If you’re sharing a link on Twitter, it’s best to share it between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. East Coast time..... On Facebook .. just sharing a link is not that effective. Instead, I often post a large, alluring photo from the article and then attach a link to the image. This can generate four or five times as many clicks on an article. ..... On Google Plus, although photos work well, videos get a lot of interaction, especially YouTube clips that are playable within the feed. .... On a weekend, I will actually go to weather sites before sharing an article. If it’s raining, most people are cooped up inside, so I can post away. If it’s sunny, people are enjoying the day at the beach or park — and not looking at their smartphones in the glaring sun, or at least we can hope so — and I will wait until later in the evening to share. .... Getting on the home page of Reddit is like winning the links lottery. .... In stock market investing, a dead cat bounce is often the last fleeting bump when suckers buy, before a stock hits bottom for good. .... By Monday morning, when the sharing began to slow on Twitter, I shared it again there. That acted as a trampoline for the story and sent it back into the Twittersphere. It was temporarily visible for people who had not seen it on Sunday
It is amazing how even an established writer like Nick Bilton diligently shares and promotes what he writes. Building is not enough. You also got to sell. It is like the tree that fell in the forest. Did you hear it?
I'd not be surprised if Facebook has a similar story, although Zynga has taken a bigger beating. But this is not the end of the road. I think Zynga could reinvent itself. Markets go up, markets go down, markets go up.
a culture driven by analytics, where every move is recorded, measured and evaluated ... ..... it appears the long hours and taxing work environment is causing the inevitable — some are deciding to leave, especially as shares trade 70 percent lower than the company’s public offering. .... a “flood of resumes” in recent weeks from Zynga developers looking for jobs or trying to raise capital. .... described morale as grim, while another characterized the feeling as “anxious.” ..... During the company’s 16th all-hands quarterly meeting today, Pincus reportedly talked about the company’s future and fielded tough questions from the crowd as he usually does .... On Wednesday, Zynga’s COO John Schappert resigned after only 15 months on the job. .... two weeks ago, Zynga reported a second-quarter earnings flop that led to its stock sliding by 40 percent...... it took only three months for there to be at least three notable departures from Facebook, the social network that it works with very closely and which is also suffering from post-IPO stock woes.... a majority of the 3,000-plus employees, many are also short timers .... Without a long history at the company, it may be hard for some to feel nostalgic about staying during difficult times. .... Zynga said 80 percent of the staff has been there less than two years .... many employees have joined the company through a dozen or more acquisitions. .... tries to figure out how to create a sense of dedication among its employees .... some employees think it might be the time to pull out the checkbook and spend some of the $1 billion it raised in its IPO on retention bonuses
One lesson though is analytics is not everything.
This is about cold, hard cash. Wall Street looks at cold, hard cash.
I can't say the two - Facebook and Zynga - went IPO too early. They did not.
Mark Pincus cops to being hard-driving but insists he’s a nice guy. .... Tech entrepreneurs are happy to be compared to Steve Jobs, as long as it refers to visionary leadership and not overly demanding, egomaniacal perfectionism. .... his micro-managing tendencies stem from his passion for what his company does
For Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, the disappointing earnings confirm what he already knew: His company needs to move aggressively beyond Facebook into mobile gaming and other horizons. To that end, Pincus announced Wednesday the company plans to get into real-money gambling games in 2013. And as he told Slate’s Jacob Weisberg in a recent interview, the future success of social gaming depends on a rather simple principle: lowering the barriers to play
Pincus is betting on is that gaming will become more social, with increasing numbers of people drawn into competition via their various social networks..... Despite recent investor doubts, Pincus’ social gaming company has more than 300 million monthly active users of games ranging from Farmville to Hidden Chronicles to Zynga Poker. .... Pincus’ personal favorite is Scramble With Friends, which he plays regularly against LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. And Pincus tells Slate’s Jacob Weisberg that games like these are perfect for a world increasingly defined by multitasking, because they are “snacks you can consume in a couple of minutes.”
