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Friday, May 18, 2012

Facebook starts public sale of its stock

Report from voanews.com:

FacebookFacebook, the world's biggest social media website, started selling stock to the public on Friday, with its initial $38 share price edging above $40 in the first hours of trading.

Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, signaled the start of trading on the Nasdaq exchange in New York by remotely ringing a bell from company headquarters across the continent in California.

The popular social networking site, with 900 million users worldwide, raised about $16 billion from the stock sale. That is one of the biggest stock debuts in U.S. corporate history and rivaled only by financial services company Visa and automaker General Motors. The stock offering drove Facebook’s value to at least $104 billion, making it one of the most valuable U.S. companies.

But contrary to some investors’ hopes, the stock price did not soar in the first day’s trading. The share price stayed in a relatively narrow range, topping $42 at one point, then falling back to the opening $38 level before settling above $40 in mid-afternoon trading.

Zuckerberg, who turned 28 earlier this week, started the popular social networking site just eight years ago in his college dorm room at Harvard. As investors bought shares, they became part owners of the company, but Zuckerberg will still control more than 55 percent of Facebook's voting stock.

Some analysts expect millions of Facebook shares will be purchased in the first hours of trading because of the high demand to own part of such a ubiquitous and recognized product. The stock is being traded under the symbol “FB.”

But others are advising clients to wait and see whether the company can still continue to grow and how much advertising it can sell before buying shares.

Facebook’s advertising revenue growth has slowed in recent months, and doubts about its long-term viability were heightened earlier this week when General Motors announced it was pulling its paid advertising off the website.

Facebook has also yet to devise a strategy to attract advertising on mobile devices like smartphones or tablet computers.

Originally published on voanews.com
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Opinion Articles

The art of accessory sales is changing

Mark Bridge writes:

We're told it's not merely 'sales'. No, it's an art. "The art of selling". And with over 4 million hits on Google, you could easily argue that the art of selling is more popular than painting.

The same goes for the two sub-categories of cross-selling and up-selling. They're arts as well, you know. Mystic and creative disciplines...

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Secure mobile phone calls explained

The security of 3G and GSM mobile phone calls has been questioned recently. Mark Bridge spoke to Dr Simon Bransfield-Garth, Chief Executive of Cellcrypt, at Mobile World Congress to find out how real the problems are. The interview was included in our podcast on 19th February 2010; here's an edited transcript of the interview:

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‘The App is Dead. Long Live the App’ at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Apps (defined as games, information services, social networking video and web content among other things) dominated MWC10 with debate focused on the provision of radio network capacity to support them, the technologies used to create them and the methods for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to monetise them. Given the fragmentation in technology and the investment needed from MNOs to provide capacity coupled with a lack of reward for MNOs, we would be forgiven for thinking the App as we know it is not long for this world. However new technologies offering broader platform support, plus smart network investment coupled with new business models, mean the App will evolve and come of age ready for 2011.

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Windows Phone 7 Series at Mobile World Congress

Mark Bridge writes:

We queued in the rain outside the Catalonia Barcelona Plaza hotel. We sat on the floor in a basement room. And we watched on TV as Steve Ballmer announced Windows Phone 7 Series.

The life of a reporter is not a glamorous one.

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HTC Smart could start a smartphone price war

Mark Bridge writes:

I’ve previously talked about a report from 2009 which warned how touch-screen phones that weren’t true smartphones were pushing down ARPU. Consumers thought they were buying something that was relatively advanced but were being seduced by form over function.

This week HTC stepped in to the arena with the HTC Smart, described by HTC's Peter Chou as "a more-affordable smartphone". Although it may not fit everyone’s definition of a smartphone, it certainly ticks most of the boxes. It has an open operating system, Qualcomm’s Brew platform, which has over 18,000 available applications and has been installed on over 1200 handset models worldwide.

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Recent Podcasts

Reviewing our 2015 mobile industry predictions... and looking forward to 2016

Podcast - 15th January 2016

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

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Podcast from Mobile World Congress 2015

Podcast - 6th March 2015

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

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Looking back at February: from security scares to multiple MVNOs

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We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

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Interview with Chris Millington of Doro about mobile retailing, wearables and technology for older consumers

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In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

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A month of mobile: O2 counts on 3, Microsoft counts to 10 and Apple counts its profits

Podcast - 30th January 2015

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.

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