Facebook

The Zynga Influence

To describe Zynga as a powerful influence on the Facebook developer platform would be an understatement. The company has achieved levels never thought possible. Farmville, the company’s leading application has reached levels that no other developer has ever come close to. In other words, the company is in a league of its own. With over 126 million monthly active users, the company accounts for the sum total of the next three largest developers: Playfish, RockYou, and Causes. So how did the company get to be so large?

The Art Of Chess
If Facebook application development was a chess game, Mark…


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Business

Booming bond markets could benefit Kraft, other M&A

LONDON (Reuters) – Healthy investor appetite for corporate bonds should help Kraft Foods Inc and other companies fund mergers and acquisitions, given bank loans are still scarce after the credit crisis. U.S. food group Kraft is seen as a likely candidate to take the “bridge loan to bond” route to provide money should its proposed takeover of British confectioner Cadbury go through. “Banks will be very happy to offer bridge financing on a 12-month basis but, ultimately, for a deal of this size it would have to be brought into the public bond markets,” said Patrick McCullagh, head of…


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Business

UM gets $20M gift for genetic research

Author : jigneshEconomist and investor John P. Hussman pledged a $20 million gift to fuel genetic research at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine In exchange, UM’s main genetics center has been renamed the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics. This is the second major funding infusion for the institute, which received an $80 million funding commitment from the state in 2007. “This gift will accelerate the growth of the institute,” UM President Donna Shalala said. “We can’t slow down scientific research because of the economic downturn.” The institute’s new Miami headquarters opened 10 months ago. More…


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Internet

“The New Internet – FREE VS FEE”

In the last three months of , it is estimated that over dot.com businesses went out of business forever.It was to be expected and very predictable because far too manydot.com enterprises were riding high on investor cash infusions,were long on promises but produced little if any cash flow.The promise of success never materialized and investors wiselyrefused to throw good money after bad.No business can survive having expenses but no revenue. Not evenon the Internet.That was the "Old Internet" business model.You could write down an idea for an Internet business on acocktail napkin and get millions of dollars from eagerinvestors. Reality…


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Facebook

Despite Passing On iLike, Facebook Appears Still Interested In Music

Just last week we wrote about the MySpace acquisition of iLike and this week it appears that some form of agreement between Facebook and Spotify is in the works according to Techcrunch. The rumor is based on a status update by Mark Zuckerberg in which he simply stated “Spotify is so good.” While Mark may be a victim to the classic “shiny object syndrome” found in much of Silicon Valley, he probably wouldn’t have written the update had something not been in the works.

Whether or not discussions or near the final stages, Spotify is most definitely an interesting product…


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Facebook

Are Facebook Employees A Bunch Of Mercenaries?

That’s what you’d think if you read Sarah Lacy’s exposé on Facebook’s buyback program. Apparently it came as a surprise that an excessive number of employees wanted to sell their shares before an initial public offering inaccurately projected for later this year. So why would all these employees rush to sell shares when they could be worth much more at the time of an IPO?

As Mark Zuckerberg has said repeatedly, he is in this for the long-term and giving employees the opportunity to sell some of their shares makes a lot of sense. The real question is not why…


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Finance

Tips On How to Succeed in Real Estate Investment

Becoming a successful real estate investor
Becoming a successful real estate investor requires being able to find good real estate investment deals and put them together. Your job is not to become an closing attorney, a management expert, or a repair person. Use professionals!
You must learn how to appraise and find the true value of real estate this information will help you make better investment decisions. Realtors, appraisers, and banks determine what a property is worth by looking at comparable sales usually three to five sales of similar property that has recently sold in the same neighborhood. You must…


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Finance

Different Kinds Of Investments

These days, you can’t retire without using the returns from investments. You can’t count on your social security checks to cover your expenses when you retire. It’s barely enough for people who are receiving it now to have food, shelter and utilities. That doesn’t account for any care you may need or in the even that you need to take advantage of such funds much earlier in life. It is important to have your own financial plan. There are many kinds of investments you can make that will make your life much easier down the road.
The following are brief…


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Facebook

StudiVZ Investor Backs Facebook App Team

Last month I wrote about the fast growing Brain Buddies game which was a remix of “Who Has the Biggest Brain?”, one of Playfish’s top games. Today the developer behind Brain Buddies, wooga, announced that they received funding from none other than Holtzbrinck Ventures, one of the primary investors in StudiVZ, a German Facebook copycat (which was previously sued by Facebook).

I’ve been trying to get information about the size of the investment but the companies are releasing any information. My guess is this is between $500k and the low seven figures given the quality of the company’s first game.…


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Finance

Financial Investor, Strategic Investor

In the not so distant past, there was little difference between financial and strategic investors. Investors of all colors sought to safeguard their investment by taking over as many management functions as they could. Additionally, investments were small and shareholders few. A firm resembled a household and the number of people involved – in ownership and in management – was correspondingly limited. People invested in industries they were acquainted with first hand.
As markets grew, the scales of industrial production (and of service provision) expanded. A single investor (or a small group of investors) could no longer accommodate the needs…


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Finance

Investments and How to Find Them

No matter what age you are or even your level of employment or economic position, it may be a good idea to start preparing now, even in a meager way, for eventual financial security. Some people feel they need every dollar they make to get by from one paycheck to the next. While this may be true for some, there are others who squander significant sums on insignificant things. They could be socking that money away into an investment account that, over time, could lead to huge savings and a comfortable retirement.
It isn’t hard to get started. All you…


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Tech Support

Google preparing to launch a PC operating system

In a direct challenge to Microsoft, Google announced late Tuesday that it is developing an operating system for PCs that is tied to its Chrome Web browser.
The software, called the Google Chrome Operating System, is initially intended for use in the tiny, low-cost portable computers known as netbooks, which have been selling quickly even as demand for other PCs has plummeted. Google said it believed the software would also be able to power full-fledged PCs.
The move is likely to sharpen the already intense competition between Google and Microsoft, whose Windows operating system controls the basic functions of…

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