a choke-hold on the incumbents' profits.

     

     

    Facebook Blocks Kirk Cameron’s New Movie

     http://unstoppablethemovie.com

    Jul 18, 2013
     
    By Todd Starnes
    Christian actor Kirk Cameron said Facebook has blocked fans from posting any links to “Unstoppable,” an upcoming faith-based movie, because the website is abusive and unsafe.
    “We have been officially shut down by Facebook and unable to get any response from them,” Cameron wrote on his personal Facebook fan page. The film was made in partnership with Liberty University, the self-proclaimed largest Christian university in the world.
    Follow Todd on Facebook for a dose of Southern Sensibilities and a cold Mason jar of sweet tea. Click here!
    Cameron, who achieved fame in the 1980s as the star of “Growing Pains,” is now a well-known Christian producer, actor and evangelist. He’s starred in a number of faith-based films including the “Left Behind” films and most recently, “Monumental,” a documentary about the nation’s founders and their biblical principles.
    “Unstoppable,” which is expected in theaters in the fall, aims to answer questions about suffering and recounts the personal experience of a Cameron friend whose son battled cancer.
    The film’s website does not contain any graphic photographs, video or profanity.
    However, Cameron said he received a message from Facebook telling him the website’s content was labeled as “abuse” and “unsafe.”
    “This is my most personal film about faith, hope and love and about why God allows bad things to happen to good people,” Cameron wrote. “What is ‘abusive’ or ‘unsafe’ about that?”
    A Facebook media representative did not reply to an email seeking comment.
    In recent months, the social networking website has come under fire from conservatives and Christians who said their pages have been either blocked or banned because of “abusive” content.
    Earlier this year, the “Chicks on the Right” Facebook page was shut down after they posted a message criticizing the White House. Facebook later apologized for that incident.
    Michael Catt, the executive producer of Sherwood Pictures, called Cameron a stand-up guy. Cameron starred in Sherwood’s “Fireproof” film.
    “I found him to be very kind and gracious to everyone on the set,” Catt told Fox News. “He also spoke in our church and was well received by our people.”
     
    “Unstoppable” will be shown in movie theaters on Sept. 24.

      Data center & cloud

    Facebook disables some legitimate apps while targeting malicious ones



    The use of tools to detect malicious patterns in apps led Facebook to temporarily disable some legitimate third-party apps that integrate with the social networking website, it said Thursday.
    On Tuesday, a number of people complained that their Facebook developer accounts and apps were unavailable.
    Facebook said it uses automated systems to identify and disable malicious apps, so as to protect its platform and users. These techniques identify a malicious pattern, find the apps that match that pattern, and then disable those apps.
    "This normally results in thousands of malicious apps being disabled and improves our automated systems' ability to detect similar attacks in the future," Facebook employee Eugene Zarakhovsky wrote in a blog post.
    But on Tuesday, Facebook started with a broad pattern that correctly matched many thousands of malicious apps but also matched many high-quality apps.
    "When we detected this error, we immediately stopped the process and began work to restore access," Zarakhovsky wrote. "The process took longer than expected because of the number of apps affected and bugs related to the restoration of app metadata."
    Facebook did not say how many legitimate apps were affected.
    The company now plans to make improvements to its processes and technology, including better tools to identify overly broad patterns and better processes to verify that all the apps matched are in fact malicious. It will also address the bugs and bottlenecks that slowed down the recovery process.
    Facebook has been unveiling tools to get developers to integrate their apps with its platform. In April it announced plans to acquire Parse, a cloud-based platform that provides cross-platform services and tools for developers. "By making Parse a part of Facebook Platform, we want to enable developers to rapidly build apps that span mobile platforms and devices," it  Said at the time.

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    ABC NEWS Reports

    Facebook May Be Making You Sad

    A new study finds that young adults feel less happy the more they log onto Facebook.

    Sure, Facebook can make you feel as if you've got all the friends in the world, but some days it can also make you feel as if the world is out to get you. Or at least that's what a new study seems to suggest.
    According to the study from researchers at the University of Michigan, which was just published in the Public Library of Science, the more you use Facebook, the more unhappy you are likely to be.
    "Everyday Facebook use leads to declines in subjective well-being, both how happy you feel moment to moment and how satisfied you feel with your life," says Ethan Kross, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and a co-author of the study, told ABC News.
    WHAT TO KNOW
    • The more you use Facebook, the more unhappy you are likely to be, says new study
    • Many compare their lives to others
    Kross and the other researchers analyzed the moods and habits of 82 young adults -- active Facebook users with mobile phones whose average age was 20 -- over the course of two weeks. They texted each participant five times a day, at random intervals, and got feedback about their feelings, worries, loneliness, Facebook usage and real-life interactions with other people. They found that Facebook users were more connected with their friends and acquaintances than those not on Facebook, but the more frequently people used Facebook, the worse they felt immediately afterward. Additionally, the more they used Facebook over the course of two weeks, the less satisfied and happy they were with their lives as a whole. Interestingly, the so-called "Facebook effect" that Kross describes is not related to baseline mood or loneliness. "It's not the case that people use Facebook more when they feel bad," he says. "It is something unique about Facebook use that is making people feel worse." While the study had only 82 participants out of Facebook's more than a billion users, relies only on anecdotal reports and was done via text messaging, the finding isn't exactly new. Other independent studies by researchers at Utah Valley University, Western Illinois University, Gothenburg University in Sweden, and others have found similar results: People look at the overcurated digital lives of all their other friends, compare themselves to what they see and then feel a decrease in self-esteem.
    "When you're browsing Facebook, you see people depict glowingly positive stuff."
    "When you're browsing Facebook, you see people depict glowingly positive stuff. There is a social comparison process at play," Kross said.
    Other experts not affiliated with the research shared similar thoughts.
    "People feel left out," said Dr. Sudeepta Varma, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University and a private practice psychiatrist in Manhattan, told ABC News. "There is this imagination or fantasy that other people's lives are better. Facebook keeps people in the know about what other people are doing," she says, "but also about what they themselves are not doing."
    People also spend time on Facebook looking at "exes, frenemies, people they don't necessarily like, and people they can't be with in real life," Varma said. And it is easy to imagine that they have "more friends, more money and a more exciting life."

    Facebook May Be Making You Sad


    On the flip side of the new study, the University of Wisconsin-Madison released a study in June that showed that prolonged exposure to ones' personal Facebook page can increase self-esteem. The findings follow a similar logic, though. When you look at your own Facebook profile you look at all the positive and exciting events in your own life without dwelling on the lives of others.
    Still, the lesson in most of these studies seems to be that Facebook users should come to the social network slightly forewarned.
    "People should be aware that Facebook can have these effects on you," Oscar Ybarra, one of the additional authors of the University of Michigan study, told ABC News. "Awareness is important, and it's also important to remember that Facebook is a public place where you get a very biased version of people's lives."




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    Tell Facebook: Stop Censoring Political Speech

    BREAKING NEWS:  A range of Facebook users, from political dissidents to technology bloggers, are reporting the sudden blocking of their pages. Facebook provided no prior warning, nor was there a clear process established to restore access to the blocked pages.
    Will you fight back?  The best way to get Facebook's attention is to make the story go viral on their own site:
    If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends.
    More than 50 blocked pages were political in nature, and several users have had their pages maliciously blocked through fraudulent claims of intellectual property violations.  This news follows Facebook's disturbing assertions that it's willing to work with government censors in places like China, and that the company is worried that it sometimes provides "too much" free speech.
    Astounding.  And this disregard for civil liberties is nothing new: Facebook has consistently dodged hard questions about free speech.  Last year they refused to attend a U.S. Senate hearing on "global Internet freedom" and the company won't join the tech industry's Global Network Initiative, which promotes human rights and free speech.  Will you demand that Facebook start respecting civil liberties?  Just fill out the form at right to sign our petition. 
    PETITION TO MARK ZUCKERBERG AND THE FACEBOOK TEAM:  Your callous disregard for free speech and human rights is completely unacceptable.  Your dominance of the web comes with real responsibility: You need to stop censoring political content right away.

    Just sign on at right and we'll make sure Facebook gets the message.

    Click here, here, or here for more details on the page removals.

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    Las Angeles Time Reports


    Facebook is a bummer, study says



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    Facebook users in a study led by the University of Michigan wound up feeling worse about themselves after two weeks. (Daniel Acker / Bloomberg)

    Don't press the like button: Facebook is a bummer that makes us feel worse about our lives, according to new research.
    Facebook users in a study led by the University of Michigan wound up feeling worse about themselves after two weeks, and their moment-to-moment mood darkened the more they browsed the social medium. It didn't seem to matter how big their network was, how supportive they thought their friends were, nor why they went to Facebook in the first place, according to the study published online Wednesday in PLOS One.
    "We were able to show on a moment-to-moment basis throughout the day how people’s mood fluctuated depending on their Facebook usage,” said University of Michigan social psychologist Ethan Kross, lead author of the study.
    "We measured lots and lots of other personality and behavioral dimensions, like, for example, frequency of Facebook use," Kross said. "But none of the factors that we assessed influenced the results. The more you used Facebook, the more your mood dropped."
    The study adds to a body of work examining social media's effect on well-being, much of it offering mixed diagnoses. Looking at your own profile can be self-affirming, according to a recent study. And a survey of Facebook users suggested that it modestly increased life satisfaction, social trust, civic engagement, and political participation.
    But other studies have suggested Facebook can evoke envy of others' activities and profile, leaving users with diminished self-images. Another study suggested that people with low self-esteem don't reap a benefit from tinkering with their online image, either.
    None of those studies, however, followed people over time. The University of Michigan study involved 82 college-aged volunteers -- a core demographic among Facebook's nearly 700 million active daily users -- who answered questionnaires five times a day for 14 days, and rated their well-being at the beginning and end.
    Worry did not predict changes in Facebook use, but loneliness did, according to the study. Nonetheless, when researchers controlled for loneliness, the relationship between Facebook use and mood and satisfaction was insignificant, Kross said.
    “Loneliness predicted Facebook use, and loneliness also predicted how bad people felt," Kross said. "But the effect of Facebook on how people felt was independent of loneliness.”
    “One of the things we don’t know is what aspect of Facebook use is contributing to these results,” Kross said. “Facebook and online social networks more generally represent a very new way in which human beings are interacting, and we’re really just beginning to scratch the surface as to how exactly these interactions work and how they influence us.”
    Catalina Toma, a University of Wisconsin communication researcher who found that Facebook users could increase their self-esteem, said seemingly contradictory findings among studies reflect the complexity of the medium and point out the need to drill deeper into what people do while on Facebook.
    "I think what's happening, honestly, is that Facebook is such a gigantic space where so many different activities take place," said Toma, who was not involved in the study. "So for us to be simply talking about Facebook use is an over-simplification. Facebook use is not just one thing; it is many, many different things."
    Kross and fellow researchers conducted an exploratory analysis of the data that suggests a linear relationship between online communication and face-to-face interaction. As both increase, feelings of well-being decline.
    “The negative effect of Facebook use on happiness became more pronounced the more you interacted with other people within that time frame," Kross said. “It’s very likely that there are going to be a multitude of mechanisms that explain this effect.”
    Like other social media, Facebook affords people the opportunity to contemplate, edit and enhance their presentation in ways that are difficult if not impossible during impromptu social interactions in the flesh. You can take hours to come up with a clever response, whereas most people have long left the cocktail party when they think of the perfect riposte.
    Toma suggested that users' emotions and sense of worth may be negatively influenced by the discord between tailored online images of others and their unedited view of themselves.
    "Instead of doing a person-to-person profile, you're comparing a profile and a person," Toma said.
    Studies have shown that users tend to put their best foot forward, both Toma and Kross noted.
    Still, other studies indicate that the information in people's profiles closely matches their actual personality -- enough so that researchers could make predictions based only on the person's "like" preferences. You are what you like, in other words.
    Whether any of this will make you feel better, however, may depend on whether you're reading this on Facebook.













    Facebook defends page attacking conservative minorities with racial slurs

    See also



    August 15, 2013

    On Wednesday, Facebook told Examiner that "Lawn Jockey Alert," a page that attacks conservative minorities with racial slurs, does not violate the site's community standards.
    Throughout the page, posts can be found attacking prominent conservatives like Allen West with overtly racist terms like "Uncle Tom" or worse.
    A post at Wisegeek.com said the initial use of the African-American lawn jockey was considered to be ugly and racist.
    In 2012, Fox Chicago reported that an antique shop owner sparked controversy over a black-faced iron lawn statue that neighbors called racist.
    The page also displays as its banner a picture that reminds one of slavery.
    From the name of the page -- and everything it implies -- to the banner and the content, the page clearly violates Facebook's standards which specifically state that individuals or groups cannot "attack others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition."
    Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a favorite target of the page, with one post calling him the "Lawn jockey of the year."
    Another post attacks Louisiana State Senator Elbert Guillory, a black Republican who recently switched from the Democratic Party.
    Other posts openly use the "n-word," but Facebook says the page does not violate their terms of service.
    This schizophrenic application of Facebook's standards is nothing new.
    As we reported in July, Facebook said the page "Zimmerman must DIE" did not violate their standards.
    In June, Facebook initially said a page calling for the beheading of anyone who disrespects the Prophet Mohammed also did not violate their community standards. That page was finally removed.
    As a result of what many see as the site's "arbitrary and capricious" policies that seem to target conservatives while giving a free pass to others, over 19,000 users have signed on to a "Facebook Blackout" event set for Aug. 25.
    Organizers of the event are asking participants to temporarily suspend their accounts that day for a period of 24 hours.
    Related:

    If you like this article, you can follow Joe on Twitter @jnewby1956, subscribe to receive email updates when a new article is published, or check out his Facebook page.
    Be sure to listen to "Grit and Grace" every Thursday from 6-8 p.m. Pacific Time on Blog Talk Radio, where you can hear Joe discuss current events.

     

     

    Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter call for transparency on NSA spying


    Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft are part of a broad alliance of technology companies and civil liberties groups that will demand dramatically increased transparency around U.S. government surveillance efforts.
    In a letter published Thursday, the alliance — whose members include 63 companies, investors, non-profits and trade organizations — will call upon President Obama and congressional leaders to allow Internet, telephone, and Web-based service providers to report national security-related requests for information with greater specificity. Specifically, they ask that they are allowed to regularly report:
         • The number of government requests for information about their users
         • The number of individuals, accounts, or devices for which information was requested
         • The number of requests that sought communications content, basic subscriber information, and/or other information.


    'Information about how and how often the government is using these legal authorities is important to the American people.'
    - Coalition letter
    The coalition also asks that the government begin issuing a transparency report of its own that provides essentially the same information — the total number of information requests made and the number of individuals affected by each.
    “Basic information about how the government uses its various law enforcement–related investigative authorities has been published for years without any apparent disruption to criminal investigations,” a copy of the letter obtained by AllThingsD reads
    “We seek permission for the same information to be made available regarding the government’s national security -- related authorities. This information about how and how often the government is using these legal authorities is important to the American people, who are entitled to have an informed public debate about the appropriateness of those authorities and their use.”

     

    Facebook pushes search feature to more users

    Desair Brown hosts USA NOW, covering the Facebook Graph Search that rolled out today. Here are 3 things you need to know.
    Users who may have grown frustrated with Facebook's rudimentary search feature are getting an updated version designed to make it easier to find people, places and photos on the site.
    Facebook unveiled its social search tool in January, but only made it available to a small fraction of its 1.1 billion users, as its engineers continued to tweak and test it. Over the next few weeks, starting on Monday, the company is rolling out the social search tool, called "Graph Search," to everyone whose language is set to U.S. English.
    Unlike searches on Google, which are good for finding specific things like roasted kale recipes or Mizuno running shoes, Facebook's tool is most useful in unearthing information about your social circles. Graph Search lets you find friends who live in San Francisco who are vegan. Friends of friends who live near you and like hiking. Photos of your boyfriend taken before you met him in 2010. Nearby restaurants that your friends like - and so on.
    But soon after Facebook launched the tool, the Internet had a field day with less innocuous and more embarrassing queries, showing just how much information people reveal about themselves on the site, intentionally or not. Care to find out which brand of condoms your friends prefer? Graph Search might tell you.
    A blog called actualfacebookgraphsearches.tumblr.com posted a collection of searches ranging from "married people who like prostitutes" to "current employers of people who like racism." Both yielded more than 100 people.
    While it is possible that some of those Facebook users are fully aware that what they've shared is easily searchable, it is likely that some are not. It's easy to click "like" on a page and forget about it, and it's even easier to assume that no one will search through your photos from party days at the Burning Man festival five years ago.
    To avoid any unpleasantness, Facebook plans to notify users that it's "getting easier for people to find photos and other things you've shared with them" along with a reminder that they can check "who can see my stuff" under their privacy settings.
    "The goal is to avoid bad surprises," said Nicky Jackson Colaco, privacy and safety manager at Facebook. But she stressed Facebook's view that the search tool "indexes information differently than we have ever been able to do before, in a really positive way."
    It's easier, for example, to find a long-lost classmate with a common name, or to find common interests with friends of friends.
    Facebook does not currently show users ads based on what they are searching for, but the company may do in the future. As Google has shown, it's a lucrative business. Research firm eMarketer estimates that Google will take nearly 42 percent of all U.S. digital ad spending this year, well above Facebook's share of less than 7 percent.
    With its new search tool, Facebook is clearly trying to divert traffic and ad spending from its rival. Whether this will work will become more clear as more people begin using it.

      __________________________

    Facebook Android App Collects Phone Numbers Without Permission -- Even From Non-Members

    The Huffington Post  |  By Posted:   |  Updated: 06/28/2013 8:17 pm EDT


    Facebook has been inadvertently collecting phone numbers belonging to people who download the site’s Android application -- even if they aren’t members of the social network, don’t ever sign into the app or don’t explicitly share their cell phone number.
    The bug was reported by a security software provider Wednesday and has been confirmed by Facebook, which noted the problem will be addressed in the forthcoming version of the app. A Facebook spokesman said the company believes the technical flaw was introduced in February of this year.
    Symantec, the software provider, announced in a blog post that its mobile security software, which looks for apps that could pose privacy risks, found that Facebook’s Android app had been “leaking” the phone number of Android devices on which it was installed. A Symantec spokesman told The Huffington Post that any Android smartphone running the buggy Facebook app was affected by the flaw and could have had its phone number uploaded to Facebook's servers.
    “The first time you launch the Facebook application, even before logging in, your phone number will be sent over the Internet to Facebook servers,” Symantec's blog post said. “You do not need to provide your phone number, log in, initiate a specific action, or even need a Facebook account for this to happen.”
    Facebook's spokesman told The Huffington Post that the social network did not "use or process the numbers in any way," and said they had been deleted from Facebook’s servers.
    “This was a bug in the Facebook for Android app, and we thank Symantec for bringing it to our attention,” Facebook spokesman Derick Mains told The Huffington Post in an email. “We've fixed it in the next version of the app, which is available for anyone to download as a beta today."
    Symantec estimated in its blog post that a "significant portion" of the "hundreds of millions of devices" on which Facebook's Android app have been installed were affected by the bug. Mains said that because Facebook deleted the collected phone numbers after being notified of the bug, it could not estimate how many people were affected or numbers were collected.
    "Based on my understanding, the bug would have been found on any version of the [Facebook] Android application that's out there, for any device it runs on," said Satnam Narang, a security response manager with Symantec.
    This article has been updated to include additional information from Symantec and comment from a Facebook spokesman.

