Due to a string of acquisitions and other business distractions, Facebook’s multi-billion dollar initial public offering that was rumored to be set for May 17th may be delayed until early or mid-June, according to CNBC. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not been preparing for the IPO, but instead has been more focused on running the business and making acquisitions. As a result, the social networking giant’s IPO date will reportedly be pushed back so the company has time to make the appropriate preparations. Facebook filed with the SEC in February, and could raise as much as $10 billion at a $100 billion valuation when it goes public in the coming months. Facebook’s IPO is expected to top Google’s $1.9 billion offering by a wide margin, making it the largest Internet IPO in history. Facebook’s shares will be listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the “FB” ticker symbol.

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Depending on whether the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approves the company’s paperwork, Facebook’s highly anticipated IPO could be coming on May 17th, TechCrunch reported on Thursday, citing multiple unnamed sources. Earlier reports have indicated that the social networking giant was aiming for a May offering and Facebook halted trading on the secondary market late last month. The company filed with the SEC in February, and could raise as much as $10 billion at a $100 billion valuation when it goes public, although TechCrunch’s sources believe it will be less. The largest Internet IPO to date was Google’s 2004 offering, which raised $1.9 billion. Facebook’s shares will reportedly be listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the “FB” ticker symbol.

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Google on Wednesday announced a major redesign for its Google+ social networking site that will introduce a more functional and flexible user experience. The new interface focuses on customization, Google’s Hangout video chatting service and features that will make it easier to discover new conversations and profile pages. One of the first improvements users will notice is a revamped navigation bar located on the left-hand side of the screen. The “ribbon of applications” can be dragged, dropped and placed in any order. The new interface also features a Facebook-like chat bar on the right with a “Trending” widget to help users discover popular topics on Google+, and a dedicated Hangout page will provide users with quick access to popular hangouts, tips and live broadcast. The new design is slowly rolling out and will be available over the next few days. A video highlighting the new Google+ can be found after the break.

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Facebook, the world’s largest social networking website, will join the likes of Apple and Google on the NASDAQ stock exchange after its initial public offering, The New York Times reported on Thursday. The publication cites unnamed sources with its report. The social network’s shares will be listed under the “FB” ticker symbol and are expected to go public some time next month. “It’s a high profile win for their listings business,” said Michael Adams, an analyst Sandler O’Neill. “In terms of earnings, the impact won’t be dramatic, but it’s something to be proud of.” The social networking giant filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in February, and it could raise as much as $10 billion at a $100 billion valuation when it goes public.

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Yahoo filed a massive patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook last month, claiming that Facebook’s News Feed, advertising methods, privacy settings and more infringed on its intellectual property. Facebook on Tuesday fired back at Yahoo with a countersuit, accusing the company of infringing upon 10 of its patents. Among its claims, the social networking giant says Yahoo’s Flickr photostream and its recent activity feature infringe a Facebook patent related to generating a personalized feed of stories on a social network. ”While we are asserting patent claims of our own, we do so in response to Yahoo’s short-sighted decision to attack one of its partners and prioritize litigation over innovation,” Facebook general counsel Ted Ullyot said in a statement to Reuters. Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, is in the process of its initial public offering that is expected to raise as much as $10 billion.

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Google may be preparing to launch its own blog commenting system to compete with Facebook and Disqus. The rumor originated on the Saudi Arabian website Tech-WD and was later reportedly confirmed by TheNextWeb’s unnamed sources. Google’s comment system will reportedly incorporate the company’s search product, Google+ and other web services. The introduction of a comment system could help the Mountain View-based company bolster interest in its Google+ social networking service, which has reportedly seen a relatively slow adoption rate. According to Tech-WD, the upcoming comment system was originally discussed during Google’s G-Saudi Arabia conference, along with numerous other unannounced services.

Read [Tech-WD] Read [TheNextWeb]

Facebook on Thursday acquired 750 patents from IBM in an effort to boost the company’s defense and counter new lawsuits, according to Bloomberg. The patents reportedly cover various technologies relating to software and networking. The acquisition would more than double the size of Facebook’s portfolio, which currently includes at least 56 issued patents and 503 filed U.S. patent applications. The patent acquisition comes after Yahoo, a business partner of Facebook, filed a massive patent infringement lawsuit against the social networking site.

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Former Engineering Director at Google and current Partner Development Manager at Microsoft James Whittaker on Tuesday published a lengthy piece explaining why he chose to leave the Mountain View-based company after having been such a vocal Google evangelist for nearly three years. His post on Microsoft’s MSDN blogs reiterates a number of opinions that have been hot topics in the media of late, but he also offers several insights from a unique point of view that only an insider can offer. In short, Whittaker feels that Google co-founder and current CEO Larry Page completely ruined the company for him. Read on for more.

