Cloud computing: How tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon store the world‘s data

In the evening of April 11, 2012, Mike Krieger, the co-founder of Instagram, gave a talk in San Francisco. What he must have known, though his audience didn't, was that in less than 24 hours, Mark Zuckerberg would announce that he was buying Instagram for a billion dollars. 

Given that he was about to become A Very Rich Man, Krieger hid his excitement well. The talk called "Scaling Instagram" was a long and technical one about the challenges of growing the popular photo app. One of the final slides (number 176 of 185) had just two words: "Unprecedented Times". The next one said: "2 backend engineers can scale a system to 30+ million users." On the eve of the Facebook deal, Instagram had bumped up that total to five engineers. 

If this doesn't sound quite as remarkable as it should, it's because we are now inured to Silicon Valley startup stories originating in garages with a couple of geeks, who end up making millions - or a billion. Look at this 'growth' in a different way then: it's as if Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built the first Apple computer and within a day or two of building that first prototype, were able to ship several thousand models to customers. 

So you might retort of course, that software is different. You can 'scale' bits and bytes in a way you can't with metal or glass or plastic. Fair enough. 

So imagine this scenario: you create a piece of software which allows millions of users to upload millions of photographs and tweak them and tag them and share them. You need someplace to store those photographs and you need to be able to handle thousands or millions of users swarming over your website or app everyday without it going down. 

In a world where competition is intense, users will simply dump you, if your app slows down or freezes. So your 'downtime' has to be pretty much close to zero. For the user, whether they are in New York, or Tokyo, or Ankara or Mumbai, you have to be always up, and always running, 24 hours a day. 

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounces American citizenship

The Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin officially defriended the United States in September, giving up his American citizenship for the more tax-friendly residency status of Singapore. 

Saverin, who was born in Brazil and has lived in Singapore since 2010, plans to remain indefinitely in the Asian island nation, where the maximum personal income tax rate is 20 percent and capital gains are not taxed. 

A spokesman for Saverin insists his client did not renounce the citizenship he has held since 1998 for financial reasons. "I have worked with him for over a year, and that never came up," said Thomas Goodman. "Obviously it was a big decision, but he's making all these investments in Europe, Asia and the U.S. It just seemed a lot simpler." 

Goodman declined to say exactly what simplifications the impending billionaire would enjoy, other than the financial. 

The renunciation, published by the State Department at the end of April and reported first by Bloomberg on Friday, became public just days before Facebook shares are expected to be sold to the public. The company is expected to be valued at more than $85 billion. 

Saverin owns less than 5 percent of Facebook, but is expected to be worth more than $3.5 billion after the public offering. The decision was made several months ago, Goodman said. "Everyone is trying to tie this to the IPO and taxes," he said. "It was never about that." 

Loss of his citizenship in September makes it likely that the process was initiated sometime around last May, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. People leaving U.S. citizenship under such circumstances typically pay an "exit tax," which is a final bill based on all assets. 

Saverin, 30, helped found Facebook while at Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, all of whom remain U.S. citizens.

Facebook buys Glancee in another mobile play

Facebook confirmed on Friday night that it has purchased Glancee, a mobile app that uses your location and Facebook login to connect you with like-minded individuals who happen to be near you in real life. Details of the deal were undisclosed but it looks like Glancee will be shutting down and some or all of the team will be joining Facebook — and they will be working on location-related features for the giant social network. Facebook confirmed the deal in a written statement: ""

We are thrilled to confirm that Facebook has acquired Glancee. The acquisition closed today. We can’t wait for co-founders Andrea, Alberto, and Gabriel (Chief Executive Officer Andrea Vaccari, Chief Operating Officer Alberto Tretti, and Chief Technology Officer Gabriel Grise) to join the Facebook team to work on products that help people discover new places and share them with friends.

On the heels of Facebook’s $1 billion buy of Instagram, this deal likely isn’t in the same league financially, but some view it as another indication that Facebook needs to ramp up its mobile experience. Ahead of its initial public offering, Facebook watchers seem obsessed with two primary stories: the glut of money that some people stand to make, and Facebook’s lack of competitiveness in the mobile arena.

Glancee does have some cool elements, and the promise of being able to connect my virtual Facebook life with my physical one using the Glancee app is certainly compelling. However, unlike its Instagram buy, where the service is staying up and running, Glancee is getting shut down. How much of what it does gets incorporated into new location features that Facebook might be working on remains to be seen.

Instagram had the benefit of not just being a cool photo-sharing app, but a viable mobile social network all on its own — and a fairly massive user base — whereas Glancee seems to be a mere tool. And so like other tools Facebook has purchased (hey remember Hot Potato or the April purchase of Tagtile?) Glancee may turn up later as a cool recommendation feature. Or not.