To celebrate Data Privacy Day — which is apparently an actual thing — Twitter and Google released updates to their dedicated Transparency Report sites, pages dedicated to listing the number of government-issued requests for data the companies receive on a quarterly basis.

It’s comprehensive insofar as the reports show which countries are the most apt to be requesting data, though not the nature of each request.

Surprise, surprise, most of the information requests came from the U.S. government for both Twitter and Google.

Not surprisingly, information requests aimed at Google far outweighed the number that Twitter receives on a regular basis; Google got upward of 21,000 requests from July through December last year, while Twitter had only around 1,800.

Still, the number of requests being made of both companies continues to trend upward, which may be disconcerting to some privacy advocates. To Google’s credit, though, the number of times the company has complied with user-data requests seems to be decreasing over time since 2010. Perhaps that’s just because the number of superfluous requests has gone up as the volume has increased, but I’d say it’s better than seeing an upward disclosure trend.

Among the other data listed in Twitter’s report: Copyright takedown requests — which have included surprisingly few from the RIAA over the past six months — as well as general content removal requests, which only number in the low double-digits.

Where’s Facebook in all this data-disclosure hubbub? I’ve asked the company whether it plans to issue its own transparency report, but haven’t heard back yet. In the meantime, Facebook did unveil its Q&A series with Erin Egan, the company’s chief privacy officer, for users to ask questions they may have about the company’s policies.

Hubert Burda Media/DLD China Youthology COO Kevin Lee in conversation at DLD, Munich.

After “social local mobile” or “SoLoMo,” the buzzword I hear around the Valley the most these days isn’t a neologism, it’s a country: China.

It’s the key international growth market that so many U.S. tech companies want to break into — especially social Web companies like Facebook. Problem is, there’s this whole state censorship thing they’ve got to deal with. (Just ask Google how easy that is.)

Perhaps, however, there’s a subversive way of sneaking free expression in the back door. (Listen up, Facebook.)

“It’s really hard for the government to censor things when they don’t understand the made-up words or meaning behind the imagery,” said Kevin Lee, COO of China Youthology, in conversation at the DLD conference in Munich on Monday. “The people there aren’t even relying on text anymore It’s audio, visual, photos. All the young people are creating their own languages.”

So, look at an app like WeChat, “a WhatsApp on steroids,” as BDA China chairman Duncan Clark put it. It’s the social network owned by Tencent — China’s largest listed Internet company — replete with hundreds of millions of users. Aside from its basic popularity as a mobile messaging application, Chinese youth can use it as a way around the traditional text-based censorship rained down upon users by the state. Even after Tencent agreed to censor words appearing on WeChat that the Chinese government doesn’t approve of.

Take a Mini Cooper ad that appeared in China. The ad featured a shot of a car with a large bandage on its bumper, with no text anywhere else on the page. It’s a signal that yes, even Mini Cooper and the big brands are also upset that they’re forced to censor themselves due to state demands.

But the ad still ran untouched. “The government either doesn’t understand, or can’t do anything because the brand isn’t really saying anything overtly,” Lee said.

It’s the same with the young people who adopt these visual languages. Even if Tencent is nixing certain keywords within the WeChat app on the order of the state, there are still the pictures and audio messages flowing through the app’s network. “And by the time the government realizes what’s happening, they’re already passe, they’ve already moved on,” said Kitty Lun, CEO of Lowe China.

Censorship issues aside, alternate forms of communication are flourishing across all social networks, both foreign and domestic. The Tokyo, Japan-based Line app has ballooned to upward of 70 million users in the short time it has been on the market. South Korea’s Kakao Talk hosts more than 50 million users on its network internationally, with at least 30 million of those operating on smartphones inside of South Korea.

And of course there’s WhatsApp, the mobile messaging app that saw explosive growth over the past year, was courted by both Facebook and Google (and shot both big companies down), and remains massively popular among more than half the countries in the world.

Now that WhatsApp has rebuffed major acquisition offers, I’m curious to see Facebook’s Chinese strategy play out. We may have seen a hint of that last year, however: Facebook released an update to its Messenger app for Android in a number of countries that lets users message one another without the need to have a Facebook account. Maybe the Chinese who don’t have a Facebook account — because it’s blocked in the country — can use this as a back door to access Messenger and start contacting their friends inside and outside the country, free from the threat of government censorship. I’ve asked Facebook whether the Messaging app update is available to Chinese users who don’t have a Facebook account, but I haven’t heard back yet.

Perhaps, however, time is running out for Facebook. “It’s not like the Chinese are just sitting around, waiting desperately for Facebook,” Lee said. “They’ve got plenty of options.”

In yet another instance of a Silicon Valley venture firm bringing in big government guns to class up the place, Khosla Ventures said that it had signed the international consulting firm run by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to “bring global and domestic insight to Khosla’s portfolio companies, helping them achieve their strategic goals in industries such as technology, energy, security and healthcare.”

In other words, strategery plus!

That will presumably be provided by Rice and her partners at RiceHadleyGates, which has offices in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., in an undisclosed financial arrangement with Khosla. RiceHadleyGates also includes former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former State Department official Anja Manuel.

In an interview yesterday, Manuel said that the goal was to help in areas that VCs might not be as familiar with, from Internet freedom laws in India to the challenges of moving into emerging markets.

“There are a lot of policy issues that entrepreneurs will be facing and we will try to be helpful as they sort through them,” she said. “We love working with innovative companies and want to make their global experience better.”

Khosla partner Samir Kaul said the firm was still figuring out how they will work together, but that Rice’s team would serve as “strategic advisers on an as needed basis.”

“What [RiceHadleyGates] does fits in very well with a lot of our themes as investors in energy and security, for example,” said Kaul. “We want to offer the companies we invest in as much help as possible and this is a real win in that regard.”

