Silicon Alley Insider - Silicon, Alley, Insider

How Facebook's Ad Revenue Could Top Out At $10 Billion

Facebook sells about $1 billion of advertising every quarter and it's still growing, putting it on course to sell perhaps $5 billion or more in ads in 2012.

But what are the limits to its growth?

TBG Digital CEO Simon Mansell decided to try and figure it out based on Facebook's current numbers. (TBG sells and manages Facebook advertising.)

Once he'd finished figuratively scrawling on the back of an envelope, he found that Facebook's current ad inventory could top out at $10 billion a year.

The data assumes that Facebook completely sells out its entire inventory of ad space—which it never has. It also assumes Facebook won't increase the number of ad slots per page (which it is doing). It assumes CPMs (cost per thousand users) won't go up, which they well might. It ignores mobile advertising, which Facebook doesn't currently do but will begin imminently. And it assumes that there is no growth in users, which there obviously will be.

That said, here's how Mansell calculated the number:

Facebook says it serves 798 pages per person, per month.
Assume 20 percent of these pages are on the homepage and 80 percent are on the rest of the site (marketplace inventory).
160 pages on homepage x 1 ad = 160 impressions per person per month on the homepage
Multiply that by 850 million users = 136,000,000,000 homepage impressions
Multiply that by a $2.50 CPM ("cost per thousand impressions") = $340,000,000 / month. (CPM in the U.S. is more like $4. But global pricing would bring this down, hence an assumed $2.50.)
638 pages on the rest of the site x 4 ads = 2,552 impressions per person, per month via marketplace.
Some pages have more than four ads but some have fewer, so assume four is the average.
Multiply that by 850 million users = 2,169,200,000,000 marketplace impressions
Multiply that by a $0.22 CPM = $477,224,000.
(CPM of $0.22 average taken from the TBG Digital Q4 Data report – based on a sample size of more than 300 billion impressions in 205 countries.)
$340 million plus $477.2 million = $817 million per month.
Total ad revenue: $9.8 billion per year.

Let's just call that $10 billion!

Please follow Advertising on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 7:04 pm

Eric Schmidt Plans $1.4 Billion Stock Sale (GOOG)

EricSchmidtatGoogleSolveForX

Google chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt just filed a plan to sell almost $1.5 billion worth of Google stock.

In a filing with the SEC, Schmidt laid out a plan to sell up to 2.4 million shares of Class A stock (he also has Class B stock which carries special voting rights).

At today's closing price of $605 per share, that equals $1.452 billion.

Assuming he goes through with the transaction, when he's done he'll own 2.1% of Google's stock (down from 2.8%) and have 7.3% voting power (down from 9.7%).

The trading plan was adopted in November and kicks off this month.

Last year, Schmidt filed to sell about $335 million worth of Google stock.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 4:41 pm

HOW TO: Block Google (And Everybody) From Tracking Which Sites You Visit On Your iPhone (AAPL, GOOG)

Googlefearscream

The Internet has erupted in fury at Google's latest boneheaded move.

The details are complicated, but in basic terms, Google used a sneaky trick to bypass the default privacy settings on the iPhone and iPad.

As a result, Google could have tracked users' activity as they moved between different Web sites -- not just Google sites.

This understandably freaked some people out. Google has now stopped.

But there are actually a few easy steps you can take to make sure that NOBODY -- not Google, not ad networks, not anybody else -- can track which Web sites you visit on your iPhone or iPad.

Here are the steps.

1. Find the "Settings" icon on your home screen. It looks like a bunch of gears.

2. Scroll down and open the tab that says "Safari."

3. See where it says "Private Browsing"? Move that slider to "On." (This setting is only available in iOS 5, the latest version. But never fear -- if you have an older version, we'll tell you what to do.)

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 4:20 pm

Check Out This Amazing $13 Million Octopus Robot Being Developed In Italy

Scientists have created a robotic octopus tentacle that can grasp objects and move fluidly underwater.

This is the first step of a $13 million project, sponsored by the European Commission and developed by Italian and Israeli scientists in Tuscany.

