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The Chicago Tribune’s Facebook page has become the latest target of a comment flash mob.
Hundreds of comments flooded the newspaper’s page Wednesday afternoon after an international online community known as “Anonymous” instructed followers to post a pre-written message through its own Facebook page.
The group, which is apparently based in Germany, led a similar comment assault on the Wall Street Journal Tuesday. Both newspapers are linked to on its Facebook page, with a designated message to send to each.
The message, which dominates the comments sections associated with recent Tribune stories ranging from “Paczkis a sweet tradition on Fat Tuesday” to “Mayor’s home turf is fair game for protesters,” reads as follows:
“Dear journalists, dear media representatives! Instead of wasting your time on spreading intentionally wrong informations about Anonymous, you should use your journalistic abilities in order to inform about Hamza Kashgari! I’m aware of the fact that people are approaching you, who call us “enemies of democracy”. What we do, we do to protect democracy. The unbearable violation of human rights in the case of Hamza Kashgari has to be heard around the world. The representatives of the media are an important part und consider themselves -that’s what I hope – as a supporter of everyone that’s speaking out against that injustice. With a correctly oriented report you’re not only able to inform many people in your country but you can also -together with us- fight for the release of Hamza Kashgari. Free Hamza Kashgari! We are Anonymous. We are millions. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us!
The apparent subject of the message, Hamza Kashgari, is a jailed Saudi writer.
While discourse on the Tribune’s Facebook page has been busier than normal, the comment flashmob has not been destructive, according to Chicago Tribune Digital Editor Ben Estes.
“It’s more of an annoyance than anything,” Estes said. “It’s not like it’s slowing down the web site or having any impact on what we do.”
Article source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-tribunes-facebook-page-flooded-by-comment-flashmob-20120222,0,5228211.story
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Social network wants permission to inspect the contents of four previously undisclosed accounts, allegedly in use since 2003.
Facebook has accused Paul Ceglia, the man who claims he’s entitled to half of the social network, of concealing e-mail accounts during his ongoing lawsuit, including one called getzuck@gmail.com.
The “getzuck” account was uncovered by Facebook’s forensics experts, along with three other rather innocuously named accounts that Ceglia has been using since 2003, lawyers for the social network said in a motion filed yesterday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.
The motion (see below) asks the court to approve subpoenas allowing Facebook’s attorneys to inspect the contents of the accounts, which also include landlubber39@yahoo.com, paulc@hush.com, and alleganypellets@gmail.com.
Ceglia’s ongoing obstruction–in the face of repeated motions to compel–has prejudiced defendants by denying them access to time-sensitive electronic material that this court ordered Ceglia to disclose more than six months ago. Ceglia’s attorney Dean Boland appears to have recognized as much. After learning that his client had failed to identify webmail accounts in yet another violation of this court’s orders, he sent an e-mail to defendants’ attorneys offering to provide signed consent forms for two of the four undisclosed accounts: landlubber39@yahoo.com and paulc@hush.com. He did not, however, mention or offer Ceglia’s consent to the inspection of the alleganypellets@gmail.com or getzuck@gmail.com accounts.
The filing notes that previous motions to compel have led to sanctions against Ceglia. Federal Magistrate Leslie G. Foschio in Buffalo, N.Y., last week ordered Ceglia to reimburse Facebook nearly $76,000 in attorneys’ fees related to the case. That was on top of a $5,000 contempt sanction Ceglia was ordered to pay last month for delays in making his e-mails available in his case against Facebook.
Boland did not respond to a request for comment.
Ceglia, who claims he has a contract with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that entitles him to a 50 percent ownership in the company, was ordered last August to hand over his e-mail account and passwords. After he failed to do so, Facebook filed a motion requesting an order compelling him to do so. That hearing also revealed that Ceglia’s attorney at the time, Jeffrey Lake, was told by Ceglia that he wouldn’t comply with the order.
Lake soon withdrew from the case, becoming the latest in a string of attorneys who stopped representing Ceglia since he initially filed a lawsuit against Facebook and its co-founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, in 2010. Ceglia claims that he and Zuckerberg entered into a contract in 2003 to design and develop the Web site that would ultimately become Facebook.
Ceglia has cited more than a dozen e-mails purportedly between himself and Zuckerberg that detail discussions on design, development, and business plans regarding the development of Facebook. However, Zuckerberg and Facebook have called the alleged Facebook contract a “cut-and-paste job,” describing the purported e-mails as “complete fabrications.”
Facebook motion for e-mail subpoenas
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57383241-93/facebook-ceglia-concealed-getzuck-e-mail-account/
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TECH VISUALIZER brings the social conversation to life… powered by Brocade
Learn More raquo
Article source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/display-advertising-facebook-first-but-google-gaining/9408
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Apple will build a data on the Oregon high desert — right next to Facebook’s. Image: Screengrab from Wired video
Apple has confirmed that it will build a data center in Prineville, Oregon — next door to the massive computing facility Facebook opened last year — and according to the Prineville city engineer, Apple is planning to build a facility that’s “similar” to Facebook’s energy-conscious design, which the social giant has “open sourced” to the rest of the world.
Last week, according to the Central Oregonian, papers were filed with the Cook County Clerk’s Office that said Apple has purchased a parcel of land near Prineville for $5.6 million. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company confirmed the purchase with a local TV station.
Then on Tuesday, Prineville city engineer Eric Klann tells Wired, the city received a land-use application for the property in question. According to Klann, the application says that development will begin with eight modular data center units built by the San Jose-based outfit NxGen Modular, and if “all goes well,” Klann says, the plan is to build a larger facility “similar” to Facebook’s.
The news is another sign that Apple has big plans for its iCloud service and other software tools that store user data in the proverbial heavens. But Apple’s plan also reaffirm Facebook’s new approach to data center design. Traditionally, the big internet players — including Google and Amazon — have said very little about the design of their new-age data centers, but Facebook is openly sharing its designs in an effort to improve the efficiency of facilities across the net.
Facebook’s data center uses outside air from the Oregonian high desert to cool its server rooms, eliminating the need for energy-sapping electric chillers, and its electrical system significantly reduces power loss by cutting down on the number conversions between AC and DC power. In April, the company open sourced not only the designs for the data center but also the designs of the servers that work in tandem with its revamped electrical system.
Last fall, Klann told us that two separate companies — codenamed “Maverick” and “Cloud” — were looking to build facilities in Prineville using Facebook’s data center designs. “Cloud” is Rackspace, the Texas-based cloud computing outfit, which has apparently decided not to build in Prineville. But “Maverick” is Apple.
Facebook and Apple were attracted to Prineville not only because of the cool air on the high desert, but because the local government is providing extensive tax breaks. Attracted by similar tax breaks, Google has also built a data center in rural Oregon.
At its Oregon site, Google pioneered the use of data center modules, piecing together its facility using shipping containers pre-packed with servers and other hardware, and others, including Microsoft, have followed suit. It’s unclear whether Apple’s NxGen modules are just a temporary solution or part of its permanent plan for the Prineville site.
Article source: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/apple-facebook-data-center/
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Can a person’s Facebook profile reveal what kind of employee he or she might be?
The answer is yes, and with unnerving accuracy, according to a new paper published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
And if you are smugly thinking to yourself, “I’ve carefully wiped my Facebook page of any incriminating photos, comments and wall posts,” — well, it turns out you may still not have hidden your true nature from future employers: On a rating scale that examines key personality attributes that indicate future job success, you might get rated high in conscientiousness and possibly low on extroversion.
Other things a prospective employer might be able to glean from your Facebook profile is openness to new new experiences (vacation pictures from a glacier off New Zealand), emotional stability (are your friends constantly offering you words of comfort?), and agreeableness (are you constantly arguing with “friends?”)
In a series of two studies conducted by researchers at Northern Illinois University, the University of Evansville and Auburn University, six people with experience in human resources were asked to rate a sample of 500 people in terms of key personality traits using only the sample group’s Facebook pages as a guideline.
The raters were told to spend roughly five to 10 minutes with each person’s Facebook page, and work on the project for no longer than one and a half hours per day to avoid fatigue. They were asked to rate members of the sample group on what is known as the “Big Five” personality traits, which includes extroversion, conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeableness and openness to new experiences. High scores on these traits are generally accepted by human resources managers as an indication of future good job performance.
Members of the sample group were asked to give a self-evaluation and took an IQ test. In one study, researchers followed up with the employers of people in the sample group six months after their personality traits were rated, to ask questions about job performance.
The researchers found that the raters were generally in agreement about the personality traits expressed in the sample group’s Facebook page, and that their ratings correlated strongly with self-rated personality traits. More importantly, they also found that the Facebook ratings were a more accurate way of predicting a person’s job performance than an IQ test.
