Okay, maybe it’s not perjury, but this Facebook update has to be some kind of illegal.

Facebook Perjury is a post from: The Inquisitr

I don’t know about you, but I want to be this girl’s dad when I grow up.

Facebooking Dad Win is a post from: The Inquisitr

We make a lot of fun of people who forsake any semblance of a life in favor of playing ‘social’ games on Facebook, well, alright I do but if you were honest you would admit you do the same.

From Farmville to Plants vs. Zombies; or any of the knock-offs and big money wannabes, people are talking about social gaming, either about the making of them or trying to figure out the reasons for their rampant success and money making.

Of course the big boy of these perpetual money machines is Zynga with their reputation of mimicking other people’s work and how much money they are making off of the the back of Facebook and members of the service.

However do we really know who all these people are that play all these games for hours on end, or with some it is more like days on end. This is the question that the team at Flowtown decided to try and figure out and use the information to create a nifty infographic.

via visual.ly

Will social gamers please stand up and introduce yourselves [Infographic] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Mark Zuckerberg will face taxes of around $1.67 billion when he inevitably exercises options to buy 120 million shares in Facebook. What’s a mere multi-millionnaire to do?

Well, many pundits expect the 27-year-old CEO to sell back about $1.67 billion of Facebook Inc. stock in the company’s initial public offering to cover his tax liabilities. And even then, such a figure will be a drop in the ocean compared to the value of Zuckerberg’s overall stake in the social network, which could be worth as much as $28.4 billion.

Facebook’s IPO filing, first made on February 1, proposes a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, though the company attracted a valuation of at least $94 billion (about $40 a share) when it auctioned its shares on the private market this week.

The IPO filing goes on to address Zuckerberg’s tasty tax bill:

“We expect that substantially all of the net proceeds Mr. Zuckerberg will receive upon such sale will be used to satisfy taxes that he will incur upon his exercise of an outstanding stock option to purchase 120,000,000 shares.”

Incidentally, as tax rates are a hot topic right now, Zuckerberg’s tax rate will be 35 percent, according to Victor Fleischer, associate professor of law at the University of Colorado.

Businessweek got a ‘no comment’ when it approached Larry Yu, a spokesman for Facebook, yesterday.

[Via Businessweek]

Mark Zuckerberg May Cover Taxes By Selling $1.67 Billion in Facebook Stock is a post from: The Inquisitr

I think I speak for everyone, at least in New York, when I say please, please stop posting about the Giants already.

Facebook This Week is a post from: The Inquisitr

Everyone is talking about the recent S-1 form that Facebook just filled out on the road to being a publicly traded company.  There has been much talk about the billions of dollars that everyone is going to make off the company.  Everyone is talking about the star studded list of investors that are going to be made even richer by their investment in Facebook.

The one thing that has been overlooked on the form is a little section known as “Risks Related to Our Business and Industry.”. There are 38 listed risks to the company and a few of them are actually really comical.

One of the biggest risks to the Company is Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder who invented Facebook in his Harvard dorm room when he was 19.

Why is Zuckerberg such a threat?

The S-1 says,

That Mark Zuckerberg’s bad decision-making could lead to a decline in company value. Along with “users fleeing” and “decline in advertising revenue,” the following was listed as a major risk factor:

Our CEO has control over key decision making as a result of his control of a majority of our voting stock.

Zuckerberg owns 58 percent of Facebook stock, which means that he “has the ability to control the outcome of matters” that come before stockholders. Furthermore:

“As a stockholder, even a controlling stockholder, Mr. Zuckerberg is entitled to vote his shares, and shares over which he has voting control as a result of voting agreements, in his own interests, which may not always be in the interests of our stockholders generally.”

Should stockholders fear the man who controls the company they hold stock in?

