Earlier this week, I appeared on Bloomberg West with the ever-delightful Emily Chang to talk about my recent article in Vanity Fair magazine about the rise of Instagram and its sale to Facebook, titled “The Money Shot.”

You can read the full piece here or here, but this turned out to be a long — 10 minutes — interview that has a lot more detail (if you are interested, of course).

Among other things, Chang asked me more about the fractured relationship between the mobile photo-sharing app’s co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom and one of his key mentors, Twitter inventor Jack Dorsey, in the wake of the billion-dollar sale to Facebook (and not Twitter), which I called a “bromance gone awry.”

Indeed, Dorsey’s quote on the end of their relationship over Instagram’s choice was pretty sad:

“I found out about the deal when I got to work and one of my employees told me about it, after reading it online I got a notice later that day since I was an investor,” said Dorsey. “So I was heartbroken, since I did not hear from Kevin at all. We exchanged e-mails once or twice, and I have seen him at parties. But we have not really talked at all since then, and that’s sad.”

As I also wrote, “Dorsey’s last Instagram shot perhaps said the proverbial thousand words about it all: A picture of an empty Muni bus” (which is seen above).

You can’t always get what you want, but here’s the Bloomberg West interview, anyway:

According to sources, Facebook has moved well-regarded exec Emily White to a new job as director of business operations at its Instagram mobile photo-sharing unit.

In this capacity, she will work with Instagram head and co-founder Kevin Systrom to scale nascent efforts to expand partnerships, improve user operations and, presumably, come up with ways to make some money. The fast-growing service, which the social networking site bought a year ago in a billion-dollar mega-deal, has been popular with consumers, but it has not focused as much on its business operations.

(Update: Facebook confirmed the move and also released this statement from Systrom: “I’m excited to bring Emily White onto the Instagram team. As we continue to scale our operation to support over 100 million active users, her experience with partnerships and business operations will play a major role in our future success.”)

In fact, related to business, it has waded more into controversy — such as when changes to its terms of service suggested that Instagram could sell user photos to advertisers, a change that was quickly rescinded by Systrom. That said, it left the door open to selling advertising of some sort on the app.

White has a lot of experience in the online ad space in smoothing out and organizing ops, both at Google — where she previously worked — and at Facebook, where she started in the deal-making arena and later worked on mobile partnerships.

White — who has recently been courted by other Internet startups, reportedly including scrapbooking phenom Pinterest — is also on the board of women’s yoga and running gear retailer Lululemon. That’s good since part of her new job will be to get more big brands integrated into Instagram, which has already begun to do that with some initial level of success.

Systrom will continue to focus more on product development and overall strategy and vision, which he has done since Instagram was purchased last April.

(That photo above is of White, which she just posted on her Instagram account — natch!)

Serial entrepreneur Brenden Mulligan wants to convince me to feel otherwise. Not by changing my laziness, but by catering to it.

Yes, his new project, Cluster, is a photo-sharing application. But it targets the people much like myself, who always seem to put in the minimum viable effort in their friendships (or the photo documentation of them, at least).

Say you go out with your friends for something. New Year’s Eve. A bachelor party. Whatever. Everyone loves a photo album commemorating your good time, right? (Agree with me, for the sake of argument.) Problem is, there are guys like me: I’m too lazy to upload my photos to a group Dropbox, a shared Tumblr, even an ongoing email list. Yes, I am a terrible friend.

So Cluster works like this: Users create albums — or “clusters,” natch — centered around a specific date, time and folks who attended. You, the proactive photo gatherer, upload the appropriate pictures to the Cluster.

You then pick which friends attended, and the app will automatically find which pictures in your friends’ albums were likely associated with that event, based on a few factors found in the metadata. Your friends have to do little more than agree to share those photos.

The idea, unlike recent releases such as Albumatic, is that users want to come back and revisit those photos later on, after the event. Not while it’s going on. That’s different from the flopped Color app, or the most recent version of Highlight.

“If I’m out with a group of people, I don’t want to be looking at the pictures I’m taking in the moment,” Mulligan told me. “I want to be enjoying the moment.”

That’s an idea I totally sign on to. I like actually having fun, rather than looking at all the fun I’m “having” by staring at my phone the whole time. It’s part of what I strongly dislike about Silicon Valley — the pointed act of letting others know just how much I’m enjoying myself is not only obnoxious, it makes little sense.

Still, we return to the familiar problem: Do folks want yet another photo-sharing application?

Perhaps so. Cluster seems to offer more utility than some competitors, and Mulligan hints that there’s more to come (an Android version, reducing duplicate photos, better recognition capabilities, etc.).

Whatever. I can get behind an app that helps me fend off the pestering of my digital-scrapbooking friends.

It’s in the App Store now if you want to check it out.

Yup, really. And if your memory goes back more than a few months, this will one will have multiple echoes from the past: Not only is Albumatic a new photo-sharing app, but it’s a location-specific photo-sharing app. So it’s treading ground that lots of apps, including high-profile flops like Color and Highlight, have stumbled on before.

But this one may still be worth checking out. For starters, the pitch sounds a lot more compelling than its predecessors: Albumatic is designed solely to let friends who are in the same place co-create shared photo albums, using their iPhones. Period.

Okay, there’s a tiny bit more: If you aren’t in the same place as your pals, you can see the photo albums they’ve created. But that’s it. Really. There’s no other social networking going on here, no public publishing, no filters, no nada.

Think of it as a social version of Apple’s shared photo stream. Or the way co-founders Adam Ludwin and Devon Gundry would like you to think about it: Like Facebook, back when Facebook was the thing college kids used to share party pictures, without worrying about what their parents or prospective employers would think.

Ludwin is the other reason to pay attention to Albumatic. Until now, he has been a principal at RRE Ventures, but is stepping away from the VC firm to launch the app; he’ll stay affiliated with RRE, and will continue to manage his existing portfolio. (Ludwin writes in to clarify his RRE relationship: “I am going to continue to manage my existing companies and be part of the RRE team while I focus on Albumatic.”)

Until last fall, that portfolio also included another sharing app you’ve heard about: Vine, the GIF-maker Twitter just launched. Last year, Ludwin helped Vine co-founders Dom Hofmann and Rus Yusupov get that one off the ground; prior to that, he had worked with the two on Fame, a Twitter app that was supposed to give a single Twitter user a bunch of followers for a day. That one got shut down by … Twitter.

All of which is to say that this one will get a fair bit of attention, and likely quick funding, when they get around to that. What they’re not interested in doing, says Ludwin, is charging for the app, or selling ads on the app. Which means if it works, and they don’t flip it quickly to the likes of a Yahoo or an Apple, they’ll have to figure out how to sell … something.

First things first: No way to tell if people are going to use a social app until they start using a social app. If you haven’t started playing with it yet, here’s a video that won’t provide much information at all, except that the Albumatic people hope that lots of attractive young people will use their product. That’s a real band, by the way, not a Vampire Weekend stand-in. They’re called The Miracals.

