Chinese social networking firms eye U.S. IPO gold: sources

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – One of China's largest social networking companies, Oak Pacific Interactive, has hired investment banks for an initial public offering in the United States next year, the first in a rush of Chinese Facebook clones looking to list.

Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI) has hired Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG to underwrite its IPO slated for the first half of next year, sources close to the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The firm owns China's largest online social networking site Renren and Nuomi, similar to the popular U.S. website Groupon featuring daily deals and entertainment community Mop.

TaoMee, a social networking site for children, was also planning to list late next year and would conduct its "beauty parade" for investment banks in the first quarter of 2011, said a source familiar with the situation.

Social networking site Kaixin001 also plans to list but has not gone through the process of selecting banks, said the source, who declined to be named as the matter was not public.

"The question is whether these companies are really going to become the Facebook of China," said Paul Wuh, a Hong Kong-based analyst with Samsung Securities.

"How they are going to monetize: through advertising or through gaming, that's the question, which one will be the most successful will depend on the business model they choose," said Wuh.

OPI's Renren website is similar to Facebook as it allows users to share locations with friends, "like" something and post updates. Renren has about 100 million registered users.

Kaixin001 posted revenue of just over $10 million last year and the company expects 2010 revenues of up to three times that level, the firm's chief executive Cheng Binghao told Reuters in October.

Profits for Kaixin001 are also growing quickly, tripling to about 30 million yuan in the third quarter from 10 million in the second, Cheng said.

Chinese IPOs in the United States have hit a record high of 35 this year. Based on the number of offerings, Chinese issuers account for 23 percent of U.S. market IPO activity, up from 1 percent in 2000, according to Thomson Reuters data.

More than half of this year's Chinese IPOs in the United States come from high technology, consumer products, industrials and retail sectors.

The Chinese social networking firms will be following in the footsteps of online video site operator Youku and online retailer Dangdang, which saw their stocks soar in this week's debuts.

Youku's triple-digit first-day pop was the biggest since 2005, when Baidu Inc rose 354 percent, data from the New York Stock Exchange showed.

A source said the amount to be raised by OPI had not been finalized. OPI and the banks declined to comment.

RISKS

Social networking sites have grown in popularity in China in recent years, garnering most of their revenue from online advertising. They also benefit from an ecosystem closed to major foreign competition. Facebook and Twitter are banned in China.

But the market is increasingly competitive with more than 100 social networking sites operating. Two social networking sites shut earlier this year due to cash flow issues, local media reported.

The industry is also fraught with regulatory and legal risks as China seeks to control the flow of information online.

"As long as they conduct their self censorship well, there shouldn't be any problems," said an analyst with a major European investment bank, who declined to be named given the sensitivity of the matter.

Analysts also said the IPOs were more of a way to provide an exit to the venture capital firms who have backed these firms and to provide incentive to their workers.

"A lot of these Chinese Internet companies are net cash, they don't need to list for funding purposes," said Wuh of Samsung Securities.

China is the world's largest Internet market by users at 420 million. About half of them use social networking sites, government data showed. (Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Winklevosses' Legal Lobs Won't Leave Much Egg on Facebook

If it turns out that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did misrepresent the true value of his company when negotiating a settlement with the Winklevoss twins three years ago, the fallout is likely to be minor. The court could take another look at the terms of the settlement, but any criminal charges of securities fraud are unlikely in the extreme. As for Facebook's reputation, this incident will likely be one it can easily shrug off.

A long-simmering legal dispute between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and two former Harvard University classmates is back in the public eye after partially redacted court documents filed this summer in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court surfaced on Radar Online.com.

The documents, which apparently were leaked to the site, were filed by Facebook's legal representatives in response to the former classmates' attempts to overturn a settlement they made with Zuckerberg three years ago.

The dispute between identical twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Zuckerberg was the basis for the movie "The Social Network," released earlier this year. Facebook has denounced the portrayal of events in the film as inaccurate.

Briefly, the dispute originated in 2003 when the Winklevosses hired Zuckerberg to code a social networking site called the "Harvard Connection." The twins later settled their claims with Zuckerberg in 2008 for US$68 million and Facebook stock.

