It was exciting to see our Wall Street Journal documentary go live on the WSJ Business Center site this week. If you haven’t gotten the chance to view the documentary, you should! It is a great inside look at the company, the culture and the services we offer here at Oneupweb.
Our CEO, Lisa Wehr, provides a bit of background on how Oneupweb became what it is today – a cutting edge digital marketing company
Lisa Wehr
Several leading team members are interviewed in the documentary and offer their take on the company’s myriad of services available to their clients and also their enjoyment in working at Oneupweb.
When the film crew was here in Traverse City last fall interviewing and filming the locations, it was a fun time indeed. It is great to see in the final product how that good time translated into this amazing film. We are happy to see our #Relentless energy and passion for the digital marketing world showcased on the Wall Street Journal’s site.
We also love how the Wall Street Journal began the film, “Keep it interesting or be ignored.” They get our vibe and get that we are sincere in our efforts to be “One UP!”
Keep it interesting or be ignored
So, slide on over to the WSJ Business page and tell us what you think! We’d love to hear your thoughts!
Come the third week in May 2012, the eight year old Internet company, Facebook, will go live on the stock market with what may be a $100 billion IPO and will offer shares to the general public. It reported to be in the top 10 biggest IPOs of all time. On top of that, this will be the tech giant of IPOs of all time.
Image Source: Accounting Degree Online
On Wednesday, February 1st, 2012, Facebook paid a $573,000 fee and filed papers to raise $5 billion or more in the most highly anticipated initial public offering.
Top Sheet of the FB SEC Registration Form
According to their 188 page public filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, they reported revenue of $3.7 billion in 2011, up 88% from 2010 where they reported $1.97 Billion in revenue. That makes each Facebook user equate to $4.39 each. Facebook states in the document of that $3.7 Billion that their net income for 2011 was reported to be $1 billion exact. That’s 94% increase from 2010.
Since the NASDAQ uses four-letter stock symbols Facebook plans to list their symbol as the letters “FB.”
They make clear their risk factors. One that stood out during my read:
“Any number of factors could potentially negatively affect user retention, growth, and engagement, including if: users increasingly engage with competing products.”
The growth of Google+ in its first year growing 60 million users, a quarter of that in December 2011, could be that competing product.
When I was reviewing the S-1 document today I noticed certain patterns between words and number volumes.
All data reported begins in 2009
There was a drastic increase in revenue, expenses and activity from 2010 to 2011
The term 2005 Stock Plan
Why do those three points stand out to me? Because I can see a premeditated plan that has taken successful root. This told me that Mark Zuckerberg’s confidence in his company shifted somewhere in 2008. He was hit with the realization that his take on a viral expansion model held the right formula. According to the patterns in the S-1 there is a bold upward movement beginning in 2009 and even more so into 2011.
What happen before 2009? This is where the term “2005 Stock Plan” became like a beacon within the document. After some digging I found the shift and it started in the 2008 tax season.
As of December 31st, 2007, Facebook had assets exceeding $10 million, which meant their existing RSU’s (Restricted Stock Units) needed nonrestriction. Enter October 18th, 2008, a man named Jeffrey R. Vetter and his Request for Exemptive Relief from Registration under Section 12(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 on behalf of Facebook, Inc. This document showed that my assumption of a shift was correct. Having this exempt restriction in turn opened the pathway for where we are now: the Facebook IPO.
Though I have my hesitations in relation to Facebook in general, I will give this premeditated move of theirs thumbs up for effective and well thought out execution. They covered all their bases.
This has gone from viral sharing to stock sharing eight years in the making. And now a new tech frontier begins. Will you take a share?
Anyone who’s even slightly active on Facebook has likely noticed a new kind of content popping up in the News Feed lately. With the launch of the Facebook Open Graph, user-brand interactions are taking new precedence. With Open Graph, I know what my friends are pinning on Pinterest, what articles my brother-in-law is reading on Yahoo! News, and I’m even painfully aware of the very moment at which a good friend casts his lot with evil and listens to the Twilight soundtrack on Spotify. Most importantly, I know all of this without ever leaving the Facebook environment. It’s all happening in the News Feed with apps featuring Open Graph’s new Actions capability.
Spotify was one of 60 apps to participate in the launch of Facebook's Open Graph.
Okay, so Open Graph is pretty cool. Now I know more than I ever wanted to know about my Facebook friends even after knowing too much already. Great. What makes Open Graph particularly exciting for marketers, however, is its integration with the world beyond Facebook – the greater Internet.
A More Connected Facebook?
Yes – it’s possible, and it’s here. As detailed recently in Search Engine Journal, Facebook’s Open Graph dramatically increases the network’s importance in SEO. For months now, online marketing blogs have been abuzz about the impact Google+ is making on SEO. With Open Graph, now it’s Facebook’s turn. With Open Graph’s Actions feature, as detailed by Search Engine Journal:
Those who interact with the product and post on their Facebook Wall then generate a direct route (link) to the webpage of the company … Given Facebook users average 130 friends, there is a huge amount of exposure that can be gained from Facebook Actions. Website traffic can increase dramatically because 1 person in a network “listened” to your product.
Hitchhiking on the Open Graph
Do brands need to create their own apps to take advantage of Open Graph’s SEO benefits? Not necessarily. In fact, many brands can leverage the power of stronger, existing apps – such as the wildly popular Pinterest app – by developing creative campaigns on those outside platforms. Land’s End’s recent Pinterest campaign, for example, generated double exposure for the brand, by featuring user-shared Land’s End favorites across both Pinterest and (thanks to Pinterest’s Open Graph app), on Facebook.