     

    Facebook crashes, no injuries


    MICHAEL FIELD
    Last updated 14:00 19/06/2013













    Digital Living

    Apple reveals details on US data requests End of the road for Fairfax technology titles Snap-happy but easy come, easy go Facebook's Graph Search gets more data Ideas for keeping your data safe from spying How could the sun leave us in the dark? Seek professional help if hit by slick fakeware Office for iPhone helpful for subscribers 'Assume everything is being collected' German spy agency to boost web monitoring

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    Facebook, the world's most popular social network, appeared to temporarily crash globally this afternoon.
    The anarchist digital group calling themselves Anonymous claimed credit for it.
    Facebook itself HAS yet to say anything about it.
    Users said they were unable to login to Facebook, or "a website that uses Facebook Connect" for a short period of time this afternoon.
    "I get an error message that says, "Sorry, something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can,"" Another person tweeted.
    Facebook's photo-sharing service, Instagram, did not appear to be affected by the outage.
    As the site resumed function, users posted complaints on the Facebook Engineering page.
    One user said they were "getting error messages for everything now," and others commented, "it's down!".
    "Hmm, possible shredding of documents as part of FB cover up to NSA, yeah sounds good, call it an outage!" Another user added.
    Ironically, downrightnowcom - a website that monitored user reports and website outages - had also crashed.
    The last major Facebook outage was September 24 2010 when the site was out of action for over two and a half hours.
    On rival social media Twitter the crash caused hectic multi-lingual angst with many of the complaints coming from Brazil.
    One Twitter user from Portugal said "TANGO DOWN by ANONYMOUS LEADER Blame #todopoderoso it for global warming and everything else."
    None of it was explained.
    Others on Twitter were lighthearted: "Where were you during the Great Facebook Crash of 2013?" and "productivity rates just sky rocketed after that facebook crash".
    Allen Renfro of the US reported on Twitter: "The Facebook crash is big news. It even made Twitter."
    Others were grumpy.
    "Difference between Facebook & everybody else. We don't crash ever! If the servers are down, our entire reputation is irreversibly destroyed."
    Another wondered if they were responsible: "I used "#facebook" in a status update on Facebook, & now seem to have caused the entire site to crash for the last 5 minutes. #MyBad #Sorry".
    Mega founder and internet millionaire Kim Dotcom even jokingly tweeted that the crash was linked to the American NSA's PRISM programme.
    " is upgrading capacity on Facebook today. Expect service interruptions on Facebook for the next few hours )

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    Facebook, Microsoft release information on government data requests



    Technology giants Facebook and Microsoft said Friday night that they 
    there is over 68 million on facebook and the people on facebook have received thousands of requests from U.S. government agencies to turn over user data in the just last six months of 2012.
    Representatives of both companies said that after negotiations with national security officials their companies have been given permission to make new but still very limited revelations about government orders requesting user data.
    Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, said in a statement Friday that Facebook is only allowed to talk about total numbers and must give no specifics. But he said the permission it has received is still unprecedented, and the company was lobbying to reveal more.
    "These requests run the gamut – from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national security official investigating a terrorist threat," Ullyot said.
    Using the new guidelines, Ullyot said Facebook received between 9,000 and 10,000 government requests from all government entities from local to federal in the last six months of 2012, on various topics. The requests involved the accounts of between 18,000 and 19,000 Facebook users.
    Facebook was not allowed to make public how many orders it received from a particular agency or on a particular subject. But the numbers do include all national security related requests including those submitted via national security letters and under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which companies had not previously been allowed to reveal.
    Ullyot said the company wanted to reveal the information because of "confusion and inaccurate reporting" on the issue, and to show that only "a tiny fraction of one percent" of its 1.1 billion users have been affected.
    "This is progress, but we’re continuing to push for even more transparency, so that our users around the world can understand how infrequently we are asked to provide user data on national security grounds," he said.
    Microsoft released similar numbers for the same period, but downplayed how much they revealed.
    "We continue to believe that what we are permitted to publish continues to fall short of what is needed to help the community understand and debate these issues," John Frank, Microsoft's vice president and deputy general counsel said in a statement.
    Frank said Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 accounts.
    Both attorneys emphasized in their statements that those affected by the orders represent a "tiny fraction" of their huge user bases.
    The disclosures come after Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old American who works as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, revealed to The Guardian newspaper the existence of secret surveillance programs that gathered Americans' phone records and other data. The companies did not link their actions to Snowden's leaks.
    In a rare alliance, Facebook, Google and Microsoft Corp. have been pressuring the Obama administration to loosen their legal gag on government surveillance orders.
    The companies have sought to distance themselves from the Internet dragnet code-named "PRISM" that was revealed in leaks last week.
    "We have always believed that it's important to differentiate between different types of government requests," a statement from Google said. "We already publish criminal requests separately from National Security Letters. Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users. Our request to the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately."
    Facebook repeated recent assurances that the company scrutinizes every government request, and works aggressively to protect users' data. Facebook said it has a compliance rate of 79 percent on government requests.
    "We frequently reject such requests outright, or require the government to substantially scale down its requests, or simply give the government much less data than it has requested," Ullyot said." And we respond only as required by law."
    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/06/15/facebook-can-now-say-more-on-user-surveillance/#ixzz2WRhBENJe

    June 14, 2013, 10:54 pm

    Facebook Discloses Basic Data on Law-Enforcement Requests

    A sign outside of Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. The company on Friday disclosed information about government requests for data, the vast majority of which did not pertain to national security matters.Jeff Chiu/Associated Press A sign outside of Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. The company on Friday disclosed information about government requests for data, the vast majority of which did not pertain to national security matters.
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    • Google+
    12:10 a.m. Saturday, June 15, 2013 | Updated Added Microsoft’s release of more data on Friday night.
    Facebook on Friday disclosed for the first time how many requests for data about its 1.1 billion users it had gotten from law enforcement authorities in the United States.
    The social networking company said that in the last six months of 2012, it had 9,000 to 10,000 requests for information about its users from local, state and federal agencies. Those requests covered 18,000 to 19,000 user accounts.
    “These requests run the gamut — from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national security official investigating a terrorist threat,” the company’s general counsel, Ted Ullyot, said in a blog post disclosing the data.
    Facebook said it was legally prohibited from saying how many of the data requests were related to national security. But generally speaking, the vast majority of the law-enforcement data requests received by tech companies are for other matters, like local criminal cases.
    Facebook’s disclosure comes after negotiations with the federal government that began after the first news reports a week ago about the National Security Agency’s secret Prism surveillance program. Those reports revealed that a number of American Internet companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, had secretly provided data about foreigners to the United States government under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
    The tech companies have also secretly provided data to the F.B.I. under National Security Letters, which the government uses to gather information about Americans.
    Under federal law, companies generally cannot disclose even the existence of national security data requests they receive. But in recent days, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have been pressing the government for permission to share more information.
    “We’re pleased that as a result of our discussions, we can now include in a transparency report all U.S. national security-related requests (including FISA as well as National Security Letters) – which until now no company has been permitted to do,” Mr. Ullyot wrote. “As of today, the government will only authorize us to communicate about these numbers in aggregate, and as a range. This is progress, but we’re continuing to push for even more transparency.”
    Google had previously published a transparency report that included N.S.L. but not FISA data requests. Microsoft’s recent transparency report similarly excluded FISA requests but included National Security Letters.
    Late Friday, after Facebook’s data release, Microsoft provided similar information about requests for data that it had received from law enforcement at all levels of government.
    For the six months ending Dec. 31, 2012, Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from governmental entities in the United States, the company’s deputy general counsel, John Frank, said in a statement.
    “We have not received any national security orders of the type that Verizon was reported to have received that required Verizon to provide business records about U.S. customers,” Mr. Frank said.

    This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
    Correction: June 15, 2013
    An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Microsoft's transparency report. It included National Security Letters requests, but excluded FISA requests. It did not exclude both types of national security requests.

     

     

     

    Facebook adds hashtags, just like Twitter

    20 hours ago

    Facebook
    An example of a hashtag on Facebook.
    The hashtag — # — is now a part of Facebook, and the tech shorthand should make it easier for users to follow specific topics of conversation on the social network. Either that, or it will drive its users more nutty by adding yet another visual annoyance.
    Twitter popularized the use of the hashtag, which has subsequently been picked up by other social media sites like Instagram (owned by Facebook), Tumblr and Pinterest.
    Starting immediately, Facebook said Wednesday, "hashtags on Facebook allow you to add context to a post or indicate that it is part of a larger discussion. When you click on a hashtag in Facebook, you'll see a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic."
    Twitter's hashtag use has been very popular for connecting real-time tweets — limited to 140 characters — about news, sports and for TV watchers, sharing reactions to everything from who's wearing what at the Academy Awards to comments about the "Games of Thrones" upsets.
    But on the social network until now, "there has not been a simple way to see the larger view of what's happening or what people are talking about," wrote Greg Lindley of Facebook:
    During primetime television alone, there are between 88 and 100 million Americans engaged on Facebook — roughly a Super Bowl-sized audience every single night. The recent "Red Wedding" episode of Game of Thrones, received over 1.5 million mentions on Facebook, representing a significant portion of the 5.2 million people who watched the show. And this year's Oscars buzz reached an all-time high on Facebook with over 66.5 million interactions, including likes, comments, and posts.
    The introduction of the hashtag is just a "first step," Lindley wrote. Facebook, he said, will be "rolling out a series of features that surface some of the interesting discussions people are having about public events, people, and topics."
    Facebook users can search for a specific hashtag using Facebook's search tool — say putting in the hashtag, #Election or #NBAFinals (as Facebook itself used in its example).
    Check out Technology and TODAY Tech on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

    Facebook IPO

    • Here's What Really Happened in the Botched Facebook IPO

      What really happened on May 18, 2012, with the botched IPO of Facebook Inc. (NasdaqGS: FB)?

      Well, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) just released its version of events under the guise of Administrative Proceeding File No. 3-15339.

      And "In the Matter of THE NASDAQ STOCK MARKET, LLC and NASDAQ EXECUTION SERVICES, LLC (Respondents)" the SEC slapped wrists and fined the fools $10 million for screwing up Facebook's IPO - the largest-ever fine imposed on an exchange.

      Of course, it's good reading. But there's something missing.

      It's called "the truth."
      To continue reading, please click here…
    • Facebook Stock Ends Disappointing Year One; Any Shot at a Comeback?
      One year ago, Facebook stock (Nasdaq: FB) made its trading debut in one of the most highly anticipated initial public offerings ever.
      While it's okay to offer a congratulatory happy anniversary, it's been anything but a honeymoon for the company and investors.
      Some 421 million shares were sold, raising $16 billion, giving Facebook a whopping $104 billion valuation.
      Then the disastrous story began: Shares were priced at $38, opened at $40, and then, within 10 market hours after the pricing, Facebook stock flailed. Technical glitches at the Nasdaq caused a delayed open, late executions and reports, and mispriced trades.
      Lawsuits are still pending.
      To continue reading, please click here...
    • If this Works, Facebook Stock Could be the "Buy of the Decade"
      Facebook stock is one of the most controversial stocks in existence today.
      With one billion users, investors have been waiting to see if Facebook's business model can pay off, especially after its IPO tanked.
      Today, Money Morning's own e-commerce director, Bret Holmes, is going to give you the inside scoop on Facebook stock. Not some theoretical financial analysis, but what the future looks like for Facebook, from a guy who understands e-commerce and can explain how Facebook stock could be the "buy of the decade" for investors.
      Click here to watch the interview.

    • IPO Performance of 2013: Check Out Winners and Losers
      2013 has been a strong year for IPO performance so far.
      About 40 deals have been priced through the second week of April, and 33 of the deals have moved higher in the secondary market with an average gain of more than 20%.
      If you missed these profits, don't worry. There is no sign of any slowing in the IPO market, as there are currently nine deals already scheduled for the next two weeks. In fact, IPO dollar volumes for the year so far are nearing the $9 billion mark, on par with the levels seen in 2012.
      Let's take a look at the biggest and best IPO performances so far in 2013.
      To continue reading, please click here...
    • Facebook Stock Risk: New Social Media Apps Luring Teens Away
      Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) is starting to get a taste of what it means to be the king of the social media hill.
      Small and more nimble competitors with novel ideas have sprung up and begun to entice young users away from the No. 1 social media platform - a bad omen for Facebook stock, which 11 months after its IPO still trades 29% below its offer price.
      According to Piper Jaffray's annual "Taking Stock of Teens" survey, teens are spending less time with Facebook and more with a vast array of alternatives.
      The survey showed that just 33% of teens consider Facebook "the most important social network" compared with 42% last year.
      Last month, the creator of social photo album app Albumatic, Adam Ludwin, conducted a focus group of users under 25.
      "They gave me the typical teenage response: 'We're bored with Facebook,'" Ludwin told Business Insider.
      Anyone who doubts how quickly a social media company can become yesterday's news need only look at MySpace, a once-dominant social media site that lost a third of its users in 2010 mostly as a result of Facebook's growing popularity.

      "History is not on Facebook's side when the trend starts to move in the wrong direction," Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told MarketWatch.
      To continue reading, please click here...
    • IPO Calendar 2013 Heats Up With These Five New Offerings
      After a slow start to April with just one deal scheduled for pricing, the IPO calendar is getting crowded again in the second week of the month.
      The equity markets remain fairly strong and recent IPOs have performed very well so there is strong institutional demand for equities in general, and new offerings specifically.
      As long as the market is propped up by an aggressive U.S. Federal Reserve policy, stock prices should stay firm and that makes for favorable conditions for new equity offerings.
      Here are five to keep on your radar.
      To continue reading, please click here...
    • Facebook IPO Deal Leaves Wall Street Seeing Red
      The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday approved Nasdaq's plan to pay $62 million in compensation to brokers for mishandling the Facebook IPO. The Nasdaq missteps during Facebook's (Nasdaq: FB) debut cost Wall Street a collective $500 million and firms have fought to recoup those losses.
      The amount was cleared by the SEC after Nasdaq offered to pay more than is allowed under its existing bylaws. As a self-regulatory organization, the Nasdaq enjoys certain legal protections which could have resulted in a significantly smaller settlement.
      Nasdaq proposed the voluntary $62 million as more firms claimed that the exchange misrepresented facts of what went wrong in trading that day. The amount is much more than the $3 million cap its rules permit for technical glitches.
      Not everyone's on board with the decision. Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) and UBS AG (NYSE:  USB) urged the SEC to reject it, saying losses within their market-making units exceed $62 million. In fact, Citigroup raised the immunity argument last August in a letter to the SEC.
      "Market participants suffered hundreds of millions of dollars of losses as a result of Nasdaq's profit-driven conduct prior to and during the Facebook IPO, not a result of protected regulatory activity by Nasdaq, or routine system failures. Nasdaq should not be permitted to hide behind regulatory immunity," Citi wrote in a letter to the SEC.
      UBS, which claims to have lost more than $350 million, told the SEC brokers should be made whole. Many agree.
      "Why should the banks and brokers be left holding the bag for Nasdaq's snafus?" Scott Sales, a lawyer at Paul Hasting LLP who handles corporate listings and is not involved in the settlement, told The Wall Street Journal last month.
      The SEC acknowledges the proposal won't compensate for all losses, but added it provides "significantly more compensation for eligible claims, outside of litigation, than would otherwise be available."
      To continue reading, please click here…
    • IPO Calendar 2013: Don't Miss SSNI, MODN
      The IPO calendar for 2013 is starting to get more crowded as spring approaches.
      The aftermarket for initial offerings has been especially strong as investors are rewarded for investing in new ventures and private equity cash outs.
      Analysts expect the pace of offerings to continue to increase as the demand has been very strong and the equity markets are at or approaching new all-time highs.
      There will be two deals pricing in the next couple weeks and several larger deals are expected by the end of the month, including the widely anticipated Sea World offering.
      In the last few days there have been two deals added to the upcoming IPO calendar with specific pricing dates coming in the next couple weeks.
      To continue reading, please click here...
    • IPO Calendar 2013: Who to Watch in March
      After a very quiet end to February, several high-profile deals should make the initial public offering (IPO) calendar for March 2013.
      The year has gotten off to a great start with strong market performance by newly public companies. Overall there have been 20 IPOs so far this year and 17 are currently trading higher than the offering price.
      One of the biggest has been Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (Nasdaq: NCLH) with a blistering gain of more than 50% in just a few weeks.
      March will see a slow but interesting start with just two deals coming to market in the first week of the month.
      To continue reading, please click here...
    • 2013 IPO Calendar: Who to Watch
      After Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) went public last year with disastrous results, the IPO calendar emptied for more than a month.
      But thanks to a string of successes toward the end of 2012, the IPO market is heating up for 2013.
      In fact, companies that went public after Facebook's May 18 IPO were up an average 31% through mid-December from their IPO price, with the S&P 500 only up 11% in that time.
      As we start 2013, the overall pessimism that engulfed the IPO market since Facebook went public has disappeared.
      "To me, it feels like a meaningful shift in the market," said Tom Murphy, a partner and head of the securities-capital and markets group at law firm McDermott Will & Emery. "With those companies [that had great IPOs], all in very different industries, getting out at the top of their ranges, and above, is a really strong signal."

      The IPO Rebound

      The IPO market started rebounding in October, specifically during the week of Oct. 8- Oct. 12, when nine companies went public, the most since the end of March.
      "There was a big hiccup with Facebook, but in general, new issues in the market are doing well," Jonathan Crane, chairman of KeyBanc Capital Markets' equity-underwriting committee told The Wall Street Journal. "People are gravitating toward anything with growth, and in that respect, I think things have returned to normal."
      The best performing of those October debuts was Workday Inc. (NYSE: WDAY), a provider of cloud-based applications used to organize human resources, accounting and other employee-related activities.
      Workday went public Oct. 12 and opened at $48.05, 72% higher than its $28 offer price. It was the largest venture-backed IPO since Facebook went public in May, raising $637 million in cash. WDAY stock currently trades at $50.
      Workday's IPO is part of a successful trend in cloud-based companies going public.
      "For now, the megatrends in the IPO market include cloud-based computing - which includes companies such as Workday, Demandware Inc. (NYSE: DWRE), Splunk, ServiceNow Inc. (NYSE: NOW), Guidewire Software Inc. (NYSE: GWRE) and Palo Alto Networks - and high-end branded goods such as Michael Kors Holding Ltd. (NYSE: KORS) and Prada that appeal to consumers in emerging markets," says Sam Hamadeh, chief executive of Privco, a financial dataprovider.

