Facebook goes Public

Last Friday Facebook finally went public. This means that for the first time members of the public can buy shares in the social media website. This transition has been long awaited for the eager investors that are ready to start buying one of the most valuable commodities that Facebook offers, personal information. 

All the comotion surrounded the Nasdaq offer as shares of the company - now worth between $80 billion and $110 billion - rose and fell all day on Friday the 18th. Increased doubts surrounding Facebook's business model meant the social network’s stock failed to launch as expected on its first day. Instead the IPO’s underwriters were forced to step in to prevent the shares slipping below their offer price of $38. At the market’s close the share price ended at $38.23, giving the company a market capitalisation of $105 billion.

How Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg handles the now public company and if it can continue to grow and make stockholders happy are questions that stock market analysts will debate for months. Zuckerberg and his team, need to show they can increase revenues fast enough to justify a stockmarket valuation that is more than 100 times Facebook’s 2011 profit.

Just days before going public GM Motors withdrew their advertising from Facebook which was reported to be 10 million dollars. They obviously felt that this form of advertising wasn't effective enough. This could be worrying for Facebook in the future.

One other possible concern is that they don't have an operating system or browser to guarantee its presence on mobile phones. Apple has iOS and Safari. Google has Android and Chrome. Microsoft has Windows Phone and Internet Explorer. The company depends on apps and the mobile Web. This could be dangerous, particularly because Facebook's mobile apps aren't very well regarded. Zuckerberg identified this problem and at a recent IPO roadshow he stated that improving the mobile app is his number one priority.

These concerns among others will lead to interesting times ahead for Facebook. One thing is for certain, when they release their financial information it will be scrutinized in minute detail which will produce some eagerly anticipated findings.

The Future of the Catholic Church in Ireland

This week the Catholic Church held a conference in Dublin which was attended by over 1,000 people, to discuss the future of the Church in Ireland. The conference was aimed at planning a way forward for the Church in Ireland by discussing controversial issues and discussing ways in which to overcome them. A number of different issues were discussed ranging from the sex abuse scandals to the question of whether or not priests should be allowed to marry.

However, with the increasing number of scandals which have developed surrounding the Catholic Church in Ireland, are conferences like this likely to have any significant effect? Can a formal conference with a mere 1,000 attendees; considering the overall population of Catholics in Ireland, help to reverse the negative effects of all the bad media coverage which has affected the Catholic Church in recent times? The answer to these questions would appear to be no. The Church’s reactions towards many of the scandals which have become apparent in recent times and their attempts to deal with them have been less than effective. Time and time again new scandals have emerged and yet the Church still can’t seem to get it right.

Is it time for them to just give up on trying to restore their image in Ireland? Some may think so; and the declining attendance numbers at mass may signify that there is simply no point anymore. The scandals combined with the decreased emphasis on religion as part of the Irish lifestyle is obliterating the demand for the Catholic Church in Ireland. It seems that the Vatican may have this view, considering their reaction to the latest scandal which was reported involving the Irish Cardinal, Sean Brady, who failed to report sexual abuse cases which he became aware of during the 1970’s. It was reported that the Vatican has decided to simply try to reduce the negative effects that this story has elsewhere by trying to downplay the situation, rather than taking a significant stand on the matter in Ireland. It seems they may be prepared to sacrifice the Church’s image in Ireland in the hope that the Irish stories won’t have a detrimental effect elsewhere.

In any case, it seems the Church has lost significant face in Ireland and unless it suggests radical measures to try to overcome their problems here, the situation is likely to worsen. Unfortunately ineffective actions such as conferences, as radical as the ideas put forward at them are, seem unlikely to restore faith in the Catholic Church for the people of Ireland.