Groupon caps off biggest IPO by US tech company since Google

Groupon Inc raised $US700 million after increasing the size of its initial public offering, becoming the largest IPO by a US internet company since Google Inc raised $US1.7 billion in 2004.

The global leader in "daily deals" is now valued at almost $US13 billion after saying it increased the offering by five million shares to 35 million in total and pricing them at $US20 each, above an initial range of $US16 to $US18.

The debut of the three-year-old company, which sells internet coupons for everything from spa treatments to nose jobs, is one of this year's most closely watched. Its tiny float represents just above five per cent of the company and helped drive up demand and price.

The shares rose as high as $US31.14, or 56 per cent above the IPO price, at one point pushing the market value of the company to $US19.9 billion. They closed at $US26.11, 31 per cent above their $US20 IPO price and granting Groupon a value of $US16.7 billion.

But in the longer run, analysts cited concerns about competition from the deep-pocketed likes of Google and Amazon.com; the need to spend continuously to drive user growth; and questions about accounting after the company altered its IPO filings twice to change the way it accounted for revenue.

"Groupon is expensive. The $US12.8 billion valuation is only achievable because of the low float," said Rob Romero, head of technology-focused hedge fund firm Connective Capital Management.

"Today's reaction to LinkedIn floating additional share supply is an indication of how tight supply-demand of shares can distort valuation for a new IPO."

LinkedIn, which remains well above its $US45 IPO price, plummeted nine per cent after-hours after unveiling a proposal to sell up to $US500 million in stock. It had floated 8.3 per cent of its shares during the IPO.

Pandora Media, a music streaming service and another recent dotcom debutante, sold 9.2 per cent of the company.

At $USD12.8 billion, Groupon commands a price tag more than twice what Google offered to buy the company last year.

Widespread criticism

Beyond Friday, Groupon shares may prove volatile on concern about the company's ability to generate long-term profit and revenue growth, plus the likelihood that existing investors will sell some of their holdings at some point.

Quirky music major and CEO Andrew Mason and his executive team spent almost two weeks on the road pitching to investors and addressing widespread criticism about Groupon's replicable business model, slowing growth and accounting concerns.

"The post-IPO investor will be taking a risk on this deal," said Josef Schuster, founder of IPO research and investment house IPOX Schuster. "It's maybe a good trade for a day trader, in and out in a single day, but I don't want to be in it for the long run."

To pull the deal off, the company cut its valuation by about half. Existing shareholders aren't selling. And it skipped meetings with potential investors in Europe and Asia.

If underwriters, led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, exercise their right to buy just over five million more Groupon shares in the IPO, known as the greenshoe, Groupon will raise more than $US800 million, before fees.

Wall Street will scrutinise Groupon's Friday showing for clues as to how other highly anticipated dotcom IPOs -- from the likes of Facebook or Zynga -- may fare.

LinkedIn surged on the first day of trading in May and remains far above its $US45 IPO price. Pandora's shares surged initially, then slumped. Its shares traded below the $US16 IPO price on Thursday at just over $US15.

Groupon "is a company with permission to market to 150 million consumers daily. No other company in the world has ever had that type of reach," said Boyan Josic, chief executive at DailyDealMedia, which tracks the industry.

Why Anti-marketer Google Has Embraced Marketing

When Google placed its first TV ad, a last-minute multi-million buy during the Super Bowl nearly two years ago, then-CEO Eric Schmidt tweeted, "Hell has indeed frozen over." Google is, after all, the company that introduced the world to auction-based advertising, where the market determines the price for ads and advertisers pay for results. Mr. Schmidt once called TV advertising "the last bastion of unaccountable spending in corporate America."

Yet two years later, hell seems to be freezing over on a more regular basis. While far from commonplace, Google videos -- they don't call them ads -- are cropping up more frequently on TV during shows like "The Big Bang Theory," "Futurama" and "The Voice." Google has even bought event-programming such as Game 7 of the World Series, where it placed a video about a music teacher who uses search to learn how to pitch a perfect game on PlayStation (and wins $1 million). Google's Lady Gaga spot for its Chrome web browser ran on "Saturday Night Live" (on the night she performed) and on the Billboard Music Awards on ABC. Another spot for Chrome, the "Johnny Cash Project," aired during Monday Night Football on the eighth anniversary of his death.

So far, Google has placed 13 different ads on TV over the past year, some getting multiple airings in different markets. Perhaps most memorably, Dan Savage's moving "It Gets Better" spot debuted during "Glee" on Fox.

The Lady Gaga spot for its Chrome web browser ran on 'SNL' on the night she performed.

Google has no dedicated TV budget, but TV and other traditional media is figuring more prominently in its strategies, a huge shift from a year ago, when Google mostly used its own properties such as AdWords and YouTube to promote its products. What happened? Google has transformed from a company grounded almost entirely in search into one that builds and powers an increasing array of consumer brands such as Chrome, Google+, Android and its cloud apps.



"When I took over marketing at Google three years ago, there was no marketing," said VP Lorraine Twohill. Since then, she's built marketing staffs -- and budgets -- in 40 countries. As Ad Age sibling publication Creativity recently put it, "2011 was the year the once-famous-for-not-marketing brand became famous for its marketing."

Along the way, Google is developing its own particular style based on the idea that products should prove themselves in the market. It's a philosophy shared by Google's famously marketing-averse co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin. "I think that the founders always had an enormous bias toward products proving themselves," said Andy Berndt, managing director of Google Creative Lab, which oversees brand storytelling at Google. "It puts pressure on all of us to create products people would share."
Read more http://adage.com/article/news/anti-marketer-google-embraced-marketing/230846/

Google: Microsoft uses patents when products "stop succeeding"

A Google patent lawyer says that the patent system is broken, and he accuses Microsoft of abusing the system. Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, Google's Tim Porter pointed to Microsoft'sattacks on Linux as an example of its broader corporate strategy.

"When their products stop succeeding in the marketplace, when they get marginalized, as is happening now with Android, they use the large patent portfolio they've built up to get revenue from the success of other companies' products," he said.

Microsoft has argued that the patent royalties it seeks from Android vendors are part of the natural evolution of a new industry. Porter disagrees.

"Microsoft was our age when it got its first software patent," he said. "I don't think they experienced this kind of litigation in a period when they were disrupting the established order. So I don't think it's historically inevitable."

Of course, the reason Microsoft didn't have to worry about patents during its first dozen years was because the courts and the patent office didn't allow patents on software until the 1980s. Indeed, the idea of patents on software alarmed Bill Gates, who wrote in 1991 (when Microsoft was already older than Google is now) that "the industry would be at a complete standstill" if software had been eligible for patent protection in the early days of the industry. He worried that "some large company will patent some obvious thing," enabling the company to "take as much of our profits as they want."

Today, Google finds itself in exactly the predicament Gates warned about 20 years ago. The Chronicle asked Porter the obvious question: should software be patentable? Porter refused to give a straight answer "There are certainly arguments" that copyright protection is "more appropriate" for the software industry, he said. But he would only say that "the current system is broken," and that there has been "a 10- or 15-year period when the issuance of software patents was too lax."

