Last week rumors began to circulate that Facebook was interested in acquiring Opera Software, the makers of the Opera Web browser. The social networking giant recently removed Google’s Chrome Web browser, which is the most popular in the world, from its recommendation list and replaced it with Opera, further fueling the speculation of a potential buyout. While both Chrome and Apple’s Safari Web browsers are supported by Facebook, the Menlo Park-based company is recommending users to use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox and Opera for a better experience. 

[Via FavBrowser]

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Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are become focal points of our digital lives, and just as they did with email and other popular digital technologies, spammers are looking to capitalize. According to Mark Risher, chief executive officer of anti-spam software company Impermium, spammers are responsible for creating as much as 40% of the accounts on popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. “Social spam can be a lot more effective than e-mail spam,” Risher told Bloomberg Businessweek in a recent interview. “The bad guys are taking to this with great abandon.” Roughly 8% of messages sent on social networks are spam according to Risher, and that figure has doubled in the past six months, the spam expert estimates. Businessweek notes that companies like Twitter and Facebook are beginning to increase their efforts to quell spam, having recently sued several perpetrators and increased their respective investments in anti-spam personnel and resources.

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Facebook has reportedly hired more than half a dozen former Apple engineers as part of renewed efforts to build an own-brand smartphone. According to a recent report from The New York Times, the hires are comprised of former hardware and software engineers who worked on the iPhone, and one engineer who worked on the iPad. Why the renewed interest in a Facebook phone? “Mark is worried that if he doesn’t create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms,” an anonymous Facebook employee reportedly told the Times. Rumors of the “Facebook phone” resurfaced last month after the rumor mill had been silent on the matter for some time. The previous round of rumors suggesting Facebook was working with HTC on an own-brand phone were off base; HTC ended up launching a pair of low-end smartphones with dedicated Facebook sharing buttons rather than a Facebook-branded device. It may have been for the best, however — a study conducted earlier this year found that most consumers wouldn’t be interested in a smartphone offering from Facebook.

Pennsylvania-based law firm Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP on Friday filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook regarding the handling of its initial public offering, which was made on March 18th. On the day of its IPO, the company was hit with a privacy-related class action lawsuit seeking $15 billion in damages. This new complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, charges Facebook and multiple officers, directors and underwriters with violating the Securities Act of 1933 by failing to disclose or disregarding material adverse facts that were known to them.

“The Complaint asserts that defendants failed to disclose at the time of the IPO that Facebook was then experiencing a severe and pronounced reduction in revenue growth due to an increase in users of its Facebook mobile applications (“apps”) or website through mobile devices rather than through personal computers,” the firm said in a release.

The firm continued, “Additionally, defendants failed to disclose during the roadshow conducted in connection with the IPO, certain Underwriter Defendants reduced their second quarter and full year 2012 performance estimates for Facebook, which revisions were material information which was not shared with all Facebook investors, but rather, was selectively disclosed by defendants to certain preferred investors and omitted from the Offering Materials.”

Investors who purchased Facebook stock can join the class on the firm’s website if they wish to participate in the suit, which is still seeking a lead plaintiff.

Following Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, it looks like the company has no intention of slowing down. According to a report from Pocket-lint, the social networking giant may be looking to enter the Web browsing market by purchasing Opera Software. The move would put Facebook in direct competition with Microsoft and Mozilla, and it would certainly apply increased pressure to Google as well. Opera’s mobile browser has seen strong growth in recent years, however the same cannot be said for its desktop version, which lags far behind Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. A Facebook browser could potentially allow users to stay up to date with their social life using built-in plug-ins and features integrated into the browser’s UI.

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Facebook on Thursday announced “Camera for iOS,” a new mobile app that intends to make uploading and viewing Facebook photos faster and easier. The app features Instagram-like filters and unlike Facebook’s current mobile app, Camera for iOS allows users to upload multiple photos at once. It remains to be seen how Facebook’s new app will impact Instagram, which the company acquired for $1 billion last month. Facebook’s Camera for iOS is available now on the Apple’s App Store.

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Facebook made its initial public offering last Friday and while it didn’t go as smoothly as many had hoped, the offering was still the largest of its kind. Facebook stock began trading at $42 on Friday before closing just above $38, the IPO price set by bankers the night before. The stock has since slid further, touching $30 in pre-market trading on Wednesday morning, and media coverage has turned sour as investors continue to balk. All things considered, however, the $16 billion Facebook raised on Friday smashed Google’s earlier record by more than eight times and made Facebook’s offering the biggest in Internet IPO history. To put things in perspective as Facebook’s stock battles to climb back to the $38 mark and beyond, The New York Times released an interactive comparison tool that shows us all of the things Facebook’s $105 billion IPO-day market capitalization is worth more than. One example: The Hershey Company, T. Rowe Price, The Gap, Marriott International, Best Buy, Southwest Airlines, Trip Advisor, Safeway, Netflix, Williams-Sonoma, Abercrombie & Fitch, Big Lots, Buffalo Wild Wings, TiVo, Papa John’s, Earthlink and Shutterfly… combined.

