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How To Become A Billionaire

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MySpace Creator Joins Facebook

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Where Mark Zuckerberg got his inspiration...

Paul Domen
 
Domen.paul@gmail.com
Twitter.com/pauldomen
Pauldomen.posterous.com

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If you don´t wear a suit, it doesn´t mean your are not a good businessman. (About Facebook-friendfeed Deal - 2 Photos)

Nowadays, it´s not necessary to have a suit to get a great business deal. 

Textually from Mark Zuckerberg profile:

I can talk about Paul Buchheit, He´s a great professional and a very hard worker. He manages his social networks perfectly.

And one interesting question for other posts: What will happen with Twitter now ?? Adam Ostrow says that on Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/08/10/facebook-friendfeed-twitter-competition/

Congrats Guys !! Nice deal !! :)

joseafernandez

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The Future of Facebook Usernames

A small number of super-geeky obsessives are abuzz over the upcoming launch of Facebook Usernames, an exciting new feature that will let you put some parts of your name into a web address.

Since its announcement yesterday, there's been a lot of excited discussion of the feature, but in a dashes.com exclusive I can exclusively report this exclusive look at the future of the feature. We'll also cover how the feature's rollout will be covered by the technology trade press and the mainstream press.

June 13, 12:01am: Facebook launches Facebook Usernames. The gold rush is on!

Read more: http://globalitnews.blogspot.com/2009/06/future-of-facebook-usernames.html

Tags: Facebook, usernames, Linkedin, Mashable, Myspace, Bebo, AIM, Techmeme, Global IT News, Mark Zuckerberg, Iphone, FUD, Kanye West, Twitter, Flikr, Openid, Digg, 

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Russian Firm Invests $200M in Facebook

Facebook Inc. announced that Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian Internet-investment group, has invested $200 million in the social-networking company, which represents almost a 2% equity stake at a $10 billion valuation as reported by the Wall Street Journal's Venture Capital Dispatch.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the offer on May 23, 2009. The article stated:

Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian Internet-investment group, has offered to invest $200 million in Facebook Inc. at a $10 billion valuation for the company's preferred stock, according to people familiar with the matter.

Venture Capital Dispatch said that Digital Sky is run by Russian businessman and Internet investor Yuri Milner. It owns pieces of a number of Russian Internet properties, including Russia’s largest Web site, Mail.ru, and a Polish social-networking site.

VentureBeat said that on a conference call with reporters on May 26, 2009, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, said this about Digital Sky:

One of the things that’s most interesting about [Digital Sky] is in their portfolio they have a large number of social networks. Each is able to monetize in different ways but all are effective.

Yuri Milner, chief executive of DST, said on the call via VentureBeat about the reason he invested in Facebook:

We have a unique perspective on this investment because we see something that other people don’t see, because we see the monetization profiles of our other social networks. We’re fanatic believers in social networks. We’re investors in five in Russia and Eastern Europe — an area with 250 million people. Only 60-70 million are online. Facebook has a much bigger audience, while we have expertise in building smaller sites.

Russia has world-class programmers. Vkontakti [Ed. a site that launched as a Facebook clone] has launched features like search that have made it a top search engine in the country. Micropayments are also working. For example, a small number of people are willing to pay a lot of money for value-added services, like registration.

Venture Capital Dispatch ended by writing:

The company [Facebook] is forecasting revenue growth of at least 70% in 2009, putting revenue around $500 million or more, according to people familiar with the company's finances. The social network, which has more than 200 million active users, expects to be cash-flow positive in 2010, according to these people.

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Owen Van Natta Takes Over MySpace

Taking Helm at MySpace by Jessica E. Vascellaro, WSJ.com

When Jonathan Miller, News Corp.'s chief digital officer, phoned Owen Van Natta to finalize his appointment as chief executive of MySpace last week, Mr. Miller offered the dealmaker the sort of job he had been seeking ever since he was elbowed aside at Facebook Inc. last year, people close to him say.

As the 39-year-old Mr. Van Natta sets out to turn around MySpace, Facebook's closest competitor, he can draw on more than a decade of Internet experience, including several years at Amazon.com Inc., where he hammered out partnership deals.

But MySpace, with more than a thousand employees and flat user growth is a challenge unlike any Mr. Van Natta has seen. His mission, handed down to him by his new boss, Mr. Miller, who joined News Corp. earlier this month, is to jump-start growth and recapture some of the buzz that MySpace once generated, people familiar with the matter say.

MySpace, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., remains the largest social-networking Web site in the U.S., but the gap is closing fast. In March 2009, it attracted 70.1 million unique U.S. visitors, down 3.6% from a year earlier, according to comScore Media Metrix. Meanwhile, Facebook, which has surpassed MySpace in world-wide users, grew 72% to 61.2 million unique U.S. visitors.

Mr. Van Natta, known for a blunt style that has caused friction with co-workers, is walking into an organization that analysts, advertising executives and former executives say has lost its focus and become bloated. Pali Capital analyst Rich Greenfield predicts massive cost cuts will be needed to align MySpace with its revenue. A spokeswoman for MySpace declined to comment.

People close to Mr. Van Natta say he has just begun digging into details of the Web site's operations. They say he has been reviewing organizational charts, and has some ideas to simplify the site and place more emphasis on its technology.

