The state-run media has held to a consistent line: If there was a bad word to be found on the subject of Facebook, they were ready to listen. “Fever and Doubts before Facebook goes Public: no Way That Valuation Is Reasonable,” Xinhua declared. Chinese radio was warning of a roller-coaster stock performance: “Ordinary Investors Should Avoid Me-Tooism.” People’s Daily focussed on co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s decision to “abandon America” by giving up his U.S. citizenship in a bid to avoid taxes. The story coined an unfamiliar new expression—calling Saverin an “American defector,” using the Chinese term usually applied to North Korean refugees who flee across the frozen Tumen River. (The talk of American defectors is impressively straight-faced, given the recent news of Chinese citizens fleeing to American diplomatic stations for protection.)

But on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, the Facebook I.P.O. was not (yet) a banned subject, and it generated intense discussion. Commentators were torn: wanting to discuss the financial and tech implications, and smarting over their own lack of access to Facebook. “It’s like hearing the emperor is about to have sex; what’s there to be excited about if you’re a eunuch?” someone wrote. Others picked up on the fact that Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend is Chinese-American, with a nod to the phenomenon I wrote about recently in The New Yorker: Chinese men and their difficulty in securing the assets they need as prerequisites for marriage. (“I hear the I.P.O. is because Zuckerberg doesn’t have enough money to marry his Chinese girlfriend.”)

Beyond the snark and the state media, a more earnest discussion has gathered force. despite years of investment and official injunctions to advance Chinese technology, China has yet to produce a brand or original tech product with a fraction of the global influence of Facebook or Apple. Chen Yongdong, a Shanghai-based technology writer, adapted the title of a famous Chinese poem for an essay he called “Raising my Head to look up to Facebook; Lowering my Head to think about its Chinese Counterparts.” he wrote: “If you don’t have innovation, are you not going to be laughed at by the industry, and by the world?”

In all likelihood, China is approaching the end of its run as the world’s low-skilled workshop. there are fewer workers, and they are pursuing more income and skills; Vietnam and other neighbors are cheaper. The larger problem is existential: The nation that so often reminds the world that it invented printing, paper, gunpowder, and the compass is exceedingly uncomfortable about how far back it has to reach to name its world-beating inventions. China has excelled in several pockets of innovation (genomics and nanotechnology, for example) but those are the exception; Chinese technology is now best known for “process innovation”—reducing the cost of producing, say, low-end mobile phones for Huawei—and for the distinctly Chinese term, “re-innovation,” which involves making something simpler or cheaper than the original.

Even successful Chinese Internet companies, such as Tencent and Alibaba, are respected for their business achievements, not for their original insights. The obstacles are not a mystery: The government has failed to protect intellectual property or promote small- and medium-sized businesses with good ideas, to name a couple of factors.

Imagine, for a moment, the Chinese version of the Facebook story: A no-name undergrad in the Tsinghua University computer-science department gains notoriety for a high-profile prank that makes the university concerned about its digital security; instead of getting expelled, he starts a company, drops out, attracts prominent investors despite ignoring powerful players in the field, is invited to meet the President of the country, continues expanding, goes public, and makes billions. Impossible—for all kinds of reasons (a Chinese student who toys with a university network might not be enrolled by the end of the day), but the most vexing question may be, as an editorial in Nature once put it, “whether a truly vibrant scientific culture is possible without a more widespread societal commitment to free expression.”

That idea—that the political system that has nurtured China’s rise may also be limiting its next step—has not yet been thoroughly embraced. but events like Facebook’s listing make it clearer by the day. when Wang Ran, the chief executive of China eCapital, paged Facebook’s prospectus, he stumbled on a section that he had never fully apprehended until reading it in black and white. under a discussion of risks to the business, Facebook has listed a discussion of the potential impact if a government were to block the site. “The company listed four countries that have already banned Facebook’s services,” Wang wrote. “They are China, Iran, North Korea and Syria. I don’t know what you think about that, but I’m beginning to think this state of affairs is insulting.”

Illustration by Ed Nacional.

In China, Facebook’s Shadow and Worries About Innovation : The New Yorker

ST LOUIS (LALATE) – the Facebook IPO is still leaving the stock’s trading start time and offer price uncertain. when does Facebook’s stock start trading? What price will the Facebook stock be offered to investors prior to official trading? Both issues still remain undetermined, regulators confirmed to news today.

Facebook raised its initial public stock offering to between $34 and $38 per share today. But the exact price within that range still remains uncertain. As many as thirty-three brokerage firms are taking orders for their clients for allotments in advance of the Facebook IPO. But those allocation orders are closing for some companies today.