Major Facebook Risk: Mark Zuckerberg is a post from: The Inquisitr

U2 front man and rock star Bono is set to be rolling in money very soon.  The rocker owns 1.5% of Facebook which is expected to go public soon.  If the social networking giant comes even close to the IPO valuation of $100 billion dollars that everyone is talking about, Bono will be worth more than $1 billion dollars.

This will set Bono hundreds of millions of dollars ahead of current richest rocker Paul McCartney.

Facebook is expected to go public next month in one of the largest IPO’s in history.

Facebook is currently sitting on a pile of cash from its ever increasing revenues.

As part of its initial filings with the SEC, Facebook now has more than 850 users and more than half of them sign on every single day. Company financials which were released said that  the company produced a $1 billion profit last year from $3.71 billion in revenues. The company derives 85% of those revenues from advertising, with the rest from social gaming and other fees.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to make more than $28 billion dollars from the IPO.  He has repeatedly shied away form going public in order to keep the company focused on making great products.  His slogan is,

“We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services,”

Until now Google Inc has had the largest IPO in history.  Facebook is looking to shatter that record.

Will you be taking part in the Facebook IPO?

Watch a video about Bono and the Billions he will be making.

Bono Set To Become Richest Rock Star Ever [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Everything these days seems to have to revolve around social media in one way or another and one would have though that the huge ad platform of the Super Bowl we would have seen much more of advertisers trying to connect using social media hooks.

Well it turns out that this isn’t the case as fresh analysis from the Altimeter Group shows that 32% of the 87 ads that were run during the Super Bowl stayed away from not only social media but also any online references of any kind.

As Drew Olanoff noted at The Next Web this showed that some companies are still “playing it safe” when it comes to including their online presence in their major advertising messages.

In what I’ll call “playing it safe”, it appears that most companies who did make reference to a presence on the Internet, chose to use their own URL rather than a hashtag or Facebook URL. Why is this? It has to do with controlling the message, obviously.

If I’m company and I’m spending a lot of money on the biggest television stage in the United States, there’s absolutely no way I’m going to ask millions of people to use a hashtag. There’s just no context to be had there and nothing to be gained. As we’ve seen with a recent McDonalds hashtag gaffe, it might actually cost you more money and brand integrity to defend something gone awry.

I have to agree with Drew on this and additionally I find it interesting that rather than push their company’s social media pages on places like Facebook they were opting to only show direct links to their own domain pages.

This hearkens back to a long held belief by many online people that companies and people should have direct control of their online identities and “Google juice” rather than farming it all out to social media data silos like Facebook and Twitter.

While Facebook and the like might be good for spot promotion type things I don’t believe that companies, or individuals who make their living from the web, should be putting all their eggs in the social network providers control.

image courtesy of The Next Web

In year of Social Media everything Super Bowl advertisers stayed away from it is a post from: The Inquisitr

It never fails that when any of the big boys of the web, like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, or even Twitter, decide to make changes to any of their privacy policies the web erupts with various degrees of outrage and condemnation. You know – like how when Google announced the other week that it was going to unify all its various privacy policies into one homogeneous  policy.

The resulting furor over the news had the European Union calling for the to slow down and wait, The US Congress has voice concerns about the changes, and we are still in the early days of their move to unify everything.

Of course Google isn’t alone these days when attracting the eye of regulators from governments around the world as we have seen how every time Facebook make changes, even the smallest one, the uproar is immediate and forceful.

To help us try and gain some understanding what is behind all these privacy issues the folks at Frugal Dad has put together a well rounded infographic for you to look over and figure out what is going on. Be sure to let us know in the comments what you think about this whole mess.

via VentureBeat

About this whole web privacy thing – well, it’s difficult [Infographic] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Or Reddit, which isn’t really a social network but please check out my ragecomic about a donut and upvote if you like it!

Social Networks Explained is a post from: The Inquisitr

Mystery solved. Kids in the 90′s were totally into dubstep before it was cool.

The True Origin of Dubstep is a post from: The Inquisitr

Quick, what’s the first thing you do in the morning? Have a smoke, get some coffee, or check your Facebook updates?