Mr. Van Natta is keeping his roughly 0.5% stake in Facebook, according to people familiar with the talks, a move recruiters say is fairly common in the tech industry, where executives frequently jump from company to company. A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on Mr. Van Natta's keeping his stake.

Conscious of his lack of technical experience, Mr. Van Natta has begun narrowing the field to choose a senior product person, say people familiar with his thinking. They expect him to hunt for engineering talent within Silicon Valley, where his family will be based for now.

Mr. Van Natta isn't likely to turn MySpace into another Facebook, these people say. He views Facebook more as a communications channel and MySpace as a destination, where people come to entertain themselves by discovering music and meeting new people, they say.

The executive landed at Facebook in 2005 following an introduction by Silicon Valley investor Ron Conway, among others. At the time, the site was a small group of mostly 20-somethings seeking an experienced hand to help them negotiate partnerships. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg brought Mr. Van Natta on as vice president of business development, promoting him to chief operating officer five weeks later, according to people familiar with the matter.

He focused first on recruiting. He also solicited bids for the role of third-party advertising provider, helping seal a crucial alliance with Microsoft Corp. But over time, his hard-driving personal style, an asset at the negotiating table, aggravated disagreements between him and Mr. Zuckerberg, who is also know for a stubborn streak, say people familiar with the matter.

The two sparred in 2006 over Facebook's refusal of a nearly $1 billion takeover offer from Yahoo in 2006, which Mr. Van Natta had helped negotiate, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Zuckerberg told Mr. Van Natta that he felt he needed to build out his management team and wanted him to take on a different role, according to two people familiar with the matter. In August 2007, Mr. Zuckerberg made him chief revenue officer and elevated several other executives to a similar rank.

Mr. Van Natta played a key role in negotiating a new round of financing in 2007. At a dinner in his Palo Alto, Calif., home with Mr. Zuckerberg and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Mr. Van Natta played hardball, say two people familiar with the meeting. Soon after, Microsoft took a 1.6% stake in the company in a deal that valued Facebook at roughly $15 billion.

Mr. Van Natta left the company in April 2008, telling friends and colleagues he was leaving because he always wanted a chief executive job and was tired of the erratic schedules of 20-somethings, according to these people.

He chilled out in Santa Cruz, grew a beard and made a few small investments in start-up companies, friends say. He turned down an opportunity to head MySpace Music, say people familiar with the matter. Instead, in November 2008, Mr. Van Natta became CEO of music-streaming site Playlist Inc.

Mr. Van Natta continued to weigh other possibilities. He interviewed with News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch about the chief digital officer position, according to people familiar with the matter. Several weeks later, after Mr. Miller was named to that post, he started conversations over dinner with him about the MySpace chief executive job.

Emily Steel contributed to this article.

Source.

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Founders Fund To Fund Micro Start-Ups at $25K

In the latest example of investors trying new approaches during the downturn, a venture-capital firm that was an early backer of Facebook Inc. is devising a plan to outsource early investing decisions to hand-picked entrepreneurs and technology executives.

The Silicon Valley firm Founders Fund plans to give at least 12 "fellows" $25,000 to invest in an early-stage company of their choosing. Founders Fund will invest $25,000 alongside those initial investments and request the right to invest an additional $250,000 when the companies raise their next round, according to Sean Parker, managing partner at Founders Fund, which announced it raised a $220 million fund in late 2007. The firm expects to devote roughly $3.6 million to the new program.

Mr. Parker hopes the program is a more efficient way to get in early with small start-ups, by tapping the connections of those working in the industry. "Early-stage ventures are about betting on people," said Mr. Parker, 29, who has co-founded such Internet ventures as Napster, Plaxo and Causes, which helps nonprofits raise money on social-networking sites. "There isn't really a shortcut," he said.

To select the recipients, the fund has assembled a brain trust of Silicon Valley heavyweights, including former Yahoo chief executive Terry Semel, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, and Michael Arrington, founder of industry Web site TechCrunch, who helped shape the program.

The 22-person team will help Founders Fund select winners from four categories: engineering leadership, product design and marketing, general management and disruptive innovation. They will consider nominations submitted through TechCrunch.

The effort, being called the TechFellow Awards, will likely confront the same issues that have plagued other early-stage investing programs, including young entrepreneurs' reluctance to accept money perceived to come with strings attached.

Despite the downturn, which is deepening a slump afflicting the venture-capital industry, other programs have been sprouting up to help start-ups in their infancy. In March, venture-capital giant Sequoia Capital backed a new fund being managed by Y Combinator, which specializes in funding early-stage start-ups, while Boston-based Spark Capital last month launched a new seed program, Start@Spark.

The investors say the new programs are less about reducing risk during the downturn than about adapting to new realities of the venture-capital business. New technologies make it easier for small tech companies to get off the ground with relatively little investment, broadening the pool of potential companies that could become big businesses. The trend is forcing venture capitalists, which stand to reap bigger rewards if they invest at an early stage, to come up with new ways to cast a wider net.

But there is no debate that a dramatic pullback in venture capital is affecting all phases of investing activity, including the very early phase of several hundred thousand dollars or less. Venture capitalists invested $5.5 billion in U.S. start-ups in the fourth quarter, 26% less than in the third quarter, according to data compiled by VentureSource, which is owned by Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co.

Source.

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SXSW '09 Wrapup: Interactive Festival Closes With Wired EIC Anderson in Fiery Final Keynote On 'Free' - mediabistro.com: WebNewser

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