The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Announcing TechCrunch Disrupt 2011: New York, San Francisco & Beijing
- Rapper T-Pain Gets A ‘Facebook Like’ Tattoo
- Don’t Overestimate The Role Of Role Models
- Kickstarter: The Rustic Case for iPad and Kindle 3 Is A Handmade Must-Have
- Tawkon Debuts Limited Edition Of Cellphone Radiation App For Nexus S
- AT&T Added Nearly 2 Million Non-Phone Wireless Device Connections In Q4 2010
- ‘The Daily Show’ Takes On The Role Of Social Media In The Egyptian Uprising
- Referral Platform Zferral Acquires SaaS App Store Cloudomatic
- Nokia Strikes Deals With Tencent, SINA To Bring Location-based Services To Ovi Maps
- Coming Soon (Maybe): A TechCrunch Book Review Column
- StackMob Is ‘Heroku For Mobile’. And Proud Of It. And Potentially Just As Huge.
- How Can I Illustrate The Dystopian Hellscape Presaged By Demand’s IPO?
- Egypt Situation Gets Worse, People Reporting Internet And SMS Shutdown
- Zynga Close To Acquiring Whereoscope, The App That Lets You Track Your Kids
- Facebook Shares Dip 7% In Most Recent SecondMarket Auction
- Five Reasons The PSP2 Won’t Succeed
- Vodafone Egypt Remains Silent As Access Goes Down Ahead Of Friday Protests
- As MySpace Implodes, Tagged Doubles Staff And Gives Everyone A Raise
- LinkedIn’s Largest Shareholders And How Much They Own
- Kindle Books Overtake Paperback Books To Become Amazon’s Most Popular Format
- Microsoft Still More Profitable Than Apple — Barely
- Tracing The Origins Of Leaked Oscar Screeners
- LinkedIn Files For IPO; Revenue $161 Million For The First Nine Months Of 2010
- Microsoft Sold 8 Million Kinects In 60 Days
- Amazon’s Jeff Bezos: “We Had Our First $10 Billion Quarter”
| Announcing TechCrunch Disrupt 2011: New York, San Francisco & Beijing Posted: 28 Jan 2011 09:13 AM PST
Disruptions can happen to any industry anywhere in the world, which is why this year TechCrunch Disrupt is going global. The conference we launched last year in New York and San Francisco is coming back to both cities, but we are also adding a third Disrupt in Beijing. All three conferences will be filled with all-star speakers, the best new startups that launch on our stages, and the coup of working WiFi. The first Disrupt will once again take place in New York City on May 23-25, preceded by our ever popular Hackathon on May 21-22 in which pizza-fueled developers gather to hack together a product in 24 hours. Anything can happen at these events. Last year, Charlie Rose kicked off the event by interviewing legendary VC John Doerr, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz told Michael Arrington to “#@*k off,” and a real company emerged from the Hackathon—GroupMe, which later raised $10.6 million. During the main event, we launched two dozen startups, and the winner was an international startup, Soluto. That told us something.
Today, we will begin taking submissions for Disrupt NY. If you are a founder building a company that is going to change the world, we want you to launch at Disrupt. Nowhere else offers the audience, investors, or media spotlight that Disrupt offers. Please submit your application HERE on our Disrupt application site powered by Producteev. We will be accepting submissions starting today and for the next eight weeks through Sunday, April 3, 2011 at midnight PT. We accept companies on a rolling basis, so please submit as soon as you’re ready for consideration. Disrupt San Francisco will take place in September. And yes, you saw that right, we’re heading to Beijing, China for TechCrunch’s first international Disrupt at the end of October. Specific dates to be announced shortly. TechCrunch has long been a blog that covers more than just the Silicon Valley echo-chamber and in the future we want to be anywhere top entrepreneurs are building companies. It’s hard to think of any place more exciting, challenging and lucrative than China right now. As home to the world’s largest Web audience and two of the five largest Web companies in the world, China proves the best Web entrepreneurs are no longer all in Silicon Valley. We’ll we working with Kai-Fu Lee’s Innovation Works to bring it all together. And just like in New York and San Francisco, we’ll have a Hackathon, lively onstage debates showcasing big names from both Silicon Valley and China, and a Battlefield startup competition. So mark your calendars and save the dates. Applications for Disrupt New York are now open. If you’d like to become a foundational part of the Disrupt experience and learn about sponsorship opportunities, please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde for more information. Speaker inquiries, please submit here.        
