Facebook's prepping for its big IPO and the company is on the road trying to woo investors for the big day. The company's founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg spoke to around 200 investors in Palo Alto about Facebook's plans for 2012 and beyond as well as answering questions. One thing Zuckerberg made very clear was that Facebook is focusing very closely on improving its mobile platforms. However, as some of us would hope, he's not talking technical where the bugs that the various Facebook apps have would be faced. The announcement is more importantly regarding monetization from Facebook mobile platforms. When Facebook filed for its IPO back in February, the issue that has come up over and over again, ever since is that Facebook just does not monetize its mobile applications, like it does its desktop equivalent. There is no advertising in those apps.
Zuckerberg promises mobile monetization
In Facebook's quest to improve its mobile presence, the company made a $1 billion purchase of mobile only, photo sharing and editing platform, Instagram. The company also announced that it's working on its Messenger apps to bring video calling as a feature (a tie in with Skype). Facebook, like it did with its original app, is working on bringing a specially optimized Messenger app for the iPad. The company understands how important the mobile platform is especially for location sharing and picture uploading. According to Mashable, Facebook's Head of Mobile Developer Relations told a group of reporters just before Facebook acquired Instagram that "had Facebook been built today, it would be mobile".
Facebook's IPO is drawing a mixed response from investors. While some are worried about Zuckerberg maintaining his control on the social network, the IPO is still being reported as oversubscribed. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg left a not-so-shiny impression on investors he was meeting, because he wore his hoodie to the meetings, instead of formal businesswear. However, reports have been stating that there are institutional investors that don't care about issues, like slowing growth, the issues with mobile or Zuckerberg's sweatshirt, they want all the stock they can get. This might mean that Facebook's run out before everyone's got their share.
(courtesy:tech2.com)
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