Lead underwriter Morgan Stanley has yet to tell news how late it will take orders from all those participating brokerage firms. But Fidelity and TD Ameritrade tells news that it will stop taking orders at 1 pm today. Fidelity tells news that it will stop taking orders today “to ensure prospectus delivery and handle inquiries in advance of the offering”. Charles Schwab will stop taking orders at noon, the company confirms to news as well.

Even if you have placed orders for Facebook IPO shares, your allocation may end up with a zero. “Allocations”, used to describe how many Facebook IPO shares brokerage houses are delegating to each requesting client, are in some countries twenty-five times oversold, says reports. As a result, when brokerage houses announced allocation results on the Facebook IPO to their clients, many clients could be disappointed. How does the allocation works? the allocation process is determined by each brokerage house uniquely.

When are allocations of shares announced for the Facebook IPO? That too has yet to be confirmed to news. the allocation announcement could come in the final hours before Facebook’s stock begins to trade, officials are telling news.

Sometimes, IPO allocations are told to clients by their brokerage houses the day before. But with no allocation announcement date released to news for the Facebook IPO, many investors with placed-allocation bids could have a scramble when the Facebook goes public and starts trading. a rushed message from a brokerage house to a client that their allocation orders were not completely filled will prompt many investors to then place market bids when the stock opens, at potentially a higher price.

What will Facebook’s opening stock price be? with the IPO priced at $34 to $38, don’t expect the stock to open at the price. the stock will trade on the NASDAQ with the ticker FB.

For investors that were not able to get allocation orders in on time, they will have to buy Facebook when the stock begins to trade. And yet, the start time for Facebook’s stock trades have also not been announced to news. Facebook may begin trading on Friday May 18, 2012, but that date could still change. moreover, the stock could begin trading at anytime within Friday’s trading hours.

For now, the wait continues for allocation news, confirmation about a start date and time, and more. As David Menlow, president of IPOfinancial.com, tells news this week,  “my expectation is (Facebook) will be inordinately oversubscribed.”UPDATE: the Facebook IPO has been priced at $38 per share. the FB stock will begin trading on Friday at 11 am EST.

Facebook, Facebook IPO

Facebook IPO Leaves Stock Trading Start Time, Offer Price Still Uncertain

May 16

I just received this letter from a friend in the banking industry. he prefers to remain anonymous (you’ll see why soon enough).

Dear mark,

There’s been a lot of ballyhoo recently about your IPO and your choice of investment bankers. Indeed, a war was fought by the banks to win your “deal of the decade.”  As reported in the press, the competition was so intense banks slashed their fees in order to win your business. Facebook is “only” paying a 1% “commission” for its IPO rather than the 3% typically charged by the banks.

Congratulations, mr. Zuckerberg! on the surface it appears your pals in investment banking have given you a quite a deal!… Or have they?

Let’s take a closer look and see what you’re getting for your money.

To start, your bankers have the task of selling 388 million Facebook shares to the public. In return, these banks will receive $150 million for their efforts.  Morgan Stanley will get the largest share of that amount—approximately $45 million. but is $45 million all that Morgan Stanley makes off your deal?

Before we answer this question, let’s first dissect the sales pitch that Morgan Stanley probably gave you to justify “only” the $150 million fee. We’ll look at what they told you, and then what that actually means.

1) we will raise the optimal amount of money for the company, for our 1% fee. (Translation: How great is it that Zuckerberg believes he got a great deal by getting us down to a 1% fee! we can’t believe he got hoodwinked into agreeing to any level of what are actually variable commission fees.)

2) The definition of a successful deal is having a good price “pop” on the first day of trading. This will make all parties happy and you, mark, look like a rock star. (Translation: no one benefits more than us if Facebook’s share price rises significantly on day one. That first day price “pop” will take money directly out of your pocket and puts it in ours and those of our “best friends”—not yours or the public stockholders. we will, at almost all costs, make this happen.)

3) This is a very complicated process, especially for such a large company, but we are here to successfully guide you through it. (Translation: It actually takes the same amount of work to do a large IPO as a small one. thus for approximately the same amount of work we’re doing for Facebook, we sometimes get only $10 million—$140 million less than we’re making on Zuckerberg’s IPO.)

4) we will perform due diligence on your company to make sure the business and its finances are as they seem. (Translation: While it certainly does take some time and effort to perform reasonable due diligence, Facebook is a very large and well-known company, and we have done this same procedure hundreds of times.)

