Facebook ID theft threat impacts all iPhones, Dropbox

Although Facebook says that a vulnerability allowing someone to access another user’s account only affects jailbroken iPhones, two reports say that’s not the case.

U.K. app developer Gareth Wright and The Next Web have separately confirmed that the issue, which originates from Facebook’s
iPhone application, actually affects any iPhone, and not just those that have been jailbroken.

Wright announced his findings earlier this week. He claims that Facebook’s iPhone application includes a vulnerability that fails to encrypt log-on credentials when a user accesses the social network from its mobile application. Wright said that he then came across a Facebook access token in the Draw Something game, which he copied, and after using the Facebook Query Language, extracted the information contained within.

“Sure enough, I could pull back pretty much any information from my Facebook account,” he wrote. He went on to say that the app’s property list contained all the information needed to allow someone else to access a person’s Facebook account, send private messages, and do whatever else they wanted on the site.

In a statement to CNET yesterday, Facebook said the issue only affects jailbroken devices.

“Facebook’s iOS and
Android applications are only intended for use with the manufacture provided operating system, and access tokens are only vulnerable if they have modified their mobile OS (i.e. jailbroken iOS or modded Android) or have granted a malicious actor access to the physical device,” the social network said in a statement.

In addition to Wright, The Next Web, which re-created the hack, confirmed that it “does not require a jailbreak.”

But the blog also went one step further and found that Dropbox also suffers from the same flaw, leaving the application open to a so-called “plist,” or property list, hack.

“We copied the .plist from one device with the app installed and logged in, over to another which had a fresh installation of Dropbox on it,” The Next Web said. “The profile copied and it worked seamlessly, as if we had logged on ourselves, which we had not.”

One other interesting tidbit from the findings on Dropbox: the hack will even work on an iPhone protected by a passcode.

Neither Facebook nor Dropbox immediately responded to CNET’s request for comment on these latest developments.

Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57410475-37/facebook-id-theft-threat-impacts-all-iphones-dropbox/

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Board seeks Marine’s dismissal for anti-Obama Facebook posts

The Marine Corps administrative board said after a daylong hearing late Thursday at Camp Pendleton that Sgt. Gary Stein has committed misconduct and should be dismissed.

The board also recommended that Stein be given an other-than-honorable discharge. That would mean Stein would lose his benefits and would not be allowed on any military base.

The board’s recommendations go to a general who will either accept or deny them. If the general disagrees with the board, the case could go to the secretary of the Navy.

Stein’s lawyers argued that the 9-year Marine, whose service was to end in four months, was expressing his personal views and exercising his First Amendment rights.

“We’re truly surprised and disappointed but it was an honor to fight for a hero like Sgt. Stein and every other Marine’s right to speak freely,” Stein’s defense attorney Marine Capt. James Baehr said.

Stein addressed board members during Thursday’s hearing, tell them he loved the Marine Corps and wanted to re-enlist, Baehr said.

Baehr expressed hope that the recommendation would be rejected by the general, saying the case will go forward. “The issues are too important for this to end today,” he said.

During the hearing, the prosecutor, Capt. John Torresala, said Stein went as far as superimposing images of Obama’s face on a poster for the movie “Jackass.”

Torresala argued that Stein’s behavior repeatedly violated Pentagon policy that limits the free speech rights of service members, and said he should be dismissed after ignoring warnings from his superiors about his postings.

The government submitted screen grabs of Stein’s postings on one Facebook page he created called Armed Forces Tea Party, which the prosecutor said included the image of Obama on the “Jackass” movie poster. Stein also superimposed Obama’s image on a poster for “The Incredibles” movie that he changed to “The Horribles,” the prosecutor said.

Torresala also said anti-Obama comments by Stein that were posted on a Facebook page used by Marine meteorologists were prejudicial to good order and discipline, and could have influenced junior Marines.

Stein’s security clearance was taken away and he has no future in the Marine Corps because he can’t do his job without that clearance, Torresala said.

“The Marine Corps community views the command’s lack of action as some kind of knock on good order and discipline,” Torresala said. “Our own people are questioning why this Marine is not being held accountable.”

Baehr said during the hearing that prosecutors were trying to dredge up any damaging information they could against Stein.

“There is no basis in this case,” Baehr said. “Sgt. Stein has broken no law.”

The military has had a policy since the Civil War limiting the free speech of service members, including criticism of the commander in chief.

