With Facebook’s IPO expected to take place tomorrow, there are a lot of mixed opinions about the investment potential of the company. Many analysts have raised concerns over the social giant’s long-term sustainability given its revenue model, mobile strategy, and Mark Zuckerberg’s own leadership.
There are others, however, including Christian Taylor, that believe strongly in the company and its CEO. Taylor, who is the CEO of the leading Facebook ecommerce platform Payvment, told WebProNews that the social network was quickly becoming “engrained into the fabric of the entire Internet.” As he explained, the people that view the company as simply Facebook.com are limiting its true potential.
In addition to advertising, Taylor also sees a big future in the ecommerce side of Facebook. He built his company on top of the Facebook platform for the different type of ecommerce experience it creates. According to him, this new shopping environment will carry ecommerce into the future.
In terms of the company’s imminent meeting with Wall Street, Taylor said he has “no worries” at all. In fact, he expects Facebook to accelerate in every way.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on May 17th, 2012. Comment. 
IBM recently unveiled multiple new software systems geared toward enterprises. As Paul Brunet, the Vice President of IBM Application and Integration Middleware at IBM, explained to WebProNews, these tools cater to the current trends including mobile, cloud, and social technologies.
The company specifically announced a new foundation for mobile computing that helps businesses leverage mobile and cloud opportunities. With this move, IBM provides its clients with better management and security capabilities to ensure that their services operate efficiently through applications and on devices.
Brunet also told us that the company introduced new elements to the PureSystems family of integrated systems. According to him, this offering will help optimize and drive greater efficiencies in the IT environment. Furthermore, it builds “patterns of expertise” that can help organizations reduce costs and workloads in order to deliver their services more effectively.
The new IBM software systems are currently available.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on May 15th, 2012. Comment.
If you like to make things and are the least bit tech savvy, you’re likely going to fall in love with the new lifestyle brand Brit. The brand is the brainchild of Brit Morin, who was formerly employed by both Apple and Google.
She spoke with WebProNews and explained that, while she has always had a love for tech, she also loved creating items in the offline world. As a result, she decided to build a domestic living brand to teach the younger generation how to bring these worlds together.
Brit provides shortcuts and creative living ideas for several categories including food, style, weddings, and living. The company just released an app for its weddings category called Weduary, which allows couples to create their own wedding websites. Morin told us that the company would eventually have Web and mobile apps for all its categories.
In other news regarding the brand, the company recently announced a $ 1.25 million seed round of funding from investors such as Marissa Mayer, Seth Goldstein, General Catalyst Partners, and the Founders Fund. According to Morin, this funding will be used to scale the company.
She also told us that we should expect much more from the brand in the coming months.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on May 13th, 2012. Comment.
The debate surrounding mobile privacy is really heating up as smartphones become more ubiquitous. Consumers are growing dependent on their mobile devices, and are taking advantage of the hundreds of thousands of apps that are available to them. The problem, however, comes into play when they realize how much of their data these apps have.
As Jules Polonetsky, the Director and Co-Chairman of the Future of Privacy Forum, explained to us, consumers want apps to have their data for a better experience. But, they also want them to respect it. While it’s clearly a challenging situation, he believes it is critical that solutions are found now before consumers’ reputations are harmed.
According to him, everyone – from the user to the platform to the app developer – needs to take some responsibility in these issues. For starters, the platforms need to continue to update their base level restrictions for apps. Consumers also have some responsibility, but both the developers and the platforms need to make it easy for them to understand. Ultimately, Polonetsky said that app developers needed to lead the way to resolving the concerns.
He went on to say that, if measures aren’t taken, the government would likely step in. The state of California has already reached an agreement with major platform vendors that would require them to have privacy policies that are easily accessible to users. The state is also currently working on a set of guidelines for app developers.
Are you concerned about mobile privacy? Why or why not?
Filed under Internet Marketing by on May 11th, 2012. Comment.
At the Ad Age Digital Conference recently, Google announced some significant changes to the way online advertising is measured. Google introduced the Brand Activate Initiative that is designed to grow the online advertising industry by applying metrics similar to those used in television.
One media agency, however, believes that Google is taking “a step back” with this move. Dick Reed, the CEO of Just Media, spoke with WebProNews and told us that Google’s action regarding Active GRP (Gross Rating Point) was hard to accept. According to him, digital has made much more progress in analytics than TV has.
While Just Media supports Google’s Active View solution, which means advertisers will only pay for viewed impressions, Frauke Cast, the company’s head of analytics, believes that Google should have made the decision with the industry. In other words, instead of Google making this move on its own, both Cast and Reed think that the search and advertising giant should have worked with agencies, publishers, and others in the industry before it took action.
As they explained, Google and DoubleClick should lead the industry but not without the industry on board with them.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on May 10th, 2012. Comment.
