Exclusive Page > Business insider SAI

Lise Buyer, a whipsmart former technology analyst turned IPO whisperer who helped Google prep for its 2004 public offering, thinks Facebook may be the last fast-growth tech stock individual investors will be able to bet on for a long while.

The reason, she told Fortune's Dan Primack: the recently passed JOBS Act allows companies to stay private until they have 2,000 shareholders.

Under the old rules, companies had to start disclosing their financials like a public company after they had 500 shareholders—so companies like Google and Facebook decided they might as well go public.

The changes are good news for early investors and employees, who will reap more of the gains:

[We] can expect early investors and high-net-worth folks to hold on through the entire growth phase, since by the time a company has 2,000 shareholders, it is much more likely to exhibit growth patterns associated with more mature entities.

It's a smart argument. But with the growth of secondary markets which allow for the trading of private shares, and deals in which later-stage investors cash out employees and angel investors, that's been happening anyway.

It's a far cry from the '90s, when individual investors could place wild bets on Internet companies which were going public with double-digit headcounts and barely any revenues, let alone profits.

UPDATE: We asked Buyer to expand on her thoughts, and she shared the following:

It isn't that there won't be rapidly growing technology IPOs, but rather there won't likely be deals of this size and stature at this point in a company's evolution.  Very few companies ran into the 500-shareholder rule; it was only the behemoths like Google and Facebook. Most tech IPOs will not be affected; it's only the very large, consumer brand-name standouts, those that might have bumped in to the 500-shareholder rule, that are no longer likely to share the wealth with smaller individual investors.

So hold out hope. There may be interesting tech IPOs in the future—just not ones whose names you recognize.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/RHYA5hiBCgU/lise-buyer-google-facebook-2012-5

The National Journal reports today that TED is refusing to publish a recent talk from megarich venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, which argued that rich people actually don't create jobs, and that cutting their taxes is harmful to the middle class. 

Obviously, Hanauer's position is anathema to most of his fellow billionaires. Although his talk was well-received, TED officials eventually decided that it was too "politically controversial" to post the presentation on the TED website. 

Click here to see the presentation >

In an email to Business Insider this afternoon, Hanauer said that he accepts TED's right not to post his presentation, but that he disagrees with their reasoning:

"I got a sensational reaction to the talk at the conference itself, including a big standing ovation. Even the people who I spoke to who disagreed were intrigued and moved by the eco-systemic argument," Hanauer said in the email. "And many of the talks at the conference and on the TED website are similarly controversial.  That's what makes them interesting." 

He added: "Further, if it was too political, why have me do it in the first place?  They knew months in advance what I would speak about and I gave the talk word for word. My arguments threaten an economic orthodoxy and political structure that many powerful people have a huge stake in defending. They will not go easily." 

Hanauer also passed along the slides he used for his presentation, which was based off of his new book with Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy, A New American Vision of Citizenship, Economics and the Role of Government. 

We don't know exactly how the speech went with slides, but you can read the speech here. 

Source: Nick Hanauer 

According to Hanauer, believing that rich people create jobs is like believing in the geocentric universe

Source: Nick Hanauer 

Hanauer presents the real universe: Rich people don't create jobs, and the sun is the center of the universe

Source: Nick Hanauer 

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Please follow Politics on Twitter and Facebook.

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/sCJYbRzf3Tc/nick-hanauer-ted-presentation-about-why-rich-people-arent-job-creators-2012-5

Ever find yourself stuck in the dark and in need of some light?

There is a free way to turn your iPhone into a pretty powerful flashlight. Watch the video to learn how:

Produced by Daniel Goodman and Kamaila Sanders

Don't Miss:

• The Must-Know iPhone Trick For Heavy Texters

• How To Sync Your Calendar With LinkedIn's New iPad App

Please follow SAI: Tools on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/yXnWPp_BFcU/want-a-free-iphone-flashlight-heres-how-2012-5

Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin, recently making headlines for exiting the United States by renouncing his citizenship, is apparently living quite the life in Singapore.

A new profile in the New York Time has a lot of interesting details about the new billionaire's playboy lifestyle. He's apparently so rich that he doesn't even know how to spend his money:

Thanks to the interconnected world Mr. Saverin helped to create, the Internet is full of people sharing photos and stories of him embraced by statuesque women and drinking expensive Champagne. “It’s a misperception, especially the playboy,” he said. “I do have a Bentley. I do go out. I’d rather not go into personal details.”

