Yahoo - The Anti-Social Network ?

Yahoo Screwing Facebook?

Since digital portals and social networks are being used more and more by publishers and authors to do their work, a little understanding about how their management acts and interacts online might help one decide who to invest their time with.

Yahoo seems to be developing a certain rep for suing other online entities just as they are getting ready to go public with IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) --- apparently in an attempt to destroy or lessen the new IPO company's initial valuation. This in turn results in a lower price per share loan for expansion, research, etc.

Sounds like nasty business, sour grapes or whatever to me.

These intriguing details from David Kalish of Coats & Bennett PLLC through Lexology.com  :

The anti-social network: Yahoo v. Facebook

In quite an anti-social move, Yahoo has sued its former business partner Facebook for patent infringement. This is one of the first patent litigations in the relatively new and evolving field of social networking.

Yahoo claims that Facebook is infringing ten different patents related to a variety of different aspects of social networking. These aspects generally include instant messaging advertising, fraud prevention in a pay-per-click system, privacy protection and controls, news feed and information customization, and network architecture involved with social networking. Specifically, the following patents are involved in the suit:

Click link at end of post for list of patents.

Facebook denies that they infringe any of these ten patents and has vowed to fight. Many of these patents appear to be directed to basic concepts that may have been in use prior to Yahoo’s patent filings. Further, the patents issued before much of the current case law involving statutory subject matter (i.e., 35 U.S.C. 101) regarding computer-related information. Issues may arise regarding whether these patents meet the new requirements as now interpreted by the Patent Office and various courts.

Yahoo is bringing this suit at a time when Facebook may be somewhat vulnerable. Facebook is in the process of an initial stock market listing that is expected to provide a valuation of between $75 billion -$100 billion. Facebook may be more willing to settle this dispute prior to the offering to remove any potential issues that could affect the value of the company. Yahoo has used this timing strategy before when they sued Google for patent infringement in 2004. That suit was filed at a time when Google was preparing for their initial public listing.

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Publisher Results: Better on Facebook or Twitter?

When we set out to market our newest published work online, does Facebook or Twitter really deliver? Which of these deliver the most exposure, internet buzz and actual sales?

Vadim Lavrusik, of Mashable.Com, has made a study on how these two internet venues delivered results for Mashable...And, although the study had to make certain assumptions...the methodology, parameters and calculations involved are explained in some detail.

By Vadim Lavrusik in Mashable.Com:

Is Sharing More Valuable for Publishers on Facebook or Twitter? [STATS]

In the age of micropublishing, how many people are actually reading what you tweet or share on Facebook? And more importantly, how does the click-per-share ratio compare between the two very different social platforms that are utilized by millions of users every day for consuming and sharing content?

These are questions that keep social media strategists awake at night (or maybe just me). So at Mashable, we decided to take a look at our own data and see how user behavior compares between Facebook and Twitter, the two social media sites that generate the most referral traffic to Mashable.com.

After pulling three months worth of our social data and calculating the click-per-share (CPS), it appears that users on Twitter are more likely to share an article rather than read it, whereas users on Facebook click on more articles than they share. According to our social data, Twitter received roughly 0.38 clicks per tweet, whereas Facebook received 3.31 clicks per engagement (the number of times people posted a Mashable link to Facebook through an action on a social plugin or through a Wall post). This would mean that a Facebook action gets roughly 8.7x more clicks than a tweet.

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Facebook Valued at About 50 Billion!

A little business and finance tonight RE a major source used by writers and publishers.

Facebook is used by many artists to promote their works...I'm particularly bad at it! I need to really get motivated and learn how to use FB more EE (efficiently and effectively). Seems I'm just running out of gas, procrastinating or too damn lazy!

FB is absolutely blasting into the stratosphere, financially speaking, but may be getting greedy, too damn secretive and over-reaching by getting investment capital through an investment fund vehicle offered by Goldman Sachs (Goldman Sachs? Aren't they in the Greedy & Devious Who's Who Hall of Fame?).

You see, by not going public with an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and selling stocks on the open market, FB can stay private and don't have to disclose financial information as long as they have less than 500 investor owners-of-record. Goldman Sachs would only count as one investor no matter how many of their clients bought shares through their offered fund vehicle.

A matter being looked into by the SEC (that's the Securities and Exchange Commission...NOT the Southeastern Conference in College football...my favorite)

More details from Bloomberg News through Crain's New York Business:

Facebook, Goldman deal may draw SEC scrutiny
Securities and Exchange Commission is scrutinizing the market for trading shares of closely held companies, including Facebook.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s plan to offer clients up to $1.5 billion in Facebook Inc. equity may invite U.S. regulators to take a closer look at whether the owner of the world's most popular social-networking site is circumventing disclosure rules, securities lawyers said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, whose rules require any company with more than 499 investors to disclose financial information, is already scrutinizing the market for trading shares of closely held companies including Facebook, according to a person familiar with the inquiry, who declined to be identified because the matter isn't public.

Goldman Sachs invested $450 million in Facebook and is planning to create a special purpose vehicle for its clients to make additional investments worth as much as $1.5 billion, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal is private. Some private companies avoid crossing the disclosure threshold when investors' funds are channeled through a single entity, such as a private equity firm or hedge fund.

“The real question is, what are the details of this special purpose vehicle?” said James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University's business school in Washington. If the investment is designed to circumvent the rule, “the SEC should be looking very closely at it.”

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A Facebook Draped in Risqué 'ity'

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Facebook Recruiting Top Talent Through Acquisitions

For writers wanting to build online platforms for their books and other wares, Facebook has been one of the major social media sites to accomplish that goal...Now, FB is quietly (or not so quietly) stacking their team with innovative "ringers" from the staffs of their numerous, recent buyouts.

Wonder what their agenda is? What do they see coming down the track? Hummmmm...

Let's hope they don't get too big to fail...because once in this position companies inevitably get too big for their own britches...and who suffers? We do!

This article from InformationWeek by Antone Gonsalves delves into some of the recent FB acquisitions and the talent acquired:

Facebook has bought Chai Labs, the latest in a string of acquisitions where the company's talent is at least as important as the technology.

What Chai Labs does is unclear from its website. The company says it has an "in-depth focus on a handful of verticals" and helps web publishers "easily customize and launch scalable, search-friendly sites."

However, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company was founded by Gokul Rajaram, a former Google AdSense executive. In addition, its investors and advisers include Marc Andreessen, general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and co-founder of now-defunct Netscape Communications; Reid Hoffman, general partner at Greylock Partners and chairman of Linkedin; and Joe Kraus, general partner of Google Ventures.

Read more http://alturl.com/im9g7