Pentagon directives say military personnel in uniform cannot sponsor a political club; participate in any TV or radio program or group discussion that advocates for or against a political party, candidate or cause; or speak at any event promoting a political movement.

Commissioned officers also may not use contemptuous words against senior officials.

Backed by a team of lawyers and congressmen, Stein has said he is fighting for his constitutional rights and should be allowed to stay in the military. His lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union contend his views are protected by the First Amendment.

“Think about how dangerous this could be if the U.S. government can prosecute you for something you say on your private Facebook page,” Baehr said.

Stein has said his opinions are his own and has put a disclaimer on his Facebook page saying so. His attorneys argued service members have a right to voice their opinions as long as they do not appear to be presenting their views as being endorsed by the military. They say the Pentagon policy is vague and military officials do not understand it.

The Marine Corps has said it decided to take administrative action after Stein declared on Facebook that he would not follow orders from Obama and later clarified that statement saying he would not follow unlawful orders.

Stein said he was removed from his job at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot in San Diego last month and given a desk job with no access to computers.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a former Marine, wrote a letter to Stein’s commanding officer stating the sergeant should not face dismissal for an opinion shared by a majority of Marines. Hunter said he was referring to Stein’s statement that he would not obey unlawful orders. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., also expressed support for Stein.

Stein said his statement about Obama was part of an online debate about NATO allowing U.S. troops to be tried for the Quran burnings in Afghanistan.

In that context, he said, he was stating that he would not follow orders from the president if it involved detaining U.S. citizens, disarming them or doing anything else that he believes would violate their constitutional rights.

Article source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2012-04-06/marine-obama-free-speech/54071856/1

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Reports: Facebook will list its stock on Nasdaq exchange

By Paul Sakuma, AP

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a meeting in San Francisco in October 2011.

Article source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-04-06/facebook-ipo-nasdaq/54075146/1

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Report: Pinterest is third most-visited social site

(CNN) — Think back six months. You probably never had heard of a little website called Pinterest.

Now it’s the third most-visited social-networking site in the United States, according to a report released Thursday by Experian Marketing Services, a digital marketing firm.

Pinterest, which lets its users “pin” photos and info from the Internet onto virtual boards, ranks behind only Facebook and Twitter in terms of total visitors, according to the analysis, titled “The 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report.”

The ranking is based on the total number of U.S. visitors during March and does not include mobile traffic, according to Experian spokeswoman Jennifer Marshall.

Last month, Facebook had more than 7 billion total visitors; Twitter had 182 million; and Pinterest had 104 million total visits from people in the United States, according to data sent to CNN by Experian.

That ranking puts the newbie site ahead of heavyweights such as LinkedIn, Google+, MySpace and Tumblr.

“The site has really just rocketed,” said Matt Tatham, another spokesman from Experian. “It’s just been tremendous since (Pinterest) took off around October and then in the last few months. With Pinterest, it’s kind of a new take on an old thing. Social networking is great. Pinterest is great. The way people are sharing on Pinterest is new.”

One caveat: Since the data doesn’t include mobile traffic, sites such as Twitter, which sees much of its traffic from smartphones and tablets, may take a hit in this ranking, Tatham said.

Pinterest’s traffic jumped 50% between January and February. The report calls the site “the hottest social media start-up since Facebook and YouTube.”

Those stats add momentum to a site that already had become one of the hottest topics of conversation on tech blogs and was known to be one of the fastest-growing networks.

In February, Pinterest was the third-fastest-growing site on the Internet in the United States, with 17.8 million unique visitors that month, compared with 11.7 million in January, according to a report from another Internet tracking company, comScore.

Plus, it can’t hurt when the U.S. president joins your website.

Pinterest launched in March 2010, but it has grown rapidly only in the past six months. Unlike many social-media darlings, tech bloggers in Silicon Valley largely ignored the site until they noticed that it was growing like mad.

The site’s co-founder, Ben Silbermann, sounds somewhat surprised by the growth.

“It’s a really humbling feeling that all these people are using something that you helped make,” Silbermann said in an on-stage QA at last month’s South by Southwest Interactive conference.

At that conference, he announced that an iPad app and new pinboards were coming soon.

Those boards — where people pin photos of products they’d like to buy and other interesting bits of info they find while trolling the Internet — are key to Pinterest’s success, he said.

“To me, boards are a very human way of seeing the world,” he said at SXSW. “The site is about helping people to discover things they didn’t know they wanted — things that feel like they’ve been handpicked just for you.”