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Backers of the whistle-blowing organisation WikiLeaks recently launched Friends of WikiLeaks (FoWL), an encrypted social network for like-minded individuals. “Friends of WikiLeaks is a network of people from across the globe who defend WikiLeaks, its people, its alleged sources and its mission,” the website’s homepage says. “We publicly and privately promote WikiLeaks and individuals and organisations aligned with the mission of WikiLeaks. This site will help you to join with people like you in your area and across the world. You will make new friends and new allies, care for treasured values and fight in common cause.” Instead of having users find people to friend, as is the case with Facebook and Google+, Friends of WikiLeaks will assign users 12 friends each, six of which will be from a similar geographic location, and six others from other parts of the world who speak the same language. If a group is assigned an inactive user, the group can boot the user and the service will automatically assign a new “friend” to the group.

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Less than 2% of mobile carriers’ subscribers “Like” them on Facebook despite the millions of dollars they collectively spend in an effort to promote their services on the world’s most popular social network. Facebook made its initial public offering on Friday and while the company’s stock price dipped below the IPO price of $38 on Monday and continued to slide on Tuesday, Facebook’s offering was the biggest Internet IPO of all time by nearly 10 times. There is no denying that Facebook and the 900 million people who use the social network are of tremendous value to businesses looking to promote their services, but mobile carriers have seemingly not found success thus far as they attempt to bolster Facebook fan counts.

According to a recent report from market research firm Strand Consult, mobile carriers are wasting millions trying to promote their services on Facebook. Following discussions with a number of carriers around the world as well as an extensive study, the firm found that an average of less than 2% of carriers’ customers are fans of them on Facebook despite substantial resource investments.

Internationally, Strand found that no network operator covered in its study was liked by more than 4% of its subscriber base. In the United States, the firm looked at Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint, and found that none of the nation’s top-3 carriers even broke the 3% mark.

“We were especially surprised when we looked at the American operators, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, operators that spend millions of dollars in marketing and have internal and external teams working on Facebook,” Strand analysts wrote in a research note discussing the study. “For all their work, they can’t budge much above 2%. Such small results hardly seem worth the effort.”

Strand Consult clarified that it does not believe wireless service providers should forgo a Facebook presence, but it says the benefits of companies’ efforts on Facebook are not yet clear. Companies focus on likes because results are easily measured, but true return may lie elsewhere.

“Indeed, we have seen solid evidence from around the world that social media—operators’ own support websites, Facebook, Twitter, and other user-driven tools, can help reduce support costs,” Strand wrote. “For those tasks, we recommend social media. But we have yet to see Facebook as a solid driver for leads and sales.”

Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, is filled with a large selection of social and casual games, such as Draw Something, Words With Friends and FarmVille. While the topic of Facebook gaming is widely discussed, there isn’t much there in the way of titles that would attract the hardcore gaming crowd. Ubisoft is looking to change that, however, with the release of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Commander. The game, unlike its console counterpart, is not a first-person shooter but instead a 2D game with an overhead viewpoint that contains both social and more complex aspects. Players are given the option to invite and team up with their Facebook friends to form alliances and complete a variety of missions. The Facebook game is also integrated with “Ghost Recon Future Soldier” on consoles, allowing players to unlock characters, experience points and currency that can be used in both games. Ghost Recon Commander is available now on Facebook, and Ubisoft’s trailer follows below.

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Facebook is officially a public company as of Friday morning shortly after 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and what better way to celebrate the milestone than with a fresh privacy lawsuit? Led by Stewarts Law and Bartimus, Frickleton, Robertson & Gorny, a class action lawsuit has been filed in San Jose, California alleging that Facebook unlawfully continued to track users’ Web browsing after they logged out of the service. The suit seeks more than $15 billion in damages. “This is not just a damages action, but a groundbreaking digital privacy rights case that could have wide and significant legal and business implications,” said Stewarts Law partner David Straite. The firm’s press release follows below.

Stewarts Law acts for facebook users who have filed a Consolidated Digital Privacy Class Action

18 May 2012 (San Jose, Calif.)

Facebook users today filed an amended consolidated class action complaint in federal court in San Jose, California in the case In re: Facebook Internet Tracking Litigation, No. 5:12-md-02314-EJD. The class action asserts federal statutory and California State causes of action related to the revelation in September 2011 that Facebook was improperly tracking the internet use of its members even after they logged out of their accounts. The action consolidates 21 related cases filed in more than a dozen states in 2011 and early 2012.

The plaintiffs assert claims under the federal Wiretap Act, which provides statutory damages per user of US$100 per day per violation, up to a maximum per user of US$10,000. Even if Facebook’s alleged actions constitute a single violation of the Wiretap Act per class member, that implies more than US$15 billion in damages across the class. The complaint also asserts claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, various California Statutes and California common law.

