Facebook is revising hard and fast in the lead-up to Friday when it is expected to ring in the Nasdaq bell and go public. In short, every revision is continuing to gradually push up the value of the company. Today’s S-1 filing has increased Facebook’s share offering to 421,233,615 shares of Class A common stock – 83,818,263 shares more than yesterday’s S-1, which had 337,415,352 shares of Class A common stock.
With the additional shares, the company could now potentially raise up to $16 billion when it goes public, according to Reuters. Facebook is holding on the $34-38 price range. It will be trading on the Nasdaq as FB.
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The are almost too many tech events in the calendar these days to mark any particular one out as being worthy of note. I say almost because, on the global stage at least, TechCrunch Disrupt (Ok, Ok, but still…) remains up there because of how much other media attend and, well, just it’s general awesomeness. Into this small basket you could also put, for instance, Le Web, Founders Forum in the UK, DLD, The Lobby Conference, the tech elements at Davos and maybe even TED. What few of them are doing however, is celebrating new blood. You tend to see the people who have made it, not the one’s about to make it (apart from Disrupt of course). To that end one rapidly emerging event which is doing a very good job of bringing together the Valley, New York, Asia, Europe and emerging global startups like South America is the simply named “F.ounders“. And it’s coming to New York on June 14/15, and will be attended by our very own editor, Eric Eldon and co-editor Alexia Tsosis. → Read More
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It’s almost here. The big day. Can you feel the excitement? Yes, if all goes according to plan on Friday, Mark Zuckerberg will ring the Nasdaq bell in a hoodie, the big blue social network will go forward with one of the largest IPOs for an internet company in history, the markets will hit a fever pitch, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse will update their statuses — and the rest of us will just go back to using Twitter.
Nonetheless, Facebook is expected to go public at a valuation between $92 and $103 billion. As such, it’s pretty clear what Facebook is worth to us (really, to the market), but the real question is: How much are you worth to Facebook? Hmm? → Read More
Sign of a maturing marketing flattening out, a lack of compelling devices, or a contraction in the economy? Gartner today released figures that note that worldwide sales of mobile phones were actually down by two percent this quarter, to reach a total of 419.1 million units — the first time the market has declined since the second quarter of 2009, the analysts say.
Gartner’s explanation is a slowdown in demand from Asia-Pacific, because of a lack of compelling new devices getting launched in the period: users are simply holding out until something better comes along. Nevertheless, of the vendors that are doing well, Samsung is riding at the top of the list, with 20.7 percent of all mobile sales globally, and among smartphones, it is the only Android vendor to have more than 10 percent market share — with Android now accounting for 56 percent of all smartphone sales in the quarter.
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With Square yet to reveal when or where it might offer its mobile payment service in Europe, and PayPal apparently still only talking with would-be partners, the door is wide open for more local players to jump in and pick up some market share. Sweden’s iZettle, which often gets compared to Square, is now doing just that: today it is launching its iOS, dongle-based mobile payment service to the UK, four months after its pan-nordic live launch, and as it is preparing to launch an Android version of its product later this year.
iZettle kicking off its service by giving away 3,000 card readers to small businesses and sole traders in the country as part of its invitation-only beta, which it is running in cooperation with MasterCard, American Express and Diners Club. In its still brief life, it has seen some decent traction in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, where it now has 50,000 active merchants on its network.
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In the white heat of the current tech market it’s sometimes easy to forget that some companies, although taking their time, simply become viable businesses – instead of waiting for a call from Facebook or Twitter that may never come. I’ve been covering web site and shop builder Moonfruit for longer than I care to remember (they launched in 2000), but along the way husband and wife team Joe and Wendy White kept on pushing the company until it was one of the most innovative of its kind out there. Today that hard work is rewarded in Moonfruit’s acquisition by directories giant Yell for $29 million (£18m) in cash.
Unusually for a UK acquisition announcement, Yell has also made the golden hand-cuffs explicit for the founders. Retention bonuses of £5.2m (£2.7m grossed up) will be paid to Moonfruit’s executive management team of Joe White, Eirik Pettersen and Wendy Tan-White after two years, provided that they remain exclusively employed by Yell. → Read More
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Cloud-based telephony API startup Twilio has made significant inroads into VoIP and other carrier services like SMS by launching products that work on the web and in iOS apps, supporting 30,000 developers in the process. Today it’s widening that net considerably with the launch of a new Android client, the first SDK from the company to work on Google’s platform. And it hints that Windows Phone may be next in line.
Considering that Android is currently the most popular smartphone platform globally, this potentially gives Twilio a much bigger opportunity to deliver services to the wider smartphone market — with Android and iOS together accounting for 75 percent of the existing smartphone market, according to Gartner.
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When I was younger, my parents liked to listen to the big soft rock stations in Los Angeles. Once in a while, the sappy love songs would be interrupted by an emotional song dedication from a boy/girlfriend to their significant other. It was awkward, but also kind of beautiful. But mostly awkward.
Now it sounds like Pandora has made an impressive gesture toward keeping that tradition alive, while also demonstrating the power of its ad targeting. → Read More
Facebook has nearly a billion users today, so what could topple the blue giant? Government intervention, the shift to mobile, and a loss of “cool” all have the power to violently disrupt Facebook, or at least see it lose its iron grip on social networking.
