By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer

PALO ALTO, Calif. - As Facebook.com’s mastermind, Mark Zuckerberg is sitting on a potential gold mine that could make him the next Silicon Valley whiz kid to strike it rich.

But the 22-year-old founder of the Internet’s second largest social-networking site also could turn into the next poster boy for missed opportunities if he waits too long to cash in on Facebook Inc., which is expected to generate revenue of more than $100 million this year. The bright outlook is one reason Zuckerberg felt justified spurning several takeover bids last year, including a $1 billion offer from Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news)

“We clearly have a bias toward building than selling,” Zuckerberg said in a recent interview. “We think there is a lot more to unlock here.”

The build-or-sell dilemma facing Zuckerberg is becoming more common among the precocious entrepreneurs immersed in the latest Internet craze, a communal concept of content-sharing that has been dubbed “Web 2.0.”

Besides Facebook, other Web 2.0 startups frequently mentioned as prime takeover targets include online video site Metacafe Inc. and Photobucket Inc., which has emerged as one of the Internet’s busiest destinations by hosting personal videos and photos that are routinely linked to top social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

These sites find themselves at a critical juncture reached several years ago by the Internet’s first big social-networking site, Friendster.com, which chose to stay independent instead of selling. That decision is now regarded as one of Silicon Valley’s biggest blunders.

Web 2.0 startups have emerged as hot commodities because they are drawing more people away from television, newspapers and other media traditionally used for advertising. Online video channels and socials networks, a catchall phrase attached to sites that enable people with common interests to connect and deepen their bonds, are particularly hot.

Deep-pocketed companies are now angling for a piece of the Web 2.0 action — a quest that already has yielded a couple big jackpots, helping to propel the sales prices of startups to their highest levels since the dot-com boom.

News Corp. paid $580 million in 2005 to buy MySpace, the largest social-networking site, and Google Inc. snapped up video-sharing pioneer YouTube Inc. for $1.76 billion late last year.

“I’m surprised a lot more companies haven’t already been bought,” said Reid Hoffman, a veteran Silicon Valley executive who has invested in many startups, including Facebook. “My hunch is the deals are only going to get more expensive in 2008 and 2009.”

In 2006, the average price paid for a startup funded by venture capitalists rose 19 percent to $114 million. That was the highest amount since the dot-com frenzy of 2000 when the average price of venture-backed startups peaked at $337 million, according to data from Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association.

If the dealmaking market continues to heat up, Zuckerberg will end up looking smart for rebuffing Yahoo and other suitors that included Microsoft Corp. and Viacom Inc.

Assuming Facebook hits its financial targets, the Palo Alto-based company should be able to command a sales price well above $1 billion or pursue an even more lucrative initial public offering of stock in the tradition of Google, Yahoo Inc., eBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. — a group of Internet icons now worth a combined $250 billion.

A Facebook sale or IPO is bound to happen eventually so the startup’s early investors, consisting mostly of venture capitalists, can realize some profits. Facebook has raised about $38.5 million since Zuckerberg started the site in 2004 while he was still a sophomore at Harvard University.

Zuckerberg has some flexibility in deciding when to cash out because Facebook already is profitable.

An IPO or sale will “make sense at some point for the company, but I never think that’s the goal,” said Zuckerberg, who is believed to control nearly one-third of Facebook’s stock. “The goal is to … continue introducing certain revolutionary products that push us to the next level.”

Marc Andreessen, who made a fortune during his 20s as co-founder of Web browser pioneer Netscape Communications, is among those who believe Facebook is going to become even more valuable during the next year or two.

“Facebook is doing the smart thing. If you are in a big market like social networking, you are usually better off waiting (to sell),” said Andreessen, who is now chief technology officer for another social-networking startup, Ning Inc. Had MySpace remained independent, it would probably be worth $5 billion now, Andreessen estimated.

Should Facebook stumble, it may some day be suffering the same pangs of regret tormenting Friendster Inc., which turned down a takeover bid from Google in 2003 when it reigned as Internet’s hottest social-networking site.

Had that offer been accepted, Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams and a small group of early investors reportedly would have received $30 million in Google stock that would have been worth about $1 billion today.

Abrams left Friendster in 2004 after a falling out with the company’s venture capitalists. Now working on its fourth chief executive since Abrams’ departure, Friendster so far hasn’t been able to recapture the buzz that once made it a prized commodity.

