Zing Events

As Facebook turns to Wall Street in the biggest public offering ever by an Internet company, it faces a new, unenviable test: how to keep growing and enriching its hungry new shareholders.

The answer lies in what Facebook will be able to do — and how quickly — with its crown jewel: its status as an online directory for a good chunk of the human race, with the names, photos, tastes and desires of nearly a billion people.

Facebook’s shares are expected to begin trading as early as this week. Already, lots of investors are scrambling to buy those shares, with giddy hopes that it will become a big moneymaker like Google. Because of that high demand, Facebook is expected to increase its offering price from its initial range, giving the company a valuation possibly as high as $104 billion.

In the eight years since it sprang out of a Harvard dorm room, Facebook has signed up users at breakneck speed, kept them glued to the site for longer stretches of time and turned a profit by using their personal information to customize the ads they see.

Whether it can spin that data into enough gold to justify a valuation of as much as $104 billion remains unclear.

“We know Facebook has an awful lot of data, but what they have not worked out yet is the most effective means of using that data for advertising,” said Catherine Tucker, a professor of marketing at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They are going to have to experiment a lot more.”

Analysts, investors and company executives can rattle off any number of challenges facing the company. As it works to better match ads to people, it has to avoid violating its users’ perceived sense of privacy or inviting regulatory scrutiny. It needs to find other ways to generate revenue, like allowing people to buy more goods and services with Facebook Credits, a kind of virtual currency. Most urgently it has to make money on mobile devices, the window to Facebook for more and more people.

All the while, its ability to innovate with new features and approaches — to “break things,” in the words of Mr. Zuckerberg — may be markedly constrained once it has investors to answer to.

An investor said “They have built an incredibly valuable asset — as opposed to a business they have executed well.”

On my journey into London this morning for a client meeting, I happened to open the newspaper to this article which has answered many of my questions which I raised in last weeks blog  http://zingevents.co.uk/blog/2012/05/02/qr-code/

The article was written by @McGuinessRoss of Metro and I thought I would share it with you.

We all know that one of the keys to great SEO is making sure you keep your website updated, new and fresh. Whether you do this with a blog, or you change your homepage with new offers, coupons or new products, it serves to show Google that your site is “alive.” For many small businesses in particular, this is a real challenge.

They come to us from Japan where they are very common. QR is short for Quick Response (they can be read quickly by a mobile phone). They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it in to your mobile phone. You may soon see QR Codes in a magazine advert, on a billboard, a web page or even on someone’s t-shirt. Once it is in your mobile phone, it may give you details about that business (allowing users to search for nearby locations), or details about the person wearing the t-shirt, show you a URL which you can click to see a trailer for a movie, or it may give you a coupon which you can use in a local outlet.

The reason why they are more useful than a standard barcode is that they can store (and digitally present) much more data, including url links, geo coordinates, and text. The other key feature of QR Codes is that instead of requiring a chunky hand-held scanner to scan them, many modern mobile phones can scan them.

Your business, no matter how small or large, could use QR codes in a number of ways. You might auto generate one next to every product on your web site containing all the product details, the number to call and the URL link to the page so they can show their friends on their mobile phone. You could add one to your business card containing your contact details so its easy for someone to add you to their contacts on their mobile phone.

Add them to any print advertising, flyers, posters, invites, TV ads etc containing:

• Product details
• Contact details
• Offer details
• Event details
• Competition details
• A coupon
• Twitter, Facebook, MySpace IDs
• A link to your YouTube video

At Zing we are considering strongly of embedding a QR code into our latest business cards.

In true Zing fashion – we are finding every opportunity to talk about the games. We simply love it!

