August 13: Unparalleled Airport development

Tomorrow, The 2nd terminal of San Diego International Airport opens, which has been under construction since 2009. The total cost is $45M less than the budget, which was completed at $907M. Equipped with new gear and innovative design, the airport looks to benefit the regional economy by $10M each year.

• 460,000 ft^2 expansion including 10 new jet gates (designed for newest models) in addition to the older 7 gates.
• Silver Certification from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
• 7000 employees during construction, also increasing concessions employees by 600 (+45%)
• 1200 foot long elevated roadway for people leaving from the airport.
• "Sunset Cove", a fully windowed wall (minimal columns) overlooking the setting sun on the West.
• 50 feet tall, angled outward from the ground, and curved from top-to-bottom and side-to-side
• Can Allow 12" movement for earthquakes (!)
• 12 checkpoint lanes (29000 ft^2)
• Outlets furnished on 1/2 of seating 
• 21000 ft^2 car rental space, reducing traffic and re-purposing space (12 agencies total in the space)
• Almost half ($415M) of contributions were from local businesses
• Baggage claim is 30% more efficient (motors)
• Plan to recycle used oil from the airport restaurants
• Stone Brewing, Phil's BBQ, and Brook's Brothers are on the list of shops.

Most interesting to me was that this project was completely configured through Building Information Modeling (BIM) to predict problems and engineering constraints, which will undoubtedly lead to unparalleled longevity. The question remains: what to do with Terminal 1, which is over 50 years old... I see the county struggling with improvements since Tijuana airport is increasing traffic with the completion of Millenia, and Brown Airfield looks to do vast improvements as an executive airfield. These should both rank tops on the county budget docket and most likely with regional businesses.

The Future of Facebook

Last week, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) announced their plans to sell out. Literally. If you look at Facebook's numbers, you see that advertising is the greatest source of revenue, 1.6 Billion/1.82 billion (88%), which could change the tune of technology sector's newest superstar. Television style advertisements are set for implementation soon next week in an attempt to mock that of Youtube. The ads will command 2.5M each for 15 seconds and will be selective of users according to demographic research.

News that the magnate will advertise on 'news feeds' is met with mixed reviews. Will the company prosper or will users be jaded? Will the company lose it's accessibility brought by years of providing easy interfacing? Google was started in 1998 and it saw its first profits after 7 years. 2013 is Facebook's 9 year anniversary (Feb 2004). Google to this day records advertising receipts about 97% of the gross and soon plans to market fiber optics (read: sell data bundles) and floating wi-fi in developing countries to grow the bottom line.

Instagram is also a subsidiary of Facebook ($0.7B in April 2012) and plans are still working out. Last month, 40 Million unique users were on Instagram, which was created late in 2010. Twitter, Yelp, LinkedIn, and Google are Facebook's competitors in the mobile networking industry, and plans may also include partnership with Twitter. The partnerships will reign in a new era as facebook transitions from a universal need to custom fitting apps to phone models and particular demographics.

In June Zuckerberg met with THE HEAD of Samsung in an effort to install the FB app on newly sold devices. Currently, only the HTC First comes pre-packaged. From CEO of Instagram Kevin Systrom: "If [Facebook] keeps growing at this rate, it will be the biggest thing in the world."