The initial public offering of the world’s biggest social network, which raised $16 billion on May 17, is contributing to surging real estate demand in Silicon Valley’s tech enclaves and bolstering values amid scarce inventory. The median price of a home sold in Menlo Park jumped 8.5 percent to $1.19 million in the first quarter, according to research firm DataQuick.
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According to MLS Listing Inc, home listings in Menlo Park, California, had fallen 9 percent during the 12 months ending April 2012, the month prior to the huge Facebook IPO. After the Facebook IPO, there are insufficient homes for sale to meet the needs of the new crop of Facebook and other Silicon Valley millionaires.
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Jim Harrison, chief executive officer of MLS Listings, a Sunnyvale, California-based publisher of home listings for San Mateo and Santa Clara counties in the heart of the Valley said.
“The market was already hot, and now there’s more pent-up demand. Buyers are going nuts, but sellers are holding back.”
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) stock, which has fallen over 26 percent since its IPO, is only one factor fueling wealth creation, said Michael Dreyfus, founder of Dreyfus Properties, a brokerage with offices in Menlo Park and the neighboring city of Palo Alto. Hiring at Apple Inc. and Google Inc., as well as law and finance firms, has yielded a “very broad-based and healthy” surge in real estate, he said on Bloomberg Television’s ’’Bottom Line’’ on May 23.
‘Savvy’ Sellers
A “savvy bunch of sellers” has purposely kept their homes off the market in desirable areas in anticipation of the IPO, Dreyfus said. Listings haven’t been this scarce at this time of year since 2005, when house prices neared peak values, said Theresa Dreike, an MLS Listings spokeswoman.
Stephanie Seeger, 39, a potential home buyer said.
“With so many people looking and so few homes available, the market is squeezed and sellers can get whatever they want.”
She and her husband bid $86,000 over the asking price to win a four-bedroom home with about 2,300 square feet (214 square meters) in Menlo Park’s Willows neighborhood. The $1.88 million purchase is scheduled to close today, she said.
Across the U.S., a scarcity of homes for sale is boosting property values, from foreclosure-stricken Florida and Arizona to more robust markets in Texas and coastal California. Home listings totaled 2.54 million in April, the lowest for the month since 2005, according to National Association of Realtors.
Waiting It Out
In hard-hit areas, people who owe more than their homes are worth, known as negative equity, are crimping supply by refusing to unload their property at a loss, said Stan Humphries, chief economist of Seattle-based real estate service Zillow Inc. Sellers in Silicon Valley, on the other hand, are motivated by maximizing price and can afford to wait as job growth and the economy improve, he said.
Home values in the U.S. should be “modestly stronger” by the end of the year, rising about 3 percent, Barclays Plc analysts in New York said in a May 23 note. All nine regions in a Federal Housing Finance Agency housing index showed price gains in March. The gauge climbed 2.7 percent from a year earlier, the biggest increase since November 2006.
Humphries said in an interview.
“You’ve got a lot of people with negative equity who want to sell but can’t, and people in affluent areas choosing not to sell. A pattern of materially stronger demand is emerging, but there’s a big constraint on supply.”
Cupertino, Palo Alto
In Cupertino, home to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), inventory this year through April fell 15 percent, and new listings dropped for the 10th time in 12 months, MLS Listings said. Prices climbed 2 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier to $1.1 million, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. In Facebook’s former home of Palo Alto, adjacent to Stanford University, new listings declined for the 11th month, and prices jumped 22 percent to $1.6 million.
Facebook announced in February 2011 that it would move to an empty Menlo Park office campus in a lease deal that was the area’s largest in 20 years. The 1 million-square-foot complex, dubbed 10 Hacker Way, was followed by a $250 million renovation that’s still under way. About 2,400 employees work there.
Summer Homes
Menlo Park, a favored locale for affluent San Francisco residents from the mid-19th century to build summer homes, retains a discrete, modest feel in the shadow of Palo Alto and Atherton, its wealthier neighbor to the north, said Captain Tom Calvert of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District.
The city has restrictions on renovations and remodels, said Penelope Huang, owner of RE/Max Distinctive Properties and an MLS Listings board member. It doesn’t allow non-retail signage for new businesses on Santa Cruz Avenue, the commercial corridor, and a 1979 Heritage Tree Ordinance protects any living tree with a diameter of 15 inches or more, she said. Cutting one down is against the law.
Purchases of Menlo Park’s most expensive properties, more than $2 million, rose 75 percent this year through May 8 compared with the same period in 2011, to 28 homes, said Mark Church, assessor and recorder for San Mateo County.
Demand in Menlo Park may be limited among Facebook employees who aren’t ready to purchase property or don’t want suburban homes, said Michelle Taser of Dreyfus Properties.
San Francisco
Taser, showing a four-bedroom house with 3,070 square feet on Sherman Avenue in West Menlo Park, where the original owners raised two children after acquiring the property in 1993 said.
“They’re kids and want to live in San Francisco. They want to buy cars and drink beer.”
About 47 percent of Facebook workers participate in its commuter program, taking bus shuttles, trains or ride-sharing cars to the campus from San Francisco and other cities in the region, said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the company.
Taser’s property, priced at $1.99 million, drew large crowds over two weekend days, with only a handful of 125 marketing flyers left over, she said after a Sunday open house. Low inventory in Menlo Park means the sellers plan fewer than two weeks of viewings, she said.
Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, 42, who owns about 27 million Facebook shares and vested restricted stock units, is perhaps the most well-known employee who owns a home in the town. A trust controlled by Sandberg and David Goldberg bought property in Menlo Park in December 2009 that was valued at $2.9 million in its most recent tax assessment, according to public records.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 28, bought a house in Palo Alto last year.
IPO Rules
Some Facebook shares by Facebook workers can’t be sold until six months after the IPO under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules. In the meantime, the office campus will generate new commercial-property tax revenue, and retail sales are bound to increase as well, said Church, the county assessor.
Newly-rich Facebook workers seeking to live close to the office may ultimately see the appeal of Menlo Park, he said.
Church said.
“These new millionaires are waiting to receive their money. We expect that to occur, but we really won’t know the true benefits for another year or so.”
COMMENTARY: Could Facebook millionaires trigger the next real estate bubble? If enough of these young Facebook millionaires buy million dollar homes in Silicon Valley, and that's about what the median prices are in central Silicon Valley, this could produce an unsustainable spike in real estate prices (at least on the high-end). I compare such a scenario to what has happened to that piece of shit, over-hyped, over-valued Facebook stock that came out of the gate at $38.00, but by the end of trading today nose dived to under $27.00. If its any consellation, Facebook shares have since rallied to end the trading day at 29.63, +1.44 or +5.12% from the previous day. I can't explain why Facebook shares rallied so suddenly and so quickly. Could be that investors believe that FB shares had hit their low, and it was time for a rally, or it was Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs providing much needed support to the stock. As soon as I know, you will know.
One problem with the Mitt Romney campaign's new iPhoneapp, which allows users to share photos of themselves in support of the Romney campaign.
His campaign made an embarrassing typo. "A Better Amercia," reads one of the banners with which users can customize their photos.
On Twitter and Tumbr, the typo is already being relentlessly mocked. The gaffe is still on the app as of Wednesday morning because Apple needs to approve the campaign's correction, the campaign told Talking Points Memo.
COMMENTARY: I don't know about you, but I want my next POTUS will be Obama, not some former punkass Bain & Company private equity who loaded companies with debt, then let them go bankrupt and laying off thousands of workers. I want my POTUS to be POTUS of America, not AMERCIA.
