Report: Board members discuss Jobs' successor | Apple - CNET News

Steve Jobs takes the stage at WWDC 2011.

(Credit: CNET Staff)

Members of Apple's board of directors have talked to outside headhunters about a succession plan for the company, if it needs to replace Chief Executive Steve Jobs, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

The Journal cited unnamed sources in the story, who said the conversations with recruiters were not aimed at replacing Jobs, who went on medical leave last winter, but rather were more informal conversations regarding the company's options. The Journal also said the members of the board who approached recruiters were not doing so at the behest of the entire board. It's also unclear whether Jobs was aware these conversations were taking place.

Apple declined to officially comment on the Journal's story, but the newspaper reported that in response to its explicit question to Jobs, he responded via e-mail, "I think it's hogwash."

The Journal said conversations between some board members and recruiters took place after Jobs went on his second medical leave in two years. In January, Jobs left his day-to-day duties at the company due to an undisclosed illness. In 2004, he was treated for a rare form of pancreatic cancer. And he received a liver transplant in 2009.

Since then, investors and corporate-governance experts have pushed the company for details about a possible succession plan at the company. Meanwhile, Apple's board of directors has not shared information about Jobs' current health condition, nor has it said when he might be returning full-time to the company. And it has not disclosed its plan for replacing Jobs, should he need to step down permanently.

Last February, a shareholder proposal asking Apple to disclose its succession plan was defeated at the company's annual meeting.

Still, Jobs is believed to still be actively involved in the company, even showing up to his office often. He has also been involved in product and strategy planning, the Journal said. And he appeared on stage in June at the company's annual developer conference. Bloggers and other media tend to make special note of how thin Jobs looks at his public appearances.

Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, has taken over day-to-day activities in running the company. And he is a candidate for the CEO slot, should Jobs leave.

But as the Journal article also notes, the surge in Apple's stock price in the past five years has made many top executives at Apple rich, which could make it difficult to keep executives and promote from within. Ron Johnson, head of Apple's retail strategy, recently left to take the top job at J.C. Penney. And the company has also lost other top executives.

Graph: How long it took Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to reach 10 million users

by Mike Butcher

Norwegian ‘tech evangelist’ Leon Håland of Altibox has created an awesome graph to show the amazing growth of Google+. It doesn’t really require much more explaining than this.

However, it’s not an entirely fair comparison of course. We need to factor in the fact that Twitter and Facebook educated us all about social networking a little earlier, and Google+ is clearly reaping the rewards. In a big way. And let’s not forget the millions who already had Gmail accounts and therefore easy access to a Plus account. Still, it’s interesting when shown in the stark terms above…

Eric Schmidt On Google’s Acquisition Strategy | TechCrunch

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt sat down and talked to reporters at the Sun Valley conference in Idaho last week, dropping all sorts of science about Google +, Google China and whether or not we are in a tech bubble, among other things. One of the most interesting nuggets of info relayed was the fact that Schmidt could envision startups wanting to build on top of the Google+ platform, which now has 10 million users in its beta but no API in sight.

“You could image the scenario where the social platform is so successful that you’ve got startups that are building on top of Google + that are so incredibly sexy and exciting that we would pay top dollar very fast … That’s a great scenario because then you know you’re winning,” he said.

According to Schmidt, Google M&A made the decision last year to accelerate the acquisitions of companies below the HSR threshold, or the amount that is subject to FTC notification requirements and a waiting period (currently $66 million). Companies like Punchd are being acquired for $10 million, $20 million and $30 million (versus AdMeld’s $400 million) in order to fill out gaps in Google’s strategy, which now includes social.

Earlier in the talk Schmidt also outlined how Google calculated the amount of money it was willing to pay for the company; Namely, the value of a deal equals the value of the team plus the value of the year it would spend a Google team to create the same product. He emphasized that M&A at Google was very bottoms up, “A product manager that has a problem and [needs to] solve that problem” is the raison d’être of a potential acquisition.

You can listen to all of Schmidt’s commentary on Google M&A during the interview in the sound bites clipped together above.

