The move to open ownership of the company to the world at large is almost certainly going to be a watershed moment in the nascent social media industry. This is an industry that long last is finally coming into its own after years of rapid growth and finding its way in terms of business models, user adoption strategies, and competitive positioning. It’s no accident that Zynga represents about 12% of Facebook’s revenue: Social games have become a substantial trend and it was smart for Facebook to ensure it had a stake in this hot new area of social media.

Related: Enterprise gamification: Will it drive better business performance?

There’s little question that the timing itself is good: With the stock market coming back, the acceptable performance of other social media IPOs (LinkedIn and Jive Software have done well, or at least not lost value since their debut), the undoubtedly intense pressure by investors and vested workers to get their payday, and the need to capitalize growth and new products to maximize their potential and fend off competitors, all points to one thing: Going public is really the logical next step.

But going public brings with it all new pressures. For venture backed companies such as Facebook, it means a difficult transition from the multi-year expectation on delivering returns, to the quarterly results horizon. Even in the extremely fast moving world of Internet companies, this can come as a shock to the system. Facebook’s business simply must perform and perform well every quarter for the foreseeable future, especially with a high opening stock price. And this is where its business model will face a major test to live up to what most financial experts are saying is a lofty estimate of its valuation, nearly $100 billion on the high end by many sources.

The business models of social media

But ultimately, as has been pointed out, if a service is entirely free to an audience, then that audience is the product. Not only is Facebook free to its users, there isn’t even a “pro” version, like LinkedIn offers. When the size and health of an ecosystem (i.e. network effect) is so central to digital success of any kind these days, any barrier to growth and reach is considered anathema. In other words, Facebook feels it must go elsewhere, and not its users, to make money. This in turn, will have significant implications to the second industry growing up next to social media: That of the world of social business, which aims to situate social media — adapted specifically to enterprise needs — to improve the way businesses operate inside and outside their walls.

As Derek Harris wrote on Gigaom this morning, Facebook must make the most of the data it has about its users while walking an incredibly fine line in terms of privacy and trust. The more Facebook exploits its invaluable datasets on user behavior, wants, and desires, the less users will be inclined to divulge such information, eroding the inherent value of its social network. The fear is, because its intrinsic value is really under the control of its audience (namely us), it’s only a few serious missteps away from a participative collapse or end-user backlash, which would spell significant trouble for the company valuation. Today’s business world is rife with examples of social media fueled tempests that have had long term impact to their brands. Facebook’s very business model is based on an approach that has high probably in creating such a backlash in my opinion, creating significant long-term challenges to real growth.

But there’s also little doubt that Facebook’s management team is acutely aware of all of this and has prepared the company for all of these issues and the transition to becoming a public company. Or at least, for their investors’ sake, I hope that’s the case. Instead, what’s more interesting are the implications for organization that are trying to use the social networking giant to better engage with their customers, workers, and suppliers. Facebook pages and Facebook apps are now extremely popular and cost-effective of ways of going to where people are today and engaging with them for marketing, sales, informational, user support, and other community-powered functions. In fact, it’s at the intersection of companies that wish to engage with Facebook’s audience, and the Facebook platform itself, where the vast majority of the business opportunity lies. With all but 15% of its revenue coming from advertising and with all eyes on its revenue growth, Facebook must continue to rapidly innovate in helping businesses better engage with their various constituents inside of the company’s industry-leading social network.

Related: Facebook IPO demand is strong and weak

The social business implications of Facebook’s IPO

This pressure to perform, combined with untold as-yet-untapped opportunities to make the most out of nearly a billion socially connected users — is where the most interesting social business implications of Facebook’s transition to a public company exist.