5) we will write a prospectus that outlines Facebook’s strategy, business plan, financials, and risks, and we will get it approved by the SEC. (Translation: per the regulatory guidelines, a prospectus is largely a boilerplate document; for the most part, it’s just a lot of cutting and pasting.)

6) once this prospectus is completed and with input from the Facebook team, we will come up with “the range” or the approximate price we think your IPO shares should be sold at to the fund managers. (Translation: The price of your IPO will be determined by where and how we can best optimize our (secret) profits on the deal.)

7) we believe the best shareholders are large fund managers, as they will become long-term holders of Facebook stock.  however, at your request, we will allocate 25% of the IPO shares to sell to individual investors. (Translation: There are 835 million Facebook users worldwide. one could argue that what is best for Facebook would be to let all of Facebook’s legally eligible customers enter orders to buy Facebook stock. Then through the broker of their choosing, they could enter the quantity of shares they want to buy and the price they want to pay, just like the fund managers do—or are supposed to do. More on this scenario below.)

our 10-day sales process will begin. For this important “road show,” you will be introduced to our large fund manager clients. These fund managers will receive our pitch for why they should buy your stock, and we will assess their interest and at what price. (Translation: Far from being long-term holders, many of our large fund manager “best friends” will, as soon as Facebook shares start trading, sell (or “flip”) for a windfall profit on all the underpriced shares we’ve given them. We’ll enable this by creating a perceived “feeding frenzy” for the stock by putting out an artificially low initial estimate ($28 to $35 per share) for where we think the IPO will be priced.  we will then raise that estimate during the road show. Rumors about this begin to circulate over the next day or so.)

9) at the end of the road show on the night before the IPO, we will review the overall supply and demand for the stock and then “price” the shares. This is the price at which the large fund managers will receive their “winning” Facebook shares. (Translation: The price of the stock is already known. For the past few years, Facebook shares have been actively trading on such venues as SecondMarket and SharePost.)

10) and finally, we will put a mechanism, called a Greenshoe, in place that “supports” your share price after the IPO. (Translation: thank God Zuckerberg doesn’t understand one of the greatest investment banking profit enhancing creations of all time—“The Greenshoe.” The Greenshoe will likely be our most profitable part of this deal.  It’s a secret windfall, and although we market it to Facebook as a method to stabilize its share price, it’s really just another way for us, with little effort, to make huge amounts of money.)

We’re not done yet, mark. Now, I’d like to dig a bit deeper into what’s going to happen and show you all the additional ways your banker friends and their large fund manager clients are going to make oodles of money off your deal.

1) Morgan Stanley only gives Facebook shares (“golden tickets”) to their best client “friends.”  In other words, it’s no coincidence that Morgan Stanley’s biggest fund manager clients get the bulk of the shares offered in this kind of deal.

2) How do you become best friends with Morgan Stanley?  There are lots of ways, such as trading tens of millions of shares with them or using the firm as your prime broker.

3) I’m sure there are a lot of conversations going on right now between Morgan Stanley’s salespeople and their clients. These conversations are probably along the lines of (wink-wink) “before we allocate our Facebook shares, we’d like to ask first if you plan to do more trading with us over the next week to six months….”

4) Let’s assume that 50 of Morgan Stanley’s “best friends” trade an extra 2 million shares so they can get access to more shares of the Facebook IPO. Let’s also assume that the average commission these clients pay to Morgan Stanley is 2 cents per share. well, those extra trades will dump an additional $2 million dollars into Morgan’s coffers.

5) Now comes the part where Morgan Stanley actually gives free money to its friends. if the Facebook IPO is like the majority of other recent Internet offerings, here’s what Morgan Stanley will likely do.  they know Facebook will be a “hot” deal. especially, with all of the “5% orders” coming in, there will be huge demand for Facebook shares.  My prediction is that Morgan Stanley will “price” Facebook at approximately $40 per share.  This is the price at which Morgan Stanley’s “best friends will be able to buy the bulk of the 388 million shares offered.

6) Now let’s now assume that Facebook shares open for trading at $50—a lower percentage premium than Groupon’s opening share-price “pop.”

7) Let’s assume that one of Morgan Stanley’s “best friends” decides to sell 3 million shares right after the opening at $50 per share. That “best friend” will instantaneously make a $30 million profit.  That’s right, a $30 million profit.

Here’s a question for you mark. if Morgan Stanley’s “best friends” are selling Facebook shares at $50, who’s buying them? The answer is your “friends,” individual investors, most of whom are your customers.

