Will you still 'Like' Facebook tomorrow?

Social networking site boasts strong revenue as it turns 10, even as some predict its end


Facebook is the world's largest social network. It has 1.23 billion active users, and one in five pages viewed on the Internet is a Facebook page. But Facebook is facing competition and must keep on reinventing itself as younger teens turn to other social platforms as their primary hub.
 

New York - Last Friday, Facebook shares soared to a new record, an early birthday present for a company that turns 10 on Tuesday.

Wall Street rewarded the world's largest social network for its latest and best quarterly results by sending its stock up 15 per cent to US$62.57. Facebook announced last Thursday that revenue swelled 63 per cent from the year-ago period to US$2.59 billion (S$3.3 billion), above the US$2.35 billion analysts polled by Bloomberg had expected. Net profit rose to US$523 million from US$64 million.

Most important for investors were the numbers showing that over half of Facebook's advertising revenue - 53 per cent to be exact - now comes from mobile devices.
There are other reasons to celebrate.

Background story

FACEBOOK'S FIVE FOUNDERS: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

• Mark Zuckerberg, 29

Facebook chairman and chief executive and the only one still at the company. Added US$3.2 billion (S$4.1 billion) to his net worth when Facebook shares closed at a record high last Thursday, elevating his fortune to US$27.4 billion, according to
the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. When he had US$24 billion, he was the 26th wealthiest person in the world.

• Eduardo Saverin, 31

Mr Zuckerberg's one-time best friend, Mr Saverin, ended up on the losing side of a power struggle with Mr Zuckerberg. Famously sued Mr Zuckerberg and the two reached a settlement. After Facebook went public, he earned an estimated US$2 billion, renounced his United States citizenship, and moved to Singapore. He is a major investor in technology start-ups.

• Dustin Moskovitz, 29

Youngest billionaire on earth, being eight days younger than Mr Zuckerberg. Was both vice-president of engineering and chief technology officer.
Left Facebook in 2008 to start Asana, a company that builds project management software.

• Chris Hughes, 30

A literature major, he is Facebook's first spokesman. Left in 2008 to run Mr Barack Obama's online campaign for
US President. Bought and relaunched the 98-year-old New Republic magazine.

• Andrew McCollum, 34

Designed the original Facebook logo and worked on a side project with Mr Zuckerberg, Wirehog for file-sharing. Co-founded resume-creating tool JobSpice. Currently an entrepreneur-in-residence at the venture capital company NEA.

• Most unlikely Facebook multi-millionaire

Chinese-American painter and graffiti artist David Choe, 37, was hired in 2011 to create murals at Facebook's new Silicon Valley headquarters. He opted to get paid in stock, despite believing that Facebook was "ridiculous". A year later, that 0.2 per cent of stock he held was valued at US$170 million when Facebook went public.
Sources: whoownsfacebook.com, Bloomberg

 

Facebook battles to stay young and cool

Facebook battles to stay young and cool


A view of and Apple iPhone displaying the Facebook app's splash screen in front of the login page in this May 10, 2012 file photo in Washington, DC.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Sixteen-year-old Owen Fairchild doesn't hang out at Facebook as much as he did when he was just a kid.

It is not that he and his friends are abandoning the social network. They are spreading their love to rival networks like Twitter, Pinterest, SnapChat, Instagram and blogging platform Tumblr.

"I've moved on," the teenager said. "I go to Tumblr a lot more; there is a lot of funny stuff. SnapChat is super-fun because you can send really unattractive pictures of yourself and they will delete after a few seconds."

Contrary to what grownups might think, teens sometimes prefer to catch up on life face-to-face in the real world, he added.
 

Put your finances on a diet

January 30, 2014

Here are some simple steps to get you started.

 

By Michelle Brohier
Everyone has gone through a diet once in their lives. Be it through specifically cutting out a particular food group in their meals; counting calories with every meal that you eat; hitting the gym or even using special tonics or even shakes; we’ve all done one thing in our lives to take control of our weight and our health.

Just as your body need a special diet, your finances could use the same as well every so often. If you’re aiming to keep your finances healthy, and are constantly finding yourself with bulging bills; a financial diet could be the answer. Not too sure how? Here are some simple steps to get you started.

