TechCrunch

• Study: Twitter Sentiment Mirrored Facebook’s Stock Price Today - Facebook's IPO was obviously the single most discussed topic on Twitter today. The good folks over at social media data platform DataSift monitored what Twitter users were saying about the IPO throughout the day and came up with some interesting conclusions. Turns out, the ups and down of how Twitter's users felt about the stock pretty much mirrored the price of Facebook's stock as the day progressed.
• Facebook Reveals How Much Stock Each Bank Got, Morgan Stanley Nabbed $6 Billion Worth - Just after the markets closed on its first day of public trading, Facebook amended its S-1 with a complete prospectus detailing how much stock each underwriter got to sell. Morgan Stanley, the lead-left bank, received 162.1 million shares ($6.15 billion worth) followed by J.P. Morgan with 84.8 million ($3.22 billion), and Goldman Sachs pulled down 63.1 million shares ($2.4 billion).
• David Kirkpatrick On What The ‘Facebook Effect’ Could Be Post-IPO [TCTV] - Mark Zuckerberg's remote ringing of the opening bell and Facebook's initial stock trades were a bit anti-climactic in person at the NASDAQ Marketsite in New York City, as we've written -- NASDAQ is a digital exchange after all, so there's not too much to see visually. But being there was still a great opportunity to talk all things Facebook with David Kirkpatrick, the NYC-based founder of Techonomy, Fortune Magazine alum, and best-selling author of the book "The Facebook Effect -- The Inside Story Of The Company That Is Connecting The World." So we were happy to have Kirkpatrick join TechCrunch TV for an interview on the floor of the NASDAQ Marketsite.
• GameStop To Sell SIM Cards - GameStop is hurting. Same store sales fell 5%-11% and revenue was down 17% to $2 billion. Profit fell to $72.5 million. Arguably, those are still huge numbers and presumably a new console refresh should push the company out of the doldrums. But what the company has just launched - a new MVNO called GameStop Mobile - is almost inexplicable. GameStop Mobile is, in short, an unlimited data and voice offering for $55 a month (down to $20 a month for pay-as-you-go plans.) Gamestop is just selling SIM cards and service and is running on AT&T's network with some notable dead spots.
• These 3D Printer Trading Cards Are What Kids Will Swap In The Future - While, arguably, you’re not going to convince many kids to give up their Topps or Pokemon cards for these things, it’s nice to know they exist. They’re 3D Printer trading cards featuring some of the best 3D printers in the world. You got your Makerbot Replicator, your UP! Printer, and your Printrbot Plus. You got stats on there, a little trivia, some pricing information and then you can trade with your friends (“Awwww man, I need that Reprap clone!”) You can check them all out here or see them in person at Maker Faire in SF this week. Sadly, they’re not actually printing these things but if they did I’d totally buy a pack. The impetus? They came to creator Shawn Wallace in a dream: I had a dream that I found a box of 3D Printer Trading cards from 2012 at the Seekonk Speedway Flea Market. When I awoke I realized that might be a good way to introduce some of the 3D printer makers who will be exhibiting at the Maker Faire Bay Area next week. I’ll be posting these all week in no particular order; collect them all!
• Facebook’s Acquisition of Karma Brings Mobile Commerce, App Monetization Prowess - Facebook has just acquired mobile commerce startup Karma, which makes apps for gifting friends and family. The terms of the deal are undisclosed but 16 employees of the startup will be joining Facebook. The purchase will help Facebook build up monetization prowess on mobile platforms -- an area that it had said it's admittedly weak in. The price was not disclosed. With the deal, Facebook gets two extremely experienced leaders in building and monetizing mobile apps. Karma's chief executive Lee Linden and its co-founder Ben Lewis were behind Tapjoy, a company that became a huge force in distributing and making money from mobile games. Both he and Lewis were product managers at Google and Microsoft. Linden and Lewis have known each other since they were kids and have been building companies together for a couple years.
• Bankers Got Too Aggressive With Pricing Facebook As They Struggled To Keep Shares Above $38 - The underwriters of Facebook's $16 billion debut on NASDAQ fought to the finish to keep the company's shares above last night's final price of $38 a share. Shares closed at $38.23 today. Sources tell us that the syndicate of banks underwriting the deal have been putting in buy orders to keep its price afloat. It's not necessarily a bad outcome for Facebook as the company didn't leave any money on the table, but bankers are sure to be unhappy. Plus, the company's tepid premiere is killing the performance of tech stocks across the board. Basically, what we hear is that the underwriters including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, just got too aggressive in the final days before the IPO about pricing. Earlier this month, the company was slated to open at a $28 to 35 price range, but that range was pushed up to $34 to 38 a share. Then Facebook priced at the very high end at $38 last night. "The only thing keeping it at $38 are support mechanisms," a source tells us. "There just wasn't the institutional investor demand that people thought there would be." They added that about 20 percent of buying orders seem to be coming from retail investors (e.g. regular people), which is "unprecedented."
• Gillmor Gang Live 05.18.12 (TCTV) - Gillmor Gang - Gabe Rivera, John Taschek, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gilmor. Recording has concluded.
• Facebook IPO Day: The Scene At NASDAQ in NYC’s Times Square [TCTV] - In case there was any confusion after Facebook's eight years in business and its recent geographic expansions, it was cleared up today: Facebook's home and heart lies in Silicon Valley. TechCrunch TV saw that first-hand this morning at NASDAQ's Marketsite in New York City's Times Square. We were on hand there for the ringing of the NASDAQ opening bell, but as expected, Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg took advantage of the option to ring it remotely from his company's Menlo Park, California headquarters.
• TC/Gadgets Webcast: The Avengers, Nerf, And Kickstarter Tips - Is The Avengers worth your money? Do the disc-blasting Nerf guns leave a welt? How do you pull a Pebble and rein in $3 million on Kickstarter? In this week's TC/Gadgets webcast, we answer all this and more.