Eric Schmidt: You Don’t Know It’s A Bubble Until The Bubble Ends

Earlier this week, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt gave an over 70 minute long talk to press at the Sun Valley conference here in Idaho. Towards the end of the talk, a reporter asked the former Google CEO whether he, like many in the media world, thinks we are presently in a tech bubble and what Google’s $1.67 billion 2004 IPO at a $23 billion valuation (Google’s current valuation is 171.43 billion) means in light of today’s IPO valuations.

“Oh we were underpriced,” Schmidt joked, before remarking that he didn’t actually know whether or not we are presently in a bubble.

“On the general question of bubble, in the first place you don’t know it’s a bubble until the bubble ends, by definition. The rule I set for myself 10 years ago was that if the press calls it a bubble then I’d pay attention, and let me report that the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Economist have all written articles saying that it’s a bubble.

So you have a couple choices A) The revenue growth possibility on these platforms is so large that you could get the kind of revenue acceleration that justifies the valuations. B) You have a liquidity squeeze where you don’t have enough shares, and they’re artificially high.”

When a journalist pointed out that it sounded like Schmidt was “unconvinced either way,” he said that it’s difficult to know whether the valuations are fair until a significant amount of shares hit the market, usually when employee lockups expire, typically after six months, “You won’t really know the answers until 2012,” he said.

The only clear thing at the moment, Schmidt said, was that real estate values will go up. “Young people who need houses will go into areas of scarce housing resources and there will be competition for houses and housing prices will go up. So for them it’s not a bubble it’s actually a house.”

On what effect if any the seven years of market experience have had on his perspective on Google’s IPO, Schmidt said, “Google went public at a very different time, at what people thought was an unbelievably high valuation, and let me point out that we’ve never traded below our opening price.”

When pressed again by a reporter for a yes or no answer, Schmidt gave the following humble reply, ” I don’t think it’s my job to call the market. It’s a mistake for me to say what the market should think … I’m not a brilliant investor. If I were a brilliant investor then maybe I’d have some status. I’m a computer scientist.” … A computer scientist with a $7 billion net worth.

Are We In A Tech Bubble? Here’s The History [INFOGRAPHIC]

We’ve spent the past year wondering whether we’re currently in a tech bubble akin to the last decade’s dotcom boom.

Mashable has offered facts and opinions on both sides of the question. We’ve heard that the current boom is much different from the heyday of the late 1990s and that we have cause for confidence.

But we’ve also heard (from the likes of legendary investor Warren Buffet, no less) that the newest crop of tech darlings are highly overvalued at worst and unpredictable at best.

And we’ve even asked you, our readers, what you thought about current startup valuations and funding amounts. (Most of you responded that you were not optimistic about the future of the tech startup ecosystem.)

Now here are a few straightforward graphs and charts (created by KISSmetrics and FeeFighters) to help you get some better perspective on the issue. Clearly, the dotcom era was a different beast. But looking back on that insanity should help temper our excitement about new technologies with realistic revenue expectations.

Top image courtesy of iStockphoto, patrickheagney

EA compra a PopCap Games por 750 mdd - Negocios - CNNExpansion.com

La firma desarrolladora de videojuegos desea expandir su audiencia casual y móvil con esta alianza; PopCap Games alcanzó fama por producir juegos como Plants vs. Zombies, Zumba y Bejeweled.

PopCap Games fue fundada en Seattle en el 2000. (Foto: Cortesía PopCap Games)

Por: Francisco Rubio

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (CNNExpansión) — Electronic Arts (EA) anunció este martes el acuerdo para comprar a PopCap Games, una desarrolladora famosa por producir juegos para dispositivos móviles, ‘tablets', computadoras y sitios web.

La transacción se pactó en 650 millones de dólares en efectivo y 100 millones de dólares más en acciones para directivos de PopCap.

"La unión entre EA y PopCap será una combinación muy eficaz. Con su gran talento en el estudio y producciones originales, ayudarán a que EA acelere su movimiento hacia un negocio valuado en 1,000 millones de dólares", dijo John Riccitiello, CEO de Electronic Arts.

