Mobilizing the masses: How Facebook can transform its mobile risk into success
Among the many compelling sections of Facebook’s landmark S-1 filing last week—which included Zuck’s “The Hacker Way” founder’s letter, its $1 billion in profits last year and of course, the money spent on private jets—one area really stood out among the numbers and hyperbole. The risk, and of course on the flip side, massive opportunity, that mobile represents to the future of Facebook.
In an admission that surprised many, Facebook revealed that while its monthly … Continue Reading
No ads here: Tumblr now charging $1 to “highlight” blog posts
Tumblr founder David Karp has always dismissed the idea that Tumblr might put ads on its platform. See here, here, and just about every interview the young founder has ever given. But today, Tumblr rolled out highlighted posts, which allow people to pay Tumblr $1 to attach a digital sticker to their posts.
When pestered about a business model in the past, Karp has always said that Tumblr would find a way to generate revenue … Continue Reading
Why I’m so bullish on Facebook
Facebook faces some real challenges when it comes to keeping up its growth pace, as I covered yesterday. But I’m still bullish on the company, and here’s why.
Massive audience and social graph
Facebook has a connected audience like no other. Its social graph connects 845 million people around the world through 100 billion connections, according to its S-1.
That’s not an easy thing to replicate, as Google is finding out as it struggles to … Continue Reading
The 3 Facebook IPO risk factors that matter
When Facebook’s S-1 filing comes out (which could be as soon as tomorrow, if you believe the Wall Street Journal), we’ll see a lot of risks in it.
The S-1 is the first and most significant document that a company fills out, and the Securities and Exchange Commission publishes, prior to an initial public offering. If it’s typical, we’ll see many boilerplate risks, such as an earthquake wiping out Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, … Continue Reading
Twitter’s revenue expected to nearly double in 2012
Twitter is expected to see $259.9 million in revenue in 2012, up from $139.5 in 2011.
Over the next couple of years, the company’s revenue is forecast to reach $399.5 million in 2013 and $540 million by 2014.
Year-over-year revenue growth for 2011 to 2012 is estimated to be at 83 percent; that growth rate is expected to slow to 36 percent by 2014.
For a company that (rather famously) didn’t have a business model … Continue Reading
96 percent of Google’s revenue is advertising, who buys it? (infographic)
A whopping 96 percent of Google‘s $37.9 billion 2011 revenue came from advertising, but who is putting all that cash in Google’s wallet?
Google is best known for its web search product, which has completely overturned how we research and find answers. But the search itself is only the basis upon which its golden empire has been built. Advertising based on search, as well as banner advertising on websites touches nearly every industry. It even … Continue Reading
“Malicious” Android apps are just aggresive advertising, says Lookout Mobile
Last week Symantec reported 13 potentially malware-carrying Android applications, that it said may make up a family of botnets. Mobile security firm Lookout Mobile, however, is now saying the apps are just an advertising network.
“We disagree with the assessment that this is malware, although we do believe that the Apperhand SDK (Android.Counterclank) is an aggressive form of ad network and should be taken seriously,” said Lookout Mobile in a blog post.
On Friday, Symantec … Continue Reading
Google choosing between advertisers and searchers. Guess who is losing?
The first thing you need to keep in mind about Google’s business is that it’s an advertising marketplace.
The “search engine” part of Google, the part we love, is constantly under assault as Google tries to adapt and keep its business growing.
Now, with the introduction of Search Plus Your World earlier this month, Google has shown us it may believe it has enough clout that it can more or less ignore its original customers, … Continue Reading
Intel plans a huge marketing campaign for Ultrabooks
Intel’s major marketing campaign for 2012 will focus on advertising its Ultrabook brand of ultra-thin, high-performance laptops.
98 percent of the social media reactions to “Ultrabook” are positive, and that’s with very little advertising already, Kevin Sellers (pictured), vice president of sales and marketing and director of the advertising and digital marketing group at Intel, said at the company’s press conference today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Intel will launch its Ivy … Continue Reading
Uh oh, Google may be in trouble for fishy Chrome sponsored-post campaign
A series of low-quality posts meant to increase the search ranking of Google’s Chrome browser, which also appear to have been sponsored by Google, could put the search giant in hot water for violating its own rules.
More than 400 such posts, which contain the phrase “This post is sponsored by Google,” were first uncovered by SEO Book’s Aaron Wall, which led Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan to do even more digging.
Why the hubbub? … Continue Reading
How Facebook will take over the rest of the world in 2012
It’s hard to believe that in 2009, Facebook was insignificant compared to the rest of social media.