      Who to Put on Your 2013 IPO Calendar

      Based on the performance of the above companies, there are plenty of reasons to be excited for next year's IPOs.
      "The positive returns helped revive global IPO activity at the end of 2012 and should support stronger issuance in 2013 from the large $200 billion global IPO pipeline," according to Renaissance Capital's year-end IPO report.
      Here are some IPOs in 2013 to keep an eye out for:
     Facebook (Nasdaq Listing)






    • I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THE LIBERALS TRYING TO US OUR BIBLES AND THE PARABLES IN-THEREWITH IN THEIR TINY MINDS MEANS WE MUST GIVE WHAT WE WORKED FOR TO OTHERS... SORRY I DO NOT RECOGNIZE THAT CLAUSE ANYWHERE IN MY BIBLE.. SOCIAL JUSTICE IS NOT A LIBERAL TERM..BECAUSE THE DEFINITION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE TO A LIBERAL IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM THE ONE IN THE WEBSTER DICTIONARY.. OR THE ONE IN MY BIBLE.. Social justice is a protean concept that varies with circumstances. Social justice includes the aspirational ideal of substantive equality as well as functional, relatively easily addressable features of procedural equality. Social justice includes at least some aspects of individual liberty (e.g., autonomy) as well as some communitarian liberty values such as civic virtues like voting, religious association, and pursuit of legitimate group interests. Social justice includes not only access to, but also inclusion in the social, cultural, and economic life of the country. Indeed, it extends beyond inclusion in social, cultural and economic life to full participation in and ability to affect the direction of civil society in all its manifestations. Social justice thus rests upon the core values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and Preamble to the United States Constitution of equality, liberty, and advancing the general welfare.
       The Tea Party is big and the liberal press is losing money and liberal progressive are losing members America has more conservative than liberals since the obama regime took office, Twitter and Facebook  Social Media is just about gone. America Needs Mark Eberle CEO of Patcnews Patcnews: The Patriot Conservative News Tea Party Network. I can tell you he is the most honest hard working broadcasters that America needs to tell the truth I pray that Fox News will run story about
       Patcnews: The Patriot Conservative News Tea Party Network. 

      May God Bless America 

      Dianna Romero Schroeder

     Facebook and Privacy Sucks

     


    In a Shift,  (Suckface) as Facebook Says It Will Make All Ads Social


    Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
    Facebook may have sold $5 billion in advertising last year, but that doesn’t mean the social network had its ad strategy firmly under control: the company has announced a sweeping overhaul that will cut its number of ad units in half and put less pressure on advertisers to give their ads social features.
    Advertisers have been complaining for the past year – the $5 billion one — about Facebook’s unwieldy collection of advertising products, Facebook product manager Fidji Simo said in a blog post. As a result, Facebook will pull many ad options it had previously touted, like allowing owners of Facebook pages to embed native coupons, or “Offers” in Facebook parlance. The number of ad units will fall from 37 to less than half of that.
    Facebook had also previously required advertisers to choose between inserting ads in users’ news feeds strictly by paying Facebook or by paying Facebook and generating social context, such as a “Like” from a friend. If advertisers opted for the social option, their ad would show up as a “Sponsored Story,” so that when friends “Liked” and commented on the ad, those “Likes” and comments would stick around for a long time in other people’s News Feeds.
    Now, Facebook will bundle both options together, so that every ad is automatically retrofitted with a social component. Each ad, in other words, will be both a regular ad and a “Sponsored Story.”
    “We know social enhances ad resonance; people are influenced by this type of word-of-mouth marketing,” Simo wrote. As Peter Kafka at All Things D notes, this new approach de-emphasizes the uniquely social aspect of Facebook marketing by treating social as an automatic enhancement to any ad.
    Of course, Facebook’s advertising has been performing well enough in raw dollar terms that the company may not have to worry about encouraging advertisers to design their ads especially for social sharing. Facebook is so big at this point that many advertisers will do that on their own.

     

     

     





    Patcnews: The Patriot Conservative News Tea Party Network The Facebook Report' Wall Street Hates Facebook' Mark Sucksberg CEO of (Facebook as Suckface)

    © All copyrights reserved By Mark Eberle 

    June 3, 2013

    Wired.com Reports Wall Street Hates Facebook. No One Knows Why

     
    Add caption   




    Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired 
    Some clever spinmeister seems to have orchestrated a coup for Facebook last week: The company’s stock hit a six month low, but the headlines were all positive. The morning after the nadir, you see, two investment banks upgraded Facebook shares, nudging the stock ever-so-slightly upward.
    The news cycle had been successfully hijacked away from the actual market and handed to a couple of the banks that purport to predict its gyrations. “Facebook Gets a Pair of Upgrades; Shares Rise,” reported The Wall Street Journal. “Facebook shares jump,” said Reuters. The upgrades traced back to reports, including one in the Financial Times, that Facebook will roll out video ads in July. Facebook bulls are betting these video ads will quickly turn into multi billion dollar businesses, just as Facebook’s mobile ad businesses exploded into a $1.9 billion revenue line over the course of just one year.
    In the two trading days after the video-ad upgrades, Facebook stock rose 4 percent, ending the week just above $24 per share — a very modest gain over Wednesday’s six-month low of $23 and still well below the $32 the stock reached in late January.
    The real question isn’t why Facebook got upgraded, it’s why Wall Street has returned to such a bearish position on the social network. Barely one month ago Facebook turned in better than expected earnings driven by robust growth in mobile. Again, shares briefly nudged upward (by 6 percent) before gliding steadily downward over several weeks. After beating Wall Street expectations even more widely in January, the stock actually declined, beginning a long fall from which it has never fully recovered.
    Trying to extract a coherent rationale from the aggregated result of tens of millions of individual stock trades is, in the absence of a massive and truly obvious catalyst, pointless. In other words, one can only guess at the (potentially endless) reasons Facebook is in the Wall Street doghouse again, and people are of course doing just that. Here are some of our pet theories, mostly centered around the idea that Facebook is taking on more risk, launching new products in new markets and pushing the comfort zones of users and advertisers alike :

    • Facebook’s bulk up is risky. Costs are rising 50 percent in 2013 as Facebook goes on a hiring binge. The company has stated revenue will not rise accordingly.
    • Facebook’s new products are far from making money: Launches like Facebook’s Open Graph search engine and Home mobile apperating system generate headlines and suck up resources but will need many quarters of refinement before Facebook even begins to try generating revenue from them. On the last two quarterly earnings calls, CEO Mark Sucksberg has explicitly warned Wall Street not to expect money from these products anytime soon.
    • Facebook ads are increasingly generic: Investors were initially optimistic that Facebook could disrupt the online advertising industry by offering truly social ads, ads that could only happen on Facebook, like those “sponsored stories” where your friend likes some brand and the brand pays to keep the Like showing up in your News Feed for weeks on end. But Facebook’s recent ad products have been all about turning the social network into a really good platform for essentially conventional ads. Facebook has learned to combine its extensive user demographics with information on where else you’ve been on the web, what you buy at the grocery store, what apps you have installed, and where you are physically located. It has successfully pushed its ultra-targeted ads onto smartphones and (reportedly) into videos, driving Facebook’s recent revenue growth. But anyone else with basic demographics and the willingness to rent or acquire similar databases could assemble comparable targeting capabilities; Facebook is not leveraging its fabled social graph in many of these ad products.
    No one can honestly claim they know why Wall Street hates Facebook right now. But it’s clear the social network will have to learn to ignore stock gyrations (and laundry lists of complaints like the one above) if it wants to preserve its long term strategy. Time and again Facebook has defied the suggestions of seasoned technologists and financial sages alike, and time and again it has paid off. Facebook, presumably, feels right at home in the doghouse. (Welcome back.)

    Facebook mogul Sean Parker ordered to pay $2.5M after wedding in coastal zone


    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/06/03/facebook-mogul-sean-parker-ordered-to-pay-25m-after-wedding-in-coastal-zone/#ixzz2VDnk5vNV

    Facebook Billionaire Wedding
    Back Feb. 11, 2012 file photo, Sean Parker, left, and Alexandra Lenas arrive at the Pre-GRAMMY Gala & Salute to Industry Icons with Clive Davis honoring Richard Branson in Beverly Hills, Calif. Facebook billionaire Sean Parker’s lavish, $10-million Big Sur wedding just got even more expensive. The California Coastal Commission and Parker on Monday said they reached a $2.5 million settlement to pay for coastal conservation programs after the Napster co-founder built a large movie-set like wedding in an ecologically sensitive area of Big Sur without proper permits.



     SFacebook billionaire Sean Parker's lavish, $10 million Big Sur wedding got even more expensive Monday.
    The California Coastal Commission and Parker said they have reached a $2.5 million settlement to pay for coastal conservation programs after the Napster co-founder built a large movie-set-like wedding site in an ecologically sensitive area of Big Sur without proper permits.
    The parties reached the agreement after officials were tipped that Parker had built a cottage, fake ruins, waterfalls, staircases and a huge dance floor near iconic redwoods and a stream with threatened steelhead trout.
    The commission learned about the construction at a closed campground owned by Ventana Inn & Spa after a county investigation spurred by neighbor complaints. The Ventana is negotiating a separate settlement for allowing the construction to occur.
    "Despite the continued unauthorized closure of the campground to the public, earlier this year, the property owner entered into an agreement giving Sean Parker exclusive use of the campground for several months to construct a sizeable wedding venue," the commission's staff wrote in a report.
    Ventana spokesman Francisco Carrasco did not return a call or email seeking comment.
    The Ventana is located within the coastal zone, an area regulated by the commission, an independent state agency that oversees coastal development. Any significant construction within the zone has to be permitted.
    When staff inspected, they found the temporary structures had already been built, but they allowed the wedding to proceed anyway.
    The commission started negotiating a settlement with Parker and his representatives instead of shutting the event down.
    "Mr. Parker has been extremely cooperative and actively involved in working with Coastal Commission staff to reach this resolution which both addresses our Coastal Act concerns and will result in greater coastal access and conservation in the Big Sur and Monterey Peninsula areas," Charles Lester, the commission's executive director, said in a statement.
    Parker, 33, the former president of Facebook Inc. who was portrayed by Justin Timberlake in the movie "The Social Network," married singer-songwriter Alexandra Lenas on Saturday in a ceremony with gowns and sets made by a designer for the "Lord of the Rings" films.
    Rick Zbur, Parker's representative during negotiations with the commission, said Parker worked diligently to address the issue once it came to his attention.
    "So as soon as he was made aware of the Coastal Commission's concerns, he immediately stepped forward to discuss how he could protect the coastal area and resolve these issues," Zbur said in an email.
    Parker also asked his guests, many of them extremely wealthy entrepreneurs and celebrities, to donate to Save the Redwoods or the California League of Conservation Voters in lieu of giving gifts, according to a program.
    Since Parker did not get permits for the construction, commission staff will oversee the breakdown of the vast set so no damage is done to the environment. The commission said no major damage had yet been done, but it wanted to reach a deal quickly so the violating structures could be removed safely.
    "Normally (negotiations) happen over a couple of months, but because of the nature of the violations here we wanted to get it out as soon as possible so Mr. Parker could go ahead and do the work the way it should be done," said Lisa Haage, the commission's chief of enforcement.
    Money from the agreement may be used to purchase public easements and hiking trails in the Big Sur area and as grants for nonprofits doing conservation projects.
    Also, as part of the settlement, Parker offered to produce and distribute a public education video or create a mobile app aimed at helping to identify areas where the public can access the coast.
    Haage said the commission is hopeful Parker's assistance will help it spread more information about California's coastal resources.
    In a statement, Parker said he was delighted to help the commission achieve its conservation goals and to help Big Sur area businesses.
    The commission will vote on the agreement at its next meeting scheduled June 14.

     

     

    Facebook to Crack Down on Hate Speech Posts




    By Daniel Bean

    May 30, 2013 10:48am

    Facebook will tighten its policies on hate speech posts after a coalition of activist groups launched a campaign to highlight the volume of such content on the site.

    New steps that the site will be taking, effective immediately, include an update to the guidelines that Facebook user operations team members follow to better recognize reported hate speech materials, and an effort to work more closely with “legal experts and others, including representatives of the women’s coalition and other groups that have historically faced discrimination.”
    Users have always had the ability to report or “flag” Facebook content for investigation when a post is perceived to violate community standards.
    On May 21, Women, Action & the Media, the Everyday Sexism Project and author and activist Soraya Chemaly went public with a campaign to call on Facebook to stem gender-based hate speech on its site. Supporters have since sent over 60,000 tweets (with the hashtag #fbrape) and 5,000 emails.
    “[We're now helping Facebook to remove] any kind of content that is glorifying or attempting to normalize violence against women,” Jaclyn Friedman, executive director of Women, Action and The Media (WAM), told ABC News.
    The WAM website shows some examples of posts that the new coalition of groups working with Facebook hope to put an end to.
    One user-reported picture shows a woman’s beaten and bloodied head with the words “I like her for her brains” written on it. As WAM shows, the post was reported, but Facebook did not remove it, saying it “doesn’t violate Facebook’s Community Standards on graphic violence.”
    “Over the last two years, activists and groups like ours had approached Facebook,” said Friedman. “We published the open letter last Tuesday morning, encouraging people to use #fbrape to spread awareness. Facebook eventually contacted us and sat down with us that week.”
    Marne Levine, Facebook’s vice president of global public policy, posted to the site Tuesday to explain the company’s new effort on content promoting hate speech, as well as its philosophy and policies regarding controversial or harmful content.
    “Facebook’s mission has always been to make the world more open and connected. We seek to provide a platform where people can share and surface content, messages and ideas freely, while still respecting the rights of others,” Levine wrote.
    Facebook has recently been looking into measures to keep anonymous offensive material off of the site as well. A few months ago, Facebook began testing a new system that would remove “cruel and insensitive content” that was posted by a user who was not disclosing “his or her authentic identity.” Levine wrote that this system could help other users “hold the author accountable and directly object to the content.”
    Levine said the site already prohibits content deemed to be directly harmful, but, to promote “openness,” does allow content that is offensive or controversial.
    Examples of things deemed “harmful” by Facebook’s community standards would be the organizing of violence or online bullying. The Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities prohibits “hate speech,” the VP’s post said, but this new effort will help to better define and identify it.
    READ: Facebook Sometimes Too Much ‘Drama’ for Teens, Study Says
    Gabe Rottman, legislative counsel and policy adviser for the American Civil Liberties Union, told ABC News that, since Facebook doesn’t necessarily have to allow any offensive materials on its site, he applauds their attention to the value of free speech while they carefully approach this hate speech issue.
    “While it’s certainly true that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to Facebook and other private publishers, as more of our speech migrates from sidewalks and parks to social media, these companies have an enormous amount of power to influence the marketplace of ideas,” he said.
    “These new gatekeepers should be commended when they apply First Amendment principles to keep their platforms as open as possible.”
    Friedman told ABC News that that the specifics of how Facebook and WAM will systematically cooperate have yet to be worked out, but she said, “We’re thrilled. We’re really looking forward to seeing what comes of [the efforts]“

    Suckface Block Me for Two Days on FB  


    [Phishing Alert] Fake Message from Facebook Security Stating You Violated a Policy

     

    Search Option From Facebook Is Privacy Test


    Stuart Isett for The New York Times

    Jana Uyeda of Seattle said she was "slowly trying to close down the doors on Facebook."

    SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook’s greatest triumph has been to persuade a seventh of the world’s population to share their personal lives online.
    Now the social network is taking on its archrival, Google, with a search tool to mine that personal information, just as people are growing more cautious about sharing on the Internet and even occasionally removing what they have already put up.
    Whether Facebook’s more than one billion users will continue to divulge even more private details will determine whether so-called social search is the next step in how we navigate the online world. It will also determine whether Facebook has found a business model that will make it a lot of money.
    “There’s a big potential upside for both Facebook and users, but getting people to change their behaviors in relation to what they share will not be easy,” said Andrew T. Stephen, who teaches marketing at the University of Pittsburgh and studies consumer behavior on online social networks.
    This week, Facebook unveiled its search tool, which it calls graph search, a reference to the network of friends its users have created. The company’s algorithms will filter search results for each person, ranking the friends and brands that it thinks a user would trust the most. At first, it will mine users’ interests, photos, check-ins and “likes,” but later it will search through other information, including status updates.
    “While the usefulness of graph search increases as people share more about their favorite restaurants, music and other interests, the product doesn’t hinge on this,” a Facebook spokesman, Jonathan Thaw, said.
    Nevertheless, the company engineers who created the tool — former Google employees — say that the project will not reach its full potential if Facebook data is “sparse,” as they call it. But the company is confident people will share more data, be it the movies they watch, the dentists they trust or the meals that make their mouths water.
    The things people declare on Facebook will be useful, when someone searches for those interests, Tom Stocky, one of the creators of Facebook search, said in an interview this week. Conversely, by liking more things, he said, people will become more useful in the eyes of their friends.
    “You might be inclined to ‘like’ what you like so when your friends search, they’ll find it,” he said. “I probably would never have liked my dentist on Facebook before, but now I do because it’s a way of letting my friends know.”
    Mr. Stocky offered these examples of how more information may be desirable: A single man may want to be discovered when a friend of a friend is searching for eligible bachelors in San Francisco or a restaurant that stays open late may want to be found by a night owl.
    “People have shared all this great stuff on Facebook,” Mr. Stocky said. “It’s latent value. We wanted a way to unlock that.”
    Independent studies suggest that Facebook users are becoming more careful about how much they reveal online, especially since educators and employers typically scour Facebook profiles.
    A Northwestern University survey of 500 young adults in the summer of 2012 found that the majority avoided posting status updates because they were concerned about who would see them. The study also found that many had deleted or blocked contacts from seeing their profiles and nearly two-thirds had untagged themselves from a photo, post or check-in.
    “These behavioral patterns seem to suggest that many young adults are less keen on sharing at least certain details about their lives rather than more,” said Eszter Hargittai, an associate professor of communication studies at Northwestern, who led the yet unpublished study among men and women aged 21 and 22.
    Also last year, the Pew Internet Center found that social network users, including those on Facebook, were more aggressively pruning their profiles — untagging photos, removing friends and deleting comments. 

    Search Option From Facebook Is Privacy Test

    (Page 2 of 2)
    Graph search is something of a coming-of-age moment for social search. Companies from Google to Yelp to TripAdvisor to small start-ups like Hunch have all tried to make search more social, by providing personal answers from people you know and not just links to Web sites, in an effort to bring word-of-mouth recommendations online. Bing, which has a partnership with Facebook, announced this week that it would add more social recommendations to standard Web links in search queries.
    But no company has tried social search on Facebook’s scale.
    “This is a watershed moment,” said Oren Etzioni, a computer science professor at the University of Washington and a co-founder of the price comparison site Decide.com.
    “There have been other attempts at social search,” he continued, “but it’s the scale at which Facebook operates, especially once they fully index everything we’ve said or say or like.”
    Facebook’s social search is also a step forward in a new type of Web search, one in which Google has made great strides. Engineers call it structured or semantic search, which means search engines that understand how people, places and things relate to one another, and not just key words.
    Graph search holds great value for advertisers seeking to target more precise audiences — like mothers in their 30s who listen to hip-hop and run marathons — and advertising remains Facebook’s principal source of profit. Additionally, the more data people share and search for, the longer they are glued to the site.
    But the company is aware of concerns about privacy. When announcing the tool, it took pains to point out that it would respect users’ privacy. If people do not want an embarrassing photograph to be ferreted out by a potential employer, for instance, they can make it visible only to those who have been winnowed down as “close friends.”
    Users have been encouraged to check their privacy settings in order to fine-tune whom they wish to share with. At the same time, Facebook eliminated a longstanding option that users enjoyed: if someone is searching for them, they will no longer be able to remain obscure.
    Still, some Facebook users may be skeptical. Jana Uyeda, 35, a photographer and social media consultant in Seattle, said, “I love my friends, but sometimes their taste in restaurants is terrible.”
    Like the subjects of the Northwestern study, Ms. Uyeda, said she was not so sure she wanted to reveal more. “I’m slowly trying to close down the doors on Facebook, instead of opening myself up,” she said.
    Ms. Uyeda added, “There would have to be a lot of other incentives, and I don’t even know what that would be, in order for me to add more information about myself and be more open.” 