El directivo agregó que con la red de distribución de EA ayudarán a que PopCap expanda sus negocios en más dispositivos, más países y más mercados.

"Escogimos a EA porque eran los que mejor entendían la cultura de crear increíbles juegos digitales. Con ellos, nosotros llevamos nuestros títulos y servicios a una audiencia más global", comentó por su parte David Roberts, CEO de PopCap.

PopCap Games fue fundada en Seattle en el 2000 y es reconocida por diseñar juegos como Plants vs. Zombies, Zumba y Bejeweled. Actualmente sus títulos se pueden utilizar en computadoras, ‘tablets', consolas de videojuegos y en teléfonos inteligentes con sistema operativo de Apple, Android y Windows Phone.

Al finalizar 2010, la firma tenía poco más de 400 empleados y reportó ganancias de aproximadamente 100 millones de dólares.

EA se fundó en 1982 y ha realizado éxitos para consolas caseras como Battlefield, Need for Speed, Dragon Age, Dead Space, y las series de deportes FIFA y Madden, entre otras. Tiene más de 8,000 trabajadores y al finalizar 2010 reportó ganancias por 677 millones de dólares.

EU apuesta por manufactura fronteriza - Economía - CNNExpansion.com

Crece el interés de firmas estadounidenses en la frontera norte de México, según The New York Times; las inversiones de los últimos meses se registran en las industrias electrónicas y de autopartes.

Las inversiones de las firmas de EU han generado un aumento

del empleo en ciudades golpeadas por la delincuencia. (Foto: Photos to Go)

NUEVA YORK (Notimex) — La zona de la frontera norte de México ha aumentado en los últimos meses su atractivo para empresas de Estados Unidos que buscan expandir su producción, según un artículo publicado este lunes en The New York Times.

El diario destacó que "más aparatos de televisión son ensamblados, autopartes son empaquetadas y dispositivos electrónicos son soldados en las enormes plantas manufactureras conocidas como maquiladoras" en esa región del país.

Tales inversiones, realizadas principalmente en las industrias electrónicas y de autopartes, han resultado en un vigoroso crecimiento en el número de empleos en las ciudades que han sido más golpeadas por la violencia del narcotráfico.

El número de empleos en el sector de la manufactura en México aumentó 8.2% en enero para alcanzar los 1.8 millones, de acuerdo con las últimas cifras disponibles. El comercio de Ciudad Juárez con Texas repuntó 47% durante el año pasado.

Las empresas atraídas a la frontera norte de México son estadounidenses en su mayoría, aunque también se han registrado recientemente inversiones de firmas de Taiwán y Corea del Sur.

El atractivo de la frontera para las empresas de Estados Unidos sigue siendo la cercanía con su mercado doméstico, además de que los altos costos del transporte y el tipo de cambio del yuan la favorecen con respecto de China.

Pese al reciente dinamismo en la frontera, el diario aclaró que las inversiones en los últimos meses aún no han logrado reponer los empleos perdidos durante la recesión ni tampoco el nivel de inversión extranjera directa anterior a 2008.

Sony eyes electric car future, wants to soon sell you Li-ion batteries -- Engadget

By Joseph Volpe

Sony must be smelling dolla dolla bills in the EV-charged streets because the company just announced its intentions to fab lithium-ion batteries for the cars mid-decade. The statement, made from its plant in Motomiya, hinges on a future market flush with consumer demand for the earth-friendly autos, and could see the construction of several dedicated factories. Given the Japanese company's recent history eating bits of competitor dust (hello Wii and iPod), we understand its forward-facing desire to become king of this Li-ion hill. But the mega-electronics maker isn't placing all of its batteries in one fuel-source just yet -- it's "also [considering] developing batteries for gasoline-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids" -- should they win the green energy popularity contest. While we applaud the company for encouraging adoption of the environmentally-friendlier tech, we'd much rather see them make batteries for this bad boy from tomorrowland.

TechCrunch Mainichi Shimbun

eBay Buys Zong For $240 Million In Cash To Boost PayPal’s Mobile Payments Technology

Leena Rao

eBay has acquired mobile payments company Zong for $240 million in cash. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2011.

