Turks use Internet for surfing and Facebook

The little boy in this photo is looking at Facebook. Some 82 percent of Turkish households use the web for Facebook. Hürriyet photo

The two most popular uses for the Internet among Turkish households are surfing the web and accessing Facebook, says a recent study. Some 59 percent of Turkish homes have no Internet.

Most Turkish households use their Internet simply to “surf” the web, while the second most popular use is to access Facebook, according to a study prepared by Türk Telekom and Ipsos KMG analyzing Turkey’s first quarter 2012 internet usage.

The study encompassed households in 38 different Turkish provinces. Some 87 percent of households primarily use the Internet for surfing, while 82 percent use it to access Facebook. Some 76 percent use the Internet to check their emails and 71 percent use it to chat online. Other popular uses of the Internet include listening to music (67 percent), watching films or videos (66 percent), reading the news (61 percent), playing online games (55 percent), using Twitter (31 percent), online shopping (24 percent), and Internet banking (23 percent), the study reveals.

Most houses use computers

According to the study, 52 percent, or 9.9 million, of Turkey’s 19.1 million households use computers and 41 percent are connected to the internet. The study unsurprisingly reveals that as the number of Turkish households with computers goes up, so does internet usage. 60.9 percent of Turkey’s internet users are male, while 39.1 percent are female. Half of Turkey’s Internet users are between the ages of 18 to 34.

The study also notes a sharp drop in internet cafe usage, with most users now preferring to connect from home using ADSL connections. Some 31.2 percent of Turkish households use an ADSL connection, while 9.9 percent use a 3G modem, cable and fiber connections. Furthermore, 96 percent are satisfied with their choice of internet connection and have no desire to switch to something else. Some 74.6 percent said that they would choose ADSL for a new connection, followed by fiber at second place.

Meanwhile, 34.6 percent of households use desktop computers, while 20.6 percent use laptops.

The percentage of households that use both desktop and laptop computers is only 4.2 percent, while only 0.7 percent use new generation notepads and 0.2 percent use tablets. (Anatolia News Agency)

Facebook will change ad service to settle lawsuit

In this photo illustration, a Facebook logo on a computer screen is seen through a magnifying glass held by a woman in Bern May 19, 2012. Picture taken May 19, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Thomas Hodel

Facebook Inc has agreed to allow users more control over how their personal information is used in its "Sponsored Stories" ad feature, part of a deal to resolve litigation against the social networking company.

The potential loss of revenue to Facebook resulting from the changes is the equivalent of about $103 million, in the opinion of one economist hired by the plaintiffs.

A "Sponsored Story" is an advertisement that appears on a member's Facebook page and generally consists of another friend's name, profile picture and an assertion that the person "likes" the advertiser.

Five Facebook members filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status against the social networking site, saying it violated California law by publicizing users' "likes" of certain advertisers without paying them or giving them a way to opt out.

Under the terms of a settlement agreement filed on Wednesday, Facebook members will be able to control which content can be used for Sponsored Stories. Facebook agreed to maintain these changes and other new disclosures for at least two years, according to court documents.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the changes to "Sponsored Stories" are worth $103.2 million, based on an economist's analysis of the revenue each ad brings to Facebook. Those revenue figures were redacted in the court documents.

A Facebook representative declined to comment, and an attorney for the plaintiffs could not immediately be reached.

The settlement agreement must be approved by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California. She must weigh whether the deal's terms adequately benefit class members.

Previous court filings had revealed that Facebook agreed to pay $10 million to charity as part of the settlement deal. The social networking company will also pay an additional $10 million for plaintiff attorneys' fees, according to the court documents.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Angel Fraley et al., individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated vs. Facebook Inc., 11-cv-1726.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in Oakland, Calif.; editing by Matthew Lewis) (Reuters)

Facebook makes $10m charity payment to settle lawsuit

Five Facebook members filed a lawsuit in December last year

Facebook is to pay $10m (£6m) to charity to settle a lawsuit over the way it used "social" ads.

Known as a "sponsored story", the ads popped up on a user's friends' pages after the user clicked to "like" a firm's advert.

The lawsuit was brought by five members of Facebook who said the ads violated Facebook members' rights to control the use of their activity on the site.

Facebook has declined to comment on the lawsuit and settlement.

The deal with users who sued was reached in May, but court documents were made public this weekend.

