Facebook and Twitter are perhaps the two biggest social media powerhouses of our time. But according to a book by New York Times reporter Nick Bilton, things could have been very different.
The name of the book is called Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship and Betrayal.? The book says in 2008, as Twitter struggled for national recognition, co-founder Jack Dorsey was demoted from CEO to silent chairman. Then, other Twitter leaders was called by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg to a meeting. Facebook was interested in purchasing Twitter for $500 million. Apparently, Zuckerburg and Dorsey were talking for months about a buyout. But after Dorsey’s demotion, the buyout went south in a hurry. Other reasons were: The price wasn’t good enough and? concerns about the other company.
In 2008, Twitter was already worth over a billion dollars. The next year, it exploded! I wonder if Twitter leaders know it was on the verge of explosion. That’s why it didn’t happen. I wonder if Facebook knew Twitter was about to blow up. Maybe that’s why it was trying to buy Twitter. But what if the buyout happened? Would it have been so big it would have taken out everybody else? Or would it have been so big would they have collapsed under their own weight? What do think life would be like if Facebook and Twitter merged?
For years, Facebook has been a hub of socialization for teenagers. It was a demographic they could count on. Facebook won’t be counting on them for long.
According to Facebook itself, the last quarter was the first time ever they lost teen users. They finally own up to it after even Mark Zuckerberg denied this loss of it’s core group. It’s already hitting the stock market. Their share prices dropped as soon as this news was announced. Well, the last time I checked, stocks climbed back up. News about them beating Q3 earnings drove them up.
Let’s look at the why. The first reason is Snapchat. It has over 100 million users and takes 350 million snaps a day. I don’t know how many of these are teens or teen driven. But you know how they jump to the next big think. I’m guessing it’s a lot. And let’s face it, Facebook and teens haven’t been best friends socially. The social media site has been linked to cyber bullying, though Facebook has put up a vigilant effort to fight and stop it. Then they’re other consequences. There’s been several news stories about people getting fired and/or not getting hired for ‘inappropriate’ posts and pictures on their FB page. Don’t even get me started on that one. But fewer and fewer teens want to even take that risk.
I say just let nature take it’s course. Another reason for the teen drop-off is they realize Facebook is something the older people do. What kid wants to do what older people do? And they’re right. Facebook uses among people over 21 is skyrocketing. What I suggest is they put their advertising focus on this group. But this leaves me with one question: Are teenagers logging off Facebook on their own or are helicopter parents logging off for them?
But not everyone is struggling during these turbulent times. It’s been reported Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg is the highest paid CEO for a North American company.
In 2012, Zuckerberg pocketed approximately 2.28 billion dollars. The majority of this didn’t come from advertising, but from stock options. To put this in perspective, 2.28 billion is almost as much as the other nine highest paid CEOs combined (that came up to 4.7 billion). A year ago, Facebook’s stocks were around $17 a share. As of today, October 23, 2013, it stands at around $52 a share. But as early as 2005, during Facebook’s infancy, Zuckerberg exercised stock options at just six cents a pop. When Facebook went public in spring 2012, those stocks were worth over 2.7 billion dollars. If you’re wondering, Apple CEO Tim Cook ranked fifth on this list.
It’s impressive that someone not even 30 years old made this list and has already changed the world forever. It’s also impressive he’s investing in projects, like making sure anyone who wants online access can have it regardless of cost and/or location. But I thought more tech giant CEOs and general managers would have made the list. Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff made ninth on the list. Where’s the Google CEO? Aren’t their stocks in record numbers? Where’s Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos? Where’s Bill Gates? Why aren’t they on this list?
As many of you know, the Healthcare.gov sight works only when it wants to, when it wants to work at all. Telecommunications giant Verizon is going to help the government help their online health system.
Verizon’s Enterprise Solutions have been asked by the US Department of Health and Human Services to help improve the troubled healthcare.gov site. The site is critical to the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. According to Aneesh Chopra, who was once President Obama’s chief technology officer, “”There is an existing ‘best and brightest’ available to call in… Verizon is one of those already under contract.” Verizon also works for Medicaid and Medicare Services on information technology. Many in the online community are confident the problem will be fixed. However, neither Verizon nor Dept. of Health and Human Services are confirming anything.
I hope something gets done. I’m not going to rant about whether I agree with Obamacare or not. This isn’t the place or time. But I do know tens of millions of Americans were and are depending on this website. People’s lives are on the line. And what are these stories of cancer patients who couldn’t get their medicine during the shutdown? Look, Americans’ view on their government isn’t very good right now. One way they can start to make things right is to make this website right. It would be a great start. If Verizon can help do that, then God speed to them. But for them to be? preaching this system for years, and then for the healthcare.gov website to act like this, something has to be done.? Will Verizon be enough to get healthcare.gov up and running again?
Twitter is reconstructing it’s music department. And sources are saying the music app will be sacrificed. It’s not clear when, but enjoy the app while you still can. But according to?the stats I’m reading, not a lot of people are enjoying this free app. Twitter was one of Apple’s top 10 ranked free apps. Now, as of the weekend of October 19, it’s ranked 264. Insiders say there was a lot of dysfunction about how Twitter Music was built and around the team that built it. Kevin Thau, one of the lead developers for this app, left for a start-up called Jelly?almost immediately after the app was launched. From what I’ve been reading, they don’t even know how they’re going to reconstruct their music program. They don’t even know how to shut this Twitter music app down. I hope I’m reading wrong.
In the mid-90s, the R&B group TLC had a hit called ‘Waterfalls’. One lyric said, “Stick to the rivers that you’re used to.” Maybe Twitter should take that advice. It’s great social media; that is for what it was built to do. I say when you take the music app down, don’t bother reconstruction a new one. Put that effort in making your core project better. I’ve read some comments saying people didn’t even know Twitter had a music app. That tells me this app wasn’t properly advertised. People can easily get music from plenty of other sources, but there’s only one place a person can tweet. Let’s just stick with that. Did you know a Twitter app even existed?
Ever wonder who regulates the Internet? It can be complicated. In the 1990s, the U.S. government found itself under control, but in 1998, privatized some control to a group called ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Basically, they assigned domains like .com, .org, .edu. and .gov. However, for years, ICANN and other groups have been complaining on too much gov’t control.
?ICANN has been agitating for greater independence from the U.S. government for many, many, many years, basically since it was founded,? says an Internet law professor named A. Michael?Froomkin said. Earlier this month, there was a meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay.?In that meeting, ICANN and several other groups called for?a break in U.S. government dominance.? They also called for more online globalization and a more equal playing field. Back in 2009, a truce called “The Affirmation of Commitment” was made between ICANN and the U.S. ICANN got more independence, but the US government could still take over the root server in event of an emergency. Though the NSA scandals weren’t mentioned in Uruguay, it was an undercurrent theme. Many?nations and organizations are unhappy and want to make sure this kind of surveillance doesn’t get out of control.
So once again, this all goes back to the NSA. Nobody even had to say it. These recent scandals really are the gifts that keep on giving. I’m sure, in the?back of their minds, their thinking about their own countries’ surveillance too. But?since we know?now what we didn’t know then,?will negotiations be so smooth this time?