Earlier today Yahoo reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates, on still-flattish revenue.

Still, up is up, even if it is not really that much up, so Wall Steet bid up shares of the Silicon Valley Internet giant in after-hours trading.

Now it’s onto the conference call with investors for CEO Marissa Mayer:

2:02 pm: Before the call, you can hear Mayer complaining about the goofy music played during the pre-conference call waiting time.

“We have to get better music,” she says to some minion. “This is not good music.”

Music to my ears! I say we get Beyoncé, lipsyncing or not.

The call starts quickly after that, with the ever-eager Mayer leaping right in with the fourth-quarter news, which is not all that bad.

It’s the first full year of growth in a while — though not the first quarter-to-quarter increase — even if it is only a very modest two percent increase.

That compares to industry-wide gains in revenue of many, many, many times that, but for Yahoo this is cause for a parade. A small parade, with good music, but a parade nonetheless.

“It’s hard to believe this is only my first full quarter here at Yahoo,” says Mayer in an upbeat tone.

She notes that her focus on product excellence and user experience was continuing, with some “early positive trends” in both products and people.

Mayer then list a series of moves, from the free food and better smartphones for employees to the addition of well-regarded entrepreneur Max Levchin to the board to the refreshes of Yahoo Mail and Flickr to the acquisition of some sassy new mobile startups.

Mayer also notes that the company under her purview had removed “385 of highest priority obstacles,” although she did not name any specifics.

I imagine what No. 332 is: Switching out the iceberg lettuce at the URL cafeteria on Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif. HQ campus with some tasty organic mesclun as they have at Google, from whence Mayer came.

Better roughage means better returns!

2:14 pm: Mayer turns the call over to CFO Ken Goldman, also a newbie. As usual, he runs through the numbers that are already in all the releases already. But I am enjoying his New England accent, hoping he will say the slight increase in revenue was “wicked” good.

Goldman, in fact, calls the revenue increase “modest,” which is true, although it sounds like “mah-dist.”

What’s not mah-dist is how much stock Yahoo has bought back, using its windfall from the recent sale of assets in China. It’s $1.45 billion, with more that that left to use for more share buybacks. That should keep Yahoo’s stock up nicely.

Goldman also talks about increases in the company’s search business, although notes that the Microsoft relationship is still not the most fantastic.

He speaks more effusively of Yahoo’s Asian partners, including Yahoo! Japan and China’s Alibaba Group. It’s deserved, since they have been the company’s treasure trove against its meh core performance in recent years.

Not so tasty is the problem Yahoo has with a big-money contract dispute in Mexico, which Goldman reiterates is “without merit.”

2:28 pm: Goldman moves onto Yahoo’s cash position, which is strong and which he says is going to be used to make the company better.

Mayer is back on board, talking about key focuses over multiple years.

She says Yahoo needs a “chain reaction of growth,” which needs to be fueled by a dozen new products that become a daily habits for consumers to increase usage and other metrics.

A nuclear bomb explosion is not exactly the best metaphor for a company’s turnaround, but in Yahoo’s case it is probably a pretty good one, given how stubborn its decline has been.

Mayer then switches the metaphor to one she recently used about “returning to the roots” of Yahoo.

Actually, mixing the metaphors, Yahoo has to blast some significant roots that have gotten in the way of its innovation over the years.

“The best is yet to come,” promises Mayer, in what she says will be a multi-year effort.

Now onto questions from the analysts!

2:40 pm: The first question is about commercialization of its products. Mayer answers she is both pro-advertising and anti-ad — meaning they are good when they add to user experience and bad when they do not.

There will be slight margin declines due to this, which is the real point of the query, which Goldman says will not be too impacted.

The next question is on the weaker performance in display ads and whether mobile ads can ramp up quick enough or not.

Yahoo is not breaking out mobile revenue numbers as yet — it’s not impressive as yet, so that’s what’s going on there — although Mayer points to the number of mobile users increasing to 200 million now.

As to the declines in display, Mayer gives a non-answer, but it is likely due to big changes that new Yahoo COO Henrique De Castro has put into place in the way it sells ads and which AllThingsD.com previously reported on. Mayer earlier in the call had confirmed those changes.

The fact of the matter — which is just what the analyst was asking about — is that Mayer simply has to improve display revenue, which is Yahoo’s core business.

Mayer then addresses the issue of not providing usage metrics anymore. Yahoo has withheld a lot of them since she has taken over, and she says it is because they are not indicative of metrics that, well, she thinks you need to know.

Instead, Mayer points to other metrics that she feels are better, such as number of ads sold and price per click on search.

Speaking of search, the next question is about that. What can Mayer say — and she does — but that Yahoo must also improve in that area. Indeed, it is lucrative low-hanging fruit for the company.

Here comes an interesting observation she makes based on a question of mobile versus desktop, which Mayer says should not be separated as two areas as consumers don’t think that way.

Yahoo is tuning up a dozen products, she says, having started with Yahoo Mail and its Flickr photo-sharing app.

2:54 pm: Mayer is not saying which of this dirty dozen is next to get a makeover.

“We’re investing in small, nimble, excellent teams,” says Mayer, who then tries to reference a famous Margaret Mead quote, but ends up mangling it a bit.

It is, for the record: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

This is true, which might make some Yahoo staffers nervous, since Mayer’s recent stack ranking of them means she can start on employee layoffs anytime she likes to separate the wheat from the chaff.

3:01 pm: Whoo-whee, this is going long and I am getting weary. Mayer has to be some kind of digital Energizer Bunny — she just flew in from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and moved right into the prep for the Q4 earnings.

Tomorrow, she is presumably off to Las Vegas, where Yahoo’s global sales conference will start and she will doubtlessly be making an appearance.

I am exhausted simply by walking up and down the stairs at my house.

The next question is about third-party publishers and ad tech on mobile.

“Mobile monetization is new for everyone,” she says correctly, making the point that no one knows what is going to shake out.

She uses — as she has used — the example of when people thought search was not a moneymaker until Google proved otherwise.

The problem is, of course, that Google is Yahoo’s biggest rival in this new mobile ad arena, along with Facebook and many others. And Google, as its recent results showed, does know how to make money compared to Yahoo.

The next question is about mobile monetization eating into desktop revenue.

Mayer notes that Yahoo has hired 120 people with computer science degrees in the quarter to work on that area.

In other words, get ready for a symphony of geeks to return Yahoo to relevance.

Would they can pull it off, as that would be a tune worth listening to.

Speaking of something worth listening to, here is a video of Diana Ross’ song, “Chain Reaction,” to enjoy:

Perhaps as soon as tomorrow, people familiar with the company tell me.

But when Vine does launch, you won’t find it on Twitter, at least not as a fully integrated feature.

Prior to the Twitter acquisition, Vine was going to be a standalone iOS app. And that’s still the case: The startup still operates on its own, and if you want to use the service you’ll need to download it from Apple’s App store.

