With more than 845 million Facebook users, the evaluation by most experts is between $75 billion and $100 billion. What is Facebook truly worth? If the Facebook evaluation reaches $100 billion it would make Facebook worth almost half of Google and would make it the largest U.S. Internet based offering in history. Not bad for a company started in 2004 by a college dropout.

Facts about Facebook

• There are currently 845 million Facebook users worldwide
• In 2011 Facebook ad revenue accounted for 89% of the $3.8 billion generated
• Zygna, the makers of Farmville, accounts for 12% of Facebook’s revenue
• Zuckerberg holds 553.8 million shares, worth $28.4 billion, based on a company valuation of $100 billion, or $53 per share
• Zuckerberg owns 28% Facebook

The Facebook Effect

Will going public change the culture of Facebook? That is a possibility given that approximately one-third of the Facebook employees will become millionaires overnight as a result of going public. In that event some wonder if these same employees will have the same passion and drive they had prior to the impending financial windfall. Will going public negatively impact Facebook as we know it today?

The other big question is how will other tech startups be affected? Facebook going public could open the door for more Internet based startups being acquired. Zygna, another popular Internet based company, is predicted to go public this year as well.

Only time will tell what the trickle down effect of SEC filing, but one thing is for certain; once Facebook goes public it will never be the same. Being a publicly traded company brings with it not only a financial windfall for the social media company but also it’s own set of challenges and pressure to bring financial return to its investors each quarter. It will be interesting to see how Facebook innovates as a public company when it had the luxury developing the product on its own timetable.

Do you think going public will change the culture of Facebook for the better or the worse?

For seven days at

BOSS MOVE, DAY THREE: Maximize your social networks.

In 2012, I still hear people say, “I don’t want to use social media.” Well, get prepared to be left behind. In today’s technology-driven society, social networks—with more than 900 million users—are the perfect platform to promote what you do to an active audience. Also, if you are an introvert, it’s the ideal place to get the networking ball rolling by starting a conversation online and then talk offline later when you feel comfortable. So get in the game and activate accounts that will help enhance and market your brand.

If you’re already on social media, evaluate your friends and followers lists and make adjustments if needed. Do you have 800 friends on Facebook or 600 followers on Twitter? How many of them do you actually know? How many of them know what you do?

ACTION: Using social networks is about reciprocation. Start by following some key people in your industry. Retweet an article, comment on a post, or feature them on your blog. This gets the communication rolling and you find a shared interest in which to base a new relationship. Also, utilize list features on Twitter and Facebook so you can better organize how you’ll connect with people via social media.

BOSS MOVE, DAY ONE: Develop a Networking Database

BOSS MOVE, DAY TWO: Cultivate Your Current Relationships

Cameka Smith is a speaker, educator, social entrepreneur and founder of The BOSS Network, a community of career and entrepreneurial women who support each other through conversation, online and via event-based networking. In addition, Smith provides resources for women entrepreneurs and professionals through workshops and speaking engagements. She is also a mentor and program facilitator for Project BOSS, which matches professionals with youth.

(Image: ThinkStock)

Year after year the Super Bowl is the most widely watched event worldwide. Last year was no exception with over 111 million people viewing the Green Bay Packers vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV, setting an American TV record. The prediction is that Super Bowl XLVI will exceed last year’s viewing audience. Over 70,000 fans are expected to be at Lucas Oil Stadium for the game and between 100,000-to-150,000 fans are expected to be in Indianapolis for the major sporting event. Then, of course, there are the countless others who will be keyed in to the game via social media.

This year’s Super Bowl will be one of the most connected events in sports history with Twitter, Facebook, mobile apps and hash tags at the heart of the online engagement. The social media strategy will include the game, commercials, and information for fans in Indianapolis. For the first time in history, the Super Bowl host committee has setup a social media command center, a 2,800 square foot space with a 50-person team that will monitor the online activity of the most important football game of the year.

Here’s a brief list of Super Bowl-related social media musts:

• Official Super Bowl Twitter Account: @SuperBowl2012
• Official Super Bowl Hash Tag: #sb46
• Brand Bowl: www.BrandBowl2012.com
• Brand Bowl Hash Tag: #brandbowl
• YouTube (Commercials): www.youtube.com/adblitz
• Super Bowl Facebook: www.facebook.com/IndySuperBowl2012
• Super Bowl Website: www.IndianapolisSuperbowl.com

Now, let’s take a look at the 2011 Super Bowl digital stats to get a sense of how important the digital landscape has become to the Super Bowl.

