I'll be up front: I don't get social networking. That said, I like watching the progress of what I call the web-ization of social networking (things want to be free, things want to be open, etc).

But perhaps the most interesting thing I've seen so far is this quote from Brandee Barker of Facebook:

Despite reports, Facebook has still not been briefed on OpenSocial.

You mean to tell me that after weeks of negotiations on a hundreds of millions of dollar deal, Google never told Facebook about its plans?

My guesses as to what happened:

1. Google had been planning this as a contingency to losing the Facebook deal. If the FB deal went through, they may not have released this so soon.
   
2. Or, perhaps, just perhaps, Google took the more-evil route. They knew Microsoft had more to lose (they really need to spur growth to their advertising business and show a big win), so they intentionally bid up the valuation on FB with no interest in actually winning, let MSFT close at a more expensive price, and then steal their thunder just a week later.
   

Just thinking out loud here..

Labels: facebook, google, Microsoft, opensocial

A long, long time ago (March, 2004), the tech-world was abuzz about a startup in breakout mode named Google. Rumors were floating about if and when the company would go public when an SEC loophole was found. It was only a short time later (April, 2004) that Google did file for an IPO which set the tech world on fire.

Today the geeksters are all abuzz about another startup in breakout mode, named Facebook. The same hype circle is flowing and people are now speculating on its IPO. Let me put that to rest and predict that it will happen within 12 months.

Why 12 months? Let's revisit Google. A primary motivator for Google going public when it did was the SEC loophole. The rule is going to hit Facebook in the same way:

Under securities law, U.S. companies that have $10 million of total assets and more than 500 stockholders must file a Form 10 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Tonight at the Web 2.0 Summit, Mark Zuckerberg stated, according to SAI:

Facebook has 300 employees (all with equity) and will have 700 in a year.

One can only imagine that at least half of the next 400 employees will also have equity. The $10 million in assets is practically a given.

Given this, it seems that Facebook will file by this time next year. At the latest, it will file April, 2009 (assuming no acquisitions) because the rule states that if your fiscal year ends December 31 and you are above the thresholds, you must file by April 30.

Labels: facebook, google, ipo, mark zuckerberg, markzuckerberg, sec, web 2.0, web 2.0 summit, web2.0, zuckerberg

Have you noticed that Yahoo! seems to have acquisition and other product rumors leaked more often (and with more detail) than other companies such as Google? Note the latest talks about Bebo.

Is this true or revisionist history on my part? If so, why is that?

Labels: bebo, google, leaks, rumors, yahoo

Okay, this is really cool. According to the Seattle P-I, Google is creating a college course at UW for, essentially, teaching students how to create massively scalable and reliable systems. I would've loved this during college (actually, I essentially did this course as an independent study type class with the awesome Svetlozar Nestorov -- also founder of Mobissimo and Ph.D. candidate with the Google Guys).

But, almost as noteworthy, the P-I writes:

Bisciglia would design the course under Google's "10 percent" program, which allows employees to use 10 percent of their work time to dream up big ideas.

Uh oh, maybe Google is finding that 20% projects take up too much time, and halved that? Oh noes! Is the free food next?

Labels: college, google, google guys, scale, uw, washington

I'm probably way behind the times on this one, but today I found out about the site FlightAware.com.

The main jist of FlightAware is to provide you with details about all the planes in the sky right now and throughout the past. You can order by fleet (Delta, American, NetJets, FedEx, etc), by a specific plane, by airport, etc. This is really, really fun stuff.

It gets even more fun when you start combining it with Google and the public FAA plane registry.

Here's an example: Google for donald trump plane and the first result will give you the tail # (VP-BDJ) of the Trump 727.

Now, go back to FlightAware and search for that, and you'll see the flight history of Donald's plane. Looks like Donald likes to go between New York (home), Las Vegas (where he's building), Los Angeles (The Apprentice), Atlantic City (Trump Taj Mahal), and Florida (more property). We can set up alerts and follow him around now! (BTW, I wonder what he was doing in Portland recently?)

Let's try another example: The WSJ said that the Google's guys created a holding company for their new 767 named Blue City. Searching the FAA records, we see the tail # for this plane is N2767. Now we'll check the FlightAware page. This time we see:

BLUE CITY HOLDINGS LLC (OKLAHOMA CITY OK)
This flight is not available for tracking per request from the owner/operator

Apparently the Google guys don't want us sniffing around their travels. Hmm. Shady? Maybe...

Other fun examples: DaimlerChrysler folks sure like to travel between Detroit and Stuttgart. Surprise -- who would've guessed that Eagle, CO (by Vail) would command so many private flights?

Can you find anymore top execs planes? Or maybe just tell me who the clever person is who named the holding company for his/her plane Acme Rocket Sleds, Inc and likes to fly throughout the west coast?

Labels: airports, daimler chrysler, dcx, faa, flightaware, goog, google, google guys, trump