Why would you want to download Vine? Because it’s supposed to be a fun tool for making and sharing very short video clips — no longer than six seconds a pop — in the same way that Instagram worked for photos. And it’s designed in a similar way, with the ability to follow other Vine users’ clips, explore stuff from people you don’t know, etc.

There are other apps that do something similar, but one notable difference with Vine is the way you use it — after hitting a “record” button on the app, you hold your thumb on the screen to start filming. Take it off, and the camera stops.  You can use the app to create one straight take, or take lots of little shots, and make digital montages or flip-books (take a look at Costolo’s clip, below, which looks like it’s composed of eight or nine very quick takes).

All of that’s according to people who’ve seen the app.

Those people also tell me that one thing you don’t see on Vine is any kind of Twitter branding. This is a Twitter-owned video service, but for now, at least, it’s not “Twitter’s video service.”

As Costolo demonstrated today, you’ll be able to share video from the app to Twitter. But that’s about it as far as integration goes. You could see how Twitter might want to link more deeply with Vine at some point, perhaps with a “record” button on Twitter’s own app, but not right now.

For more info, you might want to follow Vine’s own Twitter account, which hasn’t had anything to say quite yet.

Steak tartare in six seconds. vine.co/v/bOIqn6rLeIDvia @dhof

— dick costolo (@dickc) January 23, 2013

According to multiple sources close to the situation, Yahoo Connections SVP Shashi Seth is leaving the company. CEO Marissa Mayer sent an email to staff earlier today saying the last day for one of the top execs of the company would be tomorrow.

[UPDATE: A Yahoo spokesperson confirmed the departure of Seth, as well as that of Chief Information Security Justin Somaini, which I reported yesterday.]

As I reported last night, rumors of the former Google and AOL executive’s departure have been running through Yahoo for months and now it appears to be true.

Sources said Mayer is in the midst of culling top execs, even as some are contemplating departure due to unhappiness under her new regime.

Seth has been in charge of a swath of key products at Yahoo including Yahoo Mail, the Flickr photo-sharing service and many others. Mayer is an experienced product exec from her tenure at Google and has been involving herself deeply in that arena.

Seth also posted a goodbye on the LinkedIn social network, writing:

“After three years I have come to the incredibly hard decision to move on from Yahoo. I truly enjoyed working with an amazing team, that was passionate, hard working, and truly brilliant. I will miss working with them!”

This week in Las Vegas, the new management team running Yahoo — including CEO Marissa Mayer — is at International CES to schmooze with big advertisers and convince them that Yahoo is the place to put large chunks of their marketing budgets.

One of the longtime selling points of the company is the sheer size of its audience, especially for the key money-making parts of the site — the homepage, Yahoo Mail and search.

But private stats from comScore show that those three areas have continued their longtime decline over the last year, in some cases dropping significantly. In November and December, for example, compared to the same two months a year ago, U.S. search was down 28 percent and 24 percent respectively, while mail was down 16 percent and 12 percent.

This matters a great deal, since the troika of homepage, mail and search have been the critical driver of the Yahoo value ecosystem for advertisers.

The impact of those drops is felt all over Yahoo, whose music, movie, games and travel site have also seen massive drop-offs in traffic year over year in those same months.

Stopping the decline is critical for Yahoo, since Mayer herself has underscored the need for size in her pushing for new businesses at Yahoo that are 100 million users in size and/or have revenue prospects of at least $100 million.

While this is a lofty vision, the reality of traffic falloffs on key properties is a vexing issue, especially since they remain its main source of revenue and also an important element in launching future products Mayer is promising will turbocharge the company.

It’s not that Yahoo is not huge, especially compared to most sites on the Web.

As one of the top Internet brands, according to a recent Nielsen report, the average number of total monthly unique visitors for the longtime Silicon Valley Internet company in 2012 was 141.6 million, No. 3 behind Google and Facebook in the U.S. market. Similar rankings were reported by comScore, which placed Yahoo at the No. 2 spot after Google, with 171.4 million monthly visitors in November.

But, for many years, traffic to those important consumer destinations of Yahoo has been on a clear and unstopping decline, statistics (usually from comScore) that the company nonetheless always dutifully puts in its earnings slides — see below — for investors to get some idea of the major and vexing issues facing the company.

That was suddenly ended in the last quarter with the engagement slide removed from Yahoo’s public deck entirely. Not all companies include such stats, so when I inquired as to why the company had made the change, Yahoo PR never returned my phone call.

But it’s not hard to guess the reason for the shift — the numbers were not good and they called more attention to Yahoo’s glaring challenge, which is getting users reengaged with its products by creating what Mayer has dubbed several times “delightful” experiences.

According to numerous sources, that has also been the case within the company too, with the new regime restricting an internal transparency initiative pushed by former Chief Product Officer Blake Irving that shared product performance numbers with the top 100 leaders at Yahoo.

And while it’s an interesting strategic choice, several sources inside the company this week urged me to get ahold of increasingly worrisome numbers from comScore — available to its private clients — comparing November 2011 to November 2012 and also December 2011 to December 2012 at home and work in the U.S.

So I did, getting the same stats from numerous sources — numbers that a spokesman for comScore confirmed were correct.

And, as promised, they are worrisome indeed.

In November 2012, compared to November 2011, the monthly unique visitors to the homepage declined 17 percent to 91.8 million from 110.9 million; Yahoo Mail dropped 16 percent (from 92 million to 77.7 million); and Yahoo search dropped 28 percent (from 93.3 million to 66.9 million).

Also off significantly for all three areas, often by one-third, were a plethora of other stats: Percentage of reach, total minutes, total page views, total visits and more.

One of the only bright spots for Yahoo was the relatively small Flickr sites, which were up 37 percent — 26.7 million versus 19.4 million — in unique monthly visitors year over year. The photo-sharing site — which has been getting a much-needed refresh — was also up in all other stats.

But Flickr — which Mayer (pictured here) has laudably touted and supported after years of inexplicable neglect — is not a money-maker for Yahoo, even if its return does burnish the company’s tech and innovation cred.

In December 2011 to December 2012, the homepage was more stable, gaining four percent in monthly uniques from 109.4 million to 114.2 million, but with other key stats both rising and falling. Total visits were up 14 percent, for example, while average minutes per visit was down 13.6 percent.

But the trouble for mail or search continued, off 12 percent (89.9 million to 78.7 million) and 24 percent (88.7 million to 67.4 million) respectively in monthly uniques, with similarly major declines in all other stats.

Mail recently got a refresh too under Mayer, despite some recent security glitches, so new stats will show if that will help stem the declines. Search is another story all together, with Yahoo in what can only be described as a dysfunctional partnership with Microsoft that numerous sources tell me Mayer is seeking to end.

The homepage, too, is undergoing a redo, with a design that has a decidedly more mobile and social feel, and pushing an ethos of Yahoo becoming a hub for content discovery. It is hoped the new look will boost traffic relatively quickly from its current downward trajectory.

To be fair, there can be lots and lots of reasons for these declines, although most of Yahoo’s competitors are, at worse, seeing a flattening of growth and not outright declines.

