Think Those Facebook Ph...

We think that most people understand the fact that once you do something online it can be very difficult to make it go away. Just ask Bruce Clay about his issues recently around trying to take a site down in time for people to not tear it apart. The “magic” of the Internet has created numerous ways to still bring that site up even though it is no longer in existence. Ooooops. The reality is that most people (those outside of the Internet over-saturated, Silicon Valley types whose level of disconnect from reality can be startling) don’t understand what they are doing when they post things online. And apparently, at least with Facebook, “deleting” a picture isn’t what it might seem either. According to Ars Technica Facebook is still working on deleting photos from its servers in a timely manner nearly three years after Ars first brought attention to the topic. The company admitted on Friday that its older systems for storing uploaded content “did not always delete images from content delivery networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site,” but said it’s currently finishing up a newer system that makes the process much quicker. In the meantime, photos that users thought they “deleted” from the social network months or even years ago remain accessible via direct link. I suggest you read the Ars article. The devil, as always, is in the details. Even down to the attempt by Facebook to delete referenced photos after they are called to the mat on the issue yet other photos still remain. It shows that there are serious gaps and issues and Facebook knows it. We all need to be careful what we think we are “accomplishing” when we supposedly delete things from the online world that, in actuality, live on for years and years. It’s obvious that Facebook isn’t concerned about your need to remove data from the total ecosystem that is fed by Facebook. Let’s face it. Facebook is huge in terms of the data they have. They don’t have the capability to truly serve users with regard to their personal data needs and, since they are dependent on that data for their billions of dollars, they are not compelled to be service oriented. Add to that the general public is ignorant to how all of this stuff works then Facebook can usually get a free pass on this stuff and boy do they take advantage of it. I know that many of our readers will not be surprised by this kind of thing. We’ll act like “Oh that’s just the way it is”. I will admit, however, that when I read that Ars article and realized that in this instance there is at least a three year lag in truly removing photos that were fed into the Facebook ecosystem, I was a bit surprised. 30 days, 90 days maybe even 6 months is a time period that might be deemed acceptable but three years? It will be a collection of things like this and other realizations about just how Facebook treats user data that could ultimately be their Achilles heel. As people get smarter they may get less forgiving. I’m not there yet because I try to be cautious about what I post to begin with. In general, you can prevent these “troubles” by exercising some common sense and restraint. Most folks aren’t thinking about the big picture, though, when they post things to Facebook. They are worried about being cool and entertaining their friends. They are not wondering about their reputation. Too bad. Get ready for some rocky rides as the Internet becomes less of a mystery and people see what they are actually doing to themselves. At that point, what will being social online look like? Your thoughts?

Andreessen Horowitz-Bac...

The enterprise is moving towards simplicity, and this extends to the data center. Nicira , a stealthy virtualization startup with backing from big-name investors, is pulling the curtains back on its disruptive platform that hopes to change the way server and storage virtualization is done. And Nicira is revealing that it has raised with $50 million in funding to date from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates, as well as individual investors including VMware co-founder Diane Greene and Benchmark Capital cofounder Andy Rachleff. Nicira’s NVP is a software-based system that creates a distributed virtual network infrastructure in cloud data centers that is completely decoupled and independent from physical network hardware. Nicira says that it is shifting the intelligence and control of the network away from hardware and into software, simplifying the virtualization process. NVP’s platform forms a thin software layer that treats the physical network as an IP backplane. This approach allows the creation of virtual networks that have the same properties and services as physical networks, such as security and QoS policies, L2 reachability, and higher-level service capabilities. According to the company, organizations can provision and deploy services in minutes rather than weeks or months, and you don’t need to change any of your existing hardware or software infrastructure. All enterprises need is IP connectivity. Nicira says that virtualized data centers face limits to what applications they can support and where the workloads can be placed. These limitations result in restricted workload mobility, and leave data centers under utilized. Stephen Mullaney, Chief Executive Officer of Nicira, explained to us that the network hasn’t evolved for the cloud-based data center, and the existing solutions are inflexible and complex. “The solution is to virtualize and create virtual networks that are decoupled from physical networks. The network is transitioning from hardware to software just like every other business. Software is eating the world,” he says. The NVP platform is compatible with any data center network hardware. It can be deployed on any existing network, and it allows for future changes to the network hardware without disruption to the operations of the virtual network platform. The software is delivered through a usage-based, monthly subscription-pricing model, which scales per virtual network port. Customers only pay for what they use, and pricing scales accordingly. The company, which has nabbed a number of executives from Cisco, already counts AT&T, eBay, Fidelity Investments, NTT and Rackspace as customers.

Investors Drive $ZNGA U...

Those of us who have been following the social gaming industry already know that Zynga makes up a big portion of Facebook’s revenues. But lots of public investors only seem to have gotten the memo on Wednesday evening, when Facebook’s S-1 filing revealed that the developer accounts for 12% of its total revenues , or $445 million. In the two days since, Zynga’s stock has gone up more than 26%, to close at $13.39 this evening. This is far more than most analysts had previously projected. The ones who began covering Zynga after its December IPO had pegged its stock well under ten bucks. When analysts at banks who underwrote Zynga entered the fray a couple weeks ago, they were unsurprisingly more bullish . Following the end of the quiet period, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Barclays Capital, along with analysts from banks not involved in the IPO, all put their target price above Zynga’s public opening amount of $10. This drove the Street’s average target price up to $11.08, as you can see from the StreetInsider table below. Existing industry research, namely the Inside Virtual Goods report from my previous company, Inside Network , had indicated as of last fall that virtual goods revenue from Facebook applications reached $500 million last year . Facebook’s prospectus more than confirmed this on Wednesday, revealing that a strong fourth quarter had actually put the number a little higher, at $557 million. There are other data points you can use to try to figure out Zynga’s position with that number. AppData traffic shows that it has a dominant traffic position on Facebook’s platform. It gets 90% of its revenue from Facebook, but first Facebook collects 30% of its virtual goods transaction sales, per terms that have been in effect since midway through last year. And, Zynga has since at least 2009 used Facebook ads as a main way to bring in new and returning users. The problem is how to add this up. The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler explains the confusion in how to calculate the results: Different assumptions lead to different estimates for Zynga’s fourth-quarter “bookings,” which is the preferred method for measuring Zynga’s top line. Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter’s quick-and-dirty analysis says Facebook’s disclosure implies $268 million for Zynga’s bookings for the fourth quarter, short of the $302 million analysts are expecting. Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian digs deeper, making more assumptions, and comes out with a number of $315 million. Both analyses included many caveats. Heavy trading volumes indicate high volatility among investors. Zynga will do its first ever earnings call on February 14th. Get ready for some new estimates.