    [Phishing Alert] Fake Message from Facebook Security Stating You Violated a Policy

    July 16, 2011
    Be on the lookout for the following bogus Facebook message from Facebook Security or ”Faćebøøĸ Sẻƈurîƚy” as it is commonly displayed. Obviously, we aren’t talking about the real Facebook Security here. It is a phishing attempt to gain access to Facebook user accounts:
    The Facebook message looks something like this:
    Your account is reported to have violated a policy that is considered disruptive or insulting Facebook users. Until we http://www.facebook.com/security system will deactivate your account within 12 hours after you open this message if you do not confirm such reproductions.
    Please confirm your facebook account below:
    If you still want to use your account, please confirm your facebook account below:
    apps[dot]facebook[dot]com/-security-services/
    (If the link is not clickable, try copy it into your browser.)
    Note: we recommend to facebook users, asked to filling data that are complete and very accurate because we are from http://www.facebook.com/security team can ensure that the ownership of the account actually exists in your control and no that is using your Facebook account without permission.
    Facebook Security ™
    Another popular message is shown below:
    WARNING : Your account is reported to have violated the policies that are considered annoying or insulting Facebook users.system will disable your account within 24 hours if you do not do the reconfirmation.
    Notice how the scammers are using the authentic link to Facebook Security to make the ruse appear more legit. One BIG, red flag is that the verification link is to a third party Facebook application. We tried to follow the link, but this particular application has been removed by Facebook. You can be sure there are others that are active and in use.
    The scam likely sends the users to an application similar to the one shown below:
    facebook_securityteam_main
    Another ploy is to direct users to an external website. These sites are usually designed to look like Facebook, and most all of the web addresses are easily recognized as not being Facebook. Always take a moment and verify you are actually on Facebook.com before entering any login information.
    If a user submits their Facebook login credentials, then the scammer will have complete control over their account. They can access their personal information to try and steal their identity, they can send bogus messages to their friends stating that they are in trouble and please send money, they can send links to other scams to all of the victim’s Facebook friends….the opportunities for misuse and exploitation are endless!
    * Users have reported receiving this message via Facebook Chat / Messages and regular email.
    How to Deal with the Scam:
    If you entered your Facebook login credentials on the scam page, then you need to try to reclaim your account. Check out the following article for additional steps you should take:
    Four Things you need to do if your Facebook account gets hacked
    Be sure to let your Facebook friends know that your account has been compromised and not to click on any links that are sent from you.
    You should also check your friends list and see if you have ‘Fącebooƙ Șeȼurity’ listed as a friend. If you do, then one of your friends has been hacked. Scammers have changed the name of your friend, and they have likely replaced their profile picture with that of the real Facebook Security. Block or unfriend this account until it has been reclaimed by your friend. You don’t want a scammer having unfettered access to all of your profile information. If you are able to tell which friend has been compromised, then notify your mutual friends of the situation.
    Never click on links in Facebook chat or regular email to login to Facebook or other websites. Navigate directly to the site, and enter your login information there. This will drastically reduce your chances of having your account hacked.
    If you or your Facebook friends are falling for tricks like this, it’s time to get yourself informed of the latest threats. Be sure to join the Facecrooks page on Facebook to be kept informed of the latest security issues. Also check out:
    Your Ultimate Guide to Facebook Scams and How to Deal with Them
    How to spot a Facebook Survey Scam
    w_make60c2 Facebook Keyboard Shortcuts - If you’re spending lots of time on Facebook why not to make use of your time more efficiently while you’re at the site?

     

    CNN REPORTS Review: Facebook's Graph Search is not very useful

    Heather Kelly, CNN
    If Mark Zuckerberg looks perplexed about Facebook's Graph Search, just imagine how you will feel.



    If Mark Zuckerberg looks perplexed about Facebook's Graph Search, just imagine how you will feel.

    STORY HIGHLIGHTS
    • We tested out Facebook's new search tool and found it lacking, at least so far
    • "Graph Search" was announced with much fanfare at Facebook's campus Tuesday
    • Search feature lets you draw connections between people, their info and their interests
    • But in reality, the data people share on Facebook is flawed and incomplete.
    (CNN) -- According to Facebook's new search feature, only two of my 526 friends like cats. Judging by the number of cat photos filling my feed every day, this is obviously not accurate.
    It also demonstrates one of the big problems with Facebook's approach to search.
    The company's new tool, awkwardly named "Graph Search," was announced with much fanfare at Facebook's Menlo Park campus Tuesday. The new search feature lets you draw connections between people, their profile information and their interests on Facebook. In theory, it's a good recipe for finding recommendations for doctors, businesses, products, TV shows or bands.
    It can also be used to find people that fit a specific profile, such as "men over 30 who live in Cleveland."

    Facebook unveils upgraded search tool
    A powerful search function is a logical and useful addition to the site, but the beta version is far from being the Yelp, LinkedIn or Match.com killer that Facebook may be hoping for. For that to happen, there would have to be some major shifts in how people use the social network.
    Much of Graph Search's power and problems start with the Like button. People just don't wield the Like as often and as discerningly as is needed to turn Facebook into a useful recommendation tool. It's also too easy for those deep-pocketed companies who can afford to maintain a social media presence to buy more likes and come out on top.
    A search for Mexican restaurants that my friends like here in San Francisco shows 12 options, most with just one friend's thumbs up. By comparison, Yelp has 543 reviews with star ratings for the El Castillito taqueria in San Francisco, while Facebook has 97 likes (none from my friends), and a few scattered wall posts on a sparse unofficial landing page.
    Alternately, you can also search for restaurants your friends have visited, which turns up locations they have checked into using Facebook. But that information isn't helpful without knowing if they enjoyed their meal, if they hated it, or if they were just there as part of their job as city food inspector.
    It's not that the social network doesn't have the data to turn it into a powerful recommendation tool. But for it to be more effective, Facebook would have to greatly improve how it collects information from people going forward, or expand its search powers to comb through status updates and comments.
    Every post you make reveals slivers about who you are and what you like (not just "Like"). Technically, Facebook should be able to detect if you like cats, even if you didn't take the time to hit the Like button for a page called "cats." But it can't do this without rightfully alarming its already privacy-sensitive 1 billion users.
    Searching for people presents its own set of issues. Graph Search scours your profile information so people can find you based on what school you went to, where you work, your religion or who your friends are. Searches can be refined using filters for every available profile field, including likes, work info, family connections and the Facebook apps people use.
    Next time you need to find single male models in Omaha who are Buddhist and speak Spanish, go straight to the Facebook Graph Search.
    A more practical use would be to find job candidates, which Facebook demonstrated at its press event. The possibility of using Facebook for job-recruiting searches in intriguing, but beyond listing current employers, people don't regularly update their Facebook profiles like their resumes. Facebook profiles are crafted with friends and family in mind, not potential bosses, and for many that's a welcome separation of worlds.
    There is value in being able to search for friends of friends who work at a company where you are gunning for a job, but while blindly contacting someone you've never met on LinkedIn is expected, it may be uncomfortable on a network of friends.
    Speaking of uncomfortable, Graph Search can be used to find new "connections," like single friends of friends who share your interests in canning and 18th-century costume dramas. Are we ready to turn Facebook into a dating site? Friendster and MySpace doubled as online pick-up spots, but these days people set up separate profiles on Match.com or OK Cupid if they want to find dates.
    As with LinkedIn, dating-site profiles are constructed specifically to show one side of a personality. The things you'd like a potential date to know about you are not the same things you'd share with old high school friends, your aunt or job contacts.
    Facebook is also not a place people want to receive pick-up messages from strangers (even if they are friends of friends).
    Facebook recently announced you could pay $1 to send a message to a stranger outside of your network ($100 if that stranger is Mark Zuckerberg) and go straight to their inbox, a feature that makes a lot more sense with Graph Search. Suddenly there's a whole world of people you might want to contact, for jobs or articles or long walks on the beach.
    Graph Search introduces new ways to search Facebook that are great in theory. The tool works amazingly well in the idealized Zuckerbergian world where all Facebook members are real people who complete their profiles honestly and update them frequently.
    But in reality, the data people share on Facebook is flawed and incomplete. And so is Graph Search, at least for now.



















    Suckface (Facebook) lets some people email Mark Sucksrberg  (Mark Zuckerberg) for $100


















    Facebook is apparently offering some users the opportunity to shell out $100 to email CEO Mark Zuckerberg and make sure their message lands in his main inbox rather than the box where spam-like messages to non-friends usually end up.
    Sound enticing?
    For most people, if you want to email President Barack Obama, basketball star LeBron James or author Vince Flynn you can certainly do so but most likely they’ll never see your message.

     
     
     

    Scientists discover 'the Facebook chromosome'

    Image courtesy of Mashable
    That’s because if you don’t know someone your missives don’t end up in their main mailbox. To see this for yourself, just go to your messages, click on “See All” and then you can access not only your inbox, but these “other” messages, as well.
    The option to pay $100 to message Zuckerberg isn’t open to everyone, but was spotted by Mashable, which posted a screen capture of the option in action. Apparently, Facebook is playing around with a feature it introduced last month when it began allowing people to send emails to persons they’re not friends with for $1.
    “For example, if you want to send a message to someone you heard speak at an event but are not friends with, or if you want to message someone about a job opportunity, you can use this feature to reach their Inbox,” Facebook wrote in a press release. “For the receiver, this test allows them to hear from people who have an important message to send them.”
    At the time, Facebook said the $1 test only worked between individual users in the U.S., and users could have no more than one message per week routed from their "other" folder to the inbox. Apparently the social network’s priority-email-for-a-buck trial got some traction, or it wouldn’t throw the $100 option out there.
    It’s an interesting concept, but one has to wonder how effective such messaging would actually be.
    Zuckerberg has 16 million followers on Facebook, after all. Unless the message is somehow flagged something like “Hey, this person actually paid $100 to get this through to you” you’d think these famous people would have inboxes all clogged up with tons of messages, making the chances of them opening one from a stranger unlikely. 



    • fire-ant-queen
      A 616-gene sequence ("social chromosome") determines whether a single queen or many will rule a colony of fire ants, Solenopsis invictaI. Here, a queen, three smaller workers and one pupa. (Romain Libbrecht and Yannick Wurm)
    Whether fire ants bow to one queen or accept many rulers depends on one long strand of genes, a new study finds.
    The gene sequence is the first "social chromosome" ever discovered, according to study researcher Yannick Wurm of Queen Mary, University of London, who called the DNA sequence a "supergene."
    "This was a very surprising discovery," Wurm said in a statement. "Similar differences in chromosomal structure are linked to wing patterns in butterflies and to cancer in humans, but this is the first supergene ever identified that determines social behavior."
    Choosing queens
    'This is the first supergene ever identified that determines social behavior.'
    - Yannick Wurm of Queen Mary, University of London
    The fire ant Selenopsis invicta is one of many fire ant species known for nasty stings. The species is native to South America and invasive elsewhere. One of its odder traits is a particular flexibility about its social structure. Some members of the species live in colonies with a single queen, while others tolerate hundreds of queens. [Gallery: Stunning Photos of the World's Ants]
    The new genetic analysis, published Thursday, Jan. 17, in the journal Nature, finds that a sequence of genes on a certain chromosome determines which social arrangement is acceptable to the ants. Much in the same way that the human sex chromosomes vary between X and Y, the ant chromosomes vary between B and b.
    If all the workers in a colony carry the B variant only, they will accept a single queen that also carries only the B variant (marked as BB, because the chromosomes come in pairs). But if some workers in the colony carry the b version of the chromosome, the colony will accept multiple queens — but only those queens with a mismatched "Bb" set of chromosomes.
    Smelly queens?
    The chromosomal differences have been linked to a number of anatomical differences in the ants, Wurm and his colleagues wrote, from the queen's fecundity to the size of male workers and the structure of their sperm. These differences could explain how the ants "know" what sort of monarchy to accept.
    "Odor is likely involved," Wurm told LiveScience. "We know the queens smell different."
    The two different genes may also confer their own advantages. BB queens mate and disperse to their own colonies when they reach maturity, making them good at invading new areas, the researchers wrote. Bb queens join others near their maternal colony and, working together, produce more workers overall. This might make them more successful in previously colonized areas.
    Wurm and his colleagues plan to dig deeper into the chromosome to find out which of the 616 genes in the social sequence are responsible for the differences between ants. They also hope to find out if similar sequences play social roles in other species. And the differences aren't just academic. The fire ants have spread into the southern United States as well as Australia and China, where they are major pests.
    "Our discovery could help in developing novel pest-control strategies," Wurm said. "For example, a pesticide could artificially deactivate the genes in the social chromosome and induce social anarchy within the colony."
    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/01/17/fire-ant-monarchy-ruled-by-social-chromosome/#ixzz2IGER0AAw
     
     
     

    SCARY: These Slides Purport To Show How The NSA Watches Your Every Online Move

     
     UPDATE: Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google have all denied involvement in the PRISM program.
    EARLIER: A top-secret April PowerPoint slideshow details how the National Security Agency partnered with nine tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft and Google, to monitor users' activity, according to the Washington Post and the Guardian.
    According to the presentation, the NSA got direct access to these companies' servers in order to directly watch user communications.
    The program, called PRISM, is nominally aimed at foreign actors, but the Post reports that purely domestic communications could easily end up in NSA hands, so long as an algorithm estimated at least a 51 percent probability that they were foreign.
    Here are the slides showing how the NSA reportedly got its hands on your data:
    Prism 001
    NSA via Washington Post
    The slides reflect that nine companies participate in the program, starting with Microsoft in 2007. The following entrants were Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL and Apple. YouTube is a Google subsidiary and Skype is a Microsoft subsidiary.
    PRISM slide crop 001
    NSA via Guardian
    They say that the NSA gets vast amounts of information from the participating companies — email, chats, videos, photos, stored data, voice-over-IP communications, and more. The companies also take "special requests."
    prism slide 2
    NSA via Guardian
    Many foreign communications travel through the U.S., giving the NSA the opportunity to intercept them.
     

    Facebook and Google insist they did not know of Prism surveillance program

    Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg sharply deny knowledge of Prism until Thursday even as Obama confirms program's existence

    Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook
    Mark Zuckerberg called the press reports about the existence of Prism 'outrageous'. Photograph: Robert Galbraith/Reuters
    America's tech giants continued to deny any knowledge of a giant government surveillance programme called Prism, even as president Barack Obama confirmed the scheme's existence Friday.
    With their credibility about privacy issues in sharp focus, all the technology companies said to be involved in the program issued remarkably similar statements.
    All said they did not allow the government "direct access" to their systems, all said they had never heard of the Prism program, and all called for greater transparency.
    In a blogpost titled 'What the…?' Google co-founder Larry Page and chief legal officer David Drummond said the "level of secrecy" around US surveillance procedures was undermining "freedoms we all cherish."
    "First, we have not joined any program that would give the US government – or any other government – direct access to our servers. Indeed, the US government does not have direct access or a 'back door' to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called Prism until yesterday," they wrote.
    "Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don't follow the correct process."
    The Google executives said they were also "very surprised" to learn of the government order made to obtain data from Verizon, first disclosed by the Guardian. "Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users' internet activity on such a scale is completely false," they wrote.
    Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, described the press reports about Prism as "outrageous". He insisted that the Facebook was not part of any program to give the US government direct access to its servers.
    He said: "Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers. We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. And if we did, we would fight it aggressively. We hadn't even heard of Prism before yesterday."
    Zuckerberg also called for greater transparency. "We strongly encourage all governments to be much more transparent about all programs aimed at keeping the public safe. It's the only way to protect everyone's civil liberties and create the safe and free society we all want over the long term."
    Yahoo said: "We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network."
    The leaked National Security Agency (NSA) document obtained by the Guardian claims Prism operates with the "assistance of communications providers in the US".
    The document names AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, PalTalk and Yahoo and gives dates when they "joined" the scheme, aimed at intercepting data from people outside the US.'' The presentation talks of "legally compelled collection" of data.
    All the companies involved have now denied knowledge of the scheme to the Guardian.
    In one slide, the presentation identifies two types of data collection: Upstream and Prism. Upstream involves the collection of communications on "fibre cables and infrastructure as data flows past." Prism involves: "Collection directly from the servers of these US service providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple."
    Obama confirmed the existence of the scheme Friday and said Congress was "fully apprised" of the situation and that it was being conducted legally with a "whole range of safeguards involved".
    But despite Obama's acknowledgment, senior figures said they remained puzzled and surprised by the news. Speaking off the record one said their company regularly complied with subpoenas for information but had never allowed "collection directly" from their servers.
    Some speculated that the wording of the document was incorrect or that the author had over-hyped the scheme.
    Security experts and civil liberty figures were less convinced. "I was assuming that these tech companies were just lying," said security guru Bruce Schneier. "That's the most obvious explanation."
    "Could it possibly be that there's a department within these companies that hides this from the executives? Maybe," he said. "I don't know, we don't know. This points to the problem here. There's so much freaking secrecy that we don't know enough to even know what is going on."
    He said he was not surprised by the news. "There are no surprises here. We all knew what was going on and now they have finally admitted it."
    "The NSA would not have done this surreptitiously, they want the tech companies on their side," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "I can't make sense of their statements at all."
    He said it was clear that tech companies in general were more than happy to co-operate with the US authorities and said he was puzzled why there seemed to be such a gap between the two sides' story.
    Ali Reza Manouchehri, CEO and co-founder of MetroStar Systems, an IT consultant that works closely with government agencies, said: "There are situations that come up where they have to communicate with the security agencies. At the end of the day they are working in the interest of national security."
    "I can't comment on what's going on inside the company. It's hard for me to believe that Google doesn't know," he said. "It is either transparent or it is surreptitious. It is hard for me to believe that at this level, at this volume it is surreptitious." He said if the companies really did not know then "we have some serious issues."
    The news has sparked widespread concern in the US. Nearly 20,000 people have signed a petition at Progressive Change Campaign Committee calling on Congress to hold investigations.

