Most companies change dramatically after their initial public offering.

There is a reason that Facebook is going public. And while many are speculating as to the reasons by digging through the company's SEC filing, I think Facebook is going public because it needs to now compensate those who have built it to become the impressive empire that it truly is. It may be a simplistic view, but that's my view. The bigger question that is on everybody's mind is: will Facebook change once they are a public company? The answer is, without a doubt, "yes!"

Is that a bad thing?

No. Not at all. Let's face it: Facebook has been changing since it first started. Does Google look anything like Google before its IPO? What about Apple? The best companies, the most innovative companies are the ones who flow in a constant state of iterative change and evolution. Facebook's challenge comes from its size. The sheer volume of users and the sheer value of the valuation will make it have to perform unlike any company that has come before it. When you have over 800 million users (and closely approaching one billion users), any move (big or small) will ruffle feathers and create backlash within the user community. It's a part of the Facebook ecosystem and you can expect that to increase as the public takes stock in the business.

Applaud Mark Zuckerberg.

In preparation for the IPO, Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, embedded a "letter to the shareholders" within the SEC filing (to read the full letter, please go here: Fast Company - Mark Zuckerberg Hacks S-1 Filing With Letter To Shareholders On Eve Of Facebook IPO) that stated: "Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission - to make the world more open and connected. We think it's important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do... We think a more open and connected world will help create a stronger economy with more authentic businesses that build better products and services." While Facebook may not have been created to be a company. It is now a company. A big company. And it's soon to be a company that will answer to Wall Street. I thoroughly enjoyed Zuckerberg's letter and said a silent prayer that Wall Street will listen to what he and the company would like to do. Yes, I'm still that naive (I'd like to think that I'm hopeful for change).

So, what can we expect from Facebook? (here comes the armchair quarterback...)

• A change in people. Once the company becomes public a lot of people will become millionaires. The money will change a vast majority of these people. Some will retire, others will take the money to start their own ventures, many of them will lose their motivation and the majority of them will just go bonkers because they're rich (plastic surgery, fancy cars, big houses, etc...). This has nothing to do with Facebook and is much more an indictment of humanity. It happens in every other business, it will happen at Facebook. They are going to have to replace or augment many of the people who have been there for a long while. This will change the culture and possible product development.
• Mobile. To stay competitive, Facebook is going to have to up their game when it comes to both mobile devices and smartphones. This is where Twitter was making the most advances and now Facebook is going to have to ensure that the mobile and smartphone Facebook experience is as good (if not better) than the Web-based one.
• Touch. While many people simply access Facebook via the web browsers on their iPad and tablets, having a native app that works with a touch navigation (and all of the powerful and different usability that comes along with it) is going to become a much more important component of how Facebook evolves. We are quickly moving to a touchscreen world and Facebook will need to become a leader in this charge.
• Beyond the wall. It started when Facebook started allowing people to embed the "like" button anywhere and everywhere, but Facebook is going to have to open up the platform beyond its walled garden. This may not get as extreme as having true data portability, but with the pending slew of connected TVs, Apple television, Google TV and more, people are going to want to access Facebook within many of these new environments and Facebook should welcome the opportunity to be anywhere and everywhere.
• Currency.  I Blogged about this extensively in March of last year (F-Commerce - Rise Of The Facebook Consumer). With close to one billion connected people, Facebook is not only more populated than the majority of countries, but they have the ability to develop and use their own currency system. It may sound crazy, but one look at Facebook Credits and we could be seeing the very nascent stages of an entirely new monetary system. The idea of people spending money in Facebook and having Facebook provide both the security and transaction to do so is not so far-fetched of an idea anymore.
• Marketing. The dollars mentioned in the SEC filing says it all. Facebook has been profitable for the past three years, and a good chunk of the coin has been from advertising revenue. Facebook is much more than a media channel that can fill slots with advertising. The marketing opportunities behind this engine have yet to truly be developed. It is a rich land full of powerful data that knows a lot about people - from where they are and what they like to who they are connected to and what those people are doing. If you think - for a second - that it's only about advertising, you would be sorely mistaken. Facebook and the marketing that comes along with it will be one of the biggest opportunities for the brand... while at the same time it will create the most discussion from the users.