9) Now for the final insult—the Greenshoe. Technically speaking, the Greenshoe gives your investment banks a 30-day option to purchase up to 15% more stock from Facebook than was registered and sold in the IPO. In layman’s terms, this means that, over the next 30 days, your “best friends” at the investment banks are able to buy approximately 50 million of your shares at $40 per share.

10) As in our example above, let’s say Facebook shares do trade at $50 soon after the IPO. Now I am a simple person, but if I were given the opportunity to buy something at $40 that I could immediately sell at $50, I would do it all day, every day…. and so will the investment banks.  The Greenshoe actually gives these banks the ability to do this for 50 million of your shares.

11) so let’s assume that Morgan Stanley and its other banking “friends” buy 50 million shares at $40 per share and then sell these shares at $50.  Morgan Stanley and its banking “friends” will make an additional $500 million- yes, $500 million- a HALF BILLION DOLLARS off your company.

So let’s now do a tally to see how much money all of your banking friends are going to make just for the privilege of doing your IPO.  Let’s also see where this money comes from.

“Discounted” fees/commission: $150 million

Greenshoe profits: about $500 million

Extra trading commissions from large fund managers: approximately $10 million

—————

Investment Bank Profits:   $660 million

As the lead bank on your deal, Morgan Stanley is likely to get 30% of the overall take. This means that your closest investment banking “friend” will make a bit more than $200 million from your IPO.

Morgan Stanley and the rest of the investment banks involved will also make sure that their favorite fund manager client “friends” are given lots of free money. Assuming that these “friends” are given 75% of the total number of IPO shares, or a total of 291 million shares, and assuming that the stock does rise from $40 to $50, then these fund managers will collectively, in one day, make $2.9 billion dollars in realized or unrealized profits.  That’s right, 2.9 BILLION DOLLARS.

Mark, by now you must be asking yourself the obvious question. “Where and out of whose pocket does this money come from?”

Well, just think of it this way… Let’s assume you own a very expensive piece of waterfront real estate, and you hire a broker to sell it for you. after exploring the market and after getting indications of interest, your broker advises you that $10 million would be a great price for your home.  You meet with the potential buyers and decide to sell it for $10 million.  after the $1 million commission you have to pay your broker, your net proceeds are $9 million. an hour later, you drive by the house and see your broker in the driveway shaking hands with some different people. You pull over to see what’s going on, and you find that the people you just sold the house to for $10 million are very close friends of your broker.  to your dismay, you also find out that those friends just sold your (former) house to somebody else for $15 million.

The same exact game is going on here, mark. You’ll be selling 388 million shares of Facebook stock in your IPO. a likely scenario is that your broker “friends” are telling you to sell your shares at $40 per share. You’ll take their advice and sell at $40 per share, and the buyers will be Morgan Stanley’s biggest fund management clients. By the time you drive around the block, these folks will have sold their shares at $50 per share. In other words, using the same real estate scenario, you’ll have sold something of yours for $15 billion that is really worth $19 billion. and for that “unique” privilege, you’ll be paying your “friends” at the banks $150 million as a fee.

Makes you wonder who your real friends are…

————-

End of letter

————-

I find the points that my (real life) friend makes here highly disturbing, but I suspect that they also fit with what we now know about dishonesty.

First, although there are many ethically questionable practices occurring here, it’s not clear that anything illegal is going on.  Second, I think that while this banking industry’s IPO process is artfully designed in such a way that, although overall it’s good for the bankers and less so for the companies, no single individual believes he/she is doing anything wrong.  Third, I also suspect that since this is such a common practice, the bankers most likely truly believe that mechanisms such as getting a first-day IPO “pop” is great for Facebook and that the Greenshoe is fact put in place to stabilize the Facebook stock price, and not simply to generate more windfall profits for themselves.  Forth, they probably believe in their own definition of a “successful” IPO, which in their terms is one where the stock is priced at $40 and quickly trades up to $50. In the case of Facebook, this process simply redistributes $4 billion from Facebook to the banks and the large fund managers. For Zuckerberg and his team, I have to wonder whether the emotional value of a first day share price “pop” is worth $4 billion.

I am not sure about you, but I find all of this very depressing.

Irrationally yours,

Dan Ariely » Blog Archive The Facebook IPO: A Note to Mark Zuckerberg; or, With “Friends” Like Morgan Stanley, Who Needs Enemies? «

About a week ago, 24 year-old Aimme Copeland was kayaking the Little Tallapoosa River near Carrollton, Georgia with her friends. it was an accident on a homemade zip line during that trip that would change, and threaten, her life. when the line broke, Copeland fell into the creek, cutting her leg. The cut was stitched up, but became infected.