It would be seriously interesting to see how many smartphone users indeed wake up in bed and look at their Facebook walls through one barely-open eye. And it seems that while we were busy sharing George Takei’s photos and playing CastleVille, we’ve all developed a bit of a creeping addiction. A study may have actually confirmed that Facebook has addictive properties, not entirely unlike that of alcohol and tobacco.

The Guardian reports that researchers distributed more than 200 BlackBerry handsets to 18 to 25 year old users, and what’s more interesting, the young adults actually used the BlackBerrys to like, go on Facebook and check things. Participants were pinged over periods lasting 14 hours or seven days, and asked to respond about how strong their social media craving was at that particular time. More than 10,000 responses were logged, and more than 7,200 responses indicated a strong urge to update.

While sex and sleep often won out over posting an update or farming crops, alcohol and booze were less compelling- mainly perhaps because, researchers surmise, they carry more financial and other types of costs to indulge, while Facebooking is still free. (Provided you post this picture to your wall and say “we won’t pay for Facebook.” Kidding!)

Researchers noted:

“With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs – long-term as well as monetary – and the opportunity may not always be the right one. So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still ‘steal’ a lot of people’s time.”

Are you addicted to Facebook, Twitter or other forms of social media?

Facebook More Addictive Than Booze and Cigs? Study Says Perhaps is a post from: The Inquisitr

At least this one has a guaranteed acceptance rate of 50%, which isn’t half bad.

Facebook Event: Pants Party is a post from: The Inquisitr

Question: who is Sheryl Sandberg? Answer: she’s the person many people might expect to be Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook’s highest paid employee.

The Facebook IPO has made Zuckerberg an overnight multi-millionaire, but it also revealed the fact that chief operating officer Sandberg, a 42-year-old working mother who describes herself as the ‘grown-up’ at the company, makes the most money at the social network.

In financial year 2011, Sandberg’s income was a $300,000 base salary plus $30,491,613 in Facebook shares. In addition, she has 38,122,000 restricted stock units (worth approx. $1.15 billion at $30/share) that will be completely vested by October 2020, subject to her continued employment through the vesting date. Such figures dwarf even Zuckerberg’s fortune. When the company goes public, Sandberg will be one of the wealthiest self-made women in the world.

She was lured from Google by Zuckerberg in 2008, after the entrepreneur took her to dinner twice a week for six weeks running. When finally at Facebook, her mission was simple: make Facebook profitable.

Before Sandberg’s arrival, the company was “primarily interested in building a really cool site; profits, they assumed, would follow.” Sandberg pioneered the discreet presentation of Facebook adverts and oversaw the firm’s business operations. By 2010, Facebook was turning profits in the millions.

She’s been ranked one of the 50 ‘Most Powerful Women in Business’ by Fortune magazine since 2008, became a member of the Walt Disney Company board in 2009, and joined the Board of Directors of Starbucks in 2010, a role that comes with a tidy $280,000 annual salary.

So, Mark Zuckerberg: not Facebook’s highest paid employee by a long shot. Surprised?

Meet Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Highest Paid Employee is a post from: The Inquisitr

Facebook has gone public. The social networking giant filed papers for what is expected to be the largest initial public offering for any internet company. Facebook said that it hopes to raise $5 billion in its IPO.

The Associated Press reports that anyone (with the right amount of cash) can now own a part of the internet giant. Industry experts expect the company to make its stock market debut in three to four months as one of the world’s most valuable companies.

Facebook said in its regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it expects to raise $5 billion in its IPO. If Facebook raises its expected $5 billion it will surpass Google’s record set in 2004 with $1.9 billion.

Some people aren’t sure, however, that Facebook will be able to raise the $5 billion. Scott Kessler, a Standard & Poor’s equity analyst who follows Internet stocks, said that internet companies may have a hard time finding real world investors even if they are extremely popular. Kessler said:

“It seems there’s so much excitement, innovation around Internet startups in Silicon Valley and yet a lot of these companies … have not performed well at all. The concern is the sustainability of the growth and profitability. It’s very, very difficult to prove those things out over a short period of time.”