...As for himself, good advice for the single young billionaire is harder to find. He said he had spoken with a number of people with tremendous wealth, “but every experience is unique. Certainly there has been no one who was a college kid, and got it this fast.”

“What does this enable me to do? What am I provided with to help?” he asked. “Right now, I don’t know how to deploy the capital and the blessings.”

As for Facebook's upcoming IPO on Friday, Saverin told the New York Times he would watch the IPO quietly with a few friends in Singapore—which would happen in the middle of the night.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/gxuVp7q-5HQ/ex-pat-facebook-cofounder-eduardo-saverin-has-a-bentley-and-doesnt-know-how-to-spend-his-ipo-billions-2012-5

Apple has a track record of dominating or disrupting major markets.

Think PCs. Portable media players. Digital music. Smartphones. Tablets.

Many have speculated in recent months that Apple will attempt to do the same to the television-set business with the launch of its much-rumored iTV. Even with that talk, some have suggested Apple should walk away from the fiercely competitive, low-margin business. And maybe it will.

But there are still several other big industries the company has the potential to dominate with new or existing products if it chooses to.

Automobiles

No, we're not expecting Apple to come out with a four-door coupe anytime soon (although that would be kind of awesome.) Rather, there's potential for Apple to build on the way that modern vehicles already cater to iPod and iPhone owners.

"I think smart vehicles are going to end up with a tablet-like feature built in," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies. "It won't be a tablet per se, but it will be a screen that will be tied to the product in the market."

Bajarin suggests a couple possible ways this might work. The first, and certainly the simplest, is that car makers might have a cradle in the vehicle to connect to a separate tablet—probably an iPad, since that makes up most of today's market.

Alternatively, Apple might be willing to create a custom-made tablet for specific car companies that could be built into the dashboard. And if Apple doesn't, its competitors will certainly want to, as a way to nudge into a market Apple dominates.

Bajarin has no doubt that tablets will be incorporated into cars. It's just a matter of when and whether Apple actively gets involved, which he thinks it will.

"From Apple's standpoint, they want more outlets for their ecosystem, and this would be another screen tied to their ecosystem—it just happens to be in a car," Bajarin said.

Healthcare

It turns out that the medical industry is full of Apple fanboys. Manhattan Research, a healthcare market research firm, recently surveyed more than 3,000 practicing physicians and found that 62% use of iPads for professional purposes, twice the percentage who did in a similar survey the year before. Some doctors use it to look up clinical drug information, others use it as a diagnostic tool or to remotely monitor patients.

What is truly remarkable though is that iPad adoption has happened on a doctor-by-doctor basis, rather than being spurred on by the hospital itself. But according to Manhattan Research, medical institutions are now considering adopting tablet devices on a wider scale, giving Apple an opportunity to solidify its hold on a fledgling market.

"These institutions are quite happy to start with the iPad because doctors already have it themselves and are familiar with it," said Monique Levy, VP of research at Manhattan Research, who has consulted with many in the industry.

That said, she expects this will depend on whether and how much Apple cooperates in helping hospitals work through issues with adapting the iPad for corporate use. Features it will have to add: bolstering data security and supporting multiple user accounts. "There's a limited window where Apple can jump in and dominate before hospitals start looking to other devices."

Gaming

Apple has already disrupted the gaming industry with apps, but as one analyst points out, the company hasn't even begun to invest resources in the industry yet.

"Apple has not taken its video-game efforts as seriously as other companies like Sony or Microsoft," said Jesse Divnich, an analyst with Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, noting that Apple has no dedicated video-game hardware. "They've really left it up to developers and consumers to shape the experience."

Divnich personally has doubts about whether Apple will change this strategy anytime soon, but if the company does choose to invest in a gaming console or other gaming hardware (as some have speculated), he says it could have a significant impact on the industry.

"If Apple chose to, they could be disruptive in any entertainment vertical," Divnich said. "Loyalty [in the gaming market] is shifting away from the brand or the hardware to the service, and Apple has obviously done a good job of branding its service. People already know how to use and navigate iTunes, and that's something very powerful.*

Mobile payments

At least one report has suggested that Apple has the potential to make a mint in the banking industry, but it seems unlikely we'll see the company launch an iBank.