It’s certainly a high-profile move, although Khosla has done this before, signing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on as a strategic adviser in 2010.

In addition, Andreessen Horowitz brought in former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, as well as former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, to lend its portfolio companies additional expertise.

Rice’s firm certainly has a lot of that, especially related to thorny international issues. Rice, who was once the provost at Stanford University, was also the National Security Adviser in the administration of former President George W. Bush, before moving to the State Department.

The Palo Alto, Calif., technology giant made that assertion to the Securities and Exchange Commission in response to a letter dated Sept. 6 and disclosed in a recent regulatory filing.

Last year, news reports surfaced saying H-P’s technology was being used as part of a surveillance program by the Syrian government.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Yahoo’s David Hantman, who has been its deputy general counsel and VP of global public policy, is taking a similar job at the online rentals start-up Airbnb, according to an internal email memo he sent today.

The job move is interesting, given the many regulatory issues that the San Francisco-based company faces in local markets as it grows.

Hantman is already coming out swinging in his internal memo to Yahoo staffers about the departure:

“[Airbnb has] some huge challenges with a few antiquated laws in their biggest markets, so my job will be to help them convince governments that allowing people to rent out their own homes or apartments should not be a problem, and that in fact it is great for the economy and for the tons of people that can only pay their mortgage or rent through the extra income they get from airbnb … As always, I like to be on the right side of history, and I believe in the mission and the team over there.”

An Airbnb spokewoman (also a former Yahoo) confirmed the hiring. (I did not even try Yahoo’s current PR personage, as I already have the memo and she never calls back, anyway.)

Here’s Hantman’s full email to Yahoo staffers on the move:

From: David Hantman
Date: Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 9:41 AM
Subject: A brief announcement to help clutter your inbox
To: David Hantman

Friends –

With apologies for the impersonal nature of this e-mail, I wanted to let you know that I recently accepted a job at an exciting new company called airbnb, and will thus be leaving Yahoo! next month. I am already assisting in the process to select my successor, which will hopefully be complete soon.

This is a bittersweet departure for me, since I leave behind an awesome team and a company I love and believe in. But while I have loved every day of my 5+ years at Yahoo!, I am very excited to return to my startup roots. When I graduated law school way back in 1994, the first thing I did was to co-found an Internet company with a couple of friends. That company eventually went public, but I walked away for my Capitol Hill dream long before it had a viable business model (or really anything other than a few of us trying to convince the world that the Internet was going to be awesome someday). For the last five years, I have had the privilege of working for and among my heroes — people who turned a simple list of neat web sites in 1995 into a company that serves 700 million users and helped revolutionize the way people get and share information around the world.

Now, though, I have a second chance at the startup life — this time at a company whose brilliant founders have already proved it to be an amazing and disruptive business. I am excited to join an incredible team at airbnb and, hopefully, to be a small part of their future success. Airbnb is maybe the most successful little known company in the world. Millions of people have used the service to rent rooms or entire apartments — even private islands — as an alternative to hotels. They have some huge challenges with a few antiquated laws in their biggest markets, so my job will be to help them convince governments that allowing people to rent out their own homes or apartments should not be a problem, and that in fact it is great for the economy and for the tons of people that can only pay their mortgage or rent through the extra income they get from airbnb. For hundreds of years families have been taking in boarders or renting out extra space, and this service is just bringing that process into the 21st century, at a time when it is more needed than ever. As always, I like to be on the right side of history, and I believe in the mission and the team over there.

Anyway, please let’s stay in touch. I will be headquartered in DC to start, and while this yahoo-inc e-mail will soon stop working, my personal e-mail will stay the same:

xxx@xxx.com [redacted by ATD, since it is Hantman's personal email]

All the best!

David

Over the past four years, it has become evident that the town hall of American government has moved online and into the social arena. Public officials in every corner of government — not just politicians — are expanding their use of social media to better understand and communicate with today’s digital citizens.

With an estimated 107 million Twitter users in the United States and another 156 million Americans using Facebook, more and more people expect real-time access and authentic engagement with everything from the brands they love to the governments they elect. In fact, according to a survey by Accenture of citizens in seven countries, including the United States, 50 percent believe that being able to interact digitally with government would encourage them to become more engaged and would make government more transparent.

Recognizing the opportunity to engage the digital generation in the democratic process, the state of Washington took the unprecedented step in July of becoming the first U.S. state to allow eligible residents to register to vote in this year’s election through Facebook. The secure registration process Washington developed clearly signals the collapse of the last few barriers to the public acceptance of social media as a critical — and secure — medium for government communications. In addition to increasing voter participation, the new process will require no printing, signing or mailing of forms to a state office — saving both time and state resources. Today, government is using social media to register voters, but soon we may see actual voting via Facebook, and the opportunity to become a truly digital democracy.

While encouraging, the state of Washington is unfortunately not the norm. In the same Accenture study that found a majority of Americans want greater social engagement from their government, fewer than half of the respondents believe their government has effectively leveraged social and digital platforms to ease access to public services. While major consumer brands are busy trying to meet the challenges of the social marketplace, most public-sector efforts lag behind citizen expectations. After Y2K, governments turned to “e-government” to dramatically improve their efficiency and effectiveness, building online portals to dispense important information about public services. However, the fundamental aspiration of Gov. 2.0 — a more personal, convenient and empowering interaction, a social contract with citizens — was not realized.

Even when government agencies decide to engage, most “social” programs are still relegated to one-way information broadcasting and sporadic individual use by officials. But mobility has brought us to a tipping point, and social engagement is the next frontier. The good news is that there are many other good examples to emulate.

