But analysts say GM is not the only company doubting Facebook’s ability to woo consumers with paid ads.

“Companies in industries from consumer electronics to financial services tell us they’re no longer sure Facebook is the best place to dedicate their social marketing budget – a shocking fact given the site’s dominance among users,” Forrester analyst Nate Elliott wrote in a  blog post, according to the Journal.

Bad news on the advertising front reflects poorly on Facebook just days before an initial public offering expected to reap billions for the company and value it at up to $104 billion.

Advertising is Facebook’s main revenue stream, and it has already admitted that it is not yet able to convert its mobile app’s growing popularity into more advertising dollars.

It will be psychologically devastating to sales management there, The Journal reported.

GM said it would still have Facebook pages, which cost nothing to create, to market its vehicles. GM pays no fee to Facebook for its pages, which allow the car maker to reach consumers directly.

“We regularly review our overall media spend and make adjustments as needed. This happens as a regular course of business and it’s not unusual for us to move our spending around various media outlets – especially with the growth of multiple social and digital media outlets,” a GM spokesman said in a statement.

The motoring giant is reportedly pulling out of the paid Facebook ad market because the company found its ads on the Menlo Park company’s social network to be ineffective.

While GM’s decision could be an exception in the advertising world, it marked the first highly visible crack in the Facebook strategy, said Brian Wieser, Internet and media analyst at Pivotal Research Group, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

“This does highlight what we are arguing is the riskiness of the overall Facebook business model,” he said.

“It is not a sure thing. It sure looks likely that it will be one of the most important ad-supported media properties, but it’s not certain because there will be marketers who are challenged to prove the effectiveness of the marketing vehicle.”

Facebook ads make up a small percentage of GM’s advertising budget, but the company said it is committed to the website to market its vehicles.

An acquisition announced this week could help Facebook in its mobile attempts, however – the company agreed to acquire the team behind a London-based mobile firm called Lightbox.

The deal is solely for the employees of the small company, which produced apps and products similar to Instagram, which Facebook has agreed to acquire for $1 billion, but Lightbox has more of a focus on Android devices while offering nonmobile options.

Lightbox will stop accepting new members and close its doors in about a month.

Car makers are increasingly turning to social media sites to reach younger consumers on their turf for less than a tenth of the cost of a traditional marketing campaign.

Locally, Holden’s social media and digital communications manager Andrea Matthews says there will be no impact on the local Facebook scene, as Holden doesn’t buy ad space on the site, carsguide.com.au reports.

“We don’t at the moment spend any money on paid Facebook advertising, but we do use it for a range of different things,” she says.

“For us it’s about building and maintaining our brand, creating awareness for our product, letting our customers know new products are coming, when special offers are available, and celebrating our heritage.”

Source : http://www.news.com.au/

According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center, social networking is growing more rapidly in developing countries than in developed markets, where social network growth has already plateaued.  The survey measured increases in the double-digits for social networking in emerging markets such as Russia, Indonesia and Mexico, and found that “people in lower income nations who have online access use social networking at rates that are as high, or higher, than those found in affluent countries.”

The survey was conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project from March 21 to May 15, and showed that social networking is most common in higher income nations – where residents also have higher rates of internet access.  In developed nations like Israel and the U.S., half or more of the population say they use social networking websites.

In Ukraine (30%), Turkey (29%), Jordan (29%), and Egypt (28%) the percentage of users tends to be low because many do not use the internet at all; however, among those who are online, more are using social networking sites than not. This is a sharp contrast to some developed countries, like Germany and France, where the number of internet users who don’t use social networking sites outnumber those who do.

Though Brazil was not included in the Pew study, eMarketerquotes an F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi study that found 93% of internet users in Brazil engaged in social networking in August 2011.

Out of the countries studied, Russia and Indonesia actually had the highest penetration (86%) of social networking users among internet users in each country. In India 72% of internet users engaged in social media; this puts all three of these countries ahead of the U.S., which saw less than 60% of internet users participating in social networking online, as reported by eMarketer.