Porter pointed to the 2007 Teleflex decision as an important step toward reform. In that case, the Supreme Court raised the bar for obviousness and encouraged patent examiners to use common sense to reject obvious patents.

Yet in the four years since that decision, both the rate at which patents are granted and the amount of patent litigation has continued to skyrocket. Porter said he hoped the Supreme Court's decision would "put some teeth" in the law, but there's no sign that it has.

Read more http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/google-microsoft-uses-patents-when-products-stop-succeeding.ars

An accidental social media phenomenon emerges from the Occupy Oakland general strike

Few people would know the name Spencer Mills or be able to identify his face.

But tens of thousands of online viewers around the world would recognize his online alias, OakFoSho. Nearly 60,000 have tuned into his video stream of the violence that erupted after Wednesday's Occupy Oakland general strike. Many heard Mills narrating in the early hours of Thursday while tear gas filled the middle of the city's downtown district.

That the images appeared jerky and blurry dissuaded no one. They could see the flames, the police, the protesters and the boom of the tear gas canisters exploding, all live. The experience provided a new twist to the old Gil Scott-Heron political song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."

Mills live-streamed with nothing more than a Motorola Droid X smartphone equipped with an 8-megapixel camera and Web access.

"It was intense. I was just standing there with a camera," Mills said.

"It was social media at its best," he said Thursday, sitting on the stairs of City Hall plaza shortly before midnight.

He had wrapped up streaming an Oakland City Council meeting convened to discuss the Occupy Oakland movement. Mills had only slept a few hours the night before.

Mills said he considers himself a supporter of the Occupy movement whose role is to document it as a citizen journalist.

But the 29-year-old Oakland native still seemed surprised by his accidental notoriety.

Read more http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_19278376

Warning After Antony Golec Twitter Shame

EXCLUSIVE: After the weekend's homophobia-row tweets by Adelaide United's Antony Golec, one former A-League star has warned players not to let emotions get the better of them on social media.

Defender Golec, 21, is in hot water after tweeting a rant against A-League referee Ben Williams peppered with references to his sexuality on Saturday night.

Williams was officiating in the heated 2-2 draw between Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar at Etihad Stadium, a match where he dismissed Victory keeper Ante Covic and Matthew Foschini both before half-time.

Like many Victory fans inside the stadium, Golec was incensed by the dismissals while watching the match on Fox Sports.

The former Sydney FC youth player sent out two tweets, which the club later claimed were intended to be private messages to his brother - but were instead seen by all his hundreds of followers.

In the first tweet, he described Williams as the 'worst referee ever', but then went a step further, using homosexual references as a means of abusing the official.

One of the first A-League identities on Twitter was Lawrie McKinna. He joined the social media platform as coach of Central Coast and now has over 2000 followers.

These days he is a media personality but said if he was in the A-League he would be bound by a code of conduct. And that’s what players need to understand.

“You have to understand what your job is and what the outcome could be. Sometimes you maybe want to say something but because of your contract you can’t say what you feel like.

“I know the fans want to hear what you say but you have a code of conduct and you have to stick by it.. so sometimes you have to just take a deep breath.

“I can say on Twitter I think the referee’s had a poor game but I’m not employed at a club. If I was I wouldn’t do it. I’d overstep the line.”

Former Sydney FC star Mark Rudan said players need to understand the ramifications of what you write on Twitter and other social media.

Rudan, who recently joined Twitter, said football was a passionate sport but that has to be taken out of what you tweet.

“You’ve just got to be carerful and take the emotion out of it sometimes," he told au.fourfourtwo.com.

A week earlier Golec’s side were thumped 7-1 by Roar, perhaps adding to the player's anger as he watched the referee issue two reds.

“We all get emotional watching games whether that’s on the field or off it," said Rudan. "One thing to remember once you write something, it’s there forever, so just remember that.

“People can always go look back to what you wrote be it yesterday or longer, people will always know what you wrote. So be careful what you write.

“Sometimes referees don’t get it right but we all have to understand that. And perhaps that second red card to Foschini disrupted the game."

Adelaide United have already required Golec to send a letter of apology to Williams before meeting with club chief executive Glenn Elliott today.

Sanctions are expected and the club are said to be furious about the tweets.The FFA have also yet to rule on the embarrassing debacle, but Golec may face a charge of bringing the game into disrepute.

Adelaide United are reportedly now considering a Twitter ban for all players at the club.

But McKinna belive all players wioll have learnt an important lessons from the row.

He added: "There are still certain things that you can and can't do and the players all know that. My advice is to just take a deep breath first..."

Ginnifer Goodwin on Twitter during Once Upon a Time Snow Falls

Fans of "Once Upon a Time" and Ginnifer Goodwin will have the chance to interact with the actress on Twitter on Sunday, November 6, 2011, during the live broadcast of the show, according to a November 3, 2011 announcement from ABC. Goodwin will be on Twitter during the East Coast broadcast of "Once Upon a Time," 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET.

Ginnifer Goodwin will be on Twitter at @ginnygoodwin on Sunday night. Fans will be able to submit questions and receive real-tim responses from Goodwin, who portrays Snow White/Mary Margaret. Goodwin will also offer commentary and behind the scenes anecdotes about working on the new hit fantasy series.

On Sunday's episode, "Snow Falls," at Henry's urging, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) convinces Mary Margaret to pay a visit to a comatose John Doe (Josh Dallas) in the hospital and to read to him from the storybook. But Mary Margaret is stunned at the outcome of her visit. Meanwhile, back in the fairytale world that was, Prince Charming meets Snow White for the first time in a most unexpected way.

"Once Upon a Time" stars Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White/Mary Margaret, Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan, Robert Carlyle as Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold, Lana Parrilla as Evil Queen/Regina, Jared Gilmore as Henry Mills, Josh Dallas as Prince Charming/John Doe and Raphael Sbarge as Jiminy Cricket/Archie Hopper

Continue reading on Examiner.com Ginnifer Goodwin on Twitter during Once Upon a Time Snow Falls - National Cable TV | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/cable-tv-in-national/ginnifer-goodwin-on-twitter-during-once-upon-a-time-snow-falls#ixzz1czLoP7uo

Geeked: Groupon gets fat and Facebook won't be far behind

How to make a bazillion dollars: Create an Internet company, nurse it through a shaky economy and a torrent of criticism about a not-so-unique business model, and then, after a delay or two, go public.

Boom. You're set for life.

At least, that's how it works if you're the folks at Groupon, who literally got to watch their wallets grow fatter on Friday when the shares of their newly public company ate the NASDAQ exchange for lunch.

How big did Groupon go? As of midday Friday -- which is when I was forced to re-write the column because I figured I should talk about this -- shares were trading at around $30, up from the initial public offering price of $20 and up from about $10 as NASDAQ opened its day.

At the IPO price, Groupon was valued at around $12.7 billion; at midday Friday, that had grown to something close to $19 billion. And you can't tell me that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hasn't noticed.

