jack dorsey Archives - Adam Yamada

Twitter IPO a Success, Should you Invest?

The big social media and financial news this week was the Twitter IPO (Initial Public Offering) which seems to have been quite a success for the social networking service.

Twitter started trading shares to the public on Thursday (November 7th, 2013) and opened at $45.13 per share. This was a 73% gain from the $26 per share that was offered to insiders and existing shareholders on Wednesday, the day before the IPO. Early reports projected TWTR, the stock ticker symbol Twitter is listed under, to list around $35.

Twitter shares reached a high of trading at $50.09 during the Thursday, the first day of trading. However, on Friday the shares slipped back down to under $45 and as of this writing the stock current sit at $41.65 per TWTR share.

Even if the shares pulled back Friday the Twitter IPO gave the social media company a huge boost in it's market capitalization. How much? About $25 billion along with the surging stock of course this fluctuates with the stock price. It currently sits at under $20 billion. This still means Twitter has a bigger valuation than a lot of S&P500 companies. The real question, is that a fair valuation for Twitter?

By all accounts Twitter is a poster child for a successful technology and social media company. Twitter has roughly 100 million active users each day and over 230+ million accounts. (Probably about 10%-15% of those accounts are bots though.) Users create 500 million Tweets each day sharing thoughts to the world in 140 characters or less.

Twitter's numbers are quite impressive but the microblogging service has yet to find a great way to make, you know… money. Currently the best way Twitter is pulling in cash is Promoted Tweets and Trends. Companies can pay to show Tweets to users they believe will find them of value and try to promote a hashtag trend they want to get noticed. The company has also toyed with different ways to make money but a lot of those are not worth mentioning. The Twitter IPO helped raise cash too.

Everyone it seems uses Twitter from journalists, celebrities, athletes, politicians, etc. Warren Buffet even has a Twitter account but he doesn't actively Tweet. Still Twitter is seen as an important tool in the web 2.0 world.

It should be noted that TWTR listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and not the NASDAQ which is where most tech and social media companies are listed. Does that means the executives and founders of Twitter view it differently?

Whatever Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey think they are probably pretty happy since they added a significant amount to their personal wealth. It should be noted these two and did not offer any of their shares for sale. None of the banks underwriting the IPO Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase, decided to sell shares as well.

The general belief seems to be even if Twitter is not making money now, they will figure it out eventually. A lot of people are still joining and starting to use the service and a majority of users use the social network on smartphones. Twitter still could lose ground and users just like Facebook is experiencing now. Remember my article asking “Is Facebook for Old People Now?” Could the same thing happen to Twitter?

I was annoyed that they stopped support of TweetDeck Mobile apps and I haven't been happy with other decisions Twitter has made. Overall they've done a good job of making the Twitter API easy for developers to build on and make 3rd party Twitter clients and applications which has helped fuel growth.

Liking a social media service is different than investing in it though. Would you invest in Twitter with your personal money? Do you believe the Twitter IPO was successful? Do you think you would wait until the TWTR comes down? What do you see in Twitter's future?

10 Reasons Deleting a Facebook Account is Good for You

Recently I deleted my Facebook account, which sounds hard to do but it wasn't as hard as you might imagine. With my support and help you can Deleting a Facebook account can be easy. While a seemingly impossible task for some, it is not that hard. We can do it together and here are 10 reasons to help you make deleting a Facebook account more clear cut and easier.

1. It's a HUGE Waste of Time

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that has every used Facebook. Essentially it is a blackhole of time with a gigantic mass of stupid internet memes, people's problems, complaints, hatred, and anything else you don't want to hear about.

While I think social media can be used for great things, Facebook has a serious crisis in the way it organizes all the data that is shared on it's platform everyday.

2. Privacy

It's been pretty clear from day one that Facebook doesn't give a shit about your privacy and your personal data and information. (It should be called FaceCrook.) Also it's a complete illusion that anything you share on Facebook can be kept completely private. You hear stories all the day about people sharing things they shouldn't on Facebook, and then subsequently getting fired or kicked out of school.

If you delete your Facebook account you won't have to worry about someone seeing a post they were not supposed to see, since you won't be on it anymore. If you are stupid enough to share every detail of your life on Facebook, then I guess it's for you.

If you want to share anonymously go join a forum with a crazy username or go over and sign-up for Reddit. That's where people vent about all sorts of stuff publicly, but anonymously.