The study also noted the effect of political upheaval – especially when fueled by social media – on social network usage.  While most countries saw little change in social networking use between 2010 and 2011, Egypt and Russia – both homes of recent political movements in which social media played a part – each saw an increase of 10% in social networking use.

The rapid growth of social networking across developing countries will only grow faster as mobile use (and internet access with it) becomes more widespread in the next several years.

From : http://therealtimereport.com

Facebook, after filing its papers for its IPO will be starting its trading later this may. If other hot stock offerings of the past are any indication, investment funds and institutional investors probably grabbed most of the shares in the company’s oversubscribed initial public offering, despite the company’s efforts to spread some of them around.

That means you’ll be competing with mom-and-pop investors like Tessie Cuy, an East Bay real estate agent who plans to dive in when shares of the hottest new tech company in years start trading on the open market Friday morning.

“I’ll buy the stock just to see what happens,” Cuy said. “To a lot of people around the world, Facebook is the Internet, so I’d love to grab a few shares the first day it goes public. Plus, I can show them off to my friends and impress people.”

Facebook’s IPO has been one of the most widely anticipated tech stock debuts of the decade, and many analysts are bullish about the company’s long-term prospects. But some financial experts are advising individual investors to keep their cool.

For one thing, most individuals weren’t able to buy at the initial offering price. They’ll have to wait until public trading starts Friday, when demand is expected to drive the price much higher.”The investment banks tilt their IPO allocations to their biggest and best clients, and that’s rarely the mom-and-pop investors,” said Joe Magyer, a senior analyst at the Motley Fool, an investment advisory website.

Facebook made some effort to give small investors a crack at the IPO shares. It added online broker E-Trade, often used by smaller investors, to the list of underwriters that had the right to sell stock at the IPO price. Most of the 33 underwriters are big investment banks like Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan, which primarily serve wealthy investors, big pension and mutual funds and the like.

Other retail brokers such as Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade and Fidelity have said they expected to get some IPO shares even though they are not underwriters. A Fidelity spokesman said his firm will have some IPO shares through an arrangement with Deutsche Bank, for example.

Those brokers have not said how many shares they expected to have. But they set minimum eligibility requirements for prospective buyers, anticipating that demand would outstrip limited supply. And most say that meeting those requirements wouldn’t guarantee customers will get their hands on any shares at the sought-after IPO price.

From: mercurynews.com

-Sean O’Neill (BBC)

Travellers can find an app for nearly anything they want, but sadly there isn’t yet an app to extend the chronically dwindling battery life of a smart phone, which always tends to die at the most inconvenient moment. But upcoming developments in portable chargers (that do not have to be plugged in) are making it easier for you to pack an emergency power supply and keep your conversation going.

The most promising breakthrough in portable chargers is the use of fuel cells, a technology that creates a current from a chemical reaction. Some fuel cells can charge a device roughly 12 times before needing a replacement cartridge of butane (which the US government permits in checked luggage on airplanes). That kind of performance is unheard of in today’s plug-free chargers, which tend to be powered by conventional alkaline or lithium ion batteries and often can only last for one or two charges before needing replacement or recharging on their own.

Travellers will have to wait until this autumn to get their hands on the most anticipated fuel cell-powered charger, when US-based retailer Brookstoneunveils its micro-USB power charger. The device will have enough electricity-generating oomph to fully juice up a depleted iPhone 4S or similar smart phone between 10 and 14 times. After fulfilling its duty, the shiny device will need a replacement cartridge of fuel, which will cost a few dollars. Brookstone says its adapter will work with Apple and Android smart phones as well as with any device with a micro-USB cord, such as a Kindle Fire or a tablet computer. The name of the Brookstone-branded power charger, as well as its price, won’t be announced until later this year.

Meanwhile, during the past week, a handful of other companies announced developments in mobile electronic chargers that use innovative technologies to prevent devices from conking out. Here are four chargers that stand out in the crowd:

A charger that runs on easy-to-find alkaline batteries
Nothing beats the convenience of alkaline batteries, given that nearly every store in the world sells them. So this week Energizer launched a line of portable chargers that run on AA batteries. One of its products, the Instant Charger, needs only three AA batteries to revive a dead smart phone. The charger will come in two versions: one for the iPhone and one for devices that have a USB port, including most Android smart phones and all Amazon Kindles. The Instant Chargers work as fast as traditional chargers and will be available in the United States this autumn.