Whittaker’s main issue is what, in his opinion, was a core value shift that took place when former chief executive Eric Schmidt stepped down and Larry Page took over at the helm. The former Director acknowledges that advertising has always been Google’s main business, but until Larry Page took over at CEO, advertising was treated as a means to an end, providing the funding that allowed Google employees to build innovative products.

Once Page became Google’s top executive, Whittaker says, the opposite was true. Google’s products became a means to an end, providing the tools Google needs to collect as much personal information as possible about its users, thus better equipping the company to woo advertisers.

“Under Eric Schmidt ads were always in the background,” Whittaker wrote. ”Google was run like an innovation factory, empowering employees to be entrepreneurial through founder’s awards, peer bonuses and 20% time. Our advertising revenue gave us the headroom to think, innovate and create.” He continued, “But that was then, as the saying goes, and this is now.”

Whittaker says that Page became infatuated with Facebook, which is able to gather a massive amount of personal data about its users because of all the information they share using the service. Google needed a way to break into the social sharing space following failed attempts like Wave and Buzz, and advertising was the sole reason for this renewed focus on social networks.

“Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong,” Whittaker says in his post. “Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+. It was an ominous name invoking the feeling that Google alone wasn’t enough. Search had to be social. Android had to be social. You Tube, once joyous in their independence, had to be … well, you get the point. Even worse was that innovation had to be social. Ideas that failed to put Google+ at the center of the universe were a distraction.”

Whittaker concludes, “The old Google was a great place to work. The new one?

“-1″

Yahoo has filed a massive patent infringement lawsuit against its business partner, Facebook, AllThingsD reported on Monday. The search company claims that Facebook’s News Feed, advertising methods, privacy settings and more infringe its patents. “Facebook’s entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles for and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo’s patented social networking technology,” Yahoo’s lawsuit said. The company claims that Facebook has been “free riding” on Yahoo’s intellectual property and royalty payments alone will not be enough. Read on for more.

Yahoo’s 19-page lawsuit covering 10 patents could not come at a worse time for Facebook, as the company moves closer to its IPO, which is expected to reach close to $100 billion. Interestingly enough, Yahoo pulled a similar stunt with Google before the search giants IPO in 2004.

The social networking giant released a statement disagreeing with the Yahoo lawsuit and called it puzzling. “We’re disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation,” the statement read. “Once again, we learned of Yahoo’s decision simultaneously with the media. We will defend ourselves vigorously against these puzzling actions.”

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During the annual South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger of Instagram teased the company’s long awaited Android app. During an interview with TechCrunch, the duo said that an Android version of the app is coming “really soon.” Systrom briefly showed the app running on his Galaxy Nexus and claimed that “it’s one of the most amazing Android apps you’ll ever see, in some ways, it’s better than our iPhone app.” The company previously announced that an Android app is on the way, however no time frame was given. The app is currently in a private beta phase, and Instagram hopes “to have it out to people really soon.” Finally, Systrom and Krieger revealed that Instagram now has more than 27 million registered users, almost twice as many as it had in December 2011.

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Microsoft’s General Manager of the Windows Phone Developer Experience on Monday announced that he is leaving Microsoft to launch a start up. Kindel did not share the details of his new endeavor, and his public profile on networking site LinkedIn lists him as Founder and CTO of <redacted> at A super secret stealth startup. “[The start up] has to do with sports, advertising, mobile, social-networking, and, of course, the cloud,” Kindel wrote in a post on his personal blog. “I’m insanely excited to get started.” The soon-to-be former executive was with Microsoft for 21 years, having joined the Redmond-based company’s developer support group in 1990. Kindel’s full email to his team regarding the decision follows below.

From: Charlie Kindel
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 9:00 AM
To: A gazillion old friends and colleagues
Subject: Goodbye Microsoft – After 21 Years It’s Time To Move On

July 2, 1990 was my first day at Microsoft and September 2, 2011 will be my last.

In the time honored tradition of “good-bye mails” this is mine.

My first Microsoft product was a Z-80 Softcard for my Apple ][+ in 1984. That amazing product enabled me to become a UCSD P-System, CP/M, and Turbo Pascal geek. I still remember opening the big clear plastic box for the first time.

In 1988 (my junior year at the University of Arizona) I decided I wanted to work for Microsoft when I discovered Windows programming (I conned my dad into buying me a copy of the Windows 2 SDK). Charles Petzold was my hero.

