ipo

Facebook's Saverin: I'm a 'global citizen,' not a tax dodger

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who is simultaneously becoming one of the richer and more reviled people around, wants to set the record straight.

Saverin, who helped Mark Zuckerberg launch Facebook in 2004, will become an instant billionaire when the social-networking giant goes public in its massive IPO later this week. But Uncle Sam's tax bite is expected to be tempered by the fact that Saverin, a Brazilian who immigrated to the U.S. as a boy to avoid kidnapping plots, has renounced his U.S. citizenship.

The recent revelation has raised the consternation of many, including my ZDNet colleague … Read more

Tips for Facebook millionaires

It's estimated that the Facebook IPO will create 1,000 new millionaires -- granted that's a small, ok, miniscule percentage in the scheme of things -- but still, we thought it prudent to give some words of wisdom to those burgeoning fat cats.

We know that some Facebook employees had grand visions of rocketing into space on Virgin Galactic or excavating Mayan ruins with their new-found fortunes, but Bill Harris of PersonalCapital.com says that cooler heads must prevail.

"The biggest thing is to resist it becoming an emotional decision as opposed to analytical decision," he … Read more

Facebook IPO doesn't mean the end of privacy

Despite the sometimes-rocky history between Facebook users and the social network's privacy policy, experts have not gone Cassandra on a post-Facebook IPO world.

"The biggest change in the IPO will be the consistent pressure on revenues," said Justin Brookman, director of consumer privacy at the Center for Democracy and Technology. His sentiment is echoed by other analysts at privacy organizations that have criticized Facebook in the past. How that focus on revenue will affect Facebook's approach to user privacy is less certain.

"Most of the changes in the recent policy update were semantic and clarification, … Read more

Facebook.com received 9% of all U.S. Internet visits in April

Experian Hitwise, which measures all sorts of traffic and activity on the Web, has released a new batch of stats around Facebook, helping to fuel all the hoopla in the run-up to Friday's IPO. For all the debate over its business model, Facebook obviously isn't hurting for traffic. In the U.S., one in every five page views was to Facebook.

Here are some other findings:

Facebook.com received more than 1.6 billion visits a week and averaged more than 229 million U.S. visits a day for the year-to-date. Facebook.com received 9% of all U.… Read more

King Zuck's reign weakens, albeit slightly

As the demand for Facebook's IPO has driven up the price range, a number of insiders have decided sell off more shares because, apparently, the offer is too rich to pass up.

Some of those insiders are selling shares that, while not owned by Zuck, awarded him their voting power.

The upshot: Zuckerberg's voting control post-IPO will slip to 55.8 percent from 57.3 percent. Hardly a big deal, but worth noting since Zuckerberg is determined to keep control of Facebook -- just as he has since it turned from a Harvard dorm room project to a … Read more

Google exec to Facebook: Uh, your users aren't really shoppers

File this one under statements of the obvious -- though it's one that may ultimately keep Facebook and its investors awake at night.

In the wake of General Motors' decision to dump its paid Facebook ads, the product leader of Google's European display-ad business virtually thumbed his nose at Facebook -- a company that could soon be valued at more than $100 billion thanks to an IPO premised on the strength of its advertising business:

Seriously folks, did you really expect consumers to be in transactional mindsets on Facebook?

— Jason Bigler (@jasonbigler) May 15, 2012

Of course, there'… Read more

It's a Facebook backlash. Wow, that was quick!

Dear Facebook:

America is over you and your hot IPO. Already. We're a fickle bunch.

Half of us think you're a fad, particularly the older folks, according to a poll from the Associated Press and CNBC. General Motors just announced it was going to stop advertising with you because it couldn't see how its Facebook ads were being effective. And the rest of us, well, we're still rip-snorting angry that co-founder Eduardo Saverin is giving up his U.S. citizenship so he doesn't have to pay taxes on the billions he's about to make … Read more

Facebook's latest filing: Insiders are cashing in

Facebook today revealed that it will have more shares than expected available to investors when it goes public on Friday. But the social network won't be the one cashing in on it.

Facebook will now offer up to 484.4 million shares of class A common stock, including overallotment, when it goes public on Friday. In a filing yesterday, Facebook revealed that it was only planning to go public with a maximum of 388 million shares. The increase has pushed the maximum amount of cash potentially secured in the offering up $3.66 billion from $14.7 billion to $… Read more

GM and its Facebook ads: The knives are out

Yesterday, word broke that General Motors ended $10 million in Facebook ad spending after determining the ads didn't work for it. The timing of the original WSJ story on the subject was spectacular, coming as it did just three days before Facebook's IPO.

Now folks sympathetic to Facebook are firing back at the automaker, saying GM ran a lousy Facebook campaign and ignored the social network's advice. Which is not terribly surprising when you think about it, since the GM story has ignited a wider debate about the utility of corporate ad spending on Facebook at about … Read more

Facebook's IPO: Massive valuation brings business model scrutiny

For Facebook, a valuation topping $100 billion following its initial public offering Friday comes with a few strings, notably increased scrutiny of its business model.

After all, Facebook's IPO wouldn't be a cultural event if the company was merely dependent on social games -- mostly made by Zynga, by the way -- and display advertising, would it? That's what armchair traders, individual investors, industry analysts, and big-money institutions are asking.

The questions about Facebook's business model and growth prospects explain why a rather minor issue -- GM ending an ad experiment on the social network -- … Read more