     
    Steve Schaefer
    Steve Schaefer, Forbes Staff

    If you can put the word market after it, I cover it.























































    Markets
    6/10/2013 @ 11:02AM 

    Facebook Is Cheaper Than Google, But Shouldn't Be, Analyst Says



    (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
    Shares of Facebook FB +5.04% were heating up Monday, rallying almost 5% in morning trading, after a research report from Stifel Nicolaus made the case for the social network’s growth prospects in a favorable comparison with fellow technology heavyweight Google GOOG +1.06%.
    Looking out to fiscal 2015, Stifel analyst Jordan Rohan argues that Google goes for 10 times expected earnings (EBITDA), compared with Facebook’s multiple of 9.4. The analyst expects Facebook to grow earnings at 25% a year for the next half-decade though, compared with Google growth in the low-teens.
    Rohan isn’t exactly calling for a massive rally — his price target of $29 is merely 25% above Friday’s close — but he points to a handful of catalysts that could drive Facebook’s stock higher and make his target look conservative.






















































    For one thing, he predicts Facebook will be added to the S&P 500, an inclusion widely predicted. Facebook’s $59 billion market cap would make it the 59th largest company in the index (bigger than NIKE NKE +1.02%, Rohan notes).
    While that marks a positive external factor, the analyst also sees beneficial trends internally, noting the company seems poised to improve monetization (including that from its Instagram purchase) and “is making the transition from social media to utility.”
    Rohan acknowledges that the effectiveness of Facebook advertising has been called into question, but says the company taking steps to win that debate by partnering with firms like Datalogix and Nielsen.
    Shares of Facebook gained 4.9% Monday morning to $24.42. The stock is still down 8.4% year-to-date and down 36% in the nearly 13 months since its public market debut.


    SEC OKs Plan for Lost Money in Facebook IPO

     

    Facebook Lost Money on IPO This Morning - Only the News Can Profit

     Facebook (Nasdaq Listing)
     The Securities and Exchange Commission gave its blessing on Monday to a $62 million Nasdaq OMX Group (NDAQ) plan to compensate market makers that lost money due to a technical glitch during the initial public offering of Facebook (FB) last May.
    The agreement could allow Nasdaq to move past this embarrassing fiasco and should give a financial boost to some market makers like Knight Capital Group (KCG) that were hurt by the Facebook IPO. 
    However, UBS (UBS), which lost $365 million from the debacle, indicated that it remains unhappy with the compensation plan despite SEC approval and has filed an arbitration demand.
    In an alert to traders, Nasdaq said the SEC approved its rule change to establish a one-time, voluntary accommodation program to expand the pool available to compensate members for qualified losses arising from errors in the Facebook debut on May 18.
    The exchange said the accommodation pool totals $62 million and will be paid out to approved recipients in cash.
    Nasdaq said members requesting compensation have one week from Monday to provide the information needed by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, to evaluate the requests.
    The technical glitch at Nasdaq left investors in the dark about whether or not their orders to buy shares of Facebook were actually executed.
    The snafu created a black eye for the industry and caused heavy losses for market makers who were left to compensate their clients.
    UBS said the SEC's approval of the compensation plan "does not change our opinion" that the plan is "inadequate and insufficient." The Swiss bank said it has already filed an arbitration demand against Facebook "for the full extent of our losses" due to the exchange's "gross mishandling" of the IPO and its "substantial failures to perform its duties."
    Knight Capital has previously disclosed losses of $35.4 million tied to the Facebook IPO, driving an 81% tumble in earnings during the second quarter of 2012. Knight had threatened to explore legal options before accepting Nasdaq’s decision to increase its compensation plan to $62 million from $40 million previously.
    Shares of New York-based Nasdaq had little reaction to the news, falling 0.06% to $32.34 in recent trading. 
    Follow Matt Egan on Twitter @MattMEgan5

    Read more:
    http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2013/03/25/sec-oks-plan-for-lost-money-in-facebook-ipo/#ixzz2VpYdzrMe

    Facebook discloses information on user data requests

    By the CNN Staff

    updated 11:28 PM EDT, Fri June 14, 2013
    Watch this video

    Mueller: 'No content' taken from calls

    (CNN) -- Facebook disclosed that it received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests for user data from U.S. government entities in the last half of 2012.

    "These requests run the gamut -- from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national security official investigating a terrorist threat," Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, said in a post Friday night.

    The disclosure comes amid a firestorm over revelations that it was among companies that turned over user data to the National Security Agency's web surveillance program.


    Facebook and Microsoft get government OK to make broader surveillance revelations post-Edward Snowden leaks


    Google and the other giants had together pressured the Obama administration to let them talk more about national security orders.






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    Print
    TUESDAY, DEC. 13, 2011, FILE PHOTO,

    Paul Sakuma/AP


    Facebook received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests from all government entities from local to federal in the last six months of 2012.



    SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook and Microsoft Corp. representatives said that after negotiations with national security officials their companies have been given permission to make new but still very limited revelations about government orders to turn over user data.
    The announcements Friday night come at the end of a week when Facebook, Microsoft and Google, normally rivals, had jointly pressured the Obama administration to loosen their legal gag on national security orders.
    RELATED: FEDS INVESTIGATING WHETHER NSA LEAKER EDWARD SNOWDEN HAS TIES TO CHINESE GOVERNMENT
    Those actions came after Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old American who works as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, revealed to The Guardian newspaper the existence of secret surveillance programs that gathered Americans’ phone records and other data. The companies did not link their actions to Snowden’s leaks.
    Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s general counsel, said in a statement that Facebook is only allowed to talk about total numbers and must give no specifics. But he said the permission it has received is still unprecedented, and the company was lobbying to reveal more.
    RELATED: LEGAL SURVEILLANCE, WITH LIMITS
    Using the new guidelines, Ullyot said Facebook received between 9,000 and 10,000 government requests from all government entities from local to federal in the last six months of 2012, Facebook received between 9,000 and 10,000 government requests from all government entities from local to federal in the last six months of 2012, on topics including missing children investigations, fugitive tracking and terrorist threats. The requests involved the accounts of between 18,000 and 19,000 Facebook users.
    The companies were not allowed to make public how many orders they received from a particular agency or on a particular subject. But the numbers do include all national security related requests including those submitted via national security letters and under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which companies had not previously been allowed to reveal.
    RELATED: NSA LEAKER EDWARD SNOWDEN'S ONLINE LIFE REVEALED
    The companies remain barred from revealing whether they’ve actually received FISA requests, and can only say that any they’ve received are included in the total reported figures.
    Microsoft released similar numbers for the same period, but downplayed how much they revealed.
    RELATED: NSA HACKED INTO HONG KONG COMPUTERS: SNOWDEN
    “We continue to believe that what we are permitted to publish continues to fall short of what is needed to help the community understand and debate these issues,” John Frank, Microsoft’s vice president and deputy general counsel said in a statement.
    Frank said Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 accounts.
    RELATED: SNOWDEN PUT ON NOTICE BY BRITAIN TO BLOCK HIS TRAVEL TO UK
    Both attorneys emphasized in their statements that those affected by the orders represent a “tiny fraction” of their huge user bases.
    Google did not release its own numbers, saying late Friday that it was waiting to be able to reveal more specific and meaningful information.
    “We have always believed that it’s important to differentiate between different types of government requests,” Google said in a statement. “We already publish criminal requests separately from national security letters. Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users. Our request to the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately.”
    Facebook repeated recent assurances that the company scrutinizes every government request, and works aggressively to protect users’ data. Facebook said it has a compliance rate of 79 percent on government requests.
    “We frequently reject such requests outright, or require the government to substantially scale down its requests, or simply give the government much less data than it has requested,” Ullyot said.” And we respond only as required by law.”

    Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/facebook-microsoft-government-broader-surveillance-revelations-article-1.1373545#ixzz2WIeLmtQJ


    6/18/2013 @ 6:21PM |1,166 views

    You Know What's Cool? 1 Million Advertisers At Facebook


    Facebook just hit 1 million advertisers, a milestone that signals that it has become a mainstream advertising channel for small and medium-sized businesses.
    OK, so maybe cool isn’t the right word, but it’s hard to resist a good line from The Social Network movie. The social network announced the figure in a blog post today thanking its advertisers. To be specific, there are 1 million currently active advertisers, those that have advertised in the last 28 days.
    A couple more telling stats: Facebook claims more than 2 billion connections between members and local businesses, with 70% of users in North America connected to a local business. On average, local business Facebook Pages produce 645 million views and 13 million comments (not always positive, it must be said).













































    Google , the king of online advertising, still has many more advertisers, which isn’t a surprise since search ads traditionally have been particularly appealing to small businesses. The search giant reached 1 million advertisers in 2007, but it hasn’t been as forthcoming about the number since then. Some estimates put the current number at more than 2.5 million.
    It’s not entirely clear whether Facebook eventually will catch up to Google. Mark Zuckerberg‘s company generally has been more focused on reaching big brand advertisers. That’s partly because its site is a little more like Television 2.0 than Search 2.0, because people hang out there to communicate with friends more than to find stuff to buy.
    Plus, it’s worth mentioning that the bulk of advertising dollars in traditional channels like TV and print still go toward image ads intended to boost awareness of brands and consideration to buy, more than to elicit a click to buy something immediately. So it makes sense for Facebook to go after bigger territory than the digital ad market alone.
    Still, a base of a million advertisers indicates that Facebook has been successful at attracting local businesses that like its ability to let them reach very specific audiences of people who have self-identified where they live. They don’t have to guess people’s location from fancy algorithms or tempt privacy blowups by tapping into GPS data.
    Facebook is clearly pushing to get more small businesses on board, though. Today it also unveiled a site that features small-business success stories and tips for advertising more effectively, plus a link where businesses can share their own stories. These days, as Facebook tries to supercharge revenue growth to please wary investors, it will take revenues wherever it can find them.

    Parmy Olson, Forbes Staff

    I cover agitators and innovators in mobile.














































    Tech
    6/18/2013 @ 4:11PM |4,207 views

    Mark Zuckerberg Talks Facebook With Samsung


    Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speak...
    Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 conference on September 11, 2012 in San Francisco, in his first public interview since the massive public offering on May 18 that was hotly anticipated but ended up being a flop. Facebook is not building its own mobile phone, despite some reports to the contrary, Zuckerberg said, adding the phone would be 'clearly the wrong strategy' to adopt. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
    Mark Zuckerberg knows that for Facebook FB +0.72% to fully realize its mobile ambitions, it needs decent ties with the world’s biggest smartphone maker: Samsung. The billionaire has been in Seoul, South Korea this week and earlier met with top executives at Samsung.
    He managed to secure face time with Jay Y. Lee, heir apparent to the giant Samsung conglomerate; his father, billionaire chairman Kun-hee Lee, has run the company for the last quarter of a century. Crucially, Zuckerberg also met with Jong-kyun “JK” Shin, who runs Samsung Electronic’s all-important handset division.












































    Shin told reporters outside the company’s headquarters that the two had talked about the state of the IT industry as well as potential partnerships, according to Bloomberg. A story in The Korea Herald also cites sources as saying that Zuckerberg asked Samsung to make a “Facebook-friendly phone.” A spokesperson for Facebook confirmed to Forbes that Zuckerberg had met with Samsung but would not elaborate on the discussions.
    Last April Facebook announced a new mobile product called Home, which was essentially a souped-up Android launcher that made Facebook the main user interface for certain high-end Android phones, including Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S4. The Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC took things a step further, simultaneously releasing a phone called the HTC First which would ship with Facebook Home pre-installed. HTC’s Chief Executive Peter Chou even took to the stage at the launch event at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. to announce it.
    Zuckerberg’s meetings with Samsung might have been made awkward by the fact that Home has, since then, struggled to gain credibility among Android users, receiving two-and-a-half stars on Google Play. AT&T T +1.15% also recently dropped the price of the HTC First from $99 to $1, suggesting the carrier is struggling to shift units. The free launcher has been downloaded between 1 million and 5 million times on Google GOOG +1.66% Play.
    Zuckerberg has told investors that Facebook is aware of Home’s slow start and is working on improving Home by, among other things, adding an on/off butting and expanding it to other devices.
    If Zuckerberg was pushing stronger ties between Facebook and Samsung smartphones, he will likely have repeated the same points to Samsung’s JK Shin, noting that Facebook is also increasingly earning money from mobile ad sales. In the first quarter of 2013, Facebook derived almost a third of all ad revenue, or $375 million, from mobile ads, up from 23% in the previous quarter.
    But The Korea Herald notes that Samsung might be skeptical of tying itself to closely to Facebook, suggesting the company ”doesn’t want to nurture another Google,” with whom it is playing a tricky balancing act of running Google’s popular Android operating system on its most popular phones, while competing against Google’s own mobile handsets.
    Recent rumors in the blogosphere say that Google’s forthcoming Moto X phone will launch later this year with a 1.7 GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, and with rumored specs suggesting a mid-range device it may seek to undercut more expensive, feature-heavy rivals like Samsung’s GS4.
    That may create an opportunity for Facebook to promote exclusive partnerships with Samsung that set its smartphones apart from Google-owned devices. The question is whether Samsung believes it has anything to worry about with Moto X, and if it would benefit from integrating more exclusively with Facebook. Given Facebook Home’s false start with HTC First, Zuckerberg might have had a challenge convincing it on that front.
    Zuckerberg also held a 30-minute meeting with South Korea’s president, Geun-hye Park. The president’s official residence, known as the Blue House, issued a statement emailed to Forbes saying Zuckerberg had discussed ways that small-to-medium sized Korean enterprises could use Facebook to get more global exposure.
    South Korea’s president also meet with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Google CEO Larry Page in April to discuss the development of the country’s “creative economy,” the statement added.

    Facebook has never been stronger since IPO, Sandberg says

    Related Topics

    Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, speaks during Reuters Global Technology Summit in San Francisco, June 19, 2013. REUTERS-Stephen Lam
    Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, speaks during Reuters Global Technology Summit in San Francisco, June 19, 2013. REUTERS-Stephen Lam

    SAN FRANCISCO | Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:20pm EDT
    (Reuters) - A year after Facebook Inc's fumbled IPO, Wall Street remains slow to recognize what Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg argues has been an across-the-board improvement in its business.
    Facebook's ability to deliver ads to mobile phones, improvements in measuring the effectiveness of its ads and increasing user engagement have all put the world's largest social network in a better position than before the IPO, Sandberg told the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Wednesday.
    "When I look back at the last year since we went public, I believe we are unequivocally a much stronger company today than we were on literally any metric I can think of," Sandberg said at the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Wednesday.
    Facebook became the first U.S. technology company to debut with a value of more than $100 billion, in May 2012. Its shares have lost almost 40 percent of their value since.
    "I can't speak to the stock price but I do feel strongly that we are a better positioned, stronger company than we were a year ago," she said.
    With 1.1 billion users, Facebook is one of the Web's most popular destinations for consumers and advertisers. But growth in the company's revenue has slowed sharply from two years ago and some investors fret that a new crop of mobile apps aimed at younger users could chip away at Facebook's hold on consumers.
    Analysts also wonder if the company's depressed share price could dampen morale and hamper its ability to attract talent in Silicon Valley's ultra-competitive talent arena.
    "I don't think it's actually had a huge impact," the ex-Google Inc executive said, adding that while there had been some worries in the company about it, she was less worried as she had been through it before.
    The cool investor reception to Facebook and other recent consumer dotcom debutantes from Groupon to Zynga has helped chill the Silicon Valley IPO train.
    "If you miss in the first six months of being a public company, you're in the penalty box for a very long time," Sequoia partner Roelof Botha said at a panel about the fate of Silicon Valley public offerings.
    "If you beat too much, you're an idiot because you should have forecast higher.
    OLD AND NEW
    Under co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's new mission is to carve out a dominant position in smartphones and tablets to keep up with shifting consumer habits.
    The company's mobile ads, which appear directly in users' newsfeeds and now account for 30 percent of Facebook's overall ad revenue, command higher prices than its previous PC ads and are tougher for competitors to replicate, Sandberg said.
    It has recently introduced new features that have been popularized on rival service Twitter, such as verified user accounts and "hashtags," which make it easier for users to follow activity on the social network.
    Within the last year, Facebook made its largest acquisition ever, paying about $700 million for Instagram. Sandberg said the company was in no hurry to generate revenue from the mobile photo-sharing app.
    Facebook will at some point monetize the popular picture-postings service, Sandberg said. But for the near term "we all think it makes a lot of sense for Instagram to be focused on growth" in users.
    Another untapped opportunity is China. Facebook remained interested in offering its service in the world's largest Internet market, where the social network is banned.
    "It's an ongoing conversation with the government. At the end of the day it's their choice," she said. Sitting on the sidelines too long did not mean Facebook would cede the market to local competitors, she insisted.
    "We were not the first entrants in our space to any market I'm aware of. There were markets like Brazil where Orkut had huge penetration, we're now over 80 percent penetrated into the Internet population," Sandberg said.
    Sandberg, 43, joined Facebook as chief operating officer in 2008, overseeing business operations and transforming the fast-growing social network into a multi-billion company, while Zuckerberg focused on product strategy.
    A former Google sales executive who also served as chief of staff to former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Sandberg is credited with bringing valuable business experience and organizational discipline to the company.
    With her new book, Lean In, currently the No.2 bestseller in the New York Times hardcover non-fiction list, some wonder whether Sandberg might be ready to take on a new challenge, perhaps in the world of politics.
    She dismissed the notion of political aspirations, noting that she has already been in government and had no plans to leave Facebook.
    Follow Reuters Summits on Twitter @Reuters_Summits
    (For other news from Reuters Global Technology Summit, click on 
     www.reuters.com/summit/Tech13)
    (Editing by Edwin Chan, Ed Tobin and Edwina Gibbs)

    Governor apologizes for deleted Facebook comments

    INDIANAPOLIS -- Gov. Mike Pence admitted Friday that some angry constituents were right.
    Some of the hundreds of comments that his staff deleted from the Indiana governor's official Facebook page this week were targeted, Pence said, because they expressed disagreement with his opposition to gay marriage.
    And that went beyond the office's internal policy of removing only profane, inflammatory or uncivil comments, Pence concluded.
    So the governor issued an apology Friday on Facebook, saying his office would review its practices and soon post a formal standard of conduct prominently on the site to make the rules of the engagement clear.
    "Hoosiers expect our public debate to be open and respectful and we will ever seek to live up to that standard," he said. "In agreement or disagreement, I respect the opinions and the freedoms of all the people of Indiana."
    The mea culpa followed two days of assertions by the governor and his office that staff members were removing only comments that were profane or uncivil.
    The Indianapolis Star was first to report Wednesday that some commenters suspected their contributions were being deleted only because they opposed the governor, not because they were disrespectful.
    On Friday, Pence said they were right.
    "On careful review, it (appears) ... some comments were being deleted simply because they expressed disagreement with my position," Pence said in the statement. "I regret that this occurred and sincerely apologize to all those who were affected."
    The Republican governor's statement received a lukewarm response from some of the commenters whose posts were deleted.
    "It's all very official and all very by the book," said Beth Hollandbeck Barnes, 44, who lives in Brownsburg. "But what it doesn't contain for me is any true sense of contriteness for the people, like me, who had the feeling of being shut down because we disagreed with him."
    Barnes' Wednesday comment — captured by another commenter in a screen grab before its deletion — asked Pence, in part, to explain to three of her children why their 18-year-old brother, who is gay, "doesn't deserve the same rights they do."
    Local political blogger and attorney Paul Ogden offered a different take on Pence's apology, crediting him for admitting he was wrong.
    "People can be surprisingly forgiving when politicians are willing to admit they are human and make mistakes," Ogden wrote on his blog, called Ogden on Politics. "Governor Pence initially stumbled in his response to the Facebook deletions, but today he hit the ball out of the park with a classy apology."
    Still, others felt no apology was necessary.
    "No need for apologies," John Collins wrote on Pence's Facebook page. "It's his page. He can delete whatever or whoever he wants. No different than any of you controlling your own fb page. It's fb, not life or death people."
    Some created new online outlets to criticize the governor.
    A Facebook page called "I Got Blocked By Governor Mike Pence for stating my Opinion" notched more than 1,000 "likes" by Friday.
    And since Thursday, www.pencership.com — a name that blends Pence with "censorship" — has been collecting screen grabs of comments that later were deleted from Pence's Facebook page. That site was created by Indianapolis Web designer Andrew Markle.
    Pence spokeswoman Kara Brooks said users whose commenting privileges were suspended this week were "unblocked" from the governor's Facebook page Friday.
    She said the entire governor's office staff is responsible for overseeing the Facebook page, adding: "The issue was discussed with the staff, and corrections have been made."
    Some of the deleted comments veered into name-calling, but Barnes was among many who said theirs expressed respectful disagreement with Pence.
    Those comments were among more than 1,000 made by Facebook users after the posting Wednesday of a statement by Pence responding to the two U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning gay marriage.
    One requires the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages performed in places where it's legal.
    Indiana law says marriage is only between a man and a woman. Pence affirmed his support for that idea, and he joined some legislative leaders in renewing a push to place a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions on the 2014 ballot.
    Government officials, according to legal experts, potentially risk running afoul of the U.S. Constitution if they remove critical comments with too heavy of a hand on a Facebook page that could be considered a public forum.
    Pence said his office's still-developing standard of conduct for commenting on his Facebook page would be similar to policies used by other elected officials and news organizations. 



