Over a 20 billionaires and 1,000 multi-millionaires are going to be minted when Facebook does its IPO. Here is diagram of who is making what.

Here are some awesome stats from Facebook’s IPO documents filed with the SEC. The data was put together by comScore & Miniwatts Marketing Group for Reuters.

Mark Zuckerberg is the next Rupert Murdoch, and given internet time he might get there in a couple of years not decades, says Rob Cox of Reuters.

He says that users and investors are ceding so much control over to Zuckerberg that it is bound to stop being in their best interest.

Due to proxies, Zuckerberg’s shares have 10 times the votes of ordinary shares. That wields him 57 percent of the votes despite controlling 28 percent of the shares. That lets him overrule the majority.

He says investors have allowed Zuckerberg to maintain an iron grip on Facebook (FB) because his dorm-room project is about to fetch them $75 billion, more than the combined market capitalizations of Viacom, News Corp and The New York Times.

Cox says that Murdoch’s News Corp, Sumner Redstone’s Viacom and the Sulzberger family’s NY Times are among the myriad companies controlled by individuals or families whose ambitions no longer fully align with those of a majority of their shareholders and users if I might add.

This absolute power was on display when Murdoch nominated his two sons to the News Corp board. The other 88 percent of News Corp shareholders that did not share his name opposed the move but Murdoch was able ignore their votes due to the voting structure that gives him absolute power.

Facebook is not the only company with such a structure, the founders of Zynga, Google have wield similar power.

David Choe, the graffiti artist that painted the walls at Facebook’s first headquarters ended up taking stock instead of cash. When Facebook IPOs, his stock could be worth over $200 million according to SEC filings.

The payout to Mr. Choe, the graffiti artist, could provide more money from his paintings than Sotheby’s attracted for its record-breaking $200.7 million auction in 2008 for work by Damien Hirst.

In 2005, Facebook was a tiny start-up and it needed every penny. Mr. Choe’s was owed a few thousand dollars for this work. Mr. Choe, who said at the time that he thought the idea of Facebook was “ridiculous and pointless,” nevertheless chose the stock.

Mr.Choe is classified as an “adviser” to the company in the filings. According to a former Facebook employee, advisers were getting 0.1 to 0.25 percent of the company. Based on Facebook’s proposed market value of $100 billion, that translates into roughly $200 million for Mr. Choe.

Mr. Choe, is now a very successful artist with gallery shows and pieces exhibited in major museums. He has published an elaborate book titled “David Choe”, featuring his “multimillion-dollar” artwork, which includes the Facebook paintings.

It wasn’t always peaches and roses for Mr. Choe, he had a very hard life, including run-ins with the law, but now he is wealthy. On his Facebook wall, Mr. Choe’s can be seen living the life of a rockstar, partying with scantily clad women and spending large amounts of money on alcohol. In recent weeks, Mr. Choe promoted photos of a $40,000 bottle of alcohol; a single shot, he boasted, costs $888.

Mr. Choe is declining interview requests saying he wants to maintain his privacy.

However, he has a word of advise: “Always double down on 11. Always.”

Zynga’s shares shot up as much as 20 percent in trading today, a day after Facebook revealed 12 percent of its revenue comes from the social gaming maker.

Facebook gets a huge chunk of its revenue from advertisements purchased by Zynga and from transaction fees on Zynga’s virtual goods. Zynga’s games also generate more pages where Facebook can place advertisements.

Zynga’s shares are trading as high as they ever have right now. Zynga is up around 14% right now and is trading at around $12 — higher than its debut of $11 when it first went public.

Source: SAI

Facebook’s IPO will kick off the era of “social computing,” BI’s Matt Rosoff declared this week. And within social computing, a lucrative sub-field is unfolding: social commerce. Businesses and entrepreneurs can now reach consumers anytime on smart devices, and through personalized networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and many more. Below is guide to the players in social commerce.

So what exactly is social commerce and why all the buzz? It’s a broad term, but here are a few uses:

• Major brands such as Fortune 500 companies are realizing the huge upside to using social media and social experiences to sell their products. For example: Heineken USA creates a Facebook app that pairs you with another Facebook user. You both want a “BeerTender” that pours Heineken on tap, and you buy them for each other. PepsiCo creates a “Mission Control” center at Gatorade HQ to aggressively move into social media. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia uses social-shopping site OpenSky to help promote products in a personalized way that resonates with tasteful consumers.

