Facebook buys Israeli startup Onavo for more than $150 million

Under deal, Facebook agrees, for the first time, to run an R&D center in Israel.

Facebook, the world’s largest social network, has signed an agreement to acquire the Israeli startup Onavo for more than $150 million. Onavo, the developer of an award-winning mobile utility app and the company behind Onavo Insights, made the announcement Monday morning to its employees and published a notice on its blog.

Facebook in full personal data ransack with Graph Search

Posts, updates, the lot. Our ad sales will boom. Mwu-ha-haaaa ... bitch 

Stalkers and advertisers will be pleased to know that Facebook is now more searchable than it has ever been, after the social network confirmed that it was in the process of allowing users to dig much deeper into a "friend's" past posts on the free content ad network.

The Mark Zuckerberg-run company has been chasing larger ad bucks in a move to cheer investors on Wall Street. And in recent months, the strategy has started to pay off.

Facebook unzipped its Graph Search feature at the start of this year. It came with limited functions at the time, but the system was Zuck's first clear signal to advertisers that he was finally getting serious about search and - by extension - advertising, from which the billionaire derives around 85 per cent of his company's revenues.

Significantly, while Facebook has a close working relationship with Microsoft, it had enough foresight to recognise that its search feature needed to be completely autonomous within the Menlo Park silo.

MS still powers external search requests for Facebookers. But the juicy stuff locked inside the network is controlled completely by Zuck's engineers.

Facebook said of Graph Search on Monday:

Now you will be able to search for status updates, photo captions, check-ins and comments to find things shared with you.

But it was keen to add that a user's privacy would not be violated on the network.

As with other things in Graph Search, you can only see content that has been shared with you, including posts shared publicly by people you are not friends with.

Fears about perverts using Graph Search to prey on teenagers on the network were raised earlier this year. Facebook was forced to say that controls would be in place to protect young people. But the system is flawed, because it relies on kids and adults to be honest about their age when signing up to Facebook - which is not robustly policed by the company.

The new function is slowly being rolled out to a small number of users for now. As Google and Twitter, the latter of which is prepping for its IPO, understand only too well, watching in near real-time which searches are popular on those services is key to satisfying hungry admen.

Facebook apologies for dating ad showing Rehtaeh Parsons

Facebook has apologised for publishing a dating ad featuring a photo of a 17-year-old who had killed herself after complaining of being cyber-bullied.

Canadian Rehtaeh Parsons took her own life in April having been severely bullied after a separate photo, showing her alleged rape by four boys, was circulated online, her mother has said.

Her father said on Wednesday that he had been "disgusted" by the advert.

Facebook said it had banned the company involved from the social network.

"This is an extremely unfortunate example of an advertiser scraping an image from the internet and using it in their ad campaign," a spokesman said.

"This is a gross violation of our ad policies and we have removed the ad and permanently deleted the advertiser's account.

"We apologise for any harm this caused."

The advert had used the title "Find Love in Canada!" and referred users to ionechat.com.

That website is no longer online and its owner could not be reached for comment.

Rehtaeh Parsons' father has posted a screenshot of the advert on his blog

According to Rehtaeh's mother, Leah, the Nova Scotia-based teenager had attended a party two years earlier where she had got drunk and been raped.

And a photo of the incident had subsequently been circulated online.

"People harassed her, boys she didn't know started texting her and Facebooking asking her to have sex with them since she had had sex with their friends. It just never stopped," Mrs Parsons told CBC News in April.

Two 18-year-old men have since appeared in court charged with child pornography offences. They are expected to enter pleas on 19 September.

Ms Parsons's father was alerted to the advert earlier this week and posted a message to his blog to express his anger.

"I am completely bewildered and disgusted by this," wrote Glen Canning in a message titled "Possibly the worst Facebook ad ever".

"This is my daughter, Rehtaeh. They have her in an ad for meeting singles. I don't even know what to say."

Novia Scotia's government passed a law following Ms Parsons's death, creating a police unit dedicated to pursuing cyber-bullies. The government expects it to become active before the end of the year.