And sometimes Internet sites complain that services like comScore undercount, although Yahoo had previously used the firm in its public documents. More to the point, as multiple sources within the company note, the stats are directionally correct in that they closely track with internal Yahoo numbers.

Which is to say, traffic is going down rather than growing. That is clearly why Mayer has loudly stressed mobile since arriving at Yahoo, an area not included in these numbers that many sources said has strong growth to about 70 million monthly unique visitors via its apps and mobile-enabled Web offerings.

But unlike the homepage, mail and search — which push and pull traffic all over Yahoo and are responsible for most of its current monetization — mobile also makes very little money now. And Yahoo — unlike Facebook, which recently did — does not break out mobile results.

So, it will be interesting to see if the company does so when it reports fourth-quarter earnings on January 28 and also if it says anything about continued traffic declines of its traditional Web business in the period and the impact on revenue.

Still, there are lots of ways to counter declining or flat revenues, even with declining traffic — via cost cuts, efficiencies, charging more and selling assets (as Yahoo did in the last quarter). And Yahoo has ably managed to keep its operating margins growing over the years, despite both the declines in traffic and moribund growth in its revenue.

But the real and only fix is the drastic fix to existing tentpoles Yahoo has and the creation or acquisition of products that excite consumers and, therefore, advertisers.

It’s not an easy thing, of course, as well-known venture capitalist Ben Horowitz recently wrote in his blog about the need to focus on products over building and improving culture — one of Mayer’s other big initiatives at Yahoo.

Wrote Horowitz in what I consider one of the clearest articulations of what it takes to win for startups, as well as big companies like Yahoo:

“The primary thing that any technology startup must do is build a product that’s at least 10 times better at doing something than the current prevailing way of doing that thing. Two or three times better will not be good enough to get people to switch to the new thing fast enough or in large enough volume to matter. The second thing that any technology startup must do is to take the market. If it’s possible to do something 10X better, it’s also possible that you won’t be the only company to figure that out. Therefore, you must take the market before somebody else does.”

If you want to take a gander, here are some more of those old Yahoo quarterly engagement slides, which were recently eliminated from its presentations:

(Note: I reached out to Yahoo’s outside PR firm — since they do respond to queries — and also some company execs to get a comment on this story, but so far there has been none.)

After watching friends and relatives struggle to navigate the complications of photo sharing using Facebook, Apple’s Photo Streams and Google’s social network, Google+, I’m here to help. In this column, I’ve organized tips and tricks that might surprise even the most share-happy shutterbugs, and will serve as a helpful guide for people who want to feel more in control and comfortable while sharing photos. While there are numerous alternative methods for photo sharing, including thousands of apps, I zeroed in on Facebook, Photo Streams and Google+.

People can share albums from Google+ with anyone, including people who don’t use the network, by generating a link that can be sent to others.

Sharing With Friends Who Don’t Use the Network

Here’s an all-too-familiar scenario: You spend hours uploading, editing, captioning and “tagging” (identifying people by name) photos to create an album on Facebook, only to be asked by the one person who doesn’t use it if she can see the album. If you’re like most people, you say you’ll send the photos along, eventually. Then you change the subject to something more pleasant, like the cavity you recently had filled.

Unbeknownst to many users, Facebook, Google and Apple enable sharing with people who don’t use their services. Not surprisingly, these out-of-network sharing options are buried in an effort to force people into using the services. So where are they?

In Facebook, after creating an album, open the page that shows the album’s title and contents, select the small gear icon to the right of the album title and click “Share Album.” A Web link to the album will appear that you can copy and send to anyone, even if they don’t use Facebook or aren’t one of your Facebook Friends.

Facebook’s iOS and Android apps enable uploading multiple photos to existing albums, using the icon, above, or new albums.

Any Apple device running the company’s newest operating system, iOS 6, can create and view Shared Photo Streams. These are collections of photos on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch that you can share with friends via email. If your friends also use iOS devices, they can use them to view the Shared Photo Stream.

People who want to see these photos but don’t have an Apple device can still do so, as long as the album creator moves a slider labeled “Public Website” to the “on” position. This public album link is included in an email invitation, but it’s easily overlooked because it appears below a much larger blue button labeled “View this Photo Stream,” which only works on iOS devices. Be sure to click on the text at the very bottom of the email invitation that says, “You can also view this photo stream on the web.”

When people use Google+ to share photos, they’re immediately encouraged to click once and share to “Circles,” which are select groups of people within Google+. But they can also share with friends outside the network by adding their email addresses into the line that says, “Add names, Circles, or email addresses.” This enables sharing with friends who don’t use Google+ or don’t have Gmail accounts.

A Shared Photo Stream as seen through a public album link.

Entire albums can be shared outside of Google+: Within Albums, select one and click the “More” drop-down menu to find “Share album via link.”

Sync Mobile Photos as You Go

Facebook, iCloud and Google+ allow people to wirelessly synchronize their mobile photos with their accounts, saving them privately until they’re ready to be shared.

To set this up on Facebook, you can use the mobile app or the website. From the app, select Photos on the left-side panel, then Sync at the bottom right of the screen. Tap the gear in the top right to set whether your phone will sync over Wi-Fi or cellular or just over Wi-Fi. From Facebook.com, open your Timeline, select Photos, “Synced From Phone” at the top, then follow instructions to share images. People can sync up to two gigabytes of images.

Anyone who buys an Apple or Android device is prompted during setup to turn on Photo Stream or Instant Upload, as the companies call their respective offerings. Shared Photo Streams don’t count against your overall iCloud storage, nor do they work against your count of photos in Photo Stream, which syncs the last 1,000 images across your iOS devices. Google+ stores its synchronized mobile photos under a section called Instant Upload; these remain private until shared with others. Google+ has an overall limit of 5 gigabytes, but standard-sized photos like those captured on smartphones don’t count against this limit.

Other Helpful Tips

Facebook Camera is the free app that first made it possible for people to upload multiple photos to Facebook via iOS. Now, the main Facebook app also enables uploading multiple photos on Android or iOS, and images can be added to new or existing albums by selecting New or tapping a small album icon. Facebook also makes it simpler to post several photos at once in a status update using your Web browser: Users can now click a small “+” icon that appears beside uploaded photos to add more. Also, it’s now possible to drag and drop images right into the status box for sharing with Facebook friends.

If you’re ready to share your Apple Photo Stream with a broader network of friends, these can be uploaded to Twitter or Facebook, but the steps are practically hidden from view. Do this by opening Photo Stream and clicking the small, blue arrow to the right of the Stream you want to share. Make sure it has a link associated with it by switching the Public Website slider to “on,” then hit “Share Link” and select your preferred social network destination. Apple’s own message system, iMessage, is also a sharing option here.

Photo sharing should be more intuitive, and Facebook, Apple and Google are obviously still figuring out the best ways to pack multiple features into their websites and mobile apps. With any luck, your friends and family will have an easier time viewing your photos than you did sharing them.