Now, they are alleging that Zuckerberg was deceptive when during agreement negotiations, hiding the true value of Facebook.

A Securities Issue

Essentially, the twins are accusing Facebook of securities fraud. According to their reasoning, Facebook owed them -- as would-be shareholders -- complete disclosure of any information that would have aided them in calculating the company's value at that time.

It is difficult to gauge how much is at stake for Facebook and its accusers based on these gleanings. Possible outcomes include an overturn of the settlement agreement and resumption of the original litigation, as well as criminal charges.

However, the most extreme scenarios are far-fetched, according to James Fanto, a professor at Brooklyn Law School and a securities expert.

"There is almost no possibility of criminal charges here, and the securities fraud claim is probably a reach as well," he told the E-Commerce Times.

The worst-case scenario he views as a possibility is a determination by the court to revisit the settlement if it believes it was reached through fraud.

Reputational Risk

The risk to Facebook's reputation is also minor, even if the company does go public eventually. In that situation, the Winklevoss case would point to a lack of respect on the part of Facebook when dealing with potential shareholders.

Even that is a stretch, however, said Christopher M. Collins, a partner with Vanderpool, Frostick & Nishanian.

"Any time there is a lawsuit, there is a cloud on a company," Collins told the E-Commerce Times. "But it is pushing it to say that these accusations would represent how Facebook would treat its shareholders."

Social bookmarking links

Every story page on the News and Sport websites now includes links to a range of social bookmarking / sharing websites.

Social bookmarking links can be found at the bottom of all story pages

These sites allow you to store, tag and share links across the internet. You can share these links both with friends and people with similar interests. You can also access your links from any computer you happen to be using.

So, if you come across a BBC story that you find interesting and want to save for future reference or share it with other people, simply click on one of these links to add to your list.

All of these sites are free to use but do require you to register. Once you have registered you can begin bookmarking.

Each of the sites works slightly differently so use the links below to find out which service best suits your needs.

You can find out more about social bookmarking on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia article on social bookmarking

For more details about each of these services:

Del.icio.us
To register, go to:

http://delicious.com/

For more information:

http://delicious.com/help/learn

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Digg
To register, go to:

http://digg.com/register

For more information:

http://digg.com/about

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reddit
To register, go to:

http://reddit.com/login

For more information:

http://reddit.com/help/faq

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Facebook
To register, go to:

https://register.facebook.com/r.php

For more information:

http://www.facebook.com/about.php

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StumbleUpon
To register, go to:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/sign_up.php

For more information:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/aboutus.html

Grow Online Business Using Social Networking Posted By : Jack Goldwins

Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn today's heads in the field of social networking online, with no individual order. Although all has dissimilar objectives and audiences and dissimilar kinds of network objectives. Social Network Marketing is basically what relationship marketing is. However, the online social network is much expanded than practice.

Social networks sell ads and commercial messages arise after users tell their associates come seal a individual goods or labels they like. And sustains messages from the business transmitted it will sell. In a sense, his imagination to offer a ad a great success, like millions of these networking sites are advertising outcome to each call. The service network has gone from being a tool for population to continue in touch with associates is a very productive way to brand worth for retailers and organizations for their goods and services to create.

Most social networking sites, but their strict administers and numerous of them do not want to sell by the inhabitants, it is easy to formulate a marketing strategy in terms of the toiling group and the traffic generation site, site electronic businesses is desirable. The platform, through social networking sites and adding a constant basis and the assembly has a novel viable industry, goods or website and online marketing promotion. The membership is so high that no matter what can be traded online at these sites and a perceiving to be guaranteed.

Although the exercise of these sites is organized by customers in many enterprises is immobile limited, since it is a sighting that constituents of social networks to converse distribute related to recreation, etc. Can we pinpoint the public purpose? Is there evidence for the contend that all types of public assistance. Some constituents of the online social network, extensive ties with the business new contact or forceful, representative, small financial collections can generate for each novel bodily overpass is a high modification in your organization.