But we'll get to that in a second. The astonishing numbers aside, the remarkable thing about Groupon's big day has been that it was accomplished in the face of plenty of doubt. The Groupon folks aren't the only ones offering daily coupon deals -- and their newest competitor, Google Offers, has some heft behind it -- but they were first, so it's safe to assume that helps. Still, is that a sustainable business for a newly public company?

Add to that the fact that Groupon hasn't done well recently. The company reported declining revenue through much of the year, and its leadership was concerned enough about the current state of the economy to delay the IPO for a while, giving the company enough time to visit with analysts and potential investors to try to get everyone to simmer down.

Another interesting thing about the apparent success of Groupon's IPO? The Wall Street Journal noted that if Groupon is able to hold on to the gains it made on Friday, it could set the stage for additional IPOs in the near future. And that's where Zuckerberg and Facebook come in.

FB has long been subject to speculation about an IPO, and if the Zuckster and his compadres view Groupon's success as an endorsement by investors, they could jump in soon. And they will be a monster when they do.

Google got a makeover

A couple of the most important things Google does, Gmail and Google Reader, both got new looks and new functionality this week. I like some of the new stuff, but overall, the faithful are not pleased. Mail's redesign gives us better-threaded conversations, icons for the people we're talking to, an easier way to switch back and forth between mail and chat, and improved searches. The Reader, which allows users to assemble the RSS feeds they read in one place, also got a cleaner look. The look of both, though, may be too clean for some (including me).

I asked Twitter yesterday, and Twitter was underwhelmed.

@moarhops: "Too. Much. Nothing."

@shireman: "Too much whitespace."

I got a couple gripes about some specific changes to Reader as well:

@cfenton23: "We had a group of 5-6 friends who would comment on each other's Reader stories and debate topics. Sad they removed that feature."

@katrina413 (via Facebook): "Dislike. The scroll bar in Google Reader, when using Chrome, is hidden, and you have to hover over it to see it. It is also half the size it used to be, making it harder to grab, especially with the disappearing act it does."

Read more http://www.timesonline.com/columnists/michael_pound/geeked-groupon-gets-fat-and-facebook-won-t-be-far/article_c0a27cf1-5ffa-5c49-9606-6762a4d23015.html

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to visit three colleges next week

Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going on an East Coast college tour next week. Starting tomorrow, he will visit Carnegie Mellon, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

On Monday, Zuckerberg will visit Harvard and meet with a group of computer science students and Harvard President Drew Faust. Although Facebook already recruits at Harvard, this will be the first time Zuckerberg comes personally since he dropped out of the school to build the social networking giant.

Also on Monday, Zuckerberg plans to make a stop at MIT. The private research university says there will be a brief press availability with Zuckerberg at 12PM EST but wouldn’t give details beyond that.

On Tuesday, Zuckerberg will visit Carnegie Mellon University where he will meet with faculty and students and give a talk to an invitation-only audience. This will also be Zuckerberg’s first visit to Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus.

“We are very excited by the prospect of hosting a visit by Mark Zuckerberg,” Randal E. Bryant, dean of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, said in a statement. “Facebook has profoundly changed the nature of social interactions worldwide. Supporting these interactions requires massive information processing capabilities, for which Facebook has become a leader in advanced computing technology.”

Facebook fails to stop bots accessing personal information: B.C. study

VANCOUVER — A study by researchers at the University of British Columbia found that Facebook’s security system failed to stop a large-scale infiltration in which computer-generated fake Facebook profiles collected personal information about thousands of Facebook users.

In a paper to be presented at next month’s Annual Computer Security Applications Conference in Orlando, Florida, the researchers said they collected 250 gigabytes of information from Facebook users by using socialbots — fake Facebook profiles created and controlled by computer code.

The fake Facebookers, who were set up with names, photos and computer-generated status updates, sent friend requests to about 5,000 random Facebook users. When people accepted those friend requests, the socialbots followed up by putting out friend requests to friends of the initial group.

As a result, it took only eight weeks for researchers to acquire 250 gigabytes of personal information from Facebook users.

“This data include email addresses, phone numbers, and other profile information, all of which have monetary value,” the researchers — Yazan Boshmaf, Ildar Muslukhov, Konstantin Beznosov and Matei Ripeanu — wrote in their paper, The Socialbot Network: When Bots Socialize for Fame and Money.

The data breaches weren’t limited to the infiltrated accounts but spread to other connected accounts.

“Unfortunately, this also includes the private data of users who have not been infiltrated, but are connected to infiltrated users,” the study said.

The researchers found that even operating the socialbot network (SbN) at a conservative pace, each socialbot could collect on average 175 new chunks of publicly inaccessible data per day.

The study suggests the ease with which the fictitious Facebook users could join the network and expand their sphere of influence means online social networks are vulnerable not only to data theft but to misinformation campaigns.

The UBC study suggests that many Facebook users will friend total strangers.

“Most OSN users are not careful enough when accepting connection requests sent by strangers, especially when they have mutual connections,” the researchers said. “This behaviour can be exploited to achieve a large-scale infiltration with a success rate of up to 80 per cent.”

Socialbots can command a high price tag. The researchers, who had 102 socialbots and one bot master in their Facebook infiltration, said socialbots command as much as $29 each on the Internet black market.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Facebook+fails+stop+bots+accessing+personal+information+study/5666344/story.html#ixzz1czLAOFDV

Anonymous says Facebook threat rumor not true

Don't worry Facebook users, the sky is not falling--you'll be able to update your status and post those Occupy Wall Street photos tomorrow.

Members of Anonymous fed up with reports that the online activist group is going to take down the social network said today that the threat is not real and was the work of one lone member without any support from others in the group. They said it doesn't make sense to shut down a site they use to get their message out.

"Anonymous is a movement we don't take kindly to when people try to (expletive) it up. Our movement relies on communicating with people around the world so we can help one another," a statement posted to Pastebin today said.

"One skiddy queer chap named Anthony [last name redacted] from the US in Ohio decided to take it upon himself to have some lulz with creating an imaginary opfacebook and pawning it off as a legit anon op," the statement said. "Despite us telling this mate several times we did not support his op, he continued to push his agenda for lulz. This op is phony but he continues to say it's an anon op."

The statement then provides an address, phone number, and other information ostensibly belonging to the individual named. (We've chosen not to include his last name in this post.)

"If you are against how we communicate on facebook, twitter, and anonops for example then you are against anonymous and become our enemy since you are trying to disrupt our movement," the statement says. "Because of this we decided to social the Opfacebook skiddy and hack him. Give this wanker a call and tell him what a piece of rubbish he is."

A woman who answered the phone number listed in the statement said Anthony was not there and wasn't involved with Anonymous. No doubt she'll be getting a lot of prank calls this weekend.

Anonymous sources and people familiar with the group have previously told CNET that the campaign against Facebook was the work of a rogue member and not a legitimate threat.

This case brings up the difficulty of dealing with a movement that lacks leaders and whose members are all nameless and faceless. If Anonymous can be anyone and no one is identified then no one is accountable for anything and anyone can take an action in the name of Anonymous. Some kid in his parent's house in Ohio can make a threat that causes a media frenzy and public panic for naught.