Harness the sun
If using alkaline batteries strikes you as wasteful, turn instead to a charger that uses solar energy. It takes about five hours for Suntactic’s sCharger-5 to absorb enough rays of natural or artificial light to give a typical smart phone full power. It’s one of the only solar chargers on the market efficient enough to power energy-intensive smart phones. It can soak up light while you’re on the go, and it can revive a device nearly as quickly as a conventional charger. The approximately six-by-11in panel fits most any mobile phone, such as iPhone, Android and HTC.

A smart phone case with a built-in plug
The JuiceTank is a handy case that snaps onto your iPhone 4 or 4S and provides an integrated wall-charging plug, so that you can connect it to any US power socket — no more forgetting your charger as you run out the door. The hard case is also surprisingly trim, thanks to its foldable prongs. JuiceTank’s first cases, which will go on sale this summer, will only be made for the iPhone 4 and 4S. The manufacturer, Get Detached, said cases for other smart phone models will follow. As of now, JuiceTank cases are only available to people who make donations to the start-up company via the fundraising site Kickstarter.

World’s most stylish device charger
For his fall fashion collection, British designer Richard Nicoll will launch a glamorous handbag that is capable of discreetly charging a smart phone or tablet. The bag has a battery charger that runs on magnetic induction, a technology that’s already behind most rechargeable toothbrushes, using unnoticeable internal magnets to generate the necessary juice. When you return to your hotel or home, you can connect the handbag to a traditional power source. An LED charm that hangs off the side of the bag lets you subtly know the remaining battery life at all times. The carryall doesn’t have a name; simply visit a luxury store and ask for the latest Richard Nicoll tote.

Though the Resolutionary iPad as mentioned by Apple Inc. has not yet hit the apple stores around the world, the preview has massively hit the web. The most talked about feature is the Retina display that makes everything look crisper and much lifelike. According to Apple the text is razor sharp, the colors are more vibrant, multimedia are poured with much detail. They say its brilliant in every sense of the world. Using the latest version of iPad gives you the feeling of actually touching the photo, reading books and playing piano. The display, the camera and the wireless connection are thus more crystally enhanced and that claims to make the third-generation iPad capable of so much more that someone has ever imagined.

The large beautiful display better, the Retina Display features an impressive 2048X1536 resolutions, 44 percent color saturation with an amazing 3.1 million pixels in the same 9.7 inch screen. You get the best experience so bar in ways you never could before. Every pixels in the display has multiple signals telling it when to light up in response to your input. Having lot of pixels and lot of signals in the same display can sometime lead to degradation of image quality and to make sure this doesn’t happen the Apple engineers have upgraded the pixels into different frame – separating them from the signals. This in itself is a new engineering art that iPad3 brings to you.

The all new iPad 3 brings to you a 5 megapixel iSight camera with advanced optics a backside illumination sensor, auto white balance and face detection for incredible still images, furthermore you can record a 1080 HD video as well making every moment you capture as lively as you remember.

The new iPad features four times the pixels of iPad 2 and quad-core graphics which has almost no effect to your battery life thus maintains the optimum battery life with 10 hours of power backup to read, watch, write and play and perform any task as you want

It supports fast cellular networks – including 4G LTE networks in the US and Canada. Lets you browse the net, stream videos, download movies at blistering fast speeds. It also works on GSM/UMTS worldwide network technologies including HSPA, HSPA+, and DC-HSDPA — the fastest 3G networks.

For the first time, you can share the high-speed data connection on your iPad. If your carrier supports it, iPad can act as a personal hotspot for connecting up to five devices — such as a MacBook Air, an iPod touch, or another iPad — over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB.

Compiled From : apple.com

Angry rants about the demise of corporate culture aren’t reserved only for ex-Goldman Sachs employees. Microsoft-turned-Google engineer James Whittaker — now once again a Microsoft employee – fired off a scathing blast Tuesday on a Microsoft blog about why he left Google.