Set your goal
If you aim to lose weight, you will need to figure out how much you need to lose or if you’re merely aiming to get generally fit. The same thing could be said with your finances. What is your goal? Are you hoping to settle your debt: Start saving for retirement: Or even a holiday trip for you and your family? Figure out the amount you may need and set that as your goal.

Get with the plan
Now that you know how much weight you want to lose, you will then figure out ways on how to do it. This includes whether you want to eat only certain kinds of meals, cut out a certain type of food or even start exercising. With your finances, you will also need to come up with a similar plan. You can do this by creating a budget, cutting out certain expenses, or even using auto transfers to ensure your money goes straight to a special saving account or even to the payments you need to make.

Use the right tools
Much like going to the gym, using special diets or healthy juices to help you with your diet progress, you can find the right tools to help you with your finances as well. Use a debit card instead for necessary larger payments; get a standing instruction set up to pay off some of your bills; or even save your money in a special savings account that gives you good interest rates.

Read between the lines
Just like reading the labels on the foods, juices or even the contract for your gym membership, you need to make sure that what you’re using will help you achieve your goals. Understand the tools that you are using, make sure that they will give you the best benefits for your finances and you can manage them well enough. You wouldn’t want to mess with your health and body, and you should take the same precautions with your finances.



Keep a log
You track down what you eat and calculate the amount of calories you may have ingested, so why not do the same with your finances? Take note of where your money is going, the payments you’re making and the amount you’re saving and make sure that the actual numbers tally up to your expectations. It is said that when you see how much you spend; you will be more inclined to cut down.

Reward yourself
So you’ve hit your goal, or at least one part of it. Just like indulging in a big slice of cake or even a bite on your favourite pizza, it’s all right to spend on something that you want once in a while. Just remember to keep it in control, for over indulging could lead to you ruining the goals you’ve worked so hard on to begin with!

No one really enjoys dieting but we put ourselves through it anyways in hopes to make ourselves better. In the same way, you could do the same for your own finances. It may be tough initially, but you know it will be worth it in the end. So build up your motivation and give your finances the diet it needs.

This was brought you by Michelle Brohier from RinggitPlus.com. RinggitPlus compares credit cards, personal loans and home loans to help Malaysians get more for their money.

Stop living paycheck to paycheck

January 27, 2014

There is actually nothing like the feeling of knowing you always have some money to turn to in your savings.

By Michelle Brohier
Johan lives with his parents and earns about RM2,200 monthly, a raise from his past salary of RM1,800, but he has been struggling to get out of the cycle of living a hand-to-mouth existence.

His necessities include his motorbike loan, phone bill, laptop installment, internet broadband service and food.

The remainder of his money is spent on emergencies like repairing his motorbike after an accident, and on his girlfriend of which he is in a long distance relationship with and travels to see as much as he can.

While this is a scenario many who earn around Johan’s salary can relate to as they struggle to get by with such an amount, there are those who earn more and go through the same issue.

Anish earns about RM8,000; double from the amount he earned before, and his necessities include paying for the house and the car that he bought.

While this does take up a RM3000, this still leaves over RM4500 in remainder money to use and save. But after spending it on movies, hanging out with friends and other forms of entertainment, Anish barely has enough to get by till the next payday.

Middle income earners are not exempt either.

 Annabelle earns RM4500; RM1000 more than her salary the year before and is also guilty of living paycheck to paycheck.

 “I don’t shop but after paying almost RM2000 for rent and RM300 for utilities; I use the remainder for nice meals and my ultimate indulgence: expensive books.

 I pay more for rent because I insisted on having a fully furnished unit in a nice part of town because those things are important to me.”

Annabelle admits that at the end of every month; she has less than RM200 in her account.

Be it out of a lifestyle choice or out of necessity, there are many Malaysians who live paycheck to paycheck, with some even living beyond that.

While they work hard to earn more than before, they find themselves still depending on the entire amount they get from their monthly salary.

For some reason, their salary and expenses seem to rise together although their circumstances seldom differ.

A matter of choice“It is true I could have saved more money if I wasn’t in a long distance relationship,” said Johan.

“But even then, I probably could have used the extra money to buy a better motorbike, like a Ducati.