Even when Steve Jobs was sitting on 50 billion dollars he did not give any of that back to shareholders. Why would Marissa Mayer part ways with seven billion dollars?
Marissa Mayer, who looks to be clearing the decks in preparation for significant changes to Yahoo strategy .... looks for acquisitions .... Judiciously spent, $7 billion might be the ticket to help the once-proud Internet giant regain some of its former glory
With this seven billion Mayer should be able to grow Yahoo's market value by 20 billion over three years. But if she spends more than a billion on acquisitions I'd get suspicious.
Marissa Mayer, so far so good. As for Katie Stanton, first time I am hearing the name. There is this line in the movie Heat: "First time we are seeing him."
The solution is to give Europe a political union that matches the monetary union. The continent is going through hard times. But it is not like breaking up the Euro is an easy solution. You could break the Euro and all the problems would still be there. The loans would not vanish.
it is looking ever more likely .... A chaotic disintegration would be a calamity ..... For the moment, breaking up the euro would be more expensive than trying to hold it together. But if Europe just keeps on arguing, that calculation will change. ..... Begin with Greece. There is a common fallacy, not least in Germany, that dropping the Greeks would be a fairly costless way to teach a useful lesson. In fact the European Central Bank (ECB) owns Greek bonds with a face value of €40 billion ($50 billion), which would be converted into devalued drachma and which Greece might not service. A further €130 billion or so of loans that Greece has received in the bail-out would have to be written down, or written off. The €100 billion of the temporary debts Greece has stacked up in the ECB’s payments system would crystallise into a loss. Add in a one-off grant of say €50 billion to tide Greece over—call it conscience-salving “solidarity”—and the bill might come to €320 billion. Estimating the price of a “Grexit” is guesswork, but Germany’s share might reach €110 billion of this, about 4% of the country’s GDP. ...... Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus and Spain also all owe investors abroad a net sum of 80-100% of GDP (the gross debt is much larger). ...... With the single market in peril and depression looming, Mrs Merkel would come under huge pressure to pay whatever it takes to save the rest of the euro zone. She would have no time to negotiate the pan-European federal discipline that she has always demanded as the price for German aid. A rescue would be a blank cheque. .... A bolder Plan B would amputate well above the site of infection, cutting off Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus too. Italy, which has net foreign debt of just 21% of GDP, would probably escape the chop: even with its heavy debts and chronic lack of competitiveness, Mrs Merkel would reckon that the euro zone could not function politically without it. ..... When you add up the ECB’s holdings of their bonds, the temporary debts in its payments system, written-off rescue loans, and a care package to soften the blow of being chucked out, the total for Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus and Greece comes to perhaps €1.15 trillion. Germany would also have to put money into its own banks, hit by losses in the five departing countries. Altogether, this might cost Germany getting on for €500 billion, or 20% of GDP. ..... the euro zone’s members should use their combined strength to create a banking union and to mutualise a chunk of the outstanding debt (as well as introduce policies to temper austerity and promote growth). ..... This more federal Europe would also involve costs. Recapitalising banks and financing a euro-wide deposit-guarantee scheme might cost €300 billion-400 billion, perhaps a third of it paid for by Germany. But this would be a one-off and might be reclaimed from the banks. Mutualising a slug of debt would lift Germany’s interest costs by €15 billion or so a year. The numbers are rough, but, even allowing for some extra loans to the south, rescue would be cheaper than break-up. And that is before you factor in the enormous political costs of disintegration, with, say, Greece departing into a new Balkan hell. ..... had the politicians agreed on who should pay what or on how much sovereignty to surrender. ...... Southern Europe’s economic rot is deepening and spreading north. Politics is turning rancid as the south succumbs to austerity fatigue and the north to rescue fatigue .... breaking up the euro would be riskier than fixing it. ... the choice will be between an expensive break-up sooner and a really ruinous one later.
Europe going down the tube like this was not my idea of an Asian century.
