Facebook IPO, Join.Me, and Bostonography

Top Story: A VERY Happy Birthday for Facebook

(image via Mashable)

With more than 800 million users worldwide (40% of all internet users) and as the second most-visited site to Google, Facebook celebrated its 8th birthday with its much-anticipated IPO.  While Facebook has fared pretty well up to this point without outside funding, the IPO was inevitable – the company was pretty much maxed-out internally and potential future rivalry with Google+ and others made it advantageous to seek listing before any competitors have a chance to erode it’s top position.

However, there are some downsides for Facebook in going public – and that is the public part.  There has always been speculation around what goes on behind-the-scenes at Facebook, and there will be a new level of transparency for the company now that it is a public entity.

But, all signs say that it will be more than worth it as Facebook is the largest tech IPO to date.  Mark Zuckerberg, who famously began the company in his Harvard dorm room, will reportedly be worth $20 billion dollars when all is said and done. And, 1/3 of Facebook’s 3,000 employees could become instant millionaires starting on the first day of trading (which adds the threat of lowered employee productivity and even losing top talent from these newly-wealthy workers).

With a few not-so-hot social IPOs in 2011 (think Groupon  and Zynga), a successful Facebook IPO could mean restored faith in the profitability of the social media industry and potential for more funding for the next great social start-up.

Under the Radar: StumbleUpon Forces brs and Gets Rid of Direct Links

Unless you’re an avid user of StumbleUpon or you’re a website owner who sees a lot of traffic from StumbleUpon, you probably aren’t paying that much attention to the service. Which is likely why you may not have heard about the news that the service is now iFraming all of its content and making it almost impossible for users to get out of the brd version of sites. Not only that, but StumbleUpon has removed direct links to source’s content and replaced them with a “Stumble This” link. Which leads you to, you guessed it, the brd site.

If you’re not logged into the service, you can simply “x” out of the br; otherwise, you have to actually log out of StumbleUpon to remove the br. A huge pain in the neck. Why don’t we like brs? Well, apart from being annoying and obtrusive, they often don’t give websites the SEO credit they deserve.

The funny thing is- when Digg.com pulled the same br business, people were up in arms. Could it be because with Digg.com comes Kevin Rose’s name? Rose ended up admitting that “Framing content with an br is bad for the Internet,” and removing the brs from the service. Will StumbleUpon do the same? We think it’s a matter of how many people end up caring and causing a commotion over the res-design. Do the brs and removal of direct links matter to you or is StumbleUpon irrelevant in your mind?

Around the Hub: Bostonography Uses Social Media to Map Boston 

When you hear the word “cartography,” the last thing you probably think is “cool.” But if you’ve seen the work of Bostonography, you may change your tune. Not only are Andy Woodruff and Tim Wallace designing maps of Boston, but they’re utilizing social media to do so. Sounds like map-making just entered the 21^st century!

In a recent interview with BostInno, Woodruff mentioned that they rely heavily on tips from their readers and that many of those tips come in through social media. And think about all the data out there that wasn’t around just a few years ago. From tweets to Foursquare check-ins to Facebook status updates to geotagged photos, there seems to be an endless amount of ever-changing data.  Data that can be mapped in all kinds of ways.

Back in August, Bostonography even asked their fans to tweet and email them information about any furniture spotted around the streets of Allston during the infamous moving season. They’ve also created maps showing the distances to the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts (hint: not far) and the closest liquor license locations (this is Boston, so, also not far). We can’t even begin to comprehend all the innovative mapping Bostonography will be doing in the future.

Tool of the Week: Join.Me For Some Easy Screen Sharing

Boston-area based LogMeIn has been a leader in the remote access world for a number of years now, including creating an popular (and excellent) iPad app early on. So when they took the leap a few years ago into the screen sharing market, I assumed they would create a smooth product. They did not disappoint.

All you need to do to share your screen with other computers is download a small file that pops up a control (like the one pictured below). You then copy and paste the URL provided and send to viewers. To view your screen others simply put the URL in their browser and your screen will appear! Join.Me also generates a unique conference number for you to use with the screen share.

This product is superior then others, like Webex, is the speed and simplicity. With Join.Me you don’t have to worry about large files not running properly (which has happened numerous times to me), instead it is all done in browser. Also, the ability to create a URL and share your screen in seconds is incredibly valuable too when you decide last minute to share a screen.

Give Join.Me a try, the free trial has a robust set of features and will make your next screen share a breeze

About the author

451 Labs conducts experiments in PR, Social, and Search tools and techniques and give you the inside scoop on the latest in digital marketing.

• Comments (0)