However, there is another way Apple may come to dominate our money. And that's in payments. It already has 250 million credit cards on file, with which users currently buy songs, videos, and apps.

Mark Moskowitz, an analyst with JP Morgan, released a research note earlier this month predicting that Apple would take on Google and come out with its own mobile payment platform in the near future, which he dubbed iPay. "With this platform, we theorize that Apple users ultimately could pay for goods and services using NFC technology embedded in their iPhone or iPad and tied to an Apple account," he wrote in the note, provided to Business Insider.

This is the time for Apple to make it's entrance into the industry. A separate report from the Aite Group predicts that the mobile payment industry will explode in the coming years, processing some $200 billion in mobile payments by 2015. The last thing Apple probably wants is to leave all of that to Google.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/zcuRtxauoFs/industries-apple-could-dominate-next-2012-5

We're going nuts over this one.

Hugo Fiennes, the hardware boss behind the first four iPhones, has a brilliant new startup called Electric Imp. (We first got word of the company from Gizmodo.)

Electric Imp is more of a system than a single gadget. You can install a tiny card (it looks like your phone's SIM card) to just about any device in your home and connect it to the web. Each card has a built-in Wi-Fi antenna and processor.

The system is fully programmable. For example, you can tell your dishwasher to send you a tweet or text when it's finished. Or you can turn off your home's lights from your iPhone. Or you can get a text message whenever your doorbell rings...

You get the idea.

Manufacturers can also add Imp card slots to their appliances. (If an appliance doesn't have the slot, you can buy one and install it.)

Each Imp card will cost $25, but no word yet on when you can buy it. Developers can get their hands on a development kit in late June to start writing apps.

Please follow SAI: Tools on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/knGhG8URWc8/electric-imp-2012-5

Google has another new social networking app for the iPhone.

No, not Google+. This one is called Schemer, and it's an app designed to help you figure out what to do.

It's kind of a weird concept, but it connects to Google+. (That's the Schemer profile of MySpace cofounder Tom Anderson, who's now an enthusiastic Google+ user.)

Initially available on Google's Android smartphone operating system, it opened up in April, according to GigaOm.

Our theory: Google is playing with social networks to see what works and what fails.

Google did exactly that with Slide, a social startup it purchased for $179 million. As part of Google, Slide introduced a few social apps like Disco and Photovine before Google shut the unit down.

This app doesn't have any "Google" branding, so it's possible that Google is trying to see if the "Google" name is a limiter.

Either way, the app is still kind of baffling.

Bang! Here we go.

You sign in with your Google account. It'll pull info from your Google+ profile.

Tell Schemer what city or neighborhood you are in and it'll populate a list of things to do.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/79n1tc0ZW_8/google-schemer-social-app-2012-5

It's no secret that HP is considering layoffs and soon.

Meg Whitman has even publicly hinted at them. Question is, how many employees will be axed?

One source at HP claims the job cuts are going to be massive.

While this is just one source, we know that tension inside the company is running high and so is the rumor mill.

Here's what our source told us:

• Layoffs are going to be significant. At least, they'll be bigger than what Whitman has said so far. She's said that layoffs would NOT be "broad-based" at least in China (whatever that means), but she didn't say anything about the rest of the worldwide workforce.
  
  
• Our source said HP wants to trim its workforce by 10%-15%. Given that HP has 320,000 employees, a 10% reduction would be 32,000 workers gone. However, that would include an early retirement program. We'd guess that this would include attrition, too, where new hires don't come in when employees leave. That number sounds high and we don't expect HP to promise it next week, because HP will also want to shift some jobs offshore. So, HP's total workforce numbers won't reflect all of the cuts.
  
  
• We're hearing that manufacturing staff won't be hit as hard as others. That makes sense to us given that HP is more of a product company than a software or services company.
  
  
• Speaking of services, keep an eye out for HP Services results, which one insider said is expected to have another abysmal quarter. HP's outsourcing units could be particularly hit hard with whatever layoffs come and many of their jobs moved offshore. We're hearing that people with 8-10 years of experience—or are at the top of the salary charts -- are the most vulnerable.

We'll find out in one week what HP is officially planning on doing. Given Whitman's constant speeches about HP needing time, we might also hear that HP is not going to rip the bandage off in one fell swoop, but will do one modest layoff in 2012, shift more work to offshore workers, and trim the workforce more over time.