In January, Friendster attracted just under 1.3 million U.S. visitors, leaving it far behind MySpace (61.5 million visitors), Facebook (19 million visitors) as well as several relative newcomers to social networking like Bebo.com, MyYearbook.com and Hi5.com, according to data from comScore Media Metrix.

Other tales of woe are bound to emerge after the latest dealmaking cycle winds down, predicted Ken Marlin, a technology investment banker in New York.

“The world is filled with companies that waited too long to sell and missed their window of opportunity,” he said. “We think this land grab (on the Internet) probably will only last another year or two.”

Palo Alto-based Metacafe fielded a takeover offer shortly after Google and YouTube first got together in October before deciding to remain independent, said co-founder Arik Czerniak. “We are 100 percent committed to building the business ourselves,” he said.

Toward that end, Czerniak recently turned over the chief executive reins to Erick Hachenburg, a former executive for video game-maker Electronic Arts Inc. Czerniak remains an executive and major shareholder at Metacafe.

Denver-based Photobucket also prefers to remain independent as it strives to nearly double its registered users to 60 million by the end of this year, said Alex Welch, who has raised about $15 million in venture capital since co-founding the site in 2003. Photobucket’s 35 million members currently upload about 7 million photos and 35,000 videos per day — second only to YouTube and MySpace.

Other trendy Web sites that could elicit takeover interest include: Linden Research Inc., the maker of the virtual world, “Second Life”; Digg Inc., which displays news stories based on the recommendations of readers; and Slide Inc., a photo-sharing site launched by Max Levchin, who already struck it rich as a co-founder of PayPal Inc., an online payment service bought by eBay Inc. for $1.5 billion in 2002.

But no startup is stirring more takeover chatter than Facebook, which began as a site exclusively for college students before opening up to high school students in 2005 and finally accepting all comers last fall.

The site now has nearly 17 million registered users, most of whom fall into the under-35 demographic prized by advertisers. And Facebook gives advertisers plenty of marketing opportunities because its users churn through about 1 billion Web pages per day.

Facebook struck its first major financial partnership last summer with Microsoft, which reportedly guaranteed to deliver about $200 million in ad revenue through 2008. Zuckerberg said the advertising contract with Microsoft recently had been extended through 2011. Terms of the extension haven’t been disclosed.

Although he dropped out of Harvard in 2004 to move Facebook to Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg still leads the ascetic lifestyle of a college student even as he runs a business with 200 employees.

Zuckerberg says he keeps little more than a mattress in his apartment, which is located just a few blocks away from Facebook’s office. The proximity allows him to walk to work every day, usually wearing Adidas sandals ideally suited for lounging around a campus dorm.

Being comfortable is important to Zuckerberg because, like so many of the Silicon Valley prodigies before him, he tends to spend long hours at the office plotting strategy.

“For now, I just think it’s very important to have a good sense of direction about where we are going,” he said.

By Dutch Simmons

Exploit an illegal practice used by these stores and more.
Want to outsmart an illegal sales tactic and save boo coos of money on your next big screen television?

How about trimming hundreds of dollars off the price of a computer monitor, or a speaker system?

The consumer can make age-old sales tactics at Best Buy, Circuit City and Fry’s work in their favor. We can exploit an illegal practice still prevalent in schemes run by corrupt management practices.

It’s easy actually, and you can save hundreds of dollars on major purposes. I will now outline a proven method that works at most electronics stores.

First, allow me to explain the exploit. Salespeople at Best Buy and Circuit City do not make commission. Nothing. However, upper management oftentimes will receive perks on their bonus. One of the ways corporations reward management is the sale of extended warranties. It’s common to see in-store warranties yield as much as a 70% profit margin. Over-zealous supervisors apply the same pressure applied to them to their store’s line-level employees.

They feel pressure to meet quotas, not only for bonuses, but also for promotion in the company. Some managers harass workers not capturing enough ‘cheese’, a term used for the service plans that return such ludicrous profits to the store.

It makes management look good.

It’s a fatter bonus.

A major topic in board meetings.

It’s the make or break factor that seals that promotion.

It’s the equivalent of super-sized ‘value’ meals at fast food franchises. The worker at the window doesn’t make commission, and yet they always ask, “Super-size that?”. It’s corporate pressure that creates a “work force”. But we already know that, right?

And that’s when a remarkable, though little known, opportunity is presented to the consumer. I’ve personally skimmed $150 off the price of my last television, and most recently saved on my digital camcorder. This method works at many other places offering in-store insurance policies.

