You can now wear Zac Posen on your wedding day without going broke.
The designer (who is the keynote speaker at our sold-out conference next week!) is partnering with David?s Bridal on a line called Truly Zac Posen, according to USA Today.
Posen is no stranger to bridal gowns?he?s designed jaw-dropping custom numbers for celebs like model pal Coco Rocha and Portia de Rossi. Of course, those stunning numbers come with an equally stunning price tag: Posen acknowledges his custom gowns are ?a fortune? (and also, obviously, ?worth it?).
Posen?s frothy confections for David?s Bridal, available starting February 2014, will ring in significantly lower: the six styles range from $850 to $1,350. There will also be five special occasion dresses, ranging from $195 to $225. But just because they?re more affordable doesn?t mean that you lose what makes Posen?s designs so special. He says these equally-ornate designs are for a bride who?s ?smashing from the side, stunning from the front and elegant from the back.?
Plus-sized brides can join the (bridal) party as well, since the line is available by special order in sizes 16 to 26 (0 to 14 are available off-the-rack). ?I have such a wide fan base and audience base and diverse base,? Posen told USA Today.
?I wanted to find a place where I could actually address them and dress them.?
All in all, an excitingly democratic offering from one of our favorite designers. From the interior boning to the delicate smattering of rhinestones, Posen has overlooked no detail?including the hang tag. ?It reads like a personal note from me to all my best girlfriends across America,? he says of the final choice.
Using math to kill cancer cellsPublic release date: 14-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Paddy Moore padmoore@ohri.ca 613-737-8899 x73687 Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
OttawaJune 14, 2013Here's a good reason to pay attention in math class. Nature Communications has published a paper from Ottawa researchers today, outlining how advanced mathematical modelling can be used in the fight against cancer. The technique predicts how different treatments and genetic modifications might allow cancer-killing, oncolytic viruses to overcome the natural defences that cancer cells use to stave off viral infection.
"Oncolytic viruses are special in that they specifically target cancer cells," explains Dr. Bell, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine. "Unfortunately, cancer is a very complicated and diverse disease, and some viruses work well in some circumstances and not well in others. As a result, there has been a lot of effort in trying to modify the viruses to make them safe, so they don't target healthy tissue and yet are more efficient in eliminating cancer cells."
Dr. Bell and co-author Dr. Mads Kaern, an assistant professor in the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine and Canada Research Chair at the University's Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology, led a team that has used mathematical modelling to devise strategies for making cancer cells exquisitely sensitive to virus infection killing them without affecting normal, healthy cells.
"By using these mathematical models to predict how viral modifications would actually impact cancer cells and normal cells, we are able to accelerate the pace of research," says Dr. Kaern, who is also cross-appointed to the University's Department of Physics. "It allows us to quickly identify the most promising approaches to be tested in the lab, something that is usually done through expensive and time-consuming trial and error."
Drs. Bell and Kaern have established a mathematical model that described an infection cycle, including the way a virus replicated, spread and activated cellular defense mechanisms. From there, they used knowledge about key physiological differences between normal cells and cancer cells to identify how modifying the genome of the virus might counter the anti-viral defenses of cancer cells. Model simulations were remarkably accurate, with the identified viral modifications efficiently eradicating cancer in a mouse model of the disease.
"What is remarkable is how well we could actually predict the experimental outcome based on computational analysis," says Dr. Bell. "This work creates a useful framework for developing similar types of mathematical models in the fight against cancer."
The research, funded by an innovation grant from the Canadian Cancer Society, is only the beginning, explains Dr. Kaern. "We worked with a specific kind of cancer cell. We will now expand that to look at other cancer cell types and see to what degree the predictions we made in one special case can be generalized to others, and to identify strategies to target other types of cancer cells."
The findings may also help researchers better understand the interaction between these cancer cells and the virus. While one magic cure-all will likely never happen due to cancer's complexity, the researchers have developed a framework where they can learn more about the disease in the cases where the simulations don't match.
"From my perspective, that's the most interesting part," concluded Dr. Kaern. "The most fascinating thing is to challenge existing knowledge represented in a mathematical model and try to understand why these models sometimes fail. It's a very exciting opportunity to be a part of this, and I am glad that our efforts in training students in computational cell biology have resulted in such a significant advancement."