Although the study does suggest that looking at a job applicant’s Facebook page can prove useful for employers, Donald Kluemper, the lead researcher on the study, said employers need to tread carefully here.
A Facebook page can provide a lot of information that it would be illegal for an employer to ask of a candidate in a phone interview. For instance, a person’s gender, race, age and whether they have a disability might all be visible on that person’s Facebook page.
Still, a 2011 study conducted by the social media service Reppler found that 90% of recruiters and hiring managers look at an applicant’s Facebook page whether they should or not.
“This was an effort to provide some evidence that checking on a person’s Facebook page might be valuable and might be useful,” Kluemper said. ”But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that one study should be used as a reason to start using Facebook in hiring.
“Any other selection tool that is out there has been studied hundreds of thousands of times. Basically, there needs to be a lot more work done in this area.”
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Article source: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-study-facebook-profile-predicting-job-performance-20120222,0,835939.story
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Leaked document shows ad upgrade presentation apparently targeting the friends of advertisers’ fans.
A snapshot of the leaked advertiser materials.
(Credit:
GigaOm)
Facebook is expected to launch an upgrade next week to its premium ads program that will target the friends of advertisers’ fans.
The new ads, which will launch February 29, will be created from content posted organically to pages, according to a purportedly leaked document (see below) obtained by GigaOm.
“Anything you can post to on your page, you can turn into an ad,” the document says. “Upgraded ads can be targeted to anyone you want.”
When the users seeing the ad are friends with fans of the page, Facebook will automatically expand the ad and provide social context about the friends. The ads will also feature an expanded interface allowing fans to comment on the post directly from the ad.
The social network promises advertisers that the new ads will be in a larger format, boosting engagement by 40 percent and increasing retention by 80 percent. Fan rates are also expected to increase 16 percent, as well as purchase intent, according to the documents, which appear to be a presentation prepared for Facebook advertisers.
The new premium ad types can feature a photo, video, question, status, event, or link. They will replace “classic” ad options such as Premium Like (Photo and Video), Pemium Event, Video Comment, and Premium Poll (Photo and Video), which will be phased out on February 29. Marketplace ads on the right column will not be affected.
Facebook representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Facebook Premium Ads Overview
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57382395-93/facebook-readying-new-premium-ads/
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When big companies fight, it’s rarely the big companies themselves that take the biggest hit.
(Credit:
Apple)
commentary At first glance, it looks like Apple really loves Twitter. The reality, however, is that it hates Facebook.
It sure seems that way, at least.
Apple’s distaste for Facebook became apparent with last week’s preview release to developers of Mountain Lion, the newest version of Apple’s OS for computers. The OS includes a slew of new apps (Game Center, Reminders, Notes) and new features (Gatekeeper, Notification Center). What it doesn’t include is Facebook integration–a baked-in connection to Facebook that would make it easier for Apple users to share more on the world’s largest social network.
Instead, Apple again chose to anoint Twitter as its social media service of choice. When Mountain Lion becomes available to consumers this summer, users will be able to tweet directly from Apple’s suite of Mountain Lion apps, much like
iPhone users can thanks to the iOS Twitter integration. This is another big win for Twitter, which received a 25 percent boost in new users last fall when Apple’s latest iOS was released.
Why did Apple bless Twitter and shun Facebook? The answer lies in the rocky relationship between the two companies, something that–at least publicly–began after Apple yanked Facebook support out of its Ping music social network at the last minute. The late Steve Jobs claimed that Facebook demanded “onerous terms” for Facebook integration into Ping, so Apple balked. (Whether that was smart, given Ping’s lackluster performance, is a subject for another day.)
The rift turned into a chasm after the HP TouchPad debacle. In early 2011, Facebook agreed to launch its first
tablet app exclusively for the
iPad. Hewlett-Packard had a different plan, however. HP intended to release a Facebook app for the TouchPad first–something that, not surprisingly, didn’t please Jobs.
The new sharing features in Mountain Lion.
(Credit:
Apple)
Facebook tried to stop the TouchPad app and salvage the situation, but the damage was done. Ever since then, Apple’s high-profile allegiance has been with Twitter–not Facebook–for its social media partnerships, and Twitter ended up the unlikely victor in this clash of tech titans.
Unfortunately, the real losers in this battle are those of us who use Facebook and Apple products. Customers are the ones deprived of incredibly useful features–all because these two companies can’t strike a deal.