The team plans to have a fully-functioning, eight-tentacles robotic octopus completed by the end of the year. The robot could be used for underwater rescue missions and its technology will be possibly implemented in a high-tech endoscope to perform operations.

Watch the Reuters report below.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 3:36 pm

We Just Got A Very Angry Comment From Someone Who Calls Himself A Patch Employee... (AOL)

timarmstrongpatch

A commenter named "Lipstick on Pig" chimed in on our post about Starboard Value's preparations for a proxy duel with Tim Armstrong.

He (or she) is pretty displeased with the site's local news organization Patch.

Here's a lightly edited version of the entire comment:

Here are the 2012 Patch highlights so far

They changed our compensation plan this year, and it now includes a draw like feature (meaning you have to hit certain performance targets before a bonus kicks in) that you would typically find in radio sales. In 2011, they paid us about 75 percent of what we brought in — we had representatives that brought in $150,000 that were making $140,000 in salary + compensation, not including benefits or asset costs.

When I asked my boss about the huge losses at Patch and the fact that our cancellation rate is about 65 percent, he said, "why do you care? You're still getting paid aren't you? I'm going ride this thing into the ground." The sad thing is that's the mentality everyone at Aol shares. No one gives a fuck about the big picture.

They promoted the former sales director of the tri-state area to lead Patch sales nationally after everyone else quit... It's hard to retain top talent when you work on the media version of the titanic. Patch doesn't have a clear strategy. Throughout 2011 they employed the "throw enough shit at the wall and hope something sticks" strategy and... NOTHING STUCK!!!

Patch daily deals is an utter failure. Most deals are served for a week with zero purchased!!! The product has been around since August last year and shows the utter lack of engagement on Patch sites! Self service ads were rolled out 11/2011 with a goal of 5k being sold across the network, and we sold around 500... They figured to give it another shot for a special valentines shopping guide and we sold even less.

Ad.com ads are now trafficked across the Patch network for around $.80 cost-per-mille (an advertising metric) when local advertisers are charged $200-plus CPMs for the same ad positions... I know this is hard to believe, but so is the fact that Aol dumped $160 million into Patch in 2011.

We just hired some woman blogger to try to bring some organization the editorial side of Patch — I thought this was Brian Farnham's job?????? We installed Rachel Fishman to babysit Brian and convince the local editors to run stores like "top pizza shop in Andover." The content was shitty before and now it looks like its about to get even shittier.

All of the best editors have left Patch and been replace by under-qualified recent grands and by bloggers (mostly housewives and high schoolers). Most sites don't even generate 100,000 pageviews each month!!!

Armstrong is out in the press saying sites were profitable in 2011. There were 6 sites that hit the $14,000/month 2 months in a row target. Aol judges Patch profitability with the 2 month rule — if a site is at $14,000 a month for 2 consecutive months it is deemed profitable. It's a joke because it takes about 2 months worth of effort, and sales team blitzes to get a site profitable for 2 months.. And guess what... Everyone cancels by the middle of month, so it's back to the drawing board — or as we say at Aol its time to throw more shit at the wall and keep our fingers crossed!!!!

AOL declined to comment.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 3:35 pm

LEAKED: Now We're Almost Positive The iPad 3 Will Have A Retina Display Like The iPhone (AAPL)

The guys at MacRumors say they got their hands on a display from Apple's upcoming iPad 3.

And just as other rumors have been saying, the iPad 3 appears to offer a Retina Display just like the one on the iPhone 4 and 4S.

MacRumors looked at the screen under a microscope and confirmed that the resolution will be double that of the iPad 2.

Click here for more iPad 3 rumors >

Please follow SAI: Tools on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 3:12 pm

Inspectors Have Already Found A Bunch Of Problems At Foxconn (AAPL)

Foxconnaccident

After the first few days of inspections at Foxconn by the Fair Labor Association, the group's CEO tells Bloomberg it has found several issues with the facility.

In the Bloomberg interview, FLA's CEO Auret van Heerden said:

“We’re finding tons of issues...I believe we’re going to see some very significant announcements in the near future.”

But van Heerden wouldn't get more specific than that.

Apple ordered the inspections by the FLA earlier this week following a series of reports in The New York Times and on NPR about the poor working conditions at the company's suppliers in China.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 2:22 pm

CHART: This Is How Much Traffic Pinterest Really Sends Sites

piccsy

Pinterest might not be legal. Users throw copyright caution to the wind as they high jack millions of photos from across the web and share them on virtual pinboards.

Piccsy, a photo discovery platform founded in 2010, has a lot of content that gets poached by Pinterest users. A recent study showed Piccsy content makes up ~ 0.15% of total Pinterest pins. It's the 18th most shared site on Pinterest.

You'd think Piccsy would be upset. Instead, it is "extremely happy" to share its content.

"As far as I'm concerned, any traffic to Piccsy is good traffic," says founder Daniel Eckler.

His site receives about 30 million monthly pageviews; Pinterest drives many of those visits. According to Google Analytics, Pinterest has sent about 600,000 visitors to Piccsy in the past year -- 50,000 in the past month alone.

The traffic is coming from more than 200,000 pin sources and the users Pinterest sends are highly engaged. The average Pinterest visitor views 6 Piccsy pages per session and spends 4 minutes on the site. No specific pins yield a ton of traffic yet; Eckler is benefiting from the combined power of all of the pins.

"The fact that it's distributed across many pins means that users of Pinterest will likely return again and again, instead of users from StumbleUpon or Facebook; those sites send more dense traffic (and have way less links overall)," says Eckler.

Currently Piccsy's top two referrers are StumbleUpon and Facebook. Eckler believes Pinterest will overtake them both before long. Its mobile app already seems more powerful than Facebook's.

"Pinterest is our number three traffic driver," says Eckler. "Pinterest Mobile drives about 20% of total Pinterest traffic compared to Facebook mobile which drives ~8%."

At that rate, Eckler anticipates Pinterest will overtake Facebook referral traffic within a few weeks, and he thinks it will become the #1 Piccsy traffic driver by the end of the year.

"Piccsy likes eyeballs, and Pinterest provides a ton of them," he says.

Here's a chart of the booming Pinterest referrals to Piccsy, by week. The chart probably closely reflects Pinterest's hockey stick growth curve.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 2:14 pm

Why Is This Phone So Huge? (T)

You've probably seen that recent string of commercials from Samsung bashing Apple fanboys. Well, this is what it was selling: the Samsung Galaxy Note, a massive smartphone with a 5.3-inch screen.

It's part tablet, part phone. But is it too big? Check out our hands-on video demonstration of this monster below.

Also, click here for huge hands-on photos of the Galaxy Note >

Produced by Daniel Goodman

Don't Miss:

• WATCH: What Happens When You Drop This Tablet In A Tub Of Water?

• You Don't Have To Spend A Fortune To Get One Of Those Fancy 4G Phones

Please follow SAI: Tools on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 2:04 pm

It'll Cost You $900 To Get Nokia's First Lumia Windows Phone (NOK, MSFT)

nokialumia800400px

Nokia and Microsoft will begin selling the Lumia 800, the first Nokia Phone to run Windows Phone 7, on Feb. 26 for $899 as part of a bundle.

The bundle includes the Nokia Lumia 800, a pair of Nokia HD headphones, a Bluetooth headset, and a Nokia Play external speaker for music. It'll only be available at Microsoft Stores.

The Lumia 800 is an unlocked phone that's normally sold overseas, but it will work in the U.S. if you're an AT&T customer. You'll just need to insert your SIM card.

The deal is pretty pricey, so we suggest waiting for the Nokia Lumia 900 to launch on AT&T. The 900 model will have a larger screen and run on AT&T's 4G LTE network for super fast data speeds. It's said to launch in mid-March and could be as cheap as $100 on contract.

Don't Miss: Hands-On Photos Of The Lumia 900

Please follow SAI: Tools on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 1:49 pm

Now, The Moment You've All Been Waiting For: THE NEW WINDOWS LOGO (MSFT)

Windows 8 is getting a new logo.

Gone is the colorful flag Windows users have known and loved (?) for more than 20 years.

In its place:

That blue thing? That's a window.

The change came about when Paula Scher from Pentagram -- a well known California design agency -- asked Microsoft, "Your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?"

It's actually pretty close to the very first Windows logo from way back in 1985:

But a far cry from the flag introduced back in the 1990s:

That flag has persisted in different forms all the way up through Windows Vista and Windows 7:

You can read all about the new logo, as well as look at some old classic Windows logos, on the Building Windows 8 blog.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 1:35 pm

Tim O'Shaughnessy Explains Why LivingSocial Lost $558 Million Last Year

LivingSocial lost $558 million last year and its revenue came up to just $245 million, an Amazon filing with SEC revealed earlier this month.

We asked the daily deals site's CEO and co-founder Tim O'Shaughnessy to explain this seemingly alarming discrepancy at our Social Commerce Summit.

"The reason that we raised so much money was not to go and have it sit in bank," he said. "It was to go and build a moat and scale." LivingSocial raised $176 million in 2011.

Watch below O'Shaughnessy hint that the company's full financials will be revealed soon.

Produced by Kamelia Angelova, Robert Libetti and Jana Kasperkevic

Don't Miss: Here's The Secret To Making Money From Great Content >

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 1:29 pm

Nest Cofounder Explains How Working At Apple Helped Him Create The Perfect Thermostat

MattRogersNestcofounder

One of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley is not what you'd expect. It doesn't make iPhone apps or a new kind of database technology.

It's called Nest and it makes thermostats.

Cofounders Matt Rogers and Tony Fadell used to work at Apple on the iPod.

A couple of years ago, they came up with the idea that the thermostat on your wall is too hard to use, and doesn't provide enough easy ways to save money on energy. So they spent two years building and designing a new breed of thermostat—beautiful to look at, and easy to control from your mobile phone.

Best of all, Nest learns your energy usage habits and adjusts so you aren't blowing hot air throughout the house when nobody is home.

Nest launched last fall, and sales have been way higher than expected—the company has been continually selling out of all stock—and Nest has attracted fans like Google's Marissa Mayer.

It has also attracted the attention of the big guys. Last week, giant Honeywell sued Nest for patent infringement.

We caught up with cofounder Matt Rogers a couple days ago. He couldn't talk about the Honeywell suit for legal reasons, but here's what we learned:

Peers scoffed at the idea, but investors got it right away. "When we first did our first pitch, Randy Komisar at KP said 'we have been looking for a company to do this forever. and I am so glad you're here.'"

It's not just for homeowners—renters are installing Nest, too. "It is not like you are getting a meter installed or a big piece of infrastructure. You take the one off the wall you have today, you plug a few wires into Nest, and you are good to go. Most customers are really very much able to do it themselves."

They have no plans to work with utilities—they want customers to WANT this thing. "One of the things that are very core to us is being a trusted ally of the consumer and building a product that they want to invite into their homes."

It's not intended to be a "green tech" product. "I don't really think it is a green tech revolution kind of product. We are building a great product for everybody, not just greenies. Everyone likes to save energy and money in their home."

Working at Apple helped prepare them for Nest. "At Apple we would go to the moon and back for saving one millimeter off of the thinness on a device, and that kind of stuff definitely prepared us for Nest ... Everyone says they want to build beautiful products and products like Apple but very few are willing to put that time and energy, that focus in to do it."

But there's no backup at a startup. "Apple is this gigantic company with a lot of resources and whenever we had something very difficult we always could invest our way out of it. We could put really fancy laser cutting equipment to make our metals and plastics or we could hire another engineer to help get the product to completion. In a startup you have it all, you have to do it. You can't just go hire and build a bigger team."

Business Insider: So you guys sold out on your first run. Did you expect that?

Matt Rogers: No we didn't actually. Once we launched it, announced it and started shipping, I think we struck a nerve with consumers and they saw the ugly thing on their wall today and the opportunity they had to get a better product and we have actually been, we have been continually selling out. So within three days we ... were taking reservations. And the last few months we have basically been filing off those reservation lists. It has been actually incredible, like how many people have been excited in buying the thermostat.

BI: What do you credit that to, is it design? And how did you get your message out across all the noise that's out there?

MR: So I mean, part of what gets people excited is design and usability and having a great interface that's easy. You shouldn't have to read a manual to figure out how to program your thermostat or use it. And in terms of how we got the word out, we did a lot of direct consumer conversations on social media. We did a lot of outreach in terms of PR. We talked to basically a lot of people and the more people we talked to the more the word got out. It was very much a grassroots type of campaign. We didn't do any advertising.

BI: How did you and Tony Fadell (the other cofounder) ever decide that thermostats were a ripe area for innovation?

MR: Tony and I, we met over lunch a long time ago, probably almost 2 1/2 years ago at this point, and were talking about what’s to come, what’s next. He had been building a very eco-friendly house in Tahoe and we were talking about some of the things going on there and the lack of innovation in the thermostat space. It got us really excited and we said hey, we built the iPod, what if we applied some of the great technology and design principles to the thermostat? And we spent a few months doing research and thinking about what that process would be and we went off and did it and we spent about 18 months with an amazing team building the product that we now have.

BI: Where do you even find people to work on that technology? This isn't your typical Silicon Valley startup.

MR: We hired folks from all around the Valley; from Apple, Microsoft, Google, from Twitter. People were excited to leave their jobs, basically their dream jobs, to work on this thermostat. It's a very impactful (sic) kind of product. Thermostats are responsible for about half of energy use so it is a huge amount of impact you could have.

BI: Was there a learning curve for these people?

MR: For those that are working on, I would say, the core thermostat part of the product, absolutely there was a learning curve and we spent quite a bit of time basically getting educated. We have an advisory board of heating and cooling experts from all around the country who basically educated us about this industry and about how the heating and cooling actually works.

But most of us don't work on the heating and cooling part of the product. We work on the mobile apps or the back-end servers or the algorithms or the UI [user interface] and that's the kind of techniques and technology that we used at Apple or at Google. It's just like building a phone.

BI: How big is the company?

MR: We're about 100.

BI: Wow. Not exactly a lean startup.

MR: It takes a lot to build this kind of product. To build just a great thermostat it was tough and then when you add in all of the things in the ecosystem, it is the whole company. We have to have manufacturing, we have a whole team that does apps, we have a web presence. It takes quite a bit.

BI: As you were planning the product and raising money, did you ever get any pushback from the investment community or your peers saying, "why are you making such an un-sexy product?"

MR: Different answers to your two questions. From friends or industry insiders, people that Tony and I know and trust, we did get the question, "A thermostat? Really?" But once we told them the story they got it.

Investors on the other hand totally got it. They had already been looking for companies to innovate in this area when we started and when we first did our first pitch, Randy Komisar at KP said "we have been looking for a company to do this forever. and I am so glad you're here."

BI: What do you guys do next? Are you planning on improving the core product and what kinds of areas do you look at to improve in?

MR: So there are a lot of areas where the product that we ship today could be a lot better ... Immediately we are looking next to "how do we better educate consumers about energy use and what things could we do there?" Today we are building a product that is a great tool to help consumers conserve energy. If you teach Nest well, you will save energy but how can we make that experience even better.

BI: Are you working at all with utilities?

MR: We have taken a different approach and we have decided to go basically on our own. One of the things that are very core to us is being a trusted ally of the consumer and building a product that they want to invite us into their homes. This is a product that they are going to hang on their wall and interact with every day so the path we have gone down is 100 percent consumer product.

BI: What do you do about renters? There is a sizable community, particularly in big cities, that don't own their home. Do they install Nest?

MR: We have actually seen quite a few renters buy Nest. They basically leave their thermostat on the wall and find that if they are compatible that they can buy it and install it there. It is a pretty low cost product that is helping them save energy, especially if they are a long-term renter and they are renting that house for years. I mean they will definitely see their savings.

BI: So it is not a real problem for them talking to the landlord.

