Facebook Snaps a $1-Billion Photo

“What made Instagram worth $1 billion to Facebook?”

When asked this question recently, I responded with an immediate, “Nothing.”

I’m not usually so terse or emphatic with my answers, as any longtime reader knows. But in this case, there really was nothing inherently valuable inside Instagram that made them worth the unbelievable sum Facebook agreed to pay. Yet they did it anyway. Clearly, there’s something missing from a traditional valuation analysis here

Video: The Transparent Factory

I thought I would mix it up a bit with this clip of a Volkswagen factory in Dresden, Germany. The factory is very cool

Chart of the Day: Don’t Blame the Gas Station for Price Spike

Here’s a cool graphic from the EIA on what drives the price of a gallon of gasoline in January 2012. We paid $4.20 last night in California!

Anti-employee Control Fraud

Apple has released a report on working conditions in its suppliers’ factories. It highlights a form of control fraud that criminology has identified but rarely discussed. I write overwhelmingly about accounting control fraud because it drives our recurrent, intensifying financial crises. The primary intended victims of accounting control frauds are the shareholders and the creditors. Other private sector control frauds target customers (e.g., George Akerlof’s 1970 article on “lemons”), and the public (e.g., the unlawful disposal of toxic waste, illegal logging, and tax fraud)

Nonlinear Thinking: Smartphone Ultrasound Imaging

Stunning! Guess it’s time for our annual physical with Dr. iPhone

Nonlinear Thinking: The Robot Farmer

In the ongoing series of posts on technology’s threat to existing labor roles, Global Macro Monitor highlights this video on robot farmers

Video: Walt Mossberg Reviews iTunes Match

Apple has introduced a ‘music locker’ service which does away with the need to upload most of your music. I have tried it out in addition to Amazon and Google’s competing services and I like it, especially the part about not having to upload my collection. Google’s uploader is particularly annoying and CPU intensive, so

We’re American Airlines, doing what we do best

Here’s the message from AA: “American Airlines filed for reorganization under Chapter 11. We took this action as part of our efforts to secure our long-term success in delivering the highest standards in air travel. We are committed to meeting your travel needs with outstanding customer service and safety, and it will be business as usual at American throughout our reorganization process. More than 80,000 people at American appreciate your loyalty and look forward to continuing to serve you.”

Steve Jobs circa 1985 at NeXT startup

Here’s Steve Jobs from the start-up phase at NeXT after he had been forced out of Apple in 1985. In this video, he is very much the passionate visionary we knew him to be in his second stint at apple, and with less bluster and more of a collaborative flair

Walt Mossberg reviews the Kindle Fire

Walt Mossberg takes a look at Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablet. How does it stack up against the iPad and the new Nook Color

A Battle for Oil Production Is Brewing

With big oil’s bank accounts full to the brim with cash, the stage is set for some significant acquisition activity… or, to put it another way, for a battle to buy producing assets. There are quite a number of contestants in the battle – big oil companies are not only competing against each other to sweep up good assets but also against the national oil companies of developing, energy-hungry nations like China, South Korea, and India. Oil demands are rising in these nations so quickly that just to cover expected annual demand increases those three countries would have to jointly spend $30 billion on acquisitions each year

Facebook Ads

Here’s a spoof video of how Facebook is monetising its site. Genius