Is Facebook Going Into The E-MAIL Business?

 Facebook and Google are already in competition for internet popularity. This service would certainly boost Facebook's popularity even more. According to the article below, it isn't official just yet. We may have to wait a few days for a definitive answer.
    . . . June


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Facebook to Start an E-Mail Service
NYTimes.com: November 12, 2010, 8:20 PM By Miguel Helft

Facebook has more than 500 million users around the world. And Americans spend more of their time online with Facebook than with any other Internet company, including Google and Yahoo.

Now the company wants people to weave their online lives even more tightly into Facebook.

On Monday, Facebook is expected to unveil a revamped set of communications services that will include an e-mail system in which users will have addresses with the facebook.com suffix, according to two people briefed on Facebook’s plans who asked to speak on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Facebook has invited reporters to a press conference on Monday, but has refused to say what it plans to announce. The company declined to comment on any unannounced communications services.

Facebook already offers an online chat service and an internal message system between Facebook users. The new services, whose exact details could not be learned, would greatly expand Facebook’s communications offerings.

But one person with knowledge of Facebook’s plans said that the new communications services would not be meant to be used on their own, like other e-mail systems. Instead, they would be tightly coupled with Facebook’s other services.

“They are not trying to do a standalone rival to Gmail,” the person said. “They are building an integrated experience in everything they do.”


Still the new services could sharpen Facebook’s competition with Google and others.

Read More


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If you're a Facebook fan, wouldn't you use Facebook email service instead of Google? Leave a comment

June


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Will Facebook Be Announcing a Phone on Wednesday?

 Wow!  This leaves us all wondering!  According to the article below, Facebook, the social-networking giant sent out invitations Monday for a special event Wednesday with little in the way of details -- leaving a curious public to speculate on just what Facebook has in store for us. Will it be an announcement about some new and reamped services? - or possibly the potential launching pad for the oft-rumored Facebook Phone? We don't know!
    . . . June


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FOXNews.com - Will Facebook Announce a Phone on Wednesday?:

Published October 05, 2010 | FoxNews.com

New phone? Revamped service? More millions of charitable donations? Complaints about the movie? With details short and buzz high, rumors are stacking up about a special Facebook event Wednesday.

The social-networking giant sent out invitations Monday for a special event Wednesday with little in the way of details -- leaving a curious public to speculate on just what Facebook has in store for us.

The popular website, now with 500 million users and (like it or not) its very own blockbuster movie, has been especially busy as of late: launching a geolocation feature called Places in August, overhauling its gaming notifications, and most recently upgrading its photo platform to allow for higher-resolution pictures. Will we see some event unveiling more information and branding about these things? Possibly, some argue.

Others expect Wednesday to be even bigger -- the potential launching pad for the oft-rumored Facebook

phone. The event is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. and last through lunch, after all, and Mark Zuckerberg himself was rather nebulous the last time he discussed the potential for Facebook phone.

"At the end of the day, when people say 'building a phone' they actually can mean very different things," he told TechCrunch at the time.

Read entire article

Facebook Stock Splits 5-to-1 For More Affordable Investing

 It's good to see any company's bottom line increasing , and when a company does a 5 to1 share split, it means that it's doing very well. I feel that what they have accomplished is that they have preserved a market for the smaller investors to be able to buy these shares. After all, lots of people would like to have a piece of Facebook
    . . . June


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Facebook announces 5-to-1 shares split
Financials | ZDNet UK: "NEWS

Facebook formally sliced up its stock in a 5-for-1 division on Friday — a move designed to keep the price of individual shares lower as demand for the privately owned social-networking site on secondary markets has been driving it upward.

"The reason is that the stock has risen significantly since our last split, and this allows us to bring it into a similar price range as other private companies," Facebook spokesman Jonny Thaw told ZDNet UK's sister site CNET News. "It also allows us to give everyone larger stock unit grants without increasing dilution for shareholders."

It is the third time in Facebook's six-year history that the company has undergone a split of its shares, following a 4-for-1 division in July 2006 and another in October 2007. Splitting stock is not an uncommon practice, considering that when individual share prices grow very high it can limit their growth. A lower share price can make the stock more accessible to small-time investors.

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“Startup: Education”, Mark Zuckerberg's $100 Million Foundation

 Regardless of what you might think of Zuckerberg, this foundation is excellent for the kids who will benefit. According to the following article, Zuckerberg is launching Startup: Education, a $100 million foundation dedicated to improving education in Newark, New Jersey and the rest of the U.S. The ultimate aim is to create a model for rewarding excellence in education on a national level. Great Job!
    . . . June


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Mark Zuckerberg Announces $100 Million Foundation: “Startup: Education”:
Mashable -Jennifer Van Grove

Punk, traitor, genius or philanthropic entrepreneur? Mark Zuckerberg can be described by many a colorful adjective, and on Friday, October 1, the world will watch Hollywood both celebrate and vilify Facebook’s founder in The Social Network.