Courtesy of an article dated May 30, 2012 appearing in Business Insider
When it comes to judging a company's worth, value investors like Warren Buffett look at intrinsic value. By that measure, Facebook's shares are worth less than $10. Thomson Reuters analyst Jharonne Martis breaks down the math in this episode of Investing 201. (May 23, 2012)
Reuters correspondent Fred Katayama interviews Thomson Reuters analyst Jharonne Martins and poses a very interesting question:
"How much is Facebook really worth?"
Here's the full text of that interview:
Fred: Jharonne, you've scowered through Facebook. How much is Facebook really worth?
Jharonne: Well, according to StockLine, it should actually be valued closer to $9.59.
Fred: $9.59. How did you arrive at that value?
Jharonne: Well, the market is assuming that the company will have to grow at 24% per year over the next ten years every year to sustain that stock value ($34.03).
Fred: And that contrasts with the more reasonable 10.8% annual earnings growth over ten years that you calculated to get your $9.59 per share.
Jharonne: Yes.
Fred: Jharonne, what is intrinsic value?
Jharonne: Well, intrinsic value systematically adjusts for optimism bias especially for fast growing companies when you're looking at longterm forecasts.
Fred: How does Facebook's intrinsic value compare with those other high-tech firms?
Jharonne: Well, it is still considered an over-valued stock, especially when you compare it with Apple, and also Google. On the other hand, Amazon is one stock that is considered over-valued.
Fred: Alright, so Amazon and Facebook (are) way over-valued. Why should anyone care about intrinsic value?
Jharonne: That's the stuff Warren Buffet cares about. When he purchased Burlington Northern, he still payed less than the fair market value, so Starcccc knew they were getting a good deal.
Fred: So Jharonne, does this make Facebook the most over-valued content company?
Jharonne: No, it makes it the second most over-valued firm right after Salesforce.com.
Fred: So No 2 at $9.59 intrinsic value. Thanks, Jharonne. That was Jharonne Martis of Thomson Reuters. I'm Fred Katayama for New Ideas for Investing 201.
COMMENTARY: In finance textbooks, intrinsic value refers to the value of a security (stock, bond, treasury bill) which is intrinsic (attached to) or contained in the security itself. It is also frequently called fundamental value. It is ordinarily calculated by summing the future income generated by the asset, and discounting it to the present value. Simply put, it is the actual value of a security as opposed to the market or book value.
In valuing stocks, security analysts may use fundamental analysis — as opposed to technical analysis — to estimate the intrinsic value of a company. Here the "intrinsic" characteristic considered is the expected cash flow produced by the company in question. Intrinsic value is therefore defined to be the present value of all expected future net cash flows to the company; it is calculated via discounted cash flow valuation.
An alternative, though related approach, is to view intrinsic value as the value of a business' ongoing operations, as opposed to its accounting based book value (assets less liabilities), or break-up value. Warren Buffet is known for his ability to calculate the intrinsic value of a business, and then buy that business when its price is at a discount to its intrinsic value.
In the case of Facebook, using fundamental analysis, its intrinsic value of $9.59 was calculated by estimating its future net cash flows over a ten-year period, then discounting them by 10% to the yield present value of those cash flows. When you divide that figure by the number of shares outstanding 2.147 billion shares, this yields the $9.59 intrinsic value per share.
By now, most stock investors know that Facebook shares ended their first day of trading at $34.03 per share. According ot Jharonne Martis, Facebook's intrinsic value is only $9.59 per share. That's a whopping difference of $24.44 ($34.03 minus $9.59). This begs another very interesting question:
"Is investor optimism bias worth $24.44?"
If you calculate Facebook's market value-to-intrinsic value ratio (MV-to-IV) ratio you get a ridiculous 3.96 (38.03/9.59) or roughly 4 times the intrinsic value. That's just too much optimism. Keep in mind that Facebook amended its SEC S-1 registration statement eight times. The last time it was to warn investors of the risk the company faced in monetizing mobile. Furthermore, there were over fifty risk factors listed in the registration statement, an unusually high number for a company that has been around seven years (2005). It appears that investors gave Facebook a pass on the risk factors and overlooked its failure in monetizing mobile.
To be totally honest, Facebook's MV-to-IV ratio is over-inflated not solely by investor optimism about the future of Facebook, but a significant amount of investor hype and what is commonly referred to as the "Facebook Halo Effect," or a belief that Facebook is so big and dominates social media so completely, that it cannot possibly do any wrong. By any measure, Facebook's MV-to-IV ratio is downright scary when compared to those of Apple and Google as of May 18, 2012. Only Amazon.com is higher with a MV-to-IV ratio of 6.892.
Apple - Market Value (530.38) divided by Intrinsic Value (881.40) = 0.602
Google - Market Value (600.40) divided by Intrinsic Value (680.80) = 0.882
Amazon - Market Value (213.85) divided by Intrinsic Value (31.03) = 6.892
Facebook - Market Value (38.03) divided by Intrinsic Value (9.59) = 3.965 (IPO Date)
Facebook - Market Value (28.19) divided by Intrinsic Value (9.59) = 2.93 (As of 5/30/12)
A MV-to-IV ratio of "1" would mean that the intrinsic value and market value of the stock are the same. As expected, the MV-to-IV ratios of Apple and Google are less than one. Anytime the MV-to-IV ratio exceeds the value of "1" by a considerable amount, you have to seriously question whether that company's stock is over-valued. This appears to be the case for both Amazon and Facebook.
It should be worth mentioning that one of the factors that has inflated Facebook's MV-to-IV ratio is the large number of shares (421 million) floated during the IPO. In Facebook's case, floated shares represent 15% of total outstanding shares (2.147 billion). This makes Facebook shares less scarce compared to LinkedIn and Groupon which had much lower floats during their IPO's. In fact, there are too many Facebook shares in the public domain and fewer investors willing to buy Facebook shares at the market price. This has driven down Facebook's share price from $38.03 at the end of trading on its IPO day of May 18, 2012 to its present $28.19--a decrease of 25.87%. Since the IPO date, Facebook's market capitalization has gone from $104.5 billion to $60.27 billion--a decrease of $44.23 billion in value. No wonder so many investors are pissed off at Facebook and filing lawsuits.
As of Wednesday, May 30, 2012, Facebook's MV-to-IV ratio stands at 2.93. This is still high since it is well above "1" or parity. It is obvious that Facebook shares have a way to go before they reach parity or a more acceptable MV-to-IV ratio. Main Street sets the market value, and it definitely was not $38.03.
Courtesy of an interview of May 22, 2012 by Fred Katayama of Thomson Reuters analyst Jharonne Martis
Satellite image of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant spews highly radioactive contaminated smoke from fires after the great earthquake and tidal wave that hit the plant (Click Image To Enlarge)
You may have entertained the idea of an improbable civilization ending events such as a ‘global killer’ asteroid, earth crust displacement or massive solar storms, but what if there existed a situation right now that was so serious that it literally threatened our very existence?
According to a host of scientists, nuclear experts and researchers, were are facing exactly such a scenario – and current efforts may not be able to stop it.
When the Fukushima nuclear plants sustained structural damage and a catastrophic failure of their spent fuel cooling systems in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, it left the government of Japan, Tokyo Power and nuclear regulatory agencies around the world powerless to contain the release of deadly radiation. A year on, the battle for control of Fukushima continues to no avail.
Fukushima nuclear reactors on March 17, 2011 (Click Image To Enlarge)
Reactor #4 is the most dangerous of all six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Nuclear Power complex because it is the most heavily damaged. It contains the most nuclear fuel, enough in fact, that should those nuclear fuel rods catch fire due to lack of cooling water, those fires could not be put out, and the fires would continue to burn until all the fuel has been consumed.