The Land's End "Pin It to Win It" contest promoted the brand on both Pinterest and Facebook - powered by user "pins" (Actions) and Pinterest's Open Graph app.
The Verdict
The bottom line is: Facebook’s Open Graph is great news for users and greater news for marketers. Unless, of course, you discover via Open Graph that your friends are into Twilight. Then everyone loses.
2011 has become a year known for its world-wide protest movements – often inspired by the advent of social media. 2012 appears to be starting off on the same foot and that collective voice is on a march. From the Middle East protests against regimes to the 99%’s Occupy Wall Street protests against the 1% Mega Rich of the United States, a protest has indeed taken root and it doesn’t look like it will recede anytime soon.
That is unless come January 24th, 2012, two bills get passed in the legislature: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).
SOPA is “a law of the United States of America proposed in 2011 to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods… The bill would criminalize streaming of content, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.” (Wikipedia: House Bill 3261)
PIPA (Protect IP Act or Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011) is “also known as Senate Bill 968 or S. 968, is a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to ‘rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods’, especially those registered outside the U.S.” (Wikipedia: Senate Bill 968)
SOPA and PIPA could have negative results in the long term on Internet speed, security and innovation if passed. The two bills intend to stop online piracy and protect copyright holders, but observers claim they will infringe upon creativity, Internet security and innovation. They infringe on these by punishing websites that link to any copyright-infringing sites, even by accident.
Oneupweb supported the stand against the SOPA and PIPA bills presently being considered in Congress. In a public announcement yesterday Oneupweb stated:
“While the intention behind the bills is to stop copyright infringement, they are drafted in such a way that is incompatible with the current open and free Internet as we know it. These bills, as they exist presently, will do little to stop piracy. Instead, they will stifle innovation, promote censorship, and break how the internet functions.”
Oneupweb Home Page on January 18th, 2012
Of course the big wigs of websites like Google, WordPress and Wikipedia also protested the bills by performing blackouts on the 18th of January, 2012.
WordPress
Google launched a petition page that gathered 4.5 million signatures just on the 18th alone. Wikipedia’s blackout caused a Twitter freenzy in the hashtag #wtfWikipedia, which caused a real time page to be created that showed the millions of tweets on its blackout.
To better understand the intention and the backlash against PIPA and SOPA watch this video:
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet:
In response to the mass blackout day across the Internet people also came out from the New York tech community and gathered to protest SOPA and PIPA on Wall Street. Around 1,500 people were in attendance.
Something to know is that PIPA is a rewrite of the COICA Bill (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act), which supporters unsuccessfully attempted to push through in 2010. The same thing happened with the SOPA bill. Therefore, something to also note is that though we may beat SOPA and PIPA this time around (and we better with 4.5 Million signatures from the Google petition be end day of Janurary 18th, 2012), we may be protesting revised versions of these in the not-so-distant future.
We at Oneupweb support the movement against SOPA and PIPA. We have a right to a voice and we give the movement two thumbs up!
Where do you stand and how do you feel about this movement?
Sourcing and crowding seem to be the words for the last decade in the business and finance world. From outsourcing to crowdsourcing, the terms have been both beneficial and exploiting, to say the least. When first introduced to a group of people in whatever way it is going to be used it appears to be a friend, but give it some turn of events and we start to see the face of the frenemy. Like a great villain out of a comic book.
"There are always 2-sides to a coin" says Harvey to Batman
With offshore out-sourcing we have watched some of the good, the bad, and the ugly with its development over time. Big USA corporations ran to the opportunities they found in raising their profit margins by taking some of the labor overseas. As stated in the CIO 2003 report “offshore vendors [in] IT work costing $100 an hour in the United States can be done for $20 an hour in Bangalore or Beijing.” – The Hidden Costs of Offshore Outsourcing. There was good to be found in that tactic, but over time I think many of us can agree we have witnessed the bad that has followed along with some ugly.
Then there is the topic of crowd-sourcing. In this term I am referring to the act of sourcing tasks, skills and/or talents traditionally performed by specific individuals/professionals to a crowd of people and/or community through an open call. There are of course some benefits to this call.
Consumer end:
Opportunity for the amateur to gain recognition
Gain close to accurate information without having to employ an expert
Don’t have to spend hours in some corner of a library skimming through reels and reels of microfiche.
Brand end:
Able to collect target market research at little or no costs
Able to hear a collective voice in response to a brand and/or topic
Gain on profit margin
But then there are the down sides, like truly talented people being lost in the crowd, or professionals working harder to keep their previous margin alive. For example, as many of us are enjoying the great benefits of a tool like the website iStockphoto professional photographers are not. I’m talking about the photographers that spent a pretty penny on schooling, or gave great time and strife to an apprenticeship position so as to gain that professional skill while spending another pretty penny on the equipment to provide the product.
“In 2000, [a professional photographer] made roughly $69,000 from a portfolio of 100 stock photographs, a tidy addition to what he earned from commissioned work. [In 2005] his stock business generated less money – $59,000 – from more than 1,000 photos. That’s quite a bit more work for less money.” Wired: Issue 14.04 – June 2006.
I will be the first to admit that there is some definite benefit in sourcing and crowding for a company and/or individual, but it is a tactic that when employed should be strategically thought out for the long term. I feel people are jumping way too fast on to the short term benefits without realizing the effect it could have (and has had) in the farther scheme of it all. Therefore, I give these two verbs a sideways thumb. To me, we are still babies in the theory.