In the end, I'm hopeful that Facebook will change dramatically... but for the better. What do you think?

By Mitch Joel

Warning: self-promotional Blog post to follow...

I am very excited to announce that the name of my next book is: CTRL ALT DEL - Reboot  Your Business (and Yourself) in a Connected World. The official press release went out this morning via my publisher, Business Plus (an imprint of Grand Central Publishing - Hachette Book Group USA). This is the same publisher as my first book, Six Pixels of Separation, who had the option to pick-up my sophomore business book effort, and I am really (and sincerely) happy that they did. Six Pixels of Separation did some great things (800-CEO-Read ranked it at #13 on their 2010 list of best-selling books, and the book has been translated into French, Korean, Portuguese, Chinese and many more languages around the world). CTRL ALT DEL will be published in the spring of 2013 (early May) and Business Plus has taken worldwide rights to the book (so, expect to see it all over the world in both hardcover, audio and digital formats). Now comes the hard work of pulling it all together.

What's the crux of CTRL ALT DEL?

Six Pixels of Separation was about how (and why) new media had changed business forever. CTRL ALT DEL answers the question "now what?" Now that everyone is on social networks, sharing and conversing, how do you adapt your business to capitalize on just how much our world has changed, and get the edge on where all of this is taking us? I think we've moved past disruption into unchartered territory. If you follow this Blog, you know that this is a time of great upheaval in business. The challenge is that most businesses don't know how to adapt and most of the people who are working for these companies don't know how to change. Technology hasn't just transformed how we buy or how we sell our wares to consumers or how we connect socially. Technology has sent business through a rapid state of genetic mutation and we're still in the middle of this evolution. I call this moment in time: purgatory. We're not in hell... but this certainly isn't heaven either. CTRL ALT DEL will both clear the brush and act as a roadmap through this purgatory. The book will be broken down into two sections. Section one (titled Reboot: Business) looks at the five modern movements that are changing business forever. Section two (titled: Reboot: You) covers the seven triggers that every employee and entrepreneur must have so that they can shift from just doing their jobs to doing the work that they were meant to do.

The real question this book will answer is: do you want to be employable in the next five years?

The book proposal for my second book was supposed to be done two Christmas' ago. I was tinkering with the idea of a book about new business models and how every company could learn from what some of these newer startups were doing, but the flow of the book just wasn't clicking with me. Fast forward to this past holiday season: I was in the shower one morning when everything just fell into place. The whole concept - chapter by chapter - came to me. I spent two days writing a fifteen-thousand word book proposal. I sent it to my literary agent who sent it on to my publisher, and the deal happened in a matter of weeks. I'm really excited because I am writing the book that I would want to read if I were either leading a brand today or thinking about how to move up in an organization or start my own business. The truth is that many are scared because they don't know what to do, while many others see this as one of best opportunities that they will ever have in their professional lifetime. This isn't about simple semantics and shifting mindsets, it's about understanding that during this state of purgatory many business will die and many jobs will disappear, but in the same breath many business will thrive, many new businesses will be created and many new jobs will be invented. The question is: do you want to be employable in the next five years?

I think it's time for business to CTRL ALT DEL. I'm excited about this book and I'm excited for those who are in desperate need of a reboot.

By Mitch Joel

Should you be paid to Blog?

If you want to create a lightning rod of discourse in the online channels, just ask that question. If you want to make that lightning rod look like a mole hill, ask the same question but add in the words, "for The Huffington Post" at the end of the sentence. Don't worry, this is not another Blog post that will evaluate the business model of The Huffington Post (in full disclosure, I write a regular column titled, Media Hacker, every two weeks for The Huffington Post that gives me great pleasure). In today's Montreal Gazette (another publication that I write for and love), there was an article titled, Huffington Post Quebec Loses Bloggers. This is not a geographic story, but a great indication of how traditional media fails to grasp what new media has brought. The crux of the story is that Huffington Post Quebec will be launching next week and nine "high-profile contributors... who had agreed to blog... have now pulled out over controversy they'd be writing for free."