Zong has been one of the pioneers in the mobile payments space, adding a compelling new way for consumers to pay for items online. Simply put, it lets you pay for things, particularly virtual goods online, via direct billing to your mobile phone. Consumers simply enter their mobile phone numbers in the payments process.

When a user wants to purchase an item, he can enters his cell phone number on a site, the site sends a text message to the phone, the user confirms the transaction with a short reply, and all the charges show up on his phone bill. Zong powers this entire transaction. The company has partnered with over 250 carriers worldwide to offer the technology to mobile phone users.

eBay says that Zong will add ‘complementary technology and talent’ to its PayPal division, giving consumers more ways to pay for virtual goods and products online. Scott Thompson, president of PayPal, said this in a release: “Commerce is changing. With mobile phones, we walk around with a mall in our pockets. PayPal helps to make money work better for customers in this new commerce reality – no matter how they want to pay or what device they’re using…We believe that Zong will strengthen this value by helping us reach the more than 4 billion people who have mobile phones, giving them more choice and security when they pay.”

Zong, which was founded in 2008 by entrepreneur David Marcus, has raised a total of$27.5 million in funding. Matrix Partners’ Dana Stalder, who was the former CTO of PayPal, is on Zong’s board of directors.

Stalder tells us that he’s spent a lot of time looking at financial services technology, and Zong was one of his first investments in the venture world. “It was clear to me at the time that we had space to build something big here,” he explains. In the digital goods category, carrier billed payments account for 50 percent of payment volume. It’s a frictionless payments mechanism, he says, and this makes it ideal for digital goods. For digital good providers, carrier billing provides the highest conversions and Zong helps PayPal shore up this category.

Last year, Zong was spun off from its European parent, Echovox, and Marcus moved to the U.S. to run the fast growing company, which landed a pretty big deal last year with Facebook to become a an early mobile payment provider for Facebook Credits. Other partners include IMVU, Sulake (makers of Habbo Hotel), Big Fish Games, Sony Online Entertainment, Zynga, Playdom (owned by Disney), and Bigpoint. The company also launched Zong+, an extension of the mobile payment startup which lets users bill microtransactions to credit, debit and prepaid cards (instead of their phones).

Marcus wrote in a post on the company’s site: I am so excited by the unique combination of PayPal’s 8 million merchants, brand power, risk management expertise, and financial stability, with Zong’s Carrier DNA, its largest direct carrier payments network, product innovation, and best-in-class carrier billing technology. This industry first is going to allow us to scale what we’ve built over the course of the past 3 years (and then some) in a massive way!

Zong faces competition from Boku, which was also rumored to be the target of an acquisition as well.

eBay and PayPal have been on a bit of an acquisition spree, so it’s not surprising that the e-commerce giant made another big buy. PayPal is facing competition from fast growing startups like Square and even Google, and the payments company needs to add compelling technologies to help draw merchants, consumers and local businesses. As we’ve seen in the past few months, PayPal acquired local payments and advertising company Where, and shelled out cash for mobile payments company Fig Card as well.

Zong provides a seamless payments product that could help improve conversions for online merchants and digital goods (PayPal processed $3.4 billion in transactions for digital goods in 2010), and in the end, frictionless online payments is PayPal’s bread and butter. In fact, PayPal just upped estimates of the amount of mobile payments transactions using the technology this year; doubling the estimate to $3 billion in mobile total payments volume (TPV) in 2011.

PayPal’s CFO Patrick Dupuis tells us the acquisition is an expansion of vision fo enabling commerce anytime anywhere, adding another payments source for PayPal’s 9 million merchants. Marcus tells us that PayPal’s ability to scale and accelerate with Zong’s built made it an appealing new home.

Another draw for PayPal—Zong has pretty massive international reach, offering mobile payments in in 21 languages and 45 countries. The service’s technology is especially appealing in countries where mobile phone usage is high (as opposed to internet connectivity). Zong should also help PayPal expand its footprint in developing countries.