Some other Pinterest-y stats for you to chew on:

The site skews female — about 60% of users are women — and to the middle of the country, according to the report from Experian. Pinterest is most popular relative to other social networks in Missouri, Utah, Alabama, Oklahoma and Kansas, the report said.

Are you on Pinterest? Why or why not? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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Article source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/06/tech/social-media/pinterest-third-social-network/

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Twitter friends: It may be a good idea to meet up

I’ve been live-tweeting “The Bachelor.” There, I said it. To a lot of people, including my inner circle of friends, my penchant for reality dating programming (and my willingness to document it in real time) makes me exceedingly nerdy. In fact, I suspect that some of my closest buddies hang out with me despite the fact that I like “The Bachelor.” But thanks to Twitter, even though I might be sitting on my couch by myself, searching for the show’s hash tag and hitting refresh means I never watch an episode solo.

Until the recent season finale, on any given Monday, garden-variety “Bachelor” fans and funny women (and some men) with huge followings, such as bestselling author Jennifer Weiner, were gathered together on Twitter in a “Cheers”-type atmosphere — complete with inside jokes and one-liners — to mock the plot twists and talk with one another about how we really felt about this season’s object of affection. I’ve actually started to crave the community that comes from chatting with “Bachelor” fans each week — and feel validated that I’m not the only one who sees the show as patently absurd, yet wildly entertaining. The communion feels, for lack of a better term, real.

Obviously, “The Bachelor’s” is only one Internet community that has facilitated a shared experience — and potential real-life friendships. Pick an interest, and in the time it takes to type a hash tag or post a comment on a blog you can find people who share it, whether it’s something like running, parenting or managing diabetes.

With half a billion registered Twitter handles and counting, we’re reaching out to total strangers and sharing details about our interests and lives with them in a way that’s sometimes more intimate than the way we talk with our closest friends. From an anthropological standpoint, is that weird?

“Fundamentally, human beings are driven to connect,” says Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center and instructor of media psychology in the UCLA Extension program. “Biologically, we’re wired to have an affinity toward people who are like us…. When you have an emotional engagement with something that someone else does … it actually triggers reward centers in our brain, that we’re part of something.”

Even though it seems like we’re putting the friendship cart before the horse, metaphorically speaking, what we’re really doing is fast-tracking friendships, Rutledge says, much like we’ve souped up everything else in our modern lives.

“We’re maybe not evolving, but we’re accelerating,” says Rutledge, who says that she live-tweeted the finale of “Lost.”

“In a way, it allows you to get to the substance before you get to the package. You’re able to set aside the external trappings and connect with someone on an internal, emotional level about something that is appealing to you. It’s a great way to make friends, because you’re focused on ‘The Bachelor,’ you’re not worried about how you’re presenting to this person or how they’re presenting to you. So it allows you to be a little less posturing, a little more authentic.”

In last year’s book “Alone Together,” author and MIT professor Sherry Turkle argued that isolating ourselves in a room, bathed in a laptop’s glow, can be destructive. With the aid of Facebook profiles and Twitter accounts, we’ve “invented ways of being with people that turn them into something close to objects,” she wrote.

But social media researcher Barry Wellman, a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, says the Internet has merely taken our pre-Web relationships (both far-flung and near) and multiplied them.

“The Internet is reinforcing and expanding a pattern that already existed,” says Wellman, who says he’s gone on to meet a few of his Twitter contacts in person.

That’s not to say that face time is passé. In fact, it’s “the gold standard” for gaining the maximum possible amount of information about another person, Wellman says. However, it’s impossible to stay in constant face-to-face contact with connections around the country (or the world). What we can do, he says, is fill in the gaps by meeting up in person — meaning getting together with your best Twitter friend or your most trusted blog-commenter confidant is often a good idea.

Yes, there are many people who are still cautious about online communities. It’s understandable, says social media researcher Anatoliy Gruzd, professor of information management at Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University. “For many people who are not part of those communities, it’s still foreign…. How can you have a meaningful relationship online? Or on Twitter? It will take probably years and years for that to go away.”

For those skeptics, let’s not forget that previous methods of communication were not always as wonderful as we remember.

“It’s amazing how we have this sort of memory of the past of being all beautiful,” says Helen Fisher, research professor of anthropology at Rutgers University. “How sitting in a little frontier log cabin with someone you cannot stand — and utterly no resources to tweet and find somebody you can stand — is somehow romantic.”