Here’s a look at the four things that could ruin Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of a single site that connects the world. → Read More
Ask a VC is back this month (finally!) after a long hiatus. This week we have a freshly-minted VC, Nabeel Hyatt, of Spark Capital. Hyatt just joined Spark after 15 years of starting and building companies. His most recent company was social gaming outfit Conduit, which became Zynga Boston after it was acquired.
We have a couple of questions from readers — one from Nicky, who asks whether the VC model is “broken”, and another from a reader Alex, who asks about how the landscape for user acquisition is changing. User acquisition is Hyatt’s home turf. As a general manager at Zynga, which is the most data-driven company on the Facebook platform, he had to know the arc and decline of social games like the back of his hand. This is super useful in light of the explosive growth that apps like SocialCam and Viddy are seeing on Facebook and iOS. → Read More
Today, the Banters social experiment has officially come to a close, as the startup’s co-founder Lauren Leto said via blog post today that the team will be no longer actively working on the site beginning June 1st. However, in spite of its tumultuous road and final splash into the deadpool, the news came with a silver lining. Both Leto and her co-founder, Patrick Moberg, will be taking up residence at Betaworks, the New York accelerator that has incubated or funded startups like bitly, Chartbeat, SocialFlow, News.me, Kickstarter, TweetDeck, and many more. → Read More
Social magazine Flipboard may have to think up a new tagline for itself, as tonight the company is rolling out an update which greatly expands its focus beyond text-based content to also include audio. The rollout features integrations from NPR, PRI (Public Radio International) and social sound platform, SoundCloud.
Also of note, Flipboard is launching its third localized edition with the debut of a Flipboard app for Japan, following its previous launches in China and France. And there’s an update which will matter a lot to a smaller number of users: integration of Apple’s voiceover controls to provide better access for the visually impaired. → Read More
Editor’s Note: Sales Marketing Manager Leslie Hitchcock is a non-editorial TechCrunch employee. In addition to working at TechCrunch and being super fashionable, she reviews startups and tech products occasionally on her personal blog, Leslie Just Joined.
Two of my favorite things are shoes and tech. That a site exists which combines both…well, where do I sign up?
Shoes of Prey is an Australian headquartered startup where women (sorry, fellas!) can create shoes of their own design, which are then custom made to order and delivered within five weeks of conceptualization. Shoes of Prey came to fruition out of the premise that somehow women compromise when searching for the perfect shoe out in the wild; that our ultimate dream shoe lives somewhere inside of us, just waiting to come out. I can get on board with this!
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Ever since Comcast unveiled the VOD service on the Xbox, it’s come under criticism from those who believe the service violates the spirit of net neutrality, not to mention also violating some of the FCC’s conditions on its big NBC Universal deal from last year. After weeks of staying out of the discussion, the top cable provider in the U.S. explained in a blog post how the content was being delivered within a subscriber’s home.
Comcast had always maintained that the VOD streams were being delivered through its own internal CDN architecture and not over the broader Internet, but the latest blog post gives a little more detail about how those streams get delivered over the last mile. → Read More
Last week, Bing began the initial phase of rolling out a major redesign, in fact the “most significant” redesign in its three-year history. Today, the wait is over. This afternoon, Bing officially turned on its new design, and has made it available for everyone in the U.S. You can check it out here. → Read More
Over the past six months, the folks at OpenSignalMaps have been keeping tabs on the devices that have been downloading their network monitoring app, and so far they’ve recorded downloads onto 681,900 separate Android devices in 195 countries.
Now they’ve taken all that data and splayed it out for all to see, and it highlights rather nicely how big a headache fragmentation can be for developers.
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One of the things I wish I had done in both of my companies (Excite.com and JotSpot) was to take a piece of advice that I now give most entrepreneurs I meet. That advice is: “Right after you sign your term sheet for your Series A, write the fantasy deck for your Series B (complete with whatever metrics, graphs and customer lists you would love to have).”
I say this because of the way I’ve both done fundraising and seen it done. Whether we like to admit it or not, the way it’s usually done tends to be very haphazard and bottom’s up. It starts with… → Read More
Lenovo rolled out its latest notebook today. It is, in a word, spectacular. The Chinese company proves time and time again that Apple isn’t the only company capable of producing class-leading designs. Lenovo’s 14-inch X1 Carbon shown here by Engadget is everything an anti-MacBook Air should be. If there was ever a true MacBook Air competitor, or, if you will, a notebook that lives up to the ultra part of the Ultrabook name, it’s the new Lenovo X1 Carbon. → Read More
You’ve heard the stories, the rumors, and the speculation. Our recent string of TC Mini Meetups have been staggeringly successful, which is why we’re bringing the fun to some of the most badass cities in the country: Savannah, GA; Atlanta, GA; Raleigh, NC; and Charlotte, NC.
You’re excited already. I can feel it.
These will be social networking events, in the truest sense. Sure, Jordan, Matt and I would love to hear your pitches (and we will), but these meetups extend far beyond that. → Read More
Winning TechCrunch Disrupt in 2011 was an unforgettable experience that will undoubtedly remain a highlight of my entrepreneurial career. After winning the prestigious Disrupt Cup and Audience Choice Award, we signed up thousands of cars, had over 150 news stories published, and closed a $3.4M seed round.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of our win, we’re now operating in 4 major markets with many more on the way. In case you’re wondering what it takes to WIN Disrupt, we’ll let you in on our secrets: → Read More
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