Writing for free is not controversial.

Traditional media seems to believe that unless a writer is being paid, that there is some kind of inequity in the relationship or that someone is being taken advantage of. This is both silly and incorrect. If your full-time vocation is being a writer, you have a choice to get paid to write or to write for free. Simply put: sometimes you're paying the bills and in other instances you are both building a platform and getting promotional benefits from adding your voice in a new and different place. Many of the Bloggers at The Huffington Post leveraged that by-line to get book deals, other writing gigs, speaking opportunities or as a way to bolster their resume (which led to new employment or promotions). I wonder how many of the Bloggers who wrote for free at The Huffington Post and then got a book deal offered back some of that advance to The Huffington Post because without that byline (and the ability for the Blogger to leverage that platform to promote the book), the book deal may not have happened? But, I digress.

The majority of people who Blog for The Huffington Post are not professional writers.

In fact, the majority of the bigger names who contribute to The Huffington Post don't even have a Blog. These politicians, celebrities, artists and thinkers are leveraging (or using) The Huffington Post's massive reach and platform for promotional means. They're using it to put their ideas out there. That was always the spirit of what The Huffington Post offers and it continues to be that way (if you also dig a little deeper, you'll note that The Huffington Post has been hiring a lot of writers, journalists and editors over the past few years). If nine high-profiled individuals have decided that the only way that they would like to take part in a platform like The Huffington Post is to be paid, then they should look at getting a writing gig at some of the newspapers, magazines and TV stations that are promoting a non-news items like this one. If you're not being paid to contribute and anyone can contribute, did The Huffington Post actually "lose" anything? I guess they also lost the other eight million people who live in Quebec who have decided not to contribute?

Does new media undermine journalism?

It's not just about The Huffington Post. There is (still) a tremendous push from professional writers and journalists that providing content for free to online media channels undermines journalism because the content should never be given away for free. The more ardent supporters of this theory will say that it's also killing local writers and taking food away from their families. As a former professional journalist, my reaction is: crazy talk. This Blog has given me both credibility and audience. The output of it has been requests from editors to contribute to magazines, newspapers, TV shows, a significant book publishing deal, speaking opportunities and - most importantly - countless new business opportunities for Twist Image (the main reason we started this Blog in the first place).

Do I get paid to Blog? No. Does Blogging pay? Big time!

I contribute to The Huffington Post and Montreal Gazette for the same reason: to get my name out there in the hopes that it drives many new and powerful opportunities into Twist Image. And - in case you were wondering - so far, so good. If my sole income was based on me selling my words, I would not stop this process at all. In fact, I would recommend ratcheting it up. Why? The more I write for free, the more other media properties want to pay me to write. How strange is this: I have been offered more paid writing opportunities since starting this Blog and contributing to The Huffington Post than when I was a full-time freelance writer back in the nineties.

Everyone benefits.

We live in a free and capitalist society (like it or not). Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything against their will when it comes to contributing to a Blog. It's a choice. If the publisher benefits and the writer benefits, I would argue that everyone benefits. If a writer feels that the publisher will benefit more, there is a very simple resolution: don't do it and start your own. If the writer benefits more than the publisher, maybe the writer should do something to correct that inequity as well. Traditional media is built on a scarcity model (limited space to tell a story and vetted by a small number of editors). New Media is driven by the abundance model (anyone who can contribute is welcome to and the audience will decide what gains traction). It's up to these journalists, writers and bloggers to decide which platform mix works best for their careers.

Now it's your turn: do you think Bloggers should be paid?

By Mitch Joel

That Facebook IPO...