Even harder to fathom is that one year later, Facebook asserted its dominance and became the undeniable leader of the social landscape, representing more than 50 percent of all time spent on social websites.
It wasn’t certain whether Facebook’s fame would be fleeting, especially in the wake of privacy concerns, but in 2011, this doubt was put to … Continue Reading
Call Genie acquires VoodooVox to create smarter mobile ads
Mobile search and advertising company Call Genie announced Wednesday it has begun the process of acquiring VoodooVox, a company that provides demographic information for phone numbers and mobile ads.
The deal, which Canadian Business reports is worth $2.8 million, will allow Call Genie to expand its mobile advertising services. Using information from VoodooVox’s Analytics product, Call Genie plans to pursue pay-per-call advertising. Pay-per-call advertising is similar to pay per click; a unique phone number is … Continue Reading
Glam Media may be checking out banks for a 2012 IPO
Female-focused media and advertising company Glam Media may soon file to go public.
If so, it will join the ranks of Internet companies hitting the trading floor, such as Jive, Zynga and (earlier this year) LinkedIn.
According to Bloomberg‘s sources, the company has already had a “bake off,” in which banks compete to underwrite the Glam Media initial public offering. In the running are Bank of America, Goldman Sachs Group, and Morgan Stanley to lead … Continue Reading
AdBlock Plus add-on to stop blocking non-intrusive ads by default
Popular web browser add-on AdBlock Plus will stop blocking all “non-intrusive” advertisements by default, the company reaffirmed today — despite large backlash from large online communities like Reddit and Hacker News.
AdBlock Plus is among the most downloaded add-ons for Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers. It works by scanning each website visited and blocking out all the content from ad servers, traffic counters, auto loading survey widgets and more. Until now, the tool didn’t … Continue Reading
Apple iOS vs. Android developers: Who’s making more money?
Dale Carr is CEO of Los Angeles and Sydney, Australia-based ad network LeadBolt.
Android developers are getting just 7% of the revenue that Apple iOS developers are getting, according to a recent article that quoted research by Piper Jaffray. The article’s premise was that developers will obviously go where the money is, so Android will continue to struggle when it comes to drawing in more developers. This got me really thinking … could this be … Continue Reading
Tired of ads on your Xbox dashboard? Reddit shows you how to block them
The Xbox Metro dashboard has brought lots of shiny new features to the console, but many gamers are troubled by the amount of advertising appearing on there. Never ones to sit on problem, members of the gaming community have come up with a way to block the ads being sent to your Xbox.
While we would not advocate trying this yourself, there are many reports that it works, and helps stop Chuck Norris appearing on … Continue Reading
Here’s why we’re not too worked up over CNET’s download “malware”
CNET Download.com‘s proprietary software installer downloads “special offer” toolbars and software that some businesses are calling malware. The company has made changes to let people opt out, but according to security software company Nmap, that isn’t enough.
Since Download.com released its installer in July, people have complained about the “special offers” portion. At the beginning, the installer took you through a couple of steps, including one that offered to install a toolbar or new homepage … Continue Reading
Rovio cracks nut market with new pistachio-branded Angry Birds game
The newest version of mega-popular game franchise Angry Birds isn’t a downloadable mobile app, but rather a web-based promotion built around California nut producer Wonderful Pistachios.
The free-to-play, five level promotional game — playable on a subsection of AngryBirds.com – features the now-ubiquitous, titular birds launching at both pigs and nuts hiding in half-separated pistachio shells. The game also has branded backgrounds including a pistachio orchard and a football game with nuts as snacks. A … Continue Reading
Under pressure, Facebook updates its privacy principles
The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook’s relationship status won’t read “it’s complicated” anymore, since the two companies settled a longstanding privacy suit today.
The social network has often come under fire for its privacy policies, a spark which fully ignited after Facebook changed the privacy settings of its users without permission in 2009. For example, Facebook suddenly set friends lists, photos and other information to a default publicly visible setting, even if the person had … Continue Reading
WordPress takes on Google’s AdSense with new WordAds service (update)
Popular content management system (CMS) company WordPress is launching a new word-based advertising service that will compete directly with Google’s AdSense, the company announced today.
WordPress, which is owned by Automattic, powers over 24 million blogs and runs on 15 percent of the world’s most trafficked sites. The company previously entered into an advertising partnership with Federated Media in October, but didn’t release many details. Now it seems that this new partnership has birthed a … Continue Reading