Meanwhile, some threats made by Anonymous members can pose all-too-real risks to human life. Members of Anonymous in Mexico canceled a threat against the Zetas drug cartel after the return of an Anonymous member who was kidnapped. The message that innocent people would die if Anonymous exposed any information on cartel associates also played a part in that decision.

Learning to pick your battles is wise.

In an email exchange with CNET, Anthony said he did not launch OpFacebook; he merely created the OpFacebook page on Facebook and populated it with information from other sources. "I have been used as a scape goat, nothing more nor less," he said.

Read more http://asia.cnet.com/crave/anonymous-says-facebook-threat-rumor-not-true-62211904.htm

Disney and YouTube Make a Video Deal

LOS ANGELES — Two powerful media companies, the Walt Disney Company and YouTube, are betting that a new partnership will help them surmount separate but equally worrisome hurdles as they each strive for greater Web dominance.

The deal, set to be announced on Monday, is small on its surface: Disney Interactive Media and YouTube, a division of Google, will spend a combined $10 million to $15 million on original video series; those shorts will be produced by Disney and distributed on a co-branded channel on Disney.com and YouTube. The channel will also include amateur video culled from the torrent uploaded to YouTube daily.

But the alliance is striking because of what it tacitly acknowledges about each company’s weaknesses.

Disney, currently working on yet another overhaul of its Web site, is conceding that its own brand is not a powerful enough draw among children looking for video online; YouTube is viewed as being cooler.

So in a reversal of a go-it-alone Web strategy, Disney will go fishing for youngsters on YouTube in addition to making YouTube a prominent part of its own site — something that the company hopes will coax children to stay longer.

“It’s imperative to go where our audience is,” said James A. Pitaro, co-president of Disney Interactive. He added that the idea is to “bring Disney’s legacy of storytelling to a new generation of families and Disney enthusiasts on the platforms they prefer.”

Disney Interactive has been losing money — over $300 million in the last four quarters — and Mr. Pitaro, part of a new leadership team at the division, is under pressure to create Web videos that can be monetized quickly. Disney.com’s traffic has also been dropping at an alarming rate. Unique visitors totaled 12.7 million in September, down from 17.9 million in June, according to the measurement company comScore. Seasonality does affect traffic to some degree.

YouTube hopes to gain something from the Disney brand as well, namely credibility among parents, many of whom aren’t thrilled at setting their younger children loose on a site where the videos can be ragged and provocative and the comments even more so. The company wants to compete with cable television for ad dollars by adding more professional videos.
Teaming with a Hollywood heavyweight significantly advances that goal. Studios have been reticent to provide Google with free Web material.

Read more http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/business/media/disney-and-youtube-make-a-video-deal.html?_r=1

Lefkofsky as Would-Be Schmidt Tested at Groupon After IPO: Tech

Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Eric Lefkofsky prodded Andrew Mason in 2008 into giving up work on a website called The Point to focus on a successor project -- an e-commerce company called Groupon Inc.

Lefkofsky had invested $1 million in The Point, a site that helps aspiring activists raise funds and build petition lists, and he fretted that his investment wasn’t panning out, people familiar with the matter said. That’s when Mason began work on Groupon.

Three years on, with Groupon valued at $16.7 billion after an initial public offering, Lefkofsky as executive chairman still calls many shots alongside Mason, who represents the company’s public face. Lefkofsky’s outspoken manner has drawn regulatory scrutiny, and his mixed record at other startups may leave some investors reluctant to buy shares of Groupon as it faces rising competition from Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc., said Kris Tuttle, chief executive officer of Research 2.0.

“He’s a guy that makes a good entrepreneur, a startup guy,” said Tuttle, whose Boston-based firm researches technology investments. “To get to your first $20 million, you can have all the color you want, and he’s got that. But now, you’re talking about a public company that’s going to take direct competition from Amazon and Google.”

With Groupon’s stock rising 31 percent on the Nov. 4 debut, Lefkofsky, 42, must demonstrate that he can provide the oversight the company needs to fend off bigger rivals while chasing profitability. He would follow in the tradition of Google Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt, who helped guide founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin through the search engine’s 2004 IPO.

Management Growth Needed

Groupon owed almost twice as much to merchants at the end of September as it held in cash. Marketing costs rose 37 percent in the latest quarter, four times as quickly as its cash pile. And rivals’ discounts are putting pressure on Groupon’s margins, according to researcher PrivCo.

“They have to prove that they’re a real company, that they can continue growing,” Jeff Clavier, founder of SoftTech VC in Palo Alto, California, and a Groupon shareholder, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “We’ll see whether the management team can grow into a public company management team.”

Lefkofsky, the largest shareholder with a 17 percent stake, keeps an office on the seventh floor of Groupon headquarters in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, one level above where CEO Mason sits. While he oversees Lightbank LLC, a technology incubator that has invested in almost 20 companies, Groupon occupies a majority of his time, according to people close to the company.

Culture of Debate

Lefkofsky is frequently seen drinking coffee in the hallways and meeting rooms at Groupon. He attends the weekly “National Deals” meeting, where the company plans widespread discounts designed to raise its profile.

The gatherings act as a stage for what Mason, 31, has referred to internally as a “culture of debate,” where most proposals are met with objections from Lefkofsky or someone on the executive team, say people close to the company. In one meeting, Chief Financial Officer Jason Child called Mason and Lefkofsky a “married couple” because of their tendency to bicker, according to a person familiar with the matter.

While no business unit reports directly to Lefkofsky, the chairman moves between several functions in the company, including legal affairs, mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and fundraising, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Read more http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-07/lefkofsky-as-would-be-schmidt-tested-at-groupon-after-ipo-tech.html

Google Moves To Encrypt Web Search Referral Traffic With SSL Secure Socket Layers

(Long Island, N.Y.) On October 18, 2011 Google Inc. announced on their blog that they would begin encrypting search engine results behind an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connection for any users signed into their Google accounts while using Google.com. The official Google blog noted: “As part of our commitment to provide a more secure online experience, today we announced that SSL Search on https://www.google.comwill become the default experience for signed in users on google.com.” As this change encrypts search queries from Google’s results pages, which the company claims is intended to provide improved user privacy, many familiar with the search industry question the change as the protection doesn’t extend out to pay-per-click advertisements, just algorithmic search results. Adding to the speculation is the fact that Google already offers an encrypted version of search provided a user has an interest in protecting them.

The change took place the same day as the announcement hit Google’s blog whereas anyone logged into their Google account would automatically be redirected from http://www.google.com to https://www.google.com (take notice the https://). The URLs look quite similar, but beyond the surface much more takes place. To understand what happens and how this changes effects long standing principles with the Internet, marketers and search engine optimizers, one needs to understand what exactly happens when someone performs a search.