In 2011, for example, FEMA officials were able to monitor social media conversations and respond to tornado disaster reports in Joplin, Mo., from citizens on the ground before official reports could be verified. And, in Boulder, Colo., real-time social communications between citizens and government through Facebook and Twitter helped save lives and property as a wildfire raged in 2010.

New York City has re-engineered a tool from the analog era — 311 — into a leading social media support system to facilitate more efficient citizen interaction with city government and reduce public services spending. Leveraging Twitter and Facebook from a mobile device, residents can use NYC 311 to request pothole repair or report graffiti simply by attaching a photo and hitting the send button. The system shortens government response time, reduces costs and deepens the connection between citizens and local government.

The federal government also has begun leveraging the connectivity of social media to streamline government and save taxpayer money. A good example is an innovative program called the SAVE Award (Securing Americans Value and Efficiency), which effectively crowd sources cost-saving ideas from federal employees on how to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. Since introducing the program in 2009, federal employees have submitted more than 56,000 cost-cutting ideas.

Social media applications are used very effectively throughout the private sector to trim costs and improve efficiency. Cisco, for example, says it has been able to reach 90 times the audience for a key router it produces at one-sixth the cost through social channels.

Imagine the potential savings and insights that government could generate by having an ongoing online dialogue with citizens. Getting there would require funding for the tools, training, analytics and measurement needed, but there’s no doubt, in this era of continued belt tightening, that social media could render a positive return on investment.

Government agencies can start now by taking three steps:

• First, they should conduct a bottom-up assessment to determine how best to leverage social media to serve the unique needs of their constituents. Agencies at every government level should review programs and practices built for the offline era to determine how the social marketplace can reshape their service offerings for the next decade.
• Next, government workforces must be given the tools necessary to create two-way integration, especially those under 30 who prefer to communicate through social channels. They must be trained in all relevant digital technology to be ready for the next phase of citizen communication.
• Finally, governments should solicit direct feedback from the public through free tools like Facebook and Twitter. This type of “digital democracy” enables citizens to make recommendations in real time and to play a leading role in shaping everything from public policy to public services.

Increased transparency through social media at all levels of government can deepen the connection with the public, instill a greater sense of trust and drive increased citizen participation. With a majority of Americans seeking more social interaction with their government, and the potential for increased efficiency and cost savings, social engagement will help create the public services for the future that digital citizens demand and deserve.

Stephen J. Rohleder is group chief executive for Accenture’s global Health & Public Service business.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has written a book on challenges facing women in the workplace that is expected to be published next year by Knopf.

Titled “Lean In,” the book is not a memoir, but a “call to action” with a lot of research and data, laced with anecdotes of the experience of one of Silicon Valley’s most high-profile female executives and also many other women.

“I believe that the world would be a better place if half our institutions were run by women, and half our homes were run by men,” said Sandberg in an email to me earlier this week. “The book contains practical advice for women — and the men who want to help them — on how to lean in and close the gap.”

Juggling leadership roles and family has been a central topic of Sandberg’s in numerous speeches she has given in recent years.

Among the key themes she has outlined — most prominently in a TEDTalk in 2010, which is embedded below — is the lack of progress for women in top positions and the loss to society when half the population holds only one-fifth of the top jobs across key industries.

The title comes from her advice in these speeches for women to lean in to their work rather than lean back, as many tend to do for a variety of reasons at key points in their careers.

In the speeches, Sandberg — who worked in a high-ranking job at Google and also did a stint in government at the Treasury Department in the Clinton administration — also advised women not to “leave before you leave” a job.

In one speech, she said:

“So, my heartfelt message is: Don’t leave before you leave. Don’t lean back, lean in. Keep your foot on the gas pedal until the day you have to make a decision. That’s the only way to ensure you even have a decision to make.”

The book’s publication, largely due to Sandberg’s prominence, is likely to reignite a heated debate over the longstanding issue about women and work. That includes in tech, where there are still a paucity of female CEOs, board members and venture capitalists.

Speaking of debate, publishing such a book — or being seen as doing anything not related directly to Facebook’s business — at such a dicey time for the company is sure to attract some negative attention for Sandberg and possibly Facebook.

That’s especially true after its botched public offering, which has been followed by a deep drop in the stock to half its initial IPO price and worries about its core business growth.

To be fair, the ideas in “Lean In” have been developed over many years and Sandberg has long noted that the discussion of these issues is too important to wait.

Sandberg said she finished the book well before Facebook’s recent tumultuous IPO and on her own time.

She added that she would eventually promote it on her own vacation time, too, and that all her profits will go to charities that support women. But Sandberg did not volunteer the advance she got paid for “Lean In.”

Along with that possible (and inevitable) why-aren’t-you-fixing-the-stock criticism, penning such a book might also further encourage persistent rumors that Sandberg will eventually leave Facebook, including to pursue a political office.

Not true, said Sandberg, who said firmly that she plans to stay put at Facebook as the No. 2 exec to co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He has apparently known about the book project since its beginning and has encouraged it.

To complete the book — which is now being edited — Sandberg worked with a full-time writer, Nell Scovell, as well as a researcher, Marianne Cooper.

Scovell, a journalist and longtime television writer in Hollywood, started helping Sandberg with her speeches about two years ago. Cooper is a sociologist at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University and is the author of the forthcoming University of California Press book, “Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times.”

Until the book is out, here’s a taste of what Sandberg has had to say so far on women and leadership at both her TEDTalk in December of 2010 and also at a commencement speech at Barnard College last May:

Perhaps that’s hyperbolic. But let’s look at the facts: San Jose, the third-largest city in California, could use more efficient ways to communicate official messages with its constituents. And Nextdoor, a social network that bills itself as the private alternative to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, needs more ways of spreading to new users.

