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The eye-popping price signals the lengths to which Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, will go to protect his company’s turf as the dominant social network on the web, and is sure to fuel the debate on whether consumer Internet companies are overvalued.
Facebook, based in Menlo Park, Calif., will pay $4 billion in cash and $12 billion worth of shares for WhatsApp. But the ultimate cost of the deal could rise to $19 billion, with WhatsApp employees and founders receiving an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units, which would vest over the next four years.
By any measure, Facebook is paying a steep price for a service that is widely used internationally but is less known in the United States. WhatsApp does not sell advertising and has very little revenue. It charges users a flat fee of $1 a year to use the service, and the first year is free.
The purchase price dwarfs the $1 billion Facebook paid for Instagram, the photo-sharing service. At the time of that deal in 2012, critics assailed Facebook for overpaying, and this megadeal is sure to attract similar scrutiny. And the price is also much higher than the $3 billion Facebook unsuccessfully offered to acquire Snapchat, another messaging service, late last year.
But Mr. Zuckerberg is clearly willing to spend big to acquire hot messaging technologies, which typically attract younger people than Facebook does.
In a conference call, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief of Facebook, said he thinks people are willing to pay to use WhatsApp, a text messaging application.
Publish Date February 20, 2014. Photo by CNBC.
The acquisition also reflects a new strategy at Facebook: The company intends to acquire or build a family of applications instead of simply buttressing its core social network.
Now a 10-year-old social network with 1.2 billion users globally, Facebook has become so ubiquitous in many countries that it risks losing some of the attention of users.
In buying WhatsApp, which is growing faster than its rival Twitter and other social services, Facebook gains access to customers who prefer communicating one-on-one or with very small groups rather than sharing information more widely.
Facebook also has struggled to gain traction in the message space in recent years, a big motivation for its failed offer for Snapchat. While Facebook Messenger, the company’s chat platform, is popular with users, recent attempts to create its own direct messaging service have failed.
Facebook is justifying the price of this deal by citing WhatsApp’s startling growth, which has been even faster than Facebook’s own in its early years. On a conference call with analysts, David Ebersman, Facebook’s chief financial officer, compared WhatsApp to companies with the potential to grow to 1 billion users.
“The primary thing we focused on was how healthy this network is and the pace at which it was growing,” he said. “We looked at other networks that have achieved those kinds of scale” and that helped provide a framework, Mr. Ebersman said.
In the announcement on Facebook’s website, the company said that WhatsApp’s messaging volume is now approaching the entire volume of all text messages sent globally. Based on global estimates, that number could be as high as seven trillion messages sent on WhatsApp a year.
In the conference call, Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s co-founder and chief executive, played down the idea of putting ads on WhatsApp and said he was satisfied with its current subscription model.
“Monetization is not going to be a priority for us,” Mr. Koum said.
The two companies have held informal talks for two years, but the deal came together quickly. In the spring of 2012, Mr. Zuckerberg first reached out to Mr. Koum. The two met at a coffee shop in Los Altos, Calif., and spoke for an hour, then took a walk for another hour and a half. Later that year, they began a series of dinners, and continued to discuss messaging and communication services during meals and walks in the hills above Silicon Valley.
Mr. Zuckerberg asked Mr. Koum to dinner at his home on Feb. 9, where he formally proposed a deal and invited Mr. Koum to join the Facebook board. Mr. Koum thought about it for a few days, and the two men met again on Valentine’s Day. Mr. Koum came over to Mr. Zuckerberg’s home, crashing the dinner Mr. Zuckerberg was sharing with his wife, Priscilla Chan. They negotiated over a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries intended for Ms. Chan.
By the end of the weekend, they had struck a deal.
Corporate advisers played some role as well. Michael Grimes, the Morgan Stanley banker who orchestrated Facebook’s flawed initial public offering in 2012, was this time on the other side of the table, advising WhatsApp on its sale. A big winner is Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm with a long track record of success that provided WhatsApp’s principal funding.
By some metrics, the cash and stock being paid for WhatsApp make it among the richest deals of all time. With 55 employees, WhatsApp is commanding a price equivalent to $344 million an employee, or about $28 a user. And it is the largest acquisition ever of a venture capital-backed start-up, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.
Facebook had $7.9 billion in revenue last year, most of it from advertising. Mr. Zuckerberg said that money would help give WhatsApp the breathing room to focus on growth without needing to come up with an immediate plan for making money.
In that sense, Mr. Zuckerberg is following the successful strategy he used for Instagram, allowing the service to grow quickly before gradually adding in revenue — in Instagram’s case, from advertising.
WhatsApp, which is based in a small office in Mountain View, Calif., was founded by Mr. Koum and Brian Acton, two former Yahoo executives, in 2009.
Mr. Acton and Mr. Koum have enjoyed portraying WhatsApp as the antithesis of Silicon Valley. Unlike many young start-ups that clamor for attention, the WhatsApp founders often turn down interviews with the press.
They have denounced the model of relying on ads for revenue. And in an interview last year, they made clear they were not quickly adding users with the goal of selling their business.
Contributing reporting were Brian X. Chen, Nick Bilton, Nicole Perlroth and Jenna Wortham.
An article on Thursday about Facebook’s $16 billion acquisition of the mobile messaging service WhatsApp misstated the surname of a co-founder of WhatsApp in one reference. He is Brian Acton, not Aston.
A version of this article appears in print on 02/20/2014, on page A1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Facebook Enters $16 Billion Deal.
A jury has found Kyle Ledesma guilty of second-degree murder in a retrial for the November 2010 shooting death of bartender Dexter Bain.
The three-man, eight-woman Court of Queen’s Bench jury had been deliberating since around 3:30 p.m. Friday.
Ledesma bowed his head as the jury delivered the verdict just after noon Sunday, while Bain’s mother and stepfather wiped away tears.
Later, Ledesma left the courthouse, where he is to return for a sentencing hearing scheduled for Monday at 4 p.m.
Bain, 36, was shot twice inside Our Place Pub and Grill after he’d closed the bar and was having a drink with friends in what the Crown had argued was a botched robbery.
Much of the prosecution’s case centred on two confessions Ledesma gave to undercover officers in a so-called Mr. Big operation.
Ledesma told the officers, who were posing as members of a criminal organization, that he had entered the rear door of the pub and shot Bain.
But the defence argued Ledesma’s confessions were fabricated in order to ingratiate him with an organization he believed could make his life much better, leading to a false confession.
Ledesma was previously convicted by a jury in 2015, but the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial, ruling the trial judge failed to properly analyze the Mr. Big evidence before ruling it admissible.
His new guilty verdict carries an automatic life sentence for second-degree murder.
“It’s been a long process but we’re very, very happy with the way it turned out,” Bain’s mother, Kim Godin, said outside the courthouse, as she stood next to her husband, Anthony Lubrano.
Kim Godin, Dexter Bain’s mother, and her husband, Anthony Lubrano, speak to media outside court on Sunday.
The jury recommended Ledesma be ineligible for parole before having served a minimum of 10 years of his sentence. A lawyer for the Crown said they intend to ask the court for a longer period of parole ineligibility.
Ledesma has already served about six-and-a-half years of his sentence.
He was ordered to abide by a 24-hour curfew until Monday’s hearing, which requires him to stay at his mother’s house, wearing an ankle bracelet that he’s had since being released on bail in July.
Godin called it “ridiculous” that he was allowed to leave the courthouse following his conviction, but said she was grateful the long process was finally reaching an end.
She and Lubrano, who are from the U.S. and stayed in Calgary throughout the duration of the retrial, thanked Calgary police, along with the jury, for their time and efforts.
Godin described her son as a “people person” with a great laugh, noting “you could hear it from a mile away.” Bain “always had to look good,” said his mother, who joked he took longer to get ready when going out than anyone she knows.
On the night of his murder, Bain wasn’t supposed to be working his part-time job at the bar, but happily filled in for a sick co-worker, according to his mother.
Godin said her son is survived by a 24-year-old daughter, who was 16 at the time of his death.
In her victim-impact statement, Godin said she also prays for Ledesma’s mother.
“In a sense, she’s lost her son, in a different way than I’ve lost mine, obviously,” said Godin, who later described a moment when the two mothers hugged one another outside the courtroom during the initial trial.
Godin credited her faith for getting her through the difficult legal process.
We have been witness to your attacks on Water Protectors at Standing Rock. We have watched as your para-militarized police force, with the assistance of such mercenary outfits as TigerSwan, G4S, and others, have repeatedly assaulted peaceful Sioux Natives on their own lands.
