Tag Archives: facebook

Facebook Home: Another Android Lock Pick

April 7, 2013 – 9:15 pm

Tweet  Facebook’s new Home on Android smartphone is an audacious attempt to demote the OS to a utility role, to keep to itself user data Android was supposed to feed into Google’s advertising business. Google’s reaction will be worth watching. Amazon’s Kindle Fire, announced late September 2011, is viewed as a clever “Android lock pick“. [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in mobile internet, social networks | Also tagged | Comments (18)

Facebook’s Gen Y Nightmare

September 23, 2012 – 5:12 pm

Tweet  GenerationY will — paradoxically — pay a high price for giving up its privacy to Facebook.                   Taos, New Mexico, Fall 2012. At 18, Tina Porter has been on Facebook for four years. Duly briefed by her parents, a teacher and a therapist, she takes great [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in social networks | Also tagged , | Comments (44)

Facebook: The Collective Hallucination

May 27, 2012 – 11:51 pm

TweetFacebook’s bumpy IPO debut could signal the end of a collective hallucination. Most of it pertains to the company’s ability to deliver an effective advertising machine. Pre-IPO numbers looked nice, especially when compared to Google at this critical stage of their respective business lives: Based on such numbers, and on the prospect for a billion [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in mobile internet, Uncategorized | Comments (13)

Decoding Share Prices: Amazon, Apple and Facebook

May 27, 2012 – 11:51 pm

TweetThere are many religions when it comes to calculating the “right” price for the shares of a publicly traded company. At a basic level, buying a share is an act of faith in the company’s future earnings. The strength of this belief manifests itself in the company’s P/E (Price/Earnings) ratio. The stronger the faith, the [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , | Comments (39)

Facebook in Frantic Mode

April 15, 2012 – 11:16 pm

TweetFacebook’s acquisition of Instagram — for one billion dollars — tells a lot about Mark Zuckerberg’s state of mind. Which is at least as interesting as other business considerations and was best captured by cartoonist Ingram Pinn in last week’s Financial Times comic. To illustrate John Gapper’s excellent Facebook is scared of the Internet column, [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged | Comments (15)

The “Sharing” Mirage

March 26, 2012 – 6:19 am

TweetThis week’s most stunning statistic: In February, Facebook drove more traffic to the Guardian web site than Google did. This fact was proffered (I couldn’t bring myself to write shared) at the Changing Medias Summit Conference by Tanya Corduroy, Guardian’s director for digital development (full text of her speech): Eighteen months ago, search represented 40% [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , | Comments (20)

Twitter, Facebook and Apps Scams

February 12, 2012 – 8:32 pm

TweetHere is the latest Twitter scam I’ve heard this week. Consider two fictitious media, the Gazette and the Tribune operating on the same market, targeting the same demographics, competing fort the same online eyeballs (and the brains behind those). Our two online papers rely on four key traffic drivers: Their own editorial efforts, aimed at [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , | Comments (8)

Strange Facebook Economics

February 5, 2012 – 9:07 pm

TweetExactly three years ago, Charlie Rose interviewed Marc Andreessen, the creator of Netscape and Facebook board member. In his trademark rapid-fire talk, Marc shared his views on Facebook. (Keep the February 2009 context in mind: the social network had 175 million users and Microsoft had just made an investment setting Facebook’s valuation at $15 billion.) [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (14)

Facebook: The Revenge of the Nerds

February 5, 2012 – 9:07 pm

TweetWe’ll look at the other side of the coin in a moment, but first let’s give credit where it’s due and admire the obverse: I’m delighted to see Facebook going public, just deserts for Mark Zuckerberg and his group of very smart techies. If you have the time and inclination, take a walk through Facebook’s [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (9)

The Facebook Money Machine

October 17, 2010 – 8:51 pm

TweetAn update to this column: According to the Wall Street Journal, any of Facebook’s most popular applications have been transmitting identifying information — in effect, providing access to people’s names and, in some cases, their friends’ names — to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies. See here (paywall). This year, Facebook will make about [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in advertising, social networks | Comments (50)