The LA Times reports that Facebook is currently used by more than 800 million people around the world and is one has become one of the most valuable platforms for companies. Do you think Facebook’s IPO will raise $5 billion?

Here is Facebook’s IPO filing.

Facebook Files IPO, Hopes to Raise $5 Billion is a post from: The Inquisitr

Facebook has been around for almost 8 years now and what an amazing 8 years it has been. Growth has skyrocketed and the social network is very quickly approaching 1 Billion users, half of which who login daily.

The site launched in February 2004 and thanks to its growth out of the gate, it got the attention of companies and investors. In fact, as early as 2004, the same year Mark Zuckerberg launched the social network, he had offers to buy.

With news of the IPO happening this year and a potential $100 Billion valuation, it’s a good thing he stuck to his guns and didn’t sell. The social networking space would look vastly different from what it is today and has been a driver of innovation across other platforms.

Via ZDNet:

“Facebook has had countless offers for being bought out: an unnamed investor offered $10 million in June 2004, Friendster was interested in a purchase, Google offered to buy or partner in the summer of 2004, Viacom offered $75 million in March 2005, Myspace wanted to buy in spring 2005, News Corp (Myspace’s parent company) wanted to in January 2006, Viacom came back in 2005, NBC was also interested soon after, Viacom again made an offer of $1.5 billion in 2006, Yahoo offered $1 billion in June 2006, AOL also considered $1 billion soon after, Yahoo came back again at the end of 2006, and finally Google offered $15 billion in 2007. Instead, Microsoft bought a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook for about $240 million, giving the social network a valuation of $15 billion, in October 2007.”

As Justin Timberlake said in the movie ‘The Social Network’, “You know what’s better than a Million dollars? A Billion dollars”. Well, you know what’s even better than that? 100 Billion dollars.

If you were in the same situation as Mark Zuckerberg, would you have sold Facebook at the time?

Mark Zuckerberg Had The Chance To Sell Facebook As Early As 2004 is a post from: The Inquisitr

NASA, despite getting a cut in funding, is still buzzing about. They launched a Facebook game titled Space Race Blastoff which is a multiplayer game. The social network continues to be a hotbed of interaction and social gaming is a fast growing market.

Zynga who recently had an IPO, is a Multi-Billion dollar company that solely makes social games from the likes of Farmville, Mafia Wars, Words With Friends, and soon to be available for everyone, Bingo. Millions upon Millions of people play games on Facebook every single month so it’s a great place to develop something for.

You can play the game in both solo and multiplayer mode and how it works is very simple. When you’re in the game, you have to choose an avatar and answer 10 multiple choice questions. Get the answer correct and you earn 100 points. The play who answers first gets a 20 point bonus. The winner goes to a bonus round and answers an extra question for more points.

If you answer the bonus question correctly, you’ll earn a virtual badge. All the points you earn can be redeemed for more badges. As with any multiplayer game, there’s leaderboards to track your progress compared to others. All in all, a rather simple game.

Via ZDNet:

“Space Race Blastoff was developed by Scott Hanger, Todd Powell and Jamie Noguchi of NASA’s Internet Services Group in the Office of Communications. NASA says it chose to make the game available through Facebook “to take advantage of the social media site’s large audience and enable players to compete against others.”

“Space Race Blastoff opens NASA’s history and research to a wide new audience of people accustomed to using social media,” David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for communications, said in a statement. “Space experts and novices will learn new things about how exploration continues to impact our world.”

What do you think about NASA venturing into Facebook games?

NASA Launches Facebook Game ‘Space Race Blastoff’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

Facebook recently announced that Timeline, the new profile design, will be rolling out to all users here very soon. For those who don’t like change or the new profile design, well, they’re out of luck as the change is mandatory and can’t be reverted back to the old.