In a major incident on Labor Day Weekend, your men along with uncertified security guards, used military-grade pepper spray and attack dogs to try to drive off peaceful Water Protectors defending tribal burial sites from pipeline bulldozers. At least six were injured when they were bitten by attack dogs. When journalist Amy Goodman aired coverage of this police brutality on Democracy Now, you and other Morton County officials instigated a frivolous lawsuit against her in an obvious ploy to censure the news (click here). Since then, the State Attorney for North Dakota has also engaged in the malicious prosecution of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and Vice President Ajamu Baraka for joining Native activists at Standing Rock (click here).
In another incident on October 22, police attacked Native American youth during a mass arrest of Water Protectors. During the melee, a member of the Apache Jicarilla tribe, Lauren Howland, had her arm broken when police beat her. She was rescued by Red Fawn Fallis, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. Soon afterward, Red Fawn became the target of Morton County police for trumped-up charges of alleged attempted murder while resisting arrest. When journalists asked for footage of her arrest, your officers refused to comply (click here). Thereafter, Morton police targeted Howland for re-injury of the same arm in a subsequent attack (click here).
On October 27th, Morton county police attacked Water Protectors with tear gas, tazers, mace, sound canons, rubber bullets and beanbag rounds. Many more people were injured, and over 140 were arrested. In this incident, your department beat and robbed elders engaged in peaceful prayers and had them thrown into dog kennels. Some reported that police wrote numbers on the inside of their arms. At about the same time, the Bureau of Indian Affairs arrested an armed DAPL security contractor, Kyle Thompson, who threatened Water Protectors with an assault rifle when he was discovered trying to infiltrate them (click here).
Morton County officials also engaged in the malicious destruction of protestors' property by pouring paint and mice feces over belongings stolen in the raid. You notified protestors that they could recover their possessions in a field where the debris from the raid was dumped out of garbage trucks. Some reported that sacred items had been urinated on.
The RC Nerf Tank: The Coolest Homemade Fighting Robot Ever?
DIY USB Typewriter: What’s Obsolete Is New Again?
Meet the RC Nerf Tank--proof that a pile of junk combined with a little bit of tech can make an awesome homemade robot. Canadian modder “Travis7s" created Nerf by putting together metal from scrap bins, a toy gun, an iPod Nano, 24V Valco gearmotors, magnets, a 24V 3000mAh 'Battlepack' NiCad battery and a wireless camera. The robot even has a laser.
With these--and a few other handy extras--combined, the 23-year-old made a super cool fighting robot, hence the name Nerf Tank.
Its main weapon is a modified Nerf Vulcan on a movable turret and some wheels off a toy truck to drive the whole thing along. The gun’s trigger is fired remotely via a servomechanism, which is a form of sense controller.
Inside the modded gun, a camera has also been placed that can take pictures and muted videos, all the while being relayed back to a computer. The laser pointer was also added to the top of the Nerf Vulcan.
A Sabretooth 2X10 speed controller, received with a Futaba 7 channel unit at 75MHz, controls the battle machine.
The robot can also have its own battle cry with the onboard 100-watt speakers connected to an old iPod Nano.
Travis7s is currently working on improving the Nerf Tank, such as adding solar panels and tweaking aesthetics.
If there was ever a way to make use out of a rubbish plastic gun and leftover materials, this has to be it.
Semi Private location 1990 single wide manufactured home on almost a half acre. 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Clean and well kept. Detached garage with lots of storage and hobby bonus room. Off street paved driveway with plenty of room for RV and all your toys. Short distance to beaches, fishing, shopping and restaurants. Conventional financing available through Oregon Pacific Bank in Coos Bay.
24 arrested at police protests in Anaheim, Calif.
ANAHEIM, Calif. - Police in Anaheim, Calif., have restored order after violent protests over weekend police shootings caused injuries and two dozen arrests.
As many as 500 protesters and 250 police were involved in a fourth night of violence Tuesday. Seven hours of confrontations ended around 2 a.m. Wednesday.
Sgt. Bob Dunn says an initially peaceful protest evolved into clusters of people who threw rocks at police, lit trash can fires, threw a Molotov cocktail at a police car and smashed windows in businesses.
Police used beanbag rounds and pepper balls.
Dunn says 20 adults and four minors were arrested.
He says a police officer, two members of the media and some protesters were injured, but nobody was hospitalized.
The Celebrity Apprentice can say, "Hasta la vista, baby," to Donald Trump as Arnold Schwarzenegger has officially been hired as its new host.