The Facebook users filed their lawsuit in December 2011 in a federal court in San Jose, California, claiming that the social network had violated the state law by making their "likes" known to others without allowing them to opt out or paying them.

Multiple lawsuits
According to Reuters news agency, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is quoted in the lawsuit as saying that such friend endorsement is the "Holy Grail" of advertising.

But the judge ruled in favour of the plaintiffs.

"California has long recognised a right to protect one's name and likeness against appropriation by others for their advantage," Judge Lucy Koh wrote, reported Reuters.

The social network said the settlement funds would go to charity.

It is just another court case involving the social networking giant, which listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in May.

One of the most recent cases involves Mr Zuckerberg and the banks leading the firm's flotation being sued by shareholders who allege that the site's revised growth figures were not disclosed to all investors.

In a different case, Yahoo has filed an intellectual property lawsuit against Facebook, claiming the social network has infringed 10 of its patents, including systems and methods for advertising on the web.

Facebook denies the allegations. (bbc.co.uk)

Website finds 'Facebook gilrfriend' for $5

REUTERS Photo

A website is offering to find its users a "facebook girlfriend" for only $5, daily Hürriyet reported today.

The website, girlfriendhire.com, is a portal where people can hire online girlfriends, according to Yahoo.

In the website, there are also other options to find someone to post on the user's wall, comment on or like their posts, and more, again for $5.

The number of Turkish visitors to the website is currently low, while the top user countries are Mexico and Sri Lanka, the reports said. (Hurriyet Daily News)

Facebook smartphone could come by next year: report

AFP Photo

Facebook hopes to release its own smartphone by next year, as the newly public social networking giant looks to boost its revenue in the mobile Internet market, the New York Times reported Monday.

The company has hired more than half a dozen software and hardware engineers who have worked on Apple's bestselling iPhone and one engineer who has iPad experience, the paper said, citing employees and other unnamed sources.

It has also expanded a group working on a partnership with Taiwan's HTC to create a smartphone codenamed "Buffy" -- a project first revealed last year by technology blog All Things Digital.

One former Apple engineer who worked on the iPhone and was recruited said he had met with Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg "who then peppered him with questions about the inner workings of smartphones," the report said. "Mark is worried that if he doesn't create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms," a Facebook employee told the New York Times.

When asked for comment, Facebook neither confirmed nor denied the report.

"Our mobile strategy is simple: we think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social," it said in a statement emailed to AFP. "We're working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.

Facebook's initial public offering this month raised a record $16 billion but has sparked fury, and lawsuits, amid concerns that key information about the outlook for the company might not have been made widely available.

The company said earlier this month that it was launching an App Center for mini-programs that plug offerings such as Pinterest or Draw Something into the leading social network, which has more than 900 million members worldwide. (NEW YORK - Agence France-Presse)

Facebook shares hit again

AP photo

Shares of Facebook took another tumble today, continuing a downward spiral that began at the start of the week.

The blame game has already begun, with some pointing fingers at Nasdaq, where technical issues created confusion during the first day of trading, and others blaming the lead underwriter of the offering, Morgan Stanley.

After being priced at $38, the shares opened at $42.05 on Friday and fluctuated between $45 and $38 throughout the day, before closing up just 23 cents.

On Monday, the Menlo Park, California, company's shares began to tumble and closed down 11 percent. The losses continued in Tuesday's session, with the shares falling 7 percent to $31.65 before recovering somewhat at $32.25 in midmorning trading.

However, the initial public offering from Facebook Inc. occurred the same week that the markets posted their worse performance so far in 2012, with the Standard & Poor's 500 index falling 4 percent.

And it may also be a classic case of investor fleeing risk, as financial turmoil continues in Europe and Asia.
The stock was supported during the first day of trading as underwriters bought up shares to prevent them from falling below $38.

The Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. will be facing shareholders Tuesday during its annual meeting and a significant portion of that time will certainly be devoted to addressing the Facebook issue. (NEW YORK - The Associated Press)

Facebook shares drop below flotation price

Facebook shares ended almost unchanged after their first day of trading on Friday

Shares in Facebook have fallen in early trading on Wall Street to below the price at which they were floated.

Despite the wider market in buoyant mood, Facebook slid 12% immediately at the opening bell and were still 11% down at $33.92 more than one hour into the trading day.

Facebook's flotation on Friday at $38 a share was delayed by technical problems on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Nasdaq boss Robert Greifeld said he was "humbly embarrassed" by the glitch.

Trading was delayed by 30 minutes due to late order cancellations, and the shares closed on Friday at $38.23, having hit $45 earlier in the day.

The offer price valued the site at $104bn (£66bn).

Disappointing
"This was not our finest hour," said Mr Greifeld. As a result of the glitch, a number of investors were unsure whether their buy and sell orders had actually gone through.

However, Mr Greifeld said that once the glitch had been fixed, trading had been "successful".

More than 566 million shares in the company changed hands, a record volume for US market debuts.

Some analysts suggested the share price would have fallen on Friday had it not been for underwriters stepping in to buy up stock.

Strong demand in the run-up to the flotation had led the company to increase both the price and the number of shares available for sale.

Other internet companies have had mixed experiences recently when they have started selling shares.

Online games maker Zynga's shares fell 5% on their first day of trading in December 2011. However, shares in business networking site LinkedIn more than doubled on their debut in May last year, while Groupon shares jumped 30% on their debut in November. (bbc.co.uk)

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg marries sweetheart

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg updated his status to "married" on Saturday.

Zuckerberg and 27-year-old Priscilla Chan tied the knot at a small ceremony at his Palo Alto, California, home, capping a busy week for the couple.

Zuckerberg took his company public in one of the most anticipated stock offerings in Wall Street history Friday. And Chan graduated from medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, on Monday, the same day Zuckerberg turned 28.

The couple met at Harvard and have been together for more than nine years.

A company spokeswoman said Zuckerberg designed the ring featuring "a very simple ruby" that he designed himself.

The ceremony took place in Zuckerberg's backyard before fewer than 100 guests, who all thought they were there to celebrate Chan's graduation.

Even after the IPO, Zuckerberg remains Facebook's single largest shareholder, with 503.6 million shares. And he controls the company with 56 percent of its voting stock.

The site, which was born in a dorm room eight years ago and has grown into a worldwide network of almost a billion people.

Zuckerberg founded Facebook at Harvard in 2004.

He was named as Time's Person of the Year in 2010, at age 26.

Zuckerberg grew up in Dobbs Ferry, New York. (PALO ALTO, California - The Associated Press)

Facebook falls flat in market debut

Monitors show the value of the Facebook, Inc. stock before the closing bell at the NASDAQ Marketsite in New York. REUTERS photo

Facebook stumbled in its first trading day yesterday as shares ended barely above the starting price after a glitch-plagued market debut on the Nasdaq that failed to live up to the enormous hype.

The stock, priced at $38 on Thursday in the largest-ever initial public offering (IPO) for a technology firm, eked out a gain of just 0.61 percent to end at $38.23, amid record volume of more than 575 million shares.

Shares in the social network titan saw roller-coaster action in what was one of most keenly awaited issues in history. The day began with a 30-minute delay in trade, an incident which regulators were still reviewing.

Shares jumped 12 percent to $42.55 in the opening Nasdaq trades but within minutes fell back to the offering price, and a midday rally failed to sustain momentum.

"The negativity in the market overall has put a damper on the IPO," said Darren Hayes, a Pace University professor and former investment banker.

"It's not uncommon in an IPO to see a big rise and then for the price to come back down, but I'm a bit surprised after all the hype to see such a small gain," he said.

"I think there may be some skeptical investors who see some challenges in the long-term outlook of the company." Gerard Hoberg, an economist at the University of Maryland said there was enthusiasm from some buyers but skepticism from professionals.

"You have a lot of bullishness from retail investors, people who use Facebook, and there's a lot of those investors creating a lot of buying pressure," he said.

A report on the Business Insider financial blog said the price held at $38 because of a large number of standing orders at the offering price. The Wall Street Journal said the underwriting investment banks stepped in to support the price.

"It's hard to know what would have happened if the banks hadn't stepped in," said Lou Kerner of the Social Internet Fund, raising questions about what will happen to Facebook's share price when the Nasdaq reopens on Monday.

"I think the shares were fairly priced, but the shares were trading on fear today, not greed." James Hughes, chief market analyst at London's Alpari said "the real value of Facebook is not likely to be known until the hype of the IPO has died away and investors have been able to digest how the company is going evolve to be the money-making machine many expect it to be." Investors were expected to be hungry to get a piece of Facebook, which has become a global phenomenon since its beginnings in 2004 as a project of then-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and his classmates.

Zuckerberg, wearing his trademark hooded sweatshirt, remotely rang the bell to open the Nasdaq, marking the historic share offering that confirms the growing importance of the social network giant.

"Going public is an important milestone in our history," Zuckerberg told the crowd at the company's campus in Menlo Park, California.

"But here's the thing. Our mission isn't to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected." Zuckerberg and hundreds of employees cheered as the 28-year-old co-founder rang the bell via video for the New York-based Nasdaq. He wore a dark hoodie, unfazed by criticism from some on Wall Street about his casual attire.

The market debut was disappointing compared with some recent tech IPOs: the LinkedIn social network doubled on its first day last year and Groupon jumped 30 percent. But Pandora rose a more modest 8.9 percent and Zynga lost five percent on its first day.

Trip Chowdhry, who follows Facebook for Global Equities Research, said the "lackluster" opening was because Facebook failed to answer questions about how it will increase revenues and adapt to the mobile Internet.

"Management cannot sing and dance around the key issues," he said.

The IPO gave Facebook a dizzying value of $104 billion at its market debut.

It raised more than $16 billion, making it the richest after that of financial giant Visa in 2008, according to Renaissance Capital. The addition of a possible stock "over-allotment" could boost the total to $18.4 billion.

Facebook itself sold 180 million shares and early investors in the company the remaining 241 million.

With its current market value, Facebook is now among the most valuable US companies, ahead of sector giants Amazon ($96 billion) and Cisco ($89 billion), and more than twice the value of Ford Motor Co. ($38 billion).

But it remains behind Google ($196 billion) and Apple ($496 billion).

Under the share plan, Zuckerberg holds 55.8 percent of the voting power of Facebook shares, and over 18 percent of the value of the company.

One of the shadows hanging over Facebook is concerns over privacy.

Some consumer and privacy advocates say Facebook has been too loose with user data, and hope that as a publicly traded company, it may change its tune.

The IPO's net proceeds to Facebook were some $6.8 billion. The rest of the cash goes to Facebook insiders and others who made early investments in the social network, and to cover the IPO costs.

Facebook posted a profit of $668 million last year as revenue vaulted to $1.06 billion. (NEW YORK - Agence France-Presse)

Wall Street girds for Facebook frenzy

A man stands outside of the St. Regis hotel holding a pamphlet of information on investing in the upcoming IPO of Facebook in New York in this file photo taken May 10, 2012. REUTERS photo

Wall Street and investors around the globe girded for a frenzy for Facebook shares with investors hungry for a piece of share offering expected to be launched on Friday.

In the past few days, Facebook boosted the estimated price for the shares, placing a value on the social network around a whopping $100 billion, and added to the number of shares being offered from insiders.

With a definitive price still not set, Facebook estimated shares to be offered at between $34 to $38 per share, translating to a value of $93-104 billion for the company.

But London bookmakers were anticipating a stampede for shares. At the betting firm Spreadex, clients have been speculating that shares could rise above $56 after their first day.

"Our market on the percentage change in the price of Facebook shares after the first day's trading has seen appetite from clients in buying on the price as the big day approaches, moving the spread up from 30-35 percent earlier in the week to 35-40 percent," Spreadex spokesman Andy MacKenzie said.

Spreadex noted that among other tech IPOs, LinkedIn rose 109 percent the first day while Groupon surged 31 percent. Social game maker Zygna lost ground on its first day.

But MacKenzie noted that "we have had some customers holding back based on their belief that Facebook shares may well fall in value after the furor over the initial launch has died down." Lou Kerner, founder of The Social Internet Fund, said he expects a strong response.

"US institutional demand has been good, the retail and global demand has been overwhelming," he said.

Kerner said the definitive offering price may go up again ahead of the launch, possibly to $40.

"I would expect it to be priced at the top of the range or beyond -- a couple of dollars above the top of the current range wouldn't be surprising," he told AFP.

The excitement about social networks was highlighted separately when Pinterest, a bulletin-board style sharing website, attracted a $100 million investment led by Japanese online giant Rakuten, with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital, and "a number of angel investors." "The funding will allow Pinterest to continue improving its service and expanding its community globally," a statement said.

Facebook will reportedly go public hacker-style with an all-night software bending bash to culminate at its new California campus with co-founder Mark Zuckerberg remotely ringing the Nasdaq opening bell.

Employees were signing up for a "hackathon" to start late Thursday at Facebook's offices in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park and continued until the social network's initial public offering of stock on Friday, according to tech news websites TechCrunch and All Things Digital.

"Hackathons are a big tradition at Facebook," the company explained on a Facebook page devoted to the events.

"They serve as the foundation for some great (and not so great) ideas," the message at facebook.com/hackathon continued.

Under the share plan, Zuckerberg will hold 55.8 percent of the voting power, down slightly from an estimated 57.3 percent. The 28-year-old controls the firm through a dual class stock structure and certain shares that give him a "proxy" for voting.

The net proceeds to the company were estimated at $6.4 billion, the filing with regulators said.

At the midpoint price, the IPO could net some $16 billion for all the sellers at the latest estimate, and at the maximum price more than $18 billion.

Depending on the final value, the IPO would be one of the largest of a US firm on Wall Street, comparable to the 2008 offering of Visa ($17.8 billion) and that of General Motors in 2010 ($15.7 billion). (NEW YORK - Agence France-Presse)

Facebook founder drops US citizenship to escape taxes

Andrew Garfield played Saverin in the 2010 hit The Social Network. Photo by ABACAUSA.COM

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin has renouced his U.S. citizenship, allegedly in order to steer clear of what are soon to be heavy taxes.

The move follows Saverin’s settlement in Singapore, where he has been living for some time now, investing in several projects, Agence France-Presse reported. He is required to pay taxes on his income there under American law, which taxes citizens on their income earned worldwide, despite Singapore's loose taxation policies on foreign cash.

Though Saverin’s citizenship arrangement is seen as almost certainly designed to escape taxation, Forbes magazine has claimed that it may not go as smoothly as planned. Under the law, Saverin will still be paying certain taxes to certain taxes to U.S. government, including an exit tax.

Saverin, together with the now 28-year-old Marck Zuckerberg, was one-half of the brains behind Facebook, until the business relationship went down in flames, resulting in a legal battle that pitted the once good friends against each other. The lawsuit ended with a ruling in Zuckerberg's favor, and Saverin's share in Facebook was reduced to two to four percent.

Even with his downsized stake in Facebook, Saverin is still a wealthy man, with his Facebook shares worth a total of $3.4 billion.

The courtroom battle entered popular lore when Facebook's nuclear rise to web stardom was depicted in 2010's Golden Globe-winnning film "The Social Network." The blockbuster hit told the story of Saverin and Zuckerbeg, with Jesse Eisenberg's performance as Zuckerberg earning him an Oscar nomination for best actor. (ISTANBUL Hürriyet Daily News)

Facebook becomes observer at Web freedom group

AFP photo

Facebook has become an official observer at the Global Network Initiative, a non-government organization dedicated to promoting Internet freedom and privacy rights.

The announcement Thursday noted that Facebook is the first company to gain observer status with GNI, whose corporate members include Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google.

"Observer status is an opportunity for companies who are actively considering joining GNI to examine the initiative's programs as well as its principles on free expression and privacy," said GNI executive director Susan Morgan.

"We created observer status after listening to companies who wanted to learn more about how GNI's participants work together in support of free expression and privacy rights before committing to membership, and we welcome Facebook's involvement. Given Facebook's influence in the industry and its importance to a growing global user base, we look forward to collaborating with them on the issues they are facing around the world." Facebook vice president for global public policy Marne Levine said the California company wants to work with GNI and its members "to promote a free and open Internet." "Building a better understanding of the value of the open Internet, and its direct impact on job creation, education, and good governance, is critical, and precisely where the work of GNI can be useful," Levine said.

As an observer, Facebook will participate in policy and learning sessions but has not formally committed to the GNI principles and guidelines, or submit to an independent assessment.

"This is an important step for Facebook, and we welcome the opportunity to work with them towards the goal of becoming full GNI members," said GNI board member Arvind Ganesan, of Human Rights Watch.

The observer status lasts for one non-renewable 12-month term. GNI also launched a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/GlobalNetworkInitiative. (WASHINGTON - Agence France-Presse)

Facebook decides to call on donor status

Facebook encourages the social network’s users to speak up if they are organ donors and display it on their pages.

Tired of the long wait for a new kidney, Michael Shelling, a 50-year-old video game marketing consultant based in San Diego, decided to take a more active role in the search.

About three months ago, he decided to tap into his social network by setting up a Facebook page to get the word out to his friends, and their friends, that he needs a new kidney and, by the way, his blood type is O.

The search may have paid off. A potential donor is going through testing to see if they are a match.
It is the kind of scenario Facebook hopes to foster. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg put out the call earlier on Tuesday to encourage the social network’s users -- more than 900 million -- to speak up if they are organ donors and display it on their personal pages. “We think that people can really help spread awareness of organ donation and that they want to participate in this to their friends, and we think that can be a big part in helping to solve the crisis,” Zuckerberg told ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America” program on Tuesday.

There are currently 92,102 people in the United States waiting for a donor kidney -- the organ that is in greatest demand -- according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Last year, only 28,535 kidney transplants took place, with the majority of those donated from deceased donors. That disparity leaves many like Shelling waiting in line for a donor organ to become available, a process that can take three or four years, said Joel Newman, a spokesman for the United Network for Organ Sharing. (CHICAGO - Reuters)

Google Drive to offer free storage in the cloud

Google has launched a new consumer service offering up to 1TB (terabyte) of storage for photos and other online content.

Dubbed Google Drive, the service goes head to head with rival cloud services such as Dropbox and Microsoft's SkyDrive.

It offers 5GB (gigabyte) of storage for free. People pay on a rising scale for more space.

Experts say that Google is "late" to the market.

Cloud living
"Today, we're introducing Google Drive - a central place where you can create, share, collaborate and keep all of your stuff," said Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome and Apps in a blog post.

"Whether you're working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive."

The service will allow users to upload and access videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and other documents.

"Drive will help you live, work and play in the cloud," added Mr Pichai.

It can be installed to a Mac or PC or as an app to an Android phone or tablet. Google said that it was working on an app for Apple's mobile operating system, which should be available in the coming weeks.

For blind users, Drive can be accessed with a screen reader.

Grand canyon
Google will draw on its search expertise to help differentiate the service.

Users will be able search by keyword and filter by file type, owner or activity. Drive will also recognise text in scanned documents using optical character recognition (OCR) technology.

This would allow someone, for example, to upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping and search for a word from the text of the news article.

Google Drive will also use image recognition.

"If you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip to Drive, the next time you search for Grand Canyon, photos of it will pop up," said Mr Pichai.

The first 5GB of storage comes free.

After that users can choose to upgrade to 25GB for $2.49 (£1.50) a month, 100GB for $4.99 a month or if they need 1TB, they can get it for $49.99 a month.

When users upgrade to a paid account, their Gmail account storage will automatically expand to 25GB.

By contrast, Microsoft offers yearly contracts. It charges $50 for maximum storage of 100GB.

Dropbox offers individual users up to 100GB at a rate of $19.99 per month or $199 per year. It also sells larger amounts to groups with the cost determined by how many people share the space.

Facebook?
Cloud services have become hugely popular as people seek to access content from a variety of places and devices.

Richard Edwards, principal analyst at research firm Ovum, said that Google was "very late" to the market but that its move could spur others.

"Facebook doesn't have a cloud service but this may prompt it into an acquisition," he said.

"If Facebook was to buy Dropbox that would be a game-changer."

In anticipation of Google's announcement, rivals updated their own services.

Dropbox now allows users to give non-members access to files via emailed links. Until now it had required both parties to sign up to its service and have shared folders.

Microsoft has also improved its SkyDrive service.

Among other features, it has integrated the drive into Windows Explorer and Apple's Finder so that it works as an extension of the desktop.

It also added capability to access files stored on the drive from an iPad as well as the iPhone and Windows Phone-based handsets. (Source: bbc.co.uk)

Instagram fans delete app over Facebook 'sellout'

Facebook's $1 billion gobbling up of Instagram has sent disgruntled fans of the quirky photo-sharing app to the delete button.

Twitter and other online platforms buzzed Wednesday with depictions of Facebook as a corporate monster trampling over a defenseless community of creative, free-spirited types.

"Guess it's time to delete my instagram app before Facebook ruins it," Twitter user Charlie Robinson griped.