###
The full article, "Model-based Rational Design of an Oncolytic Virus with Improved Therapeutic Potential," was published June 14, 2013, in Nature Communications. The article's authors are: Fabrice Le Buf, Cory Batenchuk, Markus Vh-Koskela, Sophie Breton, Dominic Roy, Chantal Lemay, Julie Cox, Hesham Abdelbary, Theresa Falls, Girija Waghray, Harold Atkins, David Stojdl, Jean-Simon Diallo, Mads Kaern and John Bell.
This research was supported by the Hecht Foundation/Canadian Cancer Society, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Terry Fox Foundation, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Cancer Research Society and National Science and Engineering Research Council.
For more information:
Paddy Moore Manager, Communications and Public Relations
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
613-737-8899 x 73687
613-323-5680 (cell)
padmoore@ohri.ca
Kina Leclair Media Relations Officer
University of Ottawa
613-562-5800 x 2529
613-762-2908 (cell)
kleclair@uOttawa.ca
About the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI)
The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) is the research arm of The Ottawa Hospital and is an affiliated institute of the University of Ottawa, closely associated with the university's Faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences. OHRI includes more than 1,700 scientists, clinical investigators, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staff conducting research to improve the understanding, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human disease. Research at OHRI is supported by The Ottawa Hospital Foundation. http://www.ohri.ca
Research Bringing You Tomorrow's Health Care Today
About the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine
The University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine is nationally recognized as a leader in medical research. Through their intense research activities, the Faculty of Medicine and affiliated research institute partners have contributed significantly to the following uOttawa milestones: second highest growth rate in overall Tri-Council Funding (all programs) since 2003; second in Canada by MacLean's magazine for medical science grants; and the third highest growth rate in Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funding for universities with medical schools since 2003.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Using math to kill cancer cellsPublic release date: 14-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Paddy Moore padmoore@ohri.ca 613-737-8899 x73687 Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
OttawaJune 14, 2013Here's a good reason to pay attention in math class. Nature Communications has published a paper from Ottawa researchers today, outlining how advanced mathematical modelling can be used in the fight against cancer. The technique predicts how different treatments and genetic modifications might allow cancer-killing, oncolytic viruses to overcome the natural defences that cancer cells use to stave off viral infection.
"Oncolytic viruses are special in that they specifically target cancer cells," explains Dr. Bell, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine. "Unfortunately, cancer is a very complicated and diverse disease, and some viruses work well in some circumstances and not well in others. As a result, there has been a lot of effort in trying to modify the viruses to make them safe, so they don't target healthy tissue and yet are more efficient in eliminating cancer cells."
Dr. Bell and co-author Dr. Mads Kaern, an assistant professor in the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine and Canada Research Chair at the University's Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology, led a team that has used mathematical modelling to devise strategies for making cancer cells exquisitely sensitive to virus infection killing them without affecting normal, healthy cells.
"By using these mathematical models to predict how viral modifications would actually impact cancer cells and normal cells, we are able to accelerate the pace of research," says Dr. Kaern, who is also cross-appointed to the University's Department of Physics. "It allows us to quickly identify the most promising approaches to be tested in the lab, something that is usually done through expensive and time-consuming trial and error."
Drs. Bell and Kaern have established a mathematical model that described an infection cycle, including the way a virus replicated, spread and activated cellular defense mechanisms. From there, they used knowledge about key physiological differences between normal cells and cancer cells to identify how modifying the genome of the virus might counter the anti-viral defenses of cancer cells. Model simulations were remarkably accurate, with the identified viral modifications efficiently eradicating cancer in a mouse model of the disease.
"What is remarkable is how well we could actually predict the experimental outcome based on computational analysis," says Dr. Bell. "This work creates a useful framework for developing similar types of mathematical models in the fight against cancer."
The research, funded by an innovation grant from the Canadian Cancer Society, is only the beginning, explains Dr. Kaern. "We worked with a specific kind of cancer cell. We will now expand that to look at other cancer cell types and see to what degree the predictions we made in one special case can be generalized to others, and to identify strategies to target other types of cancer cells."
The findings may also help researchers better understand the interaction between these cancer cells and the virus. While one magic cure-all will likely never happen due to cancer's complexity, the researchers have developed a framework where they can learn more about the disease in the cases where the simulations don't match.
"From my perspective, that's the most interesting part," concluded Dr. Kaern. "The most fascinating thing is to challenge existing knowledge represented in a mathematical model and try to understand why these models sometimes fail. It's a very exciting opportunity to be a part of this, and I am glad that our efforts in training students in computational cell biology have resulted in such a significant advancement."