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| Rapper T-Pain Gets A ‘Facebook Like’ Tattoo Posted: 28 Jan 2011 08:43 AM PST Whatever, it’s Friday: looks like American singer/rapper T-Pain (real name: Faheem Rasheed Najm) got himself a tattoo while in Hawaii. He eloquently tweeted about the event thusly: “I get a tatt every time I come to Hawaii. I think this ones pretty sweet, unless facebook shuts down soon 0_o” There’s really not much I can add to this, except that I’m not really impressed with his new tattoo. Lucky for me, I DON’T HAVE TO [Like] IT. Related: Israeli Man Tattoos YouTube Logo On Bicep. Chad Hurley Mildly Impressed
Update: Bonus video – our own Greg Kumparak interviews T-Pain at CES:        
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| Don’t Overestimate The Role Of Role Models Posted: 28 Jan 2011 08:16 AM PST  In the seemingly never-ending discussions about Europe vs. Silicon Valley - how much digital ink can be spilled on 'why Europe will never be the next Silicon Valley', 'why Europe will definitely become the next Silicon Valley' and 'Silicon Valley and Europe: a comparative look at fauna and flora' anyway? - I'm quite amazed by how often pundits point out we could use more role models in Europe's tech industry. The idea seems to be that, inspired by their story of how their startup became the next Google, aspiring entrepreneurs need only look at people who've built or even exited companies and became fabulously famous and wealthy in the process. I disagree.
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| Kickstarter: The Rustic Case for iPad and Kindle 3 Is A Handmade Must-Have Posted: 28 Jan 2011 08:05 AM PST
The Rustic Case for iPad and Kindle 3 is from the same thread. This mostly wool sleeve is just that, a sleeve to hold your precious slate. But the handsome look, top-shelf materials and fair price ultimately sells the case. But there’s a catch. They need help. That’s where you and Kickstarter comes in.        
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| Tawkon Debuts Limited Edition Of Cellphone Radiation App For Nexus S Posted: 28 Jan 2011 07:34 AM PST
When you buy a new smartphone, is the first thing you look at what the specific absorption rate (SAR) is of the device you’re interesting in spending cash on? Me neither, but according to some health organizations, we should be paying attention to mobile phone radiation. Rather than try and convince people to stop using their smartphones for phone calls (ain’t gonna happen), Israeli startup tawkon has developed applications that let people minimize exposure to cellular radiation while they continue using their mobile phones. Essentially, tawkon monitors and analyzes your mobile phone’s radiation using proprietary technology, enabling you to "talk on" as usual and receive prompts to avoid radiation when you really need to. According to the company, radiation levels emitted from mobile phones can fluctuate significantly during a call, due to a variety of dynamic factors. Tawkon alerts users when those radiation levels cross a predefined threshold, and offers suggestions to reduce exposure, based on real-time environment and usage factors. Apple has opted to reject the somewhat controversial application – for whatever reason – and hasn’t communicated with the startup in many months. The company does have applications for BlackBerry devices, and recently launched an Android-compatible version. Now, the company is releasing a “limited edition beta” version specifically designed for Google’s Nexus S (which, in case you’re still with us, boasts a SAR more than 50 percent lower than the Nexus One, its predecessor). Its timing is impeccable – starting next month, the City of San Francisco's cell phone right-to-know ordinance (PDF) goes into effect, requiring retailers to disclose Specific Absorption Rate values for cell phones. Here’s a video of the tawkon Android app:
       
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| AT&T Added Nearly 2 Million Non-Phone Wireless Device Connections In Q4 2010 Posted: 28 Jan 2011 07:32 AM PST
Included in this category are what AT&T refers to as embedded computing devices, which are tablets, netbooks and laptops. AT&T says that more than 6 million connected devices have been added to the network over the past five quarters. The total number of emerging devices, including postpaid and prepaid embedded computing devices, connected to the AT&T network – both for consumers and businesses is nearly 11 million. Business users and consumers can use AT&T wireless connection plans for more than 940 specialty devices, including eReaders, netbooks, digital photo frames, personal navigation devices, telematics, home security monitoring and smart grid devices. The company says its wireless network will add support for a number of additional devices this year, including Vitality’s GlowCaps, which are pill caps designed to help patients take medications regularly through a series of reminders, including light, sound, text message and phone call alerts. AT&T will provide a wireless plan for the Pandigital Novel eReader and the new Garmin GTU 10. And AT&T says that it has signed an agreement with BMW to add a suite for safety and infotainment services to the car company’s future models. Of course, as the iPhone arrives at Verizon, wireless connections via non-phone devices could be a growing business for AT&T. The company saw 27.4 percent growth in wireless data revenues, up $1.1 billion versus the fourth quarter of 2009, driven by messaging, Internet access, access to apps and more. It should be interesting to see if this particular sector will continue to grow for AT&T.        
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| ‘The Daily Show’ Takes On The Role Of Social Media In The Egyptian Uprising Posted: 28 Jan 2011 03:35 AM PST
Of course The Daily Show host Jon Stewart takes a skeptical Gladwellian view to the entire situation, “If two speeches and a social media site is all we needed to spread democracy then why did we invade Iraq, why didn’t we just, I don’t know, poke them.” He brings on The Daily Show correspondent and “Senior Tweet Analyst” Samantha Bee to defend the