HP had no comment.

Don't miss: The 7 Biggest Ways Meg Whitman Is Struggling At HP

Are you an HP employee with insight to share? We want to hear it. We are discreet. jbort@businessinsider.com.

Please follow SAI: Enterprise on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/4Y08a3ZOaQw/source-hp-layoffs-are-going-to-be-huge-2012-5

57% of the Facebook stock being offered in the IPO is coming from insiders selling shares. For some context on how unusual that is, the Wall Street Journal reports that only 37% of Google's IPO offering came from insiders, and 0% for Amazon and Yahoo came from insiders.

In Facebook's case, it's going public at a later stage in its development, so investors are itching to get out. And word is that Facebook asked insiders to sell during the IPO so they don't crush the stock when the lock-up period ends.

Follow the Chart Of The Day on Twitter: @chartoftheday

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/Q_pkl1HTA0A/chart-of-the-day-percent-insiders-are-selling-of-total-stock-offering-2012-5

Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin has renounced his US citizenship.

Doing so, he will probably save at least $67 million in taxes.

…but he's also liable to be "excluded" from physically re-entering the United States.

So reports Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall:

 US immigration law does not look kindly on former citizens who renounce their citizenship to avoid US taxes. Specifically, it doesn’t look like Saverin should ever be able again to get a visa to enter the United States.

Sec. 212. [8 U.S.C. 1182] details general classes of alients ineligible to gain entrance into the United States. And the law specifically references people in Saverin’s category …

"Former citizens who renounced citizenship to avoid taxation.-Any alien who is a former citizen of the United States who officially renounces United States citizenship and who is determined by the Attorney General to have renounced United States citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation by the United States is excludable"

Funny, Saverin was also barred from Facebook once upon a time.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/LwQTuvhhwSM/banned-from-the-usa-billionaire-facebook-cofounder-could-be-barred-from-america-after-renouncing-citizenship-2012-5

Last night at dinner, we asked Salesforce.com COO George Hu if his employees were really enthusiastic users of his company's internal chat service, Chatter.

No surprise, he said they are. But here's how Hu proved it: He gave us an all-too-brief glimpse on his iPhone of his Chatter stream.

One of the groups he showed us was titled "Airing of Grievances."

People use it to complain about things like double-booking of conference rooms at Salesforce.com's downtown San Francisco office towers. (The fast-growing company needs more space—just not the crazy-looking campus it was thinking about building.)

So, we asked Hu, isn't he worried about employees passing on their grievances to outsiders—like, say, us?

Hu shrugged: "It's all on Glassdoor anyway." At least this way, he said, he can scan Chatter to get a feel for problems early—and learn about the kind of things that would never normally land on the COO's desk.

Openness! Transparency!

(No, seriously, Salesforce.com employees: Please don't feel like you have to limit the airing of grievances to Chatter. We have one key advantage: We're pretty sure Hu doesn't read our inbox.)

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/Y0iErGMOyJs/salesforce-chatter-airing-of-grievances-2012-5

Contra bond god Jeff Gundlach, investor David Einhorn is super-bullish on Apple, and thinks the market cap could go to $1 trillion.

From our liveblog of the Ira Sohn event, here are our notes on his explanation.

Some worry if Apple share price doubles, it will become a $1 trillion company. Einhorn said he consulted regulation, and there's no limit on $1 trillion market cap.

Many mistakenly assume Apple is a hardware company, but it's a software company. Its value comes from iOS, iTunes, iCloud. Future competitor of Apple has to make a product that's A LOT better.

"I believe Apple is software company that monetizes its value from repeated sales of high margin hardware," Einhorn says.

Hard time seeing how anyone rates Apple as below average.

So basically, people think of Apple as a hardware company and that's how its still misunderstood.

He also noted that the fact that SO MANY hedge funds own Apple is seen as a turnoff.

Worth noting that yesterday Einhorn's fund Greenlight disclosed a 1.4 million share holding in Apple

Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/6icO_JR25sY/david-einhorn-heres-why-apple-is-misunderstood-and-could-be-worth-1-trillion-2012-5

As the war over income inequality wages on, super-rich Seattle entrepreneur Nick Hanauer has been raising the hackles of his fellow 1-percenters, espousing the contrarian argument that rich people don't actually create jobs. 