Aerial view of Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Plant. Note that the roofs of two of the reactors have been completely blown off (Click Image To Enlarge)
In the meantime, the burning fuel rods would release more Cesium 137 nuclear fallout than was released in all above ground nuclear tests since World War II. This would be a catastrophe for Japan. It would mean the evacuation of all cities and towns near to the Fukushima nuclear power plants, including the city of Tokyo and its over 40 million people. Easterly tradewinds would also carry all that Cesium 137 across the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of North America. Just watch the following video:
Here's a video broadcast in Japan in April 2012 that was translated into English, but for some reason did not get widespread news circulation in the U.S. If you listen to the narrator closely, it paints a truly horrific picture of just what could happen if 11,000 nuclear fuel rods in and around nuclear reactor #4 at Fukushima were to catch on fire. It would make Chernobyl look small by comparison. According to a highly secret study by the Russian government. Nearly 1 million Russians have either died from the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. Be prepared to be scared out of your wits.
It’s estimated that tens of thousands of people in Japan and the whole of North America have been affected, with reports indicating that children in Japan and the U.S. are already being born with birth defects, as well as thousands who have already succumbed to radiation related illness.
Most Contaminated food areas of North America (based on fallout wind spread patterns charted by European scientific research agencies) in order of likely intensity of contamination, starting with the most contaminated:
Entire Pacific Coast (note that much of the produce in North America comes from this region, especially California)
Northern U.S. States close to Canada, and Canadian areas close to the U.S. (including Toronto etc.)
Eastern States
Central States of the U.S., and Far Northern areas of Canada
As we initially followed the breaking news during the first thirty days of the accident, we suggested the Fukushima disaster would be worse than Chernobyl. Not even we could have imagined how much worse it would be.
If current estimates are correct, Fukushima has already released as much radiation into the atmosphere and Pacific Ocean as Chernobyl, and the potential for a disaster at least ten times worse is highly probable in the event of another earthquake or accident that leads to a collapse of the cooling structures which are above ground and have already suffered significant damage.
According to U.S. Army General Albert N. Stubblebine (ret.) of the Natural Solutions Foundation, the situation is extremely serious and poses a significant danger to our entire civilization. Since TEPCO and the Japanese government have refused the entombment option (as the Russians did with Chernobyl) the world is at the mercy of nature. A mistake here would cause the deaths of tens of millions of people across the globe.
If there ever existed a threat that could cause the end of the world as we know it, it’s the ongoing and unresolved nuclear saga in Japan:
When the highly radioactive Spent Fuel Rods are exposed to air, there will be massive explosions releasing many times the amount or radiation released thus far. Bizarrely, they are stored three stories above ground in open concrete storage pools. Whether through evaporation of the water in the pools, or due to the inevitable further collapse of the structure, there is a severe risk. United States public health authorities agree that tens of thousands of North Americans have already died from the Fukushima calamity. When the final cataclysm occurs, sooner rather than later, the whole Northern Hemisphere is at risk of becoming largely uninhabitable.
Fact. On March 11, 2011, Fukushima Daichi nuclear power station with six nuclear reactors suffered cataclysmic damage that some believe was a man made event,and the resulting Tsunami. Hydrogen explosions…at least one nuclear explosion… and then subsequent deterioration of the visible plants at five of those reactors have created a threat situation unparalleled in human history.
Fact. Despite denial and cover-up, the reality has emerged, that enormous amounts of radioactive material has been spewing into the atmosphere, polluting the groundwater, and the food of Japan, and entering by the tens of millions of gallons the waters of the Pacific.
There’s no way to sugarcoat these facts. Denying them, blocking them out, pretending that they are not real is of no help to you and your family, and it leaves you totally unprepared for a danger that the Natural Solutions Foundation has been warning about since the first day. As of three weeks ago the levels of radiation inside of the spent fuel pools of unit no. 2 are too high to measure. Get that… too high to measure. And, the water there is evaporating, meaning that heat and radiation could easily build to very high levels.
Very simply put, if this much Cesium 137 is released, it will destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugulistic debate over nuclear power plants.
This is an issue of human survival.
We can play the denial game all day long and pretend that, because the mainstream media is not reporting on it, there is no threat, but the facts are quite clear.
This is, without a doubt, the most immediate threat faced by the world. It’s so serious, in fact, that the Japanese government has considered and put into place evacuation plans for the whole of Tokyo – some 40 million people. Reports are also emerging that suggest a collapse of the spent fuel pools would be so serious that the entire country of Japan may have to be evacuated. The entire country – that’s 125 million refugees that will cause an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.
Before you argue that these are the ravings of just alternative media conspiracy theorists and fearmongers, consider the assessment put forth by Robert Alvarez , a senior policy adviser to the Secretary for National Security and the Environment for the US Department of Energy:
The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.
The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters.
The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).
It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site, have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.
Regulatory agencies all over the world are warning of the potentiality of a further degradation of the Fukushima nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools, and the subsequent nuclear fallout that would follow.
If these reactors go – and they could at any moment for any number of reasons – we’re looking at a situation for which you simply cannot stock enough food, or water, or supplies. Radiation would spread across the entire northern hemisphere and would be impossible to contain.
While we’ve argued in the past that there is no place we’d rather be than in the United States of America in the event of a socio-economic collapse or global conflict, if these spent fuel pools collapse, then an international exit strategy may be the only option.
Because details are sparse and research limited, it is difficult to predict what nuclear fall out from Japan may look like. The following map may be of some help, as it details the estimated fallout pattern resulting from a nuclear war between Russia and the United States. You’ll note that, while most of the world would be irradiated, the southern hemisphere would be your best bet to avoid the brunt of it:
Beachfront property in Antarctica sounds quite appealing right about now.
COMMENTARY:
A NUCLEAR WAR WITHOUT A WAR
The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation.
The crisis in Japan has been described as "a nuclear war without a war". In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami:
"This time no one dropped a bomb on us ... We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives."
While the long-term repercussions of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are yet to be fully assessed, they are far more serious than those pertaining to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine, which resulted in almost one million deaths (New Book Concludes - Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer Global Research, September 10, 2010.
All eyes are now riveted on the Fukushima Daiichi plant, with news coverage both in Japan and internationally failing to fully acknowledge the impacts of a second catastrophe at TEPCO's (Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc) Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant.
The shaky political consensus both in Japan, the U.S. and Western Europe is that the crisis at Fukushima has been contained.
The realties, however, are otherwise. Fukushima 3 was leaking unconfirmed amounts of plutonium. According to Dr. Helen Caldicott,
"One millionth of a gram of plutonium, if inhaled can cause cancer".
An opinion poll in May 2011 confirmed that more than 80 per cent of the Japanese population do not believe the government's information regarding the nuclear crisis. (quoted in Sherwood Ross, Fukushima: Japan's Second Nuclear Disaster, Global Research, November 10, 2011)
THE IMPACTS IN JAPAN
The Japanese government has been obliged to acknowledge that "the severity rating of its nuclear crisis ... matches that of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster". In a bitter irony, however, this tacit admission by the Japanese authorities has proven to been part of the cover-up of a significantly larger catastrophe, resulting in a process of global nuclear radiation and contamination:
"While Chernobyl was an enormous unprecedented disaster, it only occurred at one reactor and rapidly melted down. Once cooled, it was able to be covered with a concrete sarcophagus that was constructed with 100,000 workers. There are a staggering 4400 tons of nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima, which greatly dwarfs the total size of radiation sources at Chernobyl." ( Extremely High Radiation Levels in Japan: University Researchers Challenge Official Data, Global Research, April 11, 2011)
WORLDWIDE CONTAMINATION
The dumping of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger to a process of global radioactive contamination. Radioactive elements have not only been detected in the food chain in Japan, radioactive rain water has been recorded in California:
"Hazardous radioactive elements being released in the sea and air around Fukushima accumulate at each step of various food chains (for example, into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow's meat and milk, then humans). Entering the body, these elements - called internal emitters - migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, continuously irradiating small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years often induce cancer". (Helen Caldicott, Fukushima: Nuclear Apologists Play Shoot the Messenger on Radiation, The Age, April 26, 2011)
While the spread of radiation to the West Coast of North America was casually acknowledged, the early press reports (AP and Reuters) "quoting diplomatic sources" stated that only "tiny amounts of radioactive particles have arrived in California but do not pose a threat to human health."