I got no-hired after my first interviews (a dev role in Languages; shouldn’t really surprise anyone).

I bribed my recruiter into getting me another set of interviews by sending her a Christmas card (clearly I was meant to be a PM).

The brightest memory I have of my first day at work was a Seattle Times sports page pinned to my manager’s (Ridge Ostling) cube: “Husky Women Beat Beavers”.

A few months later we threatened to quit because management kept turning the lights ON in Lincoln Plaza.

Arne Josefsberg: I feel bad about writing that tool that generated fake time tracking reports. But what did you expect? We were providing the best damn developer support possible and the number of minutes we spent doing it was totally irrelevant.

Curtis Palmer: I miss you. Our Bogus Software was the best. RIP.

Tunneling Todd Laney, one day I got so pissed that the Windows 8514a driver didn’t support “smallfonts” that I just fixed it and checked it in. I was still in PSS. My first “production code” at Microsoft and if you don’t count OLEView which was just a tool, my last.

I decided I wanted to be Chris Guzak. So I got out of PSS and into Developer Relations. I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either.

Vertical Developer Relations was an amazing group. Out of that group came: Jeff Teper, Satya Nadella, Joe Long, John Wilcox, Bret O’Rourke, and others.

After writing OLEView I woke up and I was no longer an evangelist but a PM on the OLE team. Initially I was given all the glamorous stuff like Mac OLE. Mario Goertzel scared the crap out of me. It was 3 months before he and the other devs would invite me to lunch.

I got to work with Bob Atkinson. He taught me the trick of taking people on walks during 1:1s. He also taught me everything I know.

We gave all PDC ’93 attendees a CD with the first DCOM bits. ole.h was missing. One (one!) customer noticed. We thought DCOM was hot-sh**. It wasn’t.

The first name for COM+ was COM3. Windows used to let you create directories named COM3. But you couldn’t delete them. The real reason I’m leaving Microsoft? COM is making a comeback.

Sweeper and December 7, 1995 were epic. How the name “ActiveX” was chosen was not. Designing the <OBJECT> tag with Tim Berners-Lee was mind blowing for me. Ben Slivka still owes my sister an airplane ticket.

Shipping IE 3.0 was my first taste of what it really meant to build a product that changed the world. I would have never joined the Windows Phone team if I had not had that prior experience of an impossible, come-from-behind, project.

Somewhere along the line I learned the word “mentor”. Bob Muglia and Chris Jones: Thank you. I learned everything I know from you.

In 1998 a bunch of us from the IIS team were in Paris for some conference. We went out to dinner and when we came out of the restaurant there was a literal riot going on around the Arc de Triomphe. France had won the world cup. We joined in. I rode around the Arc de Triomphe on the roof of a city bus chanting Viva-La-France! Microsoft enabled me to see the world and I’m grateful for that.

Someday we’re going to have a Project42 reunion party. Or not.

Tracy Sharpe once worked for me. One day his office was cleared out. I asked HR “Where’s Tracy?” “Oh, he moved to the Xbox team weeks ago.” Oh, that’s how that works.

Charlie: “Hey Chris (Jones) & David (Cole), we should build a Neptune Home Server! We’ll call it Ybox!”

Chris & David: “Charlie, shut the eff up and get back to work.”

Working on Windows Millennium is where I met Dave Alles.

The Connected Home Business Unit had this guy who drove a black Hummer. One day we put a “Yes, my penis is small” bumper sticker on it. Sorry about that Kevin Eagan.

Bedrock and the bBox demonstrated that a group could have all the technology and a great user experience and still not know how to spell “business”. BXT folks. BXT!

CHBU begat eHome. The first version of Windows Media Center was to be called “Windows Remote View”. Really.

When I think about my time as BobMu’s TA I’m reminded of the scene in Blade Runner, where Roy says “I’ve seen things you people could only imagine.” Did I mention that I learned everything I know from Bob Muglia?

You know why Quattro was named Quattro? My fourth attempt at building a home server product at Microsoft. Best. Team. Ever.

I’ve had some great managers (and some not so great ones). Chris Phillips the best manager I ever had. I learned everything I know from Chris.

To the people that helped build Windows Home Server: Chuck Norris doesn’t leave Microsoft. Microsoft leaves with Chuck.

Yamanote! Istvan, Friedbert, Bob, Drew, Tudor, Kevin, Akhil, Ron, Scott, and a slew of others: They doubted, but we fraking did it. Together. 27,000 apps and counting. Someone once gave me the advice “The first rule of dependency management is to not have any dependencies.” I call BS on this and we proved that cross-group collaboration CAN work at Microsoft.