There’s no reason that iOS and OS X can’t and shouldn’t support both Facebook and Twitter. Looking back at additions like deep Facebook integration in the latest iPhoto and forward to rumors about the next iOS update bringing Facebook sharing into the mix, it looks like that could end up being the case. The problem, as is often the case in business, boils down to bruised egos. Apple isn’t very forgiving, even in the post-Jobs era.
While neither side necessarily needs the other, Facebook has a lot more to gain from repairing the relationship than Apple does. Facebook needs to prod its users to share and post more so that it can serve more ads to them; that, after all, is its business model. Deeper Facebook integration in iOS and OS X would do just that by making it simple and quick for people to do more on Facebook.
The help Facebook would get would likely be bigger than Twitter’s, based on Facebook’s size alone. Apple, on the other hand, isn’t likely to receive any meaningful jump in sales by adding Facebook to iOS and deepening ties in OS X. It just doesn’t need Facebook.
Facebook on the other hand, should be pushing to fix the damage and get its social network tightly intertwined with Apple’s devices at a time where mobile is where the big growth is. I hope Zuck and his team find a way to fix the damage and get its social network onto iOS and OS X. It would certainly help Facebook’s mission “to make the world more open and connected.”
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-33617_3-57381092-276/apple-vs-facebook-why-users-are-the-losers/
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You always carry that fear that a picture of you doing a keg stand in college or showing your goods to the camera at a Mardi Gras parade will find its way to Facebook, keeping you from landing that dream job. But those fears might not be so farfetched. A new study finds that it can take just 10 minutes for someone to scan your profile and predict how you’ll perform in the workplace.
Called “I Just Work Here,” the study will soon be published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
Researchers asked a college professor and a pair of students to review Facebook profiles of employed college students. Afterwards, they answered various personality questions about the subjects, such as how trustworthy they were or how well they get along with others. They browsed a total of 274 profiles for about five to 10 minutes each.
Six months later, the researchers got performance reviews from about a quarter of the subjects’ employers. The results showed that Facebook profiles were overwhelmingly accurate at predicting success much better than even standard personality tests.
“I think one of the differences is that you change the frame of reference,” lead researcher and Northern Illinois University management professor Donald Kluemper told the Baltimore Sun. “You’re asking the rater, ‘is this person a hard worker?’ On a personality test, the employee would be asked, ‘How hard a worker are you?’ One of the criticisms of self-reporting personality testing is that it can be faked. On a Facebook page, that’s a lot harder to do.”
But Kluemper said head hunters can’t just start turning to Facebook to fill open positions because a number of legal issues must be taken into account.
“Every question that you can’t ask in a job interview is on Facebook,” he said.
Several Facebook studies have been making the rounds recently. Earlier this month, a University of Chicago study claimed that Facebook could be more addictive than even cigarettes or alcohol. Another from researchers at the University of Milan and MIT found that there is a chemical reason people turn to Facebook: people exhibit physical and psychophysiological responses when they log onto the site, similar to the satisfaction experienced by people when they play an instrument or engage in some kind of creative activity.
For more from Leslie, follow her on Twitter @LesHorn.
For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.
Article source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400538,00.asp
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The financial crisis that caused Ireland to seek a 67.5 billion-euro ($89 billion) international bailout in 2010 drove down commercial property rents as well as labor costs and sparked new government initiatives to attract investment. U.S. companies leased or bought about nine times more space in Dublin last year than they did in 2007, according to CBRE Group Inc.
“Dublin is a much more cost-competitive destination than it may have been before,” said Robert O’Shea, a partner at legal firm Matheson Ormsby Prentice who advises U.S. companies on moving to Ireland. “That is reflected in the pipeline of projects we would see for 2012 and 2013.”
U.S. companies were involved in 38 percent of the office purchases or leases in Dublin last year, up from 23 percent in 2007, according to the CBRE. Google’s purchase of the 210,000- square-foot (19,500-square-meter) Montevetro building in April alone equaled 81 percent of all Dublin’s office space bought or leased in 2007. The absorption of existing prime space means more U.S. companies will probably need offices built for them.
Selling Ireland
Foreign direct investment in Ireland rose to $18.3 billion in 1999 from $838 million in 1994, according to the United Nations, as the so-called Celtic Tiger boomed. Much of the investment came from U.S. companies like Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker, and medical-products developer Medtronic Inc., which were attracted by a low corporate tax rate and inexpensive labor.
