Top San Francisco Area Local News Stories
Source: MedleyStory
Getting into college isn't easy and for many students who grew up in the face of adversity, it's even harder.
The Bay Area is home to some low income students who defied the odds and are now heading to college.
Friday night, 125 high school seniors came to Redwood City for their graduation.
They are members of College Track's class of 2012. College Track is a national afterschool program in major cities such as Oakland, San Francisco and East Palo Alto.
College Track strives to keep high school students "on track" in the face of adversity.
One 18-year-old Oakland student became emotional when talking to KTVU about her parents' struggle. They immigrated from China. Her mother works as a housekeeper and her father is a cook. And now Jiamin Zhou is headed to Harvard.
"That's the dream that my parents came here to offer me an educational opportunity," said Zhou, Oakland Tech graduate.
College Track says 90 percent of its students are accepted into a four year college or university.
Darien Sensabough says staying alive while growing up in a crime-ridden East Oakland neighborhood has been difficult.
"I have to watch my back as I leave my front door walking to school," said Sensabough. He credits his single mother for helping keep him safe
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star, was the key note speaker. He told students that he too defied the odds.
"I am you. You can become anything you want. You're going to have to work your butt off," Johnson said.
These students say they're reaching high.
"I want to be a medical researcher. Maybe one day I'll find the cure for cancer," said Zhou.
But one student said it best: "I don't know the words: Can not do."
Published: Sat, 19 May 2012 00:39:37 -0700
The Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants faced each other for the first time this season Friday, but a stalemate over territorial rights to San Jose has some wondering if the chances of keeping the A's in Oakland are improving.
This week, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said there's no timetable for a decision about whether the A's should be allowed to move to San Jose.
Some said they think that opens the door for the city of Oakland to convince the team they can still get a new ballpark in Oakland.
Joe Alexander, an Oakland resident who came to Friday's game, said he supports the team's desire to move to San Jose.
He said if they leave, they have a better chance financially to be competitive, because they can't do that in Oakland.
When Selig reported no progress in settling a three-year dispute over the Giants' territorial rights to San Jose, some think it put the city of Oakland back in the game.
Clorox CEO Don Knauss, of Oakland, has been an outspoken supporter of building a new stadium for the A's in Oakland.
"It seems to me that no decision is good for Oakland," Knauss said.
He said the inaction by Major League Baseball is good news for the city.
"I interpreted that, as did some of my business colleagues in Oakland and the East Bay, as a pretty positive sign that the commissioner and the other owners still have an open mind," Knauss said. "I guess we'll see if Lew Wolff and John Fisher still have an open mind."
A's ownership insists it's still focused on moving to San Jose, while some players seem determined to stay on the sideline of this debate.
"You try not to worry about that," said A's catcher Kurt Suzuki. "Obviously, people talk about the organization you play for. You definitely keep your ears open a little bit. But, it's an ongoing thing, you can't really control it, so you've just got to go out and play."
In a statement emailed to KTVU, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said the East Bay loves the Oakland A's. "We hope the ownership of the A's will join us at the table to discuss all of the options," she said.
Quan is counting on a Coliseum City project to keep the A's, Raiders and the Warriors in Oakland on the current site.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 22:03:42 -0700
Bay Area jobless numbers dropped in April after a small uptick in March, part of a statewide and national trend, according to state employment officials.
The state's unemployment rate in April was 10.9 percent according to the California Employment Development Department, down slightly from March's 11 percent rate. That number was down from 11.8 percent in April 2011.
In the Bay Area, San Francisco's unemployment rate was 7.4 percent in April, sharply down from March's rate of 8.1 percent.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee hailed the news as a sign that job creation efforts are meeting with success.
"As today's unemployment report demonstrates, we are making significant progress putting people back to work in neighborhood small businesses, tech and innovation companies and active construction sites," Lee said in a statement.
Marin County, which has the lowest jobless rate in the state, dropped to 6.4 percent from March's 6.6 percent.
Solano County, which has the highest unemployment rate in the Bay Area, also saw a decline, from 10.9 percent in March to 10.2 percent in April.
The national unemployment rate also declined in April to 8.1 percent from 8.2 percent in March.