Adds Fisher: “I just finished ‘David Copperfield’ about a year ago, and David Copperfield — now this was in the middle of the 1800s when that was written — he was sending notes to his sweetheart every three hours. People were using all sorts of social connections. It’s just become easier.”

health@latimes.com

Article source: http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-twitter-friends-20120407,0,7428542.story

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Twitter’s war on spam

A lawsuit aimed at five companies isn’t going after spammers themselves, but at companies that enable them.

FORTUNE — Email spam is at this point almost a non-problem, and Facebook has made great strides in curbing spammers (though they’re far from gone), but Twitter is rife with skeevy offers from pornographers and other hucksters. The problem appears to be getting worse, rather than better.

The company is doing what it can, but because its platform is so open, it’s a challenge. In a federal lawsuit filed on Thursday, it’s going after not spammers themselves but several companies that enable spam in various ways, such as allowing autoposting based on keywords. For example, if you type “SEO,” into a tweet, you might get hammered by a bunch of messages selling SEO services.

The openness of Twitter’s platform enables useful services like TweetDeck (which is now owned by Twitter), that, for example, allow users to merge their social-media activities. But also leaves the platform vulnerable to abuse. By going after outfits that violate the company’s terms of service, Twitter hopes to discourage other spam-enablers. “Taking legal action sends a clear message to all would-be spammers that there are serious and costly consequences to violating our Rules with their annoying and potentially malicious activity,” the company said in a statement.

Three companies and two individuals are named in the lawsuit. In its article on the lawsuit published Friday morning, The Next Web linked to the Web sites of all five defendants. All but one of the sites appear to have been taken down since then.

The Next Web’s Jon Russell notes that this will hardly make a dent in the problem. “While this lawsuit is unlikely to extinguish this type of automated software from existing and being used altogether,” he writes, “Twitter is setting a precedent and showing it will shut services like these down as and when it becomes aware of them.

Article source: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/04/06/twitter-2/?section=magazines_fortune

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Tunisians jailed for Facebook cartoons of Prophet

By Tarek Amara

TUNIS |
Thu Apr 5, 2012 7:52pm EDT

TUNIS (Reuters) – Two young Tunisians have been sentenced to seven years in prison for posting cartoons of the prophet Mohammad on Facebook, in a case that has fueled allegations the country’s new Islamist leaders are gagging free speech.

The two men had posted depictions of the prophet naked on the social networking site, the justice ministry said, inflaming sensitivities in a country where Muslim values have taken on a bigger role since a revolution last year.

“They were sentenced … to seven years in prison for violation of morality, and disturbing public order,” said Chokri Nefti, a justice ministry spokesman.

One of the two, Jabeur Mejri is in jail while the second, Ghazi Beji, is still being sought by police and was sentenced in absentia.

The sentence was handed down on March 28 but was not reported until Thursday, when bloggers started posting information about the case on the Internet.

“The sentences are very heavy and severe, even if these young people were at fault,” one Tunisian blogger, Nebil Zagdoud, told Reuters.

“This decision is aimed at silencing freedom of expression even on the Internet. Prosecutions for offending morals are a proxy for this government to gag everyone.”

Tunisia electrified the Arab world in January last year when protests forced its autocratic president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee the country. In their first democratic election, Tunisians elected a government led by moderate Islamists.

The revolution also brought tension between conservative Muslims who believe their faith should have a bigger role in public life, and secularists who say freedom of expression and women’s’ rights are now under attack.

The government says it has a duty to defend standards of public decency but its secularist opponents accuse it of using the justice system to crack down on anyone who does not fall into line with religious orthodoxy.

The head of a private television station, Nessma, is awaiting trial on blasphemy charges after his channel broadcast “Persepolis,” an award-winning animated film that includes a depiction of Allah.

In February, Nassredine Ben Saida, the publisher of a tabloid newspaper, was jailed for eight days and fined after he printed a picture of a German-Tunisian footballer and his naked girlfriend on the front page.

(Editing by Christian Lowe and Todd Eastham)

Article source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/05/us-tunisia-facebook-idUSBRE8341FO20120405

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Military board says Marine who criticized Obama on Facebook should be dismissed

• 

  AP

  This undated photo released courtesy of Gary Stein shows the Camp Pendleton U.S. Marine, Stein, who has been criticizing President Obama on his Facebook page.

CAMP PENDLETON, California –  A Marine who criticized President Barack Obama on his Facebook page has committed misconduct and should be dismissed, a military board recommended late Thursday.

