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Sammich
01-Aug-2012, 02:08 AM
This is what happens when you have a company that produces nothing tangible and relies upon fads and public peer pressure to induce conformity for it's service. Eventually it gets old, especially quickly with today's generation of ADD afflicted.

Mark Zuckerberg's net worth falls by $7.2 billion (http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/27/technology/zuckerberg-net-worth/index.htm)

The value of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's stake in the company he founded has plunged $7.2 billion since its initial public offering.

Zuckerberg was worth $19.1 billion, based on the IPO price of $38 a share back in May. He sold 30 million shares on the stock's debut day in order to raise cash to pay taxes, but he still had 503 million shares at the conclusion of the IPO.

But as of midday Friday, Zuckerberg's stake is now worth $11.98 billion.

The man hiding behind the curtain has been found out.

Startup Claims 80% Of Its Facebook Ad Clicks Are Coming From Bots (http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/startup-claims-80-of-its-facebook-ad-clicks-are-coming-from-bots/)

What’s important here is that in all of our years of experience, only about 1-2% of people coming to us have JavaScript disabled, not 80% like these clicks coming from Facebook. So we did what any good developers would do. We built a page logger. Any time a page was loaded, we’d keep track of it. You know what we found? The 80% of clicks we were paying for were from bots. That’s correct. Bots were loading pages and driving up our advertising costs.

No doubt there will be more companies investigating this as many already have or are in the process of dumping ineffective advertising on facebook. Cui bono?

-- -------- Post added at 01:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:44 AM ----------

Looks like the BBC has also been doing an ongoing investigation into bots clicking on Facebook advertisements. This could have a major negative effect on FB as advertising dollars are the only thing keeping them afloat.


Latest Facebook Scandal: Widespread Advertising Fraud (http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/07/31/latest-facebook-scandal-widespread-advertising-fraud-156521/)

As the BBC reports a fake virtual bagel company was set up that does absolutely nothing just to test Facebook advertising for fraud.

When the advertising campaign was launched thousands of fake profiles were used to like the companies ad on Facebook.

Upon investigating those profiles it was clear they were fakes from fraudulent information on their pages and activity on Facebook, such as repeatedly liking numerous ads per seconds amassing thousands upon thousands of likes while having no other legitimate activity on the site.

The BBC investigation was done to verify the results reported to them by a marketer which they BBC was able to easily reproduce.

Even worse, is when Facebook was approached to discuss the fraudulent activity to request a refund the company outright refused to discuss the issue with advertiser.

Neil
02-Aug-2012, 02:41 PM
45% down... If Z had sold his shares now, he'd have been about $400m worse off by my calcs.

-- -------- Post added at 02:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:38 PM ----------


this is what happens when you have a company that produces nothing tangible and relies upon fads and public peer pressure to induce conformity for it's service. Eventually it gets old, especially quickly with today's generation of add afflicted.

mark zuckerberg's net worth falls by $7.2 billion (http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/27/technology/zuckerberg-net-worth/index.htm)

the value of facebook ceo mark zuckerberg's stake in the company he founded has plunged $7.2 billion since its initial public offering.

Zuckerberg was worth $19.1 billion, based on the ipo price of $38 a share back in may. He sold 30 million shares on the stock's debut day in order to raise cash to pay taxes, but he still had 503 million shares at the conclusion of the ipo.

But as of midday friday, zuckerberg's stake is now worth $11.98 billion.

the man hiding behind the curtain has been found out.

startup claims 80% of its facebook ad clicks are coming from bots (http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/startup-claims-80-of-its-facebook-ad-clicks-are-coming-from-bots/)

what’s important here is that in all of our years of experience, only about 1-2% of people coming to us have javascript disabled, not 80% like these clicks coming from facebook. So we did what any good developers would do. We built a page logger. Any time a page was loaded, we’d keep track of it. You know what we found? The 80% of clicks we were paying for were from bots. That’s correct. Bots were loading pages and driving up our advertising costs.

no doubt there will be more companies investigating this as many already have or are in the process of dumping ineffective advertising on facebook. Cui bono?

-- -------- post added at 01:08 am ---------- previous post was at 12:44 am ----------

looks like the bbc has also been doing an ongoing investigation into bots clicking on facebook advertisements. This could have a major negative effect on fb as advertising dollars are the only thing keeping them afloat.


latest facebook scandal: Widespread advertising fraud (http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/07/31/latest-facebook-scandal-widespread-advertising-fraud-156521/)

as the bbc reports a fake virtual bagel company was set up that does absolutely nothing just to test facebook advertising for fraud.

When the advertising campaign was launched thousands of fake profiles were used to like the companies ad on facebook.

Upon investigating those profiles it was clear they were fakes from fraudulent information on their pages and activity on facebook, such as repeatedly liking numerous ads per seconds amassing thousands upon thousands of likes while having no other legitimate activity on the site.

The bbc investigation was done to verify the results reported to them by a marketer which they bbc was able to easily reproduce.

Even worse, is when facebook was approached to discuss the fraudulent activity to request a refund the company outright refused to discuss the issue with advertiser.

^^ wow!

Purge
02-Aug-2012, 04:10 PM
Personally, I tend to steer clear of any multi-media product where Eminem and Lady GagMe are dueling for the #1 slot.

rgc2005
02-Aug-2012, 04:49 PM
+1. Of course "Like" buttons don't require complete sentences.

Personally, I tend to steer clear of any multi-media product where Eminem and Lady GagMe are dueling for the #1 slot.

LouCipherr
02-Aug-2012, 05:03 PM
http://images.elephantjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Sinking_Ship.jpg


I'm loving every minute of this. :elol:

Sammich
02-Aug-2012, 10:30 PM
I am hoping for a sequel to The Social Network where all of the people who got zuckered into putting their life's savings in the IPO show up with torches and pitchforks at Castle Zuckerberg.

-- -------- Post added at 09:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:56 PM ----------

They are now stuck between a rock and a hard place. If FB admits there is a bot fraud problem, then they will have to refund advertising money and will have to implement some sort of verifiable identification for all subscribers. This will drive down membership and companies will seek other platforms for advertising.
If FB refuses to admit a bot problem, then there will be an avalanche of lawsuits against FB by companies trying to recoup advertising money paid due to fraud and drive even more businesses away not wanting to have to deal with the mess.

Facebook admits millions of accounts are fake (http://www.myfoxny.com/story/19180366/facebook-admits-millions-of-accounts-are-fake)

Facebook's share price dipped below $20 on Thursday after reporting slowing growth and an admission of an alarming number of fake accounts.

In a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the social media company said that as many as 83 million of its accounts are fake.

It also reported that as many as five percent of its active users have duplicate accounts.

Facebook members grew to 955 million this year.

It says 1.5 percent of its accounts are likely spam or accounts set up for other malicious activity. The fake accounts are concentrated in developing markets, according to the filing.