###
The full article, "Model-based Rational Design of an Oncolytic Virus with Improved Therapeutic Potential," was published June 14, 2013, in Nature Communications. The article's authors are: Fabrice Le Buf, Cory Batenchuk, Markus Vh-Koskela, Sophie Breton, Dominic Roy, Chantal Lemay, Julie Cox, Hesham Abdelbary, Theresa Falls, Girija Waghray, Harold Atkins, David Stojdl, Jean-Simon Diallo, Mads Kaern and John Bell.
This research was supported by the Hecht Foundation/Canadian Cancer Society, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Terry Fox Foundation, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Cancer Research Society and National Science and Engineering Research Council.
For more information:
Paddy Moore Manager, Communications and Public Relations
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
613-737-8899 x 73687
613-323-5680 (cell)
padmoore@ohri.ca
Kina Leclair Media Relations Officer
University of Ottawa
613-562-5800 x 2529
613-762-2908 (cell)
kleclair@uOttawa.ca
About the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI)
The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) is the research arm of The Ottawa Hospital and is an affiliated institute of the University of Ottawa, closely associated with the university's Faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences. OHRI includes more than 1,700 scientists, clinical investigators, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staff conducting research to improve the understanding, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human disease. Research at OHRI is supported by The Ottawa Hospital Foundation. http://www.ohri.ca
Research Bringing You Tomorrow's Health Care Today
About the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine
The University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine is nationally recognized as a leader in medical research. Through their intense research activities, the Faculty of Medicine and affiliated research institute partners have contributed significantly to the following uOttawa milestones: second highest growth rate in overall Tri-Council Funding (all programs) since 2003; second in Canada by MacLean's magazine for medical science grants; and the third highest growth rate in Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funding for universities with medical schools since 2003.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
If we want to develop a new industry, alignment of interests is critical for long-term success.
The structure of a traditional venture capital fund provides two sources of revenues to fund managers. The first is the management fee, which covers the costs of the team, the investment processes, and the monitoring of portfolio companies. It is calculated as a fraction of the total amount invested in the fund and is paid monthly to the management company. The second form of compensation is the carry cost. Early in the life of the fund, the manager and the investors agree on a minimum expected annual financial return. If the return is exceeded, a portion (usually about 20 percent) of the excess amount is due to fund managers as success fee.
This is a structure that has worked relatively well when the objective of the fund is solely financial return. There is a clear alignment of interests between investors and managers: Both sides want to maximize the financial return on investments. But in the case of impact investing, how do we ensure this alignment when impact metrics are also part of what we are trying to achieve?
Impact investments, of course, are made with the intention of generating positive social and/or environmental impact, beyond financial return. This is the exact motivation that made investors join our fund at Vox Capital; blending these two aspects was traditionally seen as irreconcilable. It became clear to us that a more traditional structure that rewarded our team based only on our financial return would not ensure the best alignment between investors and us (fund managers). For this alignment to happen, we needed to link our long-term incentive to the social impact that our fund?s activities are generating.
A good example of this is Sa?til, a Vox Capital portfolio company. Sa?til was created to make it easier for people with no health insurance (75 percent of Brazilians) to access free services already provided by the public sector. The company geo-localized all the public health services providers in every Brazilian city so that the customer, using her ZIP code, could get information on where she should go and what documentation to carry to access a free medication, exam, or vaccination. To monetize the product, Sa?til began selling, on a B2B model, a concierge service for blue-collar employees at large companies, who usually do not have a health plan. The product was so useful that insurance companies wanted to offer this same service to their high-income clients, thus reducing the number of claims and their costs.
Soon enough, it was clear to the management team that it was easier to sell to companies that serve high-income clients, compared to those that employ blue-collar workers. However, the intention of the entrepreneurs and their team (as well as Vox Capital?s) while creating the company was to provide access to low-income clients?to reduce the gap on health care and services that we experience in Brazil. After much discussion, we decided to sell to high-income clients to guarantee the short-term financial results for the company, but to focus primarily on sales and product development for the bottom of the Brazilian pyramid?those who do not have access to a quality health plan. But then, how do you guarantee this mission lock on the long term? How do we guarantee that Vox Capital, as a member of the company?s board, will always vote to serve the less-favored individuals?
