IP MicroMedia LLC News and Updates

Announcing Bsuiness Video Fast!

2010-08-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

Small business is struggling in this economy around the world to attract, retain and reaffirm clients and brand message. Today the internet avails business owners that opportunity to to all the above.

Business Video Fast is a service based in Southern California that allows small and medium size business in any industry take advantage of concise video messages for viral social interaction and higher Search Engine ranking.

Video can rank higher in search engines then regular websites, especially if you dont update your site very often.

Please visit Business Video Fast and talk to them about creating a new Video for internet consumption and brand messaging.

www.BusinessVideoFast.com

Los Angeles area Search Insights for Rio Naturista and Diet Centers

2010-07-25T02:38:00.000-07:00

And a projection link 12 months trailing.. Swanson Vitamins has the record for last four years

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#content=1&cat=45&geo=US-CA-803&q=vitamins&date=today+12-m&cmpt=q

Public Relations, born in America - History revealed

2010-07-22T00:53:00.000-07:00

An incredible journey through history to find out how Public Relations started, and how it changed the world

The Century of the Self

The Untold History of Controlling the Masses Through the Manipulation of Unconscious Desires

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized." - Edward Bernays

THE CENTURY OF THE SELF

Adam Curtis' acclaimed series examines the rise of the all-consuming self against the backdrop of the Freud dynasty.

To many in both politics and business, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power has finally moved to the people. Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?

The Freud dynasty is at the heart of this compelling social history. Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis; Edward Bernays, who invented public relations; Anna Freud, Sigmund's devoted daughter; and present-day PR guru and Sigmund's great grandson, Matthew Freud.

Sigmund Freud's work into the bubbling and murky world of the subconscious changed the world. By introducing a technique to probe the unconscious mind, Freud provided useful tools for understanding the secret desires of the masses. Unwittingly, his work served as the precursor to a world full of political spin doctors, marketing moguls, and society's belief that the pursuit of satisfaction and happiness is man's ultimate goal.

Please Note: Viewers should be sure to read Ludwig Von Mises' 'The Anti-Capitalist Mentality' to balance the socialistic elements of this film.

This film was produced by BBC which is Britain's government run news channel, therefor it downplays the evils of government and plays up the vices of business. The enemy is not capitalism or 'consumption' but government and its insidious propaganda. Mass produced goods enrich society because they reduce the amount of time a person has to work to satisfy one's essential needs. Government propaganda debases society because it is used as an excuse for everything from murderous wars of aggression to oppressive economy killing taxation and regulation. When a business sells you something voluntarily you will only buy it if you think the product is worth more than the price you have to pay for it. When the government propagandizes you they are merely giving you excuses to submit to their use of force which will be bearing down on you whether you like it or not. The two are very different and this film does a disservice by confusing them. That said, it's important to understand the propagandists who serve to justify the crimes of the state. Selling someone a product they don't truly need hurts no one, selling people on a war they don't need gets millions of people murdered and destroys entire societies. - Chris, InformationLiberation

"In the course of his narrative, he explains aspects of the market that have generally eluded even its defenders. For example, is it true that markets dumb down the culture, exalting trashy novels and movies over higher-brow fare? Mises points out that the tastes of the masses will always and everywhere be lower than those educated and cultivated to love higher culture. But, he says, the glory of capitalism is that it brings to every sector what it wants and needs, and more of it than any other system. So, yes, there will be more trash, but also more great work as well. It is a matter of availability: under socialism, nothing is available. Under capitalism, choice seems nearly infinite." - From the description of 'The Anti-Capitalist Mentality'

One: Happiness Machines

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world.

See Ludwig von Mises "The Noneconomic Objections to Capitalism" and "The Argument of Happiness" to balance the propaganda in this section.

Two: The Engineering of Consent

The programme explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses.

Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise - that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had led to the barbarism of Nazi Germany. To stop it ever happening again they set out to find ways to control this hidden enemy within the human mind.

Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna, and his nephew, Edward Bernays, provided the centrepiece philosophy. The US government, big business, and the CIA used their ideas to develop techniques to manage and control the minds of the American people. But this was not a cynical exercise in manipulation. Those in power believed that the only way to make democracy work and create a stable society was to repress the savage barbarism that lurked just under the surface of normal American life.

Three: There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed

In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas in America. They were inspired by the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, a pupil of Freud's, who had turned against him and was hated by the Freud family. He believed that the inner self did not need to be repressed and controlled. It should be encouraged to express itself.

