Not So Fast FB!
It has been a massive hype, touted as the biggest floatation ever, the most important and a sign of future times. Facebook finally hits the streets as a tradeable commodity, and some people are pushing their claims and promises beyond the believable.
There are many things which need to be set straight about the Facebook IPO but the main one is the value of the company itself. Facebook will be valued according to the number of shares on offer, and according to the number of shares sold – two separate valuations – both of which are dependent on actual prices. The first on the share price Mark Zuckerberg and his team suggest, the second on the actual price people pay for their shares. The real valuation, and do not forget that this is only a paper valuation and not real as such, will become clearer after a few days trading, when the hype settles down and people begin to see what return they are likely to get on their investment.
All this stuff about big names buying millions of shares needs putting into perspective too. Most of these big firms are brokerage firms, and they will sell a reasonably high proportion of their shares on to other people, hoping to make a sizable profit in the process.
And all this stuff about the future of Facebook needs tempering too. Facebook relies on income from advertising and from the selling of information useful to advertisers and marketers – the information which has so many people up in arms about privacy and so on. This market niche is by no means a sure bet, especially when news leaks out that the bulk of people using Facebook ignore the adverts any way…
Despite all the hype, despite the high price – the market value has been raised simply by increasing the share price rather than basing it on real value – and despite the number of people who are signed up with Facebook – who they call active users but, to my way of thinking, are merely people who signed on at some stage and may even have deleted their accounts – I do not believe that Facebook is going to be the massive, high value profit winner some people foretell. I see it as being a short-lived high-flyer which will drop down to a share price well below $38, maybe even below $30, once true turn-over and profit figures are released in the near future. I’m not going to go so far as to say it will be a flop, but meeting market and profit expectations? No, I don’t believe so.
- Viktoria Michaelis.
Matching People.
I’ve noticed it on Facebook, it’s on Google Plus too, and on Twitter. I have no doubt plenty of other social media sites are much the same, as is eBay, Amazon & Co. Matching you, the visitor or the customer, to things or people the software algorithm says fit.
With Facebook it is quite simple: people you might know or, recently, people you should subscribe to. In olden times (in the Internet that is last week, but I’m going a bit further back here) Facebook offered you a list of friends of friends and then, when you tried to add them, asked whether you actually knew them, refused you permission to add them (even family!) and even deleted your account when you did add someone Facebook had suggested. Things are easier now, if not better, in that you can subscribe to a person, without needing their permission, and without having to know them. This is good for celebrities without a Page and businesses, but merely a small tweak in the works.
Google Plus is much the same, but without the same stringent restrictions Facebook had or has: up to five thousand people in circles and that’s your limit. Who knows more than five thousand people anyway? The suggestions here are a touch better: my interest is in photography, and anyone with an interest in photography can be suggested to me, I haven’t seen any other interests come up at all, yet.
Twitter is different again. Here the suggestions are initially – before you start following anyone – based on nothing but hot air, which means sponsored profiles and celebrities in the news. Later, when you have a good list of people who interest you, the suggestions should come a bit closer to home. For me that hasn’t procen the case so far. I follow about three hundred and fifty news sites – news reporters, news media – and still get musicians (?) such as Britney Spears on my suggestions list alongside former State governors and minor politicians.
Suggestions on eBay are interesting to say the least. Here I saw a list of things people had already purchased, which struck me as being the most futile idea on a platform designed to sell things imaginable.
Amazon & Co., better. People who bought this book also bought this one; linked interests. That works for me. It doesn’t mean I am going to click through and buy the suggestions, but it gives me fruit for thought, and those are the fruits that I like best.
It strikes me that the software used by many online companies is still in its infancy, that there is a great deal more work needs doing, especially when it comes to advertising. Facebook takes profile and posting information to decide which adverts should be shown on your profile page. To date I have had commercial sites for bloggers – where you have to pay to blog – as well as shoes and even an institute here in Germany offering a professional photography course which will allow me to call myself a photographer and set up a business. Perhaps these fit, to a certain extent, but they’re not exactly what I want, especially not the photography course. There are strict rules in Germany: no matter how many courses I complete I cannot call myself a photographer on my letterhead or business cards until I have passed the approved Master examinations, and this course does not provide me with that qualification.
