Facebook IPO Filing Coming Wednesday

What a long time coming this has been. It appears that Facebook is going to file for its IPO on Wednesday.

According to IFR It is looking like they are starting with raising approximately $5 billion in this offering. Indications are that they are going to start small and then move up with 5 Billion ($5B)

Facebook is expected to file to raise $5bn in a preliminary IPO prospectus on Wednesday morning, which while less than anticipated could be increased to satisfy investor demand, according to sources close to the deal. Previous reports had put it seeking ~ $10 billion, so this initial 5 billion number seems pretty low.

The smaller deal size reflects a decision to start with a conservative base number before deciding whether to increase.

If things move smoothly with the SEC’s review, it appears that Facebook will go public sometime in May. So springtime will be rife with speculation around everything Facebook. No matter what happens; most likely the demand for this offering will be unprecedented.

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XGames Fail over DQ of Skier for Wearing Sarah Burke Armband

XGames simply refuses to talk about the specific circumstances and reasons for why they chose to disqualify Womens Skier X Final participant Langely McNeal. According to what we have heard it was over the fact that she was wearing a tribute band to Sarah Burke.

I am stunned by this on several levels. It appears to be the weakest DQ that I can ever remember and they are trying to silence controversy surrounding the decision. It all feels very hypocritical to me.

Now they keep making bad social media decisons on top of an original bad event decision by simply trying to silence the issue and removing all posts to their facebook wall asking for a public explanation and a link to the facebook group that is supporting Langely. XGames has to know that they are wrong and they are trying to silence the public. Guess what guys… too late for that. By agreeing to have a facebook page you have to deal with the good and the bad of social media as a platform… not only when it suits you to pimp your event positively.

I anxiously await to see how their pr and organizers decides to handle this. My gut tells me not well based on what I am seeing on their facebook page. Here is Langely’s Facebook profile photo with her showing some love to Sarah.

Time will tell how this all works itself out on the social front. I was not going to write this blog post about this whole situation until they repeatedly deleted every post I made on their facebook page. The posts were actually quite nice but pointed out that we expected answers. I guess they wanted to silence me but luckily I live in the USA where free speach is a constitutional right. I even warned them if they kept deleting my post I was going to be forced to write this blog post… So here we are, and my thoughts are with the Burke family in this time of loss.

As a parting note, I am involved in this partially because Langely is a friend of mine and is a world class human who always has her heart in the right place and XGames obviously does not.

UPDATE: The Denver Post weighs in on the situation with more details about the disqualification.

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7 Tech Trends to Watch for in 2012

Whats Next in Tech for 2012? This is a question that I have been kicking around with some of my peers for the past month or so. There are many trends occurring in the mobile space, in the social space and in the commerce space that are fundamentally changing how consumers and users interact, share and complete transactions.

One thing to keep in mind is how both Apple IOS and Android are rapidly gaining in the number of handsets activated daily. As more and more consumers upgrade to smart phones and as technology costs drop, opportunity rises in the ways that new use cases can have huge consumer and business impact.

7 Tech Trends to watch out for in 2012

1. In-app purchasing from mobile apps becoming more common and will jump above 99 cents in many cases.

2. Digital goods becoming perceived as a more normal way to pay for entertainment

3. Social recommendation engines for products

4. Customer service increasing its Mobile touch points with consumers

5. Social Identity and ranking becoming more like your credit score

6. Location aware apps for connecting merchants with virtual fence technology

7. Your facebook identity connecting with your purchasing history across the web and in the real world

While I could have made this list much longer, I have chosen these 7 tech trends as what I see coming to reality in the year 2012.

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iPhone Drinking Game: Where’s Cuppy?

New iPhone Social Game: Where’s Cuppy? The game is fun and simple. Download the iPhone app and snap a pic of you and your friends with you plastic red cup. Simple. Stupid. Pointless and Fun as hell. So grab a Sharpie marker… draw Cuppy’s face on the Cup and start taking pics.

The photos of Cuppy can be shared on Twitter and Facebook. There are leader boards for 9 Categories of Cuppy Photos. The pics are funny and this game is a great icebreaker at parties, the beach, the dorm, bars and while playing beer pong.

There is also a cool map that shows all the places that Cuppy has had his photo taken. The app also has some cool photo filters.

Download the App in iTunes now

Here are a few pics from the Where’s Cuppy iPhone app.

Follow WheresCuppy on Twitter
Where’s Cuppy on Facebook

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Win this Cool Guitar on Plixi from Patrick Stump

Check out this Cool Guitar Giveaway on Plixi. It looks like a photo contest where you upload a photo with the hashtag #patrickstump to Plixi.com

Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy has a new solo EP called Truant Wave. So upload your photo of you in your spotlight showing what you do best to be entered to win this Stump-O-Matic guitar.

You can see all the cool photos that have been entered in this live photo stream here: www.plixi.com/live/patrickstump

Details of the photo contest are here:

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