When a user visits the previously default version of Google.com which is hosted athttp://www.google.com, any search which is performed will inevitably lead to a click onto a web site. That click would return the time, date, IP address and entry point for that visitor provided that web site operator has opted to receive it. In other words, if you performed a web search for “keyword” and landed on a web site, that web site owner which received the visit would have access to a record within their web site software looking something like “http://www.google.com/search?q=keyword”. This data would be found within their web site statistic logs and could show that someone had found that page by visiting Google.com and typing in the word “keyword” then clicking search. A site owners could also drill down to valuable information about the time, date, computer network (like Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, etc.), and general geographic area where that search was performed say Los Angeles. This information has been invaluable to marketers over the years as someone providing a local service could see how relevant their web pages are while measuring where search engine traffic is coming from. For instance, one small example of how this referral data can be used would be indicated by a user entering a geographically targeted query like “Long Island Plumber” or “Los Angeles Windshield Replacement” and a site operator could not only tell that Internet raffic is being delivered by search engines for that particular keyword, but they could also see if these pages are performing better in local markets verses national searches by the location of the majority of users. This information has been invaluable for web marketers over the years while not disclosing any web site visitors identity individually.

Read more http://www.newsli.com/2011/11/06/google-moves-to-encrypt-web-search-referral-traffic-with-ssl-secure-socket-layers/

MARIE CURIE GOOGLE DOODLE: Art celebrates birthday of Nobel Prize-winning pioneer

TO HONOR ONE of the most enduringly inspiring scientists ever to grace a lab, France and Poland declared 2011 to be the Year of Marie Curie.

Now, Google joins the welcome pageant of prominent tributes.

The California company's search-engine home page on Nov. 7 celebrates the 144th anniversary of Madame Curie's birth with a pastel-colored "Google Doodle" so evocative of her era.

Curie is the latest science figure to join Google's pantheon of "Doodled" researchers, including Thomas Edison and "father of genetics" Gregor Mendel and "Vitamin C" scientist Albert Szent-Györgyi.

The laurels accorded Curie are numerous and still accumulating a century after she won her second Nobel Prize -- the first of only two people ever to win the prize in multiple fields (the other being Linus Pauling). She was also the first woman ever to win the Nobel, and the first researcher to win in multiple sciences (physics and chemistry). But the breadth and depth and influence of her career -- as well as the triumphs and tragedies of her life -- paint a much fuller picture of the groundbreaking figure who in a 2009 New Scientist poll was voted "the most inspirational woman in science."

Read more http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/marie-curie-google-doodle-art-celebrates-birthday-of-nobel-prize-winning-pioneer/2011/11/07/gIQAYsfHuM_blog.html

Google to Tap K-Pop Boom on YouTube Channel

Google Inc. (GOOG) may start a video streaming service on YouTube for South Korean pop music, tapping the genre’s worldwide popularity.

The channel on Google’s free video site would help spread the “Korean Wave” and cement ties between the world’s largest search engine operator and South Korea, Chairman Eric Schmidt told South Korean President Lee Myung Bak in a meeting in Seoul today, according to a statement from Lee’s office. No timetable for the service was included. Lee asked Schmidt to “actively” cooperate with South Korean technology companies.

A new service dedicated to K-Pop would build on the popularity of music and television dramas originating in the country, home to Google’s biggest Android operating system partner Samsung Electronics Co. and where the search engine operator is facing antitrust complaints. Videos of South Korean idol groups such as Girls Generation and Super Junior have generated tens of millions of views worldwide on YouTube.

The statement didn’t mention the antitrust complaints.

NHN Corp. (035420) and Daum Communications Corp., operators of South Korea’s two largest Internet search sites, said in April that Google blocked local phone carriers and manufacturers from embedding their search applications in devices using the Android system.

Google’s Seoul office was raided by South Korea’s competition watchdog as part of a probe resulting from the April complaints, a person familiar with the investigation said in September.

Robin Moroney, a Tokyo-based spokesman for Google, and Kwag Se Boong, a Seoul-based spokesman for the Fair Trade Commission, declined at the time to say whether the raid took place.

Schmidt also met today with SK Telecom Co. Chief Executive Officer Ha Sung Min and discussed cooperation in wireless payments and social-networking services, the Seoul-based mobile- phone carrier said in a statement.

Google’s plans in South Korea also include services to make starting a business easier, according to the statement, which didn’t elaborate on the services.

Kansas City’s Google superhighway has unclear destinations

OK, Kansas City. You’ve been promised special Google goodies.

Now, whatcha gonna do when the search engine company finally hooks you up to an oh-so-fast Internet?

Short answer: Nobody knows.

Last week, Kansas City may have gotten a hint that Google will bundle its plan to include a cablelike television package with the Internet service. That might get more homes to sign up for the search giant’s offerings, but it doesn’t say how the ultrafast Internet might change other aspects of our lives.

That’s not stopping a growing collection of ad hoc groups in the area from noodling over how to make magic from the coming super-cyber connections.

People looking at the possibilities talk broadly, and often vaguely, about how Internet speeds of one gigabit per second surely can help jet-power distance learning and telemedicine.

“Nobody totally has their arms around this,” said former Kansas City Council member Mike Burke. He’s co-chairman of a committee drawn from Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo., to find ways to put Google’s fiber optic connections to use. “There are great expectations that it’s going to change life as we know it overnight. That’s not the case. It’s how we grab the opportunity.”

Several groups are grappling with how to leverage Google’s project to give Kansas City an economic edge over other markets. The Kansas City Social Media Club held a symposium earlier this fall to generate brainstorming on the possibilities. It plans to present findings this week on how a faster Internet might help.

The Kauffman Foundation has launched KCGigIdeas.com to help understand what the service might be like and collect notions for creating something special. Among its early suggestions: making the city a hub for videoconferencing; streaming high-definition video of concerts and sporting events; or as a way to do online psychoanalysis.

“We want to let a thousand flowers bloom,” said Cameron Cushman, a senior adviser at Kauffman. “We want to find ideas and turn them into companies.”

Meantime, the Gigabit Challenge has pieced together a prize it values at $100,000 for the best fledgling business or business idea to capitalize on Google Fiber. The contest is a project of local technology start-up incubator Think Big Partners and is taking applications through GigabitChallenge.com. It’s accepting executive summaries of those ideas, the first stage of the contest, through Nov. 18.

So far the entries include plans for transporting medical data and know-how to Africa and using the fat data pipes to establish virtual business campuses and networks for home schooling. Many of the ideas, like those popping up at KCGigIdeas.com, don’t necessarily become more practical with gigabit speeds.

Tyler Prochnow, executive director of the contest, said the entries show a range of sophistication and reflect excitement about Google Fiber. But even he says no single suggestion has emerged as a no-miss proposition reliant on the rocket speed Google promises.

“But I’m not sure if I’d seen Facebook at first that I’d have seen it as a winner,” he said. “There may not be any one simple thing that simply because you have the bandwidth changes the world. But because the bandwidth exists, it opens up people to ideas.”

Those ideas, though, run into questions.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/06/3252079/kcs-google-superhighway-has-unclear.html#ixzz1czJnXwSA

Samsung Focus Flash And Focus S Now Available From AT&T

The latest Windows Phone smartphones from Samsung are now available on US mobile carrier AT&T, the Samsung Focus S and the Samsung Focus Flash, and both devices come with Windows Phone 7.5 Mango.

The Samsung Focus S features a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display, and processing is provided by a single core 1.4GHz processor there is also an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front facing 1.3 megapixel camera, it is available from AT&T for $199.99 when you sign up to a new two year contract.