In terms of integration, PayPal and Zong arent’s saying much as to how Zong will be branded in the future. Marcus says he will be staying on at PayPal.

Unsurprisingly, Dupuis says that Marcus and his team will have a critical role in PayPal’s future transformation in the payments business. Stalder echoes this sentiment, explaining that PayPal, with Zong in hand, is in a better position to create the digital wallet of the future.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/07/ebay-acquires-mobile-payments-company-zong-for-240-million-in-cash/

Los 5 ‘pecados mortales’ de BlackBerry - Tecnología - CNNExpansion.com

¿Quieres tener éxito? Ve lo que ha hecho el fabricante del teléfono inteligente…y haz lo contrario; RIM ha caído en una espiral descendente ante la competencia de Apple y Google.

Las acciones de RIM han perdido más del 50% de su valor desde febrero. (Foto: AP)

Por: Kevin Kelleher

En el ultracompetitivo mundo de la tecnología móvil, vales tanto como tu última innovación. De allí que las marcas se encumbren y caigan a una velocidad vertiginosa. Pero aun bajo esos estándares acelerados, la caída de Research in Motion (RIM) este año ha sido súbita y brutal.

Las acciones de RIM han perdido más del 50% de su valor desde febrero, y su cuota en el mercado estadounidense de los smartphones ha decrecido de 34% a 24% en los últimos ocho meses. El teléfono BlackBerry solía ser el celular más codiciado hasta la llegada del iPhone de Apple y de los teléfonos con software Android de Google. Competir contra estas compañías ya es bastante difícil, pero la gerencia de RIM, además, ha cometido este año varios errores graves que han convertido su declive en una completa crisis corporativa. Se trata de un caso de estudio para aquellos que quieren aprender cómo no se debe gestionar una crisis, comenzando por estas cinco lecciones:

No hagas promesas que no puedas cumplir. El 28 de abril, RIM dijo que en el actual año fiscal esperaba obtener una ganancia de 7.50 dólares por acción, citando los nuevos productos BlackBerry que serían lanzados más tarde en el año. Algunos analistas cuestionaron esta optimista previsión de beneficios, calculando que la ganancia por acción estaría más bien cercana a los 6 dólares. Y efectivamente, RIM publicó los resultados financieros del primer trimestre y ajustó a la baja su previsión de beneficios, entre el rango de los 5.25 dls y los 6 dólares por acción.

¿Qué sucedió? RIM había depositado sus esperanzas alcistas en los proyectos que la compañía preparaba, pero luego tuvo que retrasar los lanzamientos. Las actualizaciones de los modelos BlackBerry Torch y Storm aparecieron a finales del verano, después de lo esperado. Y en 2011, un smartphone tardío es un smartphone muerto. Ante la noticia de la demora, las acciones de RIM cayeron 27%, su nivel mínimo en casi cinco años.

No lances productos a medio hacer. Los retrasos en lossmartphones coincidieron con el accidentado lanzamiento de la tablet de RIM, la PlayBook. Las reseñas que recibió la pizarra fueron mixtas, la crítica más preocupante fue que la PlayBook no contaba con el servicio de correo electrónico que hace tan atractivos los teléfonos BlackBerry para los usuarios. En consecuencia, las ventas iniciales comenzaron bien pero cayeron pronto. La PlayBook se sentía como un producto que se lanzó precipitadamente al mercado para competir con la iPad.

Es mejor atraer a los desarrolladores, no alejarlos. A fin de cuentas, una plataforma móvil es tan buena en la medida en que lo son los desarrollares que escriben para ella. Antes incluso de que HP comprara Palm, WebOS era un buen sistema operativo, pero no logró atraer a una importante cantidad de desarrolladores. Pese a la fortaleza de RIM en el mercado empresarial, los desarrolladores han preferido hacer aplicaciones para iOS y Android. RIM intentó remediar este abandono anunciando que sus dispositivos podrán ejecutar aplicaciones de Android, pero esto puede resultarle contraproducente. Hay señales de que esta decisión ha alejado a los desarrolladores de la nueva plataforma de RIM, la QNX, que alimenta a la PlayBook.