This has upset some users as they claim it to be a breach of privacy, or they just don’t like it to begin with. Because of this, some people thought they could latch onto this fear and scam people in the process. Facebook pages are popping up around this scam and USA Today has more details:

“Many of the pages offer the same promise: a plug-in for your browser that will “disable” the new Timeline functionality. The developers even add helpful hints advising users to ignore software warnings that extensions, plug-ins, and other apps “can harm your computer.” The developers also suggest that you should “allow up to 24 hours for the changes to take effect,” which is a cute way of covering up the fact that absolutely nothing will happen.”

While to the average user that sounds all fine and dandy, it’s a potential way of getting access to your Facebook account or worse, access to your computer and the ability to find all sorts of confidential information. Timeline is not something that can be disabled, period, so keep an eye out for anything claiming to disable the new profile design and make sure to report the page.

What are your thoughts on the new Facebook Timeline? Good/bad?

Facebook Scam Targets Users Who Don’t Want New Profile Design is a post from: The Inquisitr

Facebook who’s IPO is said to being filed this week, takes nearly 1/3 of all US display ads according to new data. The social network is gearing up for their public launch which, if the IPO is filed soon, we could see that happening just a few months from now with a summer launch very likely.

No matter how you use the site, we’re all in the same boat: We see ads. Lots of ads. Being that there’s almost 1 Billion users, that’s a lot of eyeballs and potentially, a lot of clicks. The revenue made from displaying these ads is in the Billions and only expected to go up and up from there.

Via Los Angeles Times:

“With the filing for its initial public offering expected any day now, Facebook Inc. is extending its lead in online display advertising, which makes up the bulk of its revenue. The social networking giant’s share of the U.S. online display advertising market grew to nearly 28% for 2011, up from 21% a year earlier, according to research firm ComScore Inc.”

“Facebook has stayed ahead of Yahoo Inc., which has 11% of the display ad market — and far ahead of Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.,  each of which has less than 5%, according to ComScore.”

This is also the first time since 2009 that the social network surpassed Yahoo in terms of US display ads. With that said, they’re quickly on their way to 1 Billion users. That’s going to be a huge milestone, the largest of any social network or even site in the history of the Internet, and that’s only going to contribute to the growth of their ad platform.

Do you ever click on any Facebook ads?

Facebook Takes Nearly 1/3 Of All US Display Ads is a post from: The Inquisitr

KTXL-TV in Sacramento is reporting in an attempt to break a Guinness World Record, Cathy Matthews and about 106 other people  were able to compile 1,001,291 comments to a single Facebook post.

Matthews and her friends have gone through all the proper channels over at Guinness to ensure that indeed a record was broken and that they will be acknowledged as the new record holders.

The original record holder, which was written on the wall of a Facebook group called “Ffgpioneers/gwr/attempt” on October 30, 2011, did not originally garner over 1,000,000 posts but has had plenty of posts added since it was recorded as the official record.

The most recent post is shown below,

With slightly more than 100 people participating, each person had to comment on the post an average of about 9,300 times.

Funny enough the record was aided by the new commenting feature.  It used to be that you had to hit “comment” and then press a button for it to show on Facebook. Now you can just click on the box with the mouse type and hit enter.

“The most comments on a single Facebook item” record currently stands at 529,335, according to Guinness World Records. That record, held by Roberto Esposito, was set on June 29, 2011. Zynga, the company behind Frontierville, holds several Guinness World Records itself. Not only is it “the most popular Facebook games developer,” but its “Cityville” was named “the most popular game on Facebook” in 2010.

It is very interesting that this is the new face of record setting.  It used to be that some moron would have to grow his fingernails out by five feet in order to win a world record.  Now all it takes it some determination, a computer screen and a strong cup of coffee.

Do you think a million Facebook posts is a big deal?

With Over 1 Million Facebook Comments Woman Breaks Record is a post from: The Inquisitr