On Friday, she was diagnosed with the necrotizing faciitis and her leg had to be amputated. The fasciitis is a flesh-eating bacteria that destroys human tissue. It's both a limb and life threatening condition.

Aimee Copeland's father posted on a facebook page earlier this week saying doctors say his daughters chances of survival are “slim to none.”

Richard Brown, the General Curator of the Flint RiverQuarium, says bacteria are everywhere and just as this situation proves- they can be deadly.  “I have to tell you, I'm a lot more worried about the bacteria out in the water than I am about alligators. And if I get cut or something, I pay close attention to that. And also, its easy to get ear infections and things like that. So you have to be careful,” explained Brown. Hospital officials say Copeland is currently in critical condition at the Joseph M. still Burn Center in Augusta. 

Copyright 2012 WALB.  All rights reserved.  

14 News, WFIE, Evansville, Henderson, OwensboroRiver trip accident results in flesh-eating bacteria infection, leg amputation

(Credit:YouGov)

Apple’s use of various tax loopholes to save money, as chronicled in a recent New York Times story, has not damaged the company’s reputation, according to a new study.

Polling firm YouGov — which we’ve previously mentioned in relation to one of Facebook’s early privacy flaps — says perceptions of Apple are back to where they were before the publication of the Times story, which focused on the company’s tactics to save money by setting up businesses in tax-friendly locations.

The firm says Apple’s reputation is “virtually Teflon,” when compared to the tax story the NYT did on General Electric the month prior, which noted that the conglomerate brought in profits of $14.2 billion in 2010 but paid nothing in taxes, while claiming a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

“The reaction [to the story about GE] was more pronounced and longer: the company’s reputation took a steep drop and two months to recover to precrisis levels,” YouGov said in a post on its company blog. by comparison, YouGov says Apple’s reputation score went up from 52 to 58 (on a scale of -100 to 100) after the story published, and it now sits at 51.

The methodology behind the numbers asks people whether they would be “proud or embarrassed to work for this brand,” then turns that score into a number between 100 to -100 (-100 is completely negative, and 100 is completely positive). Points are assigned by “subtracting negative feedback from positive.” The daily sample size for the polling is 5,000 people per weekday, the company said.

Apple’s reputation untarnished by tax issue, study says

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Earlier this year, Facebook polled 1,000 users on what they were planning to buy as Mother’s Day gifts. Flowers topped the list, with jewelry tying clothing in the number-three spot. Another major part of Mother's Day gifting? Facebook. Adweek talked with 1-800-Flowers.com and Zales about the role the social media giant plays in their Mother’s Day marketing strategies.

Zales’ “SuperMom” campaign spans TV, print, catalogs, online display, email, Zales.com, Twitter and Pinterest, but Facebook is the “anchor for the overall campaign,” said Matt Kennedy, the brand’s director of e-commerce marketing.

For what it’s worth, Facebook also anchored Zales’ Mother’s Day campaign last year, but this year the brand is using Facebook as a destination as well as a redirection hub. when users visit the SuperMom Facebook app to nominate their mom and enter a sweepstakes for a $2,500 Zales gift card, they can also click over to a Pinterest board aggregating gift ideas or Zales’ Twitter feed.

1-800-Flowers.com is using Facebook a bit differently for its Mother’s Day marketing. Before the “real marketing for Mother’s Day” kicks off, the brand uses Facebook to get the conversation going, said 1-800-Flowers.com president Chris McCann. The social network is a critical campaign component not only as a standalone channel but also as an optimization analysis tool.

“It’s a way for us to start learning and testing with our consumers what they will respond to as [we] move into the marketing of the holiday,” McCann said. “From a product point of view, from a message point of view, it allows us to really tweak and optimize the marketing messages and the products that will be featured throughout the rest of our marketing program as we get into the full swing of the holiday.”

1-800-Flowers.com is running the “make Moms Proud” photo contest on Facebook that asks users to vote on user-submitted photos of consumers with their moms. McCann said the brand will post those photos to its Facebook page “but then we’ll pull them into Sponsored Stories ads that we’ll run.” 1-800-Flowers.com deployed that strategy last Mother’s Day and saw one Sponsored story ad featuring a military mom stationed in Afghanistan reach “three times the engagement level of any other ad that we ran,” he said.

