Facebook's Zuckerberg gives IPO advice, reluctantly, to Twitter

How should Twitter handle an initial public offering? Mark Zuckerberg admits he’s probably not the best person to ask.

The Facebook CEO was asked at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco Wednesday for some advice on how Twitter could ensure a smooth IPO.

But Facebook’s own IPO was beset with technical glitches and claims of insider trading. “I was worried people would leave the company,” Zuckerberg said of the period after Facebook went public.

But, after leading Facebook through a turbulent first year as a public company, Zuckerberg said that the IPO process itself “is actually not that bad.”

Zuckerberg was interviewed on stage by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington.

For a smooth IPO, Zuckerberg said, “You have to know everything about your company. You’ve got to stay focused on doing the right stuff.”

Zuckerberg cited Facebook’s strong growth in mobile as an example of the importance of identifying the right areas of focus for a company.

Last year, Facebook basically had no revenue in mobile, and “people thought it was a disastrous thing,” Zuckerberg said. But during Facebook’s most recent earnings call this past July, the company reported that 41 percent of its total advertising revenue was derived from mobile.

An IPO for Twitter will go over fine as long as the social network “focuses on what they’re doing,” Zuckerberg said.

Twitter is trying to refine its focus around real-time conversations. The company recently tweaked its site and mobile apps to make it easier for people to carry out conversations on Twitter and post them outside the social network too.

Twitter has launched new advertising products too in an effort to raise revenues with a possible IPO looming. Earlier this week Twitter announced that it had bought MoPub, a mobile-focused ad exchange. MoPub’s technology could help Twitter serve ads to more consumers outside of Twitter.com and the site’s mobile apps.

Twitter has a little more than 200 million active users; Facebook has more than 1 billion.

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Distant Worlds gives 4X Players a huge galaxy and many options

Distant Worlds $30.00 Anyone who likes complex games and prefers being a governor to being a god should check out Distant Worlds.

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Distant Worlds is a massive 4X game that shares many of the strengths and weaknesses of the genre: detailed systems, technology, and options; very long games that form their own histories and stories; minimalist graphics and effects; and a steep, steep learning curve.

Distant Worlds gives you more sliders to fiddle with during "New Game" than some games give you for the entire experience.

Distant Worlds is definitely aimed at the hardcore player for this genre. It does not attempt to simplify or strip down gameplay or worry much about "approachability." I have a weakness for games like this (see Aurora and Dwarf Fortress) but they're not to everyone's taste. Code Force/Matrix Games has designed Distant Worlds for a specific niche, and they've produced a game that will satisfy the target audience very well.

The default beginning for Distant Worlds gives you a small fleet with which to begin your conquest.

Distant Worlds is sold as a core game and a series of expansions. This review is based on the latest bundle, which included all of the released material. The expansions don't just add "more stuff." They add in entire new categories of activity, such as planetary facilities, changes to the tech tree structure, and so on.

My escorts ward off some pirate ships in Distant Worlds.

The latest expansion, Shadows, adds something very new: the chance to play as a pirate, rather than an empire, focusing on raiding, constructing hidden bases, smuggling, and generally ruling the galaxy from the, well, shadows. The Shadows expansion also offers a mode of play where you begin at a primitive level, with no FTL capacity, and must first develop your home system and learn to build even the most basic craft. The default start position gives you a certain amount of technology and a small fleet of exploration and construction ships.

In many 4X games, the player has total control over all aspects of their empire. In Distant Worlds, civilians run the economy. As the empire grows, fleets of freighters and transports appear, carrying cargo between worlds, constructing mining stations, and so on. You can add mining stations of your own, but the transport of resources across your empire is almost entirely out of your hands, short of making sure you've secured the worlds that have the resources you need on them.

So many choices. So few research points.

This can lead to frustrating shortages if the civilian AI isn't moving the goods where you want them the most. However, this "living universe" feature is one of the most compelling aspects of Distant Worlds. It's a lot like Sim City, in that you can build the structures, but you can't control the people.

As is typical of high-complexity/small-market games, the documentation is sparse, and the full impact of your choices is not always obvious. Distant Worlds offers a lot of freedom, and that means a lot of ways to undermine yourself. Random factors play a part, as well. A game where you begin with high-quality colonizable worlds nearby is much easier than one where you don't find a potential colony world for a long time. A random disaster took out most of my homeworld's infrastructure in one game, leaving me with basically no economy and a perennially-increasing debt, so I couldn't build the facilities to repair the damage.

Distant World's AI can handle nearly all of your empire's tasks, or none, as you see fit. (Private trade is always AI controlled.) It can design ships, form fleets, conduct exploration, and so on. At the highest levels of automation, you can mostly watch the game play itself; with everything off, you can micromanage hundreds of ships and dozens of colonies. Galaxies in Distant Worlds can be immense, with 1400 stars and thousands of worlds and moons.

A medium-sized galaxy in Distant Worlds. Note that none of the stars are background images. You can zoom in on each glowing point to reveal a solar system with multiple worlds and moons. This game is huge.

While playing Distant Worlds, you will stumble upon abandoned ships, alien ruins, pirate bases, space monsters, and strange mysteries. You can send espionage agents to steal secrets or perform sabotage. You can construct wonders of the galaxy, conquer worlds, and forge alliances.

You will also deal with an occasionally obtuse interface, lose track of exactly here you wanted that fleet to move to, and confront bugs. To their credit, Code Force/Matrix Games is quick about fixing issues, but there have also been a lot to fix, most trivial, some major.

The Distant Worlds Expansion Planner shows the worlds I could colonize, if I had ships or money.

The lack of a demo/trial is problematic for a game like Distant Worlds, because of the niche nature of the product. While the core game costs only $20, the feature set has changed a great deal through the expansions. However, the essential gameplay has not. If 4X/Strategy games are of any interest to you, try the core game, and if you like the general feel of it, get the next three expansions and play in the Age Of Shadows.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download this software.

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