• Of course, someone needs to measure all this social chatter. Metrics honchos like Radian6 provide data on social-media engagement and real-time monitoring of diverse platforms. Klout tries to gauge the influence of active users of services like Twitter and Facebook, and targets the most influential for brand promotions. Buddy Media puts out software to monitor and optimize social-media communications, so major brands can control their “voice” and image online. Bazaarvoice provides white-label software to incorporate user reviews and other social functionality to destination sites like KateSpade.com.

• Meanwhile, entrepreneurs — many of whom have worked in traditional retail — are creating their own companies to leverage social commerce. They are frequently disruptive, disintermediating middle men in the product supply chain by selling online or blurring the line between customers and salespeople. Some exciting and often fast-growing companies include: LivingSocial, Chloe + Isabel, Birchbox, Zaarly, Oodle, Warby Parker.

• Naturally, investors are very excited about this potential. After all, the US retail market is worth $400 billion monthly, according to the census. This is a huge pie for emerging startups to bite from. Venture capitalists from Lightbank, Battery Ventures, RRE Ventures, and General Catalyst will be speaking at Social Commerce Summit

• Finally, publishers and media such as DailyCandy, Rogers Media and Sugar Inc can capture additional revenue by introducing e-commerce and social deals into their readers’ experience.

Sponsored stories on Facebook has got the company into hot water in California. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has allowed the lawsuit to proceed and rejected Facebook’s bid to dismiss it stating:

Plaintiffs have articulated a coherent theory of how they were economically injured by the misappropriation of their names, photographs and likeness

According to MarketingLand: The basis of the lawsuit is that the sponsored stories are paid ads that pull in personal posts, pictures and names without consent. By displaying this personal information, Facebook is violating California Law regarding commercial endorsements. Here is an excerpt from California Civil Code Section 3344:

(a) Any person who knowingly uses another’s name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness, in any manner on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of products, merchandise, goods or services, without such person’s prior consent, or, in the case of a minor, the prior consent of his parent or legal guardian, shall be liable for any damages sustained by the person or persons injured as a result thereof.

ComputerWorld has a great article on how Facebook sponsored ads violate your privacy.

While I don’t have a crystal ball, here are some developments that I think are worthy of our attention and will affect how we do things in the social mediasphere over the next few years. Many of the things on this list will not be news to the very well-informed social media consultant types who live and breathe this stuff. But for the rest of us, there are seeds of opportunity here that should not be missed.

1. MySpace: CEO Leaves; MySpace will die. Last year, I was telling my clients “We are cautiously optimistic that MySpace (GigaOM Pro company profile) will make a comeback because their new CEO is aFacebook co-founder.” Scratch that. I think MySpace is about to go the way of Friendster,although it is still a player in the entertainment space. Because Facebook doesn’t allow flexbility and customization, I’m going to miss MySpace. But now I wonder: Who is going to be the next MySpace? Virb? Bebo? (And don’t underestimate LinkedIn.)
2. Virtual Goods: Insane, but insanely popular. The creation and selling of virtual goods and gifts makes absolutely no sense to people who just use the Internet as a basic communications tool. Try telling someone who isn’t really into Facebook that they could buy a virtual bouquet of flowers for 99 cents and send them to a friend — they’d look at you like you were mad. But with virtual goods as an industry already raking in the billions of dollars worldwide and over a billion in the U.S. alone (source: “Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market, 2009 – 2010?), how can anyone ignore them? I’m not saying everyone needs to make and use virtual goods, but there is opportunity here for both marketing and revenue. Have you even thought about how you might be able to leverage virtual goods? Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): How the Next Zynga Could Reinvent Social Gaming
3. Gaming: Not just for kids anymore. I think the very fact that the largest player base of passive online games is women flies in the face of the typical view that games are for kids. According to Nielsen Entertainment in August 2009, of the 117 million active gamers in the U.S., 56 percent play games online and 64 percent of those online gamers are female. And the revenues generated from online games is enormous and growing. Do not underestimate the power of games and gaming — and not just the marketing and revenue opportunities, but also the learning opportunities as well in the form of fun quizzes and polls. Have you used gaming yet in a social media marketing campaign?
4. Twitter: Still transforming communications. Back in 2008, I wrote about Twitter’s impact on the fundamental ways we communicate and the way new tools and applications are being developed, but it continues to grow and evolve. How has Twitter helped you lately?
5. Niche networks: A marketer’s secret weapon. Whether you choose Ning.com orKickApps or any of the other “white label” customizable social network-building platforms, the concept of creating a “gated”online community that is narrow in focus is smart and potentially powerful. The concept isn’t really that far removed from hosting an online messaging board in the early days of the web. If you held the keys to the gate of a more private, closed or niche community, you had everything from an instant focus group to a band of passionate buzz agents on your hands — if you knew how to properly leverage the community participation. Fast forward to today and the tools ca now give your members integrated communications, networking, publishing and social tools — brilliant.What niche networks are you participating in or do you run?
6. Augmented reality. Sounds sci-fi, but it’s really here. I’m having a hard time describing Augmented Reality to people who haven’t seen it (if you haven’t seen it in action, these infographics from GigaOM might help). The reaction isn’t just “what in the world?” but “who cares about that stuff?” AR uses simply boggle the mind, and I plan to explore more of that in this column soon. I do wish we had a better term for it, though (like “data overlay” or “overscreen view”) so it didn’t have such a sci-fi feel to it. What potential uses for AR are getting you fired up? Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.):Augmented Reality: Lots of Promise, Lots of Hurdles.
7. Google Buzz: Pay attention, even if you don’t care. I am one of the gazillion people who currently do not care about Google Buzz, apart from the fact that just because Google did this it means something in terms of the tools we’ll be using in the coming years. Right now, I feel like Google has the means to just throw tech spaghetti on the virtual walls of our work and lives to see what sticks. Anything it does has major significance and impact, even if it fails. So pay attention as you scratch your head. How is Google Buzz changing the way you communicate, or is it? Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Google Buzz’s True Home Is in the Enterprise
8. Mobile: Be there. I don’t know about you, but I consider my iPhone to be a mini computer and Wi-Fi device first and phone a distant second. I’m never normally an early early adopter because I’m too busy to keep up most of the time, but I will be one of the first to buy the iPad, because it looks to me like a bigger iPhone, and I rely on my iPhone in ways I have never relied on my computer or my regular cell phone. My entire concept of connectivity and my access to everything has changed so dramatically since I got a smartphone that I know I can never go back to the old ways. What forays into mobile marketing are on your radar for 2010? Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits Right Notes