• Facebook as the face of CRM. If customer engagement of all kinds is going social, Facebook must become the leader in this, or more enterprise-savvy providers will do this for them. See my recent discussion on this for details. While some could argue that Facebook is already the social CRM leader for SMB customers via Facebook pages, the real revenue growth opportunity short-term is for mid-market to large enterprises.
• Mobile-first and mobile-native service delivery. While Mark Zuckerberg has already telegraphed that 2012 will be about moving Facebook’s business models to mobile devices, which it has only done in a limited fashion so far, a simple transplant of its features isn’t sufficient. Instead, the now-iconic social network must re-invent its experience for today’s smart mobile devices. The near future must consist of useful capabilities centered around location-awareness, NFC, voice recognition, augmented reality, and fundamentally better exploitation of sensors, video, and audio on mobile than they have been able to achieve including multi-point video chat. Most critically of all perhaps, and certainly the most challenging, will be the need for it move 3rd party apps onto mobile, something that’s technically quite challenging given the distribution control and inherent nature of mobile operating systems. Mobile devices are unlike the Web; they’re not small pieces loosely joined. This then is one of Facebook’s biggest generational obstacles: Fully exploiting native mobility in a way that won’t greatly impact its business.
• Open data, APIs, and arbitrage. Facebook has kept a tight lid on its APIs and for good reason. But ask Amazon, eBay, and other Internet giants where their business models are heading and it’s about opening up as much as possible for 3rd parties to use their own investments to build on top their platforms. Businesses of all kinds are now eager to pay to connect their own supply chains to Facebook, if only the Internet giant can figure out how to do it safely and effectively.
• Enabling the social business intelligence cycle. There is also a potentially large growth opportunity in unleashing the big data story around Facebook’s user data, again, if it can be done safely. Virtually all companies today must develop and operate their listening, analyzing, and engagement cycle with the world of social media. Facebook could be a leader in enabling it, rather than letting 3rd parties such as Radian6 do it for them.
• Moving inside of companies. Another potential move for Facebook is becoming an effective enterprise social network. Certainly LinkedIn has announced its intention for doing so, but it’s less clear how Facebook would do this successfully. However the company already has the user base to make this move and tap into the enterprise revenue it represents, creating a consistent platform for users to engage in all of their social activity. While I don’t think Facebook has much interest or the right expertise to do this, that doesn’t mean it can’t address the issues and creating a unified experience for all social activity, personal and professional. For the latter, it could potentially charge a great deal. This would have major implications for other enterprise social networking vendors.

However, these are just a few of the possible implications for Facebook launch into the serious world of finance. I suspect there are a great deal more. Please share what you believe they are in Talkback below to continue the industry discussion.

Source – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hinchcliffe/facebooks-ipo-the-social-business-implications/2066

Windows 8 on Intel: These tablets and convertibles will run the full-blown Windows 8 operating system. Tablets from device vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Acer will use Intel’s upcoming “Clover Trail” Atom processor. Some convertibles will also tap higher-performance Ivy Bridge processors. And, of course, chips from Advanced Micro Devices.

Upside The biggest upside (barring unforeseen glitches) is the breadth of compatibility with existing Windows applications and the ability to use Metro mode or revert to a more traditional Windows interface to run older applications.

Also, Windows 8 Pro will be more corporate-enterprise friendly, including features like PC management, domain connectivity, and remote desktop.

Downside The downside is expected to be price: some of the corporate enterprise-targeted designs, for example, will likely be somewhat pricey, at least relative to Windows RT devices.

(See Microsoft’s chart for a detailed comparison of Windows 8 and Windows RT.)

Windows RT: Windows 8 on ARM (WoA) — officially renamed to Windows RT by Microsoft — will run on processors from Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Texas Instruments, marking the first time a mainstream Windows operating system will be powered by chips from these ARM silicon suppliers in addition to those of Intel and AMD.

Upside will be price, battery life, and size. These devices will likely be inexpensive, boast good battery life, and be plenty thin and light.

Another tasty upside is that Windows RT will come with Microsoft Office. You’ll have to purchase Office separately for Windows 8.

Downside Look no further than Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky for an explanation. ARM will not run Windows 7, and older, stuff. “If you need to run existing x86/64 software, then you will be best served with Windows 8 on x86/64,” Sinofsky said.

And you’ll have to buy the complete package. Device makers will work with ARM partners to create a device that is “strictly paired with a specific set of software (and sometimes vice versa), and consumers purchase this complete package, which is then serviced and updated through a single pipeline…this is all quite different than the Windows on x86/64 world,” Sinofsky said.

And Windows RT won’t get Windows Media Player or Storage Spaces.

Via – http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cnet/tcoc/~3/nJCvYtsRG-0/

Not every Cornell brain is useful, though. Some might offer those of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Andy Bernard of “The Office” as among the more dispensable examples. Still, you know that Cornell minds often offer a taste of the next world, rather than this.

So play along with me for a moment as we observe together two Cornell students playing Brain Pong.

This is exactly what it sounds like: the famous and much-underrated game Pong powered by the force of brain waves.

I am grateful to Engadget for discovering this phenomenon.