100. Day to go until the opening of London 2012 summer olympics!

99. Training dolls supplied for wrestling and judo events.

98. Ninty eight percent of companies who’ve won games related contracts are UK based.

97. Ninty percent of athletes live within 30 minutes of their event venue.

96. Atlanta Olympics 1996 – Muhammed Ali lit the flame.

95. Ninty five percent of the UK population will be within 10 miles of the Olympic flame in 2012.

94. Silver medals ever won by Canada in Summer games.

93. Kg’s weight division in which judo star David Starbrook won medals in 1972 and 1976.

91. Age of Reg Whittaker who will carry the torch through Huntingdon.

90.17 Olympic javelin throw record.

89. Medals won by Germany at the 1936 Berlin games.

88. Since the last Olympics in Paris.

87. Countries that won medals at the 2008 Beijing games.

86. Million pounds it cost to build the Velopark.

84. Thousand employment opportunities created by the Atlanta games.

83. Gold medals won by USA at 1984 Los Angeles games.

82. Million Americans watched Michael Phelps win his eighth gold medal at Beijing.

81. Million pounds is the budget for both opening and closing ceremonies at London 2012.

80. Years drought for Team GB winning a gymnastics medal before the Beijing games.

79. Number of countries to win medals at the 1996 Atlanta games.

78. All Out! France’s first-innings score of the 1990 Olympic cricket tournament.

77. KG weightlifting category competition at ExCel on August 1st.

76. Miles of temporary fencing for London 2012.

75. Thousand people at the Seoul 1988 opening ceremony.

74. Olympic records broken at 1980 Moscow games.

73. KG category to be included in the Judo programme – London 2012.

72. Age of the oldest Olympian ever.

71. Age of the Oldest Olympian at London 2012.

70. Days to complete the torch relay.

68. Capacity of the London 2012 Olympic Stadium.

67. Million visitors to the Montreal Olympic Stadium since 1976 games.

66. Towns included in the torch relay.

64. Thousand – capacity of Berlin 1936 Olympic Stadium.

63. Medals won by China at Athens 2004.

62. Current age of Mark Spitz.

61. Articles in the Olympic Charter (Set of rules).

60. Meters is the height of the London 2012 Olympic Stadium.

59. Ft. Olympic Triple Jump record.

58. KG will be the most fiercely competed taekwondo events.

57. % of construction materials delivered to the Olympic Park by rail.

56. KM of timber laid to form the Velodrome track.

55. Main sponsors for 2012.

54. IOC votes which won the London campaign.

53. sets of lane ropes to be used in all pools.

52. Electricity pylons removed before building the Olympic Village.

51. Gold medals won by China in 2008.

50. Pence coins have been circulated to celebrate the games.

49. The 49′er class will be a big sailing event at 2012.

48. Hours to prepare the ‘Copper Box’ fencing venue after the handball finishes.

47. Medals won by Team GB at Beijing 2008.

46. Million unique visits to NBC’s site during Vancouver Winter Games.

45. Hectares of wildlife within the Olympic Park.

44. Nations competed at Paris 1924.

43. World records broken at Beijing 2008.

41. Countries competing in the equestrian events 2012.

40. Boxing contestants at 2012.

39. Year old Bulgarian gymnast will be appearing at his sixth Olympics.

38. Years old when Sir Redgrave won his fifth gold at Sydney 2000.

37. Competition venues for 2012.

36. Nations competing in the Mountain Biking.

35. Meters high – the basketball arena.

34. Different Olympic venues.

33. London boroughs that the torch relay will run through.

32. Age of Chris Hoy when he won 3 Gold’s at Beijing.

31. Final position in the Tour de France for Geraint Thomas last year.

30. New bridges built around the Olympic Park.

29. Age of Japanese multiple gold medalist Kosuke Kitajima.

28. Days it took to dig under the A12 motorway into the Olympic Park.

27. July 1996 a terrorist attack on Atlanta 1996 games.

25. September 2000 – the date Cathy Freeman won Gold in Sydney.

24. Hours a day footage provided by BBC.

23. Teams currently qualified for Mens Football.

22. Countries competed at London 1908.

21. August 1986 is the birthday of Usain Bolt.

20.  Years without winning a swimming gold before Rebecca Adlington.

19. Golds won by Team GB at Beijing.

18. Age of Tom Daley – Team GB’s diver.

17. Days of competition at 2012.

16. Square meters of floor space afforded to each athlete in the Games Village.

15. Cubic meters of water per second that rushes down the 300m white water rafting facility.

14. Record number of individual medals won by a Russian Gymnast.

13. Months taken to build the Water Polo arena in Strtford.

12. Times Johnny Weissmuller (Olympic Champion) played Tarzan.

11. Residential blocks within the Olympic Village.

10. Events in the decathon.

09. Cities that bidded for the 2012 games.

08. Gold medals won by Michael Phelps at Beijing.

07. mm thickness of each Olymic Medal.

06. Miles of road built within the Olympic Park.

05. Thousand capacity of the Water Polo venue.

04. Medals won by Lord Coe.

03. Olympic Park Venues that will host events simultaneously over the first weekend.

02. New sports to be added to the Rio 2016 – Golf and Rugby Sevens.

01. London is the 1st city to host the Summer Games three times – 1908, 1948, 2012.

We hope you enjoyed these facts as much as we have! Check out our ‘The Olympian’ event. A brand new and bespoke event especially for the Olympics.

Einstein once said that the “definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”

Congratulations to Pimms who had a completely new and innovative idea to kick-starting the British Summer of 2012 by constructing the worlds largest ever red and white striped deckchair on Bournemouth beach. Simply the most quintessentially British Summer object.   At a whopping 8.5metres tall and 5.5metres wide and a weight of 6 tonnes – this is one deckchair that refused to blow over.

With a Diamond Jubilee, Olympics and Paralympics all in London this Summer, its sure to be memorable!For this exact reason, at Zing Events we have been creating new-and-original team building events that harness all of the excitement and good spirit which is already building with these great events in the calendar.