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Wednesday 5 February 2014

'Best yet to come' for Facebook

5 February 2014


By Press Association


Facebook is celebrating its 10th birthday


Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg said the "best is yet to come" as the internet giant celebrates its 10th anniversary.


The multi-billionaire said he uses the social networking site to share photographs of his "ridiculously cute" dog Beast who has acquired more than one million Facebook fans.


Mr Zuckerberg, who was named Time Magazine's person of the year in 2010, said it is "mind-blowing" to reflect on the success of the website he launched in his Harvard dorm a decade ago, and said "there's always a next move".


"It's been a pretty amazing journey, and you know it's so rare to have the opportunity to touch a billion people's lives," he told the Today programme in the United States.


The 29-year-old added: "It's pretty mind-blowing I think to think about. I remember really vividly having pizza with my friends a day or two after I opened up the first version of Facebook.


"At the time I thought someone needs to build a service like this for the world, but I just never thought that we'd be the ones to help do it. I think a lot of what it comes down to is we just cared more."


The 10 years since Facebook's inception has not always been plain sailing, with legal wrangles, criticism over privacy issues and a rocky start in financial markets - but "there's always a next move" with the internet giant.


"We've just gone through a number of periods where people just didn't believe that we could succeed at what we were trying to do.


"I've spent a lot of late nights pacing around my living room with team mates, just trying to plot out what our next move can be in order to keep pushing forward on this mission, but there's always a next move," Mr Zuckerberg said.


When asked about how he enjoys the wealth Facebook has brought him, he said: "I wear the same outfit, or at least a different copy of it almost every day. I got a new grill recently, does that count? My wife and I love cooking."


Mr Zuckerberg said he tends to just use his phone nowadays, and uses Facebook to share photographs of his pet.


"I almost only use my phone at this point, so I'll write these long emails, or, a lot of the work that I do I'll do just writing on my phone. When people get these 10-page emails they're like 'how did you write that on your phone?'," he said.


Adding: "I definitely have a page for our dog Beast. He actually has more than a million fans. He's this ridiculously cute dog. He looks like a little sheep. He's a sheep herding dog. And he's just this little 30-pound dog, and he's amazing."


While some analysts question Facebook's staying power and have expressed doubt over whether it will be here in another 10 years, Mr Zuckerberg is optimistic.


"I'm just so grateful to have the opportunity that I've had to serve so many people, and I really think that the best is yet to come," he said.


http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/best-yet-to-come-for-facebook




Facebook Inc (FB): Mobile Asia To Drive Future Growth
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is celebrating its 10th birthday today. As growth in the Western markets continues to slow, a big challenge for the world’s largest social networking company is to maintain its growth rate. According to AFP, the company will find its next big growth opportunity in emerging Asian countries, especially mobile users. Facebook was banned in China in 2009. So, most of the company’s future growth in Asia is likely to come from the other populous countries like India and Indonesia.

Facebook

India to become the biggest market for Facebook this year

Research firm eMarketer estimates that India will overtake the United States as the nation with the most Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) users by the end of this year. Currently, India has about 93 million Facebook users compared to 150 million in the U.S. But the number of Indian users is estimated to reach to 152.4 million, beating the U.S. figure of 151.1 million. Despite immense growth in Asia, the social networking giant can’t afford to sit idle because local competitors are threatening it in countries like Indonesia. Even on mobile, it’s facing stiff competition from WeChat, Line and WhatsApp in Asia.

Facebook India’s chief of growth and mobile partnerships, Kevin D’Souza, says Internet penetration is still low in Asian countries. Only 200 million people in India have access to the Internet. Though more than 400 million Indians own a cell phone, only 5% of them are smartphone users. So, the key to Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s growth in emerging markets is to encourage access to feature phones. Most of the Asian users sign up for the social network on their mobile devices.

Where will Facebook’s next billion users come from?

More than 100 million people around the world are using “Facebook for Every Phone” app that’s especially designed for non-smartphones. And a large number of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s next billion users will be the ones using this app. The app comes preloaded on Nokia Asha 501 feature phone. The company will also benefit from the prominence of English-speaking population in India and the Philippines. About 33% of the the Philippines’s total population has access to Facebook.