The solution we found was to link part of our carry compensation to social impact metrics. That is, we will receive the full 20 percent success fee only if we deliver both the financial return and the social impact expected by investors. The mechanism works as follows: If the fund delivers beyond its benchmark financial return rate, we have access to the full carry compensation only if we also reach a certain level of impact. If we do not reach the minimum expected social impact level, our team is entitled to only half of the carry. At the same time, if the financial return is below its target, we are not entitled to any success fee, regardless of our social impact results, avoiding another potential conflict of interest: managers earning money, even when investors lose it.
The tool we are currently using for impact measurement is Global Impact Investing Rating System (GIIRS). Today, it is the most accepted and adopted methodology within the impact investing market worldwide. Of course, as with any other tool, it still has its limitations, and there is room for improvement. In this sense, and because it is such an important subject for us, we are also committed to helping improve GIIRS so that it increasingly reflects the full impact of our businesses. In fact, the GIIRS team has been consistently responsive to feedback provided by fund managers and investors as to improve their measurement methodology. As the impact-investing infrastructure continues to develop, we are open to adopting a new methodology if one proves more appropriate in the long run.
In a new and growing market like impact investing, it is important to ensure maximum alignment of interests among all players involved in its development. More traditional tools can and should be used, but small changes and adaptations are critical to guarantee that we are actually measuring what we intend to accomplish. It is essential that the structure described in this article is considered as a possible standard in the market. Only then, will impact investors be sure that they are supporting managers who are seeking the same goals. This is an important step in the maturation of the industry, which aims to transform the world for the better through its investments. To achieve that, I believe it is time to link the compensation of managers to social impact, the same way it is linked to financial return, to guarantee that everyone is truly accountable for delivering all the promises that impact investing is making.
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MIAMI (AP) ? Mario Chalmers marched toward midcourt with a message.
"I felt like we had them on the ropes at the time. I told him, 'Let's go for the kill,'" Chalmers said. "He said, 'I'm with you.'"
And once LeBron James joined in, the Miami Heat were back with a blowout in Game 2 of the NBA Finals.
Chalmers led the charge, James broke out to finish it with a flurry and the Heat used a 33-5 run to rout the San Antonio Spurs 103-84 on Sunday night and even the series at one game apiece.
James missed 10 of 13 shots through three quarters and the Heat trailed by a point late in the period before unleashing the lethal brand of basketball that led them to a franchise-record 66 wins this season.
Chalmers finished with 19 points, and James had 17 points, eight rebounds, seven assists and three blocks ? the best on Tiago Splitter's dunk attempt ? while shooting only 7 of 17 from the field.
For two days following Game 1, the thought was that James needed to do more for his teammates. Turns out, it was Chalmers and the supporting cast who did something for James.
"Honestly, for me, when I was struggling offensively, my teammates continued to keep it in range," James said. " And we even had a lead at one point, especially late in the second quarter when we made that run and I was struggling a little bit.
"So I think Rio more than anybody kept us aggressive, him getting into the paint, him getting those and-ones and making a couple of 3s. It allowed me to sit back and wait for my time."
The Heat made 10 of 19 3-pointers and got 13 points from Ray Allen, and 12 points and 10 rebounds from the previously slumping Chris Bosh.
Danny Green made all six shots, including five 3-pointers, and scored 17 points for the Spurs. They host Game 3 on Tuesday night.
Tony Parker had 13 points on 5-of-14 shooting for the Spurs, who were so precise in their 92-88 victory in Game 1 but threw the ball all over the white-surrounded court Sunday, committing 17 turnovers that led to 19 Miami points.
"In the second half they just run us over," the Spurs' Manu Ginobili said. "We didn't move the ball at all. Their pressure really got us on our heels."
Tim Duncan shot 3 of 13 and finished with nine points and 11 rebounds.
"We didn't play well. We didn't shoot well. I know I played awfully," Duncan said. "Whatever it may be, they responded better than us. So hopefully we can look forward to this Game 3 and regain some of our composure."
James insisted he wouldn't force himself to do more after he had a triple-double in Game 1 but never seized the opportunity to take control of the scoring as the game was slipping away from the Heat.
He didn't need to. Not with Chalmers making big shots, the Heat's defense forcing the Spurs to look shaky all over the floor, and a barrage of second-half 3-pointers.
James finally got some openings late, hanging from the rim an extra second not long after a sensational blocked shot freed him up for a fast break.