Since the financial collapse, the Irish government has been promoting the country’s affordability and its links to the U.S. as it tries to create 100,000 jobs by 2016 and reduce unemployment of 14.2 percent. Real estate in Ireland is “a steal,” Clinton told a forum of investors including private- equity executives Henry Kravis of KKR Co. and Wilbur Ross of WL Ross Co. on Feb. 9, according to the Irish Examiner.
Cheaper Now
IDA Ireland, the government agency responsible for attracting overseas investment, has a full-time employee whose job is to inform multinationals about Ireland’s falling rents, wages and construction costs. Ireland was the fifth most expensive location in the world for office accommodation in 2007, today it’s 45th, IDA Chief Executive Officer Barry O’Leary said in an interview.
Article source: http://washingtonpost.com/business/facebook-google-look-to-expand-offices-in-dublin/2012/02/21/gIQAa4SaRR_story.html
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The fortunes of the so-called PayPal Mafia are poised to grow.
Jeremy Stoppelman and Max Levchin own about $200 million in Yelp shares heading into Yelp’s initial public offering, setting up the latest payday for PayPal’s former executives. Stoppelman, co-founder and CEO of Yelp, owns 11.1 percent of the company, while Levchin, the chairman, has 13.5 percent.
The user-generated review site announced plans last week to sell shares for $12 to $14 apiece in an IPO, valuing Yelp at as much as $838 million.
The Yelp executives join Facebook investors Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman and Space Exploration Technologies founder Elon Musk on a shortlist of ex-PayPal employees poised to generate big-time riches from pending IPOs.
PayPal, which developed an online payment system, was purchased by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, making many of its early employees rich and eager to pursue new endeavors.
“PayPal did a great job of producing a very talented class of entrepreneurs,” said Eric Jackson, the company’s first marketing director and author of “The PayPal Wars.” “They’ve gone on to do amazing things in Silicon Valley and the tech industry.”
Stoppelman, 34, co-founded San Francisco-based Yelp in 2004, after serving as PayPal’s vice president of engineering from 2000 to 2003.
Levchin, 36, has been chairman of Yelp since 2004. After working as PayPal’s chief technology officer, he founded Slide, a Web application developer that was purchased by Google in 2010.
Both executives were among a group of colleagues who came to be known in Silicon Valley as the PayPal Mafia. The moniker was codified by an article in 2007 in Fortune magazine.
Vince Sollitto, a Yelp spokesman who also used to work at PayPal, declined to comment.
Yelp, which first filed to go public in November, plans to raise as much as $100 million in the offering. Its revenue rose 74 percent to $83.3 million last year, as the number of monthly unique visitors jumped 67 percent to 66 million.
While Yelp will go public first, it will be dwarfed in size by Facebook. The world’s largest social-networking site filed earlier this month to raise $5 billion in the largest Internet IPO on record. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company is considering a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
Facebook’s seed funding in 2004 came from Thiel and Hoffman, now venture capitalists. Thiel, a Facebook board member, owns a stake worth more than $2.5 billion at the high end of the range being considered.
While Hoffman’s stake isn’t disclosed in the prospectus, the website Who Owns Facebook estimates he owns 0.5 percent, or about $500 million based on a valuation of $100 billion. Hoffman is also the founder and biggest shareholder of LinkedIn, with stock valued at about $1.8 billion after its IPO.
Thiel’s Founders Fund, which includes other PayPal alumni, is poised to reap additional gains from the IPO of SpaceX, the private rocket-launch business founded by Musk. In an interview this month, Musk said, “There’s a good chance that SpaceX goes public next year.”
Musk, whose main job is Tesla Motors’ CEO, also is chairman of solar installer SolarCity. That company is preparing to file for an IPO as early as March, a person familiar with the matter has said.
Musk and Thiel were rivals in the early online payment days — before their companies merged, forming what became PayPal. Before PayPal’s IPO in 2002, Musk was the biggest individual shareholder, with 11.7 percent ownership. Thiel owned 4.6 percent, and Levchin controlled 2.9 percent.
PayPal’s former operating chief, David Sacks, is now founder and CEO of Yammer, a provider of social-networking software to businesses. Its service is used by more than 100,000 companies.
While Sacks isn’t talking about an IPO filing, his startup is benefiting from the popularity of Facebook and growth of social media.
“Facebook is the inspiration for a lot of what we’ve done in a parallel universe,” Sacks said in an interview with “Bloomberg West.” “They’re essentially connecting the whole world. The scale is staggering.”
Article source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2017563099_paypalmafia22.html
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