The Marine Corps administrative board made the decision after a daylong hearing at Camp Pendleton for Sgt. Gary Stein.

The board also recommended that Stein be given an other-then-honorable discharge. That would mean Stein would lose his benefits and would not be allowed on any military base.

The board’s recommendations go to a general who will either accept or deny them. If the general disagrees with the board, the case could go to the secretary of the Navy.

Stein’s lawyers argued that the 9-year Marine, whose service was to end in four months, was expressing his personal views and exercising his First Amendment rights.

“We’re truly surprised and disappointed but it was an honor to fight for a hero like Sgt. Stein and every other Marine’s right to speak freely,” Stein’s defense attorney Marine Capt. Jame Baehr said.”

Stein addressed board members during Thursday’s hearing, tell them he loved the Marine Corps and wanted to re-enlist, Baehr said.

During the hearing, the prosecutor, Capt. John Torresala, said Stein went as far as superimposing images of Obama’s face on a poster for the movie “Jackass.”

Torresala argued that Stein’s behavior repeatedly violated Pentagon policy that limits the free speech rights of service members, and said he should be dismissed after ignoring warnings from his superiors about his postings.

The government submitted screen grabs of Stein’s postings on one Facebook page he created called Armed Forces Tea Party, which the prosecutor said included the image of Obama on the “Jackass” movie poster. Stein also superimposed Obama’s image on a poster for “The Incredibles” movie that he changed to “The Horribles,” the prosecutor said.

Torresala also said anti-Obama comments by Stein that were posted on a Facebook page used by Marine meteorologists were prejudicial to good order and discipline, and could have influenced junior Marines.

Stein’s security clearance was taken away and he has no future in the Marine Corps because he can’t do his job without that clearance, Torresala said.

“The Marine Corps community views the command’s lack of action as some kind of knock on good order and discipline,” Torresala said. “Our own people are questioning why this Marine is not being held accountable.”

Baehr said during the hearing that prosecutors were trying to dredge up any damaging information they could against Stein.

“There is no basis in this case,” Baehr said. “Sgt. Stein has broken no law.”

The military has had a policy since the Civil War limiting the free speech of service members, including criticism of the commander in chief.

Pentagon directives say military personnel in uniform cannot sponsor a political club; participate in any TV or radio program or group discussion that advocates for or against a political party, candidate or cause; or speak at any event promoting a political movement.

Commissioned officers also may not use contemptuous words against senior officials.

Backed by a team of lawyers and congressmen, Stein has said he is fighting for his constitutional rights and should be allowed to stay in the military. His lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union contend his views are protected by the First Amendment.

“Think about how dangerous this could be if the U.S. government can prosecute you for something you say on your private Facebook page,” Baehr said.

Stein has said his opinions are his own and has put a disclaimer on his Facebook page saying so. His attorneys argued service members have a right to voice their opinions as long as they do not appear to be presenting their views as being endorsed by the military. They say the Pentagon policy is vague and military officials do not understand it.

The Marine Corps has said it decided to take administrative action after Stein declared on Facebook that he would not follow orders from Obama and later clarified that statement saying he would not follow unlawful orders.

Stein could face other-than-honorable discharge while seeing his rank reduced to lance corporal and losing his benefits. The nine-year veteran was set to finish his service in four months.

He said he was removed from his job at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot in San Diego last month and given a desk job with no access to computers.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a former Marine, wrote a letter to Stein’s commanding officer stating the sergeant should not face dismissal for an opinion shared by a majority of Marines. Hunter said he was referring to Stein’s statement that he would not obey unlawful orders. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., also expressed support for Stein.

Stein said his statement about Obama was part of an online debate about NATO allowing U.S. troops to be tried for the Quran burnings in Afghanistan.

In that context, he said, he was stating that he would not follow orders from the president if it involved detaining U.S. citizens, disarming them or doing anything else that he believes would violate their constitutional rights.

Article source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/06/military-board-says-marine-who-criticized-obama-on-facebook-should-be-dismissed/

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Facebook to Nasdaq Gives CEO Greifeld a Victory Over NYSE

Enlarge image

Facebook for Nasdaq Helps Greifeld Forget NYSE Takeover Failure

Scott Eells/Bloomberg

The Facebook Inc. logo is displayed at the company’s office in New York.