“My last three months working for Google was a whirlwind of desperation,” wrote Whittaker, who headed an engineering team for social network Google+. “The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.”

Whittaker, who joined Google in 2009 and left last month, described a corporate culture clearly divided into two eras: “Before Google+,” and “After.”

“After” is pretty terrible, in his view.

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) once gave its engineers the time and resources to be creative. That experimental approach yielded several home-run hits like Chrome and Gmail. But Google fell behind in one key area: competing with Facebook.

That turned into corporate priority No. 1 when Larry Page took over as the company’s CEO. “Social” became Google’s battle cry, and anything that didn’t support Google+ was viewed as a distraction.

“Suddenly, 20% meant half-assed,” wrote Whittaker, referring to Google’s famous policy of letting employees spend a fifth of their time on projects other than their core job. “The trappings of entrepreneurship were dismantled.”

Whittaker is not the first ex-Googler to express that line of criticism. Several high-level employees have left after complaining that the “start-up spirit” of Google has been replaced by a more mature but staid culture focused on the bottom line.

The interesting thing about Whittaker’s take is that it was posted not on his personal blog, but on an official blog of Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), Google’s arch nemesis.

Spokesmen from Microsoft and Google declined to comment.

The battle between Microsoft and Google has heated up recently, as the Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission begin to investigate Google for potential antitrust violations. Microsoft, with its Bing search engine, has doubled its share of the search market since its June 2010 founding, but has been unsuccessful at taking market share away from Google.

Microsoft is increasingly willing to call out Google for what it sees as illicit behavior. A year ago, the software company released a long list of gripes about Google’s monopolistic actions, and last month it said Google wasviolating Internet Explorer users’ privacy.

Despite his misgivings about what Google cast aside to make Google+ a reality, Whittaker thinks that the social network was worth a shot. If it had worked — if Google had dramatically changed the social Web for the better — it would have been a heroic gamble.

But it didn’t. It’s too early to write Google+ off, but the site is developing a reputation as a ghost town. Google says 90 million people have signed up, but analysts and anecdotal evidence show that fairly few have turned into heavy users.

“Google was the rich kid who, after having discovered he wasn’t invited to the party, built his own party in retaliation,” Whittaker wrote. “The fact that no one came to Google’s party became the elephant in the room.”

Source : www.cnn.money.com

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Bear Grylls whose extreme survival ability and high tolerance for eating disgusting insects and wild creatures has come to a contract termination with the Discovery Channel for his popular show Man vs Wild.

Grylls, 37, who was dropped into hostile places to survive by eating insects, wading rapids and drinking his urine, has hosted the TV show since 2006, becoming a celebrity around the world.

But Discovery Channel said on Tuesday that “due to a continuing contractual dispute with Bear Grylls, Discovery has terminated all current productions with him.”

A spokesman for Grylls said he and Discovery had been unable to reach agreement on new programming and had parted ways.

“Bear’s goal has always been to make life-empowering shows for his many fans around the globe, and he has taken great risks to bring Discovery such award winning programming over seven seasons,” said Heather Krug, publicist for the wilderness expert.

“Unfortunately, Bear and Discovery have not been able to come to mutual agreement on new programming, and he disagrees with Discovery’s decision to terminate current productions. Bear has loved the ‘Man vs. Wild’ journey and looks forward to producing further cutting edge content again soon for his loyal audience.”

The details of the dispute were unclear but trade publication The Hollywood Reporterquoted industry sources as saying it revolved around two unannounced projects for which Grylls was contracted.

The sixth and most recent season of “Man Vs. Wild” was broadcast on Discovery in July and August 2011. It featured one episode in which Grylls was joined in a remote part of Iceland by actor Jake Gyllenhaal.

Other episodes have seen Grylls dropped by parachute into jungles and deserts, surviving for days by eating snakes, sleeping in snow holes and wrapping a urine-soaked t-shirt around his head to combat dehydration.