"According to the news agencies, the unnamed sources have access to data from a network of measuring stations run by the United Nations’ Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. Greg Jaczko, chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told White House reporters on Thursday (March 17) that his experts “don’t see any concern from radiation levels that could be harmful here in the United States or any of the U.S. territories”.
JAPAN IS NOW A PUBLIC HEALTH DISASTER
Japan as a nation state has been destroyed. Its landmass and territorial waters are contaminated. Part of the country is uninhabitable. High levels of radiation have been recorded in the Tokyo metropolitan area, which has a population of 39 million (2010) (more than the population of Canada, circa 34 million (2010)) There are indications that the food chain is contaminated throughout Japan:
"Radioactive cesium exceeding the legal limit was detected in tea made in a factory in Shizuoka City, more than 300 kilometers away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Shizuoka Prefecture is one of the most famous tea producing areas in Japan.
A tea distributor in Tokyo reported to the prefecture that it detected high levels of radioactivity in the tea shipped from the city. The prefecture ordered the factory to refrain from shipping out the product. After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, radioactive contamination of tea leaves and processed tea has been found over a wide area around Tokyo." (See 5 More Companies Detect Radiation In Their Tea Above Legal Limits Over 300 KM From Fukushima, June 15, 2011)
Japan's industrial and manufacturing base is prostrate. Japan is no longer a leading industrial power. The country's exports have plummeted. The Tokyo government has announced its first trade deficit since 1980.
While the business media has narrowly centered on the impacts of power outages and energy shortages on the pace of productive activity, the broader issue pertaining to the outright radioactive contamination of the country's infrastructure and industrial base is a "scientific taboo" (i.e the radiation of industrial plants, machinery and equipment, buildings, roads, etc). A report released in January 2012 points to the nuclear contamination of building materials used in the construction industry, in cluding roads and residential buildings throughout Japan.(See FUKUSHIMA: Radioactive Houses and Roads in Japan. Radioactive Building Materials Sold to over 200 Construction Companies, January 2012)
A "coverup report" by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (May 2011), entitled "Economic Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Current Status of Recovery"presents "Economic Recovery" as a fait accompli. It also brushes aside the issue of radiation. The impacts of nuclear radiation on the work force and the country's industrial base are not mentioned. The report states that the distance between Tokyo -Fukushima Dai-ichi is of the order of 230 km (about 144 miles) and that the levels of radiation in Tokyo are lower than in Hong Kong and New York City.(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Current Status of Recovery, p.15). This statement is made without corroborating evidence and in overt contradiction with independent radiation readings in Tokyo (se map below). In recent developments, Sohgo Security Services Co. is launching a lucrative "radiation measurement service targeting households in Tokyo and four surrounding prefectures".
"A map of citizens' measured radiation levels shows radioactivity is distributed in a complex pattern reflecting the mountainous terrain and the shifting winds across a broad area of Japan north of Tokyo which is in the center of the of bottom of the map."
Radiation contamination readings map by Japanese "citizens" of localities within 144 miles of Fukushima (Levels of radiation contamination: red = very high, yellow = high, light blue = moderate, dark blue = above normal) Click Image To Enlarge
AREAS WHOSE FOOD PRODUCTS MAY NOW CARRY RADIOACTIVE FALLOUT
According to Dr. Robert J. Gilbert, a former U.S. Marine Corps Instructor in Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Warfare Survival, since leaving the service in 1985 he has conducted independent research into the Geometric basis of modern science and new technologies.
Clearly, in light of his background, Robert Gilbert is someone worth listening to on the subject of radiation dangers from the recent nuclear disaster in Japan. Here’s an excerpt from a page on his Vesica.org website, dealing with the subject:
The Entirety of the Northern Hemisphere around the world is affected by fallout, as well as the Pacific Ocean.
Most Serious: Japan, Pacific Ocean, and Pacific Rim States
Expected spread of nuclear fallout from Fukushima nuclear catastrophe (Click Image To Enlarge)
Most Contaminated food areas of North America (based on fallout wind spread patterns charted by European scientific research agencies) in order of likely intensity of contamination, starting with the most contaminated:
Entire Pacific Coast (note that much of the produce in North America comes from this region, especially California)
Northern U.S. States close to Canada, and Canadian areas close to the U.S. (including Toronto etc.)
Eastern States
Central States of the U.S., and Far Northern areas of Canada
SAFEST AREAS OF ORIGIN FOR FOOD PRODUCTS
The majority of contamination is in the northern hemisphere and the Pacific Ocean region. Most of the Southern Hemisphere has little to no fallout (the exception is the Southern Hemisphere in the Pacific; Australia for example is finding radioactive fish in the ocean, so although they may not get much atmospheric fallout they are affected by the massive contamination of the Pacific Ocean.)
Also note that radioactive contamination is being found on non-food products being imported from Japan.
Safest Areas of Origin for food products:
Central America (avoid items from the Pacific Coast area of Mexico)
South America
Africa
Europe is also far less contaminated that North America, although it is also experiencing significant fallout; so it is a better source for products than North America, however not as good as Southern Hemisphere sources. (However some South American produce may contain high levels of pesticides not allowed to be used in the U.S. or Canada.)
ITEMS OF SPECIAL CONCERN FROM AFFECTED AREAS
Most affected:
All Ocean-Derived Products from the Pacific Ocean: the Fukushima accident dumped millions of times the normal background levels of radiation into the Pacific, where it is affecting the entire ocean (most toxic near Japan and bordering areas, but now reaching to the US West Coast: debris from the Tsunami in Japan is also expected to start washing up on the West Coast in the near future.) There are already reports of Pacific Fish showing radioactive contamination. This indicates a need to be cautious regarding:
All Pacific Ocean Fish
Sea Salt or Ocean Minerals derived from the Pacific
All Pacific Seaweed and Sea Vegetables (order Atlantic Ocean seaweed at www.theseaweedman.com )
Milk and all Dairy Products (butter, cheese etc.) from all animals: Cows, Goats, and Sheep (Dairy products have the most intense immediate absorption of radiation from fallout). Radioactive contamination of milk has been found throughout the United States, especially on the West Coast.
Any plant with a large surface area exposed to the air while growing: The most intense radiation absorption in plants is through rain falling directly on the leaves of the plant, where it is directly absorbed. Rainwater absorbed through the earth into the plant is already of much lower radiation intensity due to the filtering affect of the soil. All broad leaf plants and plants with large surface areas grown in the open air (rather than in greenhouses) are the most contaminated, for instance Salad Greens, Spinach, Cabbage etc. Contaminated crops in California (carrying radioactive iodine and cesium) have already been confirmed by UC Berkeley. [Carrots and other root vegetables are less contaminated due to growing underground.]
Water from Rainwater or Open Lake type catchments: instead drink bottled water, or water from underground wells or other underground sources (radiation is greatly reduced when the particles have to travel through the ground.)