Either way, I would have found some way to spend the money that I have.”

The reality is that people with this propensity will always find a way to spend the money that they earn, even if they’re earning more than previously.

The extra money opens up possibilities to gain items or experiences that were previously not available to them.

“I could live in a smaller unit or eat out less but I always think; I work so hard for my money, why can’t I enjoy it?” Annabelle admits.

But the problem happens when a major calamity crops up and the person finds they are unable to cope.

An empty savings account can mean a lot more problems than many realise.

Whilst it’s always nice to have a treat every so often, it’s important to temper this with moderation.

In most situations, the paycheck to paycheck phenomena is a matter of choice, and thus actually a lot more controllable than people realise.

Here are some tips to avoid the dreaded hand-to-mouth experience:
1. Budget realistically. If you aren’t used to saving your salary; start small to build confidence.

There’s no sense in drawing up a budget with zero entertainment spending and sudden RM1000 savings because such a sudden saving requirement will set you up to fail.

Failing from the outset will make sure you are demotivated enough to give up.

Don’t fall into the trap. Start with small savings and do budget for leisure.

The successes (and the growing bank account!) will encourage you to save more.

2. Automate savings. It’s harder to slack off on saving when you don’t even see the money leaving your bank account.

Have an automated saving deduction set up with your bank.

3. Rethink rewards. Many people spend more when they earn more because it fulfils the ‘reward’ criteria.

Higher salaries generally mean more work and responsibility so this spurs them to believe they deserve more rewards and gratification.

 Try looking at your savings as a reward for your hard work.

Although you definitely deserve a treat once in a while; you deserve the security and peace of mind of a cushy savings balance a lot more.

You can get out of this cycle and live a more comfortable and fulfilled life with just a little adjustments.

There is actually nothing like the feeling of knowing you always have some money to turn to in your savings.

Good luck!

This was brought you by Michelle Brohier from RinggitPlus.com. RinggitPlus compares credit cards, personal loans and home loans to help Malaysians get more for their money.

Get the most value from deal sites

January 24, 2014

Here are some tell-tale signs to look out for to see if you’re really getting a deal or simply paying for a hard time.

By Diana Chai

Everyone’s heard of dealsites and it is common knowledge that many a times you can scroe really good bargains on items and experiences in major cities around the world.
 
But what many are soon realising is that with any big idea, there will be those sneaky deals that are looking to cash in on the hype but aren’t really deals at all.

Deal sites take a huge chunk off the purchase price of a deal as their fee (anywhere between 30-50%), so for a merchant to even cover his cost; he’s going to have to do some serious quality downgrading (remember, deal prices are already heavily discounted!).

Think about it; say you purchased a hair colouring package at RM70; a 70% discount off its usual price. Out of this RM70; say 40% is handed over to the deal site. This leaves RM42 for the salon to pay wages, cover overheads and pay for the dye. That’s not a lot is it? So what is the salon to do to honour the deal coupons they’ve sold? They could swap quality hair products for cheaper, less healthy options; they could use one batch of dye for many people; or they could make it so stinking difficult for you to get an appointment (think massive blackout dates and constant “We’re full,” replies) that you forfeit your voucher.

The last one is really messed up, but it actually happened to me. The merchant told me I could get a refund from the deal company because I couldn’t get an appointment date within the stipulated period. Of course, can you guess what happened? The deal site said they couldn’t help and I lost my money.

But not all deals are duds and not all deal sites are as unhelpful. Here are some tell-tale signs to look out for to see if you’re really getting a deal or simply paying for a hard time.

