• Sites With Anti-Fraud Sign Still Flawed – The Associated Press
    When a small padlock appears in the corner of your Web browser’s address bar or the entire bar turns green, it seems like a powerful signal you’re safe to proceed.  But experts say the SSL certificates those green lights signify — digital stamps of approval that Web sites buy to prove they’re running a legitimate business and can send and receive encrypted data safely — don’t provide the safety they seem to.  "They instill some sense of security, but that could be a dangerously false sense of security," said Paul Mutton, a researcher with UK-based security firm Netcraft Ltd.  The site itself could still be riddled with security holes for hackers to exploit. And the certificate could simply be bogus: Criminals have been forging them to get the padlock icon and dress up fraudulent sites.

  • Web 2.0’s Long Road to IPOs
    During the Web’s heyday, a profitable Internet company nearing $100 million in annual sales while luring a million new customers a month would have found itself on the IPO fast track. But that’s hardly the case for LinkedIn, a professional networking site that has cleared those hurdles and then some.  Instead, LinkedIn is hewing closely to the Web economy’s new motto on initial public offerings: Easy does it. Founded in 2003, LinkedIn may not sell shares until some time next year. Likewise, social networking site Facebook, worth $15 billion on paper, may not go public until 2010,

  • Reorganization Doesn’t Do It for Marketers – Advertising Age – News
    During the Web’s heyday, a profitable Internet company nearing $100 million in annual sales while luring a million new customers a month would have found itself on the IPO fast track. But that’s hardly the case for LinkedIn, a professional networking site that has cleared those hurdles and then some. Instead, LinkedIn is hewing closely to the Web economy’s new motto on initial public offerings: Easy does it. Founded in 2003, LinkedIn may not sell shares until some time next year. Likewise, social networking site Facebook, worth $15 billion on paper, may not go public until 2010.

  • How to Make the Move Up to General Manager – Advertising Age – TalentWorks
    For all the arguments calling for longer tenure, a majority of marketing leaders aren’t intent on being career CMOs. Most aspire to trade their functional experience and take a chance on general management.  In a recent Spencer Stuart study of 500 marketing executives across industries, only 30% want to be a CMO, while 70% of respondents have long-term aspirations of becoming general managers.

  • Candidates Do It, Athletes Do It; Why Don’t We? – Advertising Age – Small Agency Diary
    For the past several weeks I’ve been consumed by a seemingly endless new-business pitch and an equally endless series of presidential primary debates.  I learned a great deal about the presidential candidates, but had to guess where we stood via our competitors. So I wondered, is ours the only business where people compete without ever seeing what their competition does? Maybe that’s yet another reason the pitch process is so broken.

  • Facebook Finds New No. 2 for Mark Zuckerberg – Advertising Age – Digital
    Facebook has appointed a No. 2 for 24-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Sheryl Sandberg, a Google veteran who most recently served as VP-global sales and operations.  Ms. Sandberg was hired on as Facebook’s chief operating officer, a title most recently held by Owen Van Natta before he became chief revenue officer. Facebook last month said Mr. Van Natta is leaving the social-networking site.

  • Facebook CEO Seeks Help as Site Grows Up – WSJ.com
    Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Inc.’s 23-year-old chief executive, is finding that he and his company have to grow up at Internet speed. The latest sign: He has poached a top Google Inc. executive, Sheryl Sandberg, to help expand his social-networking company.