The often-maligned Chalmers is frequently found in Heat highlights being yelled at by James or another Miami veteran. But he's as cocky as any of the superstars in Miami, and he has the big-moment plays to back up his bravado, from a tying shot for Kansas in the 2008 NCAA championship game to his 25 points in Game 4 of last year's finals.
"You have to have guts to play with our guys. If you don't, you get swallowed up," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "The good thing about it is the other guys were fine with him making plays."
The point guard sparked the Heat late in the third, after San Antonio had taken a 62-61 lead. He converted two three-point plays, Allen and Mike Miller nailed 3-pointers, and James made only his third field goal of the game during a 14-3 finishing spurt that sent Miami to the fourth with a 75-65 advantage.
They opened the fourth with nine straight points to make it 84-65, and capped the run at 94-67 when James made a 3-pointer, erasing any chance of their first two-game losing streak in five months.
"We were just a little bit more active today," Bosh said. "We really just made an emphasis to continue to try to corral them."
The Spurs had only four turnovers in Game 1, tying an NBA Finals record low. But they surpassed that total in the first quarter, Parker committing two of their five after not coughing it up once in the opener, and the Spurs looked more like the sloppy Indiana Pacers from Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals than the Spurs of Game 1.
The unrecognizable play continued, Parker firing passes on the pick-and-roll right into a Heat player's leg on multiple occasions and even getting yanked barely three minutes into the third quarter after his struggles continued.
The Spurs responded with seven straight points without him to get back within one. But by the end of the period, it was Chalmers who was the best point guard on the floor.
The Heat dropped Game 1 in last year's finals, and the first two to Dallas in 2006 before going on to win both titles. But those early deficits came on the road, so Dwyane Wade said Sunday's game was a "must-win game" for the Heat.
They arrived to white shirts hanging on the seats that read "Larry loves Miami" with a picture of the Larry O'Brien trophy that goes to the NBA champion.
Larry's not leaving, not if the Heat keep playing like this.
They looked as good as ever in the final 15 minutes of their 100th game of the season, pouring it on and leaving Spurs coach Gregg Popovich often standing with his arms folded on the sideline, with no answers and no way of slowing down the Heat speedsters.
San Antonio had its seven-game postseason winning streak snapped, as well as a six-game NBA Finals win streak that dated to the 2005 finals.
Duncan, who started 0 of 5 in the opener before finishing with 20 points and 14 rebounds, began 1 for 5 in this one. But he never got untracked, though part of the problem was the Spurs' inability to get him the ball enough because of their turnovers.
Wade finished with 10 points and six assists. Miami committed just six turnovers.
Notes: The Spurs remained at 131 playoff wins, two back of the Lakers for most in the NBA since 1997, when Duncan was drafted. ... Clippers veteran Chauncey Billups, a former NBA Finals MVP, was chosen Sunday as the first winner of the NBA's Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award. It was named for Maurice Stokes, who was paralyzed in an on-court accident in 1958, and teammate Jack Twyman, who became Stokes' legal guardian and watched over him for 12 years until Stokes died in 1970.
___
Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney
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How does the Army train soldiers for guerrilla combat in cities and villages they've never visited? By building replicas of those villages, training a force of fake "insurgents," and hiring actors to populate the scenes. Welcome to Fort Irwin, a 1,000-square mile Army Base where many soldiers train before deploying overseas.
As part of their ongoing a pop-up interview caravan Venue, our brand-new Editor in Chief Geoff Manaugh and his partner, Nicola Twilley, paid a visit to Fort Irwin earlier this year. There, they encountered all manner of surprises, from a bizarre Disney-esque recreation of an Afghan village called Ertebat Shar where actors sell street food and insurgents lurk, to a carefully choreographed truck bomb scene replete with fake blood.
Who plays the part of Ertebat Shar's "insurgent army?" That's Blackhorse Regiment, a team of 120 soldiers whose job is to provide opposition to trainees. "According to Ferrell," Manaugh writes, "their current role as Afghan rebels is widely envied: they receive specialized training (for example, in building IEDs) and are held to 'reduced grooming standards,' while their mission is simply to 'stay alive and wreak havoc.' If they die during a NTC simulation, they have to shave and go back on detail on the base, Ferrell added, so the incentive to evade their American opponents is strong."