The Samsung Focus Flash comes with a 3.7 inch Super AMOLED display, there is also a single core 1.4GHz processor, a 5 megapixel camera on the back and a front facing camera for video chat, it will set you back $49.99 when you sign up to a new two year contract with AT&T.

Source Pocket Now

Samsung GALAXY Nexus could launch November 21st on Verizon, according to roadmap

A leaked Verizon memo showing "Upcoming Product Launches" gives us a lot of information about future release dates. First off, the memo confirms the 11/11 launch for the Motorola DROID RAZR. We've heard that some stores might welcome your DROID RAZR business on November 10th, but we would suggest that you make a phone call first to check.

More importantly, it now looks like the Samsung GALAXY Nexus will beat the Black Friday deadline with a launch the week before, November 21st. Many have been citing the pure Google experience of the phone as the reason they will select this model over the Motorola DROID RAZR or the HTC Rezound. The latter device, which will feature the special Beats by Dr. Dre headphones and the special Beats technology for audio. According to the leaked roadmap, the HTC Rezound will be rolled out to the masses on November 14th.

Other smartphones listed on the memo include the Samsung Illusion, scheduled for a November 17th launch. This is a low to mid-end Android device that will be released the same day as the BlackBerry Curve 9370. The latter is a world phone for RIM that runs BlackBerry 7 OS.

Basic phones listed on the roadmap include the Casio G'zOne Ravine 2 (November 17th), Verizon Adamant (December 1) and the LG Extravert (12/8). Tablets are also given a nod of the head with an 8 inch Motorola tablet (most likely the Motorola XOOM Media Edition) and the Motorola XOOM 2 listed for the same day-November 30th.

HTC Vivd and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket Now Available from AT&T

AT&T’s 4G LTE portfolio got a boost in number over the weekend with the release of the HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. The handsets are available at $199.99 for the Vivid and $249.99 for the Skyrocket, though the phones have been given sale prices off only $99.99 and $149.99 respectively in some regions. Both Android 2.3 handsets run on dual-core processors — clocked at 1.2GHz for the Vivd and 1.5GHz for the Skyrocket — and feature the large displays typical of current high-end Android devices. Head over to the links below to pick up your own.

AT&T drops HTC Vivid & Samsung Skyrocket prices by $100

When AT&T announced its first smartphones to take advantage of its new fancy-pants LTE network, a few balked at the $199 and $249 prices for the HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, respectively. Well, rejoice bargain hunters: the price for each has dropped by a cool $100. That makes the Vivid just $99.99 and the Skyrocket $149.99 – not bad for a pair of phones with specs that are just shy of the top of the line.

AT&T didn’t give a reason for the price drop, but it’s likely that a lot of people weren’t thrilled at the prospect of paying a considerable premium for LTE. After all, the LTE portion of the network still only extends to a handful of metro markets, and if you don’t live in one, a modest bump up from other Android phones like the Galaxy S II and Inspire 4G doesn’t really warrant the increased price. Curiously, the reduction makes the Galaxy S II Skyrocket $50 less than the plane-Jane version of the Galaxy S II. If you’re an AT&T customer who wants a GSII, there’s no reason not to go with the Skyrocket.

The price drop is currently only showing up on the online phone pages themselves – for some reason, the price drop isn’t showing up on the generic Smartphone page. That might mean that the deal isn’t for retail stores, or that it’s simply a promotional price. Either way, they’re great deals, assuming that you’re in the market and your 2-year contract is up.

Read more http://androidcommunity.com/att-drops-htc-vivid-samsung-skyrocket-prices-by-100-20111106/

Samsung Galaxy S2 Release Date: LTE Version Now Available on AT&T

The Samsung Galaxy S2 rereleased on the AT&T network Nov. 6 as one of the network's first 4G LTE powered smartphones

AT&T released the device under the variant name Skyrocket, along with the LTE version of the HTC Vivid.

The specifications of the Galaxy S2 Skyrocket LTE include a 4.5-inch display, 1.5GHz dual-core processor,Android 2.3.5, Gingerbread, 8-megapixel rear camera with 1080p HD recording, 2-megapixel front facing shooter, 16 GB of built-in storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC.

The Skyrocket LTE retails at $249.99 with a two-year contract and data plan.

AT&T's data plans include DataPlus that provides 200 megabytes of data for $15 per month and DataPro that provide 2 GB of data for $25 per month.

Technology Website BetaNews noted that several Galaxy S2 owners on the AT&T network might have a dilemma with the release of the Skyrocket variant.

The original AT&T Galaxy S2 released on Oct. 2, and it is now outside AT&T's 30-day return period. Galaxy S2 owners who bought their handsets a little over one month ago would have to sign a completely new contract on order to buy the Skyrocket at $249.99.

BetaNews suggested that upgrading to the LTE and HSPA+ model from the HSPA+ only model could be a worthwhile investment.

AT&T is constantly expanding its LTE availability. Besides Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio where AT&T's LTE capability is currently available, the network introduced the service to Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Athens and Boston on Nov. 6.

The HTC Vivid retails at $199.99 with a two-year contract. Its specifications include a 4.5-inch qHD display, 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, an enhanced 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video recording and 16 GB of built-in storage.

comScore: Samsung, Android Tops Among Cell Users

Reston, Va- Samsung remained the top cellphone brand used by U.S. cellular subscribers ages 13 and up in the three-month period ending September, and the Android operating system continued to gain share among smartphone users during that time, comScore found.

In surveying more than 30,000 subscribers during the three-month period, comScore determined that Samsung was the top cellphone brand in use with 25.3 percent market share (see table 1) Google's Android OS was tops in smartphone OS share at 44.8 percent(see table 2).

During the three-month period, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices, the survey of on-line users found. With Samsung taking top brand share among those users, LG followed with 20.6 percent share, and Motorola placed third at 13.8 percent. Apple's share rose sequentially from the prior three-month period, rising to 10.2 percent from 8.9 percent. RIM's share slipped sequentially from 7.9 percent to 7.1 percent.

In the smartphone market, comScore found that 87.4 million people ages 13 and up were using a smartphone, representing 37.4 percent of all cellphone users. The number of smartphone users rose 12 percent from the preceding three-month period.

The Android OS ranked as the top smartphone platform with 44.8 percent market share among smartphone users, up 4.6 percentage points from the previous three-month period. Apple took second place, increasing its share by 0.8 percentage points to account for 27.4 percent of smartphones in use. RIM came in third with 18.9 percent share, down 4.6 percentage points from the preceding three months. Microsoft came in fourth with 5.6 percent, and Symbian ranked fifth with 1.8 percent.
Read more http://www.twice.com/article/476333-comScore_Samsung_Android_Tops_Among_Cell_Users.php

Samsung’s Bada 2.0 on the Wave III hands on

TRYING OUT Samsung's Bada 2.0 mobile operating system (OS) we had a strong sense of deja vu, like we'd definitely seen it somewhere before, but where?

