We've been tremendously hard on Facebook here on WSO, from hammering its business model, to thrashing the IPO, to even wondering if its worth using in the first place. Let us not forget one of Facebook's highest profile moves over the past year:

The acquisition of Instagram.

Now, I'm not normally one to pile on, but I think that recently revealed information about Instagram's financial situation only adds to the doubts around Facebook's business model and erodes Zuckerberg's image as a web 2.0 visionary.

Finding a niche is a piece of advice that I don't often hear given to aspiring investment bankers. But, I think it's one of the more important things that any ambitious professional or aspiring company can do to get ahead.

It's funny, actually. I think that most people are attracted to jobs in investment banking, and private equity precisely because they don't want to find a niche. Junior professionals in the industry are positively terrified of being pigeon-holed in a role that they don't care for.

However, I'd argue that finding a niche that you can get behind is a powerful method for achieving exceptional results in your career. I also believe that owning a niche is a powerful strategy that startups and small companies use to grow into major players.

Let's have a look at the pros of finding a niche and how one can use it to their advantage.

When a great idea and a disruptive business model comes along, copycats are sure to follow. Such is the case for one of the better startups to come along this year:

Dollar Shave Club

For those that don't recall, Dollar Shave Club is a new company that offers to send a monthly supply of razors to your doorstep at a fraction of the price that you'd have to spend buying new blades at your local convenience store. In essence, it acts as a Netflix for razors and is highly disruptive to the traditional razor blade market.

It also has a legitimately great marketing video, a fun website, and copy that actually makes you laugh.

It wasn't long until it spawned copy cats. And while these new startups aren't necessarily hawking razors, they are trying to get men to sign up for monthly deliveries. Let's take a look at a couple and see how they stack up when compared to DSC.

I've found myself fascinated by the ongoing J.C.Penney overhaul saga since CEO Ron Johnson took the helm last November. For those that haven't been following it, Ron Johnson was the mastermind behind Apple's retail operations, and previously worked as a Vice President of Merchandising at Target.

He pioneered the concept of Apple's retail stores and its Genius Bars. Under his watch, Apple's retail operations achieved over a billion dollars in sales within its first two years of existence.

After seven and a half years at Apple, he moved to J.C. Penney as its new CEO. His mission: to transform J.C.Penney into a modern department store powerhouse.

Nearly a year in, the results of his overhaul can best be described as a total disaster.

According to a recent write-up in Forbes, not having a Facebook account can make you seem suspicious. As the blog details, quitting Facebook, or foregoing it altogether, can lead to suspicions about your character in both your personal and your professional life.

While the story is based on a preponderance of anecdotal evidence, since hard data on the subject simply does not exist, I still find it very disheartening.

I know that Facebook-bashing has become the cool thing to do these days, what with its share price getting hammered on a weekly basis, but lately I've legitimately found myself growing sick of Facebook. And I'm sure I'm not alone.

As I see it, there are only three things keeping me on Facebook, with each of them slowly losing their importance...

Good afternoon, folks. I wanted to deliver a brief retrospective on the first ever WallStreetOasis Conference that took place this past Saturday.

First and foremost, Patrick and the rest of the team working behind the scenes did a fantastic job. I had reasonable expectations going into it, and found that my expectations were blown out of the water. Attendance was unbelievable, the keynote speaker was solid, the panels (of which I sat on one) were excellent and informative, and the audience was truly engaged.

Oh yeah, and the food was pretty solid, too.

Now that a few days have passed since the conference took place, I've had some time to digest and have some overarching thoughts and a little piece of advice I'd like to share...

DrPeterVenkman presents: An interesting interview with TheKing. Questions came from myself and other WSO contributing authors. Thank you to TheKing for his quick and information-filled responses.

TheKing is one of the top WSO users and contributing authors: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/karma/top
He has worked in MM Banking and MM Private Equity. I will let you find out more from the man himself below in Part Two:

After seeing The Dark Knight Rises last Thursday night and spending the weekend reading about it and discussing it with friends, I've come to the realization that there are virtually no upcoming movies that I'm looking forward to.

Before I go any further, I want to emphasize how important it is that everyone who reads this goes out and sees The Dark Knight Rises. If you enjoyed Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, you'll love this movie. It's absolutely epic in scale and does a fantastic job book-ending the trilogy. More succinctly, Nolan is a genius whose trilogy feels more like a great set of novels than a series of movies; he is truly a master storyteller.

Anyway. I realize this isn't typical WSO-fodder, but I think it's worth having a chat about the current state of Hollywood and the endless slate of sequels, reboots, and miscellaneous watered down garbage we have coming our way.

Stated bluntly - With few exceptions, Hollywood is completely bankrupt of ideas

Yahoo, the world's largest internet "portal" made a bit of a splash yesterday when it announced that it was scalping Google's Marissa Mayer to fill its recently-vacated CEO position.

Per Bloomberg, the 37 year old Mayer joined Google in 1999 as its 20th employee. She is credited with maintaining the company’s spartan home page for a decade and overseeing such products as Gmail, Google News, and image, book and product search.

The mission she's accepted as CEO will be twofold...

Over the last year or so, I've found myself becoming increasingly interested in understanding what drives people to do the things that they do. From my friends, to my colleagues, to leaders in business, and professional athletes. I find myself fascinated by people's motivations.

And if you understand what motivates people, you ought to have a reasonable understanding of how they define success. In gaining an understanding of the different ways people define success, I've drawn two major conclusions:

1. Society at large pushes an image of success that is destructive in nature
2. The post-financial crisis generation has a much different idea of success than the generations before it

Here's what led me to believe this...