Iran social media hopes dashed as Twitter, Facebook access called a 'glitch'

Iranians had a few hours access to Facebook and Twitter before a Web firewall went back up by Tuesday and Tehran scotched talk of new Internet freedoms by blaming a technical glitch for the brief opening of access.

Late on Monday, several people in Iran found they could log in to their accounts on the U.S.-based social media sites without using techniques to circumvent blocks on Twitter and Facebook that the state imposed four years ago, during a clampdown on the biggest protests since the Islamic revolution.

That prompted speculation that it might herald a broader easing of censorship under President Hassan Rouhani; last month, he succeeded Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose re-election in 2009 sparked the demonstrations, in which social media played a part.

However, access was being blocked again on Tuesday and an official involved in controlling Internet usage said the brief lifting of the embargo at some Iranian Internet service providers was probably caused by a technical malfunction.

“The lack of a filter on Facebook last night was apparently due to technical problems and the technological committee is investigating this issue,” Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, secretary of a state panel that filters sites, told Iran’s Mehr news agency.

Service providers were being investigated, he added.

International executives at Facebook and Twitter had no immediate comment on the development.

One Iran expert based abroad said controls had briefly been removed across a very wide range of sites, including online pornography, supporting the view that it was a glitch.

Another, however, said Rouhani’s new administration could be considering easing restrictions on sites that remain popular among Iranians able to get around the domestic firewall – and which senior government figures, and even Iran’s clerical Supreme Leader, have themselves used to convey their messages.

“I strongly believe it was a technical glitch because all Web sites that support SSL were available in the country last night, even porn websites,” said Amin Sabeti, a British-based expert on the Internet in Iran. SSL is a Web security tool.

Sabeti added: “Iran has invested millions of dollars for its filtering system and it is clear that the regime will not give up Internet censorship very easily.”

Nonetheless, there have been signs in that direction. Rouhani, a moderately reformist cleric, pledged to relax some social controls during his campaign for June’s election. New, U.S.-educated foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has Facebook and Twitter profiles and has engaged with other users.

Even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seems to have taken to global social media to publicize ideas.

Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, who lectures on Iran at England’s Manchester University, said at least partially unblocking sites like Facebook would recognize its popularity. A ban on video recorders, he noted, was lifted in the 1990s when the devices had already become very widely used, despite being outlawed.

“Keeping them illegal became senseless,” he said.

Many Iranians use proxy servers to trick systems into believing they are outside Iran to access foreign social media.

Randjbar-Daemi said the authorities might experiment with ways of allowing most access to the likes of Facebook and Twitter, as they do with the search site Google, while using technology to block certain kinds of activity.

“I think we could be seeing a partial unblocking of Facebook, along the lines of Google, in which some search results are filtered but others are not,” he said. “Rouhani would also score clear kudos within his supporters in this way.”

Arash Tajik, an IT administrator in Tehran, said he believed that the brief opening might have been part of an experiment by the authorities: “They are testing what will happen if they remove the filter and whether they can control the situation or not,” said Tajik, who accessed Facebook unfiltered on Monday.

Like Tajik, another Internet user in Tehran called Hossein, said he could not use Facebook without a proxy server on Tuesday. Hamed, a 32-year-old journalist and teacher, said he too found Facebook and Twitter blocked on Tuesday, said Internet providers could face penalties if the opening was unauthorized.

Iran has accused Israel and the United States of cyberwar against its computer systems in the past, notably involving its energy and nuclear facilities. It did not link this week’s brief failure of its social media firewall to hacking activity.

Though Rouhani has spoken of reform, any move to ease controls will need approval from the ruling establishment of conservative clerics and security officials, including Khamenei.

Facebook recovery swells founder Mark Zuckerberg's fortune by £6bn

Facebook's recovery since last year’s disappointing flotation has added $9.6bn (£6bn) to founder Mark Zuckerberg's fortune, putting him back into the top 20 in Forbes’ annual rankings of America’s 400 richest people.

The 2013 Forbes 400, published today, puts Zuckerberg’s wealth at $19bn, up from $9.4bn last year, when the tech entrepreneur slipped to number 36.