Out of this came a political movement that sought to create new beings free of the psychological conformity that had been implanted in people's minds by business and politics.

This programme shows how this rapidly developed in America through self-help movements like Werber Erhard's Erhard Seminar Training - into the irresistible rise of the expressive self: the Me Generation.

But the American corporations soon realised that this new self was not a threat but their greatest opportunity. It was in their interest to encourage people to feel they were unique individuals and then sell them ways to express that individuality. To do this they turned to techniques developed by Freudian psychoanalysts to read the inner desires of the new self.

Four: Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

This episode explains how politicians on the left, in both Britain and America, turned to the techniques developed by business to read and fulfil the inner desires of the self.

Both New Labour, under Tony Blair, and the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group, which had been invented by psychoanalysts, in order to regain power. They set out to mould their policies to people's inner desires and feelings, just as capitalism had learnt to do with products.

Out of this grew a new culture of public relations and marketing in politics, business and journalism. One of its stars in Britain was Matthew Freud who followed in the footsteps of his relation, Edward Bernays, the inventor of public relations in the 1920s.

The politicians believed they were creating a new and better form of democracy, one that truly responded to the inner feelings of individual. But what they didn't realise was that the aim of those who had originally created these techniques had not been to liberate the people but to develop a new way of controlling them.

THESE ARE MOVIES AVAILABLE AT:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query="Century%20of%20the%20self"%20psychology

MORE HERE

Progreso Financiero Part 1 of 4

2010-07-13T01:49:00.000-07:00

Progreso Financiero Helps Hispanics with no credit history create a FICO score

Part 2

part 3

part 4

The Social Web Slideshare

2010-07-11T23:52:00.001-07:00

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

The Value of an online Brand

2008-06-24T04:25:00.000-07:00

IPMM has always been a proponent of the value of a brand, a worldwide symbiosis with a category. Reading webpronews.. i found this interesting:

Consider this also: According to ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni, Google has
made its billions from just five percent of its ads being clicked. Not to insult
your math ability, but that's 95 percent of Google ads that are not clicked.
Though clicks are monetized based on direct action, Fulgoni says only 16 percent
of ads have direct online effects; 21 percent have latent online effects, and 63
percent have latent offline effects. "

[S]o 84% of the value isn’t being monetized by search engines," Search
Insider's David Berkowitz summarizes in his " Dreaming of a Super Model" report. The value in that 84
percent is in less tangible branding value. Enquiro attributes a 16
percent brand lift when the brand made an appearance in the top organic result
and the top sponsored result. Fulgoni used these numbers to suggest Google could
maximize profit by adding a layer of cost to search advertising in the form of
cost per impression.

Its exciting to read that for us at IPMM. Our niche brands are all about branding value to our readers through the online experience and social ineraction.

ModelVanity.com launches Model Shoot Expo at MV Studios in Southern California, USA

2008-06-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

Model Vanity Expo is a series of photo shoot workshops with select photographers to help new and established model talent develop a unique portfolio of images at no cost. This private event offers talent multiple settings and safe surroundings.

RIVERSIDE, Ca. USA, June 19, 2008 / -- IP MicroMedia LLC web property ModelVanity.com (website in development) and Model Vanity Studios today announced a partnership to launch a first of a kind “Model Vanity Expo”. The partnership promises new and established models the chance to work with multiple, selected photographers in the presence of sponsors who may select talent for upcoming projects.

"We are excited about providing all established and new models this great opportunity to showcase their talent and realize their modeling potential," founder Oscar Toscano stated. "Opening our private studio in Riverside, Ca. to this unique casting and offering talent and select photographers a chance to work under our expertise in a nationally known studio lot is great experience and networking opportunity."

“We are using this event as a proving ground for our model shoot expo concept. New and existing talent can come and pose in more diverse surroundings then any “Mansion” or “lot” with talented photographers. There is a four thousand square foot, two story studio building, outdoor water gardens and unique structures and several auto and custom bike props to choose from. All models (glamour, fashion, fetish, bikini, import, Gothic, non-nude) are encouraged to attend this event. We are also providing skilled makeup and hair dressers. Ladies should bring several wardrobe changes to show off all the looks they posses.” added Oscar Toscano.

In addition, several sponsors will be on hand to review talent for potential future modeling opportunities. Authorized media and Spanish television stations will also be on hand to cover this event. Models will receive limited edition Model Vanity Clothing as well. The event concludes with a dinner sponsored by TiosTacos.com at 5pm. After party to follow.