Can software suggest friends, or even a partner for life? There are plenty of companies which claim they can achieve the perfect match, but, based on experience with other matching attempts, I suspect that this is also merely a case of suggestions based on limited information. No one, signing up for a dating site, is going to tell the truth about themselves. Everyone makes themselves a little bit more attractive – I could name a certain Yahoo! ex-CEO here – pushes their CV, their personal description a little bit further than the truth. long walks by moonlight on the beach? Something of an exaggeration when you’re incarcerated in Kansas!
The best software for matching people to people, people to goods, people to job opportunities is that which runs inside our own heads. It is better tuned to our moods, our desires, our interests. It can change at a moments’ notice, adapt, learn, advise. The idea of having an anonymous machine, using software written by someone I will never know and who will never know me, decide what I should be doing, liking, buying, feeling attracted to sends shivers down my spine. I’d rather hold something in my hands, look them in the eye, feel the quality first and then decide. And long may it remain so!
- Viktoria Michaelis
They’re Back Again.
I don’t know whether I’ve missed them or not. I don’t know whether they were on holiday, changed their address or simply took a well deserved break from all their hard work. It makes no difference, the idiots are back again and, believe it or not, they think that I am going to fall for something like this:
INTERNATIONAL CRICKET COUNCIL, UNITED KINGDOM-LONDON. Atti: Lucky Winner, We are pleased to inform you that you have emerged as one of the winners in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2012 Promotional Award.Your email address was selected by our Electronic Random Selection System (ERSS) from an exclusive list of 800,000 e-mail addresses of individuals from South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies,Australia, New Zealand, England and India. No tickets were sold. Your email ad 3917/182-09 in Category “B” and your claims portfolio is filled with Ref Number:ICCL/09-005/XX.You are therefore confirmed eligible to receive a cash prize of 1,000,000.00,GBP(One Million Great British Pounds)out of the total payout. CONGRATULATIONS! Your prize award has been insured under a certified international Bank Draft, and will be given to you after meeting the claims requirements,statutory obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory report. To file for the processing of your prize sum payment, you are advised to contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent for category “B” winners with the information below: Name: Dr. Richard Cole Telephone: +447031936256 E-mail: icwcup2012live@rocketmail.com Endeavor to provide him with the following information in your contact with him. Names: Contact Address: Occupation: Age: Sex: Telephone: Fax number: Nationality: Do you like cricket game?... NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 7 working days, thereafter unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake. Remember to quote your reference information in all correspondence. You are to keep all lotto information confidential, especially your reference and ticket numbers.This is important as a case of double claims will not be entertained. Members of staff of affiliate agencies are automatically not allowed to participate in this program.Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible. Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program. Yours Faithfully, Dr.John Hill Brow ICC Promo Manager.
Fine, first off, I’m not into cricket at all. It is a long and boring game – for me at least, I mean, three days hitting a little ball then running between six sticks? – and confined largely to the old British Empire countries. It’s not exactly the favorite sport in the States, or in Germany. And then there is the fact that I don’t live in any of the countries listed here.
No, the idiots are back with their tricks again, and some people are going to fall for it and try to get their million pounds or whatever is offered. Just, it isn’t going to be me. I’m not the winning type, for one thing, a single time, less than ten Euro, on the lottery and that’s it. I don’t even win by pick and mix, so someone wants me to believe I’ve won in an e-mail lottery I didn’t enter for a sport which doesn’t interest me in a country I don’t live in?
Love & Kisses, Viki.
And When I’m Gone?
What happens to my comments when I am dead and gone? Not a question that I am posing myself, but one which I read on Google Plus today, and received as a mail from a good Internet friend. I could easily expand the question beyond the limited realms of the Internet, beyond comments and posts on various websites, to ask: what happens to everything I have said and done when I am dead and buried?
