Web 2.0 Magazine

Facebook will put in its papers to IPO next week, according to the Wall Street Journal Friday, maybe by Wednesday February 1. Apparently the timing is still a bit up in the air but it’s in the works. The offering, looking top raise $10 billion, is supposed to value the company at somewhere between $75 billion and $100 billion. Britain’s Telegraph said PrivCo claimed Thursday night that Facebook was targeting an IPO price of $38-$40 for its shares, with a target value for the company of $90 billion-$95 billion because Facebook was “reluctant to aim for the full $100 billion valuation in the hope of leaving some value for investors following the listing.” Morgan Stanley is tipped to take the company out with Goldman Sachs, which orchestrated a sloppy $1.5 billion private placement of Facebook shares a year ago, getting a piece of the action. That placement valued Face... (more)

Evolving (or not) with Our Devices

When I talk on the phone, I've always used my left ear to listen. Listening in the right ear just doesn't sound right. This might be due to being right handed, doing the shoulder hold to take notes when needed. As corded turned to cordless and mobile along with the hands-free ear-plugs, that plug went into the left ear whenever I was on the phone. Recently, I've been listening to some music while walking the dog and have run into an issue. The stereo ear plugs do not fit, sit or stay in my right ear. I have no problem with the nub in my left ear but need to keep re-inserting, adj... (more)

The Cost of Free

Have to agree that this writer gets it right. At the end of his blog post, he highly recommends everyone take a good look at Google's terms of service. And, that is more sense than we usually get from people writing about our data service suppliers, such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and more wannabes. Usually, the sermon stops before this sound piece of advice and rests its case with "OH MY, WHAT DID WE DO TO DESERVE THESE TERMS ...". The author, in this case, puts the problem closer to its source: us, the users of said personal data resellers. Yeah, right. Google does evil. Apple h... (more)

How to Wreck a Good Product in 90 Days or Less

The purpose of this article is to tell you how to take a perfectly good (or even a great) product that you've potentially spent years and millions of dollars creating - and thoroughly and efficiently ruin it in the shortest amount of time possible. "Why would I want to do that?," you might ask.  Honestly, I don't know why.  But there must be a good reason because I see it happen with shocking regularity. For those of you who have read my article "Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?," that article was written to help products succeed in the marketplace.  I'd advise you to ignore that ... (more)

Cross-Platform Mobile Visual Development – a Tool Comparison

Mobile development tools are changing rapidly. I had started work on comparing cross-platform mobile tools about a month back. I had initially started with a list of 26 tools. Few got added on the way. However, what is most interesting is that in this short period of time one of the tools (Open Plug) was discontinued. It was a Flash based tool. Since Adobe decided to discontinue Flash for mobile in favor of HTML5 – they really had no choice. Another tool (Pyxis Mobile) has been renamed as (Verivo Software). Coming back to mobile tool comparison – I had categorized the tools into... (more)