The Facebook Inc. logo is displayed at the company’s office in New York. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

April 2 (Bloomberg) — Tim Draper, managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, talks about the outlook for funding of start-up companies after Facebook Inc.’s strategy of trading shares on SecondMarket Inc.
He speaks with Cory Johnson on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” Emily Chang also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)

March 19 (Bloomberg) — Jon Merriman, chief executive officer at Merriman Holdings Inc., talks about Apple Inc.’s decision to pay its first dividend in 17 years.
Merriman also discusses Facebook Inc.’s initial public offering. He speaks with Cory Johnson on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” Bloomberg’s Emily Chang also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)

March 12 (Bloomberg) — Kevin Rivette, a managing partner at 3LP Advisors LLC, talks about Yahoo! Inc.’s lawsuit against Facebook Inc.
Yahoo accused Facebook in a federal court lawsuit of infringing patents related to Internet advertising and information sharing. Rivette speaks with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” (Source: Bloomberg)

March 9 (Bloomberg) – J.B. Pritzker, founder of New World Ventures, talks about Facebook Inc.’s initial public offering, startup trends and the February U.S. jobs report.
Pritzker speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness With Margaret Brennan.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Enlarge image

Nasdaq OMX Group CEO Robert Greifeld

Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg

Robert Greifeld, chief executive officer of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc.

Robert Greifeld, chief executive officer of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. Photographer: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg

Scoring what may be the biggest
listing by a technology company ever will help Robert Greifeld,
chief executive officer of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., forget about
his last clash with NYSE Euronext (NYX)’s Duncan Niederauer.

Facebook Inc. (FB) plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq Stock
Market, further cementing the exchange’s position as the favored
venue for the biggest U.S. technology companies, a person with
knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The person declined to
be named because the discussions are private. The social media
giant spurned the New York Stock Exchange, whose stocks have a
market value about triple that of Nasdaq’s companies.

The two biggest American exchange operators are rivals for
virtually every IPO in the country and competed for Facebook,
which filed for a $5 billion initial public offering on Feb. 1.
Winning the IPO would mean more fees, a boost in trading revenue
and the chance to link an exchange’s brand with the largest
social-networking website in the world.

“People are asking about what it means for NYSE to lose
it, but it was critical for Nasdaq to win,” Richard Repetto, an
analyst at Sandler O’Neill Partners LP in New York, said in a
phone interview. “What it does is it keeps the momentum and
likely leads to further IPOs in the future. Whatever brand
Facebook attracts, whether it’s tech or social media, it likely
helps Nasdaq’s cause.”

Robert Madden, a Nasdaq OMX spokesman, declined to comment
on the decision. So did Jonathan Thaw of Facebook and Rich Adamonis of NYSE Euronext.

Blow to Niederauer

The decision is the latest blow to Niederauer, who saw his
own attempt to merge with Deutsche Boerse AG fall apart when
European antitrust regulators blocked the deal. Shares of the
company slid 13 percent in 2011, while Nasdaq OMX (NDAQ) climbed 3.3
percent and the Standard Poor’s 500 Index was little changed.

Greifeld will get bragging rights about luring Facebook
after his unsolicited attempt to acquire the New York Stock
Exchange parent in conjunction with IntercontinentalExchange
Inc. fizzled out when the Justice Department said last May it
would sue to block such a transaction. Niederauer was on the
board that rejected Greifeld’s offer and referred to it as
“loosely worded and full of unanswered questions” in an
interview with Bloomberg on April 10.

Nasdaq rose 1.2 percent to $25.52 yesterday, while NYSE
Euronext fell 1.3 percent to $28.31.

Biggest Technology Companies

Nasdaq OMX lists seven of the 10 biggest U.S. technology
companies by market value, including Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Microsoft
Corp., the two largest, as well as Google Inc. (GOOG) and Intel Corp.
The NYSE is the home venue for International Business Machines
Corp., ranked third.

Inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 Index may have spurred Facebook
toward Nasdaq, Josef Schuster, founder of Chicago-based Ipox
Schuster LLC, which has about $2 billion tied to indexes that
track IPOs, said in a phone interview. The benchmark gauge
comprises nonfinancial companies including Apple and Google.

The Nasdaq-100 has surged 165 percent since equity markets
bottomed in March 2009, beating the 107 percent gain by the
Standard Poor’s 500 Index.

Should Facebook get a weighting of 4 percent to 5 percent
in the Nasdaq-100, the PowerShares QQQ Trust exchange-traded
fund that tracks the measure “could create $2 billion to $3
billion of systematic demand” for the stock, Schuster said. The
ETF has a market value of $35.9 billion, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg. Other securities tracking the index would
need to make similar purchases.

