Infotainment

Mark Zuckerberg just rang the NASDAQ bell … opening a trading day in which the 28-year-old is expected to make more than 20 BILLION DOLLARS.

In case you haven’t heard, the Facebook stock officially begins trading today — the largest Internet IPO in history.

Zuckerberg performed the bell-ringing via satellite … from the Facebook offices in Menlo Park, CA. Of course, he was wearing his signature hoodie and the kind of smile you’d have on your face if you were in his flip-flops.

The stock price will debut at $38 dollars per share.

It’s not just Mark who’s set to rake in a fortune today — according to reports, more than 1,000 people will become overnight millionaires due to the initial public offering.

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The automaker said its Facebook ads have proved to be ineffective

General Motors Co. (GM) pulled its paid advertising from Facebook only days before the social network’s massive initial public offering (IPO).

GM reportedly spends about $4 billion annually on advertising worldwide. Of this $4 billion, approximately $10 million is spent on Facebook advertisements, and another $30 million on Facebook fan pages.

While Facebook ads take up a fairly small amount of GM’s total amount spent on advertisements annually, the automaker says the advertising on the social network has proved to be ineffective. GM has decided to axe its $10 million spent on Facebook ads, but will keep its Facebook fan pages.

“We regularly review our overall media spend and make adjustments as needed,” said Greg Martin, a GM spokesman. “This happens as a regular course of business and it’s not unusual for us to move our spending around various media outlets — especially with the growth of multiple social and digital media outlets.

“In terms of Facebook specifically, while we currently do not plan to continue with advertising, we remain committed to an aggressive content strategy through all of our products and brands, as it continues to be a very effective tool for engaging with our customers.”

Experts say that GM could be having troubles gaining business from its Facebook ads because its customers are older and do not have as much of a presence on the social network.

Many wondered if GM’s decision, which came only three days before Facebook’s $104 billion IPO, would affect investor’s view of the social network at a crucial time. Facebook is expected to price its shares on Thursday and begin trading under the ticker “FB” on Friday.

While other automakers may see benefits to advertising with Facebook, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Google ads are more effective than Facebook ads. Facebook’s clickthrough rate was 0.051 percent in 2010 while Google’s was 0.4 percent. Clickthrough rates are the number of times users click on ads.

This sort of information could really put a damper on Facebook’s upcoming IPO this week. Other potential impediments on Facebook’s plate include the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) probe into the social networks $1 billion Instagram acquisition, which aims to increase Facebook’s mobile usage, since the company’s amended S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday mentioned that Facebook revenue will decline as more user’s access the site from mobile devices instead of PCs.

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Another development in the ongoing story of how Eduardo Saverin has given up his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying $67 million in taxes related to Facebook’s IPO: the U.S. government doesn’t want him get away with it quite so fast.

Today, Senators Charles Schumer and Bob Casey are expected to announce a plan they have to re-impose the taxes on Saverin, part of a bigger scheme to go after expatriates who give up citizenship in order to avoid taxes. On top of that, they want to make it official that people who avoid paying their taxes by renouncing citizenship will be permanently denied re-entry into the U.S.

The plan, the offices of the two Senators said, will be announced today at 11am Eastern in a press conference at the Senate Radio-TV Gallery in the U.S. Capitol building.

Called the “Ex-Patriot” act (short for “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy”, according to ABC News), the act proposes to re-impose a mandatory 30 percent tax on the capital gains of anyone who renounces citizenship — even if they are no longer resident in the U.S.

In Singapore, where Saverin currently resides, individuals do not need to pay capital gains taxes, so it’s thought that Saverin is using his residency there to avoid paying a minimum $67 million tax bill — more if the share price rises — on shares that he sells in Facebook after the company is expected to IPO tomorrow. He is expected to make $3.84 billion once Facebook goes public. Saverin has lived in Singapore since 2009 and renounced his citizenship in September 2011.

It’s not clear how many other ex-pats might be liable for such hefty bills if the act gets passed. Facebook, which is expected to raise at least $16 billion in the IPO, is one of the biggest IPOs of all time and is getting an extra level of scrutiny as a result, with the debate ranging from accusations of Saverin being plain wrong in his approach and others, if not exactly supporting him, pointing out the other side of the debate and how he’s just being a good old, gambling capitalist.