    Facebook Pulls Ads From Pages That Contain Violent, Racy Content From Commercial Advertising  

    AP  |  Posted:   |  Updated: 06/30/2013 11:39 pm EDT


    MENLO PARK, California (AP) — Facebook is pulling ads from pages that contain violence or sexual content.
    The social network said that on Monday, it will expand its definition of pages and groups that are too controversial to carry advertisements.
    Facebook has sought to strike a balance between giving its 1.1 billion users the freedom to post what they want and providing advertisers with space to sell their products.
    In May, Facebook Inc. lost more than a dozen advertisers, at least temporarily, after the activist group Women, Action and the Media urged an advertising boycott to protest hate speech on the Facebook site. The controversial content included grisly photos and mottos that encouraged rape, abuse and other violence against women.
    The company said then that it would review its guidelines, update training for employees and increase accountability for those who post such matter. It also said it would work more closely with women's groups. Some of the companies that initially pulled their ads — including automaker Nissan and the car-sharing service Zipcar — said then that they were pleased with Facebook's response.
    Facebook had already banned ads on certain pages. The new policy will expand on the categories affected by the ban. In the past, a company selling adult-theme products could have ads running on the right side of the page, for instance. Those pages will be ad-free starting Monday.
    "We recognize we need to do more to prevent situations where ads are displayed alongside controversial Pages and Groups," the company said in a statement Friday. "So we are taking action."

    4 Facebook Poll Tools for Your Social Media Strategy



    If you have a business and an audience on

     Facebook, you probably understand the

     importance of engaging your fan base. 

     4 Poll Tools for your social media strategy
    An effective social media strategy should include different ways to interact with your customers and prospects.
    But here’s a question for you – are you utilizing your social media presence to its fullest potential?
    Well, chances are you’re missing the mark by underutilizing at least one tool at your disposal – Facebook polls.
    But you may be wondering why should you bother spending time doing all the work that comes along with polling your audience?

    Why you should use polls in your social media strategy

    Well, consider this:

    • Successful Facebook pages incorporate polls and contest into their overall social strategy. According to Econsultancy, the social teams behind Coca-Cola and Starbucks frequency pose questions to their audiences. According to newBrandAnalytics, “some companies have already ditched surveys” and are now turning to social feedback to in an effort to understand customer experience. 
    • Reaching your business goals hinges on a deep understanding of your customers and prospects. And through Facebook, you have access to a large massive audience of individuals who might not usually complete “traditional” surveys that pop up on websites or that are sent through email. 

    • There’s no use in worrying about “bothering” your fans – they’ve already demonstrated their interest by “liking” your page. So why not give them an opportunity to get involved and give you feedback on existing products or planned product feature releases, the types of content and service they’d like to see on your page as well as monitor customer satisfaction and gather information on other topics relevant for your business?
    Now that you understand the arguments in favor of polling your audience, let’s get into the HOW-TO and explore the tools available for the task, from the most basic to those with a wider range of features.
    Before we dive into the list, I want to point out that you can always choose to “poll” your audience by posting a question as a status update as depicted below.
    michaelstatford@yahoo.com
    But if you plan to perform more thorough research it’s recommended that you use one of the tools specifically developed for the job.
    Here’s the first tool in the list:

    Tool #1. Poll

    Poll claims to be “most widely used” polling app and, overall, it has a nice feature set, which includes the ability to create an ad-supported poll for free, feature a poll as a tab on your profile and access data about your respondents. Some of the premium features include the option of removing ads on the app’s page and allowing respondents to add comments while answering your questions.
    Facebook Poll tool 1
    This app also saves your polls and lets you view them at a later time and, if you wish, to poll your audience once again. Two other interesting premium features are advertising the poll through its own system and requiring poll participants to “like” your page before voting. Premium features can be unlocked for $19 per poll or for an annual payment of $99.

    Tool #2. Polls for Facebook

    Polls for Facebook is another simple poll app that also claims to be the “the most popular.”
    Facebook Poll tool 2
    Among other things, the poll creator can choose the question format (multiple-choice, text, only one correct answer, multiple correct, add drop-down answers etc.), modify their appearance (e.g. by adding images), and send  personalized thank-you notes to the poll’s participants (available only in the premium version).
    Unlike the first app in the list, one minor drawback is a lack of extensive a documentation and instructions, so to get a real feel for the app, it’s best to just give it a trial.

    Tool #3. Polldaddy

    The creators of Polldaddy are the same folks who are behind WordPress, so you can rest assured of its technical quality and data security. The app has rich functionality and lets its users create polls, surveys and quizzes which can then be shared on websites and through email, Facebook, and Twitter.
    Facebook Poll tool 3
    Polldaddy allows its users to customize the look and feel of their polls (e.g. by adding an image or video, customizing CS), modify question format (choosing from 14 question types, specifying a set of possible answers), set privacy options, and analyze response data with the help of its powerful filter and reporting capabilities (e.g. exporting raw data into Excel, PDF, CSV, Google Docs, and XML format).

    Tool #4. Cup.li

    The Cup.li app is both comprehensive in its design and user-friendly at the same time.
    Facebook poll tool 4
    Engineered for “deep marketing analysis”, it matches the functionality of others apps, but also lets you create a private interview, select question format (one answer, some answers, matrix), target respondents by age, gender, marital status, and education, and sort respondents into groups, and enable sharing.

    Tips and resources

    If you’ve been on the fence about running polls on your Facebook page, hopefully this overview has shown you that there are several available tools to choose from, one of which is certainly guaranteed to simplify the process of gathering valuable insights from your audience.
    If you’re unsure about what to ask your fans or how best to structure your questions, here are a few resources you mind find of value:

    • Case studies of social media marketing (with the use of polls) from KIA (well-known car company), o2 (UK provider of mobile services), and Hapa (a former Nestle Brand). 

    Finally, although social media websites have created new ways to “listen”, understanding what consumers are thinking about and why they are behaving in a certain way is challenging. Seemingly minor details like question wording can have a significant impact on the results of a particular poll.
    So keep in mind that individuals and businesses 

    alike should have several tools in their sales and 

    marketing arsenal and utilize a combination of 

    channels and techniques, understanding the pro’s 

    and con’s of each.
    Guest Author: Michael Statford 
    Image by Shutterstock

    Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg reschedules flight, avoids plane crash

    Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg was supposed to be aboard the Asiana Airlines flight that crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday morning.
    Sandberg and other execs at the social media giant escaped potential disaster when they switched to a United flight returning from a Korean business trip. Two passengers were reported dead and 181 injured when the Boeing 777 landed short of a runway at about 11:27 a.m. PT.
    "I was on another flight from Korea at the exact same time,'' she said in an email to USA TODAY's Jon Swartz. "We are ok. My friend on that flight is ok, too."
    Sandberg, 43, says colleagues Debbie Frost, Charlton Gholson and Kelly Hoffman also switched flights.
    Sandberg, a billionaire and author of the recently released best seller Lean In, took another flight flight from Seoul to cash in air miles tickets for family members. She said the United flight landed 20 minutes before the Asiana crashed.
    "Thanks you to everyone who is reaching out - and sorry if we worried anyone,'' she tweeted.
    Samsung executive David Eun, who was on crashed flight, was among the first to tweet and send photos of the heavily damaged Boeing 777.
    "I just crash landed at SFO,'' he said. "Tail ripped off. Most everyone seems fine. I'm ok. Surreal."
    Eun, shared information about fellow passengers and photos from the crash site, gaining thousands of new Twitter followers as he posted updates.
    Late Saturday afternoon, Eun tweeted; "Just went through customs. Adrenaline rush is subsiding. Just trying to process all this. Really glad that most everyone I saw seemed ok, with just a few minor injuries. Thinking a lot about family and friends right now..."


































    Zynga's real-money gambling said to be coming to Facebook

    The social-gaming company is planning to launch ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino apps that will supposedly be available on Facebook in the U.K.






































    (Credit: Zynga)
    Having just begun to test its luck with online gambling sites, Zynga is now said to be hedging its bets with real-money gambling apps.
    The social gaming company is said to be launching ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino apps that will be available on Facebook in the U.K., according to VentureBeat. These apps will supposedly be accessible on desktop computers first and then will come to mobile.
    "This is just business as usual for them," a Facebook spokesperson told CNET. "What you're likely hearing about are additional games Zynga is adding to their existing real money gaming ecosystem in the U.K."
    The struggling gaming company officially launched its U.K. gambling sites in April. It has started out with two gambling brands, ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino, which host more than 160 games where players can use real money. This endeavor was a partnership between Zynga and the U.K.-based poker company Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment. While these games will only be available in the U.K. to start, Zynga has said that it also has big plans to bring gambling games to the U.S. Zynga made efforts to apply for a gambling operator's license in Nevada late last year, spurring Wall Street to wonder if the company could pick itself up with gambling dollars.
    It's unclear when the apps will launch in the U.K. When contacted by CNET, Zynga declined to comment.


































































    Dara Kerr, a freelance journalist based in the Bay Area, is fascinated by robots, supercomputers and Internet memes. When not writing about technology and modernity, she likes to travel to far-off countries.
































    Gowalla co-founder checks out of Facebook

    Josh Williams won't be checking into any more of the social network's local search initiatives.



































































      Josh Williams pictured in March 2011 when he was still CEO of Gowalla.
      (Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET)
      Josh Williams, Facebook's product manager of location and events, is checking out of the company after just 18 months on the job, Facebook confirmed to CNET. The news was first reported by AllThingsD.
      "Joshua has been a valuable member of Facebook," a spokesperson said. "We wish him the best of luck with his future endeavors."
      Williams has served as the social network's lead on local initiatives, a top priority in recent months, ever since Facebook subsumed his struggling startup Gowalla, which, like still-alive-and-kicking Foursquare, specialized in venue check-ins. Williams has been helping Facebook act more like Yelp by tweaking mobile business Pages and developing a mobile map-based Nearby Places feature for exploring surrounding venues.
      Williams, whose last day with Facebook is Friday, told Business Insider that he plans to "work on something new" but did not specify what that would be.
      The loss seems like a blow, particularly considering that Facebook shelled out a reported $3 million in shares just for Gowalla's talent -- not its technology. Williams exit also closely trails that of advertising executive Gokul Rajaram, engineering director Josh Wiseman, and general counsel Ted Ullyot.
      Williams did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
































































      Jennifer Van Grove covers the social beat for CNET. She loves Boo the dog, CrossFit, and eating vegan. Her jokes are often in poor taste, but her articles are not.

































      Facebook acqui-hires team from UK software startup Monoidics

      Summary: Monoidics specializes in developing automatic formal verification and analysis software.































      zdnet-facebook-Monoidics
      Facebook is bringing on some new talent as well as assets centered around software development.
      The world's largest social network is in the process of acquiring the assets of and the team behind Monoidics, a U.K. startup founded in 2009 to develop automatic formal verification and analysis software.
      The Monoidics team confirmed the merger in a statement on the London-based company's website on Thursday.
      Here's an excerpt:

      However, we have always looked for ways we could do even more, and when we met members of Facebook’s engineering team, we realized how much we have in common: a relentless focus on quality, a desire to move fast and try new things, and a passion for making an impact. Right away we knew this was our chance to take what we’ve built to the next level. Joining the Facebook team opens up a world of new opportunity for our technology and for our individual and collective scientific expertise.
      Financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. The Monoidics team will be moving into to Facebook's "growing" London offices and join the engineering team there when the deal is complete.
      The move marks another step for Facebook's evolving global strategy.
      The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company has been steadily building engineering teams across the United States for some time now, notably in New York and Seattle. Facebook also established a temporary engineering office in Vancouver, Canada earlier this year.
      Image via The Monoidics Blog
































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      Bill Detwiler


      Managing Editor, TechRepublic Pro
      Email




      Pollution from the overuse of pesticides threatens humans and animal species in the region of the Prespa Lake Basin in Resen, Macedonia. In response, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) worked with farmers in the area to adopt environmentally-friendly practices by setting up a system to monitor pests and diseases, but a lack of local media made it hard to communicate quickly with farmers. In this installment of Digital Diversity, we learn how Facebook and mobile technology turned out to be the answer.
      Digital-Diversity
      Digital Diversity is a series of blog posts from kiwanja.net featuring the many ways mobile phones and other appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives. This article was curated by Gabrielle LePore, our Media and Research Assistant. You can follow Gabrielle on Twitter @GabrielleLePore
      By staff at the UNDP office in Skopje
      “This is the one everyone knows from cartoons – the little worm in the apple,” says Eftim Petkovski, scooping the larva of a codling moth from an apple in his orchard in Resen. “But it’s no joke, I can tell you – if we farmers don’t spray for them early on, all our livelihoods are at risk.”
      “Timing is everything with these pests. You’ve got to predict their migrations – and that can be a matter of hours. Spraying too early or too late is much less effective and a lot more expensive because you need bigger amounts – often as much as three times the quantity. And you can guess what that does to the environment.”

      apples428
      Pesticide use down by 30 percent thanks to new information system. Photo: UNDP
      Overuse of pesticides amongst orchard farmers in Resen has been proven to be a major cause of pollution in the beautiful but environmentally vulnerable region of the Prespa Lake Basin, threatening the habitat of over 2,000 species of birds, fish and mammals, including many endangered animals unique to Prespa.
      UNDP has been working in close cooperation with the Municipality of Resen in recent years (with funding from the Global Environment Facility and the Swiss Development Cooperation), on projects to raise awareness of the dangers of pesticides and to help local farmers adopt more environmentally-sustainable agricultural practices. These efforts have already led to a 30 percent reduction in the amount of pesticides used by local farmers each season – good news for the environment and savings for farmers. “The way we dealt with pests before was wasteful,” says Mr. Petkovski. “And a lot of that could be put down to farmers’ lack of awareness.”
      “But that’s not the whole story – the problem of knowing the best time to spray is a problem faced by all farmers. It’s about the speed of notification and that’s in many ways a technical problem needing a technical solution.”
      In response, the Municipality of Resen and UNDP set up a system to monitor pests and diseases in 2005, installing six solar-powered agro-meteorological monitoring stations and a number of insect pheromone traps. The monitoring stations gathered all the necessary data, but the problem remained: How to get that data directly to farmers as quickly as possible. There’s no local media in Resen, so for the past seven years all they had to rely on were paper flyers posted in the square – not an adequate system for updating farmers.
      “To make the system sustainable, we knew we needed to find an inexpensive solution,” said UNDP’s Dimitrija Sekovski. “And that’s what we came up with – an innovative way of notifying farmers that cost less than $1,000 to develop.”

      prespaphoto428
      Mr. Petkovski proudly shows the messages on his mobile phone. Photo: UNDP
      Walking between the apple trees in his orchard, Mr. Petkovski pulls up the messages on his mobile phone. “Here’s the SMS we received about the codling moth on Friday,” he says:

      Apple trees in the area of the village of Rajca have been infected by the codling moth. The apple trees should be treated in the next 10 days. For more info, visit the Facebook page or call the Association of Farmers.
      “That message went out to every farmer in the village of Rajca whose name is registered with the local Association of Farmers,” says Mr. Petkovski. “And that’s how we were able to spray before the moths had a chance to spread. Just knowing that in time has saved a lot of our fruit.”
      The SMS system was developed by the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of Cyril & Methodius in Skopje, with UNDP support. The same pest control expert who sends SMS updates to farmers also updates a Farmers’ Association page on Facebook, to help get the word out even further. The new system is part of a six-year project to restore and protect Prespa Lake, funded by the Swiss Development Cooperation.
      Low costs and simplicity of implementation make this system highly suitable for replication in other municipalities across the country.
      What’s next? The team here are now thinking about adding another layer to the system. One of the ideas is to ‘gamify‘ the notifications to farmers. Do you think this could work? Are there any similar examples out there? Do you have any other suggestions?
      This post originally appeared on the UNDP website and has been republished by permission. You can read the original post here
      Digital Diversity is produced by Ken Banks, innovator, mentor, anthropologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Founder of kiwanja.net, FrontlineSMS and Means of Exchange. He shares exciting stories in “Digital Diversity” about how mobile phones and appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives. You can follow him on Twitter @kiwanja

      Tech stocks: Apple, Facebook earnings preview

      SHARE 12 49 1 COMMENTMORE
      Two important quarterly earnings reports from the tech sector land later this week. Let's take a look at the tech stocks to watch Monday:
      Apple stock creeps upward. Shares of the Cupertino, Calif., company are up slightly as the company prepares to report third-quarter earnings after the markets close Tuesday.
      Analysts are forecasting quarterly revenue $35 billion with an earnings-per-share of $7.30. Investors are seeking fresh reasons to get excited about Apple stock, which has slowly plummeted after soaring to an all-time high of $702 last September.
      A report from The Wall Street Journal claims Apple is testing out larger screens for future iPad tablets and iPhones.
      Facebook quarterly earnings Wednesday. The social network's stock is up a lalf-percent in pre-market trading with its second-quarter report arriving later this week. Estimates suggest Facebook will report $1.62 billion in revenue and a $0.14 earnings-per-share.
      Mobile growth will likely remain the focus for investors Wednesday, as they seek continued signs of expansion from Facebook. Last quarter, Facebook reported 751 million monthly mobile visitors, a 54% surge from the same time last year.
      AT&T shares slip. The telecommunications giant's shares are down slightly ahead of second-quarter earnings after the markets close Tuesday.
      The report comes after AT&T joined other wireless carriers in offering an early upgrade program. Their service, AT&T Next, allows consumers to upgrade their smartphone or tablet after 12 months. Both T-Mobile and Verizon recently revealed similar programs.
      Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @bam923.