The full read is well worth it, but a particular note of interest is how Fort Irwin, in order to reflect the nature of contemporary warfare, differs dramatically from traditional training battlegrounds. Manaugh explains:
The point of these architectural reproductions is no longer, as in the World War II test villages of Dugway, to find better or more efficient methods of architectural destruction; instead, these ersatz buildings and villages are used to equip troops to better navigate the complexity of urban structures?both physical, and, perhaps most importantly, socio-cultural.
As the battle has changed, so has the battlefield. [BLDGBLOG]
FILE - In this May 18, 2012, file photo, provided by Facebook, Facebook founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, center, rings the opening bell of the Nasdaq stock market, from Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Amid the hype and excitement surrounding Facebook's initial public offering, there were looming doubts. Potential investors wondered whether the social network could continue growing its advertising revenue without alienating users. One year later, much has changed at Facebook in a year, including the addition of mobile advertisements, the launch of a search feature and the unveiling of a branded smartphone. (AP Photo/Nasdaq via Facebook, Zef Nikolla, File)
FILE - In this May 18, 2012, file photo, provided by Facebook, Facebook founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, center, rings the opening bell of the Nasdaq stock market, from Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Amid the hype and excitement surrounding Facebook's initial public offering, there were looming doubts. Potential investors wondered whether the social network could continue growing its advertising revenue without alienating users. One year later, much has changed at Facebook in a year, including the addition of mobile advertisements, the launch of a search feature and the unveiling of a branded smartphone. (AP Photo/Nasdaq via Facebook, Zef Nikolla, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? It was supposed to be our IPO, the people's public offering.
Facebook, the brainchild of a young CEO who sauntered into Wall Street meetings in a hoodie, was going to be bigger than Amazon, bigger than McDonald's, bigger than Coca-Cola. And it was all made possible by our friendships, photos and family ties.
Then came the IPO, and it flopped. Facebook's stock finished its first day of trading just 23 cents higher than its $38 IPO price. It hasn't been that high since.
Even amid the hype and excitement surrounding Facebook's May 18 stock market debut a year ago, there were looming doubts. Investors wondered whether the social network could increase advertising revenue without alienating users, especially those using smartphones and tablet computers.
The worries intensified just days before the IPO when General Motors said it would stop paying for advertisements on the site. The symbolic exit cast a shroud over Facebook that still exists. Facebook's market value is $63 billion, some two-thirds of what it was the morning it first began trading. At around $27 per share, the company's stock is down roughly 30 percent from its IPO price. Meanwhile, the Standard & Poor's 500 index is up 27 percent over the same period.
Despite its disappointing stock market performance, the company has delivered strong financial results. Net income increased 7 percent to $219 million in the most recent quarter, compared with the previous year, and revenue was up 38 percent to $1.46 billion.
The world's biggest online social network has also kept growing to 1.1 billion users. Some 665 million people check in every day to share photos, comment on news articles and play games. Millions of people around the world who don't own a computer use Facebook, in Malawi, Malaysia and Martinique.
And much has changed at Facebook in a year. The company's executives and engineers have quietly addressed the very doubts that dogged the company for so long. Facebook began showing mobile advertisements for the first time last spring. It launched a search feature in January and unveiled a branded Facebook smartphone in April. The company also introduced ways for advertisers to gauge the effectiveness of their ads.
Even GM has returned as a paying advertiser.
Now, Facebook is looking to its next challenge: convincing big brand-name consumer companies that advertisements on a social network are as important ? and as effective ? as television spots.
"We aspire to have ads, to show ads that improve the content experience over time," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts recently. "And if we continue making progress on this, then one day we can get there."
To achieve those aims, the company has rolled out tools to help advertisers target their messages more precisely than they can in print or on television. Companies can single out 18- to 24-year-old male Facebook users who are likely to buy a car in the next six months. They can target 30-year-old women who are researching Caribbean getaways.
Analytic tools like these weren't available a year ago. But last fall Facebook hired several companies that collect and analyze data related to people's online and offline behavior. Facebook's advertisers can now assess whether a Crest ad you saw on Facebook likely led you to buy of a tube of toothpaste in the drugstore. The services take what Facebook knows about you and what ads you saw and combine this with the information retailers have about you and what you've purchased through loyalty cards and the like.
Advertisers are also making use of Facebook's partnership with audience measurement firm Nielsen Co. Nielsen introduced a tool last fall that helps marketers discover "not only who saw their ad online and who saw their ad on TV, but also how these audiences match up," says David Wong, vice president at product leadership at Nielsen.