For most people death is the end. It was fun, thanks very much, and that’s it. For some there is the belief that a form of live is there after death, or that we return in another body in some other time and live a new life from birth through to death again. For the Internet, theoretically, there has been a birth but no one can foresee its death. It is not a limited life-span species, does not wear down and lose all its teeth or become bedridden, disabled and shut away in an old people’s home somewhere on the edge of town, out of sight, out of mind. The Internet is a machine and, as such, can be repaired and renewed. Bits and pieces added here and there, replaced when they are worn out, constantly new, constantly up to date.
What about the contents of the Internet though? What about all those photographs – to begin with what most people term ‘the Internet’ of nubile young things with no clothes on – are they still going to be there in seventy or one hundred years time? I someone going to collect the best examples of what we consider pornography and bring out a book of the best – assuming that there are still books in one hundred years time, but that is another theme entirely – similar to Uwe Scheid’s collection of nineteenth and early twentieth century nudes?
There are websites which claim to archive the Internet, to save the contents of websites so that, in future years, people can look back and see what it was like back then, at the beginning. The trouble is, these websites don’t go back to the very start and, perhaps even worse, they don’t begin archiving a website until it is at least six months old. What about the comments written prior to the archives? What about the websites which don’t make it beyond the six months?
Things are not left in our hands, when it comes to the Internet. Most of us wish to leave something of ourselves behind, some trace, some landmark to show that we were here. Very few manage more than a short memory held by their children and a few friends and acquaintances which, as time moves on, vanishes too.
But the Internet is forever, it forgets nothing. Once you’ve published something on the Internet – such as a thesis, a book, a self-shot, a naughty video, a comment – it is there forever.
Sadly – or perhaps it is a good thing – that is not the case. Websites and their contents disappear every single day. Companies providing webspace disappear, servers crash, people die or move on. A comment on a website is only there as long as there is someone to pay the bills. This blog, as an example, will vanish without a trace should I ever stop paying the provider for webspace and services, and when I die it will go anyway. No one to maintain it, no one to keep it up to date – what could anyone write? – and no one to pay the bills. And with it will go all the comments from other people, whether they are still alive or not. The comments here, and on all other websites, are no longer within their power to control They belong to other people, to the health and safety of someone else. Comments may well still be there when I die, but not when they go the same way.
There are – or there could be – a few exceptions. Take, for example, comments and posts on larger websites owned by international corporations such as Google or Facebook. In theory, since these are businesses which make money and can be passed from one board of controllers, one set of shareholders to the next, they will continue until there is no financial return. Each new Internet generation signs up for an account, adds their little piece to the growing personal history on the Internet, and remains archived until the account is deleted. If no one deletes the account, in theory, it should live on forever. Comments, posts, all there. Whether anyone actually reads what has been written, whether anyone can relate to the person who wrote the original, that is another matter. Whether, for example, anyone will bother themselves, in fifty or one hundred years, to check the Facebook Timeline of a deserted account back to this year, or the Tweets archived from Twitter by the Library of Congress…
- Viktoria Michaelis.
New From Facebook.
It’s free and always will be. A good slogan, even if most people don’t really get to notice it that much: sign in, chat, upload photos, sign off. Rather like switching on your brain, working a touch, and then switching off again.
But there are some things about Facebook which are not quite so free, the use of personal information is one of them, and has been constantly, consistently brought into the news. how do those adverts you see on your Timeline get there – even if less than fifty percent ever click on them – other than through the gathering and evaluation of personal information and where you’ve been through Facebook. Facebook has its privacy price just the same as many other websites.
However, you can get back at Facebook by buying up a few shares during the IPO this week, make a profit and be happy to have added a few tens of millions to Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune.
Well, no. That isn’t quite how it works. The chances of you or I, as normal people desiring a few Facebook shares, actually being able to buy them is so limited as to be virtually impossible.
You see, you need to buy them through a broker. That means you need to have an account with a broker. Some of these brokers have other stipulations which come on top of just having an account – such as a balance in transactions of between two hundred and five hundred dollars, and I mean that in thousands, not small change and having made thirty to forty transactions in the last fiscal year – and effectively wipes out any chance of getting in there at the start.
Then there is the fact that the bulk of these shares will already have been bought up, through advance purchases and promises of purchase by major concerns, big business, the people whom already have several million – or more – in their bank account but probably don’t use Facebook at all.