‘Supportive’ of Price

“It would be very supportive for the stock price and may
be one of the main reasons Facebook chose Nasdaq,” Schuster
said. “They’d be with Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple. Being
included would create demand no matter how expensive or cheap
the stock is.”

While listings bring in less than a quarter of net revenue
and even less of profit for NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq OMX, the
exchanges fight for IPOs because it leads to more trading and
brand value, said Larry Tabb, founder of financial-market
research and advisory firm Tabb Group LLC. Listings accounted
for 17 percent of NYSE Euronext’s net revenue last year and 19
percent of Nasdaq OMX’s.

Tabb said March 27 that Facebook’s trading may translate
into about $500,000 to $1 million revenue per year, split among
the exchanges and other venues. That means that NYSE Euronext
and Nasdaq OMX could get an additional $260,000 in trading and
market data revenue alone.

“It’s a huge prestige thing for the exchanges and I’m sure
NYSE is very disappointed, but I don’t think it matters in terms
of the exchange’s share of trading,” Mike Bleich, chief
executive officer of Scout Trading LLC, a market-making firm in
New York, said in a phone interview. Facebook “will trade
across a variety of exchange platforms as all other stocks do.
The particular platform they list on isn’t special.”

Percent of Trading

Markets owned by NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq OMX had about 30
percent of trading this year in shares listed on NYSE and
Nasdaq, respectively, according to data compiled by Barclays Plc
in a report March 26. The NYSE owner accounted for 11.2 percent
of volume in Nasdaq companies while Nasdaq OMX’s venues had 16.8
percent of trading in NYSE companies, the data showed.

Nasdaq OMX had more at stake because of the perception it
gets all the technology companies, according to Sang Lee,
managing partner at Boston-based Aite Group LLC. Among Internet
IPOs since the beginning of 2011, LinkedIn Corp. and Pandora
Media Inc. picked NYSE, while Nasdaq won Groupon Inc. and Zynga
Inc.

‘Very Nice Position’

“Having that brand name on that listings side would be
huge,” Lee said of Facebook’s selection. “If they’re able to
do it correctly, the other social-media sites and players would
certainly be talking to Nasdaq initially,” he said. “It would
certainly put them in a very nice position.”

Facebook’s decision follows Bats Global Markets Inc., the
third-largest U.S. exchange operator, withdrawing its IPO on
March 23. Bats planned to compete with NYSE and Nasdaq in
corporate listings, making its own shares the first to call the
Bats BZX Exchange home. A computer bug prevented Bats from
getting its own shares to trade.

Facebook, based in Menlo Park, California, filed Feb. 1 to
raise $5 billion in the largest Internet IPO on record. The
amount was a placeholder used to calculate fees and may change.
The combined U.S. and German debut of Infineon Technologies AG
in 2000 totaled about $5.85 billion, making it the biggest
technology offering in history.

“I think Mark Zuckerberg wants to be mentioned with the
likes of Bill Gates, Michael Dell and Steve Jobs,” Philip Panaro, president and chief executive officer of IM2 Consulting
LLC, said in an e-mail about Facebook’s founder. He was an
adviser to Nasdaq in the mid-1990s and to NYSE in 2004 and 2005.
“Facebook’s culture and brand identity more closely align to
those names and their associated brands,” he said. “At the end
of the day, I think it was all about legacy.”

To contact the reporters on this story:
Nina Mehta in New York at
nmehta24@bloomberg.net;
Whitney Kisling in New York at
wkisling@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Nick Baker at
nbaker7@bloomberg.net

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Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-06/facebook-to-nasdaq-gives-ceo-greifeld-a-victory-over-nyse.html

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COLUMN-Statecraft by Twitter-Chrystia Freeland

By Chrystia Freeland

NEW YORK, April 5 |
Thu Apr 5, 2012 12:32pm EDT

NEW YORK, April 5 (Reuters) – It turns out you can govern in
140 characters. Social media is often accused of coarsening our
public discourse and of making us stupid. But some innovative
public leaders are taking to their keyboards and finding that
the payoff is a direct and personal connection with their
communities.

To understand how statecraft by Twitter works, I spoke to
three avid practitioners who are spread across the globe and
work at different levels of government: Carl Bildt, the foreign
minister of Sweden; Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to
Russia; and Naheed Nenshi, the mayor of Calgary, Alberta.

