Facebook Value Makes No Sense

other written by Doug Scott

Facebook ad sales worldwide  grew 104% in 2011 but are expected to climb just 52% to $5.8 billion this year and only 21% to $7 billion next year, according to eMarket.

Current profits less than $1 billion

Current Revenues $3.7 billion – $500 million directly from Zynga who runs some games that can be ported to any other platform ( estimates are that the numbers are more due to ads round the games)

Current Valuation $100 billion

Google Plus now a strategic product for Google and growing massively

So a business that is slowing it’s growth and now has a big competitor is valued on a 100/1 ratio

Looks like herd mentallity for investing will be back

Popularity: 2% [?]

5 Different Types of Forum Members and How to Spot Them

other written by Doug Scott

5 Types of Forum Members and How to Spot Them

So who are you?

The shit stirrer

:)

The Salesman

The first and perhaps the most ubiquitous of the forum members is the dedicated seller. He or she does not understand the golden rule that some people want to use the forums to get some information in order to feel a little more confident about whatever the forum is about. The seller will initially try to ‘befriend’ you, make you relaxed about them and then they try to sell you their product over and over again. They are a pain and simply don’t stop trying to sell even when it seems just blatantly inappropriate.

The Nervous One

Members are the ones who don’t quite seem to know what they are doing and they have come to the forum for help and advice. Usually they are keen to learn from other people and since they are so new and inexperienced it can be worthwhile getting to know them and then you can often link back to each other’s sites, thereby increasing your search engine ratings. The new kids on the block are usually very easy to spot, since they are the ones that usually post messages with the title ‘HELP!!!’.

Fakes

Forum members who are just companies who will ‘help’ try to solve a problem, but they are actually just selling you something. These members are often more difficult to spot, but be wary of anyone who gushes a little too enthusiastically about a product or service; it could well be their own product or service they are selling.

Spammer:

They will also befriend you, then ask for your email address and then literally bombard you with spam mail. So be wary of giving your email address out and be wary of anyone who wants to email you after you have only just ‘met’ them. They may well have thousands of spam mails lined up, ready and waiting to clog up your inbox!

The technological wizard

This is a very good forum member to meet and you can learn a lot from good souls such as these. Every forum has them; the people who will go out of their way to help you and to make sure that they can do as much as they can to help! You will know who they are by the posts that they make, where they seem to know almost everything about the topic being discussed. They will leave very long, detailed posts just to help out a total stranger. They can be worth their weight in gold on all kinds of fronts, so befriend them and perhaps you can offer them something in return as well.

Doug

Popularity: 2% [?]

Indextools has now been unavailable for over 12 hours

other written by Doug Scott

If you need access to their stats then they have told me that you should go here:

https://ondemand.indextools.com

There marketing page is down at:

www.indextools.com

Being an idiot I always go to the front page:)

Doug

Popularity: 2% [?]

Digital Point owner sued by Ebay for alleged cookie stuffing

other written by Doug Scott

Original Article Source

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – Three men defrauded eBay in a “cookie stuffing” scheme that made it appear the men’s companies should be paid commissions, eBay claims in Federal Court. It sued Shawn Hogan and Digital Point Solutions, Todd Dunning and Kessler’s Flying Circus, and Brian Dunning and Thunderwood Holdings.
eBay says the men devised software programs that, “unbeknownst to the [computer] user, redirected the user’s computer to the eBay Web site without the user actually clicking on an eBay advertisement link, or even becoming aware that they had left the page they were previously viewing. As a result, the eBay site would be prompted to drop an eBay cookie on the user’s computer even though the user never clicked on an eBay advertisement or even realized that their computer had ever visited the eBay site.”
The complaint continues: “once the cookie was stuffed on the user’s computer by one or more of the defendant’s any future revenue actions initiated by that user when the user later visited eBay intentionally, and not as a result of any advertisement places by defendants, appeared to be eligible for commissions payable to one of the defendants”.
eBay claims the defendants also used deceptive means to prevent it from discovering the fraud, and to conceal it. eBay demands compensatory, treble and punitive damages. It is represented by David Eberhart with O’Melveny & Myers.

You have been warned kiddies, thay are after you.

Doug does not

Popularity: 2% [?]

Adjug – what the hell do they do?

other written by Doug Scott

I have met Satish Jayakumar, one of the founders of Adjug, numerous times and I have to say I have no idea what he rambles on about. He is a lovely bloke and helped Miva and Nixxi both to grow massively. Miva just went to toilet after he left.

In a past incarnation he sold sand to some guys that already had sand and oil in abundance:

Their official blurb say:

AdJug is an online advertising marketplace. It connects buyers and sellers of online advertising and provides them with transparency, control and choice. Publishers can take control of their online inventory to increase their earnings and advertisers can run better campaigns because they know where each conversion and traffic is coming from.

My question to Satish is:

Where do I get a used ford sierra in South London?

Well this morning some german guys have just invested some cash into adjug. I bet they get a lot of sand for that.

But back to the real question, I want it to be silver and not to have any drugs in the boot….so how much Satish to a mate?

We know the Germans have a habit of loosing so if it all goes bad mate then give us a call as I have a bashed up old SEAT I may want to sell soon.

Doug jealous of Satish’ money

Adjug com

Popularity: 2% [?]

A big one from the bedroom- Blurtit.com

other written by Doug Scott

I will guess most of you have never heard of Blurtit.com well don’t doubt you will come across it soon. Imagine Wikipedia but question and answers, like Yahoo Answers was meant to be unil they let it fill up with drivel. The userbase ask questions and give answers. Blurtit has some heavy handed moderators but it means they are trying to only let in quality posts that add value to the site. Trying, being the operative word, the site has grown massively in the past 2 years, hence the constant moderation must become an issue, to keep the quality up. Go and entertain yourself and argue with someone

The site has grown rapidly and is now getting about 250,000 visitors per day, thats a lot of people asking questions or looking for answers.

The real surprise is that the site is being owned and ran by one guy in Norfolk, with limited funds and no external funding. Admittedly the person involved is exceedingly good at using seo and social networking to get visitors to a web site, but 250,000 visitors per day from a bedroom…..not bad going.

Doug astonished

blurtit, blurtit.com

Popularity: 2% [?]