With rumors swirling of Facebook's pending IPO (and the billions at play that go along with it), it does seem like the most opportune time for the online social networking behemoth to go public. With over 800 million users and talk that it will hit a billion connected people by the summer, it doesn't seem like Twitter is a true competitor... or that any other competitors are waiting in the wings. In fact, if Facebook's growth and interest continues to propagate, we can expect that more and more platforms will simply offer social networking solutions that can live and play alongside and within Facebook (much like Twitter does). Think about software that was developed for the Windows platform, and this will be a similar strategy for many of the newer social media startups.

That Pinterest thing.

That being said, Pinterest has been gaining a ton of attention lately and widely regarded as one of the hottest new and shiny bright digital objects to come along in some time. Pinterest is a digital mood board mixed with online scrapbooking. Users create a board (it can be anything from cool pictures of cats to the most fascinating business Blogs) and as you come across pieces of content online (and it can be text, images, audio or video), you "pin" the content (which is done by installing a "pin it" button on your web browser's toolbar). Pinterest creates a mood board or visualization of this content. All of the boards that users create are both public and can be followed by others. Users can also connect to one another, share, comment, collaborate and more.

At first blush this may not sound like anything all that groundbreaking.

Pinterest launched in closed-beta in mid-2010. In August of last year, Time Magazine named it in its "50 Best Websites of 2011" and last December, the analytics firm, Experian Hitwise, said that Pinterest's user-base had forty times the number of visitors it had from only six months prior. It was also this past December that it cracked into the top ten social media sites in the world. At the time of that explosive growth, Pinterest was still not openly available to everyone and those wanting to join were relegated to a waiting list.

Is Pinterest delicious?

For those who have been around the digital block, Pinterest seems like a more modern play on Delicious (which is a social bookmarking service for saving and sharing your web bookmarks). Delicious was created by Joshua Schacter in 2003 as the notion of tagging (or labeling) content to make it findable by others begun to take hold. Delicious got acquired by Yahoo in 2005 and became the defacto destination to share one's bookmarks online. Most recently, the two co-founders of YouTube - Chad Hurley and Steve Chen - purchased Delicious and have tweaked it into a place to "find cool stuff and collect it for easy sharing." Back in 2003, the Internet could not really handle too much audio and video, so text-based platforms were more commonplace. If Schacter were launching Delicious today, it would probably look and feel a lot like Pinterest.

What's with all of this sharing, anyway?

Businesses grapple with Social Media because they have been mis-informed that these platforms provide an opportunity for them to have a conversation with their consumers. While this would be panacea, the truth is that what makes something social is simply its ability to be as findable and shareable as possible (strong engagement and conversation can only happen after the other stuff has been mastered). Platforms like Pinterest are rising in popularity because we live in a world of over-sharing (look no further than the river of tweets on Twitter or your wall on Facebook). The only way we're going to get better at curating and aggregating this mass amount of content and bucketing it in a way that feels more cohesive is through platforms like Pinterest (and it's very friendly visualization of content). By sharing this content - which has been both aggregated and curated by human beings - odds are that some of this over-sharing can transition from the world of uselessness and benign to powerful and fascinating.

It's in the way that you use it.

What also makes Pinterest a platform that has captured the attention of many is that - according to Experian Hitwise - the site is especially popular with women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four (nearly sixty percent of its users). Perhaps the days of new and emerging platforms being dominated by young, male users in the early adoption phase are finally coming to an end, as anybody and everybody has a computer, smartphone and/or tablet in tow? Perhaps the adoption is happening because these newer platforms are simply that much easier and fun to use?

Either way, we're faced with another online place for businesses to pin their hopes on. Pun intended.

The above post is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:

• Montreal Gazette - In the mood for Pinterest.
• Vancouver Sun - not yet published.

Also of Interest:

• 7 Creative Ways Your Brand Can Use Pinterest - via ClickZ.
• Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers - via Mashable.

By Mitch Joel