NBC has announced Schwarzenegger, a longtime action-film hero, will be replacing Trump on The Celebrity Apprentice for the series' 2016-2017 season.
"We are thrilled to be opening a powerful new chapter in the story of The Apprentice franchise. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the epitome of a global brand in entertainment and business, and his accomplishments in the political arena speak for themselves," NBC reality chief Paul Telegdy said in a statement Monday.
"It was Arnold's personal passion for the format that Mark Burnett and Donald Trump built over the last decade, as well as his fresh take on how to take it to new heights for today’s audiences, that made him the man to hire. The Celebrity Apprentice will be back!"
Telegdy's "will be back" phrase is a play on Schwarzenegger's famous line from The Terminator.
"I have always been a huge fan of The Celebrity Apprentice and the way it showcases the challenges and triumphs of business and teamwork," Schwarzenegger said in a statement obtained by Access Hollywood. "I am thrilled to bring my experience to the boardroom and to continue to raise millions for charity. Let's get started!"
Schwarzenegger's new role on the show is apparently earning a great reaction from fans on social media.
"Wow. I'm blown away and honored by all your tweets. I can't wait...," he tweeted Monday afternoon.
Although NBC cut ties with Trump due to his presidential campaign and offensive remarks about Mexican immigrants, the former The Celebrity Apprentice star is happy for Schwarzenegger.
"Congrats to my friend @Schwarzenegger who is doing next season's Celebrity Apprentice. He'll be great & will raise lots of $ for charity," Trump wrote on Twitter shortly after the announcement. "To all my fans, sorry I couldn't do The Apprentice any longer—but equal time (presidential run) prohibits me from doing so. Love!"
The show's executive producer, Mark Burnett, also expressed his excitement over Schwarzenegger filling Trump's big shoes.
"After leaving the show to run for political office, Donald made it clear that he wanted The Celebrity Apprentice to be able to continue to raise millions of dollars annually for worthy causes, and now NBC and I have found an amazing new leader to do just that," Burnett said in a statement of Schwarzenegger, who served two terms as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011.
"Gov. Schwarzenegger will use his vast and highly successful business, political and media experience to drive this hit franchise to new heights."
Prior to NBC's big reveal, sources said the network was looking at other stars to replace Trump as the head honcho on The Celebrity Apprentice. Some of the names being tossed around were NBA legend and LA Dodgers co-owner Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban.
As a team of the Municipal Corporation on Tuesday reached Latifpura to carry out a demolition drive, the illegal occupants of the 16-kanal property of the government opposed it by pelting bricks and burning tyres.
The residents, including men, women and youth damaged three JCB machines that reached the spot.
The protest could not be controlled despite a heavy posse of police at the site.
The property worth crores of the Jalandhar Improvement Trust (JIT) has been allegedly occupied by some gujjars for over two decades.
Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu during his last visit to JIT in Jalandhar had ordered execution of the drive to get the property evicted.
The news reported in the Quad-City Times “Exelon warns Q-C nuke plant could close in 2018,” of the potential premature retirement of the Quad-Cities and Clinton nuclear plants due to external economic challenge, is unfortunate. It is imperative that the Illinois General Assembly passes the Next Generation Energy Plan, which would properly value these two plants for the carbon-free energy they provide.
This should happen as quickly as possible. Without passage of this plan, Illinois stands to lose these valuable sources of reliable, carbon-free energy, as well as the significant economic and job contributions these plants provide for the state – including thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic stimulus.
Furthermore, if the Quad-Cities and Clinton plants were to close prematurely, it would be impossible for Illinois to meet its carbon reduction goals under the federal Clean Power Plan. This is because nuclear plants in Illinois collectively provide 92 percent of the state’s carbon-free electricity.
Action is needed now to prevent these two nuclear plants from retiring prematurely. By passing the Next Generation Energy Plan, the Illinois Legislature can preserve their many benefits, as well as solidify the state’s position as a clean energy leader.
The Junior League of Grand Rapids, MI is hosting their Annual Gift Fair, Beneath the Wreath, on Friday, November 2nd through Sunday, November 4th at the Cultural Center of St. Nicholas, located at 2250 East Paris Ave. Friday hours are 9am-7pm, Saturday hours are 9am-4pm and Sunday, 11am-3pm.
The fair will feature fashions for women and children, handcrafted jewelry, gourmet foods and holiday décor.