It’s not full proof, but a patient consumer can save bundles of cash.

When asked if you want the insurance, the five-year plan or the two-year plan, ask about the five-year. I know that can seem like the opposite of what we want to accomplish here, which is to save money. But when the electronics rep delivers his pitch on how fantastically thorough the five-year plan is, detailing the useless protections against this and that, tell him that sounds like the plan you need. Actually, go ahead and ask if there is an even longer, more expensive plan.

At this point, you’ll need to ask the price of such a fantastic plan, which turns out, is fantastically expensive. Here’s where we launch a counterattack of craftiness against this salesperson’s pitch. What he can’t do is lower the price of the store’s insurance policy. What he can do is lower the price of the television set. Yep. You read right. Salespeople can and will lower the price on inventory at places like Circuit City and Best Buy as long as it pleases management. This is called illegal bundling and it happens all the time. And yet the pressure of gaining ‘cheese’ from in-store warranties is great enough to trickle all the way down the standard operating platform. A supervisor is wide open to lowering the price of a product on one condition only. You get the extended warranty.

Well that’s nice, you say. But I don’t want the insurance, what about saving money?

Hopefully by this time you have talked either the rep or his supervisor into lowering the price substantially on the product itself. The bigger the service plan you want, the more ‘cheese’ for them, and the bigger the discount for you. When the rep wheels out your brand new big screen, they’ll carry out a carbon copy form. This is the insurance plan for you to fill out at the front desk. That’s right, not right then and there in front of the sales rep, but at the front desk, where a line of other customers stand.

We’re going to have a quick change of heart when we get to that cashier at that register. Simply tell the cashier handling your purchase, “You know, I think I’m going to hold off on the ten-year plan for now. Could I purchase it later if I decide to?” To which they’ll reply, “Of course. You have thirty days to change your mind.”

And there you have it: A major discount, should you suddenly change your mind about the warranty.

http://www.storyevent.com/outsmart-best-buy-circuit-city-save-hundreds-on-electronics

Problem Number One: The homeowner has bad credit, significant high interest credit card debt and a home with substantial equity. In order to pay off the high interest bills, the person refinances his/her home and cashes out all or part of the equity. The cash from the equity is used to pay off the high interest obligations. Although the interest rate on the bad credit mortgage refinancing loan may be higher than that of a conventional loan, the house payment should still be less than the total of the high interest consumer debt.

A bad credit mortgage refinancing where the owner intents to use the cash from the home’s equity to pay off bills is called a debt consolidation loan. The value of the home being refinanced must have grown so that the home’s appraised worth will justify a larger loan. The new loan amount must be high enough that the owner can cover the loan’s closing costs and still have enough left over to pay off the credit card debt.

A bad credit mortgage refinancing such as this can have several advantages. The term of the loan will be longer. Since even a high interest subprime loan carries a lower interest rate than do high interest credit cards the new house payment will be smaller than the total of the old house payment and the consumer debt payments. However, choosing to refinance in this manner carries risks. If the homeowner does not change the behavior that led to the high debt, even more high interest credit card bills may be accumulated. Since the homeowner’s equity has already been “cashed out” of his/her house the only alternative in a money crunch may be bankruptcy or foreclosure.

If a homeowner chooses a debt consolidation loan as the method of bad credit mortgage financing, it is imperative to use the cash received to pay off the accumulated debts. Credit counseling to keep from returning to poor credit practices should also be considered.

Problem Number Two: The homeowner had bad credit when the home was originally purchased and had to take out a high interest subprime mortgage loan at that time. Two or more years have passed since the loan was made during which time the homeowner has made all of the loan payments on time and has incurred no other bad credit. Now the time has arrived to refinance the loan and receive a better interest rate.

Even with two years of excellent credit history, a homeowner trying to refinance a bad credit mortgage may not be able to obtain a conventional low interest loan. The type of loan that can be attained will depend on a variety of factors such as current income and how much debt the homeowner has.

Refinancing a bad credit mortgage under these circumstances may be a good idea if the following two statements are true.

1. The new loan will carry an interest rate two or more percentage points lower than the current loan.

2. The homeowner plans to stay in the house for three or more years.

http://www.bestsyndication.com

So, you’ve found the perfect home. You’ve already decided where to place each piece of your furniture inside the home, and in your mind, all of your family photographs are hanging alongside the stairwell. But wait-do you know that even if you believe that your credit report is spotless, it could negatively affect your chances of getting that home mortgage approval?