Email Katie.Boehret@wsj.com

Yahoo appears to be rolling out the newest version of the redesign of its homepage even more extensively across several major browsers, including Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox.

As AllThingsD has previously reported several times, the Silicon Valley Internet giant has been working on a new homepage look, designed to improve its declining consumer usage.

The latest look has been present on all my browsers all day, rather than cycling off to the old version as before. The design is cleaner, with a more touchscreen tablet approach, new icons, and a scrolling news feature. With a more mobile feel, it’s slightly different than previous new versions that Yahoo has been testing over the last few months.

After redoing its Yahoo Mail and Flickr photo-sharing service, sources inside the company said that Yahoo is now close to launching the new homepage. It’s part of an effort called Project Homerun and also a larger effort called Project Zed, which will also include more personalization and a focus on bringing in a range of third-party content.

More on what that means soon …

Until then, here are three different screenshots from tonight from Chrome, Safari and Firefox:

Merry Christmas, Kevin Systrom!

The accusations leveled? Funes is mad about Instagram’s set of Terms of Service amendments made last week, which caused widespread furor among the app’s user base. The suit, which was first reported by Reuters, claims breach of contract based on “the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing,” along with a handful of other California civil code breach accusations.

“We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously,” a Facebook spokesman told AllThingsD.

In a nutshell: Instagram freaked everyone out last week when it updated its ToS, stating that the service had a right to introduce advertising products that accompanied user photographs. Along with the distaste folks had at the thought they may start seeing diaper ads plastered alongside pics of their kids’ faces, the uproar eventually made it seem like Instagram would sell the content created by users in their photos.

Eventually, Instagram dialed back the language, publishing an apologetic note to its site near the end of the week. But the damage had been done, as thousands of users had sworn to leave the service in favor of other photo-sharing applications — in particular, the recently updated Flickr app for iOS.

Funes and company’s biggest grievance with Instagram lies in that cancellation grey area; If users decide to delete their accounts, “customers forfeit all right to retrieve the Property that was previously entrusted to Instagram, which retains rights thereto in perpetuity,” the filing states.

The money quote: “In short, Instagram declares that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don’t like it, you can’t stop us.’”

Bummer of a present for CEO Systrom on Christmas Eve. Here’s hoping the gifts left in his stocking fare better.

The proceedings won’t move much until 2013, so for now, head on over to McSweeney’s for another fantastic privacy policy update, courtesy of Santa Claus.

Oh, and here’s the filing if you want to check it out:

Instagram Lawsuit

Co-founder Kevin Systrom says the company will change part of its new contract with users that deals with advertising, and will use the same language the company has always employed. Here’s an excerpt from his newest blog post.

“Going forward, rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work.”

But to be clear: Instagram still plans on introducing advertising to the service. And that advertising could conceivably incorporate users’ photos. And to be clearer: Instagram’s original language already said that.

“[Y]ou hereby agree that Instagram may place such advertising and promotions on the Service or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content. The manner, mode and extent of such advertising and promotions are subject to change without specific notice to you.”

To sum up: Instagram officials (and, presumably, their new bosses at Facebook) feel bad about the way users reacted to its legalese, and they want users to feel better.

But if you don’t want to see ads on the service, or want to be assured that your stuff won’t show up in an ad, you’re going to want to look somewhere else.

In the last week, Yahoo has redone its powerful Yahoo Mail, refreshed its Flickr photo-sharing service and is also set to release a spanking new homepage design.

It’s part of a series of changes made since new CEO Marissa Mayer arrived this summer from Google, including detailed employee performance reviews, free food, new smartphones and a hunt for innovative mobile properties to scoop up to improve Yahoo’s creaky Silicon Valley reputation.

Now, according to sources close to the situation, that rejiggering will extend to Yahoo’s board too, with an effort to add more Internet savvy members as directors.

That’s actually be an aim for a while, including a board appointment for longtime entrepreneur Max Levchin, which sources said will occur soon.

In fact, Levchin has been mulling the Yahoo board job for a while, having long been intrigued by the company’s troubles and seeing it as an opportunity rather than a liability.

The wooing of Levchin is also not new. As I wrote in February, he had been pegged for a board seat by then-activist shareholder Dan Loeb of Third Point — who is now on the board after winning his fight with Yahoo and ousted former CEO Scott Thompson. But Levchin, as well as SurveyMonkey CEO David Goldberg, did not want to be part of a dissident slate against Yahoo co-founder and then-board member Jerry Yang.

I had written in September that the board was again looking at Levchin, for a seat designated under an agreement Yahoo had made with Loeb.

The hedge fund investor, who owns a large chunk of Yahoo, had the right to nominate a mutually agreed-upon fourth director after the company settled the proxy fight with him earlier this year. The other directors he nominated previously were Michael Wolf and Harry Wilson.

The thoughtful and cerebral Levchin (pictured here) is best known as a top exec at PayPal. He then founded Slide, a then-hot start-up that made apps — then called “widgets” — for Facebook, including some that let you toss sheep (remember SuperPoke!?!).

(I had been hard on Slide back then, noting that the idea of a “Widget IPO” was ludicrous: “It’s a sign to me that suddenly makes the scene feel very bubbly, given that Slide certainly has traffic, but no proven track record to continually make money.”)

But Slide, which Levchin considered a disappointment despite a huge funding valuing the company at $550 million, was sold to Google for $180 million in mid-2010.

Levchin quickly chafed at the search giant, after working on a variety of social efforts there, including clashing with Google+ leader Vic Gundotra. Levchin did not work that closely with Mayer while at Google, although they are friendly.

He eventually left the company in mid-2011, with Google shuttering Slide, and has since been working on a new start-up in San Francisco.

An active angel investor, he’s one of many entrepreneurs in the Web arena that young start-ups look up to, which is the presumable reason for bringing him onto the Yahoo board. Once added, he’d easily be the hippest director in the group.

The Yahoo board changes will also include the departure of some board members, including Weather Channel CEO David Kenny, who had once been considered as a possible CEO of Yahoo. Other rumors that had been raised included a change in chairman, but sources said that this is not the case for now.

When I emailed and texted him yesterday afternoon about the board changes I had heard were coming, Yahoo Chairman Fred Amoroso wrote me: “As a matter of policy, I don’t comment on rumors.”

Kenny also declined to comment yesterday, noting he was on a plane and was not reachable.

Presumbly, he was returning east from the Yahoo board meeting that was held earlier this week in Silicon Valley.

The Yahoo board moves echo similar changes that were made when former CEO Carol Bartz came into office.

The New York Times also posted on the changes, noting Intuit CEO Brad Smith was also leaving the board. Last year, Smith had become a very active board member, especially after Bartz and then Thompson were ousted, but his own board at the financial software company had been asking him to cut back.

Sources said other new directors might also be named to replace him, but that this was not going to be announced by Yahoo at this time.

