Zynga Shares Go On Wild...

Zynga’s share price plummeted 11.4 percent from $8.09 to $7.19 in the eight minutes after Facebook’s IPO went live, and down 13.3 percent since yesterday. Trading was halted for a number of minutes to stem further losses. Then, the stock came back and started to recover. It’s currently down around 5% overall — and halted again for the time being. While we can’t know the exact reason why this happened, I’d bet that investors expected Zynga shares to pop alongside Facebook’s during the IPO. But when they didn’t pop at all and instead stayed flat, those short-term investors sold off the social gaming company’s shares. Meanwhile, it seems that other investors had been using Zynga as a proxy for Facebook stock — and now they can move over to buy the real thing. Many other tech stocks have traded downward following Facebook’s open. Chinese social network  Renren , professional network  LinkedIn , and some other related tech stocks are also down. Update: Renren is recovering, It’s now down just 1.16% from yesterday, compared to its place down 12.66% 14 minutes after Facebook began trading.

CNBC Details How Americ...

How do you really feel about Facebook? Do you trust it? Would you give it your money? Is it fun? Is it safe? These are just a few of the questions asked in a recent AP-CNBC poll and the answers they got. . . well. . . they weren’t exactly surprising. But hey, we love data here so let’s take a look! Who is on Facebook? Facebook is a keeper for most of the US. 56% of all Americans have a Facebook page. 3 in 10 use it everyday with younger users visiting more often. Those who don’t have a page, 35% say they have no interest or they have better things to do with their time. 22% stay away because they think it’s bad or not right for their age group. Advertising: About 8 in 10 Facebook users surveyed say they hardly ever (26%) or never (57%) click on online advertising or sponsored content when using the site. Most (54%) say they would not feel safe purchasing goods and services on Facebook. Among the site’s most frequent users, half say they would not feel safe making purchases through the site. Trust: 59% of Facebook users do not trust the site with their personal information and have little or no faith in the company to protect their privacy. A slight minority (13%) trust the company completely or a lot. Just 18% of Americans have deep confidence in Zuckerberg’s ability to run a large publicly traded company like Facebook, another 40% say they are “somewhat confident.” About a third of the public (36%) has a favorable impression of the Facebook founder, while 14 percent hold an unfavorable opinion and 20 percent say they’ve never heard of him or don’t know how they feel. The Social Network filmgoers have a more favorable impression of Zuckerberg than others (51% favorable compared to 31% among those who have not seen it). Facebook vs The World Facebook as a whole scores a net positive favorability rating, with 51% holding favorable impressions of the company compared to 23% who have an unfavorable impression. 27% of those surveyed have a favorable impression of Twitter. 4% said they never heard of it. 71% favor Google 17% of those polled have a neutral opinion of Facebook And my favorite stat: 2% have never heard of Facebook. Need more information? CNBC has put together a whole Facebook-lolapalooza site with everything you ever wanted to know about the social media giant, its founder and its prospects for the future. Let’s just say that as of right now, everything’s coming up dollar signs for Zuckerberg and the gang. Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Weathermob Nabs Funding...

Weathermob , a mobile, social network for sharing weather reports around the globe, has raised $360,000 in new funding from a number of angel investors including Christopher Austin, Tim Albright, Drew Volpe and Mark Hastings. Via a free iOS app, Weathermob allows anyone to become a weather reporter. The app mashes up real-time meteorological data, photo and video sharing to allow users to report on and share the weather in their current location. Since launching in November, the app already has millions of users from 128 countries. Founder Julia LeStage tells us that each crowdsourced Weathermob report attracts an average of 2.5 comments. Within the app, you can see local weather reports in your location, or search for reports in other destinations. Users can choose to view reports by popularity as well, and the app connects with Facebook Connect so you can see reports from friends. The home screen presents a snapshot of the current weather conditions and current climate in your location. This screen also includes Flurries, which are short weather headlines that highlight something about the current or upcoming weather. And users earn points and titles for talking about the weather. For example, if you are producing popular weather reports viewed by other members, you can become the Bureau Chief for your zip code/area. The new funding will be used toward international expansion and product development.