If the extent of radioactive fallout in the Northern Hemisphere worsens due to exposing the fuel rods in some of the Fukushima reactors to air, then even more Cesium 137 will be released into the environment. Cesium 137 is really bad because once it gets into the soil or water supply, the radioactivity can be passed onto the entire food chain as plants absorb the radioactivity from water and meat producing animals become radioactive as well. As humans we will absorb radioactivity from the air we breath and that's pretty bad just by itself, but allowing additional radioactivity to get into our bodies through the food chain means a catastrophe. Let's hope that the Japanese finally dome the affected damaged reactors ala Chernobyl, and take proper measures to insure that the remaining nuclear reactors are protected against lost of cooling water.
Radiation readings taken earlier this year show that so far the nuclear fallout from Fukushima is "minimal" or "within safe limits," and that water, dairy and agricultural crops, although containing higher levels of radiation contamination, are not sufficiently high enough to cause a health hazard to humans. However, what these readings do not disclose is the ticking timebomb from reactor #4 that exists at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
On May 28, 2012, it was reported that Blue Fin tuna, which annually migrate over 6,000 miles from the coastal waters off of Japan to the west coast of the U.S., had radiation levels 10 times normal for Cesium 134 and 137. This is still considered safe for food consumption, but the evidence is clear: the Fukushima nuclear fallout has contaminated the oceans and all sea life could be in peril of radiation contamination.
Courtesy of an article dated May 25, 2012 appearing in SHTFPlan.com and an article dated April 20, 2012 appearing in InfoWars.comand an article dated January 25, 2012 appearing in GlobalResearch.ca
Russia’s most popular social network Vkontakte postponed the initial public offering of its shares indefinitely as a result of Facebook Inc.’s (FB) unimpressive market debut, the network’s founder and Chief Executive Pavel Durov said.
Mr. Durov said on his Twitter account Tuesday.
“The Facebook IPO damaged many private investors’ trust in social networks, and the [VKontakte] IPO has been postponed indefinitely.”
VKontakte is Russia’s most popular social network with about 119 million users. It was considering an IPO in 2012.
Mr. Durov owns 12% in the company, while Mail.ru Group, controlled by Russia’s richest man Alisher Usmanov, owns 39.99%. The latter company said Tuesday it had given Mr. Durov the right to vote with its shares, effectively giving him control of the company.
Mail.ru, which had its own $1 billion IPO last year, owned 56.3 million Facebook shares worth $2.14 billion when the shares debuted earlier in May.
VKontakte, looking very similar to Facebook, is popular not only in Russia, but also among Russian-speaking users in the former Soviet states.
Like Facebook, VKontakte allows users to message friends, create groups, public pages and events, make notes, share and tag images and video. It also offers games and integration with torrent file sharing technology to share large files like movies.
COMMENTARY: In June 2011, Reuters reported that VKontakte, the leading Russian social network was in early discussions with with New York investment banks about a potential initial public offering (IPO) sometime in 2012.
VKontakte offers functions that are very similar to Facebook. In fact, the site is an outright Facebook clone, even using the same pale blue colors. VKontakte got the IPO itch following the highly successful IPO of LinkedIn in March 2011 and Yandex NV, the leading Russian search engine in May 2011 which raised $1.3 billion.
VKontakte believed that the margin of success with an IPO would be high just like LinkedIn which traded 46 percent above its price and Yandex which traded at 20 percent above its initial price. Renren, the Chinese social Networking site also went public and traded its shares 20 percent higher. However, as of today, both Renren and Yandex have suffered a dramatic drops in their share prices.
In May 2011, Vkontakte claimed it had 58 million users, but has grown rapidly since that time. As of March 2012, Vkontakte had 118.8 million users, but has acknowledged that it has a huge spam problem, and no longer advertises user numbers on its homepage. VKontakte is ranked 46 in Alexa's global Top 500 sites and is the fourth most visited website in Russia. In January 2012 Vkontakte was visited by 25.4 million people from Russia (58.7% aged 12-54) and 21.5 million (49.6% aged 12–54).
Vkontakte Number of Registered Users - October 2006 through March 2012 (Click Image To Enlarge)
Most of Vkontakte's users are from Russia and surrounding Russian-speaking countries. At the beginning of 2012, Vkontakte had a 62% share of Russian internet users. Facebook had 18%, nearly doubling its market share from the beginning of 2011.
Click Image To Enlarge
Although Facebook is still the leading social network in many parts of the world, countries like China, Russia and Japan have their own social networks. Their users still prefer them to the giant network for some reasons. Vkontakte for instance, offers a special feature which attracts more new members daily and makes them spend a lot of time online.
Vkontakte has a huge piracy problem. Members are able to view thousands of pirated copies of domestic and foreign movies dubbed into Russian. In addition, it’s possible to upload and download video and audio files via the VK Tracker application. It remains to be seen how this piracy issue would've affected an IPO filing. The IPO filing has been cancelled so we will never know.
KICKSTARTER IS A NEW MODEL IN FUNDING IDEAS, BUT IS THE SKY REALLY THE LIMIT?
John McGinnis may or may not be a little crazy.
He’s a designer, a manufacturer of composite products, and a self-proclaimed expert in fluid dynamics. But beyond a few profiles on experimental aviation sites, the only resume he’s offering the world is the Synergy, his aircraft that promises “10X the economy of a bizjet with greater range, at 10% the price.” It’s currently raising funds on Kickstarter.
As a kit plane, the Synergy wouldn’t be such an anomaly, except that it bucks conventional aircraft design: It doesn’t actually have wings. Instead, the Synergy deploys McGinnis’s own invention, a “double box” tail that he calls a “modern magic carpet," promising groundbreaking reduced drag to create “a big, fast, roomy airplane with double the usual speed or triple the usual economy.” This is no ultralight. McGinnis says the final product would be roughly the size and cost of a luxury SUV, but the plane would actually get better gas mileage. It’ll run on diesel.
McGinnis tells Co.Design.
“There are millions of pilots and millions more who’d like an excuse to [fly every day]. Flying an airplane is the easy part, and it could be a whole lot easier if we weren’t 90% occupied with nursing our obsolete tech through the air. Think about what [aviation would] be like if we went back to 1973 and put airplanes on the same track we put our telephones on.”
To McGinnis, that track is a plane in every garage, the Jetsonsonian future we all long for, the thus far fruitless desire that squeezes at least one flying car on the cover of Popular Science each year.
There’s just one catch, and it’s the catch we always see in this industry: The plane hasn’t been built yet. Right now, McGinnis has a ¼ scale R/C model in the air, and he’s raising money to build a full-scale prototype. And while there’s at least some debate as to whether or not his concept could actually work as advertised, there is no one to confirm nor call BS on the design (Kickstarters are no more aerospace engineers than Co.Design writers.)
A 1/4-scale version of the full-size Synergy (Click Image To Enlarge)
Yet the idea is resonating all the same. The project has already raised half of its $65,000 goal. And most interestingly, McGinnis is raising funds, not from people who expect to land a five-seater plane for a $250 deposit, but from enthusiasts--dreamers, even--who are are willing to just give away their money to see such a plane developed. A $10,000 deposit will get you no closer to the cockpit than a $10 one.
The 1/4-scale Synergy flys beautifully through the air after take-off. Reminds one of an eagle in flight (Click Image To Enlarge)
McGinnis says.
“We’re building a prototype, not taking orders for vaporware. How about we create a company that can live up to unprecedented demand first, that doesn’t beg their customers to front their risks in advance and then never delivers the goods?”
McGinnis and his team of designers are building the first full-scale Synergy prototype (Click Image To Enlarge)
McGinnis’s project is simultaneously inspiring and depressing. On one hand, we’re all drawn to the possibility of a brilliant garage inventor out-designing industry giants. But on the other, what the heck is everyone doing in the aviation industry, if McGinnis’s vision is remotely possible? And should such highly specialized technical designs be up to all of us normal people to gamble on?