Which is why the marriage of the two makes sense. As of Tuesday, the city of San Jose can use Nextdoor to distribute information to the network. With the new hookup, local government can send out messages to all those San Jose residents on Nextdoor, regardless of the neighborhood in which they reside. Ideally, it will mostly contain information on things like utility shutdowns, volunteering opportunities, emergency preparedness — all typical messages that you’d expect from local governmental bodies.

It’s different from the way the network usually functions. Nextdoor members are limited to communication within their neighborhoods, or cordoned-off areas within each district of a city. The idea there is to foster localized discussion within a community, without expanding beyond a critical mass. Unlike the typical user, the city of San Jose will be able to send out messages to everyone at once.

Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia

It looks to be a smart pairing between private enterprise and city government. But it is also a broader strategy move for Nextdoor, a network whose virality is self-limited by its very nature. To keep in line with its message of extreme privacy, users can only sign up if they’ve verified their physical address, and even after that, they can’t cross over into interacting with people outside of their neighborhood. Existing users evangelizing the network to newcomers by word of mouth is effective, the company tells me, but it is also slow. So cozying up to local governments, then, is another method of distribution — have San Jose blanket-pitch the service to its residents, and Nextdoor gets a better chance at citywide adoption. And if it takes off in a handful of major cities, it’s easy to think it will spread to others quickly.

The network is still private by design; the city (and other constituents) can only see you if you decide to respond to one of its messages. And even if you do respond, your only viewable information is your first name, last initial and the neighborhood in which you live. The idea is to maintain a level of accountability to fight against spam and abuse, while keeping residents comfortable with the amount of information they’re sharing about themselves.

This is the direction CEO Nirav Tolia thinks we’re trending toward: Localized discussion facilitated through the Internet, and made easier through the mutual trust gained in accountability. “It’s conceivable that in the next 10 years, all of this discourse will move online,” Tolia told me in an interview. “I would like to think that Nextdoor will play a critical role in doing that with cities and local governments.” As of now, more than 60 different cities — most of them in California — are using the network for top-down communications to their residents.

To be sure, Nextdoor isn’t a panacea for governmental communications issues. For one, city government can’t rely solely on Nextdoor for issuing communitywide alerts and notifications, mostly because not everyone in the city is signed up to use the network. And the city is limited on how many messages it can send out per week — and that may be restricting in terms of getting all of its communications sent out.

But the fiscally enfeebled San Jose will take what it can get. Along with the rest of California, San Jose’s budget is in tatters. “We’re broke,” councilwoman Rose Herrera told me in an interview. “Any free tools like these are more than welcome.”

RIM was at that point at the zenith of its power. Its share price earlier that summer had hit a historic peak of $144.56 — or about 19 times the price it was trading at today — that it would never see again. Apple’s iPhone had been on the market for a little more than a year, and Google’s Android was barely on the scene. RIM’s co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, both of whom I interviewed, seemed in utter denial to the threat the iPhone and Android so clearly represented, even then.

With the shares trading at $7.39 as of the close of market today, the devastating slide in RIM’s share price has done incredible damage to the personal fortunes of the two founders: As of April, Lazaridis and Balsillie together still owned nearly 11 percent of the outstanding shares of RIM. As of today’s closing share price, the paper fortunes of RIM’s two founders, once about $4 billion each, has declined to $219.2 million for Lazaridis and $198.8 million for Balsillie, according to Canadian regulatory filings.

So it goes. RIM’s survival as a going concern is now officially in doubt. Investors now value the company as being worth less than $4 billion, and of that more than half is its $2.2 billion in cash. With operating expenses at their current level running at about $307 million per month, RIM has enough cash on hand to fund operations for another seven months or so.

The company will be firing people and restructuring its operations to lower those costs and buy time. But time is not on its side. Its options are dwindling, and it will either end up in the hands of another company, be chopped up into pieces in a bankruptcy proceeding, or cease to exist.

But time is on the side of the two nonprofit foundations that the two RIM co-founders started when they were at the height of their wealth. In fact, there’s a pretty good chance that they will outlive the company that generated the wealth that funded their creation.

By far the most well-known nonprofit linked to RIM is the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, an institution founded in 1999 primarily with $170 million in donations from Lazaridis’s personal fortune. Its mission is to provide a place where some of the world’s smartest people come together to try to unlock the secrets of the nature of the universe.

I toured its impressive facility (pictured) in 2008, and while I was in Waterloo, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Brian Greene, a professor of mathematics and physics at Columbia University. He’s the author of “The Elegant Universe,” which was adapted into a PBS TV series of the same name. What surprised me most was that on a hot August evening, there wasn’t a single open seat at the local high school’s stuffy auditorium. (I wrote about the lecture, and published an audio recording of it on my rarely-updated personal blog.)

Greene is not the only superstar lecturer who has given talks in Waterloo under the auspices of the Perimeter Institute. In 2008, Stephen Hawking was named the institute’s distinguished research chair, and has regularly visited to give lectures like this one in 2010.

In short, the Perimeter Institute has, in its brief life, become a heavy hitter in the field of theoretical physics. It’s also living well within its means. According to its annual report for the 2011 fiscal year, the institute exited the year with nearly $272 million on its books, and reported $18.6 million in operating expenses, more than half of which was spent on research.

Aside from the gift from Lazaridis, the institute has secured $50 million in grants from the federal government of Canada through 2017, and another $50 million from the provincial government of Ontario through 2021. It raised an additional $5 million in private donations. Its spokesman, John Matlock, told me that its fortunes aren’t directly linked with those of its founding benefactor: “Perimeter was founded through the vision and personal philanthropy of Mike Lazaridis, and the institute continues to grow its research, training and outreach activities via a successful public-private partnership involving a wide variety of members who equally value the importance of theoretical physics,” he told me via email.