No mates al mensajero. Luego de que el sitio de noticias tecnológicas Boy Genius Report publicara una carta anónima pero auténtica de un ejecutivo de RIM, la compañía respondió con su propio comentario anónimo. RIM hizo bien en responder la carta, pero erró en la forma de hacerlo. La carta tenía ideas sensatas, aún si eran difíciles de digerir para la cúpula de RIM: admitir que Apple "borda"smartphones, centrarse en los consumidores y no en los operadores de telefonía y considerar un presidente ejecutivo con "experiencia e ideas innovadoras".

La respuesta de RIM fue una de las acciones más torpes en materia de relaciones públicas en los últimos tiempos. Desestimó campantemente las sugerencias de la carta con una declaración de rechazo. ("RIM está totalmente consciente tanto de los retos como de las oportunidades que encara la compañía, y los aborda de forma agresiva"). Peor, se puso a atacar al autor, sugiriendo que era un "fraude" o que tenía "motivaciones ocultas." Esta respuesta inspiró una docena de críticas, a cada cual más apasionada, de los empleados de RIM, actuales y antiguos.

Hacer oídos sordos hubiera sido una mejor respuesta: RIM se vio arrogante y altiva.

La lealtad no se da por sentado. Esta lección pone de manifiesto al resto. Hace tan sólo un par de años, RIM había construido un envidiable grado de lealtad entre sus consumidores, empleados e inversionistas. También estaba en condiciones de ganarse la fidelidad de los desarrolladores. Pero sus errores en los últimos meses han erosionado toda esa buena voluntad.

How This Year’s Tech IPOs Are Doing, And Who’s Next

Leena Rao

Bubble or not, 2011 may go down as the year of the tech IPO. Not since the last bubble have we seen so many technology companies clamoring to go public. And halfway through the year, we still have many more companies who will be listing on either the NASDAQ or the NYSE in the next six months. Here’s a roundup of the tech companies that have gone public, where they are trading now, and who we can expect to see ringing the bell next.

LINKEDIN (NYSE:LNKD)

Professional social network LinkedIn probably had the biggest IPO in terms of hype this year because it was one of the first big social media companies to go public. After pricing its IPOat $45 per share on the New York Stock Exchange, LinkedIn began trading at $83.00 per share on May 19, giving the company a $7.8 billion market cap. In the first day of trading, shares popped up to as high as $122.70, soaring past a $10 billion valuation.

But these high stock prices didn’t sustain and LinkedIn’s value per share dropped significantly over the next month, dropping as low as $63.71 per share. However, the company’s stock rebounded last week, with shares rising as high as $95.50 on Friday, eventually closing at $94.54. That’s a 110 percent increase from its initial pricing.

PANDORA (NYSE:P)

Similar to LinkedIn, music streaming service Pandora also drew considerable attention to its IPO, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the desirable, single character symbol ‘P.’ The company priced its IPO at $16 per share (valuing the company at $2.6 billion), but opened at $20 per share on June 15 (up 25 percent), valuing the company at $3.2 billion.

In the two weeks following the IPO, Pandora’s stock took a bit of a dive, reaching as low as $12.16 per share. But like LinkedIn, Pandora’s shares saw an uptick over the past week, closing at $20.04 on Friday, which is up 25 percent from the company’s initial pricing in June.

YANDEX (NASDAQ:YNDX)

Russian search engine Yandex, which began trading on the NASDAQ on May 24, priced its IPOat $25 per share, but opened at $35, giving Yandex a market cap of roughly $11.2 billion.That’s a bigger market cap than both LinkedIn and Pandora.

Yandex has experienced highs and lows in the past month with the value of its stock, but the fluctuations have not been nearly as extreme as some of its contemporaries in the tech IPO market. Yandex’s stock dipped to a low of $29.73 in mid-June but rebounded quickly and closed on Friday at $35.69, which is a 40 percent increase from its initial pricing.