The state's unemployment rate is derived from a federal survey of 5,500 households around California.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 21:57:09 -0700
In Silicon Valley, where sudden wealth is hardly something new and CEOs favor hoodies over bespoke blazers, Facebook's IPO on Friday didn't bring everyday life to a halt.
Employees weren't popping champagne corks at company headquarters, at least not where anyone outside could see them. And locals had plenty to do --from finding a job to locating the next Facebook.
The company's sprawling headquarters along the southern edge of San Francisco Bay was quiet except for security guards walking the parking lots, a dozen TV satellite trucks and an onslaught of reporters who were not allowed inside.
The morning began with a ceremony attended by a few dozen people in a courtyard in the center of campus known as Hack Square. Mark Zuckerberg rang the opening bell to start the Nasdaq Stock Market's daily trading as chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, Nasdaq executives and other employees looked on.
Afterward, employees tried to get back to business as usual. That is, building a company under immense pressure to meet shareholders' expectations. To remind everyone not to get caught up in the hoopla, Facebook's 2,000 employees were given t-shirts that read "Stay focused & keep hacking."
As is standard at large tech companies in Silicon Valley, employees were told not to talk to the press.
In the parking lot, venture capitalist Mark Siegel had come down to take a longing look at one that got away. Like many of his fellow technology startup investors with offices a short drive from Facebook on Silicon Valley's famed Sand Hill Road, Siegel said he had chances to back Facebook early on but didn't.
He said at the time, when competing social networks like Friendster and MySpace still had clout, it wasn't clear that Facebook would come out on top.
"In hindsight, any price would have been a good price to pay," said Siegel, a managing director at Menlo Ventures.
To avoid a similar fate in the future, Siegel's firm is invested heavily in Internet and social media companies, including popular blogging service Tumblr.
As for the viability of Facebook as an investment now that it's public, Siegel said he expects the stock to be in for a bumpy ride in the near future.
"I might buy a little, but I would buy it as a long-term hold," he said. "It's very fully valued, so I think in the short-term there's going to be a lot of ups and downs."
At a strip mall that includes the closest Starbucks to Facebook, the company's stock was not the first thing on everyone's minds. (Not that anyone at Facebook needs to come across the highway to Starbucks -- gourmet coffee is just one of the company's many meal perks.)
Ann House, 49, an education researcher at a nearby nonprofit, said the IPO would obviously mean more rich people in the area, but she's been pleasantly surprised so far that the company's recent move to its new headquarters hasn't yet led to a big uptick in street traffic.
Though not a heavy Facebook user, she said the ads on the social network's site have started to annoy her more. She expects the IPO won't help.
"It probably means there's going to be more advertising on the site, so I'll use it less," she said.
Claire Bonnar, 22, of Pacifica became a teenager shortly before Facebook first went online, but she doesn't count herself among the Facebook generation. She has an account, but she said she only logs on once every few months. She said she communicates with her friends by text message and phone to avoid the headaches she witnessed among former co-workers who were heavy users.
"They'd always be in each others' business," she said. "I don't want that kind of drama."
Facebook's IPO was also far from Bonnar's mind as she focused on more pressing concerns. Laid off from her job at a San Diego hospital a few months ago, she came north to be with family. She works as a cashier at a San Francisco barbecue restaurant to make ends meet while she plots her next move.
An aspiring pharmacist, she had traveled the 30 miles from Pacifica to a job training center in Menlo Park that, by coincidence, receives money from Facebook. The company does community outreach since moving into its new headquarters, which borders on neighborhoods that are far from wealthy.
Bonnar said she doesn't find it weird that Mark Zuckerberg, also in his 20s, has become one of the world's richest men thanks to an online service she doesn't even like.
"I think that it's really awesome, actually. It sucks I'm not in his position."
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 21:08:25 -0700
A body and two dead dogs were recovered from a vehicle near state Highway 37 near Petaluma Friday afternoon, a California Highway Patrol officer said.
A report of a vehicle upside down in a ditch in Sonoma County was called into the CHP at about 3:50 p.m., CHP Officer Ralph Caggiano said.
The Sonoma County Fire Department and the CHP responded.
At about 4:37 p.m., one person was pulled out of a vehicle unresponsive. At 4:30 p.m., that person was pronounced dead, he said.
It was unknown if other vehicles or people were involved.