Until the inevitable board news, here’s a video of one of many interviews I did with Levchin — this back in 2009 — to give you an idea of his stylings:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121213/along-with-flickr-mail-and-homepage-yahoos-board-will-also-get-a-refresh/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121127/liveblogging-yahoo-marissa-mayer-first-live-interview-which-atd-had-to-virtually-sneak-into/ http://allthingsd.com/20121127/liveblogging-yahoo-marissa-mayer-first-live-interview-which-atd-had-to-virtually-sneak-into/#comments Wed, 28 Nov 2012 04:06:24 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=273246

Tonight, new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer gave her first public interview since becoming the leader of the troubled Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Not to cranky me, of course, but to the much more amenable Fortune magazine writer and editor Pattie Sellers, who hosted the former Google exec at a dinner in Palo Alto, Calif., as part of the magazine’s Most Powerful Women franchise.

Fortune recently put a glamour shot of Mayer on the cover, and Sellers also did a profile. Now, Mayer was ready to sit down to talk about Yahoo and more.

(I wish I could have reported from the event, and almost did. I had initially been invited to the dinner at the Garden Court Hotel for about 100 guests, mostly women. But I was then waitlisted, and then told by Sellers directly that I could not attend, as the editors had decided to close out outside media and only have Fortune staffers covering it.)

Whatever! I have my ways to liveblog it and do it faster than any magazine writer can — and none involve disguising myself as a cater-waiter or solely using the Twitter feed from Fortune. As if!

Here goes:

7:50 pm: After some lovely cocktails, the audience sits down at about 10 tables of nine people and starts in on the salad course.

Soon enough, the night starts off with a speech by a McKinsey partner (and presumable sponsor of the dinner), delivering some stats as part of a study of some sort about how businesses are using — or should be using — social tools.

More than 60 percent of knowledge workers spend time exchanging information … Social can deliver an estimated $1 trillion in value.

Big news! Not! Even! Slightly! Oh dear, please get to the opening act!

Finally, Sellers gives her intro of Mayer.

8:04 pm: Sellers notes that her conference had hosted Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz in 2010 (she was ousted in 2011), and in 2011 had Mayer when she was an exec at Google (she became Yahoo CEO this year).

Now, in 2012, Mayer is top dog at Yahoo, and the youngest CEO in the Fortune 500.

“Why don’t we just call this ‘the most powerful Yahoo dinner,’” jokes Sellers.

Why not!

Mayer — for those who care, and forgive me, since I am fashion-stupid — is wearing a black frock and some heeled Mary Janes. She gets big applause when Sellers notes that Yahoo stock is up 18 percent since Mayer became CEO.

Note: It did go down when she made a shareholder misstep early in her tenure, but has gone up since she repeated mobilemobilemobile with confidence on a recent earnings call that got investors excited about her tenure.

8:08 pm: By the way, Mayer put in a call for people to vote for her as Time magazine’s Person of the Year (she is on the list of nominees — more kudos from a Time Inc. property).

Mayer starts off with basic PR messaging that she trotted out previously on the recent earnings call, around how she wants Yahoo to be focused on “delighting and engaging users” and how it is a brand that touches people every day.

Therefore, its products need to be inspiring and delightful.

Daily delight! This is the buzzword.

Also, she notes, Yahoo should be the bestest place to work.

As apparent proof of that, Mayer says that all Research In Motion BlackBerry smartphones have been banished, and that Yahoos will be using Apple’s iPhones, Google’s Android phones and Microsoft’s Windows phones.

This has been endlessly reported, even though most other Internet companies do this, but it’s a good line, anyway.

8:12 pm: By the way, iPhones are the most popular with Yahoo employees.

News at 11! (I will add that iPhones are the most popular with the Swisher boys, too, and — irony alert — one of their moms works at Google.)

Sellers then asks about what makes a good product, which is precisely why the product-savvy Mayer was brought in to fix Yahoo.

Says Mayer: “Acute user need.”

I acutely need doughnuts. Does this count?

Also, says Mayer, products have to be created in a way that is “frictionless and beautiful,” and that the offering cannot get in the consumer’s way.

Sellers asks her to name a great product. Mayer notes that she was not talking acquisitions, but quickly namechecks the iPhone and Google.

Since those companies’ market caps are a billionty times bigger than Yahoo’s, she def cannot acquire anything there.

8:17 pm: Mayer also apparently likes some kind of luxury paper made in Germany that looks like velvet. It’s Gmund, by the way.

The topic moves on to Flickr, the once hip photo-sharing service that Yahoo bought and proceeded to ignore. Meanwhile, Instagram.

Mayer says that Yahoo needs to focus on the “global suite” services that are excellent, and on executing them well.

She points out Yahoo’s fantasy football service, mentioning its recent breakdown on game day that sent fans into a tizzy.

It’s a they-love-us-so-much-they-hate-us point.

Yahoo will not do things like online maps, though, Mayer says, noting that where Yahoo cannot compete, it should partner.

Sellers asked about acquisitions.

Mayer: Mobilemobilemobile! (It worked before!)

8:22 pm: Mayer then mentions the importance of small teams that work together, such as its recent Stamped purchase.

She notes that the bigger and more strategic opportunities are around advertising technology. Calling the Rubicon Project!

Mayer veers away from a question about layoffs, a sad Yahoo tradition. I have reported previously that she will make cuts via performance reviews.

At Yahoo, she says, it’s now about performance, not potential: “No offense to potential, but what we really care about now is performance.”

No offense taken!

Also, everyone’s goals will be posted on the Yahoo Web site for everyone to see.

Oh, wait, there will surely be offense taken by those lazy potential people at Yahoo.

Mayer does add that Yahoo should be a “growth company,” and not one defined by cuts.

8:28 pm: “The consumer Internet is growing, and we need to invest,” she says.

To achieve this will be a hard job, and will take multiple years, she adds.

Sellers asks about the Disney turnaround, which Mayer is apparently fascinated with. Mayer does indeed love Disney.

Who doesn’t? (Well, me, but I am an outlier.)

Speaking of Disney, one of its directors, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, sent regrets, but has emailed a question from its board meeting in New York.

Sandberg once worked at Google with Mayer, though the pair is still not working on a search engine together.

Sandberg asks what was most surprising to Mayer about taking over at Yahoo.

Mayer says she thought the job would be hard, and her new baby would be fun. Mayer had her first child at the end of September.

“The job is fun, and the baby is easy,” says Mayer.

Sellers wants to know how Mayer gets it all done. The answer: “Ruthlessly prioritize.”

She notes that that’s why she has not talked to the media at all, and why she will not be talking after this event.

(Well, I guess I will go back to not waiting by the phone for Yahoo PR to call back. Hi Anne! — also looking forward to not getting the holiday media party invite, which is no prob as the Googlers are throwing one the same night and they usually have organic arugula picked by elves they employ that’s acutely delicious.)

Then, as a Wisconsin Green Bay Packers fan, Mayer does her version of the famous Vince Lombardi quote: “God. Family. Yahoo.”

Cheesehead moment! And Mayer and I have so much in common! Mine is: Dog. Family. Yahoo.