They Ain’t Making Any M...

Editor’s note:   This post is authored by guest contributor  Jon Bischke . Jon is a founder of  Entelo  and is an advisor to several startups. You can follow Jon on Twitter  here . Corner any up-and-coming  Kevin Systrom  wanna-be and have a heart-to-heart about the challenges of building a successful company and at some point you’ll likely wander into the territory of bemoaning how tough it is to hire people with technical skills. At a party recently a startup founder told me “If you could find me five great engineers in the next 90 days I’d pay you $400,000.” Which is crazy talk. Unless you stop to consider that Instagram’s team (mostly engineers) was valued at  almost $80 million per employee  or that corporate development heads often value engineers at startups they are acquiring  at a half-million to million dollars per person . $400,000 actually might not be so crazy for a basketball lineup’s worth of guys who can sling Ruby or Scala code. So with all this widespread talk about the value of hiring great engineers and the apparent dearth of technical talent in the market, college students must be signing up to computer science classes in droves. This is the next California Gold Rush is it not? The era in which  a self-taught programmer  can emerge from  relative obscurity  and land a mid-nine figure payday. Engineering enrollments surely must be at an all-time high? Au contraire, mon frère. Consider this (from the  Marginal Revolution blog ): In 2009 the U.S. graduated 37,994 students with bachelor’s degrees in computer and information science. This is not bad, but we graduated more students with computer science degrees 25 years ago! Coding is as hot as it’s ever been  and yet we graduated more students with CSci degrees in The Year of Our Orwell as we do today? What’s going on here exactly? A little more from the same blog post: In 2009 the U.S. graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math and chemical engineering combined and more than double the number of visual and performing arts graduates in 1985. We are raising a generation of American Idols and So You Think You Can Dancers when what we really need is a generation of Gateses and Zuckerbergs. According to the  Bureau of Labor Statistics  (PDF download) computer and mathematical occupations are expected to add 785,700 new jobs from 2008 to 2018. It doesn’t take a math major to see that we’re graduating students at a far lower rate than required to meet demand. But what’s important is not just what is happening but also why it’s happening. If there’s both security on the downside ( computer science majors experience rock-bottom unemployment rates ) and untold riches on the upside, it seems the rational economic choice for people to flock to majoring in computer science and engineering. And yet, that’s not what’s taking place. Let’s look at a few of many theories as to why people might be choosing to study drama and music instead of C++ and algorithms. People don’t get excited by technology.  The glamour and glitz of Hollywood that attracts thousands of Midwestern prom queens every year is undeniable. And the stereotype of the lone coder sitting alone in a cube somewhere can’t quite match up to the thrill, however unlikely, of one day performing in front of Steven, Randy and Jennifer. But that doesn’t seem entirely logical. After all,  Sorkin did his best to put nerds front and center  with The Social Network and show the rags-to-riches possibilities associated with tech entrepreneurship, at least to the extent that you’re allowed to ever consider a Harvard undergrad as a “rags-worthy” starting point. Furthermore, you need look no further than the Forbes 400 to see  alpha geeks racing yachts  and  buying sports teams . And of course there has never been a time in history when technology was more ubiquitous, with all of us carrying an incredibly powerful computing device in our pockets. Technology is hard.  OK, now perhaps we’re getting a little closer to the truth. It’s not that learning how to program has gotten noticeably more difficult over the years. If anything, frameworks like Rails for Ruby make it easier. But there is a basic level of understanding that, if you don’t have it, drastically reduces the likelihood that you’ll become an engineer. Indeed, at each level of our education there’s a chance to miss out on fundamental knowledge that, if not acquired at that point, becomes progressively more difficult to pick up later in life. Salman Khan said it best  in his TED talk  that should be mandatory viewing: “…you fast forward and good students start failing algebra all of a sudden and start failing calculus all of a sudden, despite being smart, despite having good teachers, and it’s usually because they have these Swiss cheese gaps that kept building throughout their foundation.” There’s likely, in part at least, an education challenge here. But it’s doesn’t appear to be just that. There’s something else important here. There’s little incentive, early in one’s career, to choose to go into computer science or engineering.  At the time you’re choosing your career path, say around 20 years of age, you often haven’t fully digested that the rational economic choice for your studies is something in the STEM disciplines. And when all things are the same “price” (i.e., a degree in the humanities costs the same as a degree in engineering) if you don’t internalize that the net present value of that diploma with a computer science major is significantly greater than the net present value of that diploma with a drama major then maybe drama isn’t such an irrational choice. Therein lies the problem. If a drama major costs society substantially more than a computer science major (e.g., drama majors pay less taxes, draw more unemployment benefits, etc.) then perhaps a drama major should be more expensive than a computer science major? While this sounds, no pun intended, dramatic, it’s worthwhile to consider that  China is canceling majors they don’t deem to have good employment prospects . Or maybe there isn’t a big problem here after all . Before we completely overhaul the incentive process around how students choose their major perhaps there’s another thing worth considering and that’s the rise of self-directed learning services and websites such as Codecademy , CodeLesson , General Assembly , Dev Bootcamp , Treehouse and Udemy (Disclosure: I’m an advisor to Udemy) make the lower numbers of college graduates with computer science degrees less disconcerting. After all, the important thing is that people are acquiring these skills, not necessarily that they are majoring in the discipline. There is a lot to think about here and no easy answers but a dialogue on the topic seems important. After all, some of the most innovative companies on the planet are starved for talent while at the same time  job prospects for new college graduates are pretty bleak . What will it take to resolve that paradox?