MR: Exactly. It is not like you are getting a meter installed or a big piece of infrastructure. You take the one off the wall you have today, you plug a few wires into Nest, and you are good to go. Most customers are really very much able to do it themselves. The installations. We have online videos and all of those kinds of things.

BI: What about other products for the home? Or other energy-saving products?

MR: Today we are very much focused on the thermostat, improving that experience. Of course we are building a company and companies are more than about one product but today we are focused on the thermostat and doing that product really well.

BI: Do you see a resurgence in green tech and clean tech driven by consumers rather than the government and subsidies?

MR: I don't really think it is a green tech revolution kind of product. We are building a great product for everybody, not just greenies. Everyone likes to save energy and money in their home ... I don't know in terms of greater trends. I don't see too many other companies doing things like we are doing.

BI: You worked at Apple for almost 5 years. How did working at Apple prepare you to work at a startup? And specifically did it prepare you at all for working on this totally new kind of startup?

MR: Apple is a unique kind of place in that there is an exceptional amount of focus on the design and details. At Apple we would go to the moon and back for saving one millimeter off of the thinness on a device, and that kind of stuff definitely prepared us for Nest. Those kinds of design principles and diligence don't really exist anywhere else, and that core focus I think is what helped Tony and I basically design this thermostat. Everyone says they want to build beautiful products and products like Apple but very few are willing to put that time and energy, that focus in to do it.

BI: Do you see any other startups with the same kind of focus on design?

MR: The guys at Path have done an exceptional job in reinventing the user experience. I have been playing with that app recently and they really have built an amazingly easy to use beautiful UI and a great example of what a modern app can be.

BI: What about supply chain? That must be a big deal for you guys, and Tim Cook is heralded as a genius on that stuff.

MR: Absolutely, we have learned a ton from Apple in terms of operations, supply chain management and how to get a product built at high quality and at high volumes. That has been a continual focus for us and where we spend a lot of our time today is exactly on that.

BI: What did working at Apple not prepare you for? What were the surprises?

MR: Apple is this gigantic company with a lot of resources and whenever we had something very difficult we always could invest our way out of it. We could put really fancy laser cutting equipment to make our metals and plastics or we could hire another engineer to help get the product to completion. In a startup you have it all, you have to do it. You can't just go hire and build a bigger team. We have to be much more fiscally responsible. Also there is no backup, whereas at Apple you always could go call your buddies at the Mac team or in operations to help out a project. At a startup you’re on your own. You do your own backup.

BI: What is the weirdest thing you have had to do? Any emergencies?

MR: We have had to do anything and everything to the point. At one point I was even vacuuming the floor after we have had some stuff spill. When it comes down to it, everyone, the team here at Nest is willing to do anything it takes to get this product done and to build it.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 1:29 pm

One Place Where Windows 8 Tablets Will Beat The iPad (MSFT, AAPL)

SteveBallmerPeterKleinshinytablet

The iPad may continue to win in the consumer market, but Windows 8 tablets will do better in enterprises.

That's because they will help meet rising demand from employees to use a tablet at work, while still pleasing IT directors worried about security and management, and purchasing directors worried about cost.

At leas that's the argument that former Microsoft developer Hal Berenson made this week.

The point of the blog post was quite different: Berenson was chiding longtime Windows developers who want to ignore tablets and just keep writing for the Windows desktop. As he put it, "You can whine all you want about Tablets being only (and barely suitable) for consumers, but when the VP of Retail decides she’s handing all 10,000 store associates Tablets you are going to be writing Tablet apps."

But along the way, he gave some very good arguments why companies will probably go with Windows 8 tablets over iPads:

More control and easier management. "The VP of IT Operations will look out upon the available Tablet options and his organization’s capabilities for managing them. He will look at how well they can enforce corporate policies, prevent data loss, centrally control the remote Tablets, tie these systems into their corporate identity systems, and meet audit and monitoring requirements. He will conclude they can do an OK job for iPads and a great job for Windows 8 Tablets .... Bad operations can put a company on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and the CEO in front of a jury. They will prefer Windows 8 Tablets, perhaps overwhelmingly."