Finally there is the cost. The initial offer has changed, the price per share has been increased today; the maximum share price for each share from yesterday is now the minimum price today. More demand, higher price: a normal event in the world of marketing, sales and profit-making. Supply and Demand.
Don’t let that disappoint you too much though, especially when you see the value of each share double – or perhaps not quite double but nearly double – on Friday, the first trading day for FB. It’s not going to stay like that, these peaks on the first day are quite normal. After that the shares tend to relax a little and find their market niche, usually well below the initial purchase price.
Mark Zuckerberg may wear a normal hoodie like some of his Facebook users, but don’t underestimate him. The last thing he needs is actually Facebook users turning up at a shareholder’s meeting and telling him the direction Facebook should be going in. Facebook is a service for the public, not a service which the public should be able to tune according to their own needs and desires. Were that the case, Zuckerberg would have offered first priority shares – perhaps even with voting rights – across Facebook first.
Facebook, however, is a normal moneymaking business, big money, not for the ordinary people like you and me. We’re just there to help generate the profits for the few. Facebook users are the 99% cut out from the cake and left with the crumbs after the 1% have gorged themselves.
- Viktoria Michaelis.
Stand Your Ground.
How foolish or sensible a law really is comes to light first when someone actually breaks the law or, as in the Stand Your Ground trials in the States can clearly be seen, when different people claiming the same law as their defense have different stories to tell.
The first one is quite easy to relate: Zimmerman shot Martin who was unarmed and, apparently, had not threatened Zimmerman in any way. Apparently simply because there are conflicting stories and the case hasn’t been decided by a court yet.
The second is also easy to relate: Marissa Alexander shoots a weapon in the direction of her husband in her own home, no injuries reported.
There can’t be that many people who don’t know the Zimmerman / Martin case, it has been splashed across the newspapers and TV screens for quite a while, occasionally disappearing backstage when something else newsworthy appears, but still there pending the trial. The Alexander case is, however, something else.
Here we have a woman who has been abused and threatened by her husband – something which has been proven as fact through two previous court cases where he was convicted of physical abuse – who fears for her safety and wishes to get out of the house, She claims to have fled from his abusive advances but had to return into the house to get her car keys, did so with a gun and shot into the ceiling of the room when he came at her again. For this act the State Attorney prosecuted her, and the judge ruled that Stand Your Ground doesn’t apply.
The judge is, in effect, quite correct with his decision, although it is a shame it had to come so far. Alexander did not have to use a gun to protect herself, she did not have to leave the house using a car, she could have walked to a neighbor, to a friend, to the police and sought protection. Returning into the house was absolutely unnecessary and put her back into danger not only from her husband but also from the law. The Stand Your Ground law allows people to protect themselves without the need to retreat; Alexander had retreated and came back again, thus negating her legal protection.
To my way of thinking, though, the fact that this case came to trial is an failing of the State legal and personal protection systems. Regardless of the fact that Alexander could have left the house without using her car, that she didn’t need to return into the house, she was in a dangerous situation where her welfare, her safety was at stake. Her husband is a convicted abuser who was in the process of abusing her, or threatening violent abuse, again. At the very least she should have been able to find some form of protection from him rather than being prosecuted herself.
Admittedly, the Stand Your Ground defense was a major mistake on her part or on the part of her Attorney, who must have seen that she had removed herself from its protection by purposefully putting herself in danger. Likewise the refusal to accept a three year prison sentence deal and go to trial could be seen as a mistake; she must have been advised that the minimum sentence a judge can hand down in this case would be ten years without parole or early release.
That the State Attorney brought this prosecution in the first place is a bad reflection on the Attorney’s Office. Whilst I can understand their need to prosecute, a different offense as base for their prosecution would have been far better, far more efficient and would have stopped the wrong message being sent out to all other women who are threatened and abused by their husbands or other men. And, it must be added, to men who find themselves in the same situation.
To go a few steps further: why was the family allowed possession of a weapon? The man is a convicted criminal with a history of abuse, and yet there is a weapon permit issued either to him or to another family member in the same house?