• 4.5 millions tweets Super Bowl XLV (4,064 tweets per second)
• 360 million views of Super Bowl ads online
• 61% of Facebook users who identified as Super Bowl fans posted status updates during the game in 2011
• 28% of users who identified as fans directly chatted or messaged with friends
• 22% of people planning to view the Super Bowl will be on Facebook
• 15 million Americans posts on a social media after the game
• 43% of the 15 million Americans plan to re-watch their favorite ad
• 31% of the 15 million Americans plan to share their favorite ad via email or social network

Due to the size of the viewing audience, Super Bowl commercials are just as, if not more, important that the game itself. In fact, with advertisers vying for your attendance and online engagement, a single 30-second spot costs $3.5 million. One of the top ways to monitor the commercials is via Brand Bowl 2012, a dashboard managed by Mullen and Radian 6.  The dashboard will monitor tweet sentiment (positive, neutral and negative), the number of tweets per brand and users reactions on Twitter to provide a total brand score.

Super Bowl ads are going to be more interactive this year. One of the most exciting pieces of digital technology is the Chevy Game Time mobile app that was developed by Detroit Labs, a startup from the Motor City.

The social media strategy at Super Bowl XLVI is the game within the game and begs the question: is the real game being played online or on the field. Either way we look to forward to seeing you online.

(Image: WhiteHouse.gov)

President Barack Obama is no stranger to interacting in the digital space, conducting town hall meetings on popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Now, Obama is bringing the dialogue to Google+.

Starting at 5:30 p.m. ET, the commander in chief will talk about his State of the Union Address in a live interview.  Mashable reports over 225,000 people sent in or voted on questions, and six of those participants will be invited to join the live conversation with Obama.

Tune in to watch the discussion on the White House’s Google+ page or the White House YouTube Channel.

(Image: File)

It seems the time has come. Facebook, the iconic social network, will file for an initial public offering on Wednesday, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

If Facebook files regulatory papers for its public offering of stock next week, this will be the largest tech IPO in history, turning out around $10 billion for the social network, according to Mashable. Infineon Technologies AG, a German company, is the current record holder for having the largest global technology IPO of all time, which raised $5.9 billion in 2000. Google’s 2005 IPO didn’t accomplish what it set out to do; it did not even reach the $2 billion mark.

There are very few details available regarding the long-awaited IPO. Facebook isn’t commenting, and the WSJ’s source is unnamed. The paper says the $10 billion share offering would yield Facebook a total valuation of $100 billion.

(Image: File)

It’s been less than a week and already news is swirling about Twitter’s latest acquisition. (Word hit last week that the microblogging service snagged Summify, a social-media news aggregator. While the exact use of this site in relation to Twitter is unknown, some speculate the purchase will assist with feed management and priority, according to PCWorld.com.)

On Monday, Twitter attained Dasient, a security startup offering malware protection for businesses. A post on the startup’s blog confirms the purchase, noting it is “effective immediately”— working solely on Twitter’s revenue engineering team and ceasing service to new clients.  Dasient went on to say:  “By joining Twitter, Dasient will be able to apply its technology and team to the world’s largest real-time information network.”

Twitter is no stranger to security breaches. A total of 55 celebrity accounts, including Barack Obama, Fox News and Facebook were hacked in 2010, sparking the FTC ruling that Twitter would be subjected to a bi-annual security audit.  Trending topics on Twitter is another site for spammers to target large numbers of people at any given time.

The popular social network’s effort to crank up its security comes less than two months  after rolling out the company’s advertising efforts.

Terms for the deal have not been disclosed.

Dasient was founded in 2008 by former Google employees Neil Daswani, Shariq Rizvi and Ameet Ranadive.  It was funded by Google Ventures, among others.

In today’s job market, personal branding is the name of the game. Not only are companies spending time — and lots of money— managing and cultivating their  brand profile but individuals are carving out niches for themselves as professional brands of their own.