1. There are way too many conditions. If many of these conditions include black-out dates and specified timings for redemption; watch out. Making a deal super difficult to redeem is one way to discourage people from buying a deal yet get marketing leverage off a deal site (which is the reason merchants are on deal sites anyway). But not all such deals are bad – sometimes to get a cheap price; one must jump through a few hoops. Just know what you are buying into. Make your bookings super early and of course; be sure you can make it be rescheduling will likely be extremely hard.
2. Item/meal is not in the usual menu/store collection. Ever bought a deal for a meal or an item from a restaurant or store you usually frequent that has never been on its line-up before? Sometimes, restaurants and stores create deal specific items or dishes just for coupon redemption. The problem is; when an item or dish is created for a deal; it’s often made cheaply as possible. For restaurants, portions can be half that of what you get for full price. Unless you are okay with such quality – you’re better off passing on this one.
3. Hotel stays in general. Hotel stays in general are iffy because the discounts you see are taken off the rack rate which, through much experience I’ve realised, is never what you pay even when you book with the hotel directly. Hotel booking sites are the same. They claim they offer you massive discounts but the rack rates are sometimes ridiculously inflated. When we did research on hotel booking sites versus direct hotel booking, we found that prices were either the same as or it turned out to actually be cheaper to book directly with the hotel! This is because hotels, like many deal merchants have realised they can offer a lower price directly to customers, benefit from the volume and not have to pay a middle-man deal site. So the advice? If you see a hotel deal, check the hotel site and other booking sites before getting starry-eyed over the percentage discounts! That is not to say it’s impossible to find a good hotel deal – you just have to do a little homework.

Get the most out of deal-buying

• So you’ve done the legwork and purchased a deal. What now? To get the most out of your buy; keep these three top tips in mind:

• Make reservations or pick-up appointments (for items) as soon as you can.

• Pay close attention to terms and ask questions before heading down.

• Take as little cash as possible to avoid being cajoled into spending more for ‘add-ons’ or future packages (unless of course you want this and have the budget for it).

• And finally, ensure the merchant upholds his end of the bargain as you do yours. If a merchant gives you a hard time, treats you disrespectfully or throws in extra charges which were not adequately provided for in the fine print; be sure to take this up with the deal company to ensure unscrupulous merchants aren’t able to take advantage of anyone else.

This may sound daunting but don’t be disheartened. There are actually genuine deals to be had and reputable deal sites should be able to give you the customer care follow-up you require.

Happy shopping!

This was brought you by Diana Chai from RinggitPlus.com. RinggitPlus compares credit cards, personal loans and home loans to help Malaysians get more for their money.

Crisis turns big spender into savvy innovator

Crisis turns big spender into savvy innovator

Ms. Pat Law borrowed $10,000 from good friend Irene Ang (inset) to start Goodstuph.

Patricia Law had a rude awakening when her father was diagnosed with a brain tumour nearly four years ago. The advertising executive realised her bank account was a big disaster.

 

“I had been working for more than 10 years but I had nothing, not even $1,000 to my name,” she recalls.

 

Her mortification was compounded by the fact that she was drawing a more than decent salary of nearly $8,000 a month.

 

“It would not have been so bad if I actually had a mortgage or a car to show for it, but there was nothing.

 

Cancer in the family was something I just could not afford,” says the older of two children of hawkers.

 

Although her father’s tumour turned out to be benign, doctors warned that complications could set in if it grew.

 

The episode convinced her to overhaul her life. She reckoned that drawing a monthly salary, even a decent one, would make coping difficult should a major medical crisis affect any member of her family.

 

“I knew what I could do, and that I could do it on my own,” says Ms Law, 33, who was then a promising new media marketing specialist at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.

 

Two weeks after her father was diagnosed, she handed in her resignation letter to set up Goodstuph as a one-woman show. The agency – which specialises in social media advertising and marketing – now employs seven staff and has annual billings of more than $3 million.

 

The freewheeling big spender has morphed into a savvy entrepreneur, one whose agency won two prizes – Local Hero of The Year and Social Media Agency of the Year – at Marketing Magazine’s Agency of The Year Awards 2013.

 

Change is not new to her. “I’m a bit like water.

 

I fill out different shapes at different times in my life,” she says. Ms Law grew up in a three-room flat in Marine Parade.

 

Raised to be independent, she was already taking buses daily on her own at six years old to Changi Airport’s Terminal 1 where her parents ran a duck rice stall.

 

 “My mother was very thrifty,” says Ms Law, who attended Ngee Ann Primary School.

 

“She bought me an extra-large pinafore when I was in Primary 1 so that it would last me a few years.”

 

Diagnosed with a pronunciation problem, she had to undergo speech therapy at Singapore General Hospital.

 

“It was a terrible thing for a nine-year-old. You feel very demoralised.

