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He famously wears a hoodie, jeans and sneakers, and he was born the year Apple introduced the Macintosh. But Mark Zuckerberg is no boy-CEO. Facebook’s chief executive turned 28 on Monday, setting in motion the social network’s biggest week ever. The company is expected to start selling stock to the public for the first time and begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Friday. The IPO could value Facebook at nearly $100 billion, making it worth more than such iconic companies as Disney, Ford and Kraft Foods. At 28, Zuckerberg is exactly half the age of the average S&P 500 CEO, according to executive search firm Spencer Stuart. With eight years on the job, he’s logged more time as leader than the average CEO, whose tenure is a little more than seven years, according to Spencer Stuart. Even so, the pressures of running a public company will undoubtedly take some getting used to. Once Facebook begins selling stock, Zuckerberg will be expected to please a host of new stakeholders, including Wall Street investment firms, hedge funds and pension funds who will pressure him to keep the company growing. Young as he may seem — especially in that hooded sweatshirt — Zuckerberg will be about the same age as Michael Dell and older than Steve Jobs when those two took their companies, Dell Inc. and Apple Inc., public. In his years as Facebook’s CEO he’s met world leaders, rode a bull in Vietnam while on vacation, started learning Mandarin Chinese and as a personal challenge, wore a tie for the better part of a year. Facebook, of course, got its start in Zuckerberg’s messy Harvard dorm room in early 2004. Known as Thefacebook.com in those days, the site was created to help Harvard students — and later other college students — connect with one another… Continue reading Facebook CEO Turns 28, IPO Could Be $100B Gift →

Google Wallet hopes to make a comeback — or at least turn some heads — when it debuts on its second device. After a poor reception on Sprint in September, Google Wallet is about to show up on the LG Optimus Elite through Virgin Mobile. Google Wallet is a free Android app that lets customers turn their smartphones into wallets and make purchases with the tap of the phone. The app stores virtual versions of your credit cards, offers and loyalty cards on the smartphone. Google Wallet currently supports Citi MasterCard credit cards and the Google Prepaid MasterCard, powered by First Data. Google plans to support additional cards. Some of the hundreds of thousands of participating retailers include American Eagle Outfitters, The Container Store, Macy’s, Foot Locker and Subway. Google Wallet’s Slow Take-Off The Optimus Elite debuted on Sprint’s network on Sept. 20. Now, Virgin Mobile is getting into the Google Wallet game by offering the device, which features Android 2.3 Gingerbread. In order to run Google Wallet, smartphones need NFC, or near-field communication, capability. NFC is a short-range communication protocol that’s similar to Bluetooth. The Optimus Elite also offers a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen, 800 MHz processor, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and camcorder with flash, virtual QWERTY keyboard and mobile hotspot capability. Consumers can also download Box on LG Optimus Elite and get 50 GB of free cloud storage and sharing directly from LG. We asked Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, how Google Wallet is performing in the marketplace. His answer: Adoption is still slow. “Because Google owns Android, we thought Google Wallet was going to be a bigger thing sooner,” Enderle told us. “But the fact that this phone is coming out from LG might indicate that we are on the front edge of what could be a Google Wallet movement. On… Continue reading Will Google Wallet Gain Momentum on Virgin Mobile? →