Brands Discuss Mother’s Day Marketing on Facebook

Plus how to decide which tax avoidance stories to write, the death of Moore’s Law? and more

A quick burst of 7 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Twitter sets its sights on 2 billion users >> CNET News

“Everything we are doing is oriented around getting to 2 billion users.”

you might think that statement was from mark Zuckerberg, as Facebook approaches 1 billion active users on its social network and focuses on the next billion. But it was Satya Patel, Twitter’s vice president of products, outlining the goal his company has set for itself.

with an estimated 140 million users today, producing 340 million tweets a day, 2 billion people using Twitter at least once a month isn’t a near-term goal. Based on its current growth rate, which is accelerating as hashtags and @ signs become more embedded in everyday life, Twitter will likely reach 200 million active users in August.

more Twitter statistics – particularly daily active and monthly active users – would be useful.

Microsoft and Facebook align further with patent deal >> NYTimes.com

That patent deal last week was straightforward enough. But:

There is also wide speculation that Facebook will start its own Internet search engine to rival Google.

“Microsoft is simply less concerned about the threat of social to its business than Google is,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner, a research firm, explaining why Microsoft is not concerned about competition with Facebook.

“This may be a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he added. Jim Prosser, a Google spokesman, declined to comment.

Also says that senior Microsoft executives (but not Ballmer) tried to get Facebook interested in buying Bing. It wasn’t.

My attitude on Oracle v Google >> James Gosling

The “father of Java”:

In Dan Farber’s recent article on CNET titled “Oracle v. Google: Ex-Sun execs on opposite sides” he got my position on the case totally backwards and totally misinterpreted my comments. Just because Sun didn’t have patent suits in our genetic code doesn’t mean we didn’t feel wronged. while I have differences with Oracle, in this case they are in the right. Google totally slimed Sun. We were all really disturbed, even Jonathan: he just decided to put on a happy face and tried to turn lemons into lemonade, which annoyed a lot of folks at Sun.

Theoretical physicist explains why Moore’s Law will collapse >> Geek.com

Moore’s Law has been around since 1965 when Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore described it in a paper. Since that day, the law has been in full effect, and the number of transistors placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has roughly doubled every two years. It’s also a commonly held belief that chip performance doubles every 18 months.

But Moore’s Law won’t be true forever, and in this video theoretical physicist Michio Kaku explains how it will collapse. And that collapse isn’t going to happen in some distant future, it is going to happen within the next decade.

We feel like we’ve been hearing this for a decade, though. how many times has Moore’s Law been declared dead?

Snow Leopard users most prone to Flashback infection >> Computerworld

Of the Macs that have been infected by the Flashback malware, nearly two-thirds are running OS X 10.6, better known as Snow Leopard, a Russian antivirus company said Friday.

Doctor Web, which earlier this month was the first to report the largest-ever malware attack against Apple Macs, mined data it’s intercepted from compromised computers to come up with its findings.

not that surprising: 10.6 was the last version with Java built in.

Web 2.0 is over; all hail the age of Mobile >> PandoDaily

The momentum has been shifting for a while, but now the trend is emphatic. People now spend more time in mobile apps than they do online. there are more than 500m Android and iOS devices on the market, and giant countries like China and Indonesia are only just getting started in their smartphone and tablet push. Global mobile 3G subscribers are growing at over 35 percent, year on year, and there’s a lot more room to move – there are 5.6 billion mobile subscribers on our fair planet. Even in developing countries, cheap smartphones will soon rush into the market. And who here doesn’t think tablet sales are going to go gangbusters pretty much everywhere?

Mobile is the present, and the future.

The same old story >> Joy of Tech

After the Apple tax avoidance story, this is very true.

You can follow Guardian Technology’s linkbucket on Pinboard. to suggest a link, either add it below or tag it with @gdntech on the free Delicious service;

Charles ArthurJosh Hallidayguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. all rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Boot up: selling Bing, Gosling on Android, Apple’s malware ratio, mobile’s win and more

PEOPLE! The internet is NOT a PLACE FOR FIGHTING!!Ok…maybe it is…but Yahoo and Facebook should be playing nice!Yahoo is suing the pants off of Facebook for allegedly infringing upon TWELVE of its patents.The internet portal has been fighting Jesse Eisenberg Mark Zuckerberg’s team for six weeks and they have actually upped their original charges from [...]

Yahoo And Facebook Legal Battle Getting NASTAY!

