Monday May 14, 2012
Facebook Inc. may finally become a publicly traded company this week, with its long anticipated IPO stock offering apparently scheduled for Friday, though some news outfits are reporting it could be delayed.
The offering is expected to sell 337 shares to the public at a total cost of up to $35 per share, which would make Facebook's stock sale the biggest Internet IPO ever.
To read up on what pundits are saying about the investment prospects for this social networking giant, check out these articles:
- PC Magazine offers an overview of the IPO and what it means to various groups of users and investors
- Bloomberg News says Apple co-Founder Steve Wozniak is buying, even though Bloomberg also reported that institutional demand for the stock is lower than expected due to concerns about its slowing growth rate.
Read More...
Monday May 14, 2012
If you're wondering why you like Facebook and Twitter as much as food and sex, researchers at Harvard may have some clues for you.
In a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team reported that sharing information about ourselves -- zapping out that status update or tweet, for example-- stimulates our brain's pleasure centers just like food and sex.
It's still not clear, though, whether these happy feelings we get talking about me, me, me in tweets, status updates and other social messages are a good thing or a bad thing. It's probably both, even though a lot of people may not think so when they feel like they're suffering from social networking addiction.
Sunday May 13, 2012
Micro video sharing apps and photo sharing apps are the fastest growing category of mobile applications based on time spent using them, according to a report from mobile research firm Flurry.
The report measured which activities on smart phones are gaining speed or claiming a larger amount of time spent by users. Mobile video sharing and photo sharing claimed 89 percent more time spent by mobile phone users in March 2012 than in October 2011, the report said. Music apps were second, with time spent using those increasing 72 percent.
Flurry's conclusions were based on a sampling of millions of smart phone users; its software tracks usage for thousands of apps across major mobile operating systems. Read More...
Sunday May 13, 2012
Viddy, the mobile video sharing app, made a splash Friday when it announced that it had reeled in another $30 million from private investors to gear up for the heated competition to become the Youtube or maybe the Twitter of mobile video messaging. Viddy is seen as an emerging leader to become your phone's No. 1 video sharing pal, but plenty of others are strong contenders.
The Chicago Tribune noted in this article that a particular strong competitor is SocialCam.
My eye is also on another up-and-coming mobile video app called Tout, a total Twitter-for-video knockoff that offers video status updates. Tout has been on a publicity tear, trying to catch up with its rivals.
To learn more about each app, try these reviews:
