The $19 billion deal to sell WhatsApp Inc. to Facebook Inc. (FB) started at Yahoo! Inc. more than five years ago, when Jan Koum became disillusioned at the way Internet companies were fixated on advertising.
He left Yahoo in 2007 with one of the company’s other engineers, Brian Acton, and started a company by 2009 that shuns advertising altogether. The strategy allowed them to concentrate on creating an easy-to-use messaging product instead of developing new ways to glean customer information for their marketing pitches, Koum said in a 2012 blog post.
“No one wakes up excited to see more advertising, no one goes to sleep thinking about the ads they’ll see tomorrow,” Koum said in the post. A hand-written note on the his desk reads: “No Ads! No Games! No Gimmicks!”
Earlier today, Facebook announced its acquisition of WhatsApp for $16 billion. It’s a spectacular milestone for the company’s co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, and their remarkable team. From the moment they opened the doors of WhatsApp, Jan and Brian wanted a different kind of company. While others sought attention, Jan and…
Facebook has bought messaging app WhatsApp in a deal worth a total of $19bn (£11.4bn) in cash and shares. It is the social networking giant's biggest acquisition to date. WhatsApp has over 450 million monthly users and is popular with people looking to avoid text messaging charges. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26266689
Facebook Inc. (FB)’s $19 billion purchase of mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp Inc. is a stark reminder of how much money phone carriers are losing out on as competitors let users text and chat at no charge. Free social-messaging applications like WhatsApp cost phone providers around the world -- from Vodafone Group…
With its proposed deal to buy Viber Media, Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten is stepping into a war zone. The world of smartphone communications apps is fiercely competitive with many powerful players, and Viber’s success isn’t guaranteed. So why is Rakuten paying $900 million to get into this market? http://blogs.wsj.com/
Earlier today, Facebook announced its acquisition of WhatsApp for $16 billion. It’s a spectacular milestone for the company’s co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, and their remarkable team.
From the moment they opened the doors of WhatsApp, Jan and Brian wanted a different kind of company. While others sought attention, Jan and Brian shunned the spotlight, refusing even to hang a sign outside the WhatsApp offices in Mountain View. As competitors promoted games and rushed to build platforms, Jan and Brian remained devoted to a clean, lightning fast communications service that works flawlessly.
Facebook has bought messaging app WhatsApp in a deal worth a total of $19bn (£11.4bn) in cash and shares. It is the social networking giant's biggest acquisition to date. WhatsApp has over 450 million monthly users and is popular with people looking to avoid text messaging charges. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26266689
The $19 billion deal to sell WhatsApp Inc. to Facebook Inc. (FB) started at Yahoo! Inc. more than five years ago, when Jan Koum became disillusioned at the way Internet companies were fixated on advertising. He left Yahoo in 2007 with one of the company’s other engineers, Brian Acton, and…
Facebook Inc. (FB)’s $19 billion purchase of mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp Inc. is a stark reminder of how much money phone carriers are losing out on as competitors let users text and chat at no charge. Free social-messaging applications like WhatsApp cost phone providers around the world -- from Vodafone Group…
He's become a successful CEO and a generous person, but ten years ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used to have something of an attitude. For example, he used to carry a business card that read, "I'm CEO…Bitch." Once, back then, Zuckerberg played a pretty nasty prank on top venture capital…
It is often a sign of a bubble when analysts and commentators rush to explain away each new upward step in valuations – and then come up with expansive arguments to justify why prices should be even higher. Two events in the tech world in recent days seem to fit…
Earlier today, Facebook announced its acquisition of WhatsApp for $16 billion. It’s a spectacular milestone for the company’s co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, and their remarkable team. From the moment they opened the doors of WhatsApp, Jan and Brian wanted a different kind of company. While others sought attention, Jan and…
Facebook Inc. (FB)’s $19 billion purchase of mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp Inc. is a stark reminder of how much money phone carriers are losing out on as competitors let users text and chat at no charge. Free social-messaging applications like WhatsApp cost phone providers around the world -- from Vodafone Group…
The $19 billion deal to sell WhatsApp Inc. to Facebook Inc. (FB) started at Yahoo! Inc. more than five years ago, when Jan Koum became disillusioned at the way Internet companies were fixated on advertising. He left Yahoo in 2007 with one of the company’s other engineers, Brian Acton, and…
With its proposed deal to buy Viber Media, Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten is stepping into a war zone. The world of smartphone communications apps is fiercely competitive with many powerful players, and Viber’s success isn’t guaranteed. So why is Rakuten paying $900 million to get into this market? http://blogs.wsj.com/
The following are the expectations for the minutes of the January FOMC meeting by the economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, and other leading banks.