All the talent attending this event will be featured on our site with the best images on display from all participating photographers. Online visitors can learn more about the models and cast their vote for their favorite girl at ModelVanity.NET.

“We have experienced a huge response since we announced this event from talent throughout the area. Over 150 candidates requested to attend this event from every ethnic type, but we are limiting attendance to 30 girls this time, “commented Oscar. “We are still reserving two more spots for one male and one female model that would like to attend.”

The event will kick off at 9 am. with a workshop for all photographers attending. “Using Adobe Lightroom in your digital work flow” will teach basic meta data techniques. A small discussion on ways to earn money from photography will conclude the mini workshop. Presentation is sponsored by ProImageVault.com. Photographers attending are invited to bring reflectors, strobes, or any gear to make the most of our 6 hour event!

Well equipped photographers who wish to attend can register at:
ModelVanityStudios.com

About IP MicroMedia LLC
IP MicroMedia, based in Southern California (with contributors in Mexico City, Miami, San Antonio and Las Vegas), owns ModelVanity.com (MV), a site currently in development. IPMM develops web properties, syndicates event content, and provides AV services for clients on-site. Web 2.0 brands include ModelVanity.com, TodoExito.com, ProImageVault.com, PrintedPix.com, Photofinder360.com, OfficialCoverage.com, Onmoney.NET, Senorita15.com, MotorSportMotion.com and more. More at IPMicroMedia.com

Ip Micromedia Llc Featured

ModelVanity.com Launches Model Shoot Expo At MV St...

June, 2008 @ 1888PressRelease.com

Everybody wants to use flesh in marketing...

2008-06-16T00:25:00.000-07:00

looking over some older press releases from a spanish/latin press portal I came upon this article:
Quepasa.com (QPSA 2.62 US, last traded), one of the world's largest (I would take issue with that statement) bilingual, Latino online communities, and Latinas Illustrated today announced an exclusive partnership to launch an international search for the top 12 most beautiful Latinas in the U.S. and Latin America. The partnership includes a fully interactive online community and international model search contest with the winners to be featured in the Latinas Illustrated 2009 swimsuit calendar edition.

"We are excited about providing Latinas from all over the U.S. and Latin America this great opportunity to showcase their talent and realize their modeling dreams," Quepasa CEO John C. Abbott stated. "Through the online community we are providing a unique outlet for aspiring Latina models to gain international recognition."

This is one of the many projects we are launching to drive traffic to Quepasa to enhance our social networking community for Latinos here and in Latin America," commented Jeff Valdez, Quepasa's recently installed co-chairman. "We are happy to be working with Latinas Illustrated to offer our members a richer online experience."

The community will center around the model search contest to find 12 gorgeous Latina models to feature in the 2009 Latinas Illustrated Swimsuit Calendar, which will be available for sale on Quepasa.com and other outlets. Entrants can sign up at quepasa.com/community/latinasillustrated.html and upload five photos from which the Quepasa.com community will vote on and determine who the finalists will be.

Jeff Valdez, meet MiVanidad.com

As an aside: We are starting to take an open market equity position in this company

Jerry Yang, you have to go

2008-06-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

What a screwed up executive office at Yahoo. Everyone needs to go. Thats my two cents. I do not own Yahoo and the target price is somewhere around 15 dollars. And Microsoft, you want to win on the internet, scrap your .NET and your proprietary frameworks and embrace opensource. Did you hear that Steve B?

Microsoft will take out facebook, thats my next prediction.

Social Network Ad Spending Forecast

2008-05-14T17:05:00.001-07:00

Couple of charts showing ad spend rate throughout the next few years. The amount of spend has dropped off from the initial rates forecast last year, as monetization has dropped off

At $1.4 billion, social network advertising will make up 5.5% of total US online ad spending this year. However, after 2010 eMarketer projects that social network sites will receive a lesser share of total spending, falling to 5.1% in 2012 after a peak of 6% in 2009-2010.

It seems as though the major social networks are not doing as good a job for marketers as other websites that cater to specific types of visitors. These large Social networks are akin to general audience advertising. Again, this is where IPMM sees the value of branded niche media properties, catering to users who look for a specific kind of content and relationship in the online experience. In conclusion, 90% of online ad spend is going somewhere else. Somewhere that advertisers feel they are getting more ROI.