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s advertising revenue jumped 76% to $2.34 billion during the fourth quarter. And mobile advertising accounted for more than 53% of its total ad revenue. The company’s mobile daily active users (DAUs) increased 49% to 556 million, and mobile monthly active users (MAUs) went up by 39% to 945 million. Most importantly, the number of Asian monthly active users went up from 298 million to 368 million. Indonesia has 65 million Facebook users.

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) shares surged 1.55% to $62.43 at 9:32 AM EST.


http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/02/facebook-inc-fb-mobile-asia/




Facebook Inc (FB): From 650 To 1.3 Billion Users In 10 Years
The first article ever published about Facebook may have run in The Harvard Crimson.


Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) started out as a small website exactly 10 years ago today, and Business Insider has discovered what may very well be the first article ever written about it. At the time, the site was actually TheFacebook.com, and the article referred to by BI was published in The Harvard Crimson and focused on Mark Zuckerberg, then a student at Harvard, but now CEO of a company with a market capitalization of more than $150 billion.


Mark Zuckerberg Facebook


“Hundreds Register for New Facebook Website”


That was the headline on the story, and at the time, that probably seemed like quite a feat, but looking back on it now, it certainly seems like an understatement. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s original website attracted attention because it had gone viral at Harvard, attracting 650 users in a relatively short amount of time. In fact, Zuckerberg told the publication that he expected he would have 900 users “by this morning,” at the time of that article.


Today Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has 1.3 billion users, and it’s monetizing those users while adapting to the changing needs of the Internet as it shifts to mobile usage.


How TheFacebook.com came to be


Zuckerberg said he spent only a week coding the original website, and at the time, it contained some “elements of a standard House face book with extensive profile features that allow students to search for others in their courses, social organizations and Houses.” He created the website because “everyone” was talking about a face book within Harvard, and he said the university was taking too long to do it and that he could do it better and in only a week.


Where Facebook’s first 20 employees are now


Business Insider also took a look at the first 20 employees Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) had and where they are today. Of course Zuckerberg is CEO now, but many of those original 20 employees don’t work there any longer. Some left to join Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) or other major technology companies, while others started their own companies which went on to become hits, including YouTube and Quora.


Like Zuckerberg, most of those original 20 employees are executives now. Interestingly enough, only two of them were women.


http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/02/facebook-inc-fb-from-650-to-1-3-billion-users-in-10-years/



Facebook Inc (FB): Zuckerberg Aims To Revolutionize Tech Industry


February 4th, 2014


facebookFacebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) celebrates its 10th anniversary on February 4th. Despite all that Mark Zuckerberg has accomplished for the social media giant in that time, he now wants to revolutionize the entire technology industry. He shared some of those hopes, while talking about some of his efforts to turn the technology world upside down at the Open Commute Project Summit V, held in San Jose on January 28 – 29, 2014.

According to the New York Times, Zuckerberg’s awareness that the “proprietary global computing systems” that other Internet giants like Amazon, Google and Yahoo used, didn’t work for him, forced him to come up with his own system.

It Began With Open Commute


Open Commute started as an initiative to streamline Facebook’s computing infrastructure. Zuckerberg wanted to make it more efficient, and save money through increased efficiency. By embracing crowd-sourcing, which is how Open Commute began, and using open source products, Zuckerberg has saved lots of money, and surprisingly, done it by being green in the process. (Related: Facebook Inc (FB) Isn’t In A Death Spiral)

These accomplishments are even more impressive, considering the project started with three people working out of an electronics lab in the basement of Facebook’s Palo Alto headquarters. Eventually, the team moved to a facility in Prineville, Oregon, and with the help of more people, the group created the customized battery backup systems, power supplies, servers, and server racks.

Facebook’s Vice President of Infrastructure, Jay Parikh explained that over the last three years, Facebook’s use of open source products (through the Open Commute Project,) cut company energy and management costs by $1.2 billion. That saves a huge amount of money, not just for the company, but for investors, too. (Related: Facebook Inc (FB): The Death Of Social Media?)

Consider a server that has to handle everything that Facebook’s many users do in their interacting on the platform every day. That puts a demand of 4 billion operations per second on the systems.