Yes, the new version of Bada looks a lot like Android, and its functionality is pretty similar. Plus, it has its own version of Apple's Siri built in, as well as a folders option that reminds us distinctly of IOS 5.

We tried the latest version of Bada on a preview copy of the Samsung Wave III, which is due out later this year and is likely to be the first handset featuring the new Bada 2.0 OS.

New features of Bada 2.0 include enhanced user interface controls, app ads, push notifications and web technology.

It also has an updated look and feel with a colour picker, date-time picker, context menu and list view, and the clipboard allows copy and paste.

Bada 2.0 has enhanced face recognition technology for the camera, while multitasking adds inter-application communication to allow easier communication between apps. Near field communications (NFC) is built into the SDK. For web developers there's a new web framework and the ability to use HTML files.

Bada 2.0 has live panels and widgets that you can customise, you can also add your contacts to the bottom of the screen, and you can drag the widgets onto the home screen. We were pleased when we saved a new contact and it gave us the option to add it to the home screen. Very handy when it comes to fast dialling.

Another addition to Bada 2.0 is the ability to use folders. To create a folder, we either dragged the item into a folder or pressed two things at once. This was pretty straightforward and quite satisfying, although it's not like it's anything new.

Meanwhile, the addition of voice commands is like a poor man's Siri. It allows you to send texts, email, update Facebook or search Google. We can't say we were very impressed with this. We compared it to Siri on the Iphone 4S by asking it a number of questions. It didn't answer.

Admittedly, we've had problems with Siri understanding our British accent, but Bada's version barely listened to our commands. More work is needed here.

The social hub is also a new feature of Bada 2.0 and allows you to look at Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and the like all on the same feed. We can't say it's particularly impressive either, since such a feature is available on many smartphones and operating systems.

Overall, Bada 2.0 is okay. It looks like Android, with a touch of Apple's IOS thrown in for good measure. However, it's easy to use and the folders option is nice, as is the fact that it's so customisable. Samsung just needs to add some more original features to its own OS.

The Korean phone maker's mission now will be to get developers on board, and maybe, just maybe, the Bada OS will finally take off. µ

Source:http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/2123127/samsung-s-bada-wave-iii-hands

Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0

First, stick with me here: I'm going to be comparing this device to the iPod touch a lot in this review. That's because the touch is the Galaxy Player's main competitor. Neither device is a simple, dedicated MP3 player like the Editors' Choice SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip ($49.99, 4 stars); rather, they're smartphones with the phone yanked out of them.

Yes, you could also buy an unlocked Android smartphone such as the Samsung Galaxy Fit S5670 ($239.99 street) or the LG Optimus Me ($200 street), and simply not use the phone capability. But we're assuming you're specifically not looking for a phone here, for instance to avoid wireless carrier data charges.

I'm also writing off products like the Archos 28 Internet Tablet ($79.99, 2.5 stars) because once you've seen the real, Google-approved version of Android on the Galaxy Player, with its Android Market full of apps, you won't want to go back to Archos's app-poor version.


Design and Pricing
Also available in a 5-inch version ($269.99 list, 8GB), the Galaxy Player 4.0 looks and feels just like a member of Samsung's super-popular Galaxy S smartphone family, most notably, theSamsung Vibrant for T-Mobile. It's a plastic slab in black or white, with a bright, 4-inch 800-by-480 LCD on the front above three standard Android touch buttons. At 2.5 by 4.9 by .4 inches and 4.3 ounces, it's the exact size and weight of a high-class smartphone. There's a 3.2-megapixel camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front. Like the Galaxy S devices, the Galaxy Player feels like a well-constructed, quality product.

The base model of the Player costs a little more than the iPod touch: both have 8GB of integrated storage, but the Player costs $229.99 where the touch is $199. Jump up a notch, though, and the Galaxy Player gets cheaper. Because it uses MicroSD memory cards to expand, and a 32GB card (the max the Galaxy Player can handle) only costs about $35 online, a "40GB" Player costs $265 where a non-expandable 32GB touch costs $299.

This is a popular Android theme: Android devices offer you more options than Apple does, but you have to make an extra effort. You can create a "72GB" Galaxy Player by swapping two 32GB cards for about $300 compared with the 64GB iPod touch's $399, but then you have to keep track of two memory cards. You'll see more examples of Android's flexible-but-complicated ethos in the Galaxy Player's other features too.

Apps and Web
The Galaxy Player 4.0 runs Google's Android 2.3.5 with Samsung's TouchWiz extensions. This means the quarter-million apps that run on Samsung's popular Galaxy S line of phones will all run here. The Galaxy Player 4.0 benchmarked like a midrange Android smartphone, on par in many ways with the iPod touch. You can find pretty much anything you want in the Android Market nowadays, including a very good selection of games.

Along with the Android Market Samsung loads its own app store, Samsung Apps, which offers some apps (like the game Glyder HD) for free, even though they're paid apps elsewhere. You're free to download Amazon's app store, as well, or get apps from Getjar's online app store. The same app can cost different amounts in different stores, so it can pay to shop around. It's that Android choice thing again: more options, but not as clear a path.

You can tell the same story with all sorts of features. The iPod touch has FaceTime; the Galaxy Player has Tango, Fring, and Skype, none of which are as smooth or easy to use as FaceTime. The Touch has GameCenter; the Galaxy Player has various games connected through OpenFeint. The Touch has iCloud; the Galaxy Player has Google services, DoubleTwist's Wi-Fi syncing, and Samsung's Kies Air local syncing. The Touch has iMessage; the Player has WhatsApp and half a dozen competitors. It's all there. There's just more of an onus on the user to download the right apps and put it all together.

Read more http://www.pcmag.com/shop/product/samsung-galaxy-playe/894230134#fbid=Q-bix8U5-5a

Woman who made fake Facebook page for ex should be tried on identity theft charges

Beware a woman scorned, the old saying goes.

We add: Especially if she has a laptop.

Dana Thorton turned Facebook into Defacebook, and now she’s going to find out if she has any friends in a Morris County jury. A Superior Court judge has ruled she must stand trial for identity theft.

Prosecutors say Thorton smeared her ex-boyfriend, a narcotics detective in Parsippany, by creating a Facebook page in his name and, while impersonating the detective, posted admissions that he used drugs, hired prostitutes and contracted herpes. She has pleaded not guilty and faces 18 months in jail.

If prosecutors are right, Thornton apparently was looking for an internet loophole. Rather than post negative comments about her ex and risk a civil lawsuit if they were traced to her, she posted derogatory remarks under his name. And that, prosecutors said, also was a no-no.

The law never will be in step with technological advances. The iPad — or iSmear — world is moving too quickly. Still, lawmakers and courts must decide how America will deal with the anonymity the internet provides, particularly to people with bad intentions.

Certain internet practices, while offensive to some, are accepted as part of our civil liberties. We can call the president an "idiot," and we probably could lampoon him with a Barack Obama Facebook page that included satirical, self-effacing comments. It’s unlikely the FBI would come calling.

But the targeting of regular citizens should be treated differently. We all own our names, and anyone who tries to damage them should be held accountable, if the law applies.

