Football

Games http://sammyche.blogspot.com/2014/06/games.html

Games

Football..
Barcelona and Real Madrid
still want Luis Suarez and
negotiations have already
begun over a move from
Liverpool to Spain, according
to Sky Sports Spanish
football pundit Guillem
Balague.
The Uruguayan’s Liverpool
contract is rumoured to
contain a buyout clause and
Suarez was heavily linked
with a move to both clubs at
the start of the World Cup.
Suarez’s bite on Italy's
Giorgio Chiellini had cast
doubt on whether the
Spanish giants would move
for him, but Balague insists
the interest remains
undiminished and talks
between Liverpool and
Barcelona continue over a
switch to La Liga.
“It is quite clear that
Barcelona and Real Madrid
have not been put off by the
situation but Barcelona at
least will want Suarez to
apologise at some point
because that has been
missing,” Balague told Sky
Sports News.
“There is no doubt
whatsoever that Barcelona
still want the player. Real
Madrid think they’ve still got
an option of getting him and
of course even though there
is a buyout clause of 80m
euros.
“What Barcelona would like
perhaps is bringing that price
down and taking advantage
of the situation. In any case
negotiations will continue.
There have been
conversations taking place at
the highest level. The
president of Barcelona
(Josep Maria) Bartomeu has
taken over the
conversations.
“There have been talks
between Luis Suarez’s
representatives and
Barcelona, but there have
also been talks for months
between those
representatives and Real
Madrid.
“Real Madrid thought they
had the player wrapped up.
They thought they could go
and negotiate with Liverpool
this summer but things
changed the moment Luis
Suarez indicated his
preferred choice would be
Barcelona.
“I think perhaps now after
the (biting) incident things
have changed a little bit. It
would be difficult for Luis to
go back to Liverpool I
assume but in any case
Barcelona still want him.
“If they bring €70m or €80m
to the table I’m sure
Liverpool will at least have to
listen to that. It seems clear
that at some point in his
career he wanted to come to
Spain and the favourites at
the moment, if Liverpool
accept a transfer, will be
Barcelona."
Asked if any potential move
would be an outright cash
transaction, Balague said
that one or more players
could be part of a deal that
could see Suarez move to
the Nou Camp.
“It could be one or two
players,” he said. “I think
Liverpool may accept Alexis
(Sanchez) and Pedro if that
was a possibility. It’s quite
clear that Barcelona would
also accept Alexis and Pedro
moving to Liverpool.
“Pedro said after Spain got
knocked out of the World
Cup that he would talk to
Barcelona about his future.
It’s up to him if he wants to
stay. He’s still under
contract but if he gets
pushed then he will have to
decide where to go.
“It’s the same with Alexis.
He’s got an offer from
Juventus and an offer from
Liverpool but he will have to
decide which one he
prefers.”

Video and sound editing

Facebook Buys WhatsApp for $19 Billion Today’s collective gasp at the frothy valuations and pace of mobile transformation in the Internet business comes courtesy of Facebook (FB). The social network announced after the close of the market on Wednesday that it has acquired mobile messaging service WhatsApp for $19 billion. As several commentators tweeted, reaching simultaneously for the low-hanging comedy fruit: “They should call it WTFapp.” Yes, the price is $19 billion: $4 billion in cash, about $12 billion in Facebook stock, and $3 billion in restricted shares, to pay out to WhatsApp employees over the next four years. For a five-year-old company with 50 employees, that translates into $380 million per person—and a heck of a haul for the startup’s venture investors, led by Sequoia Capital. WhatsApp founder Jan Koum, a former Yahoo! (YHOO) employee, will join Facebook’s board of directors. VIDEO: WhatsApp: 430M Users and Counting WhatsApp makes a popular smartphone application that allows users of various devices, such as iPhones, BlackBerrys (BBRY), and phones running Android, to send texts and photographs seamlessly and without paying the additional fees carriers charge for SMS messages. (It’s free to use for the first year, then costs just a dollar a year.) According to Facebook, the service has 450 million active users on any given day and is on track to connect 1 billion people. Facebook says that WhatsApp, like Instagram, will remain largely independent from the social network. The acquisition positions the company for even stronger growth on mobile phones, where advertising now makes up the majority of its revenue. It also strengthens its toehold in China: Facebook is blocked in the world’s largest Internet market; WhatsApp and Instagram are permitted to operate there. In a conference call after the deal was announced, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg called WhatsApp “an extremely high-quality product with incredibly strong engagement and rapid growth. It doesn’t get as much attention in the U.S. as it deserves because it started out growing in Europe, India, and Latin America.” He added: “It’s the only widely used app we’ve ever seen that has a higher rate of engagement than Facebook itself.” STORY: Snapchat's $3 Billion Rejection and the Great Facebook Unbundling Zuckerberg said the deal started to take shape on Feb. 9th, when he invited Koum to dinner and proposed that an acquisition could help both companies accelerate their growth and connect the world. Both said the deal came together quickly, with Zuckerberg adding that WhatsApp “is on a clear path to have a billion people using its product. Services in the world that have a billion people using them are all incredibly valuable.” Koum, who founded the company with fellow Yahoo alum Brian Acton, said on the conference call that WhatsApp’s mission is “to make time mobile communication experiences simple, powerful, instantaneous, and commonplace. Our goal is to build a service that could be used by everyone … and a better alternative to SMS.” Zuckerberg telegraphed his intentions to make these kinds of acquisitions during an interview in January for a Bloomberg Businessweek cover story. He revealed that he was pursuing a portfolio strategy, where apps could stand apart from the main social network and users would not be required to log in with their Facebook credentials. STORY: Facebook Quiets Skeptics With Audience Growth and Mobile Money “We just think that there are all these different ways that people want to share, and that compressing them all into a single blue app is not the right format of the future,” Zuckerberg said in January. After which we opined: “In other words, the future of Facebook may not rest entirely on

< Facebook itself.”