 

I was quiet because of that. I didn’t want to speak and didn’t want to give others a chance to make fun of me,” she recalls.

 

Not that she was a wallflower. In fact, she was full of street smarts and was making her own pocket money even at that young age.

 

“I’d catch grasshoppers, put them in tikam boxes and sell them to classmates as pets for $2 each,” she says.

 

Academically, however, she was less nimble. Her poor Primary School Leaving Examination scores saw her posted to Pasir Ris Secondary School where she mixed with a motley crowd.

 

“I was never in a gang but I hung out with folks who were. One student made headlines for punching a teacher,” she recalls with a laugh.

 

She was no model student herself. As a prefect, she would abuse her position and let students out of school for a buck or two.

 

That was never found out, but she was stripped of her prefectship for truancy.

 

 In Secondary 3, she decided to pull her socks up and got herself a tutor.

 

“I looked at my family’s background, saw how hard they were working and I realised that if I didn’t pay more attention to my studies, I would have nothing to fall back on,” she says.

 

Her O-level results were good enough to get her into a junior college but she decided to study business at Singapore Polytechnic instead.

 

She says: “I think I’m smart because I know when I’m stupid.

 

I know exactly what and when it was not my game to play.

 

” The polytechnic, indeed, was a far better fit, even though she skipped classes a lot, preferring to spend time at billiard centres like Pot Black.

 

“I was making money from pool games, I was that good. I think I’m a bit of a hustler,” she says with a guffaw.

 

Indeed, she was also making quite a bit of pocket money from the Internet by then.

 

She was a self-taught tech whizz and, from the age of 14, had been using her Internet know-how to design online pages for Web users and even start a pen-pal business.

 

“I knew how to extract e-mail addresses so I put an ad in a teen magazine.

 

I’d tell people who wanted pen pals to write in, and for a fee, I’d give them an e-mail address. Of course today, that would be illegal,” she says with a laugh.

 

Despite spending time on her many money-making ventures, her studies did not suffer. In fact, she excelled in subjects like marketing and business law.

 

“Marketing was my game. I was good in language and packaging, I knew how to sell and I have street smarts so that helped,” she says.

 

“I partied hard but at the back of my mind I knew I had to do well.

 

” Although she wanted badly to go on to university after her diploma, she knew that her parents would not be able to afford it.

 

“I guess they could have taken out bank loans but I didn’t want them to do that, so I decided to start working,” she says.

 

Her heart was set on advertising. Over the next few years, she learnt the ropes at several agencies, including AKQA, Publicis, TBWA and Leo Burnett.

 

“In the beginning, I was scolded every day. But I had some of the best training,” she says.

 

She also worked extremely hard. “A lot of things may not be in my control but I can control how many hours I put into my accounts and how hard I work,” she says. I

 

n the meantime, she got swept up in the digital wave; she started a blog and soon made an online name for herself writing about marketing and advertising.

 

Recognising that social media was then the new online frontier, she knocked back an account director position from another agency to join Ogilvy as an account manager in 2007.

 

“Ogilvy was the only agency with social media as a speciality then,” she says. “It had a lot of clients which wanted to get into the new media space early so it was not hard to sell the idea to them.

 

” She loved her time at the agency and rose quickly.

 

“I was liaising with managing directors and leading consultants and had a lot of leeway to use the best that Ogilvy has to offer to produce big campaigns in the social space,” says Ms Law, who worked on the accounts of clients such as Intel and Nike.

 

 One Sunday, her father came home, dropped his mobile phone and told her he could not feel his arm.

 

She drove him to hospital where a CT scan revealed that he had a tumour near his central nervous system.

 

The sorry state of her financial affairs sobered her.

 

After a couple of days of soul-searching, she decided to leverage on her youth and abilities and take a chance to change her life.

 

She approached her good friend Irene Ang, actress and founder of talent agency Fly Entertainment.

 

 “I asked to borrow $10,000. I dared not ask for more. I’d never borrowed money all my life. I told her my situation, said I didn’t want her sympathy and that I would pay her back.”

 

She had known Ms Ang from the time she was a young executive.

 

“A client wanted a celebrity to endorse their products but didn’t have the money. I found out that Irene had a bar in Club Street so I went there, waited for four hours and pounced on her when she came in.