BIZBASH CALL SHEET — #233 — Monday, 04.02.12 ++ Sponsored by Event Leadership Institute ++ Compiled today by Anna Sekula and Chad Kaydo in New York Feed the Sheet: tips@bizbash.com Subscribe: info.bizbash.com/callsheet.html THIS WEEK’S CALENDAR:WEDNESDAY: Miami Marlins opening day game at new Marlins ParkFRIDAY: New York International Auto show opens to the public* INCOMING *1. WRESTLING'S SOCIAL ARM: The execs at W.W.E. hoped to make Sunday's Wrestlemania the "social media event of the year." Interactive efforts included simulcasting the preshow and the press conference on YouTube, Facebook, and wwe.com; having the W.W.E. Divas tweet live on perezhilton.com; making Mike Tyson the social media ambassador; and, through Twitter hashtags, involving fans in the main contest between the Rock and John Cena. Results of how the endeavor fared with fans are still pending, but one commentator deemed the live-streaming of the "dark match" preshow a "smart move." Mashable: http://on.mash.to/HdYHkg2. PITCHING POP: Nicki Minaj will help PepsiCo launch its first global marketing campaign this month. Official events have yet to be announced; the company canceled a planned promotional stunt with Minaj in Times Square slated for this month. The Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/HlWWDd3. FIELDING TRAFFIC: The Florida Marlins' $634 million new home, Marlins Ballpark, officially debuts Wednesday, but there are already some snags with parking. City commissioners are planning to turn lots into parking spaces for local residents, but the funding will not come from the city nor, as it turns out, from the baseball team. City Commissioner Frank Carollo "personally appealed to the Marlins for the money, and was surprised to get a flat-out no from the team’s president, David Samson." The local police union is planning to protest the opening-day game. Miami Herald: http://bit.ly/H2GUlZAlthough handling traffic around the new stadium remains an unresolved issue, there will be plenty of spaces for events within the sports arena, including a poolside entertainment venue and restaurant known as the Clevelander at Marlins Ballpark. Read our report here: http://bizba.sh/uNITUn4. TEASING THE DRAFT: To more actively promote the draft, today the N.F.L. will officially open its first New York pop-up. The 10,000-square-foot retail space in Manhattan will showcase new partnerships between the league and sportswear companies like Nike and under Armour as well as sell exclusive merchandise. N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell will participate in the ribbon-cutting ceremony this morning, before working the register for an hour. 5. BANNER ADS: according to Marcus Fischer, the C.E.O. of Space150, the agency that helped forever 21 stage holographic fashion shows last year, new technology from signage companies is changing the way brands engage with consumers on the street. Citing a staff-free promotion from German dog-food company GranataPet, the digital marketer advocates for the new communication medium, which may have implications for experiential events. Ad Age: http://bit.ly/HtuT7k6. DEMYSTIFYING MOBILE: Marketing communications agency JWT shares its report—culled from the panels, keynotes, and exhibitors of last month's Mobile World Congress—on 15 ways mobile technology is changing the way we live: http://slidesha.re/GHqcUd++ A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: EVENT LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE ++The Event Leadership Institute is proud to provide the most progressive training and education for event planners in the industry, through on-demand video classes, biweekly webinars, white papers as well as interviews with industry leaders. www.eventleadershipinstitute.com * LOCAL NEWS *BOSTON: Towne Stove and Spirits is retooling the beverage program of its second-level Uptowne bar to focus on scotch. The venue is adjacent to the Hynes Convention Center and has private dining options.Restaurant Beehive is offering a more hands-on take of the farm-to-table concept by allowing people to grow their own food. To participate, customers are encouraged to purchase seeds, plant and care for them, and, once harvested, clean and ship the crops to the restaurant to be prepared.CHICAGO: A kickoff party for Azumah Student Association Program's annual fund-raiser takes place at Studio Paris on Wednesday. DJ Rock City will spin and Grey Goose will serve specialty cocktails.Street Food Artistry takes place August 12 at Zhou B. Art Center. Time out Chicago is a sponsor and partners include Coca-Cola, SmartWater, Fuze, and Beam Global.in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Michelle Boone, commissioner of the city's department of cultural affairs and special events, discussed her goals for Chicago. This includes a citywide arts festival, cultural events at local parks and libraries, and 50 million annual visitors by 2020. http://trib.in/H3tCp7The organizers of Occupy Festival, a two-day, music-focused festival that was scheduled to take place in Union Park may 12-13, have postponed the event. according to a news release, organizers are retooling the format "to ensure the event is done in a way that is consistent with the principles of the [Occupy] movement." changes include a reduced admission fee, a new name, and 100 percent of proceeds going to the movement. Huffington Post: http://huff.to/HeaNOLLAS VEGAS: Las Vegas Sun: "During the three-day Electric Daisy Carnival last year, officials estimate ravers poured more than $130 million into the southern Nevada economy. The success of the music fest at Las Vegas Motor Speedway surprised many. … However, now it’s the alleged criminal activity of one of the festival organizers that has prompted questions about this year’s festival, scheduled for June 8-10. About 74,000 tickets have already been sold." http://bit.ly/H29UJhWynn Las Vegas and Encore announced on Friday that Pradeep Raman has joined the company as senior vice president of fine dining.LOS ANGELES/SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: M.P.I.'s Orange County Chapter and Site SoCal will host a joint dinner meeting on April 3 at the Hilton Waterfront Huntington Beach ResortTripAdvisor announced it will host a free master class event at the InterContinental Los Angeles Century City April 19, offering hotel industry professionals strategies for maintaining a positive online reputation and encouraging more direct bookings. Hospitality Net: http://bit.ly/HqptebMIAMI: Groupon will sponsor this year's Volvo Ocean Race, which will be held may 6-20 at the Downtown Miami Village in Bicentennial Park. Press release: http://bit.ly/HztXMCThe Foundation of Debbie's Dream will host its third annual Dream Makers Gala at the Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa in Hollywood April 21. NEW YORK: what was once a potential bidding war between several high-profile restaurateurs, the 20-year license to operate Central Park's famed Tavern on the Green is now down to two interested parties. Beau Monde and Legends Hospitality Management put in a bid Friday with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/HmnpAlNew York State approved funding for War of 1812 bicentennial events, which are in the works and to be held in several locations where battles were fought, including Plattsburgh, the Buffalo-Niagara region, and Sackets Harbor. Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/HB3ZveThe New York Post provides a virtual tour of the new NoMad Hotel, which it describes as "grand," "sumptuous," and "worth checking in—or out." http://nyp.st/GWTmjkORLANDO: Coverings, an international expo and conference for the ceramic tile and natural stone industries, will be held at the Orange County Convention Center April 17-20. New this year, the show floor will include a 1,500-square-foot area called Coverings Central, a technology hub offering seminars on social media techniques, networking opportunities, computer work stations, and a live feed of Twitter comments.TORONTO: The Spring Cottage Life show ended on Sunday at the International Centre in Mississauga. More than 475 exhibitors showed off their summer products.Popular restaurant and bar parts and Labour will launch a catering division on Wednesday. P&L Catering will specialize in global street food.WASHINGTON: Bayou Boys food truck launches today, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Menu items include jambalaya, fried alligator po’ boys, and fried soft-shell crab. The yellow truck, with silhouetted jazz musicians designed by ArtWorks, is available to cater events.Georgetown Theatre Company and Women in Film and Video hosted the fifth annual SWAN Day Saturday. The international festival celebrates women artists and includes events at several Georgetown venues. The opening reception featured a concert at Baked and Wired.The 25th annual Leukemia Ball took place Saturday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Entertainment was provided by the band Foreigner and comedian Sinbad, and Hargrove decorated it for the 25th consecutive year. YOUR NEWS: what are you doing? Tell us: tips@bizbash.com. 