The credit bureaus handle hundreds of thousands of credit reports, and it’s only logical that they will make mistakes. In fact, studies show us that there are some types of errors on at least 50 percent of all credit reports.

Could an error be lurking on your report?

Here’s a simple step-by-step guide to ensure that your credit report reflects exactly what it should.

Step One: Avoid a Bad Credit Report by Requesting a Copy of It

Under the law, you are entitled to a copy of your credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies. You should simply submit a request in writing or visit their web sites and request a copy.

Step Two: Check the Personal Information

Maybe your name is Jane Smith, but the agencies have you listed as Jayne Smith. If you don’t think that it matters, you’d better think again. If the agencies have a miss-spelling in your name, the wrong address, reversed digits on your social security number, or even wrong employer information, it could mean bad news for your report. If the person who they have you confused with makes a late payment, then it will appear on your report. What’s worse, if they file for bankruptcy or default on a car loan, it will take some time to sort out the erroneous information once it’s found its way onto your report. Avoid all of this, and report any bad information now.

Step Three: The Credit Information

It may be too late, and you may find that there are loans or other items on your report that you’ve never taken out. In addition, you may find that late payments are on your credit report when you’re sure that you made them on time. If you find such erroneous information, then you’ll need to send the credit reporting agencies a letter explaining the error, along with any proof or documents that you have that will back up your claim. They are required to investigate your complaint and report back to you with their findings.

It’s important to do all of this before you apply for a home mortgage. It will not only reduce the amount of time that it takes to get an approval, but it could positively affect the interest rate that you end up with.

To view our recommended sources for bad credit mortgage lenders, visit this page: Recommended Bad Credit Mortgage Lenders.

Carrie Reeder is the owner of ABC Loan Guide, an informational website about various types of loans.

Refinancing vs line of credit are two popular options you have when deciding the best way to take equity out of your home. Sometimes it makes sense to establish a line of credit. But in other situations it’s better to get a cash back refinance mortgage loan.

You can find out which loan is best for your situation by doing some simple math. The amount of money you need to borrow and the length of time you need to pay it back really determines if refinancing vs line of credit loan makes the most sense.

Home equity lines of credit are based on adjustable type mortgage rates and move up or down when the Fed raises or lowers the prime rate. If you don’t need to borrow much money and plan to pay off the loan in a short amount of time, an equity line of credit may work best for you because you pay the least amount of interest.

An advantage of a home equity credit line is banks offer their lowest interest rates on adjustable mortgage rate type loans. Also, equity lines of credit usually come without the typical closing costs you pay with a cash back refinance mortgage loan.

Average closing costs on a refinance loan usually amount to several thousands of dollars. So when you are trying to decide between refinancing vs line of credit that should factor into your decision.

Another advantage of a home equity credit line is they are more flexible than a cash back refinance mortgage loan. With a home equity credit line you only pay interest on the amount you borrow. The remainder of the credit line is available at any time without paying any interest.

Home equity credit lines work well for smaller loan amounts, but if you need a large amount of money, say $75,000 to $100,000, you may want to consider a cash back refinance mortgage loan.

A cash back refinance mortgage loan is a first mortgage and most are amortized over a 30 year payment schedule. That keeps your payments more affordable on a larger loan amount. Most home equity lines amortize over 10 years or 15 years because they are a second mortgage loan.

Another consideration when trying to decide between refinancing vs line of credit is the interest rate you currently have on your first mortgage. If you have a low interest rate on your first mortgage you may want to take advantage of a home equity credit line so you can keep your low rate on the first mortgage.

If you have a high interest rate on your first mortgage, a cash back refinance mortgage loan with a lower interest rate might make more sense. Just remember to do the math because the average closing costs on a refinance loan will amount to several thousands of dollars.

Until you repay the loan closing costs you won’t be saving any money even if your monthly payment is lower. Figure the number of months it takes in payment savings to cover the typical closing costs of a cash back refinance mortgage loan to see if this makes sense for you.

These simple tips should help when deciding if you should establish a line of credit or get a cash back refinance mortgage loan. Do the math to find out if refinancing vs line of credit makes the most sense for your situation.

Copyright © 2005 Credit Repair Facts.com All Rights Reserved.

This article is supplied by http://www.credit-repair-facts.com where you will find credit information, debt elimination programs and informative facts that give you the knowledge to correct your own credit and credit report. For more credit related articles like these go to: http://www.credit-repair-facts.com/articles_1.html