–Aliza Sherman

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I don’t think there’s any question that you need a web presence to survive in today’s business climate. But do you still need a traditional website, or has the web moved on in that regard?

Do you still need a website to be succesful online? Share your thoughts.

First off, let me be perfectly clear in that I’m not advising anybody not to have a website. That said, there are a lot of ways to have a web presence without actually having a site, and let’s face it – maintaining a site (let alone a successful one) takes time, money, and resources.

According to data from Compete, Facebook has become a bigger traffic source than Google for some sites, and for many others, it is right up there with Google as a major traffic source. If it can drive the traffic, then that means the people are already at Facebook. You can be on Facebook without having your own website. Businesses can build a Facebook Pages, complete with analytics provided by Facebook itself, and they can spend time making that page a good one. Here are some tips on how to do that. Facebook pages are perfectly capable of being found in search engines. In fact, they are often right on the first results page.

You know what else is often right on the first page? A set of local search results from Google Maps, courtesy of Google’ Universal Search integration. Within those results (which are very often right at the top of the SERP) are links to individual businesses’ “Place Pages”. From here, users can find coupons, reviews, store hours, etc. There is a very good chance users will find this before they find your site anyway.

Google is actually going to great lengths to get people using these Place Pages. They are even sending out stickers with barcodes for stores to hang on their windows. When a user scans this barcode with their mobile phone, they will be taken to the business’ Place Page. Social media profiles can also appear on these pages (although so can website links of course).

I probably don’t have to tell you that the web is rapidly becoming more mobile. Smartphone usage and mobile broadband subscriptions continue to accelerate, and people are using a variety of devices, operating systems, browsers, and apps. Making sure you have a site that looks right across all of these is no easy task. This is not so much of a worry when it comes to Facebook pages, Google Place Pages, and other third-party entities.

In many cases, it seems that small business sites are becoming harder to find through organic search. If you look you can find them, but users want convenience, and they are probably not going to look too hard if they can find what they are looking for on the first search results page (or right within Facebook where they’re already spending their time).

Social profiles show in up in search, and often early. The very nature of social media is viral. If one Facebook users becomes a fan of your Facebook page, that user’s friends are going to see it. Then, maybe a couple of them also become fans. Then maybe a couple of their friends become fans, and that trend can continue on and on. The more people who become fans, and the more exposure that page gets, the more chance that page has of acquiring links, which of course can lead to better search engine rankings, not to mention a larger presence on Facebook itself, where a large percentage of Internet users are already spending a great deal of their time. Your reputation and following within the social networks themselves may do your profile well in the eyes of Google too.

If you sell things online, there are obviously many different options out there without having to sell from your own site. In fact, even Facebook and e-commerce are on the road to becoming more and more closely attached. People can buy/sell physical goods through Facebook.

A great deal of focus has been placed on Facebook in this article for the simple fact that it is the world’s most popular social network. That could all change in time. But that doesn’t mean the points would not sill apply to other services. Google is going to be placing a lot of emphasis on Google Buzz this year, and it’s going to become integrated with more and more Google products. Currently, Google profiles are kind of the central place for a Buzz presence. Users can include any links they wish right into that profile (Facebook page, Twitter account, blog, eBay/Amazon listings, etc.)There’s no telling how big Buzz can be, and there’s always the possibility that something else will come along and take the world by storm. And that is one of the reasons…

Why it Still Pays to Have a Site

Can you be successful without a site? I think so. However, having a site gives you a more stable foundation, and still creates more opportunities than if you didn’t have one. When you have a site, you have control. You don’t have to adhere to the policy guidelines of any third-party platform. If Facebook decides to shut its Pages down (as Yahoo did with GeoCities, for example), you still have your own site that they can’t touch. For that matter,having your own site certainly lends credibility to your brand.

Still, social networks continue to work on making data more freely able to flow among one another via a number of open standards like Activity Streams, AtomPub, OAuth, PubSubHubbub, Salmon and WebFinger. “The idea is that someday, any host on the web should be able to implement these open protocols and send messages back and forth in real time with users from any network, without any one company in the middle,” says Google software engineer DeWitt Clinton. “The web contains the social graph, the protocols are standard web protocols, the messages can contain whatever crazy stuff people think to put in them. Google Buzz will be just another node (a very good node, I hope) among many peers. Users of any two systems should be able to send updates back and forth, federate comments, share photos, send @replies, etc., without needing Google in the middle and without using a Google-specific protocol or format.”

Google itself, even has its own site dedicated to making user data for its various products exportable. That’s just Google, but the web in general appears to be moving more in this direction.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a site, or even that you don’t need one, but I think it’s an interesting discussion. For now, I’m going to say having your own site is still in your best interest, but has a more social Internet with more portable data made a standalone site less critical? Is having a website going to be less important in the future? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject. Comment here.

–Chris Crum

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According to Social Media Magazine here are five ways to get the most out of social media as part of your public relations strategy. The full article is here.

1. Link to articles. Almost every media outlet has online versions of articles and news segments. When an article runs about your business, let others know by posting a link on your social media networks. This not only heightens brand awareness, it also shows the publication or channel that the public is interested in what the reporter said about your business. Bookmarking sites like Reddit, Delicious, StumpleUpon and Digg are also great ways to flag an article for others to find through keyword searches.
2. Drive traffic to website. Do not forget to always include your website in every email, blog comment and forum post. On LinkedIn, for example, after answering a question or posting on a forum, include your URL. If your post was interesting or informative, chances are high that the viewer will click on your link for more. In public relations, the online objective is to do more than just raise awareness; it is to direct interested parties to the business? door or web page. Then it is up to the business to make the sale or pursue the relationship.
3. Be an industry expert. Rather than focus on selling, present yourself as an educator. If you are in the IT industry, answer general questions and prove yourself to be a credible resource. When others view you as an industry expert, they will be more likely to turn to you for their IT needs and refer others to your business. This particularly applies to LinkedIn or any professional network.
4. Respond to feedback. The general public freely gives opinions all over the World Wide Web. A big aspect of managing social media is maintaining a pulse on what your customers and prospects are saying about you or the brand you represent. Gossip is no longer exchanged behind your back, it is public and is as simple to find as a Google or Twitter search. Once you discover comments, whether positive or negative, respond. If people sing your praises, thank them and use the feedback as a testimonial or an opportunity to retweet on Twitter or include as a status update on Facebook, FriendFeed or LinkedIn. If you come across disgruntled customers, it is best to make it right and put your best customer service practices to work.
5. Involve the audience. Some of the best viral marketing campaigns involve audience participation on Twitter, Facebook fan pages, YouTube and Myspace. One way to harness attention of your business through public relations is to host a contest. If you have a new product, invite your customers to think of a name for it. Include directions on your website, then direct participants to submit YouTube video entries and vote via Twitter or other sites. Not only would this make your company be incredibly searchable, but you generate a big hype around the new product that may warrant news coverage for your company as well.

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