If I fund one of Kickstarter’s clever iPhone cases, worst case scenario is that it just doesn’t fit my iPhone quite right. If I fund McGinnis’s plane, worst case scenario is that a plane actually crashes. But I guess, that’s exactly why the Synergy has been designed with a nose-to-tail rocket-deployed parachute.
COMMENTARY: As a young lad, I built a box kite. I thought the damn thing would never fly, but out Chinese neighbor's son said it would. And, yes it did. If you watched above video of the 1/4-scale Synergy plane it flew beautifully. It soared into the sky gracefully like a graceful eagle swooping for the kill. The 1/4-scale Synergy plane may not be 100% conclusive to armchair skeptics and even some aeronautical engineers, but it's good enough for me. I like the fact that the Synergy will come in kit form and will be made of composite materials making it lighter, but very strong. I just looked at McGinnis' project on Kickstarter, and he has 628 backers who have donated $74,759, putting him $9,759 over the $65,000 goal. However, I have a feeling that he will need more money to make Synergy a reality. Give John McGinnis the extra money I think he will need to build a full-size working prototype. I want to see Syngery fly and prove neysayers all wrong.
When Facebook went public last week, the company was valued at $104 billion, an astonishing figure for an Internet company. Is the figure preposterously high? That depends on how you look at it. The value in Facebook lies in its enormous audience—901 million people every month who are potential viewers of advertisements and buyers of virtual goods. So you could think of Facebook this way: it is worth about $116 for every user it has. On that basis, the company isn't being valued as highly as Google ($200 per user) or even the question-and-answer service Quora ($145). This metric also reveals that investors are much less optimistic that Twitter (worth less than $60 per user) or Tumblr (about $8) will profit handsomely from their very large audiences.
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Another reason this metric is useful: it indicates that for all the hype around Facebook and its kin, the situation isn't as hyperbolic as it was in the dot-com boom. Remember Excite, one of the first Web portals? It and its 18 million users were worth as much as $6.7 billion—$372 per user—to the @Home Network in 1999. The next year, Lycos was valued as highly as $12.5 billion, or $431 per user. It might be of little solace that valuations aren't as inflated as they were 12 years ago, but at least today, unlike then, there is a sizable amount of Internet ad revenue to vie for.
COMMENTARY: An initial public offering is the first chance for a company to truly find out its worth. Facebook earned a valuation of US$104 billion when it went public on May 18, in the most anticipated IPO in years. That valuation is also 104 times bigger than the company’s profit in 2011, causing some to worry that Facebook is overpriced. For perspective, we’ve applied the same measure—market capitalization divided by profit—to other notable public offerings to create our own IPO Hype Meter.
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The result: the Facebook frenzy is intense but not unprecedented. A pricey IPO doesn’t always mean poor returns in the short-term; hype can help drive shares higher over the next year. But Facebook’s high valuation has so far proven to be unwarranted. The company’s share price plummeted 26% during the first three days of trading, helping to confirm what many academic studies have shown: investors tend to get better returns over the long run from IPOs that debut at more reasonable prices.
Unlike the Google IPO, Facebook's business model is still a work-in-process and advertisers are still having a problem with ad effectiveness and showing quantifiable ROI's from their ads. Just before Facebook's IPO, General Motors cancelled $10 million in Facebook ads for this reason.
Mark Zuckerberg and his team are still struggling to monetized the social giant. Average revenues per active user are down in spite of Facebook increasing the number of active users from 660 million at the end of 2010, then 800 million at the end of 2011 and 901 million active users at the end of March 2012. Facebook's average revenues per active user were $1.17--down by 7% from Q1 2011.
Click Image To View Video
Advertising makes up 85% of Facebook's revenues, and although Facebook's user engagement is at an all-time high in minutes, the ad-supported revenue model is showing definite signs of having reached a critical inflection point (see my March 20, 2011 blog post) as growth in users dramatically slowsdown due to market penetration saturation in several key geographic markets (North America, Canada and Western Europe).
488 million users now access Facebook on their mobile devices. When I first modeled Facebook's critical inflection point, I failed to take into account this dramatic shift in mobile Facebook users, and this has exasperated the effects of the critical inflection point as Facebook impressions are quickly shifting from the desktop to mobile devices, making it difficult for Facebook to sell "bigness" in ad impressions, its primary advantage in whooing Madison Avenue. In short, Facebook has been unsuccessful in monetizing the huge growth in mobile Facebook users, and this has been a huge strategic blunder.
In a Bloomberg article dated May 10, 2012 by writer Matthew Ingram, he noted that in Facebook's amendment #8 to its IPO filing, it mentioned that monetizing mobile poised a potential investor risk. Kevin Fitchard's February 2, 2012 article appearing in Gigaom voiced a similar warning calling mobile "Facebook's kryptonite." Fitchard pointed out that Facebook expected the rate of growth in MAU (monthly average users) of its mobile products “will continue to exceed the growth rate of our overall MAUs for the foreseeable future” but added that the company didn’t “directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven.”
On January 25, 2012, eMarketer estimated that mobile advertising spending in the US reached $1.45 billion in 2011, up 89% from $769.6 million in 2010. It forecasts that US mobile ad spending will grow 80% to $2.61 billion in 2012 and reach $10.83 billion in 2016.
According to eMarketer, Google dominates mobile advertising with revenues of $750 million or 51.7% of the total market. As you can see, Facebook is nowhere to be found.
Facebook is moving quickly to address their weakness in mobile advertising through several strategic acquisitions:
In November 2011, Facebook acquired Gowalla, the location-based social network, with only 2 million users for a reported $25-$30 million, but the site was shutdown in January 2012. Facebook claimed it acquired Gowalla for its talented team to shore up its weakness in mobile.
On May 4, 2012, Facebook acquired Glancee, an iPhone mobile app that lets users sign in with Facebook, and let's users locate other people who have things in common with them within a certain radius. The app had 20,000 monthly active and 3,000 daily active Facebook-connected users in April 2012, according to AppData tracking service. Its competitor, Highlight, has 80,000 MAU and 9,000 DAU.
In May 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram, the fast growing mobile photosharing app with nearly 30 million users for $1 billion. Instagram received the Mobile App of the Year for 2012 award. However, the price tag is very questionable given that Instagram had zero revenues.
On May 15, 2012, Facebook acquired Lightbox, a U.K.-based iPhone mobile app that lets users share photos for an undisclosed price tag. This shores up Facebook's photo sharing capabilities overseas.
On May 21, 2012, shortly after its huge IPO, Facebook acquired Karma, a social gifting mobile app. The acquisition was done in order to capitalize on Karma's expertise in mobile.
In a blog post dated May 26, 2012, I compared the advertising models between Facebook and Google, and it was the unanimous opinion of many digital marketing experts, that Facebook is a failure as an advertising platform. I could not agree more.
So is Facebook worth $110 per active user? I don't think so. This is a company whose IPO valuation was based mostly on smoke and mirrors and not much else. Not only was the IPO itself bungled due to over-pricing the stock offering, floating too many shares and NASDAQ technical gliches, but most of the valuation was based on what the stock was selling for in the secondary market just prior to the IPO date. That valuation is grossly out-of-step with what Main Street investors perceived Facebook stock was worth. The result was that Facebook never got the desired "pop" in price for an IPO of that magnitude. Since the day of the IPO, Facebook shares have continued to plummet from the original offering price of $38.00 per share to $31.91 at the close of trading on May 25, 2012, and I don't see this situation changing much anytime soon.