 

I said, ‘Can I just give you free cat food and if anybody calls and asks what your cat eats, you just tell them the brand?’”

 

Ms Ang remembers the loan.

 

“I generally don’t like to lend money because it can spoil relationships.

 

But I’d known her for several years and I knew she was very talented.

 

I also believe that young people sometimes need a chance,” she says. Ms Law – who repaid the $10,000 in three months – wanted to run Goodstuph from her home but a friend offered her a space in his office, rent-free. “I wanted to hire staff but I told myself I could not hire until I could go one year without any business,” she says.

 

Six months later, she hired her first employee. Around the same time, she also rented her first office, two floors above a steamboat restaurant in Chinatown.

“I didn’t have to make any cold calls. I was in the right place at the right time because I was one of the very few people in Singapore who had actual case studies of social media campaigns in Singapore,” says Ms Law, whose first client was Nike, followed by the National Art Gallery.

Along with her reputation, her team grew. Today she counts the likes of United Overseas Bank, HP, Electrolux and Sephora as clients.

She has also set up a software company Another Good Thing, as well as an online store The Damn Good Shop, peddling one-off vintage items and limited-edition products by the Goodstuph studio.

Her life, she says, has changed. Although she still likes nice clothes, she buys them only when they are on sale.

“I’m proud to say that I have not borrowed a single cent from banks. I freeze 20 per cent of what Goodstuph makes,” says Ms Law, who has also built up more than a year’s worth of cash reserves for Goodstuph.

“I think what happened to my father made me really understand responsibility in a different way.

123456 reasons to change your password

January 22, 2014

SplashData advises using passwords with eight or more characters that contain a mix of upper and lower case characters and numbers as well as letters and trying to make it as random or seemingly random as possible.

 

The only positive point to be drawn from 2013′s list of the world’s worst and easiest to hack passwords is that ‘password’ is no longer in the number-one spot.

But even that tiny glimmer of hope is extinguished immediately because ‘password’ is still alive and well and occupying the number-two spot, having been overtaken over the course of the past 12 months by ‘123456′.

The list, compiled by SplashData and drawn from passwords posted online following major web service hacks, such as the major breach at Adobe – the company behind Photoshop – highlights the risks consumers are still taking by choosing easy to remember rather than secure passwords.

Consumers may well be suffering from password fatigue – the inability to continue to create and remember more and more unique log-ins as the number of web services they use proliferate – but that is still no excuse for using ‘qwerty’ (the fourth most common password) or ‘abc123′ (number five) for protecting their most personal digital information.

Still, web users are not entirely to blame. Despite the ever growing sophistication of hackers, many companies are not doing enough to force their users into using stronger passwords that feature a mix of characters, numbers and symbols.

“Another interesting aspect of this year’s list is that more short numerical passwords showed up even though websites are starting to enforce stronger password policies,” said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData. If sites were enforcing stricter password rules then it wouldn’t be possible to set guessable passwords like ‘1234′ (number 16), ‘12345′ (at 20) or ‘000000′ (number 25) as log-ins.

Every time a site is hacked and the passwords exposed, those log-ins are added to existing password-cracking tools to make hacking the next site even easier. These tools search against lists of known log-ins and search for patterns that have already been discovered, such as choosing a dictionary word and substituting its vowels for numbers.

SplashData advises using passwords with eight or more characters that contain a mix of upper and lower case characters and numbers as well as letters and trying to make it as random or seemingly random as possible. One way of achieving this is by using a ‘pass phrase’ and security firm Sophos has made an excellent video here explaining how to do it.

Other steps users can take include activating two-factor authentication if a site supports it and to ensure that if you must reuse a password never choose the one for your email account or online banking services.

The list of the 25 most common passwords in full
1) 123456
2) password
3) 123456784) qwerty
5) abc123
6) 123456789
7) 111111
8) 1234567
9) iloveyou
10) adobe123
11) 123123 Up 5
12) admin
13) 1234567890
14) letmein
15) photoshop
16) 1234
17) monkey
18) shadow
19) sunshine
20) 12345
21) password1
22) princess
23) azerty
24) trustno1
25) 000000