The CHP was still at the crash site, which is located near the Riverside Equestrian Center, at 7600 Lakeville Road, at about 6:30 p.m.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 20:50:36 -0700
Sylvain Georges of France pedaled to a long, solo win and Dave Zabriskie of Salt Lake City maintained his race lead Friday in the mountainous stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California.
Georges, 28, a second-year who rides for Ag2r-La Mondiale, claimed his fifth career win after pedaling alone in the lead for the final 30 miles en route to his title in 5 hours, 7 minutes and 6 seconds.
Slovakia's Peter Sagan, who won the first four stages, finished second by 28 seconds in the stage that featured four climbs. Countryman Peter Velits finished third.
Zabriskie (Garmin-Barracuda) who took the race lead with a dominating individual time trial win in stage 5, finished 21st in the main field. He maintained a 34-second race lead over Tejay van Garderen (BMC) of Tacoma, Wash.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 17:56:39 -0700
A San Jose man was fatally crushed between two vehicles when a driver fleeing from the California Highway Patrol struck a parked car, San Jose police said Friday.
San Jose police said the fatal chase began when a CHP officer attempted to stop a burgundy 1999 Volkswagen Passat near North 33rd Street and McKee Road shortly before 9:30 p.m. on Thursday.
The Passat fled south on North 33rd Street and struck a Honda CR-V parked on the south curb between Alum Rock and Shortridge avenues, Officer Jose Garcia said.
The Honda was pushed forward, causing it to strike a parked Volkswagen Golf in front of it and pinning a 59-year-old San Jose man who was standing between the cars.
A 31-year-old San Jose woman standing on the sidewalk with her 11-year-old son was also struck by the cars, receiving moderate injuries. The boy was not hurt.
The Passat struck two more parked cars and a northbound 2008 Chrysler 300 before bursting into flames and coming to a stop.
The Passat's driver, who police identified as Dario Dwayne Taylor, 23, of Pittsburg was pulled from the burning car by the CHP officer who had attempted to stop the car moments earlier. He was checked for injuries at Regional Medical Center in San Jose before being arrested by the CHP and booked into Santa Clara County jail, Garcia said.
The man who was pinned between the parked cars was taken to Regional Medical Center, where he died at 7:30 a.m.
Taylor is being held without bail and his first court date is scheduled for Tuesday, according to county jail officials.
CHP officials did not return a call seeking further information on the circumstances surrounding the initial traffic stop.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 17:31:22 -0700
BART police are searching for relatives of a man who died after suffering a head injury at the Civic Center station in March, and any witnesses to the incident that led to his death.
The victim, who has been identified as Sam White, 45, was found by a station agent March 9 lying on the floor unconscious and bleeding from his head, according to BART police. He was found on the concourse level of the station near the pay phones by the Seventh and Market streets exit.
White died April 22 at San Francisco General Hospital. The San Francisco medical examiner has determined he died from "complications due to blunt trauma to the head and brain injuries."
He is described as a white man, 6 feet tall with brown hair and hazel eyes. He was wearing a red shirt, blue jeans and white shoes, according to police.
Customers pointed him out to the station agent but did not wait to talk to police. Investigators are hoping witnesses will help them determine how White was hurt.
Witnesses are urged to call the BART Police Department's Investigation section at (510) 464-7040, the confidential hot line at (510) 464-7011 or email Detective Wendy Sanchez at Wsanche@bart.gov.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 17:26:36 -0700
Comedian Bill Cosby gave a commencement speech during a graduation ceremony at University of San Francisco Friday, giving Bay Area grads a humorous sendoff into what may be a scary job market.
Grads told KTVU Cosby's speech made them feel a little less nervous about life after school.
The last time comedian Bill Cosby came to the University of San Francisco was during a break in an 1987 film shoot.
Cheers greeted him as he arrived to give a commencement speech and receive an honorary doctorate degree in humane letters.
"You have this education. You have these expectations. There are parents waiting for you to move out," Cosby said to the laughter of the gathered students and faculty.
The invitation came after Cosby surprised school officials last year with a phone call praising USF tributes to alumni and sports legends Ollie Matson and Bill Russell.
"The call said, 'This is Bill Cosby. Please don't hang up on me,'" remembered USF political science professor Dr. James Taylor.
Cosby offered grads some serious -- and not so serious -- advice about entering the working world.
"Yeah, you can be a little nervous, but not where you throw out who you are," said Cosby. "Don't send that part of you that is terrible."
The students KTVU spoke with said they appreciated the words of wisdom from someone who has made such an impact.
"Just to have someone who's successful in life saying 'Don't be nervous' -- I feel it touched me. It touched a lot of people here," said USF graduate Riley Davis.
"Totally inspirational humor," agreed fellow grad Amelia Marciano. "It was just very relatable to our age group, I thought. He's great."
Cosby closed with advice from a fellow legendary comedienne.
"In the words of Joan Rivers, 'Oh, grow up!'" said Cosby to applause.
Cosby was whisked away after his 25 minute speech for a private reception with school officials.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 17:05:23 -0700
A judge signed an order Friday to remove human remains found at a South Bay construction site that was once a cemetery and the final resting place for 43-year-old Anna Cardenas.
Gloria Jabaut said Cardenas, her grandmother, died during child birth and was buried in a cemetery outside a hospital in San Jose nearly 100 years ago
"When they covered it over the first time they took off all the crosses and leveled the ground," Jabaut said.
The cemetery disappeared from sight and mind in the 1950s until it reappeared when in February construction workers at Valley Medical Center discovered part of a cemetery estimated to have 1,400 pine coffins.
Hospital maps dated to 1932 show the cemetery, but by 1958 it was no longer marked on maps and by 1966 an employee parking lot had been built on the site.
It's illegal in the state to remove human remains from a cemetery without a court order, so on Friday, lawyers for the county got an order signed by a judge.
"The first thing we have to do is identify appropriate professionals to oversee the removal process," said Gwendlyn Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Santa Clara County. "It's important to us to do it in a respectful and dignified manner."
The court order said the county can remove as many remains necessary to complete the construction project.
The county said a forensic anthropologist could be hired to lead the recovery efforts, though a timeline has not been set.
Hospital staff members have searched for records that would reveal who is buried in the graveyard, but so far none have been found. County records of hospital deaths from 1925 to 1940 do not indicate who is buried in the cemetery or in the particular coffins slated for removal.
County officials plan to check for any identifying information when they remove the bodies and will contact surviving family members where appropriate.
"Unfortunately, the lack of information about who may be buried in the cemetery not only limits our ability to identify the remains, but is also makes this a very lengthy process for potential identification of the 100 individuals' remains," Deputy County Counsel Michael Rossi said.
"Due to the age and condition of these remains, it may not be possible to identify many of them," Rossi said.
Jabaut, now a grandmother and great-grandmother herself, said she hopes closure will come soon for her and her entire family.
Santa Clara County launched a phone number and email address that allows people to notify the county if they believe their relatives are buried at the site: remains@ceo.sccgov.org and (408)299-5192.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 17:03:20 -0700
Apparently, California Gov. Jerry Brown forgot to rent "The Social Network."
In an appearance Friday on "CBS This Morning," the California governor said his state is still the land of innovation and where Facebook was invented.
He added: "Not in Texas, not in Arizona, not in Manhattan and certainly not, you know, under the White House or the Congress."
But interviewer Charlie Rose pointed out that CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others developed the precursor to the iconic social network at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.
Brown responded that the Facebook's inventors quickly came to California, "where all the other innovative people are."
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company began selling stock Friday. Brown and other officials hope it could bring in as much as $2.1 billion in tax revenue for California.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 15:36:50 -0700
Frank Edward "Ed" Ray, a school bus driver who was hailed as a hero for helping 26 California students escape after three kidnappers buried them underground in 1976, has died. He was 91.
Ray died Thursday from complications of cirrhosis of the liver, said his granddaughter, Robyn Gomes.
Ray was the only adult on board when his school bus was hijacked in the farm town of Chowchilla. The kidnappers held them inside a truck buried underground in a plan to demand $5 million ransom.
The bus driver led the children to safety after he and two older children dug their way out as the kidnappers slept. No one was hurt.
The incident made national headlines and was made into a TV movie.
Ray's family remembers him as a simple, good person, Gomes said.
"He was a remarkable man. If you met him, you loved him, he was that kind of guy," she said. "The community will remember him as a hero, but it's not at all how he saw himself."
Ray collected newspaper clippings about the kidnapping, Gomes said, and bought the school bus he drove in 1976 as a memento.
Ray's funeral services will be held Tuesday at Chowchilla Cemetery.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 14:09:29 -0700
As the California budget crises continues, the question of how the state will shut down to close the public spaces of some state parks remains open to speculation.
Twin Lakes State Beach in Santa Cruz may be the most unusual California State Park slated to close July 1st. Most parks can shut its gates to the public.
"How do you close a beach like this? There aren't any walls or any kind of fencing, really, that we can put up," said Laura Kasa, the Executive Director for non-profit marine conservation organization Save our Shores.
In this case, for the state closure means no services such as rest rooms, lifeguards, and rangers. Twin Lakes draws half a million visitors a year.
"People just don't clean up as much as they should and you should see it after fourth of July. It's chaos," said Santa Cruz resident Lisa Schaechter. "Fourth of July weekend is one of our biggest weekends down there. You're going to have people, campfires on the beach, all the rest of the stuff."
Area government officials also have concerns about the proposed closure.
"There's law enforcement issues. There's garbage issues. There's everything else. They can't put a fence around that thing," said Santa Cruz County Supervisor Neal Coonerty.
Some state parks have been saved mainly by non-profit groups. But some of those rescuers warn they're not the solution, just a reprieve.
Santa Cruz Mission was rescued, temporarily, by a three-year deal between the State and the group Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks. They plan to raise $45,000 a year through donations and grants and opening the Mission to private events.
"It's not a sustainable way to run our parks system. We're very lucky that this is a supportive community. But the State Parks system is here for all of California and we believe that there needs to be funding that comes from a statewide basis," said Executive Director of Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks Bonny Hawley.
The non-profit Save Our Shores is also seeking donations to help pay for reduced services at Twin Lakes. While state officials believe these arrangements are models for the future, ironically Save Our Shores lost its state funding this year.
"So while we're being looked at as the partner to help clean the beaches up, we're already out here 250-times a year. There's no funding for us to do this, " said Laura Kasa.
Some visitors to Twin Lakes are still worried. After seeing crime such as the vandalism at Mount Diablo State Park this week, they are concerned about lack of security.
This week, the state legislature is reviewing funding bills including one making it easier for the public to pay for fees and bill proposes shifting road maintenance funds to cover parks' expenses.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 13:52:52 -0700
A motorcyclist was killed in a crash on northbound Interstate Highway 880 in Oakland late Friday morning, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The solo-vehicle crash was reported at about 11:45 a.m. on northbound Highway 880 south of Washington Street, CHP Officer Kevin Bartlett said.
The motorcyclist apparently crashed into the highway's center divider and was pronounced dead at the scene. His identity is not yet being released by the Alameda County coroner's bureau.
The crash caused the two left northbound lanes of Highway 880 to be blocked in the area for nearly two hours. All lanes had reopened by 1:30 p.m., according to the CHP.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 13:47:53 -0700
Officials have lifted quarantines on two Central California dairies linked to a case of mad cow disease, after investigators found the illness didn't come from cattle feed.
Tests performed by the World Organization for Animal Health confirmed what U.S. labs had found: The diseased cow had a form of the illness involving a spontaneous mutation of a protein gene that hasn't caused illness in humans.
The cases of mad cow reported across Great Britain in the 1990s were caused by cattle being fed protein supplements made from the spinal columns and brains of diseased cows. That practice has since been banned.
The case in Tulare County was discovered through random testing.
Officials have not released the names of the affected dairies, which had been shuttered since April 24.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 12:48:03 -0700
Law enforcement officers in Richmond are beefing up patrols throughout the city in the wake of two fatal shootings there over the past week, a police lieutenant said Friday.
The increased patrols come after a drive-by shooting in unincorporated North Richmond Monday that killed 22-year-old Orlando Yancy and a shooting in central Richmond Wednesday morning that left 27-year-old Richmond resident Donald Washington dead, Lt. Bisa French said.
French said Richmond residents can expect a heightened police presence in some neighborhoods through the weekend, if not longer.
Richmond police are working with the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office, which has jurisdiction over North Richmond, to investigate whether the two slayings are related, since North and Central Richmond are home to long-time rival gangs, French said.
"We haven't definitively tied (the shootings) together," she said.
Washington's murder marks Richmond's eighth homicide this year, while Yancy's death is the second murder reported in North Richmond in 2012, according to police.
No suspects have been found in either of the murders.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 11:53:50 -0700
A cement truck driver was killed in a collision with a big-rig in Fremont Friday morning, a police spokesman said.
The crash was reported at about 8:30 a.m. near the intersection of Kato Road and Benicia Street, Fremont police Detective Bill Veteran said.
The cement truck driver, whose name is not yet being released, was killed in the crash while the big-rig driver was hospitalized with injuries that are not considered life-threatening, Veteran said.
The investigation into the collision is expected to close Kato Road for several hours, and motorists are advised to avoid the area, according to police.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 11:39:11 -0700
A San Ramon man has been arrested in a fatal hit-and-run accident that left a man visiting the Bay Area from China dead on a Dublin roadway, authorities announced Friday.
Dublin police said Spencer Freeman Smith had been arrested Thursday afternoon after deputies examined his heavily damaged black 2012 Mercedes-Benz CLS550 in his garage.
Investigators had been led to Smith – who recently purchased the vehicle – by identification numbers on a car part found at the scene of Tuesday night's fatal hit-and-run of Bo Hu, who was killed while cycling on Dougherty Road.
The vehicle had suffered extensive windshield and front-end damage. It has been taken into custody for further examination, according to Lt. Herb Walters.
Smith, an employment attorney with offices in San Francisco is suspected of fleeing the scene after striking 57-year-old Bo Hu, who was riding or walking his bicycle north on Dougherty Road near the shoulder at
the time of the crash around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The car was traveling on Dougherty Road toward San Ramon when it struck Hu on his bicycle, according to police.
Hu was visiting the area from China, according to a coroner's technician.
Dublin police said Smith had been booked at Santa Rita Jail.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 11:01:03 -0700
Lincoln Avenue has reopened Friday afternoon after a suspicious package left outside an area business was determined to be harmless, according to San Jose police.
The package, which was reported at 8:49 a.m., was left at the door of a business on the 1300 block of Lincoln, along with a threatening note, Officer Jose Garcia said.
Neighboring businesses were evacuated and the nearby Willow Glen Elementary School was ordered to shelter-in-place while the Police Department's bomb squad investigated.
No explosives were found, but the package contained a powdery substance and a liquid. Hazardous materials teams determined that the substances were nontoxic and gave the all clear to reopen the area around 2 p.m., Garcia said.
Police do not have any suspect information but consider the package deliberately threatening in nature, Garcia said.
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 09:58:20 -0700
It was barely a "like" and definitely not a "love" from Facebook investors as the online social network's stock failed to live up to the hype in its trading debut Friday.
One of the most highly anticipated IPOs in Wall Street history ended on a bland note, with Facebook's stock closing at $38.23, up 23 cents from Thursday night's pricing.
That meant the company founded in 2004 in a Harvard dorm room is worth about $105 billion, more than Amazon.com, McDonald's and Silicon Valley icons Hewlett-Packard and Cisco.
It also gave 28-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg a stake worth $19,252,698,725.50.
"Going public is an important milestone in our history," Zuckerberg said before he symbolically rang Nasdaq's opening bell from company headquarters at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park, Calif. "But here's the thing: Our mission isn't to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected."
But for many seeking a big first-day pop in Facebook's share price, the single-digit increase was somewhat of a letdown.
"This is like kissing your sister," said John Fitzgibbon, founder of IPO Scoop, a research firm. "With all the drumbeats and hype, I don't think there'll be barroom bragging tonight."
Added Nick Einhorn, an analyst with IPO advisory firm Renaissance Capital:
"It wasn't quite as exciting as it could have been," he said. "But I don't think we should view it as a failure."
Indeed, the small jump in price could be seen as an indication that Facebook and the investment banks that arranged the IPO priced the stock in an appropriate range.
And it was good for ordinary investors, who are often shut out from IPOs or buy the stock at a high price on day one.
Facebook offered 15 percent of its available stock in the IPO, so there was enough to meet demand. In comparison, Google offered just 7.2 percent of its stock when it went public in 2004 -- and rose 18 percent on day one.
Here was Facebook's "timeline" Friday, trading under the symbol "FB" on the Nasdaq Stock Market:
The stock opened at 11:30 a.m. at $42.05, but soon dipped to $38.01. It briefly traded at one point as high as $45 and by noon was at $40.40. It fluttered throughout the afternoon and hugged the $38 mark for much of the final hour, before closing at $38.23.
By the end of the day, about 570 million shares had changed hands, a huge trading volume for any company.
TD Ameritrade reported that in the first 45 minutes of trading, Facebook accounted for a record 24 percent of trades executed by its customers.
By comparison, on its first day back on the stock market, in November 2010, General Motors represented 7 percent of overall trades on the online brokerage.
Steve Quirk, who oversees trading strategy at TD Ameritrade, said that about 60,000 orders were lined up before Facebook opened.
Other social-media companies, most of whom have gone public in the last year, saw their shares plummet when it became clear what kind of reception Facebook was getting in the public market. Shares of game-maker Zynga Inc. and reviews site Yelp Inc. both hit all-time lows.
The stock market will now begin assigning a dollar value to Facebook that will rise and fall with investor whims. It will be subject to broad economic forces and held accountable for profit it earns --or loses-- from one quarter to the next.
Facebook is one of those rare companies whose IPO transcends Wall Street's money lust. Since its start as a scrappy network for college students, Facebook has come to define social networking by getting its 900 million users around the world to share everything from photos of their pets to their deepest thoughts.
Most tech companies going public want a big rise in their debut to show they're "strong, dynamic companies standing out in the crowd," said Francis Gaskins, president of researcher IPOdesktop, but Facebook already has that image, and so may not care.
What's more, he said, most of the money raised in the IPO -- $9 billion of $16 billion -- went to early investors who want the highest price possible IPO price, and so they're likely happy with the modest firs-day rise.
Facebook is one of the few profitable Internet companies to go public recently. It had net income of $205 million in the first three months of 2012, on revenue of $1.06 billion. In all of 2011, it earned $1 billion, up from $606 million a year earlier. That's a far cry from 2007, when it posted a net loss of $138 million and revenue of $153 million. The company makes most of its money from advertising. It also takes a cut from the money people spend on virtual items in Facebook games such as "FarmVille."
Facebook's public debut marked a new milestone in the history of the Internet. In 1995, Netscape Communications' IPO gave people their first chance to invest in a company whose graphical Web browser made the Internet more engaging and easier to navigate. Its hotly anticipated IPO lit the fuse that ignited the dot-com boom. That explosion of entrepreneurial activity and investment culminated five years later in a devastating bust that obliterated the notion that the Internet had hatched a "new economy."
It took Google Inc.'s IPO in 2004 to prove that an Internet company with a disruptive idea could be profitable. In the process, the Internet search leader is forcing other industries to adapt to a new order where people have come to expect to be able to find just about anything they want by entering a few words into a box on any device with an Internet connection.
Facebook's IPO almost certainly will enrich other up-and-coming entrepreneurs as Zuckerberg uses the company's cash and stock to buy other startups in an effort to being in other talented engineers and promising technology. That's what has been doing for years. Since it went public in 2004, Google has spent $10.2 billion buying nearly 200 other companies. Those figures don't include Google's still-pending $12.5 billion acquisition of cellphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., which is still awaiting regulatory approval in China.
Zuckerberg's biggest deal so far came when he agreed to buy Instagram, a maker of a popular mobile app for photos, for $1 billion. Because most of the deal is being paid for in stock, Instagram is already getting richer. Based on Facebook's current share price, Instagram is in line to receive about $1.2 billion.
Friday's debut, though, resulted in deals worth much less.
Alper Aydinoglu, a DePaul University student who got 50 shares via Etrade at $38, said he was "disappointed with the first day of trading."
His gain on paper: $11.50, but that was before Etrade's standard commission of $9.99.
Aydinoglu still called it an excellent learning opportunity.
"On top of everything, I now have the bragging rights that I participated in one of the most popular IPOs of all time."
Published: Fri, 18 May 2012 07:30:20 -0700
HerculesCalifornia.com
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