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Facebook’s Early Investors May Have Much To Like

Facebook filed to go public this week, and many analysts expect it will be valued between $75 billion and $100 billion on the day of its initial public offering. That would make Facebook more valuable than GM, Ford even Goldman Sachs. What’s most remarkable is the company has just barely 3,000 employees, and many of [...]

Soon Facebook Growth Will Be About Users Clocking In More Time

The number of new American Facebook users is going down, and eventually the same will happen in every other market. Soon, Facebook’s growth is going to depend on each user spending more time logged in, playing games, watching movies, planning trips and so on. If you do the math and divide Facebook’s value ($100 billion) [...]

Freddie Mac’s Conflict Is ‘Unsavory,’ ‘Shocking,’ ‘Stunning,’ Key Senators Say

Two senators who have taken the lead on legislation aimed to help homeowners refinance at historically low interest rates were blunt this morning about how concerned they are by the news NPR reported earlier this week that Freddie Mac “has placed multibillion-dollar bets against American homeowners being able to refinance to cheaper mortgages.” The taxpayer-owned [...]

Destination: Detroit

A moody wintertime fog drifts through the skies as our plane lands early in Detroit. The city is in the midst of a financial crisis and could be on the verge of a state takeover. But signs of a comeback in the auto industry bode well for the Motor City’s long-term economic recovery. “The greatest [...]

Beyond Cuppa Joe: Starbucks Embraces India, Lighter Roasts And Alcohol

“Skinny venti quad decaf latte” is not a household term in India. But that may be about to change, as Elliot Hannon reports from New Delhi on today’s Morning Edition. Starbucks declared yesterday it’s barreling into India with plans to open 50 stores before the end of the year. That’s just one of several big [...]

Lamb Boom Has Sheep Farmers Flocking Together

When city folk think of lamb, they may think of very young sheep — perhaps six weeks old. But six months is the average age of spring lamb going to market these days. Don Van Nostran has one in a holding pen in his barn at Will-O-Wood Farm in southeastern Ohio. It soon will be [...]

Report Prompts Calls To End Freddie Mac’s Conflict Of Interest

Several U.S. lawmakers and prominent economists on Monday said Congress and the White House should end a financial conflict of interest at the taxpayer-owned mortgage company Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac, which has a public mission to help make home ownership affordable, also has placed multibillion-dollar bets against American homeowners being able to refinance to cheaper [...]

Strange Bedfellows: Democracy And The Internet

While the Internet may aid the spread of democracy, democracy doesn’t necessarily mean a free and open Internet. In her new book Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, Rebecca MacKinnon, senior fellow at the New America Foundation and co-founder of Global Voices, a citizen media network, investigates the corrosion of civil [...]

Public Or Private: Keeping Google From Being ‘Evil’

Let’s start with a quick Google experiment. On a computer you normally use, click on this link. Even if you’re not logged in to a Google account, you should see a basic profile Google has built around you based on search history and a score of other factors: age, gender, a few categories of interests. [...]

Moscato Madness: The Dessert Wine’s Sweet Surge

In the U.S., wine drinking has held its own during these hard economic times, and even grown in some unlikely corners. Moscato, for example, the Italian dessert wine, has gone from relative obscurity to the toast of the town. Hip-hop singer Drake, in his song “Do It Now,” gives it a shout-out. It’s also the [...]