FUSION-IO (NYSE:FIO)

Fusion-io, the developer of flash- memory technology for companies, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on June 9. The company priced its IPO at $19 per share, valuing Fusion-io at $1.5 billion, but opened at $25 per share, giving the company a nearly $2 billion market cap.

Fusion-io’s stock has performed fairly well over the past month, reaching a high of $36.32 last week. The company’s shares closed at $31.19 on Friday, up 64 percent from its initial pricing.

HOMEAWAY (NASDAQ:AWAY)

Vacation home rental service HomeAway debuted its IPO last week, pricing at $27 per share.HomeAway, which listed on the NASDAQ, saw its shares pop over 30 percent in initial trading last Wednesday, giving the rental service as valuation of $3 billion.

HomeAway’s shares have maintained its value, relatively speaking, in its first week of trading, reaching a low of $34.92 and a high of $42.30. On Friday, HomeAway’s shares closed at $38.42, a 42 percent increase from the stock’s pricing.

RENREN (NYSE:RENN)

Chinese social network Renren actually went public before LinkedIn, pricing its IPO in early Mayat $14 per share, with a total offering size of $743.4 million. The company was pitching itself as a “Facebook” like site for the Chinese market, which resulted in an increase in the share price range from the initial $9-$11 to $12-$14. That increase resulted in a boost in the deal size to $743.4 million from the original price of $584 million.

RenRen opened at $18 per share, but the stock has since plummeted to as low as $6.23 per share. On Friday, RenRen closed at $9.25 per share, which is a 34 percent drop in value from the initial pricing.

BANKRATE (NYSE:RATE)

Bankrate provides free rate information to consumers on more than 300 financial products, including mortgages, credit cards, new and used automobile loans, and more. The company priced its IPO at $15 per share, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. The company’s shares, which began trading in mid-June, have remained fairly steady at this price, reaching a high of $17.89. Bankrate closed at $17.13 per share on Friday, up 13 percent.

Who’s Next Up To IPO

Zillow: Real estate listings giant Zillow filed its S-1 in April, so we could be seeing the company hit the public markets in the next two months. Zillow wants to raise $51.75 million in the offering, and while revenue has grown for the company year over year, Zillow has taked a loss for the past three years. Zillow will trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol “Z.”

Kayak: Travel search engine Kayak filed its S-1 last November, aiming to raise $50 million. No word on when the search engine is planning to IPO, but Kayak did reveal revenue growth in the past year, however net income is down. The company will trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol “KYAK.”

Groupon: Daily deals giant Groupon just filed its S-1 in June, aiming to raise $750 million in the public offering. Though the company has an impressive revenue run rate of $2.6 billion for 2011, but has drawn criticism for a lack of profits and the fact that the founders have taken a significant amount of money off the table. The company is looking at an IPO in the Fall.

Zynga: Zynga just filed for its $1 billion IPO this past Friday, revealing impressive financials. Revenues grew 392 percent in 2010, up from $121.5 million in 2009. In the first quarter of 2011 alone, the company’s revenues reached $235 million (or a $940 million revenue run-rate), which is up 134 percent from the first quarter of 2010. Both Zynga and Groupon may be rushing to IPO ahead of Facebook, which is expected to file in the coming year.

Not Yet Filed, But Champing At The Bit:

Facebook: We know an IPO is in the works for Facebook, it’s just a matter of when. The company has been meeting with bankers to discuss IPO size and time frame for an offering. And the company just added Netflix founder and CEO (and an IPO veteran) Reed Hastings to its board. It’s been thought that the social network will go public by April 2012, but it could happen before this date.

Glam Media: We’ve heard Glam Media, one of the largest publishing and advertising networks on the Web, is planning to file for an IPO as early as this Fall. The company has hit $100 million in annual revenue, reaches 90 million people a month in the U.S., and is in the process of hiring bankers to lead its offering.

Yelp: Online reviews and daily deals giant Yelp has its sights set on an IPO, but the timeline is unclear. Yelp is now at 50 million unique visitors per month, mostly in the U.S., and has raised $56 million in funding.

Disclosure: My husband is an employee of Groupon.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/04/tech-ipos/