Myspace Innovation

2008-05-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

Imagine you could just zap your profile at myspace and populate another social network. Or drag your entire friends list over. Its coming soon, and it looks to be the future of interchangeable data on social networks. As compared to google's Open Social, this is not about widgets processing new data exchanges between new sets of connections, but rather a way of grabbing all your data and moving it.

MySpace doesn’t make money off any of this directly. It doesn’t charge money to the sites that use the profile information or place ads on them. But as many people see the importance of having an online profile to express themselves to friends and strangers, the battle is increasingly about becoming people’s primary profile, just as companies fight to be people’s main e-mail provider.

This is what is most important, becoming people's primary profile.

Zivity Takes $7 Million In Venture Financing For Adult Content Social Network

2008-05-14T01:22:00.000-07:00

Zivity is an adult content social network and user generated content site (they call it “Promoting Beauty 2.0″). It has the distinction of being one of the first adult content startups to be backed by venture capital via a $1 million seed round in 2007, and it caused quite a stir at its official launch at TechCrunch40. As we mentioned last month, mainstream press is starting to pay serious attention to them.

The company will announce a new $7 million round of financing in a deal led by both BlueRun Ventures and Founders Fund. The company has now raised a total of $8 million. The social networking experience that these VCs add is substantial. Founders Fund is an early Facebook investor. Both are investors in Slide.

John Malloy of BlueRun Ventures and Luke Nosek of Founders Fund join Zivity co-founders Scott Banister, Cyan Banister (who also models for the site) and Jeffrey Wescott on the company’s board of directors.

We've known for months about this, and as photographers, we've joined and used the system. WHAT DO WE THINK OF THIS? The business model is going to have to change. The problems they are TRYING to solve is somewhat real, but the solution they offering will not work. It will FAIL and probably morph into something different at some point. We consider our modelvanity brand a superior platform once we're up and running fully.

Facebook Fading?

2008-05-14T00:49:00.000-07:00

What can IPMM learn from what is taking place at facebook?

Oh, and she hopes to develop a new ad scheme aimed at the billions that marketers spend on branding ads every year. "I'm hopeful that we play a significant role in pushing the envelope [with] awareness building," she says. "How we get there, I don't think we know yet" says former Google's Sheryl Sandberg COO Facebook.

This statement sums up what the widgets didnt solve, and beacon cannot do, which is sell advertising. We at IPMM believe that even when you have revenues of 140 million for a company valued in the billions, your making a cardinal mistake. THERE IS NO BRAND WITH FACEBOOK. It stands for nothing in the eyes of its users. Its a new utility, used to converse and connect and waste time. Its the "Electric Company" of GenX. And, There is no real experience, unlike a game from Nintendo.

Brand means everything, and when users/consumers connect to it and make it their own, limitless possibilities exist for attracting the right kind of advertiser and monetization.

And what about those widgets, and SLIDE.com's 500 million valuation at 50 million users..

Levchin offers two answers. The first has to do with the changing nature of the Web, where social networks are the fashion of the day. Online search - which is where Google does most of its ad business - today accounts for only 6% of what people do online. This leaves a lot of contested ground.

"The metrics for success," says Levchin, "are going to shift away from who can provide the most reach toward who is paid the most attention."

Still, engagement seems to be catching on. Nielsen has added a new metric that evaluates the amount of time users spend on a site. Google has a cost-per-action option, and in early March, Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) introduced something it calls "engagement mapping," a program that measures online interactions in branding campaigns.

so Brand + Engagement = $

End of post...

Online TV Ads Suck Less Than TV Ads On TV: Study

2007-12-26T07:14:00.001-08:00

source: TechCrunch

A new study by Simmons, a unit of Experian Research Services has found that consumers are 47% more engadged by ads that run with television programs v… more

Disign of the Portal

2007-12-26T02:18:00.001-08:00

Ryan Sims & D. Keith Robinson

From: carsonified, 1 month ago

| View | Upload your own

Inside The Designer's Studio: IMDb

SlideShare Link

John Battelle of Federated Media

2007-12-22T05:46:00.000-08:00

Saying he has been inspired by music, John is about to make his newest predictions. He delves into conversation marketing, as his companies core competency. Revealing that 27 full time brand advertisers sell branding through his 150+ network sites, he also explained how sometimes it takes a few quarters for the new sites to see ad income. At 12:30 he talks about two types of media, Mercenary and Missionary. He prefers missionary (passionate independent media) over mercenary. He speaks that news has a new approach to make it "straight." At 30:00 he begins talking about experiences around the events and the advertising that can go with it. Something I have been preaching for several years. Here is the video, by the Scoble Show.

http://www.podtech.net/home/4775/john-battelle-on-2007-predictions-and-advertising-industry

5 phases of a Hype Cycle?