The Seven Most Interest...

Halfway to living up to its moniker with over 250 startups, 500 Startups held a series of demo days this week and last, where a group of 33 scrappy startups presented their wares to investors in both New York and San Francisco. As we are wont to do with these things, we visited the 500 Startups offices in Mountain View and interviewed the seven that we thought were the most interesting, from both an investor and consumer standpoint. The startups chosen spanned all sorts of market territory, from a novel take on media-based eCommerce to an SaaS for farmers, but what they all had in common was a unique approach to the problem they were trying to solve as well as inkling of that other indeterminate thing that makes a startup great. Also, I’m pretty sure Switchcam , a startup that allows for a combining of different camera angles on video, should be on here. Most amazing moment: When ‘Love With Food’ founder admits to following me into the bathroom to tell me about her food related startup, of all things! 72Lux Ever wish that you buy whatever product/outfit/gadget/whatever as you were reading about it online. Well you’re one step closer with startup 72 Lux, which provides publishers with a widget that allows readers to shop directly from whatever web page they’re reading, without taking them off the page. Nifty. Tiny Review “Instagram for reviews” Tiny Review allows people to express what they feel or think via mobile in three lines or less.  After a little over three weeks in the iOS app store, the modest startup has about 25k users, and that’s with almost no coverage from press. Hmm … wonder what will happen when they do finally get some coverage. HighScore House Definitely one of the buzziest startups at Demo Day, HighScore House gamifies the process of doing chores, giving kids parent-set rewards like “ice cream for breakfast” whenever they complete assigned tasks. This just smells like the future.  SafeShepard SafeShepard logs who is tracking your data (like browser cookies) across the web and then acts like an intermediary, asking them to remove it from their database — Saving you hassle at the least. Hence the name. Fitocracy Fitocracy cofounders Brian Wang and Richard Talens used to be total chubs. Now they’re both buff and ready to bring a bunch of out of shape nerds with them on their quantified fitness platform Fitocracy (which has so much reach online it was the subject of a  XKCD cartoon). Props to Wang for taking his shirt off after the demo. Farmeron Farm management startup Farmeron helps farmers track their livestock and livelihood, charging by the animal. “Main Cowboy in the Saddle” Matija Kopić came from a family of farmers in Croatia, but ended up going up against his parents wishes and became a coder. Enough said. LoveWithFood At first glance LoveWithFood seems like a Foodzie clone.  Luckily founder Aihui Ong chased me into the bathroom to explain to me how exactly they differ; For every box of bite-sized gourmet food samples you receive, LoveWithFood donates a meal to a homeless shelter. And yes, I wish the name was FoodWithLove, but you’ll take what you can get, especially if it’s for a good cause.

Windows Phone 8 Apollo ...

A video detailing the new features of Windows Phone 8 Apollo — originally intended for Microsoft’s smartphone partners — has leaked into the hands of PocketNow editors. Yay! In my opinion, Windows Phone Mango is a solid platform that’s quicker and smoother than anything I’ve seen on Android. Still, when looking at devices from Microsoft, Apple, and Google side-by-side, the Windows Phone always seems to lose in the spec department. That said, WinPho boss Joe Belfiore has plenty in store for us come Q4 2012 (the rumored release date of Apollo). As far as hardware is concerned, Microsoft is ready to take it to the next level, adding support for multiple cores, NFC, and full microSD card storage. Apollo will also support four different screen resolutions, though Belfiore apparently wasn’t very forthcoming with specifics on those. Developers are going to love this next part. According to PocketNow , developers will be able to use most of the same code when porting a Windows 8 app over to the Windows Phone platform. Of course, both platforms will share the same Metro-style interface, and that NFC radio will allow for tap-to-share capabilities between various Windows 8 devices. Microsoft used to tout its Tango video chat app , but it would seem as thought that Skype acquisition isn’t going to waste. Windows Phone 8 will have Skype baked right in, taking video chat and VoIP calls to a much higher level of audio/visual quality. Redmond expects at least 100,000 apps in the Marketplace by the time Apollo launches, at which point developers will have native code support and the ability to implement app-to-app communication. Now that most of our data plans are no longer unlimited, keeping track of data consumption is more important than ever. That said, Apollo will offer up a live tile for data usage called DataSmart. According to PocketNow, the feature will give precedence to WiFi connections. IE10 will include built-in server-side compression, which should reduce data usage, and the Local Scout tile will eventually hook you up with real-time locations of nearby hotspots. Windows has always been a powerhouse in the enterprise, and it’s about time the same was true for Windows Phone. That said, Apollo will bring with it BitLocker encryption support for full-disk encryption, along with the option to deploy company-specific apps behind enterprise firewalls. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Windows Phone is on its way people, and with such a hearty update on the way, I’m only that more confident in my prediction. I’m in good company , too.