The position is controversial — so much so that TED is refusing to post a talk that Hanauer gave on the subject. 

National Journal reports today that TED officials decided not to put Hanauer's March 1 speech up online after deeming his remarks "too politically controversial" for the site. 

In an email obtained by the National Journal, TED curator Chris Anderson told his colleagues that Hanauer's speech “probably ranks as one of the most politically controversial talks we've ever run, and we need to be really careful when” to post it. He added: “Next week ain't right. Confidentially, we already have Melinda Gates on contraception going out. Sorry for the mixed messages on this.”

TED regularly posts speeches about sensitive political issues, including global warming and contraception, so it's not clear why Hanauer's talk would be singled out for censorship. 

We've emailed Hanauer to see what he thinks, but in the meantime, here's an excerpt for you to judge for yourself: 

I can say with confidence that rich people don't create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is a "circle of life" like feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand and hiring. In this sense, an ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than a capitalist like me. 

So when businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it's a little like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. In fact, it's the other way around.

Anyone who's ever run a business knows that hiring more people is a capitalists course of last resort, something we do only when increasing customer demand requires it.  In this sense, calling ourselves job creators isn't just inaccurate, it's disingenuous.

That's why our current policies are so upside down. When you have a tax system in which most of the exemptions and the lowest rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.

Now click here to see the whole presentation >

Please follow Politics on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/dPXHLmW3g30/this-billionaire-venture-capitalist-gave-a-ted-talk-saying-rich-people-dont-create-jobs--and-ted-is-refusing-to-post-it-2012-5

Type "orange" into Google. The first eight responses include a color, a county, a telecommunications company, an amp brand, and a children's ministry curriculum.

Google wants to clear things up.

Today it launched "Knowledge Graph," a search database of over 500 million topics, with separate entries for "orange" the fruit and "orange" the county.

Google is trying to make search about "things, not strings."

Now, when you enter something ambiguous into Google, they'll give you a picture-studded lineup of the things they think you might be looking for. Click on the fruit, and you'll get more than you'll ever need to know about it—but only stuff about it.

Not only that. Google will also give you a dossier of that thing (see Marie Curie's above). The Knowledge Graph now has over 3.5 billion facts, which it has gathered based on the most commonly asked queries associated with its topics.

The dossier will probably obviate the need to click a Wikipedia link, which is usually your first result if you're searching for basic information on something. Dossiers take information from Wikipedia and other publicly available sites like the CIA World Factbook, which might lose visitors to Google.

And dossiers may help Google's other products too. Google Fellow Ben Gomes told Dow Jones that musicians' pages may display their upcoming concerts. That would be a boon for Wallet, Google's payment service.

Google announced the major update less than a day after Bing rolled out its new social features.

The new Google will first become available to some American users on Wednesday afternoon for browser, tablet, and mobile. It is out in English first, with versions in other languages to be released later on.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/zla-RrpmWjc/google-knowledge-graph-clarifies-search-terms-2012-5

J.C. Penney (JCP) shares tumbled Wednesday after the retailer reported a much wider-than-expected first-quarter loss, suspended its dividend and saw weakness across all core metrics.

In an apparent rebuke to new CEO Ron Johnson's strategy to change the company's focus from discounts to everyday low prices, total sales fell 20% while same-store sales declined 19% and gross margins fell to 37.6% from 40.5% as foot traffic in the stores dropped 10%.

"Our marketing isn't doing the work," Johnson said in a conference call. "We've got to get our pricing across. Coupons were a drug, they really drove traffic. [Customers] need to understand the value we're offering."

But it's Johnson, not J.C. Penney's customers, who has a problem understanding what the retailer needs, says Howard Davidowitz, a veteran retail banker and CEO of Davidowitz & Associates.

"He's caused incalculable damage," Davidowitz says of Johnson, who joined J.C. Penney last year after running Apple's (AAPL) retail operations. "The customers are everything. They don't know what the hell he's doing."

In a nutshell, Johnson wanted to wean customers off one-time discounts -- notably coupons -- and get them to look at J.C. Penney as a place for everyday low prices. (See: J.C. Penney CEO: We Can Become America's Favorite Store)

But that's "a very tricky thing to get customers to believe," Davidowitz says. "What is a 'fair' price? Who's to determine it?"