2007-12-22T04:20:00.000-08:00

Here it is:

1. "Technology Trigger"
The first phase of a Hype Cycle is the "technology trigger" or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.

2. "Peak of Inflated Expectations"
In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.

3. "Trough of Disillusionment"
Technologies enter the "trough of disillusionment" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.

4. "Slope of Enlightenment"
Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the "slope of enlightenment" and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.

5. "Plateau of Productivity"
A technology reaches the "plateau of productivity" as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

READ THE REST

Social Networks, blogging, brands online

2007-12-22T03:53:00.000-08:00

A VC blogger of note verifies what I have believed since the days of running call center campaigns for clients:

The value of a social network is not in the functionality and technology itself. Feature parity should be achieved rather quickly on any new set of innovative aspects that a MySpace, Facebook, or anyone will introduce. Rather, like all media properties (whether digital or otherwise), a social network has value based on:
1. The information contained within it. In this case, the information about the friends and connections in network.
2. The signal value communicated to society about who a user is as a person. In this case, what being on a social network represents to others.

Essentially, what really matters is brand.

What does it mean for someone to be on Facebook? What does it mean to be on MySpace? What does it mean to be on the dozens and dozens other general-interest social networks or vertical ones which are profiled daily on Mashable. In other words, what does it say about you, who you are as a person?

READ THE REST

The new social network

2007-11-22T12:14:00.000-08:00

Blog Entry shared from the SOA: The New Architectural Paradigm Blog.
Original author: amitavc (Technical Architect)

Open Social by Google has the largest Networks joining forces

2007-10-31T04:08:00.000-07:00

I'm just going to repost the key info....

Open Social is an open web API that can be supported by two kinds of developers:
"Containers" -- social networking systems like Ning, Orkut, LinkedIn, Hi5, and Friendster, and...
"Apps" -- applications that want to be embedded within containers -- for example, the kinds of applications built by iLike, Flixster, Rockyou, and Slide.
----------------------------------
With the Facebook platform, only Facebook itself can be a "container" -- "apps" can only run within Facebook itself. In contrast, with Open Social, any social network can be an Open Social container and allow Open Social apps to run within it.
With the Facebook platform, app developers build to Facebook-proprietary languages and APIs such as FBML (Facebook Markup Language) and FQL (Facebook Query Language) -- those languages and APIs don't work anywhere other than Facebook -- and then the apps can only run within Facebook. In contrast, with Open Social, app developers can build to standard HTML and Javascript, and their apps can then run in any Open Social container.
Technically, Open Social is implemented as what I call a "plug-in API", or a "Level 2 platform". In other words, it's not a web services API -- rather, it's a way for external applications to "plug into" a host environment (or "container"). And then, in addition to literally showing up inside the pages of a container, the external app can make Javascript calls to retrieve all kinds of useful information from the container and perform all kinds of useful functions within the container, such as "give me a list of all of this user's friends" or "inject this event into this user's activity feed".

Open Social is very practical. Many standards die an early death because they are too complicated and hard to implement. Open Social is what you want in a standard -- it's expansive enough to do useful things, but limited enough to be very easy to implement, both for containers and for apps.
Is this good for the web?

This is very, very good for the web. Open Social is the kind of standard that web developers love, and can easily use. I think it will become a standard part of many developers' toolkits. It builds on HTML and Javascript, many people can support it, and it will be interoperable -- I know that because it already is interoperable for the partners in this week's launch. It's all good.
Where's MySpace?

Beats me.

Where's Yahoo?

Beats me.

For you non tech crunchers, basically this means that IPMM is going to gain alot of apps from the free world of developers!

Why JOHN DVORAK never made any money

2007-10-28T23:29:00.000-07:00

John, as entertaining as you are on TWIT, you don't know finances and deals. You never worked on Wall Street, or ran a large operation. As interesting as your comments are, the questions you ask are ill informed and show how much you dont know about what you think you do. You should focusing on writing columns that will help young startups connect to venture deals.

With estimated revenues of $150 million, Facebook would normally be valued at between one times its revenue to perhaps 10 times revenues, if it was growing like crazy. With a valuation of $15 billion, this would be 100 times revenues. If you owned a company with total revenues of $50,000, then Microsoft Corporation (MSFT: would value your business at $5 million.