In another tweet, Jay El Nino Garcia moaned: "Nice facebook just bought instagram. Another thing to delete." According to analysts at Crimson Hexagon, which studies social media content, just 12 percent of 201,000 relevant Twitter mentions of the takeover were positive. Ten percent registered "disgust" with Facebook and another 10 percent promised to quit Instagram.

Why the outcry? Facebook is wildly popular and has the same basic mission as Instagram -- encouraging people to build virtual networks on which to share their lives.

But for Instagram's 30 million users, the cult-status app has a very different identity to the mass market Facebook.

Unlike Facebook, there is no advertising, and certainly no selling of users' personal details to advertisers. It's single-minded, pure.

Sure, the main point is to share snaps, which can be made to look cool with filters, but Instagram's mobile-to-mobile traffic is seen as safe from the privacy problems said to plague Facebook's advertiser-friendly pages.

"Its ability to let its users delicately toe the line between public and private gave us a little breathing room from the all-pervasiveness of Facebook, and to see it whisked away feels like a tangible loss," wrote Jenna Wortham on The New York Times tech blog.

"The sale of Instagram brings a harsh reality into focus, the realization that the secret rooms or private spaces online where we can share, chit-chat and hang out with our friends are fading. The few safe havens that do exist are quickly being encroached upon or are next on the shopping list for a company like Google, Apple or Facebook." New York magazine compared Facebook to an alien spaceship and said that for "some users, this looks like a sellout. And that's because it is." Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg went out of his way to reassure Instagram purists that they needn't get their hands dirty.

On his own Facebook page, Zuckerberg noted that users can maintain their Instagram photos off Facebook and also keep their Instagram followers separate.

"We need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook," Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg may not be popular in all quarters of the global online world, but his announcement notched up over 140,600 "likes." Among the many positive comments were "great decision" and "congrats!" But even on Zuckerberg's virtual doorstep there were dissenters mourning the arrival of mega money into a cozy hipster world.

"A picture's worth a thousand words," wrote Peter RonPaul Kallman, crossing out "thousand words" and replacing them with: "billion dollars." (hurriyetdailynews)

Facebook announces $1bn purchase of mobile photo network Instagram

Mark Zuckerberg's announcement of purchase comes days after massively popular photo app launched Android version.

The social network giant Facebook has bought Instagram – a profitless, two-year-old photo sharing application – for $1bn.

Instagram is a mobile sensation that counts Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey among its backers and has been downloaded by over 30 million people.

When the Silicon Valley startup released a version for Android phone users this month, it was downloaded a million times in its first 12 hours.

The app allows people to share photos taken with their mobiles with friends on its own site and Facebook, Twitter or via text. Photographers can use a variety of filters to alter the look of their pics, with names like Lo-fi, Earlybird or Nashville, giving their images a vintage, old-world feel. Users can then promote pictures and add comments.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg broke the news on Facebook. He said: "This is an important milestone for Facebook because it's the first time we've ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together."

The company was founded in October 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. At $1bn, the price is the highest for a profitless startup since Google bought YouTube for $1.65bn in 2006.

Asked about Instagram's history on the q&a site Quora recently, Systrom said he had "never expected the overwhelming response" the app had received. "We went from literally a handful of users to the #1 free photography app in a matter of hours."

Systrom said Instagram took just eight weeks to build and launch but was the result of over a year of work. "We decided that if we were going to build a company, we wanted to focus on being really good at one thing. We saw mobile photos as an awesome opportunity to try out some new ideas," he wrote.

After experimenting with a more complicated app, Systrom and Krieger scrapped the project and started with something far simpler. "What remained was Instagram. (We renamed because we felt it better captured what you were doing – an instant telegram of sorts. It also sounded camera-y)," he wrote.

At the South by Southwest conference in Austin this year, the pair announced that the company's iPhone app had nearly doubled its number of registered users since December, going from 15m users to 27m users.

This is the first time that Facebook, which is in the process of going public in a deal that could value the company at more than $100bn, has made a big acquisition.

Zuckerberg said the Instagram team would continue to operate as a separate company.

"We will try to learn from Instagram's experience to build similar features into our other products," Zuckerberg said in the statement. "At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook's strong engineering team and infrastructure."

The sale comes shortly after Zynga, the online games firm, paid $200m for OMGPOP, maker of Draw Something, an online version of Pictionary that in less than two months has been downloaded over 50m times. (Source: guardian.co.uk)