It’s a similar situation at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a global policy think tank founded by Balsillie in 2001. Its mission is to suss out through research the complicated questions about how world governments can do their jobs better, and it aims to have some influence over actual policies that get enacted. One bit of credit it claims is the research that led to the creation of the G20 group of major economies.

It appears to be similarly well-funded; it exited the year with about $203 million in its endowment, according its 2011 annual report, and reported operating expenses of $38.4 million. CIGI began with a combined $30 million gift from Balsillie, who gave $20 million; and Lazaridis, who gave $10 million. Another $30 million in matching funds came from Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Its $69 million campus was built with $50 million in federal and provincial aid, and sits on land leased for 99 years rent-free from the City of Waterloo.

Regardless of how they’re funded, these institutions will, by all appearances, live on long after RIM as we know it today becomes a memory.

It’s clear — especially from this interview with Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz at the 10th D: All Things Digital conference — that the federal government is going to spend more time scrutinizing Internet companies and their behavior.

“The more protection these consumers have, the more they trust it, and the more commerce they do,” Leibowitz said in a wide-ranging interview that focused a lot on “privacy by design” and transparency in the face of ever-growing power by digital-data-sucking companies like Facebook and Google.

Leibowitz could not say much about an ongoing antitrust investigation of Google, except to note that he had just hired his own outside big legal gun to keep up with the search giant’s, in case of, well, you know.

Here’s the video of the full interview with Walt Mossberg:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120627/ftcs-jon-leibowitz-takes-your-privacy-very-seriously-the-full-d10-interview-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120501/facebook-ipo-docs-could-get-approval-this-week-followed-by-road-show-with-zuckerberg-no-guarantee-on-tie/ http://allthingsd.com/20120501/facebook-ipo-docs-could-get-approval-this-week-followed-by-road-show-with-zuckerberg-no-guarantee-on-tie/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 12:58:49 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=201743

According to sources close to the situation, Facebook is anticipating getting approval from government regulators to officially distribute its S-1 public offering prospectus to investors within days, which would mean its road show could begin as early as next week.

As I reported back in January, the social networking giant is expected to go public in the second or third week of May, a timeline (get it?) which currently appears to be on track.

In addition — although some have speculated that its famous CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg might not take a “hands-on” role in the high-profile process, having missed one pre-IPO meeting with Wall Street analysts and bankers (can you blame him?) — sources said he would be appearing before potential shareholders, and would be present at key meetings to help sell the company to them.

Of course, he will — although there was much speculation that the Silicon Valley superstar would bow out of any of the hubbub around the huge IPO, and that bankers were practically begging him to appear, sources said Zuckerberg is too key to all aspects of its business not to appear.

(No word as yet on whether he will don a tie, as he sometimes does, or if his usual hoodie will be Zuckerberg’s outfit of choice — although his sartorial choices on the road show are sure to get excessive media scrutiny.)

“Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Zuckerberg is Facebook,” said one person with knowledge of the situation. “He’ll do his job as CEO, as he always does.”

Indeed, although he is often portrayed as shy and not a fan of the limelight, Zuckerberg has always stepped up — and rather enthusiastically — when a public appearance is needed, whether in times of trouble or touting for the eight-year-old company.

This is a touting-Facebook moment, of course, as it seeks to raise up to $10 billion in a blockbuster offering that could value the company at $75 billion or more. Filed in February, that will make it the biggest Internet IPO ever.

Also expected to play key roles in the road show are CFO David Ebersman and COO Sheryl Sandberg, as well as other top Facebook execs.

Whether they all can rev up the jets and get going on the road show depends on the Securities and Exchange Commission finally declaring Facebook’s preliminary prospectus of its business and finances “effective” or in legal compliance.

Facebook has updated the initial filing several times, with new financials as well as information about its purchase of photo-sharing site Instagram and its ever-nasty patent battle with Yahoo.

But, overall, the SEC process has been rather smooth for the company, and sources said it appears it will continue that way.

After the road show: A sales process in which investors ask their questions of management and then officially begin to place orders for Facebook stock.

Among the areas of likely concern are that Yahoo patent lawsuit and, most importantly, how Zuckerberg and others characterize the slowing of its explosive revenue growth in its most recent filing update.

Last week, Facebook said its revenue was $1.058 billion, up 46 percent for the year, but down 6 percent from the previous quarter. In the first quarter of 2012, its net income was $205 million, which was down from $233 million a year ago. The company attributed the decline to rising costs, including in marketing and in research.

After the road show, Facebook’s bankers will price the offering — which is widely expected to be massively oversubscribed — and then it will go public on the Nasdaq market, under the “FB” ticker.

The rest, as they say, will presumably be history — or, in fact, the future for Facebook in the public eye.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120501/facebook-ipo-docs-could-get-approval-this-week-followed-by-road-show-with-zuckerberg-no-guarantee-on-tie/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120412/boeing-planning-secure-android-device-for-u-s-government/ http://allthingsd.com/20120412/boeing-planning-secure-android-device-for-u-s-government/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:39:19 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=195877 Aerospace company Boeing has an Android device coming up, but it’s aimed at providing secure communications for the government rather than taking on the Galaxy Nexus. A representative confirmed to GeekWire that the device is in the works, but declined to offer details.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120412/boeing-planning-secure-android-device-for-u-s-government/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120409/blackberry-holding-on-to-d-c-incumbency/ http://allthingsd.com/20120409/blackberry-holding-on-to-d-c-incumbency/#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2012 22:51:41 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=194635 Even as the Beltway’s interest drifts toward Apple’s iPhone and an ever-widening array of Android handsets, the BlackBerry’s foothold in Washington remains strong. Though sales of Research In Motion’s iconic device are slipping most everywhere else, they’re holding steady in the halls of government.

