The tech industry has hit Wall Street hard in the past couple of years with several IPOs. The trend is continuing as Facebook, the world’s largest social network, is expected to complete its initial public offering very soon.
Although many think that these IPOs legitimize areas such as social networking and gaming, there are some questions in terms of the impact on the market. According to Vitaliy Katsenelson, the Chief Investment Officer at Investment Management Associates and author of The Little Book of Sideways Markets, some of these companies are trying to shift the power from the shareholders to the CEOs.
For example, Facebook recently acquired Instagram for $ 1 billion without much input from the company’s board. As Katsenelson explained, Facebook bought a non-profitable company for an inflated price.
While this type of behavior is very different from what the market is accustomed to, he told us that it may work for the short term. However, for the long term, Katsenelson said investors would demand that businesses make decisions that ensure a “genuine cash flow.”
Does this mean Facebook and other tech companies face a rough road ahead? What do you think?
Filed under Internet Marketing by on May 1st, 2012. 
This week 8thBridge rolled out a new platform for social commerce called Graphite. If you remember, 8thBridge was the first company to enable the selling of merchandise on Facebook with its 1-800-Flowers store back in 2009.
WebProNews spoke with Wade Gerten, 8thBridge’s CEO, who told us that the new platform creates a shopping experience that goes beyond Facebook stores. Graphite actually allows consumers to tell their friends about brands they like in their existing shopping channels.
Gerten told us that both consumers and brands benefit from the new platform because it doesn’t take either party out of his comfort zone. With Graphite, Facebook is used as more of a platform for discovering products through friends. The transactions, however, can be made on the brand’s website, in its brick and mortar store, or whatever channel the consumer would normally visit.
Brands such as American Apparel, Hallmark, Elle, and Oscar de la Renta have already partnered with 8thBridge in the launch of Graphite. Gerten said that we should expect more in the near future.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Apr 25th, 2012.
How many of you spread content across the Web through social sharing tools such as StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, or Google+? I’m going to assume that the majority of you do since nearly every website has numerous sharing buttons on its pages. But, how would you feel about sharing your money with your favorite publishers?
Sweden-based company Flattr does just this by allowing users to share not only content, but also money in the form of donations. As Linus Olsson, the company’s CEO and Co-founder, explained to us, users set an amount that they want to donate, and, at the end of the month, their money is divided evenly between all the content they’ve “flattr’d.”
He told us that the service is a better alternative to PayPal, in this case, because PayPal is based on users making purchases and is also “too tedious” for small donations. With Flattr, on the other hand, Olsson said it is very easy for users to make small payments and avoid a lengthy process.
According to him, Flattr has the potential to be included in the list of social sharing buttons in the near future, which could bode very well for bloggers and site owners.
What do you think of concept of social sharing through donations? Let us know in the comments.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Mar 22nd, 2012.
If you haven’t heard of “ambient social networking” yet, get ready, because it’s quickly becoming a trend. The concept is also known as social discovery and, essentially, it takes the idea of check-in services a little further. These new location-based apps run silently behind the scenes on users’ mobile devices and notify them when other users they know enter the same vicinity.
Highlight is one app that does this and, although the space is still young, it is already emerging as a leader. WebProNews spoke with its Founder and CEO Paul Davison who told us that the concept would change the way people interact in the future.
As he explained, users have been actively sharing information about themselves for quite sometime. However, with apps like Highlight, this information is shared passively, which he believes will have a “profound impact” on social networking going forward.
While these apps are gaining a lot of attention, they’ve also been raising some concerns over the creepy factor of the trend. Davison told us that this reaction was to be expected with any new form of technology. In fact, he said if users didn’t raise concerns, as they had with Facebook and other new concepts, he would be worried that it wouldn’t succeed.
What do you think of ambient social networking? Have you embraced it yet? We’d love to know.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Mar 20th, 2012.
Uberlife, a startup based in the UK, launched this week just as the SXSW festivities are beginning. The company is hoping to be one of the new hot startups that people remember from the show.
WebProNews spoke with Sanchita Saha, uberlife’s CEO and Founder, who told us that the service is designed to extend online connections into the real world. She explained that it is different from services such as Foursquare since it goes beyond the basic check in.
Saha said the service is intention-based, which means users create “hangouts” around where they are going to be. These hangouts are public, so that others can join as well.
Bands are already taking advantage of the platform to connect with both their peers and fans. Saha told us that businesses are also using the service to build better relationships with their customers.
Will uberlife be the next hot startup to take off at SXSW? What do you think?
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Mar 8th, 2012.