An amendment to the identity theft law that would bar internet impersonation specifically has passed the state Assembly and is now before the state Senate. Proponents say it’s merely a clarification and that current law still applies to this case.

Thorton’s attorney, Richard Roberts, tried to downplay any harm done by the posts: "Everybody in this courtroom has been the victim of somebody saying something nasty about them," he said.

He’s probably right, but sometimes those who make hurtful comments can be — and should be — prosecuted.

Badgeville Eyes Fortune 1000 Facebook Brand Pages

Badgeville is aiming higher with its social gaming technology, looking to bring its badges and widgets to Fortune 1000 companies with Monday’s launch of Behavior Platform.

Behavior Platform is built on top of the company’s Behavior Graph, which allows users to track social behavior in terms of social connections and content within their communities and sites.

Now Badgeville is going after Fortune 1000 companies with its new suite of social reputation, gamification, and social networking solutions, promising to involve employees, partners, developers, and customers in helping to boost engagement, loyalty, revenue, and performance.

Badgeville enables brand managers in industries including e-commerce, media, entertainment, health, education, service, and enterprise Web and mobile to reward their more engaged customers and users by recognizing their achievements and boosting their reputation.

Its existing customers include Samsung, CA Technologies, X.Commerce, NBC, Bluefly, Interscope Records, Deloitte Digital, and The Active Network. Deloitte Digital, PayPal, eBay’s X.Commerce, CA Technologies, Samsung, and Rogers Communications have signed on for Behavior Platform.

Samsung described its use of Badgeville for its Samsung Nation social loyalty program:

Read more http://www.allfacebook.com/badgeville-eyes-fortune-1000-facebook-brand-pages-2011-11

Berlusconi Takes to Facebook to Deny Resignation Rumors

The world has apparently reached the point where the best way for a politician to smother rumors of his impending resignation is to update his Facebook status. That's exactly what Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi did at around 7 a.m. this morning EST (1 in the afternoon in Italy), posting the following on his official Facebook page.



Translation: "Rumors of my resignation are unfounded." That appears to be Berlusconi's first official denial of rumors that his resignation will come in the next day or two as Reuters reported of an estimated "number of potential defectors at between 20 and 40" in Berlusconi's coalition in the Italian parliament, "which would be more than enough to bring down the government." Maybe a Facebook status update is the best way of shooting down those rumors, as they were started online in the first place, according to another Reuters report.

Earlier, Giuliano Ferrara, editor of the Foglio newspaper and a former minister seen as extremely close to Berlusconi, said on his website: "That Silvio Berlusconi is about to resign is clear. It is a question of hours, some say of minutes."

Franco Bechis, deputy editor of the center-right Libero newspaper, also said on Twitter that the 75-year-old media magnate would resign on Monday night or Tuesday morning.

So all of Italy's political intrigue is happening with social media now. But at least when it comes to bullying his coalition members into still supporting him, Berlusconi goes offline: "Berlusconi held late night talks with key allies" to shore up support "amid speculation that the opposition will provoke a confidence vote in parliament to bring down the government on Tuesday," according to Italian news agency ASNA.

Assad's Move Against Facebook

While Muammar Gaddafi’s death was breaking news throughout the world, for five days Syrian state television totally ignored it.


Gaddafi’s fall is by no means the only thing the Syrian government tries to hide from its own people. At checkpoints throughout the country, armed soldiers ask everyone they stop whether he or she has access to the Internet, or a Facebook account. Give the wrong answer, and you risk losing not just your computer or cellphone but your life.

For the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the spread of information is an ever-present danger, making the media and the Internet public enemy No. 1. The regime seems to think that by silencing the media and forcibly disconnecting people from the Internet, it can escape the same fate as the Libyan dictator. But this tight-clenched control of information cannot combat mounting international pressure and a people who, despite upwards of 3,000 deaths in the past eight months alone, remain committed to Assad’s ouster.

Syrian dissidents fight on the sidelines of a gathering of Syrian opposition leaders and activists in Istanbul in October. Despite certain disagreements, Syrian opposition groups meeting in Turkey formed a common front against President Bashar al-Assad's regime., Bulent Kilic / AFP-Getty Images

Every day thousands of people fill the streets in major cities such as Homs, Daraa, and Hama, as well as suburbs of Damascus. Their ranks swell on Fridays as a tide of people leaves prayer services and takes to the streets. Under banners demanding freedom and the end to Assad’s regime, they march, calling for a no-fly zone and asking for international protection. After eight months of demonstrations, the only answer they have received from the government has been crushing and relentless force.

Even on the day after the Assad regime agreed to a plan, brokered by the Arab League, to halt violence, release 70,000 political prisoners, and begin talks between the government and the opposition, government brutality continued unabated. The moment peaceful protesters took to the streets, the Army gave its now-usual reply, slaughtering its own citizens.

The immediate fallout from the Arab League peace plan was only the beginning. Since the plan’s supposed implementation, excessive government violence actually has increased. Tanks and barricades never left the cities. Even during the holy month of Ramadan, the Army never stopped killing.
Read more http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/06/bashar-al-assad-tries-to-control-media-facebook-in-syria-crackdown.html

Facebook: The 'socialbot' network?

A study by researchers at the University of B.C. found that Facebook's security system failed to stop a large-scale infiltration in which computer-generated fake Facebook profiles collected personal information about thousands of Facebook users.

In a paper to be presented at next month's Annual Computer Security Applications Conference in Orlando, Fla., the researchers said they collected 250 gigabytes of information from Facebook users by using socialbots - fake Facebook profiles created and controlled by computer code.

The fake Facebookers, who were set up with names, photos and computer-generated status updates, sent friend requests to about 5,000 random Facebook users. When people accepted those friend requests, the socialbots followed up by putting out friend requests to friends of the initial group.

As a result, it took only eight weeks for researchers to acquire 250 gigabytes of personal information from Facebook users.

"This data include email addresses, phone numbers, and other profile information, all of which have monetary value," the researchers

- Yazan Boshmaf, Ildar Muslukhov, Konstantin Beznosov and Matei Ripeanu - wrote in their paper, The Socialbot Network: When Bots Socialize for Fame and Money.

The data breaches weren't limited to the infiltrated accounts, but spread to other connected accounts.

"Unfortunately, this also includes the private data of users who have not been infiltrated, but are connected to infiltrated users," the study said.

The researchers found that even operating the socialbot network (SbN) at a conservative pace, each socialbot could collect on average 175 new chunks of publicly inaccessibly data per day.

The study suggests the ease with which the fictitious Facebook users could join the network and expand their sphere of influence means online social networks are vulnerable not only to data theft but to misinformation campaigns.

The UBC study suggests that many Facebook users will friend total strangers.

"[M]ost [online social network] users are not careful enough when accepting connection requests sent by strangers, especially when they have mutual connections," the study said. "This behaviour can be exploited to achieve a largescale infiltration with a success rate of up to 80 per cent."

Socialbots can command a high price tag. The researchers, who had 102 socialbots and one bot master in their Facebook infiltration, said socialbots command as much as $29 each on the Internet black market.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Facebook+socialbot+network/5667803/story.html#ixzz1czGeDR7t