Courtesy of an article dated May 22, 2012 appearing in Technology Reviewand an article dated May 24, 2012 appearing in Canadian Business
Pinterest users not only buy the products they pin, but spend more on average than their Facebook counterparts, according to new data from Shopify.
Pinterest just picked up a cool $100 million in funding led by Japanese online shopping giant Rakuten, placing its value in the region of $1.5 billion. That's huge--bigger than Instagram--but perhaps justified if the Pinteresting effect is reverberating through e-commerce sites. Here's some proof that it is: Shopify, which supplies the e-commerce back end to 25,000 online stores, asked its partners whether Pinterest users are buying anything. The results are impressive.
Click Image To Enlarge
A few highlights from the above Pinterest infographic:
Pinterest is now the third biggest referral source to Shopify's partner sites after Facebook, and on par with Twitter.
Pinterest users shop big--the average price tag is $80.00 or double that of a buy from a Facebook user.
Pinterest user visit have jumped 145% since January 2012.
Pinterest as a source of revenue for stores now contributes 17% of social media traffic--up from 1% in Q2 last year.
Pinterest orders generated from pins have quadrupled and then some during the last six months.
COMMENTARY: That's what I call absolutely impressive numbers. That $100 billion they just raised from that Japanese ecommerce site Rakuten probably means that Pinterest users will be seeing a whole lot of Rakuten merchandise being pinned on the social ecommerce pinning site.
Here's another interesting infographic of Pinterest that describes the sites demographics and user interests.
Click Image To Enlarge
According to AppData.com, Pinterest has been on a hot streak this year. Or should we say hype streak?
In February, comScore reported that the site had passed 10 million monthly unique users faster than any standalone site ever. Then we started to hear from sources on Sand Hill that the company has attracted interest at a $1 billion valuation. But numbers from third-party sources like Facebook app tracking service, AppData, are pinning a slightly different picture on the image and link-sharing site.
Pinterest’s monthly active users on Facebook — or the number that has connected to Facebook over the past thirty days — have dropped to 8.3 million, from around 12.2 million a month ago when the site did a major redesign. Daily Active Users are also down but not by as much: on April 21 they were 930,000, from 1.1 million on March 22.
Click Images To Enlarge
AppData tracked Pinterest's traffic numbers Between April and May 2012, and the numbers have improved. Monthly active users on May 8, 2012 increased to 10 million from 8.3 million on April 22, 2012. Daily active users on May 8, 2012 increased to 2.5 million from 930 million on April 22, 2012. Incredible turnaround, in such a short period of time.
Whether Pinterest can maintain this traffic momentum going into June remains to be seen. I like the site. It's different, and its meteroic rise is unprecedented. Sort of reminds one of foursquare. The big negative that I see is that Pinterest, which is 80% female, cannot sustain its growth without signing up more males. foursquare has a similar problem, only in the reverse. 70% of foursquare members are male, and the sites total number of registers users reached 15 million, but growing a lot slower than in it was in 2011.
I do have a feeling that Pinterest could become an acquisition candidate for Facebook, which seriously needs to find ways to increase revenues. With the viability of F-commerice brought into serious question when The Gap, Nordstroms and Penneys abruptly closed their F-commerce sites only after a few months, Facebook needs a way to make money off of ecommerce. Pinterest definitely meets that requirement.
Courtesy of an article dated May 18, 2012 appearing in Fast Company
The excitement is really starting to build as we count down the days to our first Model S deliveries. We are ahead of schedule and can’t wait to put our first Reservation Holders behind the wheel! We’ve been looking forward to this day for over three years, and the buzz around the office and the factory is escalating every day.
FIRST DELIVERIES SCHEDULED!
The Tesla Factory will begin customer deliveries of the 2012 Model S sedan on June 22nd!!! We have a great day planned for our employees to celebrate this incredible event and will be webcasting the actual delivery ceremony on teslamotors.com. My heart is racing just thinking about it!
I find myself spending more and more time at the factory lately as we prepare to deliver our first cars. As I walk alongside the assembly line, past the paint booths and through the Plastics Center, I think there are lots of interesting activities going on that you might like to see. I am amazed at how fast our robots can position major sections of the car and how quickly our massive presses can transform huge rolls of aluminum into doors, hoods and battery enclosures.
Tesla Motors Model S sedan for 2012
Several weeks ago I challenged the teams at Deer Creek and Fremont to find a way to share some of these cool activities with our friends and family around the world. I’m happy to say they have met the challenge. Starting with this post, we officially begin a new series called “Inside Tesla.” Every Tuesday from now through the start of Model S deliveries we are going to post a blog with a new video and a collection of images highlighting a segment of the Model S manufacturing process. Be on the lookout, we might also have a few surprises to share along the way :).
EVENTS AND STORE OPENINGS
We will continue to hold Model S events in other areas during the countdown to June 22nd. A few weeks ago we held our “Signature - Four Color” event at Tesla Fashion Island in Newport Beach, California. It was the second time we had four Model S Beta cars, in all four Signature colors, on display at a Tesla Retail Store. It was great! Many thanks to the 9,000 visitors who stopped by to see us throughout the weekend. Given the energy and excitement surrounding these types of events, we thought it would be fun to create an Event Gallery on teslamotors.com to share some of our favorite photos and videos. Check it out and let us know what you think!
Tesla Motors showroom in Fashion Island Mall in Newport Beach, CA. Site of the Tesla Fashion Island Signature Weekend, May 4, 2012 (Click Image To Enlarge)
One of the most frequent comments I hear at events is
“You always do everything on the West Coast. How about doing something on the East Coast?”
So, East Coast here we come! This weekend we open our first “new design” store on the East Coast at The Westchester in White Plains, New York. We are bringing four Betas to the opening. This is the first time the “Signature - Four Color” event will be on the East Coast and the first time we’ve assembled four Model S Beta cars at a store opening. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at the opening.
We haven’t forgotten about our fans north of the border. Last week we launched a five-city Model S Beta tour through Canada. After first stopping in Ottawa and Laval, Quebec, the Signature Red Model S Beta will take up temporary residence in Etobicoke, Ontario this week before moving on to Calgary and Vancouver in June. We hope to see you along the way!
MODEL S UPDATES
I’d like to share a few Model S updates that again underscore how personalized YOUR Model S can be. Model S can be adjusted exactly the way YOU like it.
Regen(erative) braking
One of the engineering advantages that make an EV better than any gas-powered car is regenerative braking. When you take your foot off the Model S accelerator, energy is fed back into the battery, which causes the car to slow down (a similar feel to downshifting with a manual transmission). One of our Firmware engineers wrote a great blog about this technology shortly after the release of our Tesla Roadster. Over the past few years, we have learned that not everyone likes the same amount of Regen. Some owners like a little more resistance, some like a little less. Having less Regen means you will likely get less range, but some people still prefer the feel of their car with less Regen. We listened to your requests and I’m pleased to announce that Model S Regen will be adjustable. You can adjust Regen to suit your driving style.
Adjustable Steering
One of the many benefits of driving a Tesla is that almost everything can be adjusted. Even the steering on Model S is adjustable, which allows you to change the resistance required to turn the steering wheel. You’ll be able to choose between Comfort, Standard, and Sport steering.
Personalize your Suspension
As you can see, we’re developing a theme here – personalization. At Tesla, we are thinking differently about the way you connect with your car. Every Tesla customer is different, so we thought everyone should have the option to set his or her preference for suspension and ride height. With Active Air Suspension, a car set a little lower to the ground will reduce aero drag. You may choose to raise the suspension a few inches when faced with pesky speed bumps or very high when loading up the Frunk with groceries and supplies for a summer BBQ.
