Report: Facebook IPO delayed until June

According to CNBC, Facebook's initial public offering (IPO) will be delayed until at least June of this year because of recent acquisitions and business decisions that the world's largest social network has made. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly been focusing more on acquisitions and planning for the future rather than preparing for the IPO, thus leading to its delay.

Facebook filed for an IPO back in February of this year, and could raise up to $10 billion at a $100 billion valuation, making it one of the largest technology-related initial public offerings in history.

It was initially expected that the IPO would come on or around May 17, 2012.

Facebook and Microsoft agree to $550 million patent acquisition

Microsoft and Facebook jointly announced today that the software giant will be selling 650 patents that it recently acquired from AOL to the world's largest social network in a deal worth $550 million. Microsoft will be licensing the 650 patents, and will continue to hold control of the remaining 275 that came from the original deal with AOL.

“Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction,” said Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel, Microsoft. “As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.”

“Today’s agreement with Microsoft represents an important acquisition for Facebook,” said Ted Ullyot, general counsel, Facebook. “This is another significant step in our ongoing process of building an intellectual property portfolio to protect Facebook’s interests over the long term.”

Facebook reveals Q1 2012 financial results: $1.06 billion in revenue

Today, Facebook filed with the SEC an updated version of its S-1 that includes the company's financial results for the first quarter of this year. According to the documents released to the public, Facebook had a $1.06 billion revenue in the quarter and a net income of $205 million. In addition, Facebook revealed that it now sees 532 million active daily users on the social network and that 901 million people are currently registered. Finally, the social network announced that users usually upload around 300 million photos per day (average), creating around 3.2 billion likes and comments per day.

Report: Facebook IPO coming May 17

According to a report from TechCrunch, Facebook is aiming for its initial public offering (IPO) to become official on May 17, 2012, pending final approvals from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Facebook initially filed for its long-awaited IPO back in February, and since then, reports have been pointing to a May offering date.

If previous reports hold true, Facebook could be preparing for a $100 billion valuation when it goes public, raising $10 billion. The company has apparently chosen the NASDAQ exchange and the ticker "FB" for its stock.

Report: Instagram CEO wanted $2 billion from Facebook acquisition

Earlier this month, Facebook announced that it acquired popular photo upload and filter service Instagram for a price tag of $1 billion. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Instagram chief executive officer (CEO) Kevin Systrom initially wanted to receive upwards of $2 billion for his company from Facebook, but Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg apparently convinced Systrom to lower the price tag. In addition, Zuckerberg agreed to allow Instagram to operate as a separate company if it accepted the $1 billion offer.

The report goes on to claim that Zuckerberg held all discussions about acquiring Instagram by himself and that one day before the announcement came, he informed Facebook's board of directors that the company would be buying Instagram. Overall, the deal was negotiated in three days, according to the article.

Report: Microsoft considering to sell Bing to Facebook in exchange for stock

According to a report from Barrons, Microsoft may be considering to sell off its Bing search engine to Facebook in exchange for stock and partial ownership of the world's largest social network. A report came out last month that Facebook is developing an improved search engine for the social network, but any selling of Bing would occur after the company goes public later this year.

Microsoft currently owns a 1.6% stake in Facebook. The Redmond-based company would presumably continue to earn at least some revenue from Bing if it is sold to Facebook.

“If we asked ourselves why is Microsoft in the search business to begin with, it’s because they want to keep Google from having such monopoly power [in search] that they can use the resultant profit to making forays into Microsoft’s domain,” including things such as Google’s “Chrome” operating system and Android smartphone software.

Facebook announces improvements to “Download Your Information” feature

Back in 2010, Facebook unveiled a feature dubbed "Download Your Information," which allows users to essentially download all of their photos, posts, messages, a list of friends and chat conversations as a local copy. The feature was designed to give users of the social network an easy way to recover all of their information if needed, and as privacy protection.