3. Facebook EdgeRank

For those that don't know Facebook EdgeRank is an algorithm that decides what to show you and what not to show in your newsfeed. Just out of curiosity, why does Facebook need to decide this for me? If am following a page or person, I am interested in what they have to share. If I don't like it, I don't follow them. I don't need Facebook making the decisions for me.

Also Facebook EdgeRank means brands have a huge hurdle to overcome when they are sharing content. Facebook seems to be tweaking Edgerank making it increasingly hard to get people off of their “walled garden” in hopes of generating more ad revenue. (Remember they went public so they gotta please shareholders.) I've seen firsthand Facebook pages with a large following but a laughable low Click-Through-Rate (CTR) to articles or content they share. You need a lot of followers to make the Return on Investment in Facebook make sense because of Facebook EdgeRank.

I even talked with many companies who have complained extensively about EdgeRank. It's usually the same story, “We've spent $1000's in Facebook advertising and now Facebook is limiting what we can do with fans we paid for via advertising.” Not sure how this makes sense, and they get away with it, but I guess Facebook really likes to screw people over. Hey, they've been doing it since day one.

Fuck Facebook, Fuck Edgerank!

4. There are OTHER Social Networks

Yes, there are other social networks you can used besides Facebook. Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Youtube, etc. all which can be a BETTER use of your time. Additionally if you are a business some of these social media sites can better target certain customers and drive traffic to your website.

For instance, recently I discovered the power of Pinterest for photo sharing. What's nice about Pinterest compared to Facebook is that images can have click-through links to your articles. This means each time I share something I get maximum value out of that share. If other people Pin your images they sometimes do so to come back and reference it. You don't get that benefit on Facebook. Also Pinterset makes it super easy to organize and share images, while Facebook does not.

Tumblr is another great photo sharing platform for the same reason as Pinterest. Images can have links directly to your articles, but links are DoFollow on Tumblr. The platform Tumblr is built on makes sharing content fast and easy. It's also a lot easier to schedule posts since you can just select “Add to Queue.” You don't get the benefit of people coming back to the images though, but it's still a better platform for photo sharing than Facebook.

Twitter in my opinion is another better social network, especially for managing multiple accounts. I use TweetDeck to help manage different Twitter accounts and Tweets. (Honestly it wouldn't be enjoyable to use Twitter otherwise. ) A 3rd party developer or Facebook has yet to come out with an equivalent tool, that is as good as TweetDeck, for managing multiple Facebook pages. Additionally Twitter is easy to get in, and get out of quickly. I don't like it though that Twitter stopped supporting TweetDeck's mobile Apps.

I could go on but if you find that Facebook isn't working for you personally or for your brands, drop it. Deleting a Facebook account in this case shouldn't be that hard. Figure out another social network or social media platform that will work for you.

I am still going to keep up the Singing Dog Facebook page but will be posting on there sporadically. It's not worth my time.

5. Mark Zuckerberg

There is the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, who's always stricken me as an odd person. It's been widely speculated that he has Asperger's syndrome, which I am inclined to think is true. He is a very private person, ironically, and doesn't seem to like that people.

Also for some reason people think he is the shiznit but I don't really see it that way. Anytime I've heard him talk he says the same friggin thing, “I'm really just trying to connect the world.” or variations of this. If you ever listen to Jack Dorsey, the creative mind behind Twitter, talk you feel like there is a lot going on in there. With ASSperger's man… not so much.

The reality is that Mark Zuckerberg isn't all that smart. The truth is he stole the idea for Facebook. Just ask the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendry, since they know from experience! 🙂 He'll fuck you over especially on privacy, which is #2 on my list. He even fucked over his friend who helped him start Facecrook, Eduardo Saverin.

The best way to refer to Mark Zuckerberg is,”Fuckerberg!” FYI this is probably the best Twitter search you can do! 🙂

6. Moderation

Facebook hasn't done a good enough job of moderating page content. I've complained about certain pages before and many times a few seconds later I got a reply saying that “It's ok” according to Facebook's terms. WTF? A real human obviously didn't look and analyze the page. Mark Fuckerberg can't pay someone to monitor that stuff?

7. Facebook's User Interface Blows

Facebook is seriously failing behind with keeping updated on an intuitive and easy-to-use user interface. Checkout Pinterest for instance, which is hella simple and doesn't take much to pick-up.

Facebook can't seem to figure out whether to appeal to old people or young people. Since old people don't like a user interface change, they have a real problem on their hands. Change it so young people will flock back, and their user base will be confused.

