Posts Tagged: ‘Facebook’
Last year, Chris and I did a TechStuff episode about Facebook’s IPO and the controversy surrounding it. Facebook’s opening stock price during its IPO was $38 per share. In theory, a company’s stock price should reflect the value (and potential value) of that company. You take the number of shares that exist, multiply it by the share price and you’ve got a rough estimate of a company’s value. In Facebook’s case, that value amounted to a whopping $16 billion. But questions about Facebook’s real value began to pop up shortly after the IPO and that’s where we run into trouble.
How Winners Work: The Great HowStuffWorks Contest of ’11
by Josh Clark | December 9, 2011
First, let me say they made me write this. They being the marketing department, the people who make others write about themselves in blog posts about contests that the writer figures into as a prize. Would it be too unsettling to write about myself in third person instead? Let me try that.
When it rains, it pours. August tends to be a slow month for tech news. As the month began, it looked like this year would follow the trend as tech bloggers and reporters wait for the inevitable plunge toward the holiday shopping season. But some recent events really generated a lot of news in the technosphere. So much news, in fact, that I need to summarize several stories to catch up.
The media have been talking about how some rioters in London have been using smartphones and social media sites to coordinate their movements to avoid being caught by the authorities. Zack Whittaker at ZDNet wrote that while some people are using Facebook and Twitter, one of the tools of choice is the BlackBerry Messenger, which encrypts messages so they can’t be read by third parties.
For its part, Research in Motion (RIM), BlackBerry’s parent company, said it would cooperate with the authorities to identify people alleged to have participated in the riots, though according to the BBC the police have to prove they know the identities of the phones’ owners under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act before they can acquire the records, rather than searching messages for people using riot-related keywords in text messages, e-mail and social media posts.
Awesome is one of those words that gets watered down through overuse. Literally, it means something that inspires a feeling of awe. That is, it’s something that fills you with reverence, fear or some other overwhelming emotion. Colloquially, we use it to describe anything that’s impressive or good. Once in a while, we use it for something that is just okay. So where does Facebook’s announcement fall in the spectrum?
Have you ever used Google to search for your own name? If you haven’t, I suggest you give it a try: The results may surprise you. Google probably knows more about you than you’d assume. And, although Google receives a hefty share of criticism for its policies regarding private information, it’s far from the only […]
Earlier this afternoon, I felt a shudder move through me. At first I couldn’t put my finger on it but Twitter soon solved that problem. I followed the links back to this blog post on Forbes to discovery that social networking behemoth Facebook is buddying up with the digital music service Spotify. Apparently, the plan is to incorporate Spotify into Facebook profiles so that you can listen to music and share it with your friends. It solves a problem Facebook has had for ages — how to incorporate entertainment seamlessly into the Facebook experience.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Blow Your Mind: Slay Your Paper Tigers
- Space Religion: Cao Dai and the 72 Inhabited Exoplanets
- Blow the Mind: Objects of Love
Stuff You Should Know
- “In The Neighborhood” by Jon Stewart Mosman
- “Thanatos” by Christopher Vincola
- “Frame Story” by Adam Pracht
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Show Notes: Heart-stopping Last Laps of Racing
- Never say Never: Jaguar XJ220 Spotted in the Wild!
- What’s your pick for the 2013 Indianapolis 500 pace car?
How-to Stuff
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 152: Final Episodes
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 151: Mailbag!
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 150: Barbie!
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Missed in History: Irish Potato Famine, Part 1
- Missed in History: Paul Poiret
- Missed in History: Benjamin Banneker

