Techmeme
May 18, 2012, 11:00 AM

Top News

Facebook Newsroom:
Facebook Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering  —  Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 421,233,615 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $38 per share.  The shares are expected to begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market …
David Garcia / TechCrunch:
How Facebook Hacked The NASDAQ Button  —  Editor's note: Some savvy Facebook engineers rigged the NASDAQ button to automatically post “Mark Zuckerberg has listed a company on NASDAQ - FB” to the CEO's Timeline as he rung the bell to open the NASDAQ's day of trading.
Salvador Rodriguez / Los Angeles Times:
Eduardo Saverin congratulates Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook  —  Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin congratulated his fellow co-founder and company CEO Mark Zuckerberg for a job well done, crafting a dorm room start-up into the largest tech company IPO in history in just eight years.
Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:
Photos: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Rings In The NASDAQ Bell  —  Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg didn't travel to New York's Times Square for the company's big day.  He did it unconventionally like you'd expect a hacker would.  He opened the bell remotely from the company's Menlo Park Headquarters …
Miyoung Kim / Reuters:
Samsung gets 9 million preorders for new Galaxy phone: report  —  (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co has received some 9 million pre-orders for its third-generation Galaxy S smartphone from more than 100 global carriers, the Korea Economic Daily reported on Friday.
Bloomberg:
Facebook Sued For $15 Billion In Suit Over User Tracking  —  Facebook Inc. (FB), which is scheduled to begin trading today, was sued by users of its social network in an amended class-action case claiming the company invaded their privacy by tracking Internet usage and seeking $15 billion.
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
RIM, Motorola told Apple they could find a nano-SIM compromise: here it is  —  Eventually, the committee chairman decided to hold an informal vote by show of hands whether each of the two proposals adequately met the jamming requirement.  For the Apple design, seven voting members said it did not, 28 said it did.
Austin Carr / Fast Company:
J. Crew CEO, Apple Board Member Mickey Drexler Reveals Steve Jobs' iCar Dream, Confirms “Living Room” Plans  —  J. Crew CEO and Apple board member Mickey Drexler offers an insider's perspective on Steve Jobs's vision: “Steve's dream before he died was to design an iCar.”
Reuters:
GM ad move followed failed Facebook pitch: sources  —  (Reuters) - Facebook may only have itself to blame for why General Motors rained on its IPO parade this week.  —  GM announced the decision to drop Facebook paid ads on Tuesday in what was the first highly visible crack in Facebook's strategy …
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Exclusive: Yahoo Finally Set to Strike Alibaba Share Deal — Half Now, Then Half of What's Left After Eventual IPO  —  Yahoo is in the final stages of selling a large chunk of its stake in the Alibaba Group back to the company — in a complex deal that is set to include a multi-billion-dollar share buyback …
Jason Del Rey / AdAge:
Amazon to Sell Ads on Kindle Fire Welcome Screen — If You Have $600K  —  Amazon Seeks Big Money as It Brings Advertising to Its Hottest Tablet  —  The Kindle Fire is Amazon.com's best-selling product, the company said in its first-quarter-earnings release.  And it's being treated that way by the Amazon ad sales team.
Brian X. Chen / Bits:
Verizon Clarifies: Unlimited Data Plans Will Die Slow Death  —  Verizon on Wednesday outlined its goals with shared data plans, and some news organizations incorrectly reported that it was killing unlimited data plans the instant that shared data plans were introduced.
Wall Street Journal:
Groupon Stock Spike Probed  —  Wall Street Regulator Is Reviewing Jump Monday Before Firm's Earnings Release  —  A Wall Street regulator is examining trading in Groupon Inc. that sent its stock price soaring hours before a favorable earnings announcement Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Othman Laraki / Twitter Blog:
New tailored suggestions for you to follow on Twitter  —  Every day, hundreds of thousands of people sign up for Twitter to get closer to the things they care about — friends, businesses, celebrities, news and information from all over.  If you've used Twitter for awhile …
James Raybould / Linkedin Blog:
The Top 10 tech startups best positioned to strike engineering gold  —  In today's Silicon Valley, engineering talent is as sought after by companies as gold was by the first prospectors in the Wild West.  Talent is a company's most important asset, so we decided to use LinkedIn's data insights …
CB Insights:
2012 Venture Capital Funding to Facebook Mafia Up 137% vs. 2011.  Greylock is Most Active VC FB Mafia Investor So Far.  —  The Facebook Mafia isn't waiting for an IPO to strike out on their own as company alumni have already raised $271 million of venture capital funding since 2006.
Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:
UK government staff caught snooping on citizen data  —  Don't worry about hackers illegally accessing government systems.  It turns out government workers and civil servants who are trusted with private citizen data are more likely to access your data illegally.
Pui-Wing Tam / Wall Street Journal:
More Start-Ups Join the $1 Billion Club of Valuations  —  Pinterest Is Latest Start-Up Hitting Rich Valuation; Venture Activity Rivals Dot-Com Boom Days  —  The coveted club of Silicon Valley start-ups worth a billion dollars is quickly losing its exclusivity.
Tweets: @hunterwalk
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Sony hires Woz as advisor to Steve Jobs film, which Sorkin says won't be a ‘straight ahead biopic’  —  As the production gets underway for the Steve Jobs biopic being penned by Aaron Sorkin, some details are coming to light.  According to a report from Reuters, via the Chicago Tribune …
John Koetsier / VentureBeat:
PayPal handles 60% of web transactions, leaves Google in the dust  —  PayPal processes 60% of web transactions, Google is the fastest payment gateway, and some unlucky surfer had to wait over 92 seconds for his online purchase to complete.  —  Those are only a few of the findings …
Eric Pfanner / New York Times:
Building the Next Facebook a Tough Task in Europe  —  PARIS — The coffee machine spits out doses of espresso.  Young men in shorts and loafers line up on a leatherette sofa, balancing Macs or iPads on their knees, discussing bands or business plans.  Some speak French, others English.
Vlad Bobleanta / Unwired View:
What app problem?  Microsoft is developing a service to migrate all your Android apps to a new Windows Phone  —  According to a patent application filed in November 2010, Microsoft is working on a service that would let you migrate apps and app data between devices and even between different mobile operating systems.

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Aaron Ricadela / Bloomberg:
Cathy Avgiris / Comcast Voices: