"No Devilishly Effective Plot" - Clinton Chief Strategist Admits "You Can't Buy The Presidency For $100,000"

Authored by Mark Penn, former chief strategist on Bill Clinton’s 1996 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, and Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign; via The Wall Street Journal,

Russia didn’t win Trump the White House any more than China re-elected Bill Clinton in 1996.

The fake news about fake news is practically endless. Americans worried about Russia’s influence in the 2016 election have seized on a handful of Facebook ads—as though there weren’t also three 90-minute debates, two televised party conventions, and $2.4 billion spent on last year’s campaign. The danger is that bending facts to fit the Russia story line may nudge Washington into needlessly and recklessly regulating the internet and curtailing basic freedoms.

After an extensive review, Facebook has identified $100,000 of ads that came from accounts associated with Russia. Assume for the sake of argument that Vladimir Putin personally authorized this expenditure. Given its divisive nature, the campaign could be dubbed “From Russia, With Hate”—except it would make for a disappointing James Bond movie.

Analyzing the pattern of expenditures, and doing some back-of-the-envelope math, it’s clear this was no devilishly effective plot. Facebook says 56% of the ads ran after the election, reducing the tally that could have influenced the result to about $44,000. It also turns out the ads were not confined to swing states but also shown in places like New York, California and Texas. Supposing half the ads went to swing states brings the total down to $22,000.

Facebook also counted ads as early as June 2015. Assuming they were evenly spread and we want only those that ran the year of the election, that knocks it down to $13,000. Most of the ads did not solicit support for a candidate and carried messages on issues like racism, immigration and guns. The actual electioneering then amounts to about $6,500.

Now look at the bigger picture.

Every day, Americans see hundreds of ads on TV and radio, in newspapers and magazines, on billboards and smartphones. North Americans post to Facebook something like a billion times a day, and during the election many of those messages were about politics. Facebook typically runs about $40 million worth of advertising a day in North America.

Then consider the scale of American presidential elections.

Hillary Clinton’s total campaign budget, including associated committees, was $1.4 billion. Mr. Trump and his allies had about $1 billion. Even a full $100,000 of Russian ads would have erased just 0.025% of Hillary’s financial advantage. In the last week of the campaign alone, Mrs. Clinton’s super PAC dumped $6 million in ads into Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

I have 40 years of experience in politics, and this Russian ad buy, mostly after the election anyway, simply does not add up to a carefully targeted campaign to move voters. It takes tens of millions of dollars to deliver meaningful messages to the contested portion of the electorate. Converting someone who voted for the other party last time is an enormously difficult task. Swing voters in states like Ohio or Florida are typically barraged with 50% or more of a campaign’s budget. Try watching TV in those states the week before an election and you will see how jammed the airwaves are.

No one wants foreign governments meddling in American elections.

In 1996, the Chinese government had the “China plan” and pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign. There were congressional investigations, and several fundraisers were prosecuted, but Attorney General Janet Reno rejected calls for an independent counsel. Campaigns tightened up their donor-validation procedures, and life moved on. The same is called for here. Internet companies should improve their screening of electioneering ads, impose clearer standards on all ads, and do a better job weeding out phony accounts.

Millions of taxpayer dollars have probably been spent already poring over that $100,000 of Facebook ads.

Better to keep it all in perspective, as everyone did in 1996.

The only way Russia will get its money’s worth is if Washington overreacts and narrows the very freedoms that make America different in the first place.

Leaked Descriptions Of Infamous "Russia Ads" Derail Collusion Narrative "They Showed Support For Clinton"

That was quick.

Less than a week after Facebook agreed to turn over to Congressional investigators copies of the 3,000-odd political advertisements that the company said it had inadvertently sold to a Russia-linked group intent on meddling in the 2016 presidential election, the contents of the ads have – unsurprisingly – leaked, just as we had expected them to.

Congressional investigators shared the information with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, which has repeatedly allowed information about its investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign actively colluded with Russian operatives to leak to the press. Once this happened, we knew it was only a matter of time before the ads became part of the public record.  

And, shockingly, descriptions of the ads provided to the Washington Post hardly fit the narrative that Democratic lawmakers have spun in recent weeks, claiming the ads – which didn’t advocate on behalf of a specific candidate, but rather hewed to political issues like abortion rights – were instrumental in securing Trump’s victory.

After initially denying the story this spring, Facebook came clean earlier this month, saying its investigators had discovered that the company sold at least $100,000 worth of ads – and possibly as much as $150,000 – to Russia-linked group that bought the ads through 470 phony Facebook pages and accounts.

WaPo reports that the ads represented issues on both sides of the ideological spectrum, which would suggest that the buyers didn’t intend to support a specific candidate, but rather their own unique agenda.

The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African-American rights groups including Black Lives Matter and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.

The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to simultaneously send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics - also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.

Of course, support for Hillary Clinton among minority groups was less enthusiastic than it was for Barack Obama, suggesting that the ads perhaps weren’t as effective as some Democratic lawmakers would have voters believe. Despite the innocuous description, WaPo insisted on reporting that the ads were meant to “sow dischord” among different voting blocs that supported Clinton. The paper of record also reported that the targeted messages “highlight the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and infiltrate US political discourse”…again without explaining exactly how they accomplished this.

These targeted messages, along with others that have surfaced in recent days, highlight the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and infiltrate U.S. political discourse while also seeking to heighten tensions between groups already wary of one another.

Yet, WaPo reports that the “nature and detail” of the ads has bothered investigators at Facebook and the Justice Department, as well as those working on behalf of the Congressional committees that are conducting independent investigations. The House and Senate Intelligence committees plan to begin reviewing the Facebook ads in the coming weeks.

Furthermore, the paper ran quotes from Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Adam Schiff, two of the most vocal proponents of the Russia election-hacking conspiracy theory (it is only a theory, after all), describing the ads as part of a sinister effort to undermine the democratic process.

“Their aim was to sow chaos,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “In many cases, it was more about voter suppression rather than increasing turnout.”

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said he hoped the public would be able to review the ad campaign.

“I think the American people should see a representative sample of these ads to see how cynical the Russian were using these ads to sow division within our society,” he said, noting that he had not yet seen the ads but had been briefed on them, including the ones mentioning “things like Black Lives Matter.”

For a story that’s supposed to be about the content of political advertisements that are now at the center of a widely followed investigation (much like Don Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer and her entourage in Trump Tower was just a month ago), the WaPo story includes scant details about their contents. For whatever reason, the paper neglected to publish photos of the ads.

We imagine that whoever leaked the story probably figured that once readers see the ads and realize they’re indistinguishable from the rest of the political ad copy running on Facebook, voters will quickly lose interest.

However, that didn’t stop one expert from offering some helpful “context” meant to feed the hysteria without saying anything conclusive. As the paper notes, the expert quoted hasn’t even seen the ads.

While Facebook has downplayed the impact of the Russian ads on the election, Dennis Yu, chief technology officer for BlitzMetrics, a digital marketing company that focuses on Facebook ads, said that $100,000 worth of Facebook ads could have been viewed hundreds of millions of times.

“$100,000 worth of very concentrated posts is very, very powerful,” he said. “When you have a really hot post, you often get this viral multiplier. So when you buy this one ad impression, you can get an extra 20- to 40-times multiplier because those people comment and share it.”

Watts, the Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow, has not seen the Facebook ads promised to Congress, but he and his team saw similar tactics playing out on Twitter and other platforms during the campaign.

With little else to cling to, it appears that investigators – not to mention Trump’s critics - have invested so much in the Facebook interference narrative (not to mention Paul Manafort’s dealings with pro-Russian oligarchs), that admitting they were wrong would just be too damaging.

Facebook Believes That $50,000 Changed The Election; Senator Warner Agrees

Last week we jokingly wrote about a Facebook press release that was apparently an honest effort by the social media giant intended to summarize Russian efforts to undermine the 2016 election using their social media platform.

That said, at least to us, it seemed as though Facebook unwittingly proved what a farce the entire "Russian collusion" narrative has become as, after digging through advertising data for the better part of full year, Facebook reported that they found a "staggering" $50,000 worth of ad buys that "MAY" have been purchased by Russian-linked accounts to run "potentially politically related" ads.

Now, just in case it isn"t crystal clear why the above statement is so ridiculous, please allow us to demonstrate with one simple chart.  This is how the $50,000 worth of "Russian" ad buys on Facebook compares to the $1.2 billion that Hillary spent on her campaign...please note, this is not a mistake...the $50k literally isn"t even big enough to show up on the chart. 

All of which means that one of the following three things is true: i) Facebook delivers the greatest ROIC to advertisers in the history of mankind, ii) Hillary is the worst allocator of capital ever or iii) this whole narrative is just beyond dumb.

Of course, despite this relatively simplistic explanation of why Facebook went "full retard" in their attempt to prove that Russians used their website to throw a presidential election, Democrats in Congress apparently don"t get the joke.  As The Hill pointed out earlier today, Senate Democrats on the Intelligence Committee are inexplicably using the new Facebook advertising "revelations" from last week to demand a public hearing with a handful of social media giants including Facebook and Twitter.

The top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee have both signaled interest in having officials from Facebook and Twitter testify about Russian interference on their platforms during the 2016 presidential election.

Warner has been pushing for the companies" officials to testify before the Senate panel, and on Tuesday he weighed in on a report that Russian agents used Facebook to promote protests in the U.S., including an anti-immigrant protest in August 2016 during the campaign.

Facebook shared some details with Warner last week regarding Russia"s election interference. Warner said the company did not reveal to him that Russian actors had created Facebook event pages for anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rallies, which the Daily Beast reported Tuesday.

“I’m disappointed that Facebook didn’t come forward with this information about the Russians pushing people to anti-immigration rallies,” Warner told reporters.

“That somehow that was something they didn’t think was relevant, which is again why I think this is the tip of the iceberg. There’s going to be, I think, much more," he said. “I question whether Facebook has put near the resources they need into getting us all the facts."

Warner said that he has been frustrated by Facebook’s limited disclosures on Kremlin-connected groups using the platform to influence U.S. politics, noting that the company has only revealed a single “troll farm” involved, the Internet Research Group.

Meanwhile, Reuters may have just stumbled upon the key piece of evidence proving that the Russians managed to change the course of American history with just $50,000 in ad buys.  Apparently, one series of ads was so effective that it managed to attract the "interest" of 48 people on Facebook to an "anti-immigrant" rally in Idaho...and 4 of them even said they went (again, this is not a typo...that"s 4 people, not 4,000 or 400,000...no, just 4).

The Daily Beast, the news website that first reported on the promoted events posted on Facebook, said one advertisement promoted an anti-immigrant rally in Idaho in August 2016.

The rally was hosted by a Facebook group called “Secured Borders,” which was a Russian front and is now suspended, according to the Daily Beast.

Some 48 people on Facebook expressed an interest in the Idaho event and four said they went, according to a copy of the event page archived by Google’s search engine.

For the record, Idaho hasn"t been a contended state since Lyndon Johnson won it for Democrats in 1964.

So there you have, $50,000 in Russian ad buys on Facebook convinced 4 people to attend and anti-immigrant rally in Idaho and that changed the course of American history forever. 

On other news, yes, this is real life.

This Is What A Hunger-Games-Society Looks Like

Authored by Michael Hart and StockBoardAsset,

The burned out shells of vacant buildings and crumbling infrastructure, the mobs of dispossessed youth wandering the streets, the constant violence and threats of violence set against a soundtrack of car alarms, bumping car stereos, and the distant hum of an electric transformer buzzing like a swarm of electric flies feasting on the carcass of a once thriving city-at a cursory glance these places seem ungovernable, or at the very least ungoverned.

But here lies the ultimate irony: the citizens residing in these districts are possibly the most intensely governed people in the country. From birth until death, they are shuffled through an almost constant stream of government institutions: government housing, public schools, welfare, the penal system-the list is almost endless.

Indeed, last weeks announcement by President Trump announcing that he will be sending federal agents to “clean up” Chicago indicate that the most intensely governed among us will be subjected to an even more proximate relationship with the government that they already depend on for nearly every facet of existence. Dad is either dead, or locked up, or running the streets, while Mom rules the household with the State as her sugar daddy. Destruction of the family is essential, because the State is a jealous god who allows no reliance upon any other institution. While the 20th century saw the collapse of the extended family and the rise of the nuclear family, the 21st century has seen the destruction of the nuclear family and the rise of the fully atomized individual who is disconnected from any support system other than the state. This was always the intention.

The live feed of violence and inner city debauchery broadcast to the Capitol and the surrounding districts functions as both entertainment as well as a threat-yeah it’s shocking and violent and sometimes funny, but if you f*ck up too badly, you might end up there too.

Chicago Man Murdered While Recording Himself on Facebook LIVE

Guy Has a Shoot Out On Facebook Live With LAPD

In the 1990s it was COPS. Now it’s Worldstar Hiphop, Facebook Live, and Liveleak broadcasting a constant stream of no-budget sadism-as-entertainment to satiate the curious and the bloodthirsty in real time, direct from the deepest corners of the most depraved, impoverished districts. And while we, the spectators, marvel in awe and disgust at the fights and robberies and suicides and murders that we watch live onscreen, we forget that we, too, are denizens of a similarly curated and managed ghetto environment: the digital one.

Whereas the actual, physical ghettos are the product of 1960s utopian ideas about government spending being the answer to social ills gone awry, the digital ghettos are also an inverted utopia, albeit one crafted by the rogue programmers of the 1970s and 1980s. These programmers imagined a world where personal computers and the emerging internet would literally connect the world; where ideology would wither away as the postmodern World Wide Web would force all of us to confront a myriad of foreign ideas and foreign people, all from the comfort of your home office.

These technologies have not connected us, or at least not in the ways that these computing pioneers imagined. We, too, have been hyperfragmented and atomized into our own digital ideological echo chambers. The 21st century collapse of the nuclear family that we discussed earlier was perhaps intended to redefine one’s sense of self in relation to society as a whole rather than in relation to one’s immediate or extended family (you know, the whole “It takes a village” nonsense that people liked to talk about a couple of decades ago). But what we’re seeing now is a sort of fragmentation of the self, facilitated by these digital technologies, where there is a disconnect between one’s online self and one’s physical self-a sort of “social schizophrenia” that threatens to destroy the very societies that these technologies were supposed to solidify.

Now back to the districts: what the Capitol fears most is an uprising of the district that bleeds into the Capitol. We call this The Fourth Turning: S?ummer of Rage and the Tot?al Eclipse of the Deep St?ate. Provincial wars are fine, as long as they are kept far away from the ruling elite. Periodically, though, rival factions governing the Capitol enlist mercenaries from the districts to cause trouble at the doorstep. We see this regularly with the astroturf Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and other seemingly ‘grassroots’ franchise protest movements erupt in American cities every few years-these dispossessed citizens of the district, unemployed or underemployed with little to no job prospects, saddled with debt, and very little to lose or gain are shipped around from city to city, given some protest signs, and proceed to yell, fight, burn buildings, and disrupt traffic.

A genuine uprising would be terrifying to the ruling elite, because it would be a refusal to participate at all in a society that exploits you solely by your participation in it. Non-participation is much quieter than the manufactured type, and doesn’t lend itself as well to dramatic photo ops. It’s impact, however, would be much more significant. Certainly, in the digital realm, this refusal would look very much like Bitcoin and other cryptocurriencies, whose very existence threaten the hegemony that the international banking cartels have over global finance. This is the same idea: our non-participation in corrupt institutions is their death knell. These are the quiet weapons for quiet wars, and I believe that we will win.

Conclusion: Your districts are the body. The capital is the beating heart. A refusal to participate is a disruption in the flow of the lifeblood to the capitol. Prepare for heart-failures...

McDonalds To Hire 250,000 This Summer Via SnapChat, Spotify And Hulu

And just like that, the term Snaplicant was born, when moments ago McDonalds - which appears to have run out of "qualified" line cook and fast food job candidates (as our latest overview of the restaurant industry showed) - announced that it hopes to hire a quarter million workers this summer, of which more than half are projected to be between the ages of 16 – 24 years old, and to aid the hiring effort of these workers, for many of whom this will be their first job, MCD will use Snapchat. Hence the bolded term.

‘Snaplications,’ a term coined by McDonald’s, is a first-to-market hiring tool in the U.S. that allows job seekers to be served an ad and opportunity to begin the application process for a job at a McDonald’s restaurant through the Snapchat app. McDonald’s used a similar Snaplications execution in Australia earlier this year, and the company is also utilizing platforms including Spotify and Hulu to reach potential job seekers in a new way for the brand.

And because "new paradigm" gimmicks never cease, McDonalds is also "utilizing platforms including Spotify and Hulu to reach potential job seekers in a new way for the brand."

We wish McDonalds the best of luck: if documented indiations of young Americans" willingness to work (or not) are any indication, the world"s biggest fast food chain may have trouble filling all the open slots...

Full press release below:

McDonald’s Restaurants Expect to Hire 250,000 People this Summer

With summer around the corner, McDonald’s and its independent franchisees are gearing up to hire approximately 250,000 restaurant employees across the U.S.

More than half of the hires at company-owned restaurants are projected to be between the ages of 16 – 24 years old, and for many, it is their first job. For young job seekers, this is good news since according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than a third of teenagers will have a job between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

To aid in hiring efforts, McDonald’s is leading the way with a modern approach to recruiting – Snapchat. ‘Snaplications,’ a term coined by McDonald’s, is a first-to-market hiring tool in the U.S. that allows job seekers to be served an ad and opportunity to begin the application process for a job at a McDonald’s restaurant through the Snapchat app. McDonald’s used a similar Snaplications execution in Australia earlier this year, and the company is also utilizing platforms including Spotify and Hulu to reach potential job seekers in a new way for the brand.

“We’re always looking for new and innovative ways to find job seekers. We thought Snaplications was a great way to allow us to meet job seekers where they are – their phones,” said Jez Langhorn, Senior Director in Human Resources, McDonald’s USA. “As we see the younger generations seeking out their first jobs, we want to make them aware of the great opportunities available at McDonald’s, especially considering we’re committed to being America’s best first job.”

Starting June 13, Snapchat users nationwide may be served 10-second video ads of real restaurant employees talking about the benefits of working at McDonald’s. Viewers can then ‘swipe up’ to instantly visit the McDonald’s career webpage in Snapchat to explore the opportunities offered by McDonald’s, and apply to their local restaurants if they so choose.

McDonald’s and its independent franchisees strive to offer a work environment that sets employees up for success at McDonald’s and beyond… with education programs like Archways to Opportunity®, which gives employees in participating restaurants an opportunity to earn a high school diploma, receive upfront tuition assistance for college courses, access academic advising courses, and learn English as a second language.

Job seekers can visit McDonalds.com/careers to learn more and apply.
 

Social Media: Stick A Fork In It

Authored by Mark St.Cyr,

Let me make one thing clear before I start: It’s not that I’m saying “social media” is going away, as in no longer will be around or, will not have any use or value going forward. What I am stating is this: Everything that you’ve been told, as well as sold, about social media as it is currently argued and used, along with why the companies or platforms that supply it (i.e., the Snapchat™, Facebook™ Twitter™ et al) should be valued not just mere $Billions, but rather $10’s and $100’s of Billions is over. The signs are there for anyone paying attention...

The only ones (in my opinion) that have yet to grasp this are: the “experts”, fund managers, and analysts still telling, and selling its “So worth it!” drivel. Because, as I implied above: the signs are everywhere for those willing to look for themselves rather, than waiting for some “news flash” appearing in their “social feed” or “groundbreaking development” via the main stream business/financial media.

Hint: Remember when all the media went crazy touting why everyone needed to be on, and read their “expert” commentary on LinkedIn™? You know, right before its stock value suddenly plummeted facilitating the need or rescue via Microsoft™ for its very survival? It’s a point worth remembering for context.

Over the last few years I have not only taken the opposite view of what was once considered “gospel” in “The Valley” such as “the eyeballs for ads” model being the be-all, end-all metric for $Billion dollar valuations. But rather, in openly declaring such, I’ve been marked via that same congregation as a heretic for doing so. And that’s being kind.

Over the years their defence against such allegations were, of course, such things as IPO’s, stock valuations, and more. These “touchstones” at the time were touted to show why I was wrong – and they were right. Again, at the time, it all appeared or seemed irrefutable. After all, how could I question anything about what these “miracles” of tech provided, along with the near insatiable demand for their stock. For even an agnostic must surely agree, “tech” was proving and laying bare even the most skeptics’ arguments beyond the shadow of any and all doubt. However, that was when the manna-of-QE flowed freely.

Then – QE ended. And guess what else ended with it? Hint: “It’s different this time” went from holier-than-thou rhetoric to, “WTF is happening!” agnosticism. And it’s getting worse – much worse. Regardless of how many gnashing-of-teeth induced stupor one displays to the contrary.

Back in March I penned the article “Silicon Valley: From Rarified Air To Exhaust Fumes” which presented the following chart. To wit:

The reason why the above did as Rod Stewart famously stated “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?” Is because of just that. As I stated in that article as to why one needed to pay attention was the following. Again, to wit:

“The issue here is that process has one key attribute: It’s the same pattern we’ve seen before, but now it’s represented in days. From IPO to today. What had once taken well over a year has morphed from months to now days.”

What truly puts the stamp of reality on what it says today, is the fact, that even as the “markets” have since (once again) risen to never before seen in history all time highs since that post some 3 months ago. The above have done nothing but either vacillate right where they stood, or worse, have lost even more value. (See “IPO to save the IPO world” Twilio’s current value for further clues.) And two of the three were supposed to be the “proof” that proved all the naysayers such as yours truly wrong. In retrospect, it seems they have done just the opposite.

But making or implying such a blasphemous statement as “social media is dead” and not arguing the same for one of this “religion’s” most cherished houses of worship without addressing it squarely would be insincere. Of course that would be the “idol” commonly known as Facebook™(FB.) And yes, I still believe (and have continually argued) FB along with social media in general – is the AOL™ equivalent of the dot-com era. Here’s why…

Remember all the fanfare they released just prior to the latest earnings report? For those having a hard time it was a statement declaring they had reached “5 million” small business advertisers. Here’s what I stated in a subsequent article. To wit:

“As of today all the estimates are that they’ll handily beat and some analysts are raising their targets. It’s very well they could, especially in today’s world of earnings reporting alchemy. However, one thing which caught my attention was the sudden touting a few weeks back that they had hit “5 Million advertisers.” Small businesses noted as the “key driver.”

“Sound great!” many are saying, and, in-truth, it is a worthy milestone. However, I see the timing as possibly a little suspect, here’s why… (I make this point for it has become near laughable how nearly all upcoming “tech” earnings reports now suddenly coincide with an ever-growing list of preceding announcements of grandiose ideas that are alluded to be right around the corner (like next week!) of flying cars, self driving trucks, rocket rides to space, virtual reality, just to name a few.)

Facebook as of late has been in the news with nothing but negative reports with a slew of horrendous acts being broadcast via their platform. e.g., Rape, kidnapping, beatings, and others. One of the concerns over all this (apart from the issue itself) was a possible backlash from potential advertisers. And who could blame them, and there lies the possible rub…

As I implied with the sudden “5 million” hoopla, what I’m asking is this: Is the addition of these stated 1 million plus new small business advertisers a replacing (therefore a diversion as to squash attention) for the potential of 1 or 2 (or more) large buyers who may have pulled ads?

In other words, if they’ve added so many “new” small business users – shouldn’t the ad revenue explode this report with all things being equal? I believe this is the metric to watch for.”

As per FB CFO Wehner: He once again reaffirmed ad growth will come down “meaningfully.”

Is that a “Wait…what?” moment, “Oh…oh?”, or combination of the two? For it just seems a little confusing on how such a statement could even be expressed (via the CFO no less) when you’re told both the “buyers” (see above “5 million” reference) of those ads, along with the users (see the only metric that’s supposed to matter e.g. 1.94 billion MAU) to view them have both increased.

But not too worry. Because in what seems to be the now “playbook” (See Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for clues) for all that is “tech”, there’s a reason why one should not pay attention to such things and focus on others. To wit:

Facebook now has a plan to eat another $350 Billion IT market.

Or said differently (as in my opinion) – Zuck and crew found another narrative they believe they can spend money on and keep all the “happy” talk perpetually happy. After all – spending $Billions on companies that seem to never produce a nickel in net profit warranting that spending is what FB has come to do almost better than anyone else. See WhatsApp™, Instagram™, and more for clues. Or, if you want to think of this way: Snapchat is supposedly the Instagram killer – and how’s that business model working out? Sorry, too soon?

Isn’t it funny when it comes to anything involving “The Valley” it always seems it’s about the next big “buy” that’ll be the reason why some insane P/E or valuation will be, “So worth it!” Never the core product that is/was supposedly its raison d’être. And it’s always just around the corner, or as close as the shareholders checkbook. Funny how that works. Or shall I say, “did?”

But then again it does seem so old-fashioned to worry about things like net profits when all one needs to do is use or follow the example below as a guide for growth in the #1 metric touted via “The Valley.” To wit:

“A Russian Went Inside A Chinese Click-Farm: This Is What He Found”

Makes you wonder how much further “value” all that “Asia” growth means to advertisers going forward. But then again…

It’s different this time, no?  Especially if advertisers themselves are beginning to see the light. See P&G™ for clues.

A Russian Went Inside A Chinese Click-Farm: This Is What He Found

On the day when Snapchat erased billions of market cap from investors (and founders) accounts - as the MAUs-means-money model seems to break - we thought it worthwhile taking another glimpse into the hush-hush world of "click-farms" and the fakeness of the latest social network fads.

In 2014, we first exposed the world to the "click-farm" where nothing is what it seems, and where social networking participants spend millions of dollars to appear more important, followed, prestigious, cool, or generally "liked" than they really are. As we detailed at the time, social networking has been the "it" thing for a while: for the networks it makes perfect sense because they are merely the aggregators and distributors of terrabytes of free, third party created content affording them multi-billion dollar valuations without generating a cent in profits (just think of the upside potential in having 10 times the world"s population on any given publicly-traded network), while for users it provides the opportunity to be seen, to be evaluated or "liked" on one"s objective, impartial merits and to maybe go "viral", potentially making money in the process. Of course, the biggest draws of social networks also quickly became their biggest weaknesses, and it didn"t take long to game the weakest link: that apparent popularity based on the size of one"s following or the number of likes, which usually translates into power and/or money, is artificial and can be purchased for a price.

But it is not only sport stars with chips on their shoulder, or fading move and music gods who are willing to dish out in order to get the fake adoration and fake fans: as the AP reports, In 2013, the State Department, which has more than 400,000 likes and was recently most popular in Cairo, said it would stop buying Facebook fans after its inspector general criticized the agency for spending $630,000 to boost the numbers. In one case, its fan tally rose to more than 2.5 million from about 10,000.

Since then there have been crackdowns (self-regulated) and also numerous "advertising metric errors," but still, as recently as March of this year, scientists at USC and Indiana University discovered up to 15% of Twitter accounts could be fake. Since Twitter currently has 319 million monthly active users, that translates to nearly 48 million bot accounts, using USC"s high-end estimate. The report goes on to say that complex bots could have shown up as humans in their model, "making even the 15% figure a conservative estimate." At 15 percent, the evaluation is far greater than Twitter"s own estimates.

In a filing with the SEC last month, Twitter said that up to 8.5 percent of all active accounts contacted Twitter"s servers "…without any discernable additional user-initiated action."

Since that equates to roughly 20 million more bot accounts than Twitter"s own assessment, that could be an issue in light of analyst concerns about user growth. In a recent research report, Nomura Instinet analysts wrote that "Twitter"s revenue growth has slowed to the mid-single digits, as the platform has struggled to attract new users over the past year…"

The research could be troubling news for Twitter, which has struggled to grow its user base in the face of growing competition from Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and others.

So, if they"re not human, where do all those "likes," "retweets," and "followers" lighting up your social media accounts from?

Thanks to this Russian gentleman - who visited a Chinese click farm, where they make fake ratings for mobile apps and other things like this -  we now know...

Russian man visited Chinese click farm.They make fake ratings for mobile apps and things like this.He said they have 10,000 more phones pic.twitter.com/qE96vgCCsi

— English Russia (@EnglishRussia1) May 11, 2017

      He said they have 10,000 more phones just like these.

As we concluded previously, the bottom line is simple: "The illusion of a massive following is often just that," said Tony Harris, who does social media marketing for major Hollywood movie firms, said he would love to be able to give his clients massive numbers of Twitter followers and Facebook fans, but buying them from random strangers is not very effective or ethical. And once the prevailing users of social networks grasp that one of the main driving features of the current social networking fad du jour is nothing but a big cash scam operating out of a basement in the far east, expect both Facebook and shortly thereafter, Twitter, to go the way of 6 Degrees, Friendster and MySpace, only this time the bagholders will be the public. Because "it is never different this time." The only certain thing: someone will promptly step in to replace any social network that quietly fades into the sunset.

20 Amazing Things That Happen Every Single Minute Of Every Single Day In Our Rapidly Changing World

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Our world is changing at a blinding pace that is accelerating with each passing day. 

Thanks to the Internet, information travels at a speed that would have been unimaginable at other times in human history, and our technological capabilities are advancing at a rate that is exponentially increasing.  What all of this means is that seismic cultural shifts that used to take decades can now be accomplished in a matter of months or even weeks. 

The following are 20 amazing facts about what happens every single minute of every single day in our rapidly changing world... 

#1 250 babies will be born, and 113 of them will be born into poverty.

#2 500 hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube.

#3 The Earth will travel 1,118 miles around the sun.

#4 McDonald’s will sell 4,500 hamburgers.

#5 Lightning will strike our planet about 6,000 times .

#6 28,500 trees will be cut down.

#7 51,000 applications will be downloaded from Apple’s App Store.

#8 65,000 barrels of oil will be used used.

#9 People will watch 64,444 hours of content on Netflix.

#10 120,673 pounds of edible food will be thrown away in the United States.

#11 $203,596 worth of products will be sold on Amazon.com.

#12 448,800 tweets will be posted on Twitter.

#13 527,760 photos will be shared on Snapchat.

#14 3.3 million posts will be made to Facebook.

#15 3.8 million Google searches will be conducted.

#16 5 million pounds of garbage will be generated.

#17 6 million chemical reactions will happen in each one of our cells.

#18 20.8 million messages will be sent using WhatsApp.

#19 25 million Coca-Cola products will be consumed.

#20 204 million emails will be sent.

So will all of this change lead to a wonderfully positive future for humanity, or will it result in a dystopian nightmare?  Only time will tell, but what everyone can agree on is that our world is rapidly becoming a much different place than the world that our parents and grandparents grew up in.

Who Has The Best (And Worst) LinkedIn Profile Photos?

Submitted via Priceonomics

A quick spin through LinkedIn reveals that the quality of peoples" profile photos is rather uneven. Some photos appear to be from highly professional photoshoots while others are grainy pictures captured from old cell phones.

Is there any pattern in the data around professional networking photos? What professions have the highest quality photos? Do people that are fresh on the job market tend to have better headshots? Are certain countries more likely to have better professional networking photos then others?

We decided to analyze the data from Priceonomics customer Snappr, which has a Photo Analyzer tool for LinkedIn photos. The tool uses an algorithm to analyze portraits for things like expression (e.g. smile and jawline), composition (e.g. zoom and background), and photo quality (e.g. saturation and sharpness). These attributes are graded individually and incorporated into an overall photo quality score. The database contains tens of thousands of Photo Analyzer results and anonymized information from the LinkedIn profiles they’re attached to. We analyzed that database to identify the groups with the best-scoring photos. 

According to our data, lawyers have the best professional photos on LinkedIn, Chile is the country with the highest quality pictures, and people who recently joined a company are much more likely to have a nice photo than someone with a long tenure.

Do some countries take better photos than others? We first grouped our sample based on nationality, filtered our list to countries that contributed at least 50 scores, and ranked them based on average overall photo score.

 

According to our Photo Analyzer, Chileans take the best profile pictures. A look at their individual attribute scores revealed that they earned the top spot by taking photos that were technically strong, with great saturation and brightness and neutral backgrounds.

Developed, politically stable nations make up the bulk of this ranking, but developing countries like Brazil and India show up too, demonstrating how accessible decent photography equipment is these days.

 

This ranking doesn’t bear a strong resemblance to rankings of physical attractiveness by country, but that makes sense: our analyzer calculates scores based only on features the subject has some control over.

We next asked whether photo quality varies with industry. We thought photos might be stronger for employees in people-oriented fields like sales and human resources, or among aesthetically-oriented creatives. We grouped our sample based on industry, calculated the average overall photo score for each group, and rank the top and bottom 10 below.

 

Workers with high-paying prestige positions in law, consulting, and investment banking take the best photos, according to our Photo Analyzer. They are joined, perhaps not surprisingly, by workers in broadcast media and people-oriented staffing and recruiting industries.

What is surprising is the ‘worst’ ranking, as photographers find themselves with the lowest average photo quality score. It"s important to remember that Photo Analyzer is an algorithm and perhaps professional photographers take creative liberties that don’t jibe with the science of what makes a good professional photo according to an algorithm.

Photographers are joined in this ranking by other creatives - architects, fashion designers, and media producers - as well as professionals in behind-the-scenes industries like information services, machinery, and computer networking.

We associate some of the professions on the ‘best’ list with large firms that grant their employees access to a broad network, and that led us to wonder whether network size is correlated with photo quality. We grouped our sample based on the user’s number of LinkedIn connections and charted the average overall photo score for each group.

 

The more connected you are, the better your LinkedIn photo is likely to be. This doesn’t necessarily mean upgrading your photo will net you more friends, though. It’s likely that individuals with access to a wide network also have access to top-notch photography services. If they work at a large enough company, their employer may even arrange a headshot for them.

This ranking suggested that people with more seniority - who have been around longer to develop a wider network - might also have better profile photos, as determined by our Photo Analyzer. We explored this possibility by grouping our sample based on how long users had been in their current position and charted the average overall photo score for each group.

 

People with more seniority in their current positions actually have worse photos, on average, than newer employees. This makes some sense - technology has advanced since these veterans had reason to update their profile pictures. By the same token, recent hires will have been job-hunting recently, and had an incentive to invest in a high-quality photo.

Keep in mind, our Photo Analyzer is a technical tool, not the final word on photographic artistry. Your portrait may very well deserve a space at the Met, but if it doesn’t follow the rule of thirds, have a neutral background, or showcase your dazzling smile, it won’t receive a high score. Research has shown that these attributes inspire positive impressions in viewers, and our Analyzer is designed to measure them.

But limitations aside, what did we find? We saw that professionals in law and management tend to have better photos than workers in creative or behind-the-scenes roles. Network size is positively correlated with photo quality, whereas length of tenure with present employer is correlated negatively.

Over 5,000 Flights Canceled Due To Winter Storm Stella As NYC NatGas Price Soar

US carriers have grounded 1,796 flights today, and 3,384 tomorrow - numbers which keep constantly rising - as Winter Storm Stella approaches the U.S. Northeast, according to FlightAware.com. 

Chicago is bearing the largest share of Monday"s cancellations, while Tuesday"s disruptions are hitting hardest from Washington to Boston including the New York City area, AP adds. The major airlines are waiving ticket-change fees that range up to $200 for customers who want to change their travel plans. Restrictions vary by airline.

Southwest has canceled more than 300 flights for Monday and nearly another 900 scheduled for Tuesday, according to FlightAware. American Airlines and its American Eagle contractor Envoy Air together had canceled more than 300 flights Monday and 700 on Tuesday. JetBlue Airways, with major operations in Boston and New York, had already canceled more than 600 flights scheduled for Tuesday, FlightAware said.

The weather system may dump as much as 20 inches (51 centimeters) of snow from Connecticut to Long Island, including New York City, according to the National Weather Service. A deep freeze is poised to linger in the Northeast after the storm passes, sending Boston’s low to 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 Celsius) on March 16, 17 below average, AccuWeather Inc. data show

Meanwhile, as the blizzard bears down on the Eastern Seaboard, natural gas futures rose to one-month highs on speculation that demand for the heating fuel will surge during the storm, shrinking a supply glut, Bloomberg reports.

The late-winter cold blast is giving gas bulls a break after a warm start to the season sent the market plunging to an eight-month low earlier in the year. While gas stockpiles are still above normal for this time of year, frigid conditions could erode the surplus and stave off another price collapse before the summer.

“It’s not just tomorrow’s storm, but the forecast going out to late March that should be supportive for prices,” said Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities USA in New York. “But we’re coming to the end of the season, and storage is pretty healthy.”

While gas futures for April delivery rose 1.2%, to $3.044 per mmBTU at after earlier reaching $3.089, the highest since Feb. 10, gas is still down 18 percent this year, the worst performer among major commodities. However, a look at spot prices for NYC nat gas shows a much bigger spike, which is to be expected as the region will be most affected by the coming weather.

Of course, once the weather system passes later this week, expect a similar and just as sharp drop in prices.

Snap IPO Opens At $24 - Almost Three Times The Size Of Twitter

Having priced at $17, Snap Inc. opened for trading at $24, valuing the company over $34 billion - almost three times the size of Twitter, bigger than both HP and CBS, and almost as big as Ebay.

41% jump at the open from the IPO price and extending gains to $25..

Losses greater than revenues make for "hard math to work with" for investors, George Maris, portfolio manager at Janus Capital, says on Bloomberg Television.

At this valuation, Snap is almost three times the size of Twitter ($11.5bn)

Snap sold 200 million shares at $17 each for $3.4 billion, above the initial range of $14 to $16. It was oversubscribed by ten times, according to sources.

As The FT reports, John Colley, a professor at Warwick Business School, said the company faces significant challenges competing with Facebook and Google, makes substantial losses and is suffering from slowing growth. 

“Snap Inc is benefiting from institutions and individuals being awash with cash,” he said. “The top end valuation reflects high liquidity rather than a great prospect. There is far more cash than opportunities, which means pursuit of long odds risky options such as Snapchat.”

As a reminder for those who are buying SNAP with both hands and feet...

The company reported revenue of $404.5 million in 2016 and a loss of $514.6 million for 2016, compared with revenue of $57.7 million and a loss of $372.9 million a year earlier.

Snap said it had 158 million daily active users on average in the quarter ended in December, a 48% increase from the same quarter a year before.

If only the company had lost more money!!

Snapchat is expert at burning cash. Free cash flow was $678 million last year. THAT IS MORE THAN ITS REVENUE for the year.

The Underlying Force of Economics at Work in Society (Video)

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Facebook Stock Sinks As Social Network Admits Another Advertising Metric Error

Fool me once...

For the umpteenth time this year, Facebook has come clean with an error in its advertising metrics. In November, Facebook said that after discovering several mistakes in its reporting methods, it would be more transparent about errors in the future. And so they have...

We"ve uncovered an issue for a small group of Instant Articles publishers that impacts reporting in comScore. comScore alerted us to the issue, and we’ve since identified this is a result of a recent Facebook update that impacted publishers using our legacy comScore integration who support HTTPS on their websites. This caused an underreporting of iPhone traffic from Facebook in comScore products between Sep 20 to Nov 30, 2016. iPad and Android traffic were not affected. We have fixed the issue and are working with comScore to produce updated estimates for the relevant time periods for the small group of partners affected. We have reached out to affected publishers.

We know how important it is to be open about meaningful updates we make to our metrics, so we’ve created this channel for regular information on metrics enhancements.

As Bloomberg reports,

Facebook said it found another problem with metrics used by publishers and advertisers to gauge the reach of content posted on the world’s largest social network.

Facebook said in a blog post that it had been under-reporting traffic from publishers that participate in the company’s Instant Articles system. The mishap, which Facebook said was discovered by comScore, was traced to a recent software update. It resulted in some traffic not being counted properly from iPhone users from Sept. 20 to Nov. 30.

“We have fixed the issue and are working with comScore to produce updated estimates for the relevant time periods for the small group of partners affected,” Facebook said in the post.

Facebook has been trying to lure publishers into the Instant Articles program. It lets media companies publish content on the social network directly instead linking back to their own websites. Articles load faster for users, but some publishers have raised questions about ceding control to Facebook and diminishing their relationship with readers.

The disclosure is the latest in a string of problems Facebook has disclosed about metrics critical to business decisions made by advertisers and publishers working with the Menlo Park, California-based company.

The result, for now, is selling pressure...

Wheat Market and the US Dollar (Video)

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The Copper Market Has Exploded (Video)

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We Look at the Gold Trade From Election to December Rate Hike (Video)

By EconMatters

We examine Gold and the US Dollar Index from election into the December Fed Rate Hike in this video. If the December Rate Hike is a Go, then Gold is a Sell into said event. Pay attention to the pulse of the consumer, and how America and the World seem to react to the election results and aftermath for your clues on price range and degree of the move in Gold after the election.

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