      King 5 News Reports

      Social media among WA laws going into effect

      Social media among WA laws going into effect
      Credit: AFP/Getty Images


      by Associated Press and KING 5 News

      Posted on July 26, 2013 at 10:49 AM

      Updated today at 11:06 AM


      SEATTLE – A number of new laws go into effect in Washington state this Sunday.
      Despite their inability to quickly agree on a state operating budget, Washington state lawmakers managed to pass more than 330 bills.

      — Electronic Proof of Driver's Insurance: Drivers in Washington will now be able to use their smartphones to prove they have insurance when they get pulled over. The Legislature added electronic proof of driver's insurance to the list of methods officers can accept proof.

      —Social Media Passwords: Lawmakers barred employers from demanding passwords for social media sites like Facebook at the workplace and during job interviews. It also stops employers from making workers friend managers so that their profile is viewable.

      —Gender Neutral Language: Washington lawmakers continued their efforts to scrape the state's laws and rules of sexist language. A measure approved by the Legislature this year mandated that references to "his" be changed to "his or her." Other nouns like "clergyman" must be changed to "clergy." Over the past six years, state officials have engaged in the onerous task of changing the language used in the state's copious laws, which includes thousands of words and phrases, many written more than a century ago when the idea of women working on police forces or on fishing boats wasn't a consideration.

      —Liquor, beer and wine: Farmers markets that meet certain requirements will be able to feature wine and beer tasting. The measure makes a pilot program permanent. Meanwhile, movie theaters with less 120 seats per screen will be allowed to obtain a liquor license under another approved measure and lawmakers made sure that grocery stores using self-checkout machines check people's identification when they purchase alcohol.

      —Dropped marijuana: Should a person drop or forget an ounce or less of marijuana at a retail store with a pharmacy, managers need to notify law enforcement and destroy the marijuana under a law approved by lawmakers.


      Class action lawsuit filed against Facebook






      By: Christy Dimond Email

      Updated: Tue 10:20 PM, Jan 29, 2013
      Click here to find out more!
      A class action lawsuit against Facebook could land you with some extra cash in your pocket. If you received an email in the last few days from "legalnotice@facebookmail.com," you could make a claim against the social media giant for using your information and tying it with advertisements.
      The lawsuit claims Facebook takes users' personal information, such as your name or profile picture, and uses it in "Sponsored Stories." For example, if you "like" a businesses' page on Facebook, your name or picture could end up in a Facebook ad for that business.
      Facebook agreed to pay $20 million into a settlement fund, much of which will go to claimants. The most you could pocket from the suit would be $10, but there's a chance you may not get anything if a substantial amount of people make claims. In that case, the funds would go to internet privacy advocacy groups in the US.
      For Grand Junction resident Josh Anderson who received the email about filing a claim, the possible $10 isn't worth the work of filing a claim. However, even though Facebook has settled in the case, the ever evolving privacy issues on Facebook make him unsettled.
      "I used to not be so worried because who am I? Who cares what I put on there?" Anderson said. "But actually, as time goes by, its unnerving to know what's out there and what people could know about you."
      If you received the email, the deadline to file a claim is May 2nd. For more information, visit www.fraleyfacebooksettlement.com. 

       

      Zuckerberg’s Wealth Soars $3.8 Billion as Facebook Surges




      Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune soared $3.8 billion yesterday as shares of Facebook Inc. (FB), the world’s most-popular social-networking service, rallied 30 percent to the highest level since May 2012.
      Surging demand for mobile advertising helped profit and revenue top analysts’ estimates in the second quarter Wednesday. The earnings may quell concerns, voiced by analysts and investors since Facebook’s initial public offering last year, that the rising popularity of smartphones and tablets is outpacing its ability to make money selling promotions to mobile users.
      Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook Inc., in Menlo Park, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

      July 25 (Bloomberg) -- Emily Chang reports on today's top news headlines on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West." (Source: Bloomberg)

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      “Very few people saw the pace at which the entire activity of the planet’s Internet connectivity was going to move toward mobile,” said David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” a history of the company, in a telephone interview. “It’s clearly under way now.”
      The gain pushed Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 29-year-old co-founder and chief executive officer, ahead of Microsoft Inc. CEO Steve Ballmer and Dell Inc. (DELL) chairman Michael Dell on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Zuckerberg is No. 42 on the ranking with a net worth of $16.8 billion. His fortune is up 37 percent year-to-date.
      Revenue rose 53 percent to $1.81 billion in the latest quarter, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Profit excluding certain items was 19 cents a share. Analysts had projected profit of 14 cents on sales of $1.62 billion on average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

      Boosted Projections

      Facebook closed at $34.36 in New York yesterday. The Menlo Park, California-based company traded at 149 times earnings as of today’s close, more expensive than 99 percent of the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
      Analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased their target price to $46 from $40, and at least 10 others also boosted projections, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
      “They’ve really done a 180-degree shift toward mobile, even if it was somewhat belatedly,” said Kirkpatrick.
      In December, Zuckerberg donated almost $500 million in Facebook stock to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The gift to the nonprofit group, which had $2 billion in assets in 2011, is to “lay a foundation for new projects,” Zuckerberg said in a statement posted on his Facebook page.
      The billionaire and his wife, Priscilla, have committed the majority of their wealth to charity.

      Gates, Slim

      Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates, 57, remains the richest person in the world with a net worth of $72.2 billion.
      Mexico’s Carlos Slim, 73, is $5.5 billion behind Gates. The telecommunications tycoon’s fortune has plunged $8.5 billion this year as his main holding, a 44 percent stake in America Movil SAB, the largest mobile-phone operator in the Americas, has fallen 11 percent.
      No. 3 on the Bloomberg ranking is Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) Chairman Warren Buffett. Shares of the Omaha, Nebraska-based company are up 31 percent this year, elevating the 82-year-old’s fortune to $59.8 billion.
      To contact the reporter on this story: David De Jong in New York at ddejong3@bloomberg.net
      To contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net


      Learning Facebook in retirement age


      Classes in Facebook and other social media offer older adults options for keeping in touch with grandchildren, reconnecting with friends, and networking about health issues
























      Mary  McCluskey, 89, a former secretary, gets some help navigating Facebook  from Natalie Billings, in a class at Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly in Brighton.
      SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF
      Mary McCluskey, 89, a former secretary, gets some help navigating Facebook from Natalie Billings, in a class at Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly in Brighton.

      They adjust their reading glasses to make out the letters on the screen. They type with one finger. They have their user names and passwords written down on paper.
      They want to know what the “status update” is for.
      “That’s a very good question,” replies their teacher, Natalie Billings, who is young enough to be their granddaughter. “With the status update, you can tell your friends about important events in your life, like the birth of a great-grandchild, or when your granddaughter graduates from university.’’
      Indeed, most students in Billings’s Facebook class at the Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly in Brighton are old enough to have great-grandchildren.


      Billings began teaching the course in May, after the seniors expressed a desire to learn about Facebook on a JCHE survey. So she created large-print handouts with simple instructions and started helping the residents set up profiles and look for friends.
      Facebook student Zoya Melnikova, 77, wants to use the site to stay in touch with old classmates and family in Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Germany, and Israel. But, she admits, she has a hard time logging in because she forgets her password a lot.
      “My niece lives in Russia, and she posts a lot of photos from her travels. Before Facebook and Skype, we didn’t communicate directly, we only heard about each other through my sister,” she said. “Of course, nowadays when my niece visits the cemetery where her mother is buried, she sends me photos of that — and she also posts old family pictures. I print them out. I want to make an album to put together a family tree with all the relatives.”
      At JCHE, an organization that offers housing for close to 1,500 older adults (generally, at least 62 years old), the Facebook class has recently been offered in English, Russian, and Chinese in Brighton, Newton, and Framingham. A new computer lab opened two years ago. The JCHE also launched its own Facebook page, and is trying to encourage seniors to click on the “like” button, which will sign them up for updates about JCHE though Facebook.
      “We post on it a couple of times per week at a minimum,” said the facility’s spokeswoman, Susan Goodman. ”There is a blog, we share stories from JCHE, and we use it to entice people to come to our events.”
      The City of Boston Elderly Commission launched its first Facebook page this summer and plans to conduct training sessions on how to use Facebook and social media in general in October and November, said commission spokeswoman Tula Mahl.
      “We are going to explain to them how to not be afraid [of Facebook] and how to be careful,” Mahl said. “A lot of older adults are afraid of technology because they hear a lot about scams. [We will] explain to them how to protect themselves. . . . We’ll explain to them that they don’t have to share everything just because someone else does it.”
      The Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center in Newton is also teaching elders about technology. Last fall, workshops introduced students between the ages of 76 and 92 to iPads and iPhones, said senior adult program manager Cynthia Katzeff.
      “They are bored and they want to continue [learning.] They have the time now,” Katzeff said.
      While seniors are still less likely to use Facebook than younger people, they are increasingly signing up for the social networking site, said Mary Madden, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. According to the center’s latest report, released in February, 34 percent of people over 65 are now on Facebook, up from 28 percent in 2010. The percent of older adults who use the Internet is also going up: Pew estimates that 56 percent of people at least 65 are active online, up from 47 percent in 2010. Madden said retirees use Facebook to keep in touch with their grandchildren, reconnect with old friends, and even network with other people who are suffering from similar chronic diseases.
      Some researchers, such as Shyam Sundar at Pennsylvania State University, are studying the mental and physical benefits of social networking for older users, especially for those whose mobility is restricted or who live in remote rural areas.
      “Studies have shown that senior citizens who lose social networks become sick and die sooner,” Sundar said. “Can we somehow emulate the richness of social contact by using social network sites? We are exploring that. We have to run long-term clinical trials to see if it makes a measurable difference to long-term clinical health.”
      He noted that some older people are not interested in Facebook because they are concerned about the lack of privacy, or because they find virtual communication superficial and time-consuming. Even if they create a profile, they often don’t have many friends and log in only rarely, such as once a month, he said.
      To encourage more elders to give social networking a try, a group of researchers from the United Kingdom are studying how to make Facebook more senior-friendly with large fonts, Sunbar said, while there are a number of social-networking sites aimed at older users.
      Back in Brighton on a recent Thursday afternoon, Facebook class attendees seemed motivated and asked questions as they gazed at a large screen on which Billings projected her own Facebook profile as an example.
      As she talked, some class members tried to send messages to each other and peeked at their neighbors’ computers to see if the message came through. For most, writing each virtual communication took a while; retired secretary Mary McCluskey, 89, seemed to be the only one with good typing skills. She said she wants to master social networking to stay in touch with her nieces and nephews, who live all over the country and don’t always answer their phones.
      Despite knowing how to find the letters on the keyboard, learning to use Facebook wasn’t easy for her either. “I used to make monthly reports, I used to use a word processor,” she said. “I’m not too familiar with the computer, but I’m trying. I want to know how to do things one way, not six ways.”
      Computer class isn’t going to get less complicated any time soon.
      Next on the schedule is a class on Twitter. Billings is preparing the materials for it now.
      “Once they get the simple directions,” she said, “it just opens up the world.”
      Julie Masis can be reached at greenelephant888@gmail.com..


      Facebook stock almost hits IPO price, 14 months after rocky debut



      Related Topics

      Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's co-founder and chief executive introduces 'Home' a Facebook app suite that integrates with Android during a Facebook press event in Menlo Park, California, April 4, 2013. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

      SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Jul 30, 2013 7:22pm EDT
      (Reuters) - Facebook Inc's stock on Tuesday came within a hair of reclaiming its $38 debut price for the first time since going public in 2012, a milestone in the social networking company's effort to wipe away Wall Street's skepticism of its business.
      The stock has surged more than 40 percent in the past week after the company reported blowout quarterly results that showed Facebook's progress building a mobile advertising business.
      Shares of Facebook climbed as much as 7 percent to $37.96 in heavy trading on Tuesday, before settling back to finish the regular session at $37.63.
      The social network, with 1.15 billion users, has never traded at or above $38 since its initial public offering in May 2012.
      Facebook's market value was cut in half in the months following the IPO as concerns about issues ranging from slowing revenue to massive insider selling made the Internet company's stock a Wall Street punch line.
      "Most companies of that size don't re-accelerate their growth rate. Facebook's been an exception," said Aaron Kessler, an analyst with Raymond James.
      "I would say they're in better shape today than they were at the IPO price and the stock is still below that," he said.
      Facebook options volume was frenzied on Tuesday, as overall turnover was 3.8 times the recent daily average, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert. Traders on Tuesday exchanged 694,000 calls and 300,000 puts on Facebook.
      The most popular options were the weekly $38 and $37 strike calls expiring this Friday as most traders expected gains in coming days.
      One player liked the weekly $32.50 strike puts expiring on August 9 which appeared to be bought 15,000 times for only a dime, said WhatsTrading.com options strategist Frederic Ruffy.
      Facebook's recent success building a mobile advertising business - an area where many of its rivals have struggled - and the online service's expanding number of daily users have won back investors' respect and confidence in its prospects. That has fueled a rebound in the shares, which are up more than 50 percent in July.
      Facebook said last week its mobile advertising revenue grew 75 percent in a span of three months, trouncing analyst targets and delivering the company's strongest revenue growth since the third quarter of 2011.
      Many analysts raised their price targets above the $38 level following Facebook's quarterly report last week.
      The second quarter results "were really a game-changer in terms of how Facebook is perceived on the Street," said Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson. "It was pretty close to the perfect quarter."
      Facebook announced plans on Tuesday to help market and distribute mobile games on its social network in exchange for a cut of revenue that the games generate, raising hopes that the company could tap a new business.
      And many investors expect Facebook to offer high-priced video ads in the coming months.
      ERASING DOUBTS
      Created in a Harvard dorm room by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, Facebook become the first American technology company to debut on Wall Street valued at more than $100 billion.
      Facebook's IPO was to have been the culmination of eight years of breakneck growth for a company that became a social and cultural phenomenon. Instead, it was marred by a series of trading glitches on its debut, and the company and its underwriters subsequently faced accusations of pumping up the price and inadequate disclosure.
      Facebook shares opened 11 percent above the $38 offering price on May 18, 2012. But a series of problems that plagued the Nasdaq Stock Market where the shares debuted contributed to a sharp fall in the stock after it peaked that day at about $45. It closed at $38.23, and on the following Monday shares fell through the $38 price.
      By early September, Facebook's shares bottomed at $17.55.
      The cool investor reception to Facebook and other consumer dotcom debutantes at the time, such as Groupon Inc to Zynga Inc, put a chill on the Silicon Valley IPO train.
      "The question has never been do a lot of people go to Facebook. The question is how much revenue and profitability can Facebook derive from that activity," said Pacific Crest's Wilson.
      "There have been many that have questioned whether or not Facebook would grow significantly, but Q2 kind of erased that doubt," he said, referring to Facebook's business.
      (Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Additional reporting by Doris Frankel in Chicago; Editing by Richard Chang and Lisa Shumaker)

      Facebook leaps into games publishing

      SHARE 75 81 3 COMMENTMORE
      SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook wants a cut of the revenue from the mobile games business.
      The company today said it plans to take a role beyond its position of games platform to that of promoter and publisher. Facebook's new pilot program, dubbed Mobile Games Publishing, will allow it to promote small- and medium-sized games and take a cut in the sales in return.
      "We are invested in the success of these games, and in exchange for a revenue share, we will be collaborating deeply with developers in our program by helping them attract high-quality, long-term players for their games," Facebook said in a blog post.
      Facebook shares rose 5.6% at $37.43 in trading, approaching the company's IPO price of $38.
      The world's largest social network will use its massive 800-plus million monthly users of its mobile apps as a vehicle to drive the reach of these games with promotional support.
      "While it's hard to precisely estimate the revenue opportunity at the outset, this is a great opportunity for game publishers/developers and a strong opportunity for Facebook as well," Opus Research analyst Greg Sterling says. "Obviously, games is a category that is very much bound up with the history and growth of Facebook engagement."
      Games helped Facebook post blockbuster second-quarter results last week. Its payments revenue increased 11%, with games accounting for 7% of that revenue, in the period compared with a year ago.
      Facebook also announced the first 10 developer participants in the program. They are 5th Planet, Brainbow, Certain Affinity, Dragonplay, Gameloft, Gamevil, KiwiGames, Outplay Entertainment, Space Ape and WeMade Entertainment.
      The move serves a blow to Zynga's troubled online games business. Shares of Zynga traded nearly 1% lower at $3 today.