The real reason I’m leaving Microsoft: At the last partner meeting Dave Alles didn’t ask SteveB a question.

To the Windows Phone team: I may stop using some Microsoft products now that I’m out of here. But not Windows Phone. The BEST product Microsoft has ever built. Do not let up!

To my wife: Thank you for putting up with “Microsoft Time” (“Honey, I’ll be home in an hour.” Four hours later…). I’ve learned everything I know from Julie Kindel.

To my kids: No, just because I don’t work at Microsoft anymore you many not use Google. Remember, every time you use Google, a puppy dies.

Back in 1990 I assumed I’d work here for 3 or so years. I’m an entrepreneur at heart and every few years I’d lift up my head and look around. I never had the need to look outside Microsoft because I kept finding one challenging opportunity after another.

21 years later I have finally decided I need to do something different: I’m leaving to start a new company here in the Seattle area. I’m sure you’ll hear about it.

There has been one constant in every job I’ve had at Microsoft: People way smarter than me. Microsoft has always enabled me to “play up”. It has truly been an honor working with all of you. Thank you for helping me grow as an engineer, a manager, a businessman, and as a person.

Stay in touch and keep changing the world!

-cek

charlie (at) kindel (dot) com

http://ceklog.kindel.com

@ckindel on Twitter

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One of the most important features Apple announced at WWDC 2011 was iMessage. It’s not only a direct competitor to Research In Motion’s extremely popular BlackBerry Messenger service, but could serve as the start of a much larger social initiative. Looking at the big picture, iMessage isn’t just a text / photo / video messaging service that will work with all iOS devices including the iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad, but it could also be the backbone for Apple to launch its own IM network that combines the company’s different strengths. Read on for my thoughts.

Right now, Apple has several ways to communicate on iOS and its OS X platform: iChat, FaceTime and iMessage. Why aren’t these services all tied together? Down the road, I think they will be. Imagine being able to add an iMessage account to iChat so you’re able to communicate not only from your iOS device with over 200 million users, but also from your desktop as well. Now your messages and conversations follow you from your iPhone to your iPad, and then to your iMac or MacBook Air as well. Why wouldn’t FaceTime be built into iChat too? The same way video calling now works on Apple devices could serve as the foundation for FaceTime calling to iMessage friends right through iChat.

Instead of relying on another IM network like AOL Instant Messanger, Apple is creating its own service on its own terms. The company has a chance to not only knock RIM down in the process, but also to finally switch hundreds of millions of users away from services like AIM to something much better and more comprehensive.

We now spend more time using mobile apps than on the Internet, according to a new research report from Flurry. The firm, which pulls its data from more than 85,000 applications, noted that in June 2011 the average person spent 81 minutes using mobile applications each day and just 74 minutes surfing the web. That’s up from December, when the firm found that users spent more time surfing the web (70 minutes) than using mobile apps (66 minutes). More surprisingly, it’s a 91% jump from last year when users spent just under 43 minutes using mobile apps, versus 64 minutes spent surfing the web. Flurry also found that mobile users spend 47% of their time playing games, 32% of their time browsing social networks, 9% reading the news, and 7% using other “entertainment” apps. Finally, the company said that 14 of the 74 minutes spent per day by consumers on the Internet is spent browsing Facebook.

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BGR has exclusively confirmed with a trusted source that HTC’s ChaCha, the company’s first device with dedicated Facebook button and deep Facebook integration, will be launching on AT&T in the coming weeks. According to our source, the launch could take place as soon as one week from now. Following some troubles HTC has had with the device’s name, the QWERTY-equipped Facebook phone will land on AT&T as the HTC Status. Truth be told, anything would sound better than ChaCha to us. Additionally, we have separately confirmed with HTC that despite earlier reports to the contrary, the other handset with dedicated Facebook button — HTC’s Salsa — won’t be hitting AT&T in the near future, if at all.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Twitter is in “advanced talks” to purchase TweetDeck — the popular desktop and mobile third-party Twitter client. The deal could be worth as much as $50 million, although neither party has commented on the possible acquisition. TweetDeck, based in the U.K, has 15 employees on its payroll. Twitter could use the acquisition to immediately offer a “native” Twitter client in the PC desktop space, especially if it has plans to begin targeting enterprise Twitter users. Although TweetDeck’s engineers have certainly proven that they have the developing chops to compete in the mobile space, too.

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