At least the way RIM tells it, anyway. Scott Totzke, RIM’s senior vice president of BlackBerry Security, tells Bloomberg that sales to the federal government are generally pretty good.

“Compared to the enterprise over the last year and a half or so, the federal business on whole is up,” said Totzke. “The employee base is shrinking, so if we’re looking at a market with fewer employees and our install base is stable to slightly up, that would seem to indicate that we have an increasing market share.”

There is a caveat to that argument, though. Until recently, RIM’s BlackBerry was among the only mobile platforms to be awarded FIPS 140-2 certification, the security requirement mandated by the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) as standard for security in government agencies. But that’s beginning to change. There are now some FIPS 140-2 certified Android devices on the market and Apple is known to be seeking FISMA certification for the iPhone.

In other words, the BlackBerry doesn’t have the government market cornered anymore. And with more devices winning FISMA certs and more IT managers considering bring-your-own-device plans for their employees, RIM’s government stronghold may not be as solid as Totzke would like to think.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120409/blackberry-holding-on-to-d-c-incumbency/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120316/why-wasnt-secondmarket-part-of-the-sec-pre-ipo-stock-attack-ceo-barry-silberts-happy-to-tell-you-on-quora/ http://allthingsd.com/20120316/why-wasnt-secondmarket-part-of-the-sec-pre-ipo-stock-attack-ceo-barry-silberts-happy-to-tell-you-on-quora/#comments Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:42:19 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=187205

It’s one thing to not be targeted in any regulatory action that strafed your competitors, but SecondMarket CEO Barry Silbert used the opportunity to tout just why his company missed the bullets.

In an unusual and interesting post on social answer service Quora, Silbert gave a long answer to the question entrepreneur Jason Calacanis asked there: “Why wasn’t SecondMarket part of the SharesPost/secondary market SEC action today?”

That would be the investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed charges, as Arik Hesseldahl wrote earlier this week, “against two managers of private funds that had raised more than $70 million to acquire and trade pre-IPO shares of Facebook and other tech companies with misleading investors and charging undisclosed fees. It also brought charges against SharesPost, saying it had engaged in securities transactions without being registered as a broker-dealer.”

The move was part of a year-long inquiry aimed at secondary markets, where firms trade privately owned shares and options of pre-IPO companies.

Silbert, who runs one of the biggest companies in this sector, apparently decided to make hay while the Feds shone (up). In the Quora post, he noted: “I am proud to say that SecondMarket is not among those investigated or charged, which only reinforces SecondMarket’s ongoing commitment to being the trusted, compliant and fully-regulated marketplace in the startup and private company ecosystem.”

If he does say so himself!

All kidding aside, it is actually a novel way to turn a story that could tarnish everyone nearby into a plus. (Plus, ABC — Always Be Closing!)

Among the reasons that Silbert said SecondMarket was not part of the government probe: “Fully regulated, soup to nuts, from the start” (the company is a registered broker-dealer; “close coordination with private companies on all transactions” (“customized secondary markets,” he noted); “rigid accreditation process” of buyers; and “no disclosure of private company valuation and pricing.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120316/why-wasnt-secondmarket-part-of-the-sec-pre-ipo-stock-attack-ceo-barry-silberts-happy-to-tell-you-on-quora/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120309/here-come-the-first-d10-speakers-new-york-mayor-michael-bloomberg-entrepreneur-sean-parker-zyngas-mark-pincus-and-more-on-the-red-hot-seat/ http://allthingsd.com/20120309/here-come-the-first-d10-speakers-new-york-mayor-michael-bloomberg-entrepreneur-sean-parker-zyngas-mark-pincus-and-more-on-the-red-hot-seat/#comments Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:40:29 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=182153 Even though our D: All Things Digital conference always sells out well in advance every year without our announcing even one single speaker (like this one, too), it’s the action on stage that truly matters.

And in 2012 — which also happens to be the 10th anniversary of the confab of tech and media titans — it’s already shaping up to be another fantastic event in terms of programming, with a lineup of onstage appearances that is sure to make some news.

There are many more very big names to come, but Walt Mossberg and I are pleased to introduce the first group of interviewees, which will give you a glimpse into the firepower we expect at D10 in late May. It is again being held in Rancho Palos Verdes, just south of Los Angeles.

The initial speakers we have confirmed so far include: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; serial entrepreneur Sean Parker, who will appear with Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek; Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus; Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz; LinkedIn Chairman and VC Reid Hoffman, who will appear with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner; and Skype CEO Tony Bates.

It’s hard to imagine someone we have wanted to have onstage more than Michael Bloomberg, a man of many talents and interests. He’s known worldwide as the 108th Mayor of the City of New York. First elected in November 2001 (and again in 2005 and 2009), he is also one of the most compelling politicians in the U.S. today.

But Bloomberg is also a pioneer in terms of the business of digital news and information technology, having built a huge and groundbreaking media company and information service. Bloomberg (the company) has 310,000 subscribers to its financial news and information service, and more than 15,000 employees worldwide.

There will be a lot to talk about with him, from the upcoming presidential election to the state of our government to the future of innovation, news and technology.

Also sure to be voluble is Sean Parker, the legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has been on the cutting edge of innumerable important digital trends of the recent decade. In 1999, Parker co-founded Napster, the controversial and industry-changing music service, at the age of 19.

He followed up with early contact information service Plaxo, and then shifted over to his critical involvement as founding president of Facebook in its early days as a start-up, an experience which was dramatized in the movie “The Social Network.” Parker continued to found and also invest in companies, from Causes to Spotify to his most recent, Airtime, a social video company that he is doing with his Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning.

Parker will be appearing onstage with Daniel Ek, another serial entrepreneur and technologist, who started his first company in 1997 at the age of 14. The Swedish native later co-founded online music phenom Spotify in 2006, with Martin Lorentzon.