Some of the giants in the field remain pessimistic come seal whether a social networking site can play a role in the expansion of finance on the Internet to play online, numerous think that the setting in these pages, a in individual marketing encourage and deliver online sales business. Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

Social Media Optimization is the new concept in internet marketing field which can be better implemented by a Social Media Consulting firm ErocketFuel.com

View the original article here

Network Marketing Leads - Your Warm List Is Spent, Now What? Posted By : Norm Sjodin

After you are done with your list of co-workers, family, and friends, what do you do? Not knowing what to do next, you call your upline and see what they recommend. Guess what they told you? They want you to call your circle of friends again and get them on a 3-way call this time. They also want you to go out and talk to everyone you see, because that is a great way to get network marketing leads (I don't think so). Now you are really stressing as you know you have NEVER just started up a conversation with a STRANGER. You could also go put flyers on cars in the parking lot, or go hang door hangers in your neighborhood. You say to youself, "I'll try putting an ad in the paper.".

Please Lord, Show me How to Get Good Network Marketing Leads!

As you sit anticipating a word from God, you think, maybe I could pay for a list of network marketing leads and get on the cell phone and call each of these STRANGERS. You also decide to go to the mall and hand out flyers assuming some of the people will be interested and call you, yah, that?s what I want, people to call me! Bingo! You sit down and practice you writing skills and come up with an awesome flyer and rush to the mall. You walk by the no soliciting sign at the entrance but choose to ignore it, I?m not selling anything; I?m just handing out flyers. Once you have pretty much handed out almost all your flyers to everyone you walked by, mall security approaches and ask you to stop soliciting and you head home. You figure now you will get some calls, so you sit by the phone and wait for the calls.

So, You Wait, and Wait, and Wait??

But No Calls

Why did this fail? Why did nobody call? Were you trying to market skirts to men, or Chevrolets to BMW owners, or happy 9 to 5?ers more work? Was your aim good but your target way too small. You start wondering if you put your number on the flyer wrong? Even if you were so fortunate as to hit on this individual, is this how you are going to teach him to get network marketing leads? By handing out flyers at the mall? Really? Could I sell you on that job? If so, I have 15,000 flyers and I will pay you minimum wage to hand them out!

A Better Idea, Generate Network Marketing Leads From Those Interested In Network Marketing!

Wow, can that really be done? Yes, not only can it be done, but you can also get paid for those leads. "Do you think I was born yesterday"?, you are probably saying to yourself. No, I do not, and quite frankly, I had the same doubts before I started generating network marketing leads that were pre-qualified. Trust me, I was as skeptical as the day is long, but when I found out the top network marketers got their network marketing leads this way, I understood why they recruited people and there organizations exploded.

Can You Imagine?

Just imagine for a moment that you could generate just one quality lead per day and you then trained your down line to do the same. Would your organization EXPLODE?

Wait, I?m not done, you would also get paid by that ONE quality lead just for them following you, the leader.

I can tell you one thing for sure though, when you start using this system, even those higher up than you in your business will be wanting to know how you are recruiting so many people. They will want to sign up under you so that they can achieve the same success as you.

This system is a marketing sales funnel and you need to get yourself one. It creates profits even from those 95% of people who will not sign up for your network marketing business. There are many different sales funnels out there, so find one, use it everyday, and you will prosper. Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

Norm Sjodin utilizes one of the best marketing sales funnels to generate tons of quality network marketing leads to his inbox everyday. For more information on this and other lead creation tactics, visit my online lead generation blog. To your success and your profits!

View the original article here

Balonare

Balonarea este cauzata de o anumita afectiune sau este o consecinta a unui stil alimentar dezordonat. Daca senzatia de balonare este repetitiva, in ciuda regimului alimentar optim, este important sa va adresezi unui medic specialist pentru a depista daca exista probleme digestive si cum pot fi tratate. Balonarea se manifesta prin gaze in exces in tubul digestiv, in special in stomac si intestine. In cazuri de balonare persistenta, este recomandata o detoxifiere de 2-3 ori pe an, necesitate prezenta in special dupa varsta de 35 de ani, cand problemele digestive devin mai frecvente.

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