Surkld's blog: Users

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Thursday, May 19, 2011

LinkedIn values itself at $3billion!

12:42 PM surkld23 No comments

LinkedIn will go public on New York Stock Exchange later this month. In order to do so, the company had to prepare a file containing its figures and valuations.

From the file sent earlier this week to the Securities and Exchange Committee, LinkedIn estimates its valuation at three billion dollars. This committee acts as a gendarme of markets across the Atlantic.

The start-up recognized in its presentation that its growth could slow down in the future but investments are being planned to increase the capacities of the site.

The professional website could even not be profitable this year. In 2010, the network registered fifteen million dollars of profits on a 243 million dollar turnover. This income was 78 million dollars in 2008 so it went up by 300% in two years, which constitutes LinkedIn main argument.

LinkedIn went past the bar of hundred million subscribers. In March 2011, they have reached the amount of 102 million accounts.

Despite of these impressive figures, certain analysts remain sceptical. LinkedIn’s business model is based on the recruitment, the marketing solutions and the “premium” accounts. It is therefore very different from the ones of websites such as Facebook or Zynga that aim at making their users consume via their interfaces.

Investors are more looking for websites that are actually doing their best to make users consume and buy. This might be a problem in the future for LinkedIn but the initial public offer it will get will for sure be a good barometer to estimate the chances of success of other social networks trying to go public.

It will be very interesting to follow LinkedIn’s evolution and from there we should be able to underline future trends. We will then see if we can fear a new “dot com bubble”….

Android Phones and Tablets are not secure!!

5:43 PM surkld23 No comments

A German study revealed today that most of the phones and tablets using Android as an operating system are not secure.

IT specialists of the University of ULM in Germany have demonstrated that the incredible amount of 99,7%(!!) of these terminals present a fault in security. Moreover, the breach is caused by Google itself and doesn’t come from another application.

This negligence allows malicious people to access any kind of data but the ones of Gmail apparently. It means that someone can have access to Google servers and modify them. The diary, the contacts, the text messages and photo albums can also be seen by someone else.

So if you are using a phone or a tablet using Android as an operating system, you should clearly think about checking for any update and install them. All the versions older than a month are subject to be affected.

Until the problem is not entirely solved by Google, it is also suggested to Android users to deactivate their automatic connection to WI-FI networks.

After Facebook and Apple, Google also seems to have problems dealing with private information and data.

Is it still possible to imagine our information as being private? We seriously doubt so..

Facebook is now inspiring parents… sad or funny?

5:03 PM surkld23 No comments

Looking for an original first name for their daughter, an Israeli couple was inspired by Facebook and named their baby " Like ", reported the daily paper Maariv today.

The parents chose this first name according to the icon " Like " from the popular social network, which the Internet users use to mean that they appreciate the information posted by someone else.

" We named our daughter Like because it is modern and innovative ", declared in the Israeli newspaper the father of the baby, Lior Adler. "I verified that the first name existed nowhere else in the country because it was the priority for me ", he explains. " In our opinion, it is the modern equivalent of the first name Ahava (love in Hebrew) ".

As you can imagine, the birth was announced on Facebook and the parents were delighted to notice that the news received 40 Likes.

It is not the first time they give an unusual first name to one of their children. Fascinated by cooking, they wanted to share their taste and called their first two daughters "Pie" and "Vash" (honey in Hebrew).

Let’s hope for the girls that people won’t be too harsh to them. Parents might have forgotten that kids are pretty mean in school..

“Planking", the new trend on social networks!!

11:53 AM surkld23 No comments

A new trend has appeared on social networks lately and Surkld wanted to share this story with you as we had a good laugh hearing it.

This new wave, called “planking” consists of lying down on the stomach in unusual and sometime dangerous places. Someone has then to take a picture and post it online on social networks’ accounts.

Watch this great compilation:

From our point of view, it sounds quite fun and seems to be harmless but apparently not to everyone.

Michael Brannon, 20 years old Australian, got arrested by the police while he was performing his “planking” on one police car.

Yesterday, the police of the State of Queens land in Australia arrested him and decided to pursue him for “being on police equipment without any prior authorization”.

Michael Brannon, on his side, wrote on Facebook “quite frankly, I think it is absolutely ridiculous for them to arrest me. We were just having harmless fun and they waste both my time and theirs instead of running after criminals”.

In Australia, “planking” Facebook page counts around 10,000 fans and displays hundreds of pictures of people lying down on rails, escalators, fire hydrants and other unusual places.

This is why Australian police decided to monitor closely planking activities.

Matthew Russell, from the police of Gladstone, declared that” planking can be dangerous and its followers take the risk of exposing themselves to further legal proceedings”. He explains it by the fact that “people are putting themselves in danger by always trying to do more than their neighbour”.

Whether you find it stupid or not, we have to admit that some people really have a limitless imagination.

How to prevent and treat Migraine

11:39 AM surkld1 No comments

The goals of preventive therapy are to reduce the frequency, painfulness, and/or duration of migraines, and to increase the effectiveness of abortive therapy. Another reason to pursue these goals is to avoid medication overuse headache (MOH), otherwise known as rebound headache. This is a common problem among migraneurs, and can result in chronic daily headache.

Many of the preventive treatments are quite effective. Even with a placebo, one-quarter of patients find that their migraine frequency is reduced by half or more, and actual treatments often far exceed this figure.

There are many medicines available to prevent or reduce frequency, duration and severity of migraine attacks. They may also prevent complications of migraine. Beta blockers such as Propranolol, atenolol, and m etoprolol, calcium channel blockers such as amlodipine, flunarizine and verapamil, the anticonvulsants sodium valproate, divalproex gabapentin and topiramate and tricyclic antidepressants are some of the commonly used drugs.

These drugs, however, may give rise to undesirable side effects, such as insomnia, sedation or sexual dysfunction.

There is some evidence that low-dose asprin has benefit for reducing the occurrence of migraines in susceptible individuals.

Barilla Project made by Biagio Angelo Guarino & Roberto Zappa

3:48 PM surkld1 No comments

This project has been done few months ago at the European School of Economics in London,

these two students are doing a master Msc in Marketing and Management.

it's a project regarding Barilla spa and CSR/sustainability of this amazing company.

analysis and suggestions have been made thanks Mrs Alzira a Lecturer at ESE.

Surkld's point of view: it's a very good analysis that clearly explain how the company is doing to develop their business but in the same time taking care about environment and population.