The former CTO of Stardoll and founder of Advertigo leads a company that is changing the way music is delivered and consumed by fans, against a backdrop of intense change in the industry, succeeding even as a plethora of other services have stumbled.

Also a groundbreaker is Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus, yet another serial entrepreneur, whose latest effort in the online gaming arena has finally resulted in his biggest success. It recently went public, and now has a nearly $10 billion market cap.

Before founding Zynga in 2007, Pincus had already started three other companies: Push start-up Freeloader in 1995; automated tech-support company Support.com after that; and early social networking site Tribe.net in 2003.

(I met Pincus when he was at Freeloader in Washington, D.C., while writing a profile of him for the Washington Post, so I have enjoyed tracking his progress since then.)

Pincus is also an avid angel investor, with early stakes in Napster, Brightmail, Twitter and Facebook.

Reid Hoffman was another early investor in Facebook, along with many of Web 2.0’s most successful ventures. Well-known in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur and VC, and recently dubbed the “start-up whisperer” by the New York Times (although I am not sure exactly what that means), he’s also chairman of LinkedIn, the business-networking service that also recently went public (at a $10 billion valuation, too).

He’ll appear with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, who started out life in Hollywood, but soon made his way to Silicon Valley as a top exec at Yahoo. After running its media division, Weiner spent a short time at venture firms before going operational again at LinkedIn.

What it takes to build and maintain momentum as tech companies move into more mature stages, as well as how the social networking space evolves, are among the many topics on tap for the pair.

The evolution of a start-up phenom — in this case, Internet telephony service Skype — will be among the topics covered by Tony Bates, who is now a president at Microsoft, which bought it last year.

As such, he is responsible, says the software giant in its description of his job, “for overseeing the company’s direction, strategy and overall mission to become a global communications service that will eventually reach billions of users.”

That’s a tall order for Bates, who came to Skype from a top job at Cisco. Bates has deep roots (or maybe, routing?) in the guts of the Internet, having done backbone-engineering strategy for Internet MCI. The U.K. native also holds nine patents.

Lastly, given all the activity we expect will happen between government regulatory agencies and tech companies over the next few years, we felt it was key to bring in FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. He has been at the FTC as a commissioner since 2004, but was given the top job by President Barack Obama in 2009.

Among his priorities, according to his bio, is “promoting competition and innovation in the technology sector through law enforcement and policy initiatives; and protecting consumers’ privacy — especially while they are using the Internet.”

Uh-oh!

Leibowitz knows from regulation, having served as the Democratic chief counsel and staff director for the U.S. Senate Antitrust Subcommittee from 1997 to 2000, where he focused on competition policy and telecommunications matters, as well as a similar stint at the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Technology before that.

There will be a lot more speakers to come, of course. But, so far, we think D10 is off and running fast.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120309/here-come-the-first-d10-speakers-new-york-mayor-michael-bloomberg-entrepreneur-sean-parker-zyngas-mark-pincus-and-more-on-the-red-hot-seat/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120201/stop-poking-facebook-filing-crashes-sec-web-site/ http://allthingsd.com/20120201/stop-poking-facebook-filing-crashes-sec-web-site/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:28:20 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=170503

Apparently, Facebook has a lot of friends.

Clickety-clicking ones, whose massive interest in the just-filed IPO of the Silicon Valley social networking giant seems to have temporarily crashed the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR Web site, where anyone can access regulatory documents on companies.

We’re calling the SEC for comment right now, but the site is still hanging, and sources said the reason is the Facebook initial public offering filing.

Update: It’s back up! Though slow. Still, go government!

Another Update: The SEC got back to us and in response to the question of whether this was related to a Facebook surge, spokesman John Nester said, “Greatly increased traffic that began shortly before 5 pm slowed the public website. We are bringing on additional capacity to handle the load.”

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120201/stop-poking-facebook-filing-crashes-sec-web-site/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120130/staffers-file-suit-against-fda-for-monitoring-personal-email/ http://allthingsd.com/20120130/staffers-file-suit-against-fda-for-monitoring-personal-email/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:11:28 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=168859 A half-dozen former FDA employees have filed suit against the agency, offering evidence it secretly monitored their personal email for two years after they took their concerns about medical-device approvals to Congress. According to the Washington Post, the staffers contend the workplace monitoring was improper because the private activity was legal; the FDA may counter with allegations that confidential information was being disclosed.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120130/staffers-file-suit-against-fda-for-monitoring-personal-email/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120110/menry-is-back-at-hp-ceo-meg-whitman-hires-longtime-pr-guru-henry-gomez-as-top-flack/ http://allthingsd.com/20120110/menry-is-back-at-hp-ceo-meg-whitman-hires-longtime-pr-guru-henry-gomez-as-top-flack/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:18:28 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=162537

Through many years of working together, first at eBay and then during the failed California governor’s race, Meg Whitman has relied heavily on Henry Gomez for communications advice.

Their close working relationship even earned them the mash-up nickname among those at eBay and elsewhere: Menry.

So when she got the CEO job at Hewlett-Packard, it was a bit of a surprise that Gomez — who has recently been living on the East Coast (see baseball cap above) — helped out a lot, but was not named to the top PR slot at the tech giant.

No longer, it seems, with Gomez being named EVP and Chief Communications Officer at HP today.

It’s a big job, given the hard work that Whitman faces reviving the iconic tech company, which has been beset by strategic and business challenges of all kinds, shapes and sizes in recent years.

While it might be seen as an adjunct to the business, the forward-facing parts of HP are in need of a powerful public relations initiative, which is presumably why Whitman wanted one of her most trusted and longtime staffers in the post.

According to HP, Gomez will become a member of the company’s executive council and report directly to Whitman.