      Print   Email  

      Facebook's 'mobile first' strategy pays off on Wall Street



      Posted:   08/03/2013 03:00:00 PM PDT | Updated:   a day ago



      MENLO PARK -- Just one year ago, the world's largest social network was in Wall Street's doghouse. Facebook's highly touted stock market debut had fizzled, and the company's share price was spiraling lower and lower, as critics charged that youthful CEO Mark Zuckerberg had somehow missed one of the biggest shifts to hit the tech industry in years.
      After all, by spring 2012, hundreds of millions of people were already using smartphones or tablets, instead of PCs, to keep in touch with friends on the social network. Yet Facebook, whose business is built on advertising revenue, acknowledged it
      had virtually no ability to show ads on mobile screens.But in a dramatic turnaround, Zuckerberg is now boasting that mobile ad sales will soon account for more than half of the company's multibillion-dollar ad business. After publicly embracing a "mobile first" strategy last year, Facebook has been rewarded with a surge in mobile ads that has sent its share price soaring to its highest level since the company went public last year. And some experts say Facebook is setting the bar for other online services that are grappling with the mobile computing trend.
      "We're starting to see it with Twitter, LinkedIn. I think a lot of these companies are going to follow what Facebook is doing," said Hussein Fazal of AdParlor, a company that helps clients manage Facebook campaigns.
      Facebook says it began laying the groundwork for its mobile ad business more than a year ago, although there were few signs of it then.
      After rebuilding its apps for iPhones and Android smartphones -- making them faster and adding more features -- and introducing new advertising tools, the company says it sold more than $650 million worth of mobile ads in the most recent quarter, or 41 percent of its $1.6 billion in ad revenue.
      While some say Facebook ads are still relatively new and untested, industry experts say the company has developed a format uniquely suited to the small screens of smartphones and tablets, using one of the core features that many Facebook members scan repeatedly through the day.
      Instead of showing ad "banners" or commercials at the side or bottom of a Web page, Facebook is inserting ads directly into the News Feed, the never-ending stream of fresh posts and friend updates that dominates both desktop and mobile screens. And it makes sure those ads aren't too jarring or dissimilar in appearance from other posts.
      Because the ads appear right in the stream and can't be missed, News Feed is a powerful vehicle for delivering commercial messages on a mobile screen -- especially when combined with Facebook tools that let advertisers target groups of users based on their demographics or even their past shopping habits, said Clark Fredricksen at the eMarketer online research firm.
      Anecdotally, some users have complained about seeing more ads. And analysts warn that Facebook must be careful not to overload users with too many commercial messages. Zuckerberg has said he's mindful of that concern.
      Facebook now shows an average of one ad for every 20 posts in a user's feed, Zuckerberg told analysts last month. While users haven't reported "a meaningful drop in satisfaction," he added, "people have told us that they notice the ads more. So we're going to invest more in improving the quality."
      While the growth of Facebook's mobile business appears dramatic, Jim Squires, a director of product marketing at the company, said in an interview that the company started planning for News Feed ads in 2010. Until last year, however, Facebook primarily put ads in boxes on one side of its main page -- a format poorly suited to the smaller screens of mobile devices.
      Facebook launched the first News Feed ads in early 2012, with the first mobile ads appearing that March. Even so, the company said in a securities filing two months later that it was generating no "meaningful revenue" from mobile ads -- "and our ability to do so successfully is unproven."
      Soon after its initial stock offering May 18, 2012, Facebook's stock fell into a deep slump as critics declared the company had missed the mobile wave. Fredricksen and other analysts believe that's what forced Zuckerberg to put Facebook's mobile ad program into overdrive last summer.
      Around that time, Facebook executives began declaring publicly that the company had adopted a new strategy of "mobile first." Zuckerberg reorganized Facebook's engineering teams so that, instead of a separate mobile group, each product group had its own mobile software experts and was responsible for making its product work on mobile devices.
      Squires said he was part of a team that looked at ways to improve Facebook's mobile services for both users and advertisers, starting in spring 2012.
      "The News Feed is such an important part of the Facebook experience," he said last week, when asked why the company didn't ramp up News Feed ads sooner. "We wanted to make sure the experience was right for people before we scaled it and introduced it across all devices."
      Facebook had to be careful not to alienate users by introducing ads too quickly, agreed James Borow at Shift, a digital marketing firm that helps advertisers manage online campaigns. He added that Facebook has "done a really good job of not overdoing it."
      Facebook is still a long way from the size of Google (GOOG), its biggest rival in the online advertising business. Google will sell $9 billion worth of mobile ads this year, according to eMarketer projections, compared with about $2 billion for Facebook -- although Google's mobile ads are a smaller piece of its overall advertising sales, which are projected to reach $40 billion this year.
      And while many advertisers use Facebook to promote their brands, businesses like showing ads to users of Google's popular search engine because those users often are searching for things they want to buy. But some advertisers aren't convinced that searchers on smartphones are as ready to make a purchase as those using desktop computers.
      At Facebook, Squires said he has noticed a shift in thinking about mobile ads. Advertisers used to think of a "mobile strategy" separate from their primary marketing campaigns, he said. Now mobile ads are central to every marketing strategy.
      "That's been a big mind shift in the industry," he added.
      Contact Brandon Bailey at 408-920-5022. Follow him at Twitter.com/BrandonBailey.


      Facebook Leads an Effort to Lower Barriers to Internet Access


      Jim Wilson/The New York Times

      A new Internet-access project could help Mark Zuckerberg, chief of Facebook, cement his position as an industry leader.



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      MENLO PARK, Calif. — About one of every seven people in the world uses Facebook. Now, Mark Zuckerberg, its co-founder and chief executive, wants to make a play for the rest — including the four billion or so who lack Internet access.



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      Jim Wilson/The New York Times

      From left, Jay Parikh, Javier Olivan and Aaron Bernstein, Facebook officials involved with a consortium trying to deliver free or cheap ways to use the Internet to people who lack access.

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      On Wednesday, Facebook announced an effort aimed at drastically cutting the cost of delivering basic Internet services on mobile phones, particularly in developing countries, where Facebook and other tech companies need to find new users. Half a dozen of the world’s tech giants, including Samsung, Nokia, Qualcomm and Ericsson, have agreed to work with the company as partners on the initiative, which they call Internet.org.
      The companies intend to accomplish their goal in part by simplifying phone applications so they run more efficiently and by improving the components of phones and networks so that they transmit more data while using less battery power.
      For Mr. Zuckerberg, the formation of the coalition is yet another way in which he is trying to position himself as an industry leader. He has been speaking out more forcefully than other tech executives on topics like immigration overhaul, which the industry sees as critical to its hiring needs. With Internet.org, he is laying out a philosophy that tries to pair humanitarian goals with the profit motive.
      “The Internet is such an important thing for driving humanity forward, but it’s not going to build itself,” he said in a recent interview. “Ultimately, this has to make business sense on some time frame that people can get behind.”
      But the effort is also a reflection of how tech companies are trying to meet Wall Street’s demands for growth by attracting customers beyond saturated markets in the United States and Europe, even if they have to help build services and some of the infrastructure in poorer, less digitally sophisticated parts of the world.
      Google, for example, began a program with phone carriers last year that offers wireless users in some developing countries free access to Gmail, search and the first page clicked through from a search’s results. Google is also reaching for the sky with Project Loon, an attempt to beam Internet access down to earth from plastic balloons floating more than 11 miles in the atmosphere.
      Twitter, which is preparing to offer shares to the public in an initial stock offering, has struck its own deals with about 250 cellphone companies in more than 100 countries to offer some free Twitter access, and worked to make sure its service is easy to use on even the cheapest cellphones.
      These companies have little choice but to look overseas for growth. More than half of Americans already use Facebook at least once a month, for instance, and usage in the rest of the developed world is similarly heavy. There is nearly one active cellphone for every person on earth, making expansion a challenge for carriers and phone makers.
      Poorer countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America present the biggest opportunity to reach new customers — if companies can figure out how to get people there online at low cost.
      The immediate goals of the new coalition are to cut the cost of providing mobile Internet services to 1 percent of its current level within five to 10 years by improving the efficiency of Internet networks and mobile phone software. The group also hopes to develop new business models that would allow phone companies to provide simple services like e-mail, search and social networks for little or no charge.
      While that sounds far less exciting than, say, Google’s idea of delivering the Internet by balloon, Mr. Zuckerberg says small efforts can add up to big changes.
      “No one company can really do this by itself,” he said.
      Facebook is already working on techniques to reduce the average amount of data used by its Android mobile app from the current 12 megabytes a day to 1 megabyte without users noticing.
      Qualcomm, whose chip technology is prevalent in advanced cellphones, has created new designs to stretch a phone’s battery life, slice the amount of data needed to transmit a video and extend the reach of mobile networks through tiny devices similar to Wi-Fi routers.
      The coalition partners have also begun trying new ways of reducing the data charges paid by cellphone customers while still enabling phone makers and carriers to make money.
      For example, Nokia, the Finnish cellphone maker, ran a recent experiment with Facebook and the Mexican phone carrier Telcel, in which it bundled free Facebook access with some of its Asha feature phones. Sales rose significantly, and the company decided to run similar promotions for customers of Bharti Airtel, a mobile carrier in India and Africa.
      However, the Internet.org team does not plan to tackle some thorny infrastructure issues that are huge barriers in the developing world, particularly the long-distance transmission of data to far-flung places.
      Michuki Mwangi, regional development manager for Africa at the Internet Society, a nonprofit group that has long worked to expand global Internet access, said the continent sorely lacked local interconnection points, forcing most requests for content like YouTube videos to be routed through Europe at high cost. Creating more connection points would require navigating a thicket of government interests and powerful incumbents. But at the very least, the group would like Facebook and Google to put copies of their content on a greater number of African servers to deliver it more quickly and cheaply, something that both companies say they are considering.
      As with the Open Compute coalition started by Facebook in 2011 to improve the efficiency of data centers, Facebook will seek to add other partners to Internet.org, including national governments, wireless phone carriers and Microsoft, a longtime Facebook ally that has its own projects to expand access.
      But Google — whose search and YouTube video products are as fundamental as Facebook’s social network to many Internet users — is likely to remain outside the group.
      For one, its own efforts to expand Internet access are aggressive. In addition, the company is constantly refining its Android software, which runs the majority of new smartphones sold, to improve efficiency and battery life.
      “We’re always making investments in technology and programs to help people get online,” said Courtney Hohne, a Google spokeswoman. “We have teams around the world working on products tailored to local needs.”
      Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft and co-chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, recently suggested that Project Loon and similar projects were not the best use of resources to help people in the poorest nations.
      “When a kid gets diarrhea, no, there’s no Web site that relieves that,” he said in a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.
      Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged that basic health care is essential, but said that “if you can afford a phone, I think it would be really good for you to have access to the Internet.”
      The potential is already obvious in places like the Philippines, where the second-largest mobile phone company, Globe Telecom, has used free Twitter, Facebook or Google access as promotions to increase the number of its 37 million users who also subscribe to a mobile data plan to 20 percent from virtually zero in two years.
      “Once you’re connected, you’re connected, and you don’t want to look back,” said Peter Bithos, Globe’s senior adviser for consumer business.
      For Facebook, which generates most of its revenue from selling advertising that it shows to its users, the immediate profits from expanding Internet access will be minimal, Mr. Zuckerberg said, although he acknowledged that the long-term potential was there.
      “We’re focused on it more because we think it’s something good for the world,” he said, “rather than something that is going to be really amazing for our profits.”




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      Facebook clicks on Shutterstock for advertising

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      SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook is fast becoming a one-stop-shop media company offering services for advertisers.
      The world's largest social network today struck a deal with Shutterstock for licensing millions of images that will further that.
      Shutterstock's images will be a compelling feature for its more than 1 million advertisers. These Facebook advertising customers will be able to access the image database right inside Facebook's Ad Create Tool. Images -- which will be free to the customers -- will allow them to market on Facebook's News Feed, mobile and desktop ad forms.
      "We're making marketing on Facebook an end-to-end solution, from precise audience targeting to ad creation and performance measurement. It's a one-stop shop to help marketers drive their business goals," says Facebook spokesman Tim Rathschmidt.
      What this means is businesses wanting to advertise with Facebook will have digital creative assets -- along with the ability to target precise audiences -- readily available without licensing.
      Facebook is allowing advertisers to select up to to six images at a time when creating a group of ads in order for them to experiment with which images perform best.
      Facebook's acquisition of Parse in April is another piece in its puzzle of completing media-related services. The startup helps companies create apps with its suite of tools that have subscription marketing features as well. Facebook also offers tools that allow customers of these new Parse-created apps to build advertisements on the network.
      In the past year, Facebook has helped marketers to boost ad-targeting capabilities mingled with customer relationship management software in efforts to build businesses' presence on the network.
      Facebook advertisers will start having the option to use Shutterstock images in the coming weeks.

      Police: Teacher sought student sex on Facebook

      A high school teacher was arrested after allegedly using Facebook to solicit sex from multiple students.

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      A South Florida high school teacher was arrested after allegedly using Facebook to solicit sex from multiple students.
      Stevie Glasspool, 31, invited students to sleepover at her home in Boca Raton, Fla., and offered them marijuana, the Broward Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
      Glasspool's victims range in age from 15 to 17.
      Deputies with the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office arrested her Thursday. She has been charged with soliciting a child for unlawful sexual conduct using a computer and is being held on $25,000 bond.
      Police launched an investigation after a 17-year-old student told his parents about the sexually suggestive messages, and they reported it to authorities, the Miami Herald reported.
      "I don't want you to fall in love with me but I don't want you to hit it and quit it either," Glasspool, allegedly told one of her students in a Facebook message, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.
      According to the sheriff's office, Glasspool also tried to entice the student with other messages: "Your body is amazing," "I wish you were single," "I have marijuana for us to smoke," and "you will be graded on your performance," the Sun-Sentinel reported.
      Glasspool was a teacher at Mavericks Charter High School but was fired from the position in May. She was most recently employed at Hollywood Academy of Arts & Science, where she worked for the first four days of the new school year.
      Follow reporter Natalie DiBlasio on Twitter @ndiblasio









      Wiring the planet could be a $14 billion opportunity for Facebook


      Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a Facebook press event in April. (REUTERS/Robert Galbraith)
      Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a Facebook press event in April. (REUTERS/Robert Galbraith)
      Mark Zuckerberg recently embarked on a laudable, altruistic mission to bring Internet to the 5 billion people in the world who don’t have it. But here’s what the Facebook CEO’s white paper didn’t tell you: If 5 billion new people got online, Facebook could make in the ballpark of $3.5 billion in the first quarter.
      That won’t surprise cynics who smelled a lucrative business opportunity in Zuckerberg’s talk of “connectivity” and “human rights.” (The Washington Post’s Hayley Tsukayama called it a “long play” in Facebook’s ongoing quest for more users — and ad revenue.) That business opportunity will lie largely in mobile, since most people in developing countries get Internet through their phones. Marco Veremis, the CEO of mobile monetization firm Upstream, runs the numbers this way: 5 billion x $0.7, the median average revenue per unit in Asia and emerging markets = $3.5 billion per quarter, or $14 billion per year. Average revenue fluctuates, of course, so that’s approximate.
      “This is why Facebook is leading the new initiative Internet.org to give affordable mobile access to all consumers in developing markets,” Veremis wrote in an e-mail. “[It’s] a strategic move to establish Facebook as the main portal in consumers’ minds.”
      Facebook's average revenue per user in 2012 and 2013. (Facebook)
      Facebook’s average revenue per user in 2012 and 2013. (Facebook)
      Of course, whatever the scale of Facebook’s efforts, it’s unlikely that 5 billion people will actually get online, cautions Nate Elliott, an analyst at Forrester who focuses on social media. Even in developed markets, total online adoption is around “80ish percent.” And plenty of people are on Facebook in emerging markets already, 100 million on feature phones alone. So while Zuckerberg has talked a lot about “the next 5 billion,” Facebook realistically stands to add fewer users than that.
      In India, for instance — a country with 1.24 billion people — total online penetration hovers around 27 percent, according to Forrester. Getting to 80 percent would mean adding 657 million people, with gains of roughly $490 million per quarter (almost $2 billion per year) for Facebook, assuming a $.75 ARPU.
      Does that mean Zuckerberg doesn’t have the human rights of the world’s disconnected at heart? Not necessarily. But as Tsukayama noted on Wednesday, “it’s more lucrative to have more people using the Internet” than less.


      Facebook report: governments asked for data on 38,000 users this year:

      First report of its kind reveals more than half of government requests for user data in first half of 2013 came from the US
      Facebook page
      Facebook and its peers have been under intense scrutiny in the wake of the NSA revelations. Photograph: Thierry Roge/Reuters

      Government agencies around the world demanded access to the information of over 38,000 Facebook users in the first half of this year, and more than half the orders came from the United States, the company said on Tuesday.
      Facebook's first "global government requests report" covers the first six months of 2013, ending 30 June. It comes as the social network giant and its peers are coming under intense scrutiny following revelations about their co-operation with the National Security Agency's mass surveillance of US and foreign citizens.
      "Transparency and trust are core values at Facebook. We strive to embody them in all aspects of our services, including our approach to responding to government data requests," Colin Stretch, Facebook general counsel, said in a blogpost. "We want to make sure that the people who use our service understand the nature and extent of the requests we receive and the strict policies and processes we have in place to handle them."
      US authorities made 11,000-12,000 requests for information on 20,000-21,000 individuals over the six months. The company complied in 79% of cases. Facebook said it had to give a range for the US figures in order to give an indication of "all criminal and national security requests to the maximum extent permitted by law".
      The figures released by Facebook give no detail on the types of requests received or of what type of information the company handed over. Facebook, along with Google and others, is currently pressing Congress to be allowed to give greater detail the number of requests it receives from the US authorities. The NSA has the the authority to demand data about communications with non-US citizens without specific warrants and gags companies from disclosing even the most basic details of those cases.
      "We continue to push the United States government to allow more transparency regarding these requests, including specific numbers and types of national security-related requests. We will publish updated information for the United States as soon as we obtain legal authorisation to do so," said Facebook.
      "As we have made clear in recent weeks, we have stringent processes in place to handle all government data requests. We believe this process protects the data of the people who use our service, and requires governments to meet a very high legal bar with each individual request in order to receive any information about any of our users," said Stretch.
      It is not clear from Facebook's report whether the US figures take into account collection of communications under section 702 of the Fisa Amendments Act, which allows the NSA to target non-US persons without an individual warrant. In June, the Guardian revealed that this was done via the agency's Prism collection program with NSA documents claiming that Facebook had been a corporate partner since 3 June 2009.
      Under the law only one end of the communications needs to be foreign, meaning that US persons' communications can be collected if they are in correspondence with a foreign target. And it has also emerged that the NSA inadvertently sweeps up large amounts of purely domestic US communications in the course of its foreign intelligence operations.
      Facebook, and Twitter, have become organising platforms for activists around the world. The figures show Facebook pushed back against requests from governments in both Egypt and Turkey. Egypt made eight requests for information on 11 account holders over the six months and Facebook did not comply with any of them in that period.
      In Turkey, where prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called social media "the worst menace to society", authorities made 96 requests for information on 170 account holders. Facebook complied in 47% of cases over the time period.
      "We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests," Stretch said. "When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name."
      India made the next highest number of requests for information, 3,245 requests on 4,144 users. Facebook complied in 50% of cases. In the UK authorities asked for details on 2,337 users and Facebook complied in 68% of cases.

      U.S. Gov’t Requests Information on 38,000 Facebook Users in First Half of 2013

      WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — Earlier this year, Facebook revealed how many data requests the U.S. government made of it. But now, like many other tech giants, the social media site is showing the data request stats made by other countries as well.

      Government agents in 74 countries demanded information on about 38,000 Facebook users in the first half of this year, with about half the orders coming from authorities in the United States, the company said Tuesday.


      Half of the data requests made to Facebook for information within the first six months of this year came from the United States. It is unclear how many were for law enforcement purposes or for intelligence gather through programs like those run through the NSA. (Image: PromesaArtStudio / Shutterstock.com)

      The social-networking site is the latest technology company to release figures on how often governments seek information about its customers. Microsoft and Google have done the same.

      As with the other companies, it’s hard to discern much from Facebook’s data, besides the fact that, as users around the globe flocked to the world’s largest social network, police and intelligence agencies followed.

      Facebook and Twitter have become organizing platforms for activists and, as such, have become targets for governments. During anti-government protests in Turkey in May and June, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called social media “the worst menace to society.”

      At the time, Facebook denied it provided information about protest organizers to the Turkish government.

      Data released Tuesday show authorities in Turkey submitted 96 requests covering 173 users. Facebook said it provided some information in about 45 of those cases, but there’s no information on what was turned over and why.

      “We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests,” Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel company said in a blog post. “When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name.”

      Facebook and other technology companies have been criticized for helping the National Security Agency secretly collect data on customers. Federal law gives government the authority to demand data without specific warrants, and while companies can fight requests in secret court hearings, it’s an uphill battle.

      Facebook turned over some data in response to about 60 percent of those requests.

      It’s not clear from the Facebook data how many of the roughly 26,000 government requests on 38,000 users were for law-enforcement purposes and how many were for intelligence gathering.

      Technology and government officials have said criminal investigations are far more common than national security matters as a justification for demanding information from companies.

      The numbers are imprecise because the federal government forbids companies from revealing how many times they’ve been ordered to turn over information about their customers. Facebook released only a range of figures for the United States.

      The company said it planned to start releasing these figures regularly.


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