Facebook

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 11:17am on Friday, November 13th, 2009

Facebook, Other Social Networking Sites Face "ScamVille" Lawsuit

Gawker reported on November 12, 2009:

A Sacramento-based law firm is looking for people who faced "unauthorized charges imposed on Facebook and MySpace users who participate in social games like 'Farmville' and 'Mafia Wars.'" The firm, which said it has launched an investigation into such scams, specializes in class action suits, among other areas.

Mike Arrington's TechCrunch has posted a series of articles on the issue of sleazy revenue models for online games, exposing the practice of sneaking mobile data subscriptions and pricey "learning CD" packages past players trying to earn online "points." Mafia Wars and Farmville creator Zynga gets a third of its revenue from such "commercial offers," while Facebook in turn gets 10-20 percent of its money from Zynga, according to Arrington.

The full story:
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5403487/class-action-suit-in-the-works-for-victims-of-social-gaming-scams

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 10:45pm on Saturday, October 10th, 2009

5 steps to stay safe and private on Facebook, written by Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb on September 16, 2009:

"People everywhere are mindlessly over-sharing on the world's largest social network, without a second thought as to who's reading their posts or what effect it could have on them further down the road. For example, did you know that 30% of today's employers are using Facebook to vet potential employees prior to hiring? In today's tough economy, the question of whether to post those embarrassing party pics could now cost you a paycheck in addition to a reputation."

The full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/09/16/16readwriteweb-5-easy-steps-to-stay-safe-and-private-on-fac-6393.html

Eric Kallgren    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 11:32am on Thursday, May 28th, 2009

The Russians are buying into Facebook, the New York Times reported on May 26, 2009:

"A Russian investment firm, Digital Sky Technologies, has invested $200 million in the social networking company Facebook in return for a 1.96 percent stake, the two companies said Tuesday.

The investment values Facebook’s preferred stock at $10 billion, a $5 billion drop from October 2007 when Microsoft paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake. With the latest round of financing, Facebook has raised about $600 million since it was founded in 2004."

The full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/technology/internet/27facebook.html

Eric Kallgren    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 12:23pm on Friday, April 10th, 2009

Advertising is the business strategy of Facebook, COO Sheryl Sandberg told BusinessWeek Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler in early April 2009:

"It's a really simple answer, which is that our business is advertising. We're not waiting to find our business. We found it, and it's actually working very well. Marketers all over the world have to sell products and services, and they have to generate demand for those services. They do that typically where people are spending their time. But there is a real imbalance right now: Between something like 28% to 29% of people's time is spent online, but only 8% to 10% of the dollars are spent online. So there is this migration of ad dollars from other places going online.

Then the question is how do advertisers make that useful? What we do is we enable connections. We enable people to connect with users and provide advertising in such a way that it's not obtrusive at all, but it's part of the advertising experience and part of the user experience. And so we're doing really well financially."

Read the full interview:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2009/tc2009048_429871.htm