The rise in Facebook’s share price – which last week hit $45.30, its highest level since Facebook’s botched IPO on May 18 last year – has also paid dividends for Zuckerberg’s former room-mate Dustin Moskovitz, who helped found the social network.

Moskovitz, 29, who is eight days younger than Zuckerberg, is the youngest billionaire in the Forbes 400.

His roughly 5pc stake in Facebook, which accounts for the majority of his wealth, has increased Moskovitz’s net worth by $2.5bn to $5.2bn.

Carl Icahn, the activist investor who last week conceded defeat in his battle to take Dell private, also had a good year, re-entering the top 20 for the first time since 2008 with gains of $5.5bn to $20.3bn.

But the top ten rankings remained unchanged, with Microsoft founder Bill Gates holding the number one spot for the twentieth consecutive year.

Gates, whose net worth has risen $6bn to $72bn over the last year, in May overtook the Mexican telecoms billionaire Carlos Slim to reclaim his position as the world’s richest man.

In second place, Berkshire Hathaway investor Warren Buffett closed the gap with Gates by increasing his net worth by $12.5bn to $58.5bn, making Buffett the year’s biggest dollar gainer.

Larry Ellison, the founder of software company Oracle, sticks at $41bn in the number three spot, while the joint fourth-richest Americans are Charles and David Koch, the brothers behind the sprawling global conglomerate Koch Industries, who each have a $36bn fortune, up from $31bn each last year.

Collectively, the 400 richest Americans have finally gained back their losses from the financial crisis.

The minimum net worth needed to make this year’s list is $1.3bn – the highest entry point since property and stock market values crashed in 2008.

The combined net worth of the 400 richest Americans has risen $300bn to a record $2trn, comparable to the GDP of Russia. The raised bar for entry means that 61 US billionaires fall outside the top 400.

The average net worth of the members of the Forbes 400 is $5bn, the highest to date, up from $4.2bn last year. Net worth has increased for 314 members of the top 400, and decreased for 30 members.

Notable newcomers to Forbes’ wealth rankings include Michael Rubin, the founder of the online sports retailer Kynetics, at 243, and Robert Pera, the head of the wireless technology manufacturer Ubiquiti Networks, at 293.

Pera, 35, is one of the nine businessmen under 40 on the Forbes list.

The biggest percentage gainer is David Duffield, the 72-year-old co-founder of the software business Workday, whose fortune has more than tripled to $6.4bn after the company’s IPO last October.

The Forbes rankings are based on a snapshot of wealth taken on August 23.

Twitter's low-key announcement bodes well for IPO

With an understated 135-character tweet, Twitter has moved into the intense spotlight that comes with being the most anticipated initial public stock offering since Facebook.

But experts believe Twitter should be able to avoid the pratfalls that caused the overly hyped 2012 Facebook IPO to initially flop on Wall Street. Particularly beneficial, they say, are Twitter's deep roots in mobile.

Even using its own position as a mass-media microblogging service to announce the IPO with a tweet was a "stroke of genius," said Ken Wisnefski, CEO of Internet marketing firm WebiMax.

"Avoiding the pomp and circumstance of a huge announcement allows the media to create the hype for you, which is only half as clever as the decision to take advantage of the Jobs Act," he said in an e-mail.

Twitter filed for its IPO under a provision of the Jobs Act, passed last year, which allows companies with less than $1 billion in revenue during its prior fiscal year to keep financial information secret until 21 days before it begins marketing to potential investors.

So there were no press conferences or news releases Thursday when the San Francisco company transmitted a simple tweet announcing it has "confidentially" registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to start the process of selling stock publicly.

That method has been used by about two-thirds of the 131 IPOs priced this year, according to IPO research firm Renaissance Capital.

The Jobs Act provision is designed to streamline the process for a startup during the SEC's normal IPO review period. Eventually, Twitter's financial information will become public in time for investors to evaluate whether to buy.

Facebook's fumbles

But Twitter should also be able to avoid the ups and downs of a prolonged public review - and the kind of last-minute surprise that sank Facebook's IPO. During the stretch run toward its IPO, Facebook amended its filing to clarify that the company had no proven method of generating revenue from the fastest growing segment of its users - those who logged in using a mobile device.