Why, when she was constantly being violently abused by her husband – two convictions for battery – and has children, did Alexander return to him or let him back in the house to live with her? This is, sadly, a question which will probably never be answered in so many cases around the world.
Why, finally, did she have to return to the house to get her car keys when she could have walked – or run – away? Are we – as a generalisation – so lazy, so unused to walking any distance that we can’t even get out of danger’s way without a vehicle?
The case will go for review, whether an appeal court will see the whole in the same light as the State Attorney and judge depends on whether this Stand Your Ground defense is tried again. If it is, and I suspect it will be no matter how foolish, she will lose.
- Viktoria Michaelis.
When You See It…
When you see it you’ll be able to guess what the future of Europe, and especially France, holds for us.
It’s the simple things in life which present the most problems, even for someone who has just been elected…
- Viktoria Michaelis.
Photo Source: imgur.
It’s All In The Air.
Nothing seems to be settled, everything is absolute chaos following a stream of elections, financial problems and discussions through the worlds of finance, politic and even down to the depths of society itself.
Rumor has it that the Greeks will walk away from the Euro, but still want to claim the money. At the same time there is talk that they will walk away from the Euro and from repaying their debts. Then we have the walking away from the Euro and not paying their debts and dumping the austerity package but still wanting the money from Europe. Speculation through the newspapers and other media, in government circles and around the bars and clubs where such things are discussed over a beer with a shake of the head and a laugh at how crazy the world has become.
Good to hear all the fantasies about what the government in Greece has decided to do, will decide to do, must decide to do especially since, as we all know, there is no government in Greece at the moment and, to all intents and purposes, it looks like another round of electioneering so that either one party gets an absolute majority, or two or more parties who are capable of agreeing with one another can combine their votes to pull a (temporary) coalition together.
At the same time worries over what will happen to Cyprus if Greece pulls out of the Euro zone: will they go over to the Turkish side, remain independent as far as possible or even, another possibility, become a trading zone with the western world for Greece much the same as Hong Kong is for China?
The elections in France have brought Monsieur Normal into power – as one newspaper called François Hollande this morning – and a possible challenge to German power, to the power that Angela Merkel wields on the European mainland. The last bastion of resistance is the British government under Cameron who, in the spirit of European unity and British interests, continue to veto anything which might upset their tea-time each afternoon, or prove detrimental to massive profits and lower wages. The British don’t have a lobbyist system in the same way as the Americans, more a quick afternoon tea with cucumber sandwiches and a few understatements which are immediately understood at all the right levels. Clear it with the press quickly, what should be said and what shouldn’t – no worries now that the News of the World isn’t there any more that anyone will hear to real story discussed with one mistress or another on the phone – and there’s still no need to tell anyone you’ve met the press, unless one of those inconvenient public inquiries rears its head to see what went wrong and why.
Spain as clearly seen how good everything is working in Greece, and decided to follow the same path of austerity cuts to protect the higher echelons from losing their jobs, bonus and share allocations. And, of course, the proletariat have immediately gone out on the streets to complain, rather then settling down to work as they should, or to watch a few bulls being massacred.
Italy? Well, what can you say about Italy which hasn’t been written or said over the last fifty or sixty years? Another government for a few months in the shape of Monti – how many have they had since the end of World War Two? – trying to pull two countries together into one, something even the papal palace and endless Dukes haven’t managed in centuries. The country only unites against the government, they should realise that by now!
One small piece of good news, as far as elections go, a change of local government through the elections in North Rhine Westfalen, with a couple of Pirates gaining seats for a change. The Pirates seem to be doing wonders for their ratings in Germany at the moment; perhaps, if they change their name to Vikings, they can run through a few other countries and influence political decisions too. Or should that be the Goths?
- Viktoria Michaelis.
Cutting.
Got a small joke through the mail today which could almost … Apparently François Hollande plans on visiting Germany on the day of his inauguration. Had it been the other way around:
Customs Officer: Name?
Traveller: Angela Merkel.
Customs Officer: Occupation?
Traveller: No, just visiting.
I’m told that this is British humor.
Love & Kisses, Viki.
Roasted.
