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Facebook has been caught trying to spread bad news about Google. Facebook hired the PR firm Burson-Marsteller to start a smear campaign about Google's Gmail feature Social Circle and to draw attention to their privacy practices. The firm started a whisper campaign through newspapers, magazines and blogs. One blogger they tried to persuade rejected their offer and then posted the email exchange between he and the firm on his blog. "The American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloging and broadcasting every minute of every day -- without their permission," one of the Burson-Marsteller emails said. Facebook has not necessarily denied the allegations, though they said they did not ask them to start a smear campaign, "Instead, we wanted third parties to verify that people did not approve of the collection and use of information from their accounts on Facebook and other services for inclusion in Google Social Circles -- just as Facebook did not approve of use or collection for this purpose." In all actually both companies have had issues with privacy. Google keeps all of the data they collect and Facebook is just one major ad site these days. Do they sell the information they collect... To be determined. You can read more about it here. If you read the article then you will understand why I am giving Facebook a Digit Down.
Google bought a New York City block, massive and major. The building is the 111 Eighth Ave. in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. Google already was a tenant in the building, but that was not good enough. They now own this 2.95 million square foot building that cost a firm $1.8 billion dollars. How did Google pay for it? With cash of course. Earlier this tear Apple bought an acre of land for $1.7 million to expand their current iTunes facility in North Carolina. The land was purchased for $6000 four years ago. That was crazy, this Google buy is smart. The building was originally developed as the headquarters of the Port Authority of New York and occupies an entire square block between Eighth and Ninth avenues and 15th and 16th Streets. It is the second largest
building in New York City. I would do the same thing, but I would turn it into one massive mansion for myself, just myself. But anyway I am giving Google a Digit Up because this is just awesome.
With the highly anticipated movie coming out this Friday, The Social Network, and with the founder, Mark Zuckerberg, giving $100 million to the Newark school area last week on Oprah, a man who has an estimated net worth of $6.9 billion, a new question is being raised, how much is Facebook worth? A couple of years ago Mark's net worth was $1.5 billion and Microsoft estimated that Facebook was worth about $15 billion. Now that employees are selling shares of the company to others on the secondary market, it is estimated that the company may be worth up to $76 a share or $33 billion. This seems a little extreme to me, but it could be possible. Technically Mark Zuckrberg is paper rich, cash poor. The company does not have to go public until more than 500 people have shares of the company, that is what happened to Google, which is worth $529.76 a share. Eventually if not sold Facebook may go public. There is still a chance that a lot of very wealthy private investors and companies will continue to pour money into Facebook until they own mostly all of it. Since the company is not public they do not have to
disclose finance records, so no one really knows how much it is worth, everything out is just estimates based on current activity. I could imagine this being one big bust in a few more years. I am giving Facebook a Digit Up because I love the mystery of it all and in the end "the Facebook" will win and Mark Zuckerberg will go home with more than a few pennies to rub together.