Sean Bruich, Facebook's head of measurement platforms and standards, believes the new tools are paying off.
"What we can see conclusively a year after the IPO is that ads on Facebook really do help drive people into the store and help them make purchasing decisions, help influence their purchasing decisions," he says.
A recent Nielsen analysis found that consumers are 55 percent more likely to recall "social ads" than traditional online ads.
So powerful is Facebook's new analytic arsenal that privacy advocates are growing concerned about the potential intrusiveness of merging consumers' online and offline experiences.
People "are getting served ads based on things they didn't put on Facebook and maybe wouldn't be comfortable putting on Facebook," says Rainey Reitman, activism director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit civil-liberties firm. Facebook says mechanisms are in place to protect privacy.
"We've never had anything like Facebook," Reitman says. "We've never had an entity that was able to collect so much information on so much of the world's population, ever."
Advertisers aren't complaining.
"Anywhere that more than a billion people spend time with their friends each month is extremely valuable to us," says Brad Ruffkess, connection strategist at Coca-Cola.
At Procter and Gamble, the world's biggest advertiser, "we saw almost from the start that social media is the world's largest focus group," says Marc Pritchard, the company's global brand building officer.
Both companies are important advertisers on Facebook and members of the company's client council, a group of more than a dozen brands and ad agencies that have met regularly with Facebook executives since 2011 to talk about advertising and marketing on the site. Other members include Unilever, AT&T, Walmart and GroupM North America, a subsidiary of advertising agency giant WPP.
Still, some advertisers remain skeptical. Ryan Holiday, director of marketing at American Apparel, is critical of Facebook's "sponsored stories." These are messages from marketers that are interwoven into users' news feeds. He says the clothing company spends less than 10 percent of its online advertising budget with Facebook.
One thing is increasingly clear: The future belongs to mobile advertising. And just a year ago, Facebook warned investors it was behind in capturing this market. In response, Facebook retrained engineers and rebuilt its mobile applications, which users complained were clunky. Now, there's an explosion in the number of ads shoehorned in between status updates and cat photos.
"The transition to mobile happened even faster than we believed," says Carolyn Everson, vice president of global marketing solutions at Facebook.
In the first three months of 2013, Facebook generated $375 million in revenue from mobile ads, about 30 percent of its total ad revenue. That's impressive given that Facebook had no mobile ads at all just a year ago.
And there's room to grow. Research firm eMarketer estimates that U.S. mobile advertising spending will grow to $7.29 billion this year, up fivefold from 2011. Facebook is expected to capture some 13 percent of the market, a distant second behind Google at nearly 55 percent, according to eMarketer. By 2015, the mobile ad market is expected to hit $16.2 billion.
Facebook's stronger grasp of mobile advertising helped get General Motors back.
"Mobile was something GM was particularly passionate about," says Everson, who joined Facebook two years ago from Microsoft Corp., where she headed global ad sales.
Everson says she sees Facebook as a future advertising empire. The goal is to help companies achieve so-called cross-platform marketing and target people with ads wherever they might be ? in front of smartphones, tablets or TV sets.
"A lot of people might argue that TV is the first screen and mobile is the companion screen," she says. Her take: Mobile is now the first screen. And Facebook's hope is that advertisers will soon see it this way, too.
"Your customer is walking around with the most personal device they've ever had every single day, checking it 12 to, you know, more than 24 times a day depending on the market," Everson says. "This is a mass medium."
At the end of last year, 87 percent of Americans owned a cellphone and nearly half owned a smartphone, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Worldwide, research firm Gartner puts the size of the mobile phone market at 4.4 million, enough to give one phone for nearly two-thirds of the world's population.
Of course, television still accounts for the biggest slice of worldwide ad spending, and nearly 96 percent of American households own a TV set. ZenithOptimedia, a forecaster owned by the ad agency Publicis Groupe SA, says television accounted for 40 percent of worldwide ad spending, compared with the Internet's share of 18 percent. By 2015, the Internet is expected to grow its share to more than 23 percent, but largely at the expense of newspapers and magazines. TV is expected to hold steady.
"On any given day in the U.S. alone, you can reach 100 million people on mobile," Everson says. "Those numbers are not seen across any TV or print opportunity. I think it's going to take hold, this message."
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Find Barbara Ortutay on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BarbaraOrtutay
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Public release date: 14-Jun-2013
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