“Man vs. Wild”, is broadcast in Britain as “Born Survivor: Bear Grylls” and shown in some 200 countries around the world.

Grylls climbed Mt Everest at the age of 23 and served for three years in Britain’s elite Special Air Service, training in parachuting, jungle warfare and combat survival.

He also has found fame as a motivational speaker and written several books, including teenage fiction and a best-selling autobiography.
Source : www.chicagotribune.com
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

The website WikiLeaks has begun releasing what it says are 5 million e-mails from the private intelligence company Stratfor, starting with a company “glossary” that features unflattering descriptions of U.S. government agencies.

In a statement released early Monday in Europe (Sunday evening ET), the website promises a raft of juicy disclosures about Stratfor, a Texas-based firm that promotes itself to corporate and government clients as a source of intelligence on international affairs. The company has been targeted by hackers who have released private data about subscribers in recent months, prompting the company to offer its clients a year of paid identity-protection coverage.

There was no immediate comment on the disclosures from Stratfor, and the authenticity of the documents could not be independently confirmed Sunday night.

WikiLeaks, a website that facilitates the leaking of confidential information, says the documents will be released through a network of more than 25 news outlets and activist groups in the coming weeks. The first document out was titled “The Stratfor Glossary of Useful, Baffling and Strange Intelligence Terms,” featuring brief and sometimes-humorous definitions and blunt assessments of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement.

Source : CNN.COM

Chandra Bahadur Dangi has finally a reason to rejoice after living a life of extreme deprivation as the Guinness World Records on Sunday confirmed him as the shortest adult human to have ever verified.

The 72-year-old bachelor from the remote village of Purandhara-8, Rhimkholi in Dang had boarded an airplane for the first time in his life four days ago to travel to Kathmandu to have an official measurement of his height — found to be 54.6 cm (21.5 inches) — at CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Center in Lainchaur.

Guinness World Records Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday had flown from London to Kathmandu for the official measurement and his height was confirmed following three measurements in 24 hours as per the Guinness World Records guidelines.

Dangi beat the all-time Guinness benchmark set by Gul Mohammed of India who was 57 cm (22.5 inches) tall when measured just before his death at the age of 40 in 1997. He is 5.3 cm shorter than the current record holder Junrey Balawing of the Philippines (59.9cm, 23.5 in), who had eclipsed the record of another Nepali Khagendra Thapa Magar (67 cm, 26.4 in) when the Filipino was measured on his 18th birthday last June.

“I want to visit other countries and wish to spread my country´s name,” a visibly happy Dangi, who also wished to visit the prime minister, said after the official recognition.

Dangi, who at 72 is the oldest to be recorded as the shortest-man according to Glenday, would have been the shortest man in the world ever recorded.

“We just give official certificate and don´t give money. But yes that would have given a platform for him to receive financial gains,” Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday told Republica when asked about the financial implications of late recognition for Dangi.

source : myrepublica.com

Once you have finally dropped your bags at your destination, the next 24 hours of any trip can be both thrilling and completely disorienting. Having a plan for getting things done and getting your trip truly underway upon arrival can set the tone for an entire vacation. Here are 10 tips for dispatching potential snags in the first 24 hours of your trip.

1. On the way in, plan your exit.
The best time to figure out the fastest and easiest way out of town is on your way in; waiting until you are trying to make a plane to do so can cause a lot of stress and lost time. After you get off a plane, for example, scope out the airport layout and amenities. Note how far it is from the car rental counter to the terminal as well as a good place to buy gas to fill up your tank before returning your vehicle. Look for street names and exit numbers to thread your way back to the rental counter or terminals. When you check in at your hotel, ask about check-out times and see if you can leave without stopping at the front desk.

2. Grab some nourishment.
One of the first things most travelers will need to do upon arriving in a new place is eat, and many end up grabbing whatever is available, whether it’s room service or fast food. But with Yelp, Urbanspoon, TripAdvisor, and many other listing sites and apps out there, you can get ahead of this one very easily.