Range Testing
I’m thrilled to report that range & efficiency testing has been completed on our 85 kWh Model S. We’ve exceeded expectations. Elon and JB just posted a blog explaining recent changes to EPA testing procedures and how they relate to Model S. It’s definitely worth checking out. I think it answers a lot of questions about EV range and efficiency.
These are very exciting times at Tesla and we’re looking forward to sharing them with each and every one of you as we countdown to June 22nd. We can’t wait to make every new owner smile as they jump behind the wheel of the most personalized and fun driving experience they’ve ever had. Be sure to check out “Inside Tesla” every Tuesday and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitterfor the latest updates and news. See you this weekend, East Coast.
Let the countdown begin!!!
COMMENTARY: Elon Musk is really on a roll. He just succesfully launched SpaceX's Faclon 9 rocket and docked the Dragon spacecraft with the Internatinoal Space Station. Now he is getting ready to deliver the first Tesla Motors Model S sedans on June 22, 2012. Halleluhaj!
The Model S sedan is an absolutely the most beautiful, luxurous and technologically advanced all-electric sedan available today. Elon Musk has done it again.
Courtesy of a blog post dated May 22, 2012 by George Blankenship, Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Ownership Experience appearing in the Tesla Enthusiasts Blog
Facebook fails as an ad company, although it generates the majority of revenue from advertising. The technology has not kept pace with explosive user growth, falling short in ad-targeting options and formats, according to analyses released Tuesday.
WordStream compared the format and ad performance of ads running on Facebook and Google Display Network. In a report card, Facebook received the following grades:
Advertisnig Reach/Revenue Growth - A+ and A-, respectively.
Advertising Performance - B+ for "good effort,"
Ad-Targeting Options - C
Ad Formats - D+
Google received the following grades for the same items:
Advertisnig Reach/Revenue Growth - A+ and A, respectively.
Advertising Performance - A
Ad-Targeting Options - B
Ad Formats - A
It cost Facebook more than $1 billion last year to deliver ads, when factoring in engineers, technology and more, according to a Facebook video.
More than half of Facebook users -- 901 million monthly as of March 31 -- access the social site through a mobile device.The social site estimates more than 500 million mobile monthly active users as of April 20 -- yet no mobile ad-targeting options exist, according to Larry Kim, founder of WordStream, a search engine marketing firm. He said.
"The site also lacks engaging ad formats critical to driving relevance, experience and click-through rates, such as animation or video ads."
The industry average for click-through rates on banner ads stands at one-tenth of a percent. On Facebook, that average stands at half of the industry average, while the Google Display Network generates four times the amount. Larry Kim, founder of WordsStream said.
"CTRs measure relevancy, so if you have good targeting options and engaging ad formats, you would expect more people to click on ads."
The average Facebook user spends 20 minutes per day on the site, but for the company to flourish as an ad platform to generate revenue it must keep better pace with the growth of technology. Forrester Research analyst Nate Elliott believes
In a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing updated on May 9, Facebook explains that the "substantial majority" of its revenue comes from third parties advertising on Facebook.
"In 2009, 2010, and 2011 and the first quarter of 2011 and 2012, advertising accounted for 98%, 95%, 85%, 87%, and 82%, respectively."
Worldwide advertising revenue at Facebook should reach $5.06 billion this year -- up from $3.15 billion, according to eMarketer. The research firm said Facebook's share of overall U.S. display ad market revenue grew to 14% in 2011, up from 11.5% in 2010.
Facebook's share of the U.S. display market ad revenue should grow to 16.8%. By comparison, Google's share of U.S. display ad revenue should reach 16.5% in 2012, up from 13.8% last year.
While Facebook generates the majority of its revenue from ads, it lacks the ability to retarget ads on desktops and mobile devices, which would improve return on investments for brands. The open social network also does not provide integration to target ads across the Internet.
Kim believes Facebook has a lot of work to do before it can sustain revenue growth from online advertising. He highlights that work in the following infographic by WordStream.
It remains to be seen, based on Zuckerberg's comments to shareholders about not initially designing the social network as a company, if they even want to become an advertising company at all, he said.
COMMENTARY: From the above infographic comparing Facebook vs Google, you can clearly see why Facebook is a failure as an advertising platform. Facebook's CTR's are scary. Google's aren't that much better.
If you are not familiar with how Facebook's advertising works you should read About Facebook Advertising for general information, including what personal information (if any) Facebook provides advertisers about you, the difference between regular ads and sponsored stories, and Facebooks online ad creation tool.
Perhaps the biggest change to Facebook ads is the announcement at the end of February 2012, that classic premium ads (including premium like. premium event, video comment and premium poll) would no longer be available, but replaced by new upgraded premium ads.
The new upgraded premium ads will originate from Facebook Pages. In other words, advertising on Facebook will take place in the newsfeed and the line between paid, owned, and earned become virtually unrecognizable.
Why is this a big deal? At least two reasons… As a user, ads will be unavoidable because they will be in the news feed as opposed to exclusively in the sidebar (right margin). As an advertiser, the new Facebook ads work better… Facebook reports better reach, engagement, etc.
New upgraded premium ads The ad is created by the content that you post Page post. Anything that you post on your Page, you can turn into an ad.
New upgraded premium ads will allow advertisers to choose from six kinds of page posts:
Status updates or text
Photos
Videos
Links
Questions
Events
Facebook makes the following claims to advertisers using the new upgraded premium ads:
Target Anyone - Upgraded premium ads can be targeted to anyone you want. All available targeting options can be used.
More Social For Friends of Fans - When the person seeing your had has friends who are fans of your Page, Facebook will automatically expand the ad with enhanced social context about those friends, at no extra cost to you.
More Engagement Points for Fans - When fans see your ad, they'll see an expanded interface below the ad that lets them like or comment on the post directly from the ad.
New upgraded premium ads come in the following sizes depending on your news feed content:
Photos - Up to 90 characters of text, 168 x 128 pixel thumbnail, 43 aspect ratio.
Videos - Up to 90 characters of text, 185 x 104 pixel thumbnail, 16:9 aspect ratio.
Questions (Polls) - Will show exactly 4 answers, or 3 plus a "see more" link.
Status - Up to 150 characters of text, No additional media.
Event - Up to 90 characters of text, 75 x 75 pixel thumbnail.
Link - Up to 90 characters of text, 75 x 75 pixel thumbnail.
New upgraded premium ads come with certain pluses, minuses and limitations:
Reporting & Metrics - You receive the same Facebook reporting options as you do now with Classic Premium Ads (Ads and Sponsored Stories). You can see the same metrics for these ads as before.
Third Party Tracking - Facebook only allows impression tags for premium. Facebook does not allow click tags for Premium Page Post Ads at this time.
Creative Delivery - The Facebook ad team will provide advertisers with specific instructions based on your needs for each campaign.
Reaching Non-Fans - New premium upgrade ads will allow you to reach non-fans. Ads and featured stories from Page posts allow you to reach anyone, just like with any ad. This means you can target any segment of the Facebook user base, including fans, non-fans and any other targeting clusters desired. Facebook also provides the option to omit your ads from being viewed by your fans within your news feed, but can be viewed only by non-fans in their news feeds.
Additional information on how to create an ad or sponsored story on Facebook can be found by clicking HERE, but don't bitch if the ads don't produce results.
Facebook has also received recent criticismfor failing to produce a social commerce environ-ment. In a blog post dated February 27, 2012, I reported that The Gap, Nordstroms and Penneys had abruptly closed their F-commerce sites after only just a few months due to lack of interest or a quantifiable ROI. In the commentary section of that blog post, I provide a huge body of evidence (links) that concluded that Facebook stores don’t work. Furthermore, Facebook’s ad platform is expensive and doesn’t convert.
Courtesy of an article dated May 15, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications Online Media Daily
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