Nokia Lumia users in Europe can now download e-books from a dedicated hub for the Windows Phone 7 device, raising the question of whether people are ready to read books on the small screen of their smartphones. Users of the Nokia Lumia 800, 710, 610 and the new 900, which was released last month to strong reviews as the flagship of Nokia and Microsoft’s smartphone collaboration, could already access location-aware navigation, photo editing, streaming radio and other content from the Nokia Collection of applications accessible from the Windows Phone Marketplace. ‘World Class E-Book Experience’ The new Nokia Reading hub, offering searches in multiple languages, will allow “publishers, including Penguin and Hachette, and Pearson to launch a world class e-book and audiobook experience that’s been designed specifically for the Nokia Lumia,” the company said in a blog post. Availability begins this week in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the United Kingdom, with other countries to follow. “While eBooks are becoming a common sight in countries like the U.S. and the UK, they are still in their infancy — or basically unavailable — in many parts of the world,” writes Nokia’s Ian Delaney in the company’s Conversations blog. “And this is where the strength of Nokia Reading lies: in local language e-reading content.” E-books for the iPhone and Android devices are also available but Nokia stresses that their service is optimized for phone reading. A key selling point of the new Nokia Lumia 900 is its ClearBlack AMOLED 480×800 touchscreen which allows visibility in direct sunlight, and Nokia says that will also make for optimal reading visibility. The 900 screen is 4.3 inches, while the 800 is only 3.7 inches. But senior mobile analyst Mark Beccue of ABI Research told us it remains to be seen if smartphone reading will catch on or drive Lumia sales. Not an Optimal… Continue reading Nokia Reader For Lumia: Is Screen Large Enough? →

The percentage of U.S. adults using smartphones to get location-based information has nearly doubled in less than a year, to 41 percent. That skyrocketing use of location-based data, which reflects the growing potential for location-based marketing and other such commercial services, is one of the findings in a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Smartphone ownership also continues to increase, from 35 percent of American adults in 2011 to 46 percent in 2012, which has helped to drive the increase in location information usage. The survey was conducted in January and February of this year, through telephone interviews with 2,253 adults ages 18 and older. About 40 percent of the interviews were conducted over cell phones, with the rest over landlines. Foursquare, Gowalla General location-based services can range from GPS-enabled map services to listings and reviews of nearby restaurants. Seventy-four percent of smartphone owners will obtain directions or recommendations based on where they are, an increase of about 50 percent over 2011. Geosocial services map one’s designated friends when they are nearby, and allow for communication and updating of people’s positions. The use of geosocial services such as Foursquare or Gowalla continues to grow, from 12 percent of smartphone owners in 2011 to 18 percent this year, with nearly all of those also getting location-based directions. This represents about 10 percent of all U.S. adults. Gowalla was purchased late last year by Facebook, and was soon thereafter shut down. Facebook has also ended its Facebook Places location-sharing service, and now provides a location layer on top of most of its offerings. The study found that, while there are still significant demographic differences for this kind of smartphone usage, they are less diverse than in May 2011, when the Pew survey was last taken. Differences Among Groups Unsurprisingly, younger people are more likely… Continue reading Phone Use of Location-Based Services Booming in the U.S. →

The percentage of U.S. adults using smartphones to get location-based information has nearly doubled in less than a year, to 41 percent. That skyrocketing use of location-based data, which reflects the growing potential for location-based marketing and other such commercial services, is one of the findings in a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Smartphone ownership also continues to increase, from 35 percent of American adults in 2011 to 46 percent in 2012, which has helped to drive the increase in location information usage. The survey was conducted in January and February of this year, through telephone interviews with 2,253 adults ages 18 and older. About 40 percent of the interviews were conducted over cell phones, with the rest over landlines. Foursquare, Gowalla General location-based services can range from GPS-enabled map services to listings and reviews of nearby restaurants. Seventy-four percent of smartphone owners will obtain directions or recommendations based on where they are, an increase of about 50 percent over 2011. Geosocial services map one’s designated friends when they are nearby, and allow for communication and updating of people’s positions. The use of geosocial services such as Foursquare or Gowalla continues to grow, from 12 percent of smartphone owners in 2011 to 18 percent this year, with nearly all of those also getting location-based directions. This represents about 10 percent of all U.S. adults. Gowalla was purchased late last year by Facebook, and was soon thereafter shut down. Facebook has also ended its Facebook Places location-sharing service, and now provides a location layer on top of most of its offerings. The study found that, while there are still significant demographic differences for this kind of smartphone usage, they are less diverse than in May 2011, when the Pew survey was last taken. Differences Among Groups Unsurprisingly, younger people are more likely… Continue reading Phone Use of Location-Based Services Booming in the U.S. →