What Tech IPOs Can We Expect in 2014?

Well, 2013 has certainly been the year for tech IPOs. Facebook shares have jumped 116%, Google, Twitter and Amazon are each up almost 60%, Yahoo climbed over 100% and even AOL shares grew by over 50%, this doesn't even include the likes of LinkedIn and Netflix who also had a bumper year on the stock market. This leaves us thinking that 2014 is likely to be another great year for tech IPOs but which companies can we expect to go public in the next 12 months?

First in the limelight is the Alibaba Group. China's biggest e-commerce company, a mix between Amazon and eBay, on one day alone in November they topped $5.7 billion in sales across the group. Now, the company is looking to go public on the US market and it's expected to be the biggest tech IPO of all time, possibly worth $100 billion.

Next up is Dropbox. The cloud storage company with over 200 million users recently valued itself at around $8 billion and with a healthy business plan that doesn't revolve around the fluctuating advertising market it's probably not far off. Dropbox's biggest issue is competition from the likes of Microsoft who already have business users in the palm of their hands.

The mobile payments company, Square, has recently been talked about with regards to an IPO. It's founder Jack Dorsey, who also co-founded Twitter, has supposedly been in talks with bankers about going public in 2014. The company was recently valued at just over $3 billion and has a more than healthy share in the mobile payments market that it helped revolutionise.

There's a whole host of other possibilities including the likes of Spotify, King, Rovio, and Pinterest but one we're not likely to be seeing is Evernote who's CEO, Phil Libin, says he doesn't expect the '100 year start-up' to IPO before 2015.

Will you be investing in any of the tech companies in 2014 or do have a thought on who might go public? Leave your comments below.

Apple Strikes Deal with China Mobile

Apple has struck a deal with China's top mobile phone network, China Mobile, which sees them now offering the iPhone 5s and 5c to it's 760 million customers. The deal is expected to be worth 10s of millions of devices per year for Apple who's stocks jumped to almost $570 on the news.

Instagram Direct

At a fairly low key event a few days ago Instagram announced a new service - Instagram Direct. This allows users to send photos and videos to individual users rather than posting to the public - essentially Snapchat but without the 'self-destruct' timer. The update is available to download now on Android and iOS.

This App Pays You to Go To the Gym

We've all done it at some point in our lives - joined the gym and only used it a few times before getting bored. With the new year just around the corner (scary I know) there'll be a huge swathes of people doing it all over again. One app developer now believes they have the cure to this problem - pay people to use the gym.

The app is called GymPact and it's a great idea. It rewards those that exercise and punishes those that don't. The idea behind GymPact, available for free on Android and iOS, is that you pledge an amount of money (you decide how much) and how many days you'll visit the gym or workout at home or outdoors. If you complete your pledge for a certain week then you get paid but if you don't you get charged a certain amount. The money from non-exercisers is distributed to those who do exercise.

Currently, payments are around 30 cents (they're American) per workout completed so if you're good you could earn enough to cover a fair amount of your gym membership.

http://youtu.be/1ZoRT9iYPn4

Instagram Gives a Preview of Ads

In a recent blog post Instagram, the photo sharing social network, gave a few more details on it's controversial yet necessary plans to introduce adverts in to user's feeds. They gave a preview of how the adverts will look in your feed and gave assurances that they will be 'creative and engaging' adverts.

Instagram seem to be treading lightly with introducing these adverts and a big 'Sponsored' graphic shows above each advert so you know what it is. They'll also be allowing people to give feedback on the adverts to help ensure they remain relevant to you.

To give even more assurances Instagram are only allowing adverts from selected partners who already have a good standing in the Instagram community and I imagine all the ads will be vetted by the company before going live.

What do you think of adverts appearing in your Instagram feed. Is it a necessary evil or should they try and get revenue from other sources? Leave your comments below.