The class action is being led by court-appointed co-lead counsel Stewarts Law US LLP and Bartimus, Frickleton, Robertson & Gorny, P.C. David Straite, Partner at Stewarts Law, stated: “This is not just a damages action, but a groundbreaking digital privacy rights case that could have wide and significant legal and business implications.” In addition to co-lead counsel, the court has appointed a Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee which includes Keefe Bartels in New Jersey; Mandell, Schwartz & Boisclair in Rhode Island; Eichen Crutchlow Zaslow & McElroy in New Jersey; Bergmanis Law Firm in Missouri; Burns, Cunningham & Mackey in Alabama; and Murphy, Falcon & Murphy in Baltimore. The court has also appointed a committee of former State Attorneys General to advise the class, including former Mississippi AG Mike Moore, former Arizona AG Grant Woods, former Hawaii AG Margery Bronster, and former Louisiana AG Richard Ieyoub.

[Via Investor's Business Daily]

The effectiveness of Facebook’s advertising was called into question earlier this week when General Motors confirmed that it would be pulling the $10 million the company spends annually on Facebook ads because they are not delivering results. Now, just one day before Facebook’s initial public offering, a study conducted by marketing agency Greenlight suggests that nearly half of all Facebook users will never click on a sponsored post or display ad.

According to VentureBeat, the study found that 44% of respondents said they would never click on a Facebook ad while 3% said they regularly click ads on Facebook’s site and 10% said they do so often. And of course, when it comes to Facebook, a survey isn’t a survey unless it mentions privacy — 30% of the 500 people polled by Greenlight said they strongly distrust Facebook with their personal data.

“With over 30% of respondents saying they ‘strongly distrust’ Facebook with their personal data, Facebook’s advertising program has an upward struggle,” Greenlight director Hannah Kimuyusaid. “Facebook’s advertising program allows brands to connect with more than 800 million potential customers, through targeting their age, gender, location, and interests, in other words – personal data.”

Kimuyu did note, however, that those respondents who did click ads on Facebook  found them to be “effective and engaging.”

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Facebook on Thursday set the share price for its initial public offering at $38. Shares of Facebook will begin trading on the NASDAQ exchange after the opening bell on Friday, and the social networking giant could raise as much as $16 billion. The offering will be the largest ever Internet IPO, besting the $1.4 billion raised by Google in 2004 by a substantial margin. A total of 421,233,615 shares of its common stock will be made available. Facebook’s press release follows below.

Facebook Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering

MENLO PARK, Calif., May 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 421,233,615 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $38 per share. The shares are expected to begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on May 18, 2012, under the symbol “FB.” Facebook is offering 180,000,000 shares of Class A common stock and selling stockholders are offering 241,233,615 shares of Class A common stock. Closing of the offering is expected to occur on May 22, 2012, subject to customary closing conditions.

In addition, Facebook and the selling stockholders have granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 63,185,042 additional shares of Class A common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.

Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Goldman, Sachs & Co., BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Allen & Company LLC, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank Securities are serving as book runners for the offering. RBC Capital Markets and Wells Fargo Securities are serving as active co-managers.

The offering will be made only by means of a prospectus. Copies of the prospectus related to the offering may be obtained from: Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10014, Attention: Prospectus Department (Tel: +1 866 718 1649; e-mail: prospectus(at)morganstanley.com); J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, (Tel: +1 866 803 9204); or Goldman, Sachs & Co., 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, Attention: Prospectus Department (Tel: +1 866 471 2526, e-mail: prospectus-ny(at)ny.email.gs.com).

A registration statement related to these securities has been filed with, and declared effective by, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

Facebook is just days away from one of the largest initial public offerings of all time. The social networking site is looking to raise more than $16 billion dollars at a valuation in the $100 billion price range. Facebook is worth a lot of money, and a company called Abine has created a program to determine just how much individuals are worth to Facebook. The program, called Facebook Val-You Calculator, determines a user’s worth with the help of seven questions regarding the number of friends they have, how often they “like” things, and even their salary range. Individuals are priced anywhere from $1 to more than $100, however according to research firm Forrester, Facebook made less than $4 per active user in 2011.

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Just two days before its initial public offering, Facebook has increased the number of shares it will offer by 25%. The social networking giant will now offer 421 million shares to investors, 83.8 million shares more than it had originally planned to make available. Facebook is looking to price its stock between $34 and $38 per share, potentially allowing the company to raise more than $16 billion, making it the largest technology IPO and third-largest of all time behind Visa and GM. Fortune notes that the share increase will not affect Facebook’s valuation, however, as the extra shares are being reallocated out of the company’s existing share count. Facebook will be listed on the NASDAQ under ticker symbol FB.

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