Due to a string of acquisitions and other business distractions, Facebook’s multi-billion dollar initial public offering that was rumored to be set for May 17th may be delayed until early or mid-June, according to CNBC. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not been preparing for the IPO, but instead has been more focused on running the business and making acquisitions. As a result, the social networking giant’s IPO date will reportedly be pushed back so the company has time to make the appropriate preparations. Facebook filed with the SEC in February, and could raise as much as $10 billion at a $100 billion valuation when it goes public in the coming months. Facebook’s IPO is expected to top Google’s $1.9 billion offering by a wide margin, making it the largest Internet IPO in history. Facebook’s shares will be listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the “FB” ticker symbol.

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Facebook already built its own data center and its own servers. And now the social-networking giant is building its own storage hardware - hardware for housing all the digital stuff uploaded by its more than 845 million users. More »

Facebook already built its own data center and its own servers. And now the social-networking giant is building its own storage hardware - hardware for housing all the digital stuff uploaded by its more than 845 million users. More »

Rumors surrounding a possible Facebook phone have been swirling for years, and the social networking giant has repeatedly denied reports that it is planning to launch an own-brand handset. While a number of industry watchers thought the company would fare well with a Facebook phone, a recent survey suggests that consumers are largely uninterested in a Facebook-branded smartphone. Baird Equity recently surveyed 875 consumers and found that just 12% said they were “very interested” or at least “interested” in a Facebook phone while 73% said they were “probably not interested” or “not interested.” Meanwhile more than 40% of those polled said they were either “very interested” or “interested” in a smartphone from retail giant Amazon, and 29% weren’t interested. Amazon has been rumored on several occasions to have a smartphone in the works. With consumer interest in an Amazon smartphone at a seemingly healthy level and Kindle Fire adoption having exploded last quarter, 2012 could be a good year for the retailer to enter the smartphone space. A table showing Baird’s findings follows below.

We know, you've seen an awful lot of Zuckerberg and crew here lately, and the Facebook news just keeps rolling in. This time the social networking giant is doing some sharing of a different sort by offering public access to the specifications and best practices behind its new, more efficient data center in Prineville, Oregon. According to the company, the center, built in collaboration with AMD, Dell, HP, and Intel, has boosted energy efficiency by 38 percent while lowering cost by 24 percent. The information now available through the Open Compute Project includes technical specs and mechanical CAD files for everything from servers to building design. Basically, if you want to erect your own multi-million dollar Facebook-style data center, you've got the go ahead. Full PR after the break.

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Facebook's Open Compute Project shares plans for energy-efficient data center originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 21:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to a report filed by CNET, social networking giant Facebook is “planning to launch a third-party commenting system in a matter of weeks.” The article cites “multiple sources familiar with the matter” and offers the recent hiring of both Nick Grudin and Andy Mitchell as additional evidence. While Facebook is already heavily integrated into the commenting systems of most major blogs, via Facebook Connect, it is not directly responsible for most commenting systems. ”[The] Facebook commenting product may also permit users to log in with Google, Yahoo, or Twitter IDs if a publisher chooses to incorporate them,” writes a CNET source. The move does, in our opinion, make sense for the social networking site. Aside from padding its user base with those who sign-up just to comment, it would also allow it to build a more in-depth profile of its users by tracking what they are reading and inclined to comment on while online. What do you think of a Facebook driven commenting system? Yay or nay?Read

TechCrunch is reporting that social networking giant Facebook will publicly unveil its “Project Titan” — a web-based email client — to the world at a media event scheduled for Monday, November 15th. The report cites anonymous sources and alleges that the email service will bring @facebook.com email addresses to its users. Irrelevant, but fun and sensational, TechCrunch goes on to write that Project Titan is referred to internally at Facebook as the “Gmail killer.”

Recently, both Google and Facebook have appeared in headlines together as Google now posts the below warning message to its users who try to access Facebook’s Gmail friend-importer. Sounds like things are getting a little icy between the two data-mining giants.

AllThingsD is reporting that social networking giant Facebook and internet communications company Skype are planning to announce a “wide-ranging partnership that will include integration of SMS, voice chat and Facebook Connect.” The blog cites “sources close to the situation” and goes on to explain that the partnership will allow users to SMS and call Facebook friends (both video and audio) from Skype. The report states that this functionality will appear in Skype 5.0; which is due out of beta in the several weeks. Both Skype and Facebook have over 500 million registered users respectively making this a blockbuster partnership.

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Facebook spokesperson Jaime Schopflin has outright denied that the social networking giant is creating a "Facebook phone." "Facebook is not building a phone [...] building phones is just not what we do," he said. More »

Last night, Business Insider sent foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley an email shortly after social networking giant Facebook announced the launch of their geo-location service, Places. The short email reads: “So is Facebook the location platform now? And is Foursquare an app on that platform?” Crowley responded with a few details about how his company will interact with Places, and their plans for the future:

No, we’re still a platform for location, specifically around sharing locations though check-ins, surfacing interesting things around you and using game mechanics to encourage and reward for certain actions and/or behaviors.

Facebook also launched a location platform, which appears to be mostly based on checkins (and common FB elements like comments/likes/photos).

We already allow users to publish their 4SQ checkins into the Facebook News Feed and we’ll eventually going to allow users to push them into the Facebook Checkin Feed.   I’d imagine we’ll prob pull FB checkins into 4SQ too.   We’re in the middle of a redesign and some new feature launches, so we’re going to get thru those before getting started on FB integration.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the two companies push each other and differentiate themselves while adding value to and growing their user-bases. What are your thoughts on geo-location social networks like foursquare and Facebook’s Places?

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It's been a little while since we've seen a good multi-billion dollar acquisition, but HP's sure come through in a big way today, announcing that it plans to acquire networking giant 3Com in an all-cash deal valued at $2.7 billion, or $7.90 a share. The deal will, of course, still have to clear a few regulatory hurdles and receive the approval of 3Com's stockholders, but it has already been given the go-ahead by both company's boards of directors, and HP expects the transaction to close in the first half of 2010. Not surprisingly, HP sees nothing but pluses with the acquisition, saying that it will do nothing short of "transform the networking industry," and "enable customers to build a next-generation network infrastructure that supports customer needs from the edge of the network to the heart of the data center." Equally optimistic but slightly cooler on the world-changing language is 3Com CEO Bob Mao, who says that its company's "extensive product line and innovative technology together with HP's breadth and scale will expand our global opportunity."

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HP to acquire 3Com in $2.7 billion deal originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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