8. Its' Slow

Do Facebook engineers not know how to load balance a server? Do they know what a content delivery network (CDN) is? I guess not since uploading a photo takes longer than an old lady crossing the street. Hey guess what Facebook engineers, stop playing beer pong and go do your fucking job! You get paid plenty of money and you've seriously go ZERO excuse for any slowness at anytime during the day. ZERO!

Deleting a Facebook account will save you a lot of time! 🙂 Once I launch my new web hosting site, HostTribe, you Facebook engineers could probably learn something.

9. Facebook is not Cool

There is a good reason Facebook shelled out $1 billion for Instagram. Their user base is getting older since parents have started to use it. (Damn!) As this happens more and more… well it's going to be seen more and more as a Not Cool. Quite honestly a lot of young people already think it is Uncool.

Facebook's current crisis is that it's started to become the next MySpace. This won't happen this year, but it will happen faster than you think unless they start truly making some innovative changes. I doubt that will happen as long as Fuckerberg is running the company.

10. Focus on Your own Web Projects

Do you want to start a blog? Do you have a cool smartphone app or web service you want to get develop? Have some innovative tool that will change the world?

Stop kidding yourself spending time on Facebook is really helping you accomplish these goals, because it isn't. If you want to create something for the world to use, share, or appreciate you should be spending less time on Facebook and social media altogether and focusing as much time and effort as you can on your own web projects.

Conclusion, Facebook sucks

For a young person in this hyper-connected digital age some would tell you it is a social death sentence to delete your personal Facebook account. Will I be sad to miss baby pictures, vacation pictures, and important updates from my friends? Sure, but I feel there are plenty of other ways for me to keep in touch with my friends in this day and age.

I am never going back to the blue and white social media wasteland and hope others will join me. I understand if you stay on there though and don't hold it against anyone. I know not using social media is hard and for some to not use Facebook… well that's just plain impossible! 🙂

If you do plan on Deleting a Facebook account, please remember to backup and archive your information before doing so. This will enable you to keep all your pictures and other vital information.

Are you considering deleting a Facebook account and moving on in your life? Let me know why and if you feel my 10 reasons are justified. Did you already delete you Facebook account? Why did you do it?

Catch me on Twitter @AdamYamada… if you can.

.ME Registry accepting applications for Premium Domains

The .ME Registy has announced that they are accepting applications for their premium domain program. This is part of the .ME registry trying to promote a wider use of .ME domains which has had some success. Examples would include About.me, a site where you can post a page about yourself, and Pulse.Me, an news app. In addition Facebook uses the URL shortener FB.me and Wordpres uses WP.me for their URL shortener.

While there has been some success the .ME domain extension it really only works for catchy words. I think About.me is probably the best example of this since it is easy to remember and makes sense. A lot of .ME domains just don't make sense in my opinion.

Like a lot of domain registries the .ME registry reserved premium domains. This is in an effort to try to ensure that companies and startups can build out the domains into viable products or services rather than just having them sit there and be parked.

The .ME domains part of the premium domain program this year are;

Around.ME
Fund.ME
Find.ME
For.ME
Hire.ME

While the .ME registry could auction these premium domains names to the highest bidder this is a good explanation of why they are not doing that.

Why Doesn’t The .Me Registry Sell These Domains?
Our goal is to assign the very best premium domains to the best content. If we sold them outright, large domain portfolio holders who don’t intend to build websites or offer services would likely purchase these domains. We reserved these five domains so that they would be available to be used by companies, businesses and startups that provide a quality product or service. Ultimately, this has far greater value for our domain (.Me).

Let's be honest, money with strong financial and venture capital backing is going to be a factor. They are looking for great ideas for developing these premium .ME domains which standout though.

Out of those 5 domains I personally like Hire.ME the best since it would be ideal for a microgig competitor to Fiverr. The domain could also be used to create an Elance and oDesk type of freelancing platform. Alternatively it could be used for a jobs listing service. I think in this economy any of those 3 ideas would be great for Hire.ME.

Another one I like is Fund.ME since that could be used for a crowdfunding site such as IndieGoGo and Kickstarter. Fund.ME is catchy and easy to remember.

I would submit one of these ideas myself but I seriously doubt my application would be taken seriously. If you want to give it a shot and your name is “Jack Dorsey” than by all means apply to the .ME premium domain program. The deadline to apply for premium domain program is June 15 th, 2013.

Maybe you can kickstart the .ME domain extension with your awesome idea!

Catch me on Twitter @AdamYamada … if you can!