The Winklevoss Twins Ar...

It’s a Friday afternoon (in some parts of the world, at least), so go ahead — take a nice long drink of your favorite alcoholic beverage. If you’re like me, you’ll need it to make it through the CNBC interview with the Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss that aired today. It is embedded above for your viewing pleasure, complete with CNBC reporters asking for the Winklevii’s autographs and all. Really, drink up. Anyway. On air today, CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin talked with everyone’s favorite Harvard grads cum Olympic athletes cum Mark Zuckerberg nemeses about their latest foray into the tech startup space as individuals with significant financial reserves and no apparent engineering credentials. They’re becoming venture capitalists. The VC Gold Rush As PandoDaily’s Paul Carr has quite humorously written , this is just one example of the larger VC boom that’s happening: “In the coming weeks and months, I look forward to headlines about: An infant who has decided to call herself a VC. A robot that has decided to call itself a VC. A duck that has decided to call itself a VC. An infant robot duck that has decided to call itself a VC.” The Next Web’s Drew Olanoff had a good point about their prospects as well: “Personally, I’d rather take money from the guy who played them [in The Social Network movie], Armie Hammer .” But we really shouldn’t take away from the Winklevii’s vision preemptively. It’s entirely possible they have deeper insights into this whole space than many realize. “We think the cloud is going to be huge,” Tyler Winklevoss told Sorkin today, after all. They’re focusing on “early stage disruptive startups” who are “shifting the paradigm.” I mean, Marc Andreessen , watch your back. It’s Not Actually All Bad OK, all snark aside. Like it or not, this really is just the beginning. The Winklevii have actually had their hands in the web world in one way or another for years — so if Silicon Valley peeps are feeling appalled at them jumping into the scene full time, they should really brace themselves for what’s coming in the future. Wall Street isn’t as lucrative as it once was – and for many years, the most ambitious, savvy, money-oriented people from top universities just went straight into investment banking. Now that those jobs have dwindled and seem unlikely to make a resurgence anytime soon, those same people are now heading west and hitching their wagons to the tech industry’s star. I actually think that this shift away from Wall Street and into Silicon Valley is a good thing, on the whole. The best and brightest young people in our society have been going into the finance world for far too long. And whatever we think of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in particular, they are part of a larger class of people who have made the business world go around for many years: They’re well-educated, quite intelligent, and clearly don’t give up without a fight. It’ll be interesting to see how much more the tech industry goes into turbo-drive as more of these types enter the fray.