Said HP in its press release, which you can also read below: “Gomez will be responsible for HP’s media and industry analyst relations, executive communications, employee communications, government affairs and global social innovation.”

As in, the voice of Menry is back!

Here’s the release:

HP Names Henry Gomez Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer

PALO ALTO, CA, Jan 10, 2012 – HP today announced that Henry Gomez will join the company as executive vice president and chief communications officer.

Gomez also will become a member of HP’s executive council, reporting to Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer.

In this newly expanded role, Gomez will be responsible for HP’s media and industry analyst relations, executive communications, employee communications, government affairs and global social innovation.

Gomez, 48, comes to HP with 26 years of communications experience. He spent most of the last decade working at eBay, where he served in a variety of roles including senior vice president for Corporate Communications and president of Skype. Gomez played a crucial role in building eBay’s brand during the critical years following the company’s initial public offering.

Prior to joining eBay, Gomez was vice president of Corporate Affairs at HBO in New York. He started his communications career at Hill and Knowlton and has worked on a wide array of public relations and marketing communications challenges in numerous industries.

Most recently, Gomez ran his own consulting business, providing communications counsel to clients such as H&R Block. He was on the leadership team of Whitman’s 2010 campaign for governor of California and has been involved in government and political affairs throughout his career. In 2011, Gomez was appointed to the board of BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. He is a graduate of Boston College.

“Henry is an excellent manager and communications executive,” said Whitman. “People around the world care deeply about HP, and I believe we have an important obligation to clearly explain where we’re headed and why. Henry will work closely with the entire leadership team to make certain customers, partners, employees, and shareholders fully understand our vision and strategy.”

About HP HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com .

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120110/menry-is-back-at-hp-ceo-meg-whitman-hires-longtime-pr-guru-henry-gomez-as-top-flack/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111223/yahoo-okays-proceeding-with-term-sheet-to-sell-stakes-back-to-asian-partners-while-also-hoping-to-keep-pe-firms-in-fray/ http://allthingsd.com/20111223/yahoo-okays-proceeding-with-term-sheet-to-sell-stakes-back-to-asian-partners-while-also-hoping-to-keep-pe-firms-in-fray/#comments Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:23:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=156559

Yahoo shareholders felt a little giddier earlier this week, when it seemed as if the company had finally decided to make a deal with its Asian partners.

But the happiest crew might end up being the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s outside counsel, Skadden Arps — and especially Leif King, the fantastically named legal eagle who has been advising Yahoo on the deal.

That’s because today the Yahoo board approved continuing the negotiations to come to a final agreement over the stake, sources said, which should take six to eight weeks.

It’ll surely be happy holidays for billable hours!

As costly as the legal bills will be, if it all goes well, an Asian solution will mean one major problem solved, with a possible pile of cash and new assets coming in to Yahoo.

To get there, the company signed a term sheet earlier this week with Japan’s SoftBank to sell back all its holdings there, and with China’s Alibaba Group to sell off more than half its stake (moving from a 40 percent stake to a 15 percent one).

The deal values Yahoo’s total shares in both companies at about $17 billion.

While it gets a pretty accounting name — “cash-rich split “– the vehicle to unwind it all is essentially a complex tax dodge finally cooked up by the trio, in which cash, new assets and stock will be moved around until everyone gets what they want (except the U.S. government).

I would explain it — but I am on vacation, and would rather drink eggnog and sleep — so here is The Wall Street Journal’s version, which I like because it sounds like Alibaba and SoftBank are giving Yahoo a hugely loaded Starbucks card for Christmas:

“As envisioned in the scenario, Alibaba would create a subsidiary into which it would put several billion dollars of cash, plus an operating asset that Yahoo wants to buy using additional cash from Alibaba, almost like giving Yahoo a prepaid card for an asset of its choice, the people said.”

Everyone is hoping there will not be any hiccups in the deal, which has been spearheaded by Yahoo board member and Intuit CEO Brad Smith, and Jerry Yang, who is also the company’s co-founder and a major shareholder.

Alibaba CEO Jack Ma and CFO Joe Tsai, both co-founders of that company, were the point men for the Chinese company. And for SoftBank, it was its founder and CEO Masa Son and his main U.S. exec, Ron Fisher.

Now, said sources, Yahoo’s board is hoping to still keep the bids from a pair of private equity firms — Silver Lake and TPG Capital — alive.

While initially the focus on the action, the PE bidding for partial Yahoo stakes has recently been sidelined by the Asian deal.

Now, sources said, Yahoo is hoping the new infusion of cash and assets will allow it fend off shareholder unrest — stock buybacks and dividends, anyone — to solicit higher prices from the firms to make strategic investments.

Yahoo had considered the initial bids too low, as did some very pissed-off activist shareholders.

Still, it’s not clear if those firms will jack their offers now, although sources said Silver Lake is still interested in some sort of deal that would give it influence over remaking Yahoo.

Silver Lake and others think the long-troubled company could be revived with some effort, and become a much more lucrative Web property.

But those negotiations might run into roadblocks over who gets to pick leadership for the company. Yahoo has accelerated its efforts to hire a new CEO, after firing Carol Bartz in September.

The PE firms, who would buy a large stake in Yahoo, also have wanted some level of control, including CEO and board approval, in order to be able to make massive changes at the company to turn it around.

Wall Street seems to like the Asian part of the deal, at least, since it shows some sort of forward momentum at Yahoo, and from its often-lugubrious board.

Shares are up almost 7 percent in the last few days, although they are not popping as they might be, given that new valuations based on a successful Asian deal put the stock at a much higher price.

In other words, investors like what they see, but are watching and waiting for more.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111223/yahoo-okays-proceeding-with-term-sheet-to-sell-stakes-back-to-asian-partners-while-also-hoping-to-keep-pe-firms-in-fray/feed/ 0