That clarification rang alarm bells for investors, especially since Facebook was supposed to have a seemingly through-the-roof valuation of $100 billion.

It wasn't until Facebook pivoted to become a mobile-first instead of Web-centric company, redesigning its mobile apps and generating actual income from mobile advertising - now a healthy 40 percent of all ad revenue - that the Menlo Park company topped its initial market capitalization.

Twitter's confidential filing "means there will be a little less of these kinds of surprises," said David Rogers, director of the Columbia Business School's executive education program on digital marketing strategy.

And, he said, "Twitter benefits from being mobile first from the get-go. They don't have to pivot."

As a private company, Twitter has had time to build its advertising platforms - including Sponsored Tweets that appear in the tweet stream - out of the glare of the intense scrutiny that comes from being a publicly traded firm.

MoPub buy a signal

And it appears the table for the IPO announcement was set Monday, when the company acquired MoPub, a mobile-ad technology firm located near Twitter's South of Market headquarters, reportedly for more than $350 million.

With the focus of all Internet giants on mobile advertising, Twitter, with its 200 million users, has a story Wall Street investors want to hear.

"I think they're in really good shape," said Ken Doctor, an analyst who follows Twitter for research and advisory firm Outsell.

"In a sense, the world has come to them," he said. "We're getting to be a mobile-majority society. And they are well set up by the nature of their service. One hundred forty characters is perfect, not just for a tablet, but for a smartphone."

In addition, the business world in general now has a more sophisticated understanding of social media than when Facebook went public, which could help Twitter better tell its story to Wall Street, said Sarah Carter, general manager of social business at Actiance, which sells a business platform for social media communications.

"Facebook was able to do their IPO on the hype of what social networking was going to be," Carter said. "Twitter is doing an IPO on the basis of what social has become."

Mark Zuckerberg: IPO made Facebook stronger

Mark Zuckerberg has had a change of heart.

The Facebook (FB) CEO, famously skeptical about the merits of going public, now says the company is better off for having gone through its rocky IPO.

"I actually think that it's made our company a lot stronger," Zuckerberg said Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt. "We run our company a lot better now."

Investors seem to agree, and analysts are increasingly optimistic about the social media giant's prospects in mobile, which is expected to be a key driver of growth.

Shares have rallied 70% since Facebook reported second quarter earnings in late July, hitting a new all-time high of $45 on Wednesday.

"In retrospect, I was too afraid about going public," Zuckerberg said. "I've been very outspoken about staying private for as long as possible. I don't think it's that necessary to do that."

The Facebook founder even recommended the process to rival tech companies -- including Twitter.

"I'm the person you would want to ask last how to make a smooth IPO," Zuckerberg joked. "As long as Twitter ... they focus on what they're doing, I think it's wonderful."

Zuckerberg's TechCrunch appearance was quite a reversal from last year, when he used the event to mount a defense of Facebook and his roadmap for building a profitable company.

Zuckerberg took the same stage with ease this time around, using the platform to explain some of his vision for Facebook, which now has more than 1 billion active users.

"Connecting the next five billion people is going to be harder because they may not have Internet connections," Zuckerberg said, alluding to his latest campaign, internet.org, aimed at bringing Internet to the masses.

Zuckerberg says he's also continuing to challenge himself -- part of a yearly exercise aimed at helping sustain motivation. In the past, he's started to learn Chinese and changed his eating habits.

"The point of these [challenges] is really you get perspective for building things by living in different worlds," Zuckerberg said.

This year, the notoriously introverted founder committed to connecting people online is challenging himself offline to meet a new person every day.

Clowney, 6th-ranked Gamecocks win 27-10

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Mike Davis ran 75 yards for a touchdown, Connor Shaw and Dylan Thompson each threw long scoring passes and All-American Jadeveon Clowney helped No. 6 South Carolina's defense hold North Carolina to its lowest point total under coach Larry Fedora in a 27-10 victory Thursday night.