Several Fed Officials Said Forecasts Overstated Rate Rise Meeting minutes revealed that in March, Fed Reserve policy makers discussed that a rise in their median projection for the main interest rate exaggerated the likely speed of tightening. Treasury yields rose last month after policy makers predicted that the benchmark interest…
Tags: fed, economy, january, bank, meeting, minutes, usa
The FOMC meeting is the week's highlight even though policy outcome seems a foregone conclusion. It will continue with the tapering course that Bernanke put on the Fed on before he left. However, there are more moving parts than usual, and it is worth reviewing. Essentially, there are four elements of…
America has allowed its oil companies to export oil as announced in private letters to oil companies. This will, for sure, cause a stir in the global oil markets and lead to lower prices. Global oil prices previously soared due to the fall in the supply of oil- stoppage of oil exports…
On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen promised the House Financial Services Committee "a great deal of continuity" in monetary policy as she fills the shoes of Ben Bernanke. However, Yellen is not Bernanke. And depending on her read on the economy, she will use her powers to influence…
When President Obama took office in 2009 at the height of the recession, the annual budget deficit came in at 10.1 percent of gross domestic product -- a level not seen since the end of World War II. In the five years since, the budget deficit has been sliced more…
For a decade, starting in the late nineteen-eighties, Ramesh Ramanathan worked his way up the executive ladder at Citibank in the United States. Then he led its corporate-derivatives branch in London. In 1998, however, he quit and returned to India, his country of birth. He had a new goal: finding a way to curb poverty in the nation’s cities.
The global financial crisis did not start in 2008 but in 2007 when BNP Paribas and UBS AG suspended withdrawals from some of their funds. If the world is once again buffeted by a similar crisis thanks to the enormous splurge in Chinese lending and fears about the quality of…
China's banks disbursed the most loans in any month in four years in January, a surge that suggests the world's second-biggest economy may not be cooling as much as some fear. Chinese banks lent 1.32 trillion yuan ($217.6 billion) worth of new yuan loans in January, beating a 1.1 trillion…
Some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley have been buzzing on Twitter over the last 24 hours about reinventing retail banking with better software. “I am dying to fund a disruptive bank,” venture capitalist Marc Andreessen tweeted yesterday. Other Valley heavyweights chimed in, including Chris Dixon (a colleague at Andreessen Horowitz), Keith Rabois (Khosla Ventures),…
Feb 8 (Reuters) - If Greece is forced out of the euro zone, other countries will inevitably follow and the currency bloc will collapse, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Sunday. Greece's new leftist government is trying to re-negotiate its debt repayments and has begun to roll back…
With its proposed deal to buy Viber Media, Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten is stepping into a war zone. The world of smartphone communications apps is fiercely competitive with many powerful players, and Viber’s success isn’t guaranteed. So why is Rakuten paying $900 million to get into this market? http://blogs.wsj.com/
With its proposed deal to buy Viber Media, Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten is stepping into a war zone.
The world of smartphone communications apps is fiercely competitive with many powerful players, and Viber’s success isn’t guaranteed. So why is Rakuten paying $900 million to get into this market?
Facebook has bought messaging app WhatsApp in a deal worth a total of $19bn (£11.4bn) in cash and shares. It is the social networking giant's biggest acquisition to date. WhatsApp has over 450 million monthly users and is popular with people looking to avoid text messaging charges. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26266689
Facebook Inc. (FB)’s $19 billion purchase of mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp Inc. is a stark reminder of how much money phone carriers are losing out on as competitors let users text and chat at no charge. Free social-messaging applications like WhatsApp cost phone providers around the world -- from Vodafone Group…
The $19 billion deal to sell WhatsApp Inc. to Facebook Inc. (FB) started at Yahoo! Inc. more than five years ago, when Jan Koum became disillusioned at the way Internet companies were fixated on advertising. He left Yahoo in 2007 with one of the company’s other engineers, Brian Acton, and…
For a decade, starting in the late nineteen-eighties, Ramesh Ramanathan worked his way up the executive ladder at Citibank in the United States. Then he led its corporate-derivatives branch in London. In 1998, however, he quit and returned to India, his country of birth. He had a new goal: finding…
The global financial crisis did not start in 2008 but in 2007 when BNP Paribas and UBS AG suspended withdrawals from some of their funds. If the world is once again buffeted by a similar crisis thanks to the enormous splurge in Chinese lending and fears about the quality of…
On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen promised the House Financial Services Committee “a great deal of continuity” in monetary policy as she fills the shoes of Ben Bernanke.
However, Yellen is not Bernanke. And depending on her read on the economy, she will use her powers to influence the direction of monetary policy via the Federal Open Market Committee.