Today, Facebook unveiled improvements to Download Your Information, adding previous names, friend requests you've made and IP addresses you logged in from to the list of things that can be stored locally. The improvements will begin gradually rolling out to users today, and future additions will also be made.

Facebook acquires Instagram for $1 billion

Earlier today, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social network will be acquiring popular photo upload and filter service Instagram, for $1 billion. Zuckerberg says that the Instagram team will be joining Facebook, and that the two will begin working on integrating Instagram features onto the world's most popular social network.

For years, we've focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we'll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.

Just last week, Instagram launched its Android app after a long wait from users. The app was downloaded over one million times in the first 24 hours of availability.

Report: Facebook picks Nasdaq and symbol “FB” for stock

According to The New York Times, Facebook's stock will be traded under the symbol "FB" and on Nasdaq. The New York Stock Exchange, home to Pandora and LinkedIn, and Nasdaq, home to Apple and Google, were reportedly fighting for rights to Facebook stock, but evidently Nasdaq won the battle.

Facebook filed for an initial public offering (IPO) back in February for $5 billion. The IPO is set to go active in May of this year, and could end up being one of the biggest technology-related IPOs in history.

Facebook files counter lawsuit against Yahoo

According to Reuters, Facebook filed a lawsuit against Yahoo today that claims Yahoo infringed upon ten (1o) of its patents. This news comes just one month after Yahoo filed a lawsuit against Facebook over a similar claim, and the counter filing doesn't come as a surprise to many.

Five of the patents asserted by Facebook target features related to Yahoo's online advertising business, which Facebook pegged at 80 percent of Yahoo's 2011 revenue, according to the counterclaim.

Yahoo's Flickr photo sharing service infringed various Facebook patents involving the ability to connect with other users on the online service, to identify people in a photo and to generate personalized news feeds, according to the filing.

At least one of the patents asserted by Facebook -- a method for tagging digital media -- lists its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, as one of the inventors, according to a U.S. government database.

Facebook for iOS app updated with support for the new iPad

Earlier today, Facebook released an update to its iOS app (App Store link) that adds support for the new iPad's high-resolution "Retina" display, and fixes a number of bugs users have been experiencing. The update, version 4.1.1, also adds in support for going offline in Chat and new language choices.

Full release notes are available below:

In this release, we added some features and fixed some bugs so now:

• You can go offline in chat
• The right profile picture appears for everyone
• Your list of friends always includes all your friends
• In sets of photos, your name is displayed correctly
• Photos of people who like Facebook Pages load correctly
• Your friend-request notification only lights up if you have a request
• You can change your language to Czech, Danish, Greek, Indonesian, Malaysian, Norwegian (Bokmal), Portuguese (Portugal) or Thai
• If you've got a new Retina iPad, you'll see a crisp, high resolution interface

Facebook developing improved search engine?

According to a report from Bloomberg, nearly two dozen Facebook employees have recently been working on an improved search engine for the social network that focuses on utilizing the massive amount of content that users generate each day. The project, which is led by former Google engineer Lars Rasmussen, is designed to make finding content on the world's largest social network easier for users.

Searching the social network could get a lot better in the near future. About two dozen Facebook engineers, led by a former Google engineer named Lars Rasmussen, are working on an improved search engine, say two people familiar with the project who did not want to be named because the company is in a quiet period ahead of its IPO. The goal, they say, is to help users better sift through the volume of content that members create on the site, such as status updates, and the articles, videos, and other information across the Web that people “like” using Facebook’s omnipresent thumbs-up button.

Facebook declined to comment on the rumor.

Facebook enables Timeline for all users

Five months after it was initially unveiled, Timeline is officially taking over Facebook today (finally). Following a very, very gradual rollout of the new profile design, Facebook has pushed the new look to all of its users this afternoon. Those who have yet to enable Timeline will now have seven days to tidy things up before the updated design is visible to friends and family. Alternatively, you can publish your Timeline immediately.

