Brent Simmons looks at the way Web sites display ads and how it relates to Facebook.

The on-going competitive environment is impacting our business in the form of lower volumes and highly competitive pricing dynamics in the marketplace, and we expect our Q1 results to reflect this, and likely result in an operating loss for the quarter. We are continuing to be aggressive as we compete for our customers’ business – both enterprise and consumer – around the world, and our teams are working hard to provide cost-competitive, feature-rich solutions to our global customer base.

Translation: We’re fucked.

I definitely want this.

John Kell and Kaitlyn Kiernan for the Wall Street Journal:

Facebook Inc. shares continued to show weakness Tuesday amid a swirl of uncertainty and rumors, with the social network’s stock sliding below $30 and now more than 20% off from where it debuted less than two weeks ago.

The article notes that option trading on Facebook started today, in which investors can bet on the future of the stock. According to the report, “The largest option trades, however, bet on Facebook seeing more downside this summer, pegging a $25 share price by mid-July.”

The folks at Flattr describe what happened and why apps including the functionality are being rejected from the App Store.

Marcelo Somers:

Facebook is no better at advertising than ValueClick or any other online ad network. They just happen to be able to correlate their customers slightly better than everyone else. That’s not the formula for a $100 billion business, just click through rates closer to 1%.

There are many great points in this article.

Mike Rose for Gamasutra:

Elsewhere, Schilling said that Governor Chafee’s public remarks about the studio’s issues were “devastating,” and he claims that a publisher pulled out of a $35 million deal to finance a sequel to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning as a result of the comments.

Ex Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling is in hot water because his video game company, 38 Studios, failed spectacularly after taking a $75 million relocation deal from the state of Rhode Island, then being unable to pay it back on time.

Schilling should know better than anyone about running one’s mouth off, because he’s famous for doing it – but that’s not the only reason he’s a hypocrite. Schilling has preached the small government mantra for years, yet he was only too happy to take government money to relocate his business from Massachusetts to Rhode Island when then-governor Donald Carcieri cemented the deal.

I feel badly for the employees of 38 Studios and their families, as well as the Rhode Island taxpayers who are on the hook to pay for this pig, but I have nothing but enmity for Schilling, who’s been hoist by his own petard.

Maybe next time Schilling should take his own advice and seek to succeed in business on his own, rather than suckling at the government teat like a greedy little piggy.

Weldon Dodd has a look at Marketcircle’s new Daylite 4 for Mac and iOS. Marketcircle is one of those companies that I really like — they care about their products and customers.

24/7 Wall Street:

For the second year in a row, 24/7 Wall St. examined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s report on life satisfaction in the developed world. Economic prosperity, health and a strong social support network continue to correspond highly with happiness. Once again, the United States fails to make the top 10 happiest nations in the world, while countries like Australia, Israel and all of the Scandinavian nations do.These are the happiest countries in the world.

Before you read the article, take a guess where the US falls in the list.

Cook wants key players in Washington to know they now have an open line to the chief executive in Cupertino.

That was the message aides briefed on the meetings said Cook conveyed in sit-downs with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Cook didn’t connect with the top House Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, who hails from neighboring San Francisco, because she was traveling back from an official trip to Afghanistan when he made his rounds.

Ultimate file manager for iOS. Connect, browse and edit your files in the cloud.

Jean-Louis Gassée takes a look at Apple, Amazon and Facebook and the things that affect their share prices.

But if you don’t have a lot of experience with CSS, then you’re probably trying to figure out what is the best way to handle some of the challenges that arise from using multiple vendor prefixes, dealing with older versions of Internet Explorer, and other CSS3-specific dilemmas.

The company has already hired more than half a dozen former Apple software and hardware engineers who worked on the iPhone, and one who worked on the iPad, the employees and those briefed on the plans said.

I think Facebook could build a good smartphone — certainly better than many that are on the market now.

There have been many imitations – Fancybox and Thickbox to name just two – but Lightbox still remains as the favoured way to present images to a user. This, primarily, is due to its 3d animation and background dimming which allows the user to view the image without any distraction. It’s a useful, timeless technique.

CNET:

On May 27, 1937, a brand new bridge opened to the public for the first time. Connecting San Francisco to its northern neighbor, Marin County, the new bridge — controversial at the time — became one of the most photographed man-made projects in history. The Golden Gate Bridge is now a worldwide icon, and this Sunday, it turns 75.

We usually hate slideshows but there are some fantastic pictures of the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge included here.

Smithsonian:

Chicken is the ubiquitous food of our era, crossing multiple cultural boundaries with ease. With its mild taste and uniform texture, chicken presents an intriguingly blank canvas for the flavor palette of almost any cuisine. Long after the time when most families had a few hens running around the yard that could be grabbed and turned into dinner, chicken remains a nostalgic, evocative dish for most Americans. When author Jack Canfield was looking for a metaphor for psychological comfort, he didn’t call it “Clam Chowder for the Soul.”How did the chicken achieve such cultural and culinary dominance?

An interesting, if not very detailed, look at how the chicken became such a staple of our diets.

I received an email from a reader today about push email being broken on iCloud. I was sure he was wrong, but when I sent myself an email to my Cloud address, it arrived immediately on my Mac, but didn’t arrive on my iPhone until I opened the Mail app. Weird ¹.

It’s not a new issue though. People have had intermittent problems from at least last October.

Don’t lie, you know you want one.

It’s the “Official Souvenir Program for the Golden Gate Bridge Fiesta,” which began precisely 75 years ago today. Inside it, you find a bunch of high-fallutin’ rhetoric about Progress and Commerce, but you also find more than 130 advertisements for various businesses that wanted to be included in what functioned as a visitor’s guidebook.

This is the year the Golden Gate Bridge was completed.

You know you have a problem when employees are naming the day. Another 2,000 are on the block.

_{[Via Curious Rat]}

Rian van der Merwe:

I’ve never fully bought into the “user experience cannot be designed” argument. You could say I’m biased because user experience design is how I choose to make my living, but I would (surprise!) disagree with that as well.

It seems to me it’s the clients that hinder most designs.

Kelly Stewart on the frustration of rumors and “sources familiar with the matter.”

Wow, portions have increased quite a bit since 1950.

Travis Hines:

The sharpness of your phone or tablet’s display is referred to as density. iOS devices measure density in PPI (pixels per inch) and Android in DPI (dots per inch). The more pixels or dots you fit in one square inch on a screen, the higher the density and resolution of it.

I don’t envy designers.

Philip Elmer-Dewitt:

In the space of six paragraphs the document characterizes the Justice Department’s assertions as “absurd” and “fundamentally flawed,” accuses the government of “ignoring inconvenient facts” and of siding with monopoly rather than competition.

Apple seems pretty aggressive and confident in this battle with the government.

SimpleAir does not appear to have any actual products available for sale, as the company is self-described as “an inventor-owned technology licensing company.” It said it has “interests and intellectual property in the wireless content delivery, mobile application, and push notification market spaces.”

I don’t mind a company protecting its intellectual property, but I hate patent trolls.

Hmmm, reminds me of something, but I can’t put my finger on it.

I want to thank SuperMegaUltraGroovy for sponsoring The Loop the last two weeks. I use Capo all the time to figure out how to play songs on the guitar and it works like a charm.

Reverse Engineering Rock and Roll: Capo is a revolutionary tool that helps you learn the music in your iTunes library. Available for your Mac, iPhone, iPod, and iPad.

Download the free trial for the Mac, and check out the new mastering-quality slowing engine that retains the detail in your music all the way down to quarter-speed!