The team got rid of all but the necessities for running their servers, and they found a more efficient and Eco-friendly way to re-circulate air and bring in fresh air from outside. Thanks to these changes and their willingness to overhaul their system to incorporate open-source products, the company now uses 38 percent less energy, and cut costs by 24 percent, while increasing efficiency as it did all this.



The theme of the summit was “The Future is Open.” Before an audience of 3,400 registered attendees, the project showed off some new innovations, among them, cheap cellphone chips that were made into servers. The display also featured examples of networking gear that could potentially cost half of what people pay for traditional networking products.

Nothing is ever enough for Zuckerberg, and as Open Commute Project Chairman and Facebook Vice President for Hardware Design, Frank Frankovsky suggested, the way they approach addressing the market continues to change. Those who recognize what people want from technology are starting businesses to address those wants – especially by giving them more choices, greater flexibility and control.


As Zuckerberg looks to the future, he hopes to connect a few billion more people, and if he has to destroy the achievements of decades of international telecommunications technologies in the process, he’s not afraid to do so. That is one reason he created Internet.org, the goal of which is to make the Internet available to anyone, anywhere in the world. And for Zuckerberg, that’s not just a noble aspiration. He intends to tackle the problem no matter how many obstacles he has to overcome. (Related: Facebook Inc (FB): The Death Of Social Media?)

The Open Commute Project is poised to create whatever technologies new innovations require. In his never-ending quest to bring new content and services to Facebook, Zuckerberg is also working with wireless service providers to find ways to make wireless data transmission more efficient and more affordable. And through Internet.org, he is working with different phone companies throughout the world, hoping to transform wireless technologies everywhere.

Facebook will always face competition, but, as noted in a report from Bloomberg Newsweek, Mark Zuckerberg summed up his goal for the next decade by saying, “We’re looking forward to our next decade and to helping connect the rest of the world.” If the start of 2014 is any indication of how things will go for Zuckerberg, profits from FB growth will continue to soar. (Related: Facebook Inc (FB): The Best Way To Play Its Huge Success)

gain of $3.4 billion since January 1st is pretty phenomenal, but what makes it most impressive is that almost all of it happened on January 30, 2014. For small scale, individual investors, technology ETFs (such as Global X Social Media Index – or SOCL,) that have investments in FB stock, may offer a chance to invest in a company with unlimited growth and earnings potential.

By Diana Primavera, ETF Daily News

Complete List Of Global X Social Media Index ETF (SOCL) Holdings (Next Page)



The following stocks are held by the Global X Social Media Index ETF and have the exposures noted.


The Global X Social Media Index ETF is an exchange-traded fund incorporated in the USA. The Fund seeks to track the performance of the Solactive Social Media Index.

ETF TYPEETF
ASSET CLASSEquity
MARKET CAP139.010 Million
EXPENSE RATIO0.65%
LEVERAGEDN
PROSPECTUSClick Here For Prospectus

You can sort any column of data by clicking on the heading.

Constituent Name  ↑↓Constituent Ticker  ↑↓Weighting   ↑↓
Tencent Holdings Ltd11.08%
Facebook Inc10.68%
LinkedIn Corp9.08%
SINA Corp/China8.49%
TWITTER INC5.75%
Pandora Media Inc5.5%
Yelp Inc5.49%
Yandex NV4.99%
Gladstone Commercial Corp4.76%
Granite Real Estate Investment Trust4.76%
Zynga Inc4.33%
Dena Co Ltd4.17%
Nexon Co Ltd3.17%
Youku Tudou Inc3.14%
MAIL.RU GROUP-GDR REGS W/2.64%
Gree Inc2.39%
ANGIES LIST INC1.54%
NetEase Inc1.4%
PCHOME ONLINE INC1.05%
Nutrisystem Inc1.04%
Mixi Inc.94%
Renren Inc.87%
Jive Software Inc.85%
XING AG.66%
Demand Media Inc.57%
United Online Inc.42%
Changyou.com Ltd.28%
CASH0%

Total Constituents Found: 29

The above data is for reference only and may not be completely accurate as fund holdings may change.


http://etfdailynews.com/2014/02/04/facebook-inc-fb-zuckerberg-aims-to-revolutionize-tech-industry/3/






Facebook Inc: More Room to Run






http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/03/facebook-instagram-and-video.aspx