Using Target's (TGT) multi-year rollout of groceries as an example, Davidowitz says "experiments" are good in retail but need to be done on a test basis and introduced slowly to get customers comfortable with a new concept.

"J.C. Penney didn't need a revolution, it needed an evolution," he says. "You can't take an old line company that's been operating the same way a very long time and throw everything out the window and say 'now we've reinvented the company.'"

Davidowitz does have a flair for the dramatic, as you can see in the accompanying video. But he was also one of the few who didn't buy into the hype last year when Johnson was named J.C. Penney's CEO, as you can see here.

After calling J.C. Penney shares a short last June, Davidowitz remains glum about the company's prospects following its dismal quarter, predicting the company will now slash inventories -- limiting customer choice -- cut staff and eliminate all promotions.

In other words, Davidowitz says J.C. Penney is going down the same path as Sears Holdings (SHLD), another retailer that has fallen on hard times. As with Eddie Lampert at Sears, J.C. Penney has come under the influence of financial heavyweights, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Vornado Realty Trust's Steven Roth.

Lampert, Ackman and Roth are all incredibly accomplished investors and brilliant by all accounts. But the early returns at J.C. Penney suggest once again that being a great investor does not necessarily make for a great retailer.

Aaron Task is the host of The Daily Ticker. You can follow him on Twitter at @aarontask or email him at altask@yahoo.com

Please follow Business Insider on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/hk0kPNlqUos/howard-davidowitz-apples-retail-boss-has-done-incalculable-damage-to-jc-penney-crackpot-idea-has-destroyed-company-2012-5

At the Ira Sohn conference, genius fund manager Jeff Gundlach gave one simple reason for why people should go short Apple: People aren't going to line up around the corner for "iPhone 87."

It's a simple take on a theory that Apple can only do so much to excite people with new products.

For what it's worth, right after Gundlach spoke, David Einhorn said he was long Apple and thinks it's one of the most misunderstood stocks on the market.

For complete coverage of the conference click here →

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/kzNooLclSGg/fund-manager-jeff-gundlach-one-simple-reason-to-short-apple-2012-5

"If Facebook were built today, it would be a mobile app," said James Pearce, head of Facebook mobile developer relations, in an interview with ReadWriteWeb.

But Facebook's mobile app is boring and clunky.

For a site with 488 million mobile monthly active users and with trends suggesting that more and more people care about their mobile experience, it's worth addressing.

We hope that there are big updates in the future that are simply taking a while to make their way to users.

In the mean time, however, there are some problems.

• The app feels heavy and runs slow. Because it uses HTML5, the Facebook app caches data differently than other apps. It downloads all your Timeline data from scratch every time you fire it up. GigaOM goes into much more technical detail on why the mobile app runs so slowly right here.

• No third-party app support. There are still loyal factions of people out there playing FarmVille and Mafia Wars. Despite the fact that they use Facebook as a platform, the app completely lacks support for people who want access to third-party Facebook apps.

• Photo uploads are no good. They're slow and unintuitive. Why should we have to navigate to our profiles first before being presented with the option to upload a picture?

• Mobile revenue. Earlier this year, Facebook rolled out "Sponsored Stories" as a way to drive revenue by displaying ads based on what a user "likes." But they've always struck us as tacky, and if you don't "like" anything on Facebook (in the case of the author), they rarely appear. (This is less of a problem for the users and more of a problem for the company.)

Here's the bottom line: Facebook was built in a dorm room in 2004, well before mobile would have been a consideration. As previously mentioned, Facebook's own head of mobile developer relations said that "If Facebook were built today, it would be a mobile app."

With the company's IPO imminent, items as small as improving the mobile app can matter a lot.

In the mean time, we're sticking to using Facebook on our computers.

Please follow SAI: Tools on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/qK6u6y1Sg-g/several-updates-later-facebooks-mobile-app-still-sucks-2012-5

"I wana be a billionaire, so, so bad. Buy all of the things I never had. I wanna be on the cover of Forbes magazine..." Bieber sings to the Forbes staff as he shoots the June cover.

Yes, you read that right.

Bieber, dressed in a suit, will grace the June cover of Forbes. He's not being positioned as a singer or teenage heartthrob. He's being positioned as a startup investor.