Timeline has been met with mixed reactions since its debut back in September at Facebook's f8 developer conference. It places all your activity on the social network in a timeline format, allowing for specific events, photos, status updates, etc. to be viewed easier.

What are your thoughts on Timeline?

Facebook plans to stop trading shares in secondary markets early next month

Mark Zuckerberg's desk at Facebook HQ

According to a report from Bloomberg, Facebook is planning to stop trading shares in secondary markets sometime in the beginning of April. This news comes just two months after Facebook filed a $5 billion initial public offering (IPO) to begin trading shares. The world's largest social network, however, never gave a timeframe of the timing of the IPO. It's been rumored to be sometime in May of this year, but with this news, it could come even earlier.

Report: Facebook acquires 750 patents from IBM

According to a report from Bloomberg, Facebook has acquired 750 patents from IBM today that will allow the company to better defend itself in future lawsuits. The patents deal with a wide array of technologies, but are mainly about networking and software. The acquisition would more than double Facebook's current patent portfolio, which includes at "least 56 issued patents and 503 filed U.S. patent applications."

Facebook introduces new Timeline apps

When Facebook first introduced the new Timeline profile design back in September of last year, the social network also announced that Timeline will have support for social apps built for Facebook. Over the past few months, a number of those apps have been launching from third-party companies such as Spotify, iHeartRadio, and others.

Today, Facebook is launching eight (8) new Timeline apps, all of which are listed below:

• Foursquare
• Nike
• The Onion
• VEVO
• Fandango
• Viddy
• Endomondo
• RootMusic

In total, almost 3,000 Timeline apps have launched since the beginning of this year. All apps are available from here.

Yahoo files lawsuit against Facebook over patent infringement

According to a report from All Things D, Yahoo has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the world's largest social network, Facebook. The suit was filed in San Jose, California and comes just as Yahoo is going through a major transition period with a new chief executive officer (CEO). At this time, it's unclear what Yahoo-controlled patents Facebook is allegedly infringing upon.

The social network released the following statement as a response to the filing:

“We’re disappointed that Yahoo’s effort to engage with us was limited to a few short phone calls and that we continue to learn of new developments about a long-time partner through the press. We will defend ourselves vigorously against these puzzling actions.”

Facebook introduces “Interest Lists”

Today, Facebook announced that it has begun rolling out a new feature, dubbed "Interest Lists," to users on the social network. Interest Lists are designed to give users the ability to subscribe to a particular topic, or "feed," and receive updates in their News Feed. For example, someone interested in "Tech News" may subscribe to the list dealing with that topic, and will receive updates from several Pages at once.

Lists can be created by other users, and it can be chosen whether to keep those lists private or allow others to subscribe to them as well.

Facebook Messenger for Windows becomes official

Right before the New Year, Facebook released a beta version of its Messenger app for Windows PCs, allowing users to chat with family and friends on the social network without the need of a web browser. The company made it clear, however, that the app was a beta and should only be used for testing purposes.

Today, Facebook officially released the app as a final product to the world. "See and respond to chats right from your desktop. Whether you're browsing other websites or using another app, you don't have to click away to stay connected," the company explains. Messenger for Windows also includes a ticker similar to the one on the web version of Facebook, and the ability to see notifications and friend requests.

No Mac app with similar functions has been released, and there doesn't appear to be any evidence that it is being actively worked on.

Facebook introduces Timeline for Pages

After completing its rollout of the new "Timeline" view for users, Facebook has begun rolling out the new design to brand Pages on the social network. Timeline was first unveiled last year, and transforms users' profile pages into a timeline of their time on Facebook. It has been widely criticized, but the company seems to be pushing it more than ever right now.

Today, Facebook unveiled the first brand Pages that will be receiving Timeline. It functions similarly to Timeline for users, but includes special features for page administrators. You can either enable Timeline on your Page right now by visiting this page, or waiting until Facebook rolls out the view to everyone.

What do you think about Timeline? Let us know in the comments below!