 With contributions from Jenny Berg in Chicago, Alesandra Dubin in Los Angeles, Mitra Sorrells in Orlando, Carla Warrilow in Toronto, and Rose Chevalier, Beth Kormanik, and Anna Sekula in New York. BizBash Call Sheet is the must-read daily digest of event industry news from BizBash.com.  Feed the Sheet: tips@bizbash.com Subscribe: info.bizbash.com/callsheet.html Advertise here: a_kiefer@bizbash.com

Call Sheet #233: How Wrestlemania Went Social, Nicki Minaj to Push Pepsi, Traffic Problems for New Marlins Ballpark

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In terms of design, it's high time that Apple came up with something new, as iPhone 4S looks exactly the same as its predecessor, the iPhone 4. However, we wouldn't be surprised if Apple kept the design of iPhone 5 the same.

The most desirable improvement considered by many owners of iPhones is a new operating system. ZDNet also rated with 9/10 the possibility of seeing iPhone 5 running on a new iOS version – iOS 6. Also, another much-awaited improvement would be the camera, which is expected to go up to 10-megapixels.

As for the connectivity, we are expecting iPhone 5 to come with full options, including 4G LTE and NFC, but we can also expect to see a revolutionary method of wirelessly charging the battery. However, ZDNet has rated the first one with a possibility of 8/10, while the latter is only at 3/10.

It remains to be seen how many of these expected features finally get to make their way into the iPhone 5.

(reported by Laurentiu Stan, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)

MUST READ – iPhone 4 Owners Can get $15 From Apple's 'Antennagate' Settlement: Find Out How

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iPhone 5 Release Date: Top Features We Expect to See in New Apple Phone