The game was delayed nearly two hours in the fourth quarter by rain. The Gamecocks were already in control by that then.

Clowney did not have a sack and finished with three first-half tackles. The Tar Heels' fast-paced offense wore him down and forced him to the sideline for several pit stops, yet he and the defense mostly hemmed in North Carolina. Shaw and Thompson put South Carolina up 17-0 in the opening quarter.

Shaw found Shaq Roland for a 65-yard touchdown on the game's third play. Thompson threw a 29-yard TD to Kane Whitehurst later in the quarter.

It's been a steady stream of chatter about all things Clowney the past eight months, since knocking the helmet off a Michigan runner in the Outback Bowl. Should he sit out the year and protect his draft status as next year's No. 1 pick? How much insurance should he take out? (He has $5 million worth.) Can he become the first defense-only player to win the Heisman Trophy?

If he makes it to New York for the Heisman Trophy presentation in December, he likely won't have this game on his highlight reel.

North Carolina continually played away from Clowney's side with short passes and quick runs. When the Tar Heels did come his way, left tackle James Hurst - an all-ACC player with NFL hopes of his own - did a solid job keeping No. 7 in check.

Right before halftime, Clowney appeared to be breathing heavy in the 90-degree heat and humidity. Still, he had three tackles and putting pressure on Bryn Renner at every turn.

There was a scary moment after play resumed when Clowney was cut from behind by backup offensive lineman Kiaro Holts, who was called for clipping.

Davis finished with 115 yards on 12 carries. Shaw was 11 for 19 passing for 149 yards and his touchdown.

The Gamecocks looked like they might give their defense a break with a 17-point first quarter that was their biggest production in an opening-game quarter since 1996's 33-14 win over Central Florida.

The Gamecocks outgained North Carolina 203 yards to 35 in the opening quarter. The Tar Heels settled down a bit after that and closed to 17-7 on Renner's 4-yard TD pass to Quinshad Davis.

North Carolina, though, hurt itself several times. After the defense forced a three-and-out, T.J. Thorpe muffed the punt at midfield to keep South Carolina's drive going.

Elliott Fry added field goals of 39 and 26 yards in his first game at South Carolina.

Spurrier has said all summer that South Carolina is more than just Clowney. The Gamecocks defense certainly was, holding North Carolina's high-speed attack to 121 yards in the first 30 minutes. The Tar Heels averaged more than 40 points and 485 yards a game last year.

North Carolina opened the second half with a 17-play, 7-minute drive that ended with a field goal to cut the lead to 20-10. Then Davis, the younger brother of ex-Clemson 1,000-yard rusher James Davis, burst through the line on South Carolina's next snap and broke out for his long touchdown run.

The Tar Heels couldn't make anything happen after that.

Renner and the Tar Heels drove to South Carolina's 2 in the final two minutes, but could not score. Renner was stopped a yard short of the end zone by defensive tackle Kelcy Quarles.

Renner ended 26 of 43 with 194 yards. The Tar Heels finished with 293 yards.

The game was delayed with 8:20 left when lightning closed in on the stadium. Fans filed out quickly and hit their cars as heavy rain and thunder pelted the field for about an hour.

Government requests to Facebook outlined in report

Governments around the world requested information on about 38,000 Facebook users in the first six months of 2013.

Facebook's Global Government Requests Report, released on Tuesday for the first time, offered details on official requests from 74 countries.

The US made by far the most requests, asking for information on between 20,000 and 21,000 users.

UK authorities requested Facebook hand over data on 2,337 users.

"We will continue to be aggressive advocates for greater disclosure," Facebook said.

"We hope this report will be useful to our users in the ongoing debate about the proper standards for government requests for user information in official investigations," wrote Facebook lawyer Colin Stretch.

"And while we view this compilation as an important first report - it will not be our last."

Unlike other countries, which had an exact figure, the US data was given as a range due to it being forbidden for companies to disclose how many requests they have had.

"In coming reports, we hope to be able to provide even more information about the requests we receive from law enforcement authorities," Mr Stretch added.

Compliance

The report covers the the first six months of 2013, ending 30 June, and is the first time Facebook has released data relating to these kind of requests.