I will let you guess where we are in this "cycle". Within a fractional reserve banking system, if the Federal Reserve decreases the discount rate and the rate is lower than the long bond rate by enough of a spread, the banks get motivated to borrow at or close to the discount rate and loan…
The following are the expectations for the minutes of the January FOMC meeting by the economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, and other leading banks. http://www.efxnews.com/
If you’re thinking of investing in stocks (or bonds) because you can’t think of anywhere better to put your money, you might want to take a pause and ponder what Stanley Fischer, the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, just said at a conference in Tel Aviv, Israel. Fischer, speaking…
Dr Faber is predicting a 1987-type stock market crash this year only it will be worse. The US technology-heavy Nasdaq plummeted by 3.1 per cent on Thursday night (US time), its biggest one-day drop since November 2011. Dr Faber, the editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, has already…
Is there something seriously wrong with the economy? It's a scary prospect, and a concern that's gotten louder and louder over the past year. In economic circles, it goes by the alliterative name of "secular stagnation." And it's a phrase that Fed watchers are likely to hear more and more in the…
There is no reason to further extend a European Union deadline for France to cut its budget deficit, the EU's top economic official said on Saturday, adding policy-makers should have learnt the lessons of the debt crisis and stuck to agreed rules. In June last year Paris got two more…
Europe’s leaders argue that only deep budget cuts will revive the economy and inspire the necessary confidence among investors. The deal represents a major milestone for Greece, which was effectively shut out of the markets in 2010 when the debt crisis left it dependent on international bailouts to stay afloat.The…
"There are no facts, only interpretations”, Friedrich Nietzsche once said. One needn’t be a nihilist or a relativist to be bemused at the latest radical rewriting of history from our official number-crunchers. Everything we thought we knew about the British economy’s performance over the past 15 years or so now…
Feb 8 (Reuters) - If Greece is forced out of the euro zone, other countries will inevitably follow and the currency bloc will collapse, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Sunday. Greece's new leftist government is trying to re-negotiate its debt repayments and has begun to roll back…
Low euro is like a "deflation" of the Euro. Is this good or bad ? Lets talk about devaluation. The idea being that the goods the nation has to offer will cost less with devaluation. Good idea, right? Many countries have resorted to this economic maneuver in order to increase exports.…
The Brutal 17-Year War Where Netflix Destroyed Blockbuster — In a Simple Infographic
Did Netflix really kick Blockbuster’s ass in a 17-year war marked by endless late fee-related shouting matches and Hot Tamale binges? Kind of. But according to this colorful infographic, it’s more complicated than that
Please visit the souce :: http://econbrowser.com/archives/2014/09/interpreting-the-yield-curve-some-pictures Recently Jim highlighted the odd behavior of the various Treasury term premia. Here are some additional thoughts. First, from “Debt market goes off script” in the WSJ: Yields on short-term U.S. Treasury debt maturing in two to five years hit the highest level since…
King Midas lusted after it. The Incas worshipped it. Shiny flakes of it set off a 19th-century rush to California and ship captains never stop looking for it at the bottom of the sea. While gold has ignited passions for centuries, for today’s investors, it seems, the metal has been losing its allure.…
Employment losses during the Great Recession may have had more to do with factors like the rise of Walmart than with the recession itself, two economists say in a new academic paper. The paper, presented Friday morning at the annual gathering of economists and central bankers at Jackson Hole, Wyo.,…
The Labor Department reports on the number of people who applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week. The report will be released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time Thursday.
APPLICATIONS MAY STAY LOW: Economists forecast that the number of people seeking benefits will dip 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 330,000, according to a survey by FactSet. That level is roughly in line with pre-recession figures, a sign that corporate layoffs are low.
U.S. economy added 533,000 jobs during the first three months of the year What do we need to analyse ? -To keep pace, job creation would need to accelerate in April -Watch which sectors of the economy are adding jobs. -Flirting with Full Employment -Average hourly earnings -The participation rate…
Perhaps the most notable development in the run-up to Friday's jobs report is just how low the bar has been set. The fact that the survey period over which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics collected data for the report (the week that included the 12th of February) coincided with…
Australia’s unemployment rate climbed to the highest level in more than 10 years in January, spurring traders to pare bets on an interest-rate increase and sending the Aussie to its biggest drop in almost three weeks. The jobless rate rose to 6 percent from 5.8 percent, the statistics bureau said…
America has allowed its oil companies to export oil as announced in private letters to oil companies. This will, for sure, cause a stir in the global oil markets and lead to lower prices. Global oil prices previously soared due to the fall in the supply of oil- stoppage of oil exports…
When President Obama took office in 2009 at the height of the recession, the annual budget deficit came in at 10.1 percent of gross domestic product -- a level not seen since the end of World War II. In the five years since, the budget deficit has been sliced more…