Stronger security features. "Your CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) will look at Windows 8 and drool. They will see things like Secure Boot, the use of Reputation when deciding what applications to allow to run, the smoother more transparent patching process, and other basic security improvements and wish they could immediately force the company to upgrade its entire base of PCs. Then he’ll look at the Metro environment and how it solves their problem of keeping unsafe applications off of PCs .... He’ll also establish policies that favor Windows 8 Tablets over iPads .... "

Cheaper hardware. "The purchasing department will look over the Tablet landscape and the business unit requirements and try to find the lowest priced Tablet that meets those requirements. Those Tablets will have configurations that work great for Metro apps, but are taxed by heavy use of desktop applications."

No doubt, Microsoft will use these arguments when trying to sell Windows 8 tablets to enterprises, too.

Read the whole post here.

Please follow SAI: Enterprise on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 1:18 pm

Pinterest Might Be Enabling Massive Copyright Theft

Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing web sites in history.

Launched about six months ago, the site already has more than 10 million monthly visitors and, among social networks, is ranked below only Facebook and Tumblr in terms of average time-spent-per-user per month.

But with massive growth comes major scrutiny.

Choire Sicha at The Awl brought up the question of whether Pinterest might be the most illegal network to hit the Internet yet. More illegal than Napster. More illegal than Megaupload.

Pinterest is a place where users upload photography – sometimes professional, copyrighted photography – that they found elsewhere on the Internet.

We talked to media law attorney Itai Maytal, who's an associate at Miller Korzenik Sommers LLP, to try and understand: Is Pinterest theft on a massive scale? Using what we learned from him, we've created an FAQ to try and answer this question.

Q: First off, what is Pinterest?

A: Pinterest is a social media site that involves "pinning" pictures you like to 'boards' that you create. Its users are heavily female — maybe as much as 95 percent.

Q: Sounds fun.

A: It is! People love the visual element. Because you can combine pictures from all over the web, as well as your own, and put them in one place, it's sort of like an interactive collage.

Q: But wait: You can use other peoples' photos?

A: Yes.

Q: Isn't that illegal?

A: It's not clear. Pinterest definitely allows users to post other photographers' work to the site. But it's not clear that this is illegal.

In its terms of use, Pinterest actually specifies that users shouldn't pin photos they don't own the rights to, a request that is being ignored to an absurd degree. Even if you link and attribute, that does NOT absolve you of the fact that you took someone else's work and re-appropriated it.

It's all about complying with the DMCA, or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Q: That's how YouTube works, right?

A: On YouTube, you're only allowed to post videos you own the rights to. If a copyright holder sees that you posted one of his or her videos, YouTube will take it down upon complaint.

Q: But is it illegal?

A: Pinterest could be in Fair Use territory (meaning, legally protected). Fair Use law allows people to use work they do not own the copyright to. There are four elements to consider when determining if something is Fair Use:

The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
The nature of the copyrighted work [is it fictional or factual]
The amount and substantiality of the portion [of the work] used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

The big one is that first question. If the use is transformative — if something new is being created by using the picture — then it can be construed as Fair Use.

One of the most famous cases of this, and one that Maytal pointed to as likely to be a major precedent, is Perfect 10 v. Google. A nude-image subscription service. Perfect 10 sued Google because Google's Image search showed pictures that Perfect 10 hid behind a paywall. It claimed that Google was doing it irreparable harm by showing the pictures in its search.

Google won the case. The courts ruled that Google Image search is Fair Use because it's transformative.

Maytal told us, "The use of the thumbnails was highly transformative, allowed users to get to a source of information that they couldn’t otherwise get." Google Image search becomes a social benefit and a reference tool.

Q: So how does Pinterest stack up in these Fair Use conditions?

A: Not well. On question 2, photography is inherently creative — photos are not facts — so that's a point against Pinterest. On question 3, Pinterest, in many cases, allows users to see photos from other sources in their full, original form on Pinterest's site. That's the work in its entirety.