The two electrical engineering students in question have names of folks who should be in the Yankees bullpen: Chuck Moyes and Mengxiang Jiang. Instead, they dedicated themselves to donning baseball caps adorned with EEG-scanning electrodes.

With a serendipitous connection to a computer, these two fine men allowed their Mu’s and Alpha’s to propel that little puck thingy backwards and forwards until victory was achieved.

Like any other contact sport, Brain Pong seems to rely on a mixture of relaxation and concentration. Indeed, as one of the players (Moyes, I believe) says during the video, it is all about focusing or relaxing on command.

Of course, this means that intimidation plays a huge role. Make your opponent nervous, and his brain will jigger his player in entirely skittish directions.

Another thing that might put some off is that excessive head-twitching seems to hurt one’s game. Yes, just like golf.

For myself, in viewing this video, I see little difference between Brain Pong and Drunk Pong. Perhaps, though, this is merely evidence of the fact that many Cornell brains are, deep inside, drunk on their sheer excellence.

Credit – http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cnet/tcoc/~3/OQnNRHHQA4k/

The social-networking giant announced today that it sent more than 160 million users to mobile apps in April, up from 60 million visitors in late February. In the same time frame, those mobile users were in turn generated more than 1.1 billion visits to mobile apps, up from 320 million in late February.

Facebook also reported that seven of iOS’ top 10 grossing and six of Android’s top 10 grossing apps were integrated with Facebook.

“As mentioned in previous highlights, features like Single Sign On and Open Graph increase installs, usage, and re-engagement for mobile apps, regardless of whether they are built for iOS, Android or the mobile web,” mobile product marketing manager Jonathan Matus said in a statement.

The social network noted that it has helped many mobile apps find success in the past couple of months. Social professional network BranchOut has grown from 1 million monthly active users to more than 12 million in the three months since its mobile app was integrated with Facebook. iOS app Viddy has seen its community grow to more than 16 million registered users since integrating with Facebook and launching its Open Graph actions.

Credit – http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cnet/tcoc/~3/qW0kmqE8hz4/

The following script is from “Hard Measures” which originally aired on April 29, 2012. Lesley Stahl is the correspondent. Richard Bonin, producer.

After the attacks of 9/11, the CIA sought and was granted unprecedented authority to capture al Qaeda suspects, whisk them off to secret sites and interrogate them with harsh techniques, including waterboarding.

The man who ran the interrogation program was Jose Rodriguez, a CIA spy in Latin America, who rose to become head of the Clandestine Service, the CIA’s dark side.

When the agency’s secret program was revealed, it was widely criticized but the blunt-spoken, Puerto Rican-born Rodriguez is fighting back. He’s written a book, a defense of the interrogations, called “Hard Measures” — and tonight you will hear his side of the story.

It’s the first time someone this close to the program, this accountable has gone public explaining why techniques that had long been condemned by the U.S. as torture were employed.

Jose Rodriguez: For the first time in our history, we had an enemy come into our homeland and kill 3,000 people. I mean, that was a huge deal. People jumping from the towers to their death. The people running away from the cloud of dust, terrified out of their mind. This was a threat. And we had to throw everything at it.

Which is why Jose Rodriguez says that when he ran the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, he came up with the idea of employing harsh interrogation techniques. And10 years later, he feels he still has to justify their use.

Lesley Stahl: You had no qualms? We used to consider some of them war crimes.

Jose Rodriguez: We made some al Qaeda terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days. But we did the right thing for the right reason. And the right reason was to protect the homeland and to protect American lives. So yes, I had no qualms.

Rodriguez spent 31 years in the CIA’s Clandestine Service where spies are revered as “fighter jocks”. He rose thru the ranks, eventually running covert operations as head of the Latin America division. When al Qaeda struck on 9/11, he’d had no experience in counterterrorism or the Middle East. But he wanted “in” on the war on terror, and went to the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, where the main objective was to stop another attack on the U.S. homeland.

Jose Rodriguez: We were flooded with intelligence about an imminent attack. That al Qaeda had an anthrax program, and that they were planning to use it against us. And that they were seeking nuclear materials to use in some type of nuclear weapon. So we were facing a ticking, time bomb situation and we were very concerned.

Lesley Stahl: So you were getting pressure from Congress and the White House to take the gloves off. Did you go to the dark side?

Original – http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsMain/~3/qGL89ZTIVxk/