Reader Tre Horoszewski offers a tip: “Do a little research ahead of time to find a decent, nearby restaurant for your first meal upon arrival. You’re often tired and hungry, so aren’t ready to go to that one really great place you want to try on your trip. But neither do you want to spend time looking for someplace and wind up settling for junk precisely because you’re tired and hungry and just want food.”

3. Reset your clock.
If you changed time zones while traveling, you will want to assume the daily rhythms of the new zone immediately, right down to the type of foods you eat. If it is morning, go have tea or coffee and breakfast foods (pancakes, pastries, etc.); if it is evening, have a proper dinner; if it is nighttime, maybe a cocktail and a snack. Don’t succumb to the urge to stay on your old schedule, especially for your most ingrained habits — which brings us to…

4. Get outside.
When you visit a new place, the light is different, the air is different and your entire sense of the world can be different. After spending hours in parking lots, airports, planes, shuttle buses and rental car garages, put down all your stuff and get out the door.

Ceci Flinn, an American working toward a Ph.D. at Oxford in the U.K., offers the following: “Take a walk, familiarize yourself with the surroundings and get fresh air/exercise. Okay, there are places like parts of L.A. where this doesn’t work so well, and ya gotta take a bus or drive, and then walk!”

Do this again the morning after you arrive; getting yourself out into the sunlight alerts your brain and body to what time of day it is, and lets them know that you’re done sitting on planes and ready to have some fun!

5. Have a plan to deal with your caffeine addiction.
Face it, a very large percentage of Americans have a caffeine addiction of some type; getting this under control and on track as quickly as possible is going to be critical in adjusting your biological clock to match your new surroundings. If you mess it up in the early going, it can take days to correct, and even exact a toll on your overall enjoyment of your trip.

Anyone with a coffee habit of any merit knows the consequences of having a strong cup of coffee at the wrong time of day. If it’s 7 a.m. in your home town but late in the day at your new destination, you know that giving your body the java fix it’s demanding will wreak havoc on your sleep that night and your energy the next day. But you also know you can’t go completely without.

I have found that substituting a sugarless cola often does the trick; with less than 50 milligrams of caffeine in most colas, it is enough to push back headaches and cravings, but not so much to ruin your sleep.

Then when you get up the next day, get out of your room into the morning sunlight and hit the caffeine hard; I have found that this combination can reset your internal clock almost in an instant. You may have a different approach — and an evening cup of coffee may have little effect on some people — but you want to put a strategy into play before you find yourself lying awake in the dark on a midnight caffeine jag.

A simpler version: Wait until your first morning to drink your first strong cup of coffee.

6. Take pictures.
A pro photographer I know always dedicates the first few hours of a trip to taking a lot of photos; he noticed some time ago that his eye was always “freshest” when he first arrived in a new place, and he would notice things in the first few hours that he might ignore after a few days. Flynn says simply, “Take a camera; you never know when you will see something magical.”

7. Charge your electronics.
When you arrive in your room, the first thing you want to do is whip out all your electronic devices, make sure you can plug them in if you are traveling internationally and put a full charge on them. If you need adapters, you will want to deal with this early in your trip; having your laptop or camera bail out on you right after you arrive can make the normal hassles of traveling overwhelm the first promising hours of your trip.

8. Secure your valuables.
The place you stow your most valuable items during a flight (in your carry-on, in your coat pocket) may not be the safest place for the duration of your trip. If you are traveling with any especially valuable items, secure them straight away upon arrival, whether in the safe in your room, or buried deep in your socks, or however you prefer to do so.

9. Let someone know you arrived, and where you are.
Especially if you are traveling alone, but even if not, it’s a good idea to let someone close to you know that you arrived safely, and tell him or her how to get in touch with you if needed (hotel phone and room number, your preferred traveling e-mail address, a local cell phone if you purchase one, etc.).

10. Check the weather.
It seems almost too simple, but countless travelers get ambushed by bad weather, and a thoughtful weather check can really assist your overall planning. Check the long-term forecast for your stay, which will help you decide when to schedule outdoor vs. indoor activities, whether you will need to pick up gear that you didn’t pack, and how to cope with any truly plan-wrecking weather events.

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