On question 4, if users are able to see the work in its entirety, then they have no need to click through to see it at its source, potentially affecting the market. Also, even if you argue that Pinterest helps photographers or businesses sell products, that doesn't necessarily help.

Q: Isn't helping someone sell their stuff always good?

A: No. A case involving J.D. Salinger's attempt to stop his letters from being published established that a copyright holder always has the right to control the use of his work, even if that means he'll make less money.

Q: What about that first question, of whether Pinterest is transformative?

A: This will be the big issue, and what will likely determine Pinterest's legality. The fact that Pinterest isn't making any money yet definitely helps. Once it starts monetizing these pictures, it will become harder to argue that it's Fair Use.

Money isn't the biggest issue, though. The biggest issue is whether the use is a public service, or creates something new. Pinterest could potentially argue that it's a search or reference tool. But Google only provides thumbnails, which is transformative; you have to go to the original source to see the full picture. That's not the case with Pinterest, and that could be the killer.

Q: Couldn't Pinterest just take down the pictures that are infringement?

A: Yes, and they're supposed to. But they're not doing that. And the question of whether it's up to the service or the users to guard copyright is still being hashed out in the courts.

Q: How is this any different than Tumblr? I post stuff that isn't mine there all the time.

A: Good question! It's not really different. This could be an issue for Tumblr soon enough as well. The difference is that Pinterest seems designed almost entirely for the theft of others' copyrighted material, whereas Tumblr's a blogging service like any other on the Internet, just easier to use.

Q: So, is Pinterest illegal?

A: Quite possibly. Until there's a legal challenge against the site, it'll be hard to know. Pinterest could have some legitimate arguments in favor of itself: Claiming it's a search tool, saying it drives traffic elsewhere, arguing that the way it shows pictures is transformative.

But the big problem is that it grabs entire copyrighted works to re-post. This could be hard to overcome, especially as Pinterest starts growing and becomes more of a destination for a greater audience. The more time users spend on Pinterest, one assumes, the less likely they are to click out to other sites. And why click out when you can see the whole picture right there?

Please follow SAI: Media on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Date Published: Feb 17, 2012 - 1:05 pm

Feed: Silicon Alley Insider - AggScore: 55.8

Summary: SAI

How Facebook's Ad Revenue Could Top Out At $10 Billion

Eric Schmidt Plans $1.4 Billion Stock Sale (GOOG)

HOW TO: Block Google (And Everybody) From Tracking Which Sites You Visit On Your iPhone (AAPL, GOOG)

1. Find the "Settings" icon on your home screen. It looks like a bunch of gears.

2. Scroll down and open the tab that says "Safari."

3. See where it says "Private Browsing"? Move that slider to "On." (This setting is only available in iOS 5, the latest version. But never fear -- if you have an older version, we'll tell you what to do.)

Check Out This Amazing $13 Million Octopus Robot Being Developed In Italy

We Just Got A Very Angry Comment From Someone Who Calls Himself A Patch Employee... (AOL)

LEAKED: Now We're Almost Positive The iPad 3 Will Have A Retina Display Like The iPhone (AAPL)

Click here for more iPad 3 rumors >

Inspectors Have Already Found A Bunch Of Problems At Foxconn (AAPL)

CHART: This Is How Much Traffic Pinterest Really Sends Sites

Why Is This Phone So Huge? (T)

Also, click here for huge hands-on photos of the Galaxy Note >

It'll Cost You $900 To Get Nokia's First Lumia Windows Phone (NOK, MSFT)

Now, The Moment You've All Been Waiting For: THE NEW WINDOWS LOGO (MSFT)

Tim O'Shaughnessy Explains Why LivingSocial Lost $558 Million Last Year

Nest Cofounder Explains How Working At Apple Helped Him Create The Perfect Thermostat

One Place Where Windows 8 Tablets Will Beat The iPad (MSFT, AAPL)

Pinterest Might Be Enabling Massive Copyright Theft

Visitor Rating: 5 (1) (Rate)

Story Clicks: 303

Feed Views: 1,094

Tags

Lenses (Add|?)

Comments (Log in to add)

Feed Details

Search FeedAgg.com