Bildt is a veteran blogger, but he was dubious about Web
2.0, as the social media revolution is sometimes called. “I was
rather skeptical on Twitter,” he told me. “I thought, ‘What can
you say in 140 characters?”‘

But Bildt, who has more than 116,000 followers , soon found
Twitter to be “very useful” and also “fun.”

“As a matter of fact, you can say something in 140
characters,” he said. “The restriction isn’t as absolute as I
had thought.”

One way Bildt uses Twitter is promote his bigger think
pieces. “A lot of the tweets are links,” he said. “If I write an
op-ed, then I can tweet it.”

Bildt combines his Twitter posts with a blog. Twitter is for
links and instant comments; the blog is for longer, more
considered arguments. Bildt tweets in English and blogs in
Swedish.

One of Bildt’s followers is McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to
Russia. He likes the way Bildt mixes life and work, one moment
tweeting about Syria and the next gently complaining about the
long line for takeoff at the Istanbul airport.

“The thing I feel most nervous about is blending the
personal and the professional,” McFaul said. “That’s new to me.
I’m learning where the lines are.”

For instance, McFaul, who is originally from Bozeman,
Montana, posted a picture of himself and his wife dancing to
country music played by a Montana band in Spaso House, the
ambassador’s residence in Moscow.

“I never would have done that three years ago,” McFaul said.
“And yet the guys say any time there is something personal or
something with a photo or video it gets much more pickup or
retweets than a statement on Syria.”

“The guys” to whom McFaul refers are the U.S. State
Department’s social media team, led by Alec Ross, who is the
senior advisor on innovation for Hillary Rodham Clinton, the
secretary of state. Ross spearheads the State Department’s
enthusiastic social media campaign. As McFaul posted earlier
this week, quoting Mrs. Clinton, “Our ambassadors are blogging
and tweeting, and every embassy has a social media presence.”
(Indeed, Ross’s influence is global – Bildt said that the
American briefed the Swedish diplomatic corps at their annual
meeting last summer.)

Like Bildt, McFaul has a multilingual, multiplatform social
media strategy. McFaul is a Twitter newbie. (In just over two
months, he has about 850 posts and has more than 22,700
followers.) He blogs when he has a more complicated point to
make, and uses Facebook when he wants to converse with a
community. He tries to write mostly in Russian, but occasionally
uses the Latin alphabet if his Cyrillic keyboard isn’t handy,
and will post in English if he wants to communicate with his
followers outside Russia.

Bildt has found that by integrating social media into his
normal routines – he writes blog posts in the car or on the
plane and “has it in the back of my mind all the time” – “it is
not so time-consuming.”

For McFaul, who is writing chiefly in a foreign language,
social media amounts to a second shift: “I have my day job as a
conventional ambassador, and then starting at 10 p.m. until I
get tired I interact on social media.”

McFaul’s moonlighting role as social media ambassador has
particular relevance in Russia, where the government controls
much of the traditional media, especially television, and civil
society has moved to the Internet in response. As a result,
McFaul says, social media is more than a tool for communication
- it is also a well-positioned window into the national debate.

McFaul’s social media outreach has not protected him from
controversy. Indeed, Russian leaders, including President-elect
Vladimir V. Putin, have been suspicious from the outset of
McFaul, who is a longtime student and occasional advocate of
democratization. Just this week, Foreign Minister Sergey V.
Lavrov accused McFaul of arrogance for remarks made to a Russian
news agency about missile defense.

But his social media presence has given McFaul the tools to
reach beyond a sometimes hostile national media and speak to any
Russians who care to listen.

Naheed Nenshi, the mayor of Calgary, couldn’t operate in a
more different environment. He is an elected leader in a Western
democracy. But he, too, has found that social media gives him
the power to get his message across directly, without relying on
mainstream media platforms.

Nenshi has a salty style – he once said on Twitter that a
critic should “look into pharmaceuticals” for his “limpness”
issue – that has earned him more than 53,000 twitter followers,
including foreign fans who say if they lived in Calgary they
would vote for Nenshi.

In a city of just over 1 million, that gives the mayor a
loud and independent megaphone.

“The really interesting piece about all of this is the way
it disintermediates the traditional media,” Nenshi said. “I’m
well on my way to having more Twitter followers than one of the
Calgary newspapers has readers. It puts my interactions with the
media in a new light.”

Article source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/05/column-freeland-twitter-idUSL2E8F54SJ20120405

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