Well, Schumer (D-NY) and Casey (D-PA) are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore. They will call Saverin’s $67 million tax “duck” an “outrage” today in their press conference when they detail the rest of the Ex-Patriot act.

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Facebook said it would pay Instagram a $200 million termination fee if the FTC blocked the deal

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is looking to investigate Facebook’s acquisition of photo sharing program Instagram only one week before the social network’s massive IPO.

According to the Financial Times, the FTC is launching an investigation regarding Facebook’s Instagram acquisition in an effort to identify any clues of anti-competitive practices. The FTC isn’t just picking on Facebook, though. The probe is common for any acquisition over $68.2 million because this number is tied to inflation.

Despite the probe being a routine practice, it could potentially hurt Facebook for the time being. The social network cannot use Instagram until the investigation is closed, delaying the mobile services it desperately seeks. In fact, some reports say the probe could take six to 12 months before completion.

Last month, it was reported that Facebook was interested in acquiring Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock. The move aims to increase Facebook’s mobile usage, since the company’s amended S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday mentioned that Facebook revenue will decline as more user’s access the site from mobile devices instead of PCs.

The filings also said that the boost in mobile usage has led to a user base that is expanding faster than the number of advertisements provided.

“If users increasingly access Facebook mobile products as a substitute for access through personal computers, and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users, or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our financial performance and ability to grow revenue would be negatively affected,” said the filing.

In addition to mobile woes, Facebook is looking to go public with its $100 billion initial public offering on May 18 and likely didn’t need the extra trouble only one week before establishing its ticker symbol “FB.”

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If your friends and family joke that you’re addicted to Facebook, they may be right. Researchers in Norway have identified six signs that you may be addicted. They’ve used those signs to develop a test to help you figure out of your suffer from a social media addiction.

The test, called the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, is based on six basic criteria, where all items are scored on the following scale: (1) Very rarely (2) Rarely (3) Sometimes (4) Often and (5) Very often. The signs are:

You spend a lot of time thinking about Facebook or plan use of Facebook.
You feel an urge to use Facebook more and more.
You use Facebook to forget about personal problems.
You have tried to cut down on the use of Facebook without success.
You become restless or troubled if you are prohibited from using Facebook.
You use Facebook so much that it has had a negative impact on your job/studies.

If you are, indeed, addicted, you’re not alone, the researchers say.

“The use of Facebook has increased rapidly. We are dealing with a subdivision of Internet addiction connected to social media,” said Cecilie Schou Andreassen, who conducted the study.

Andreassen heads the research project “Facebook Addiction” at the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway. The results of her research have just been published in the journal Psychological Reports.

Andreassen said she sees some clear patterns in Facebook addiction.

“It occurs more regularly among younger than older users. We have also found that people who are anxious and socially insecure use Facebook more than those with lower scores on those traits, probably because those who are anxious find it easier to communicate via social media than face-to-face,” she said.

People who are organized and more ambitious tend to be less at risk from Facebook addiction. They will often use social media as an integral part of work and networking.

“Women are more at risk of developing Facebook addiction, probably due to the social nature of Facebook,” Andreassen said.

Andreassen said the research also shows that Facebook addiction was related to extroversion. People with high scores on the new scale further tend to have a somewhat delayed sleep-wake rhythm.

The study was based on 423 students — 227 women and 196 men.

Despite Andreassen’s findings, others are not as convinced about Internet-based addictions.

“There are often underlying or co-occurring psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, depression or a disturbance in interpersonal relationships, all of which may explain the person’s Internet problems,” Ronald W. Pies, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Tufts University told BusinessNewsDaily sister site LiveScience for a 2009 article. “The question is, do we need another ‘disorder’ in the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), if the manifestations of Internet addiction can already be accounted for by well-described and better-validated conditions?”

That, however, doesn’t mean that Pies is writing off the possibility of Internet-based addictions. Rather, he believes that better research is needed to quantify these behaviors.

“We may eventually come around to the view that Internet addiction is a discrete mental disorder, but that will require carefully designed research aimed at linking Internet addiction with family and genetic factors, biological concomitants and responses to specific treatments,” Pies said.

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