8:33 pm: Sellers throws in one more question from famed investor Warren Buffett, who apparently wants to know what, if Mayer was not CEO of Yahoo, would she want to run?

Not Berkshire Hathaway! Mayer says she would build something herself.

It seems as if that is what she is doing at Yahoo, so we await the result.

Until then, Mayer’s mum. So to speak.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121127/liveblogging-yahoo-marissa-mayer-first-live-interview-which-atd-had-to-virtually-sneak-into/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121123/turkey-shoot-on-instagram-in-related-news-people-still-love-pie/ http://allthingsd.com/20121123/turkey-shoot-on-instagram-in-related-news-people-still-love-pie/#comments Fri, 23 Nov 2012 21:09:31 +0000 Bonnie Cha http://allthingsd.com/?p=272216 People love posting pictures of their food … blah, blah, blah. So, no surprise, the photo-sharing service Instagram rushed out the “news” that it had its busiest day so far, when users posted more than 10 million Thanksgiving-related photos. The Facebook-owned company said in a blog post that during peak hours on Thursday, people were posting more than 200 photos every second, double the amount from the day before. By comparison, Instagram users uploaded around 800,000 photos during Hurricane Sandy, and more than 100,000 images on Election Day. (And, yes, this is what a slow news day looks like here at AllThingsD.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121123/turkey-shoot-on-instagram-in-related-news-people-still-love-pie/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20121114/andreessen-horowitz-divests-facebook-instagram-shares-but-holds-bulk-of-direct-investment/ http://allthingsd.com/20121114/andreessen-horowitz-divests-facebook-instagram-shares-but-holds-bulk-of-direct-investment/#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:30:45 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=269747 According to a new filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, high-profile Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz has distributed just over three million shares of Facebook that it got from the sale of its investment in photo-sharing site Instagram. And, as had been previously reported, Marc Andreessen, who is a Facebook director, is also planning to unload a small amount of stock to cover his personal tax liabilities. In addition, one of the limited partners of Andreessen Horowitz also asked for a distribution of the firm’s direct investment. The firm continues to hold close to 3.9 million shares of Facebook, whose stock has taken a beating since it went public earlier this year. That’s due to a number of reasons, including the end of lock-up periods of a huge number of Facebook employee shares that are now able to come onto the market.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121114/andreessen-horowitz-divests-facebook-instagram-shares-but-holds-bulk-of-direct-investment/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121105/as-instagram-web-profiles-debut-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-facebook/ http://allthingsd.com/20121105/as-instagram-web-profiles-debut-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-facebook/#comments Mon, 05 Nov 2012 19:00:56 +0000 Mike Isaac http://allthingsd.com/?p=266719

Welcome to the new era of Instagram. Brought to you by Facebook.

Instagram launched Web profiles on Monday morning, the first true attempt from the photo-sharing service to provide users with a more complete version of user identity accessible through the Web.

Simply put, it’s most everything you know about your profile page from your Instagram mobile app, but available on the Web. Until now, users could only access Instagram photos on the Web through a simple landing page, only including the photograph and the comments alongside the post. Beneath that, all your photos are laid out on the page, organized chronologically and grouped by month. It’s slick, and something that users have wanted for some time.

The company plans to introduce the new Web profiles over the next few days. Like Facebook’s user profile URLs, you can access your page via Instagram.com/your username, as soon as it rolls out widely.

Most interesting, however, are the design choices Instagram has made; the new Web profiles seem like something straight from Facebook’s visual identity playbook. Topping each users’ profile page is a mosaic of large-format images, splayed out across the upper half of the screen, much like Facebook’s drastic profile revamp from last year with the introduction of Timeline.

Instagram chief Kevin Systrom acknowledges as much. “Facebook has pushed forward what it means to have a profile online and how to most effectively communicate an overview of someone’s digital identity,” he told me in an email.

There’s a key difference from Timeline here, though (and a smart one, at that). Instead of one static banner image like Facebook’s Timeline, Instagram Web profiles are in continuous flux, a hodgepodge of all the recent photos you’ve taken using the application. “In this case, I think it’s more that we wanted people to have a dynamic billboard that represented a snapshot of their recent shots rather than a single shot,” Systrom said.

And while the two companies are in constant contact with one another — you know, considering Instagram now lives on Facebook’s campus — Web profiles are still very much Instagram’s baby. All the components of the app are present, just in a wider-frame format ideal for desktop viewing.

But the continuity between the two services makes sense. After the Facebook acquisition went through, the two companies have continually reassured users that Instagram will remain a standalone unit inside of Facebook. Yet incorporating a sense of visual continuity between the two properties is important; Instagram may not be acting under Facebook’s mandate, but Instagram is still very much a part of Facebook.

Aside from design, the new product is good for Instagram. Web profiles offer yet another channel for more user engagement. Despite the massive shift from desktops to mobile devices over the past few years, there’s obviously still a significant number of people using desktops to view the Web. Web profiles only offer more opportunity for Instagram to capture that demographic.

What’s more, the new profiles offer a hint of something we haven’t heard much of since Instagram came on the scene — a monetization plan. Now brands and businesses that use Instagram have a landing page to direct users to, in addition to inside the application. This could open the door to more down the line, perhaps something akin to Facebook’s “Pages” program made for brands and businesses.

“We believe this is a big step in allowing brands to have an Instagram home on the web where they can share recent shots with just about anyone,” Systrom told me. “We’re obviously very excited by the adoption of Instagram by the world’s major brands and we’ll continue to build products that suit both them and users alike.”

Perhaps then Facebook’s $715 million investment will begin yielding returns.

For now, I’ll just expect it to keep looking pretty.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121105/as-instagram-web-profiles-debut-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-facebook/feed/ 13 http://allthingsd.com/20121102/trueco-co-founder-ramamurthy-joins-battery-as-eir/ http://allthingsd.com/20121102/trueco-co-founder-ramamurthy-joins-battery-as-eir/#comments Sat, 03 Nov 2012 05:26:14 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=266365 Aarthi Ramamurthy, who co-founded personalized intimate apparel online retailer True&Co, has joined Battery Ventures as an entrepreneur in residence to “pursue disruptive e-commerce initiatives.” Ramamurthy was most recently head of product of True&Co, which launched at the D: All Things Digital conference earlier this year. She has also worked at both Netflix and Microsoft, and was the co-creator of Bubblegum, a photo-sharing application.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121102/trueco-co-founder-ramamurthy-joins-battery-as-eir/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120918/familiar-raises-1-3m-for-social-screen-savers-and-slideshows/ http://allthingsd.com/20120918/familiar-raises-1-3m-for-social-screen-savers-and-slideshows/#comments Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:30:38 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=251467 If you’ve taken a personal pledge to stop reading blog posts about photo-sharing apps, you’d best stop now. But if you want to hear about a little start-up that’s breathing new life into some tired old formats, this one’s for you.

Here’s the premise: Familiar automatically shares photos among multiple generations within a family.