I have absolutely nothing against belief and, to a certain extent, nothing against religion either. I say to a certain extent because, as with all things, there is more than enough room for doubt and, in the case of religion, this doubt is always pushed well into the background when it comes to one’s own religion and brought into the limelight for other religions.
All in all, I would weigh up belief as being far better than religion, far more acceptable, because it often lacks the dogma, the set path, the hard and fast constraints of what someone else has told you to believe which religion entails.
And then there is the fact that so many religions are based on myths and legends rather than hard and fast facts, or what they claim to be facts are found only in books which are used as their own proof of accuracy. It is all very well for Descartes to claim I think, therefore I am, but not quite the same when a book says this or that claim is a true fact and the proof that it is a true fact is that it is in the self-same book.
It is well known that not everything which was originally there made it into the Bible, nor into the Koran and other religious writings. Every single book which sets the course for a religious belief – as opposed to a belief which might have a religious nature – has been carefully vetted to make it at least appear realistic. Take, for example, the original story of Jesus creating birds from mud, it didn’t make it into the final version.
Not that there is a final version either. I was doing a little bit of research into Bible quotations recently and discovered that there are many different versions of the Bible, with differing language, changed words, changed meanings and changed ‘facts’ all according to the direction a particular religion, cult of movement wishes its followers to take. Theoretically they all head off in the same direction, just the means of getting there is different – which is more than acceptable – and anyone who uses a different path isn’t going to make it – which isn’t acceptable. German newspapers ran with the story of a Muslim Imam who told his students that the Christians are going to hell, because they don’t believe and the Jews are going to hell, because they don’t believe and so on. The journalists were very upset over the idea that a Muslim should be saying other that followers of other religions will end up in hell because of their religion and called it Hate Preaching, carefully forgetting that their own Christian teachings say exactly the same thing, not just about Muslims and Jews, but also about other Christians.
However, what I really wanted to write about today was the idea of belief outside of the various writings you can buy or download. It follows on from a remark I caught by a priest who recently walked one of these pilgrimage tours in Europe. He came across a site dedicated to Santo Domingo de la Calzada (St Dominic of the Causeway) who was born in the eleventh century in La Rioja, northern Spain. He began life as a peasant and rapidly managed to work his way up the ladder of achievement despite certain setbacks, not quite getting the Papal job he desired, but close enough to be happy and earn a living. Amongst other things, he built a bridge for pilgrims, first out of wood and, later, stone which, in modern times, has been rewarded by him becoming patron saint of civil engineers.
More interesting is what happened in his name after he died in about 1109 at the venerable age of 90. He has been attributed with certain miracles which, without anyone considering it to be blasphemous, rival those of Jesus Christ.
It is said that there was a falling out between a young man and woman. She wanted to sleep with him, he didn’t want to sleep with her. Such things happen. And so she decided to get her revenge on him – which can also happen! – by hiding a silver bowl in his belongings and then denouncing him to the authorities. Theft of a silver bowl: death sentence. A pretty bitter piece of revenge, but believable.
The young man was duly found guilty, sentenced and hanged according to the laws of the day and despite the attempted intervention of his parents who had the dubious pleasure of seeing his lifeless body swinging on the town gallows.
Fortunately all was not lost. Amid their tears and wailing, the mother and father heard a voice telling them that he was not dead, his ghost came back from the other side and claimed that St Dominic had saved him and he was still very much alive, just not visible. For some reason this inspired the couple to hurry to the local magistrate and tell him the good news as he sat down to a dinner of roast chicken.
The magistrates answer was clear and concise, the man was as dead as the chicken on his plate, and that was an end to the matter.
At which point the roast chicken rose from the plate, full of life and, clucking its disapproval, ran away.
Now, I don’t want to cut into anyone’s hard held beliefs or anything, but really, bringing a roast chicken back to life? Aside from the distinct lack of reality – the whole would probably be condemned as animal abuse by modern animal rights groups today – can you imagine such a thing? And there are people who build such miracles into their beliefs and use them as proof that their version of a god exists.
As I say, I have no problem with belief whatsoever, but religion, that is a different matter entirely.
- Viktoria Michaelis.