Whether it’s one’s presence on the Web or one’s persona and look, all these elements make up key components to the brand that is you. If you haven’t started thinking of yourself as a brand, a great place to start is by doing a Google search of your own name to see what already exists and what needs to be tweaked. No matter how incognito you’d like to be, your personal information can be accessible with the click of a mouse, from those Facebook updates and photos to your resident location to your dating profiles.

Since many hiring managers and human resource professionals check up on candidates and employees via the Internet — especially their social media profiles — it’s vital to know what story is being told about you via the Web.

So, take a moment to Google yourself. You may be surprised. If you see things you don’t like or maybe things you wouldn’t like to show up first, experts have advised updating your social media profile privacy settings, tweaking your profile details or tweeting more relevant messages that include hash tags that you want your personal brand to be linked to. Though in many cases, Tweets and Facebook posts can be deleted but won’t totally disappear from the Web, you can also delete accounts that may be unused, unsavory or just plain outdated. Update Website photos and links, and try contacting unrelated sites to have personal data hidden or excluded.

Also, be sure your resume is SEO-friendly, and find ways to push down more dated or not-so-professional bits about on the Web by publishing a professional blog, Facebook fan page or professional bio site of your own. Be aware of the information you share on the Internet and what has your name attached to it, such as comments, e-mails, forum posts, tagged photos, and log-in information.

Take charge of your Web presence so that you can present the best “brand you” possible and have no worries when it comes to getting that new big job opportunity.

The Internet is one tool that can be both convenient and vital in establishing your professional brand and marketing yourself. Whether you’re looking for new job opportunities, trying to establish new relationships or seeking new clients or customers, the Web is the prime place to thrive and make things happen.

When it comes to your brand presence on the Internet, it’s best to have a good foundation in place on which to build. Madame Noire offers five steps for getting started or refreshing your approach so that you can present the best impression possible on an international platform that can either make or break a professional.

Read more at Madame Noire …

(Image: ThinkStock)

How would you feel about the U.S. government policing the Internet? Well, a new bill, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would allow them to control content on the World Wide Web as we know it today. There are major concerns with the application of this bill that run must deeper than just blocking Websites. Imagine for a moment what this type of censorship would mean: any content you post to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or any other social network or website could be blocked and become unsearchable on the Internet because of a single link.

The underlining issue of protecting intellectual property is a real problem, which is supposedly why the bill has been proposed. For content providers law enforcement to fight online trafficking and copyrighting infringements sounds like a noble and justifiable reason to pass the bill. But, the collateral damage of this bill’s passage would be so immense that it would far out weight the value that it would provide based upon how the bill is proposed today.

The Impact of SOPA on Entrepreneurs

Let’s look even deeper at this bill, which would be stifling to entrepreneurs, who are the lifeline of the economy. Booz & Co. interviewed 200 prominent angel investors and venture capitalist about this bill and reported that 70% of them would be deterred from investing if anti-piracy regulations were passed. This would impact innovation and job creation in the U.S. Think about the impact to Silicon Valley and other tech hubs, as well.

What Would be the Long-Term Impact of SOPA?

• There would be fewer startups launching because of the increase legal risk.
• Social networks, personal pages and sites where people express themselves could become unsearchable and blocked on the Internet.
• Email providers could be forced to censor emails to scan for links users send or receive.
• Content you share in your social networks would be monitored and censored—this includes photos, videos and status updates.
• Increased censorship would possibility remove legitimate content that you are sharing.
• Payment-processing companies like PayPal could be forced to stop doing business with sites that have been blocked.
• Most U.S.-based hosting services would relocate outside the U.S. jurisdiction, which would result in lost jobs.
• Site owners would become liable for user-posted content, if they don’t do enough to stop users from posting “illegal” content on his/her site, which could become very costly.

Which Popular Sites Would be at Risk?

• Facebook
• Google
• Twitter
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Vimeo
• And countless other websites and/or social networks

What Actions Can You Take?

Send your Congressman a pre-written letter via the American Censorship website (click here).

Sign the ‘Stop the E-Parasite Act’ petition by clicking here.

Follow the Electronic Frontier on Twitter to stay posted on your digital civil liberalities @EFF.

Check out the TechCrunch procedure list of over 40+ companies against SOPA by clicking here.