Bieber made his first startup investment in 2009. Since then he has quietly investing millions in a dozen small companies including Robby Stein's Yelp-like app Stamped, Spotify, and game-for-good company SoJo Studios.

"I’m not going to invest in something I don’t like; I have to believe in the product,” Bieber tells Forbes.

"He’s among the most prominent examples in the new Hollywood game: tech-savvy celebrities using their fame to secure stakes in Silicon Valley darlings while ordinary venture capitalists salivate on the sidelines," writes Forbes.

Bieber has invested alongside fellow celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and Ashton Kutcher.

When asked why he's investing in startups Bieber replied, "Everything that I do I try to have a charitable component. I do music and I try to leave most of it up to [my manager], I just think that it's important to be a part of things that are starting up."

Watch his interview, below.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/Va_oo0ZUeOs/oh-no-justin-bieber-is-on-the-cover-of-forbesfor-investing-in-startups-2012-5

After nearly 30 years on the high seas, Netscape founder Jim Clark is calling it quits. The 68-year-old billionaire is selling his two amazing sailing yachts for a combined $113 million, Forbes' Ryan Mac reports.

He wrote to Forbes in an email that he's “been around the world twice and really don’t like the [Mediterranean-Caribbean] circuit. After 28 years of owning boats, I’m over it.”

The boats, 136-foot Hanuman and 295-foot Athena, will hit the market for $18 million and $95 million, respectively. Athena is the fourth-largest sailing yacht in the world.

Both were made by Royal Huisman, a Netherlands-based custom shipyard.

Clark told Forbes he planned to settle down in his new home in New York with his 8-month-old daughter and wife, former Australian model Kristy Hinze. He recently listed his swanky Miami penthouse for $27 million.

First let's take a look at Athena. The fourth largest sailing yacht in the world, she's listed at $95 million.

She was delivered in 2004 after being built in the Netherlands. Construction took four years.

But if that's not new enough, she underwent a complete refit last year.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Please follow Getting There on Twitter and Facebook.

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/idztrSbbSGY/netscape-founder-jim-clark-selling-sailing-yachts-for-113-million-photos-2012-5

Facebook does a fantastic job of tapping into an innate human neuroticism: the desire to share and promote yourself among others.

It also taps into another innate part of human nature, but less so: grading. Users often "grade" their friends by how many friends they have on Facebook.

However, Facebook doesn't have a direct way for users to grade each other, or be graded.

If Facebook wants to tap into that component of human nature, it should buy Klout.

Yes, it sounds a little crazy, but it's not.

Here are three reasons it makes sense:

• It will encourage people to share information more readily. The more information you share, the higher your score will be. Mark Zuckerberg has insisted that he wants users to share more information, because they can discover more that way.

• It will keep them on the site longer. Love it or hate it, users neurotically check their Klout score. They will want to check their score more often to see how it has changed, which gives Facebook an opportunity to serve more ads. It can also target ads better by determining what its users are "influential" about, much like Klout does today.

• Klout will add more incentives to connect to other services. Zuckerberg said he could see a future where all apps are connected to Facebook. This would accelerate that and, again, encourage users to share more information on the site.

• It will add additional signals for filtering out noise. By determining what areas a user is "influential" in, Facebook would be able to deliver more relevant news feed items and recommend friends more accurately.

Don't take our word for it, though.

We spoke with Kendall Collins, who heads Salesforce's social networking tool, Chatter. It's an enterprise social network that has 150,000 customers and millions of users logging into the service on a daily basis.

On Chatter, individuals are graded on their "reverberation" and given an influence score. This means the more users interact on the service and communicate with other employees, the higher their influence.

More communication means better cooperation and a better-run business, so it's a tool geared toward promoting better communication. But by adding an "influence" component, it's given employees another incentive to communicate with one another, Collins said.

Companies have started rewarding the most influential employees at their companies by bringing them to executive meetings, and in return it's encouraged employees to become more active on the networks, Collins said.

That's something Klout can do for Facebook. Facebook can also monetize Klout by finding ways to connect brands with "influencers." That could provide an additional source of revenue for Facebook — which is showing some weakness in its advertising division.

Zuckerberg could just build a tool himself with a series of badges or grades, but it might even be easier at this point to flat out buy Klout and the talent that's at that company.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

..

Details: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/xZmgPcTDywo/heres-the-next-startup-facebook-should-buy-2012-5