Facebook's already grown like crazy and perhaps has a few more years to go, but it can't get too much bigger.

Microsoft is going to place ads, sell ads, broker ads and do some sort of revenue split with Facebook. For that, Microsoft pays $240 million and gets 1.6% of the company. When you extrapolate the valuation of Facebook and run the figures against the user base of around 50 million, it means that each and every user is tallied at $300 a head.

I thought valuing registered users of Web sites got expensive back in 1999, when they were as high as $100 a head; $300 is sky-high.

But this is $300 a head for what are essentially bloggers, duds, poor students and hangers-on. What are these people constantly buying that makes them worth that much?

Well, its a good thing your not a trader John. Because you would probably loose some hedge fund a ton of money...

Online Personas.. a video

2007-10-26T01:29:00.000-07:00

Online social networking sites are now among the most popular web sites on the internet. Facebook is the seventh most trafficked site in the U.S., and millions of young trendsetters have made MySpace and Second Life the most disruptive forces to hit pop culture since MTV. LinkedIn is at the forefront of an emerging networking frontier focused on business and boasting a network of more than 7 million professionals. In a world of IMers, bloggers, podcasters, burners, P2P buccaneers, mashup artists and phonecam paparazzi, people have entirely new ways of expressing and reinventing themselves, and fact can blend with fiction. The founders of the most successful and innovative web sites allowing people to interact, trade, meet and network will explore how their sites are evolving to keep up with the future of online networking.

The idea of INFORUM began with the basic tenet that young people not only deserve but desire unbiased, trustworthy information from a full range of stances, and that they want their sources qualified. The Commonwealth Club has a 103 year tradition of civic debate, and INFORUM honors and continues this tradition by providing a forum for young people to access the best informed, most involved, and brightest minds - be they politicians, business gurus, policy workers, thought leaders, trendsetters or culture-jammers.

Microsoft Earnings, Facebook Investment

2007-10-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

So Microsoft is taking the leading Nasdaq index to new highs, on what technicians might term a flag pole formation. It looks very bullish here (charts). But forget all that for a moment. The real story here is Facebook.

It was just at web 2.0 that Microsoft's Ballmer talked about acquisitions,

Ballmer half-jokingly said the purchases will range between 50 or 100 million to a couple hundred million each. He also offered up his e-mail address (steveb@microsoft.com), inviting entrepreneurs to pitch him any products they may want to sell.

The problem...
Microsoft has a real challenge to find 20 companies a year that match their .NET religion. Most of the web world is not .NET.

"We will buy smaller companies. We will buy smaller companies that make some use of open source software," he said. "We don't want to discourage people who would talk with us just because they do some open source."

But just yesterday...

Microsoft said yesterday it is investing $240 million in Facebook in exchange for a 1.6% stake in Facebook. The investments would value the company at $15 billion, as the Microsoft investment did, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Facebook expects this year to break even on a cash-flow basis, with revenue of $150 million, according to people familiar with the matter. It plans in coming weeks to unveil its own online-advertising system that would let advertisers place targeted ads based on the personal information posted by Facebook users.

The high valuation increases the worth of the stakes held by Facebook's current investors. According to people familiar with the matter, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg owns roughly 20% of Facebook, while, among its investors, Accel Partners owns about 11%, Founders Fund owns about 5%, and Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners own about 1.7% apiece.

That makes Mark worth 3 Billion, a billion for every year he's worked on this project.

Web 2.0 Summit news

2007-10-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

What is the theme I'm coming away with from Web 2.0 San Fran... Well let me quote a reinvented company chairman's thoughts... (CEO Viacom) - "We believe in fragmentation going forward on the Internet."

Yahoo: Flickr and such - The much cooler feature however is the new "Places Pages". As you might expect these are pages that focus on one particular area and pull all the image and tag information for pictures geotagged to that area.

TWITTER: Evan Williams ... co-founded Twitter ... He talked about how Twitter succeeded by taking away capabilities ... adding constraints can help your product ... we need to ask what can we take away to make something new ... because SMS was the primary platform, it made some difference. The interface is one field and a button. That gives it a "low cognitive load."

Google Impresses Wall Street

2007-10-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

Google just released earnings. What is the moral of the story. DO ONE THING, DO IT RIGHT, and dominate. Search still leads the the marvel of this wall street story.

Google revenues jump 57 per cent

making it the world's second most valuable technology company behind Microsoft.