Just one week in advance of the movie’s debut, Zuckerberg is launching Startup: Education, a $100 million foundation dedicated to improving education in Newark, New Jersey and the rest of the U.S. The ultimate aim is to create a model for rewarding excellence in education on a national level.

The fund, which was first revealed on Wednesday but formally announced today, will work with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s and Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s new bipartisan initiative, the Partnership for Education in Newark, which was also officially unveiled today. Zuckerberg and Christie will discuss the news in a media conference call this afternoon at 1:00 p.m. ET. Later, Christie and Booker will discuss the partnership on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In addition to working with Zuckerberg’s new foundation, the Partnership for Education in Newark will also work with the Newark Education and Youth Development Fund, a non-profit organization that aims to raise an additional $150 million for Newark’s youth. Currently, only 40% of Newark children can read and write at grade level by the end of third grade.

In a blog on the Startup: Education Facebook Page, Zuckerberg writes, “I believe in the Mayor and his vision, and that’s why I want to help them succeed. Using my own Facebook stock, I’m creating the Startup: Education foundation with over $100 million to invest in educating and improving the lives of young people. I’m also challenging others who want to improve education in America to match my contributions.”

Read More . . .

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Donates $100 Million In Facebook Shares

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO

According to the following article from Forbes, Mark Zuckerberg will make a $100 million pledge to the Newark School system. At only 26-years-old, he’s following in the charitable footsteps of Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and Oracle’s Larry Ellison. Regardless of how you might feel about these people personally, there's no question that their generosity is making a huge difference to many people's lives.
    .. June


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How Will Newark Turn Zuckerberg’s $100 Million Worth Of Facebook Shares Into Cash?
Steven Bertoni - Money Talks - Forbes:

This Friday, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will reportedly appear on Oprah to announce his $100 million pledge to the Newark School system. At only 26-years-old, he’s following in the charitable footsteps of Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and Oracle’s Larry Ellison.

The pledge is the easy part. The difficult question is how will Newark turn the privately owned, illiquid shares of Facebook into usable cash for their troubled school system

Zuckerberg is worth $6.9 billion, but that is mostly paper wealth based on his ownership of Facebook. Zuck likely has very little cash on hand–he lives in a humble rented house in Silicon valley. So it’s natural that he’d pledge his Facebook shares instead of cash-money.

The trouble is that these shares are not listed on a registered exchange. Past Facebook transactions have occurred through private equity deals or have traded on exchanges like SecondMarket, which specialize in unregistered, hard-to-trade securities. People at SecondMarket declined to comment on the story.

These markets for unregistered shares are opaque and thinly traded. The current SecondMarket bid for shares of Facebook is $65–that puts a $28.6 billion valuation on Facebook; much richer than recent estimates of around $23 billion. The market price seems inflated.

Read on . . .

Is The Facebook Movie An Act Of Cold-Blooded Revenge?

The movie 'The Social Network' is due to be released and purports to be the story of Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook. It's based on Ben Mezrich's book 'The Accidental Billionaires'. According to the following article, The Accidental Billionaires exists because one of Mark's Facebook cofounders pitched the book to Mezrich in an attempt to permanently damage Mark's reputation. Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg claim that it's all a lie. How can we tell?
   . . . June


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The Facebook Movie Is An Act Of Cold-Blooded Revenge - New, Unpublished IMs Tell The Real Story:

Tuesday, September 21, 2010 Nicholas Carlson, provided by Business Insider

On October 1, Columbia Pictures will release The Social Network, a film that portrays Facebook's CEO and cofounder, Mark Zuckerberg, as an arrogant nerd-punk who betrays friends and classmates in order to get what he wants – sex, money, and power.

The movie is fiction. So is the book it's based on – Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires.

Facebook hates the movie. Zuckerberg says he will not watch it.

Based on the early reviews of the movie, this makes sense.

According to sources – sources who despise Mark Zuckerberg and sources who admire him – the only reason The Accidental Billionaires exists is because one of Mark's Facebook cofounders pitched the book to Mezrich in an attempt to permanently damage Mark's reputation.

According to those sources, that cofounder and Harvard student is Eduardo Saverin.

This is the story of how Eduardo got so angry at Mark -- how, from Eduardo's perspective, Mark screwed him out of a huge chunk of Facebook stock. It's also the story of how Mark solved an early problem at Facebook, one that could potentially have prevented the company from becoming the global behemoth it is today.

The story is sourced from people involved in the founding year of Facebook, sources close to Facebook, and documents viewed by Business Insider. It includes previously unpublished emails and instant messages between Mark Zuckerberg and early Facebook colleagues and confidants.

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