The company said it hoped to publish similar reports every six months from now on, and hoped the report highlighted the "stringent processes" involved in the obtaining of user information.

The company did not give a break-down of why the requests were made, instead just dividing the data by country, outlining how many requests were made, and how many users were involved. Several users could be cited in one request.

Government requests made to Facebook
Country	Total requests	Users/accounts requested	% of requests where some data was produced
SOURCE: FACEBOOK - FULL LIST
United States	11,000 - 12,000	20,000 - 21,000	79%
India	3,245	4,144	50%
UK	1,975	2,337	68%
Germany	1,886	2,068	37%
Italy	1,705	2,306	53%

Facebook also gave a percentage of how often the requests were successful.

In the UK, Facebook complied with 68%, while US authorities were successful 79% of the time.

Of particular interest were figures for countries affected by civil unrest.

In Turkey, 96 requests were made, covering 173 users, of which 45 were complied with - but the firm insisted this was for claims related to "child endangerment and emergency law enforcement".

No requests made by the Egyptian authorities were complied with, according to the report.

'Terrifying reality'

Rights group Privacy International welcomed the publication but had wider concerns.

"Given Facebook's ever-growing presence in the lives of people around the world, we commend them for releasing this report today - a release that has been a long time coming," it said.

"However, we are left with a disturbingly hollow feeling regarding Facebook's gesture, and it has little to do with Facebook itself.

"Since documents leaked by Edward Snowden have been published and analysed, the veil has been lifted on what information governments actually collect about us.

"We are now aware of a terrifying reality - that governments don't necessarily need intermediaries like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft to get our data."

Facebook said it remained committed to releasing more detailed data in future with regularity.

Facebook Unveils Shared Photo Albums

A picture's worth a thousand words, and now Facebook is letting others add to your conversation.

The world's largest social network announced shared photo albums on Monday, a new feature that allows multiple users to upload images to the same album. The album creator can share access to as many as 50 "contributors," who can each in turn share up to 200 photos. Album creators can choose a setting that allows contributors to invite others to the album, or retain total control over album invitations.

Previously, users could only upload photos to albums they created, and each album was limited to 1,000 total photos.

The new shared albums have three available privacy settings: public, friends of contributors and contributors only. This gives the album creator control over who has access to the group's images, said Bob Baldwin, the software engineer at Facebook who spearheaded the project with colleague Fred Zhao.

"Right now, if you were at a party and there were three different albums created, you might not be able to see all the photos [based on privacy settings], which is kind of confusing and frustrating," Baldwin said. Album creators will have the power to delete or modify photos in the album, but contributors will have editing power over photos that they upload. The feature is not available for Page albums, says a Facebook spokesperson.

The new feature was built during one of Facebook's company-wide hackathon sessions, a time where employees set regular work aside and dream up new prototypes for the platform. At Facebook, hackathons are a exciting time to be on campus, said Zhao, and many employees spend the week leading up to a hackathon brainstorming ideas for prototypes with colleagues. Baldwin said the idea for shared photo albums was based on user feedback and circled among Facebook employees.

After deciding to tackle the project, Baldwin and Zhao sent out an internal invite before the hackathon in January. They recruited about a dozen engineers from across the company to contribute to the project; many of them worked on the prototype until 6 a.m. the following morning.

Shared albums will clearly be useful for group events like camping trips, weddings, parties and family reunions.

"I think one thing that's really fun about creating products at Facebook is that you're never quite sure how people will use the product one thing that's really fun about creating products at Facebook is that you're never quite sure how people will use the product in the end," Baldwin said. "We're really excited for launch because we think people will use [shared albums] in ways that we're not even thinking of."

Zhao and Baldwin said they plan to develop some aspects of the feature even further. For starters, the 200 photo limit per person may increase in the future. They also hope to add mobile functionality for creating shared albums (right now, you can only contribute to one on mobile).

Facebook will begin to roll out this new feature to a small group of English users on Monday and then integrate it for all English users before expanding internationally, according to Baldwin.

How would you use a shared photo album on Facebook? Share with us in the comments below.