11.20.2015
Good to Know: Singer Adele’s much-anticipated album, “25,” drops today. If you want to hear it in full, get ready to either fire up iTunes or physically make your way to a store. She’s keeping the album off of all streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. Some people think this could backfire and make her fans pretty angry. But, we suspect many of you won’t care since Adele’s music is SO good. Cue the tears…
THE SKINNY
Now That’s What We Call A Rally …
Things were looking pretty bleak for mobile payments company Square when it set its IPO price at $9/share. But, after making its New York Stock Exchange debut yesterday, its share shot up by 45%. By day’s end, the company was valued at $4.2 billion ($13.07/share). Hopefully, this performance will be the gift that keeps on giving for CEO Jack Dorsey who turned 39 yesterday.
Onwards and Upwards …
Moving forward, Dorsey just wants to get back to business as usual. The company’s still focused on making payments easier via its infamous card reader. But, investors are uncertain of the company’s ability to grow as it goes up against competitors like PayPal and Verifone. Not to worry, Square’s looking to diversify its business with services that take care of company payroll or that help set up appointments. It’s even acquired a startup called Caviar that’s in the food delivery biz.
What Does This Mean?
TBH, it’s unclear. There’s been speculation that Square’s low IPO price could mean that unicorns in Silicon Valley, private companies in the billion dollar club, would start to see low market valuations moving forward. It’s hard to say what’s really happening. While there’s certainly a shift towards more conservative valuations, financial experts are saying we shouldn’t expect to see any drastic changes.
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Time’s Supposed to Heal Ya, But You Ain’t Done Much Healing …
That’s probably because you’re still Facebook friends with your ex whose new fab life is taking over your newsfeed. So, not cool! Facebook doesn’t want you feeling down anymore when break ups happen. The company’s testing out a new tool that’ll help people distance themselves from their exes without de-friending them. This means seeing less of the ex’s name, profile picture, and posts on your newsfeed. Why didn’t anyone think of this sooner? Just saying …
When The Stakes Are Just Too Damn High …
Starboard Value, an activist hedge fund, has an idea for Yahoo. It wants the Internet veteran to sell off its core advertising business. Whaaa? It’s no secret that Yahoo is struggling and has tried almost everything under the sun to get back on track. Nothing has worked. One thing the company has tried to do is sell off its ownership stake in Chinese Internet company Alibaba. But, pursuing this spin-off could take forever and who knows how the U.S. Internal Revenue Service would handle that transaction. Basically, the spin-off comes with too much uncertainty and too much risk. Starboard wants Yahoo to strip down to just its stake in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. That’s a sure thing in the company’s opinion. No comment from Yahoo on this recommendation.
Keep A Closer Watch, Will Ya?
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wants social media companies to make more of an effort when it comes to preventing terrorists from recruiting followers and spreading their ideas via companies’ platforms. Hacker group Anonymous recently waged war against Islamist militant group ISIS and claims that it has personally closed down thousands of “pro-ISIS Twitter accounts.” Companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter say that they take this type of thing seriously, which is reflected in their policies. They keep a close watch on terrorist-type activity and have no problem taking down content or shutting down accounts when users violate these policies.
THE STREETS ARE TALKIN’
Jack Dorsey, CEO of mobile payments company Square, wants to bring Square Wallet back. He thinks the digital wallet could work a second time around.
It’s a good day to be Diane Greene. Google just brought on Greene, a veteran in the cloud computing industry, to run point on its growing enterprise cloud business. And, it also scooped up bebop, Greene’s enterprise development startup.
Online music streaming service Spotify says employees can take up to six months of parental leave. Did we mention, its six months PAID? The Swedish company wants make sure all of its employees world-wide are on the same page after their bundle of joy(s) arrive.
Oops! Their b … Indonesia only meant to cut off access to social and messaging platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Viber, but the government inadvertently kicked off a country-wide black out of the entire Internet instead. Could you imagine absolutely no Internet access for an hour? The horror!