So, as parents snap photos and upload them to Facebook, Picasa, Instagram, Flickr and iPhoto, their own parents can get an updated stream of pictures of their grandkids.

(People without kids can try the app too, but families with children are the main demographic so far.)

Familiar, which first came out for Mac and Windows late last year, now has Android, Kindle Fire and iOS apps. These viewing apps display screen savers (how terribly old school!) or slideshows shared by users within a private circle of family and friends.

Driven largely by being featured by Apple, Familiar already has some loyal fans. In August, Familiar users displayed 21 million of each others’ photos (which is not a terrifically useful stat, but it’s all I have at the moment, as the company isn’t sharing actual user or usage numbers).

Apparently, a lot of investors love the idea of a nifty app to share pictures of their kids. Seattle-based Familiar, whose team came out of music start-up iLike (acquired by Myspace in 2009), has now raised $1.3 million from a large group of backers, among them Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Index Ventures, Acequia Capital, Allen & Company, Hadi and Ali Partovi, Nat Brown, Dave Goldberg, Blake Krikorian, Emil Michael and Owen Van Natta.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120918/familiar-raises-1-3m-for-social-screen-savers-and-slideshows/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120727/caterina-fakes-pinwheel-is-now-called-findery-after-trademark-dispute/ http://allthingsd.com/20120727/caterina-fakes-pinwheel-is-now-called-findery-after-trademark-dispute/#comments Fri, 27 Jul 2012 20:51:52 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=234959 Pinwheel, the geotagged memory service from Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, is now called Findery. That’s after a photo-sharing start-up called Pinweel got a preliminary injunction for trademark infringement. Both services are small; Pinweel says it has tens of thousands of users, while Findery is not yet open to the public.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120727/caterina-fakes-pinwheel-is-now-called-findery-after-trademark-dispute/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120514/investors-told-that-facebook-ipo-range-will-be-at-34-to-38-range/ http://allthingsd.com/20120514/investors-told-that-facebook-ipo-range-will-be-at-34-to-38-range/#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 23:52:25 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=208076

According to several sources close to the situation, investors are being told that the IPO price range for Facebook will be from $34 to $38 a share.

That means the highest valuation will be just over $100 billion, fully diluted.

That is up from a much lower price of close to $31 a share last month, in filings related to its pending acquisition of photo-sharing start-up Instagram. Recent ranges have been pegged between $28 and $34.

Earlier today, reports surfaced about the possible rise in price, but it was slightly higher from $35 to $40.

The higher price is an indication that some reports last week saying there was weak investor interest were, well, wrong.

The official pricing for the blockbuster offering of the social networking site will take place Thursday, sources confirmed, with a public offering on Friday under the “FB” ticker symbol on the Nasdaq market.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120514/investors-told-that-facebook-ipo-range-will-be-at-34-to-38-range/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/20120423/that-1b-for-instagram-that-would-be-23m-shares-of-facebook-and-300m-in-cash-plus-a-200m-termination-fee/ http://allthingsd.com/20120423/that-1b-for-instagram-that-would-be-23m-shares-of-facebook-and-300m-in-cash-plus-a-200m-termination-fee/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:43:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=199135

Here is a relevant and juicy new detail about Facebook’s acquisition of photo-sharing start-up Instagram, which is buried deep in the new S-1 document the social networking giant just filed:

In April 2012, we entered into an agreement to acquire Instagram, Inc., which has built a mobile phone-based photo-sharing service, for approximately 23 million shares of our common stock and $300 million in cash. Following the closing of this acquisition, we plan to maintain Instagram’s products as independent mobile applications to enhance our photos product offerings and to enable users to increase their levels of mobile engagement and photo sharing. This acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the expiration or early termination of all applicable waiting periods under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act of 1976, as amended (HSR), and is currently expected to close in the second quarter of 2012. We have agreed to pay Instagram a $200 million termination fee if governmental authorities permanently enjoin or otherwise prevent the completion of the merger or if either party terminates the agreement after December 10, 2012.

That means in the deal, Facebook is valuing its share price at just under $31 a share or $77 billion for the whole tamale.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120423/that-1b-for-instagram-that-would-be-23m-shares-of-facebook-and-300m-in-cash-plus-a-200m-termination-fee/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120423/new-s-1-facebooks-yearly-growth-up-45-percent-but-down-six-percent-from-last-quarter/ http://allthingsd.com/20120423/new-s-1-facebooks-yearly-growth-up-45-percent-but-down-six-percent-from-last-quarter/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:13:53 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=199091

Facebook filed an updated version of its S-1 public offering document today, which included somewhat disappointing first-quarter financials.

In the new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, its fourth update for its upcoming public offering, the social networking giant’s revenue was $1.058 billion, up 46 percent for the year, but down six percent from the previous quarter.

In the first quarter of 2012, Facebook’s 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.

Facebook also said its current share price was $30.89 each, which values the entire company at about $77 billion.

Some investors might worry about the latest results, which show a slowing in Facebook’s torrid growth. But Facebook said the quarterly decline was due to seasonality — it was flat in the same period a year ago.

As it noted in the document:

“We believe that our rates of user and revenue growth will decline over time. For example, our revenue grew 154% from 2009 to 2010, 88% from 2010 to 2011, and 45% from the first quarter of 2011 to the same period in 2012. Historically, our user growth has been a primary driver of growth in our revenue. We expect that our user growth and revenue growth rates will decline as the size of our active user base increases and as we achieve higher market penetration rates.”

Its audience, though, was still growing strongly: Facebook also said it had 532 million daily active users, up from 372 million a year ago and 483 million in December. Its monthly active users were up from 680 million last year to just over 900 million and up from 845 million from December.

Facebook also added an explicit figure for average revenue per user, which was $1.21, up six percent year over year. It also said the number of full-time employees grew 46 percent from last year to 3,539 at the end of March.

The last update to Facebook’s regulatory filing for its mid-May IPO was in late March. That one gave investors more information about a patent infringement lawsuit waged by Yahoo — Facebook noted its counter claim in the newest filing — and also its motion to dismiss Paul Ceglia’s legal attempt to garner half of the company. It then included more information about growing engagement by users of the social networking site.

Along with some other minor changes in the new document, Facebook noted, in news that was already known, that it would trade its stock on the Nasdaq market under the ticker symbol “FB.” It also said it had bought photo-sharing start-up Instagram, another piece of old news, and noted its just-struck patent deal with Microsoft.

One new detail about Instagram: Facebook forked over “approximately 23 million shares of our common stock and $300 million in cash” to buy it.

Also, said Facebook, in an interesting new section on its global business:

“In the first quarter of 2012, 50% of our revenue was generated by users in the United States and Canada, a decrease from 54% of our revenue for the first quarter of 2011, and in 2011, 52% of our revenue was generated by users in the United States and Canada, as compared to 58% in 2010, as we experienced more rapid revenue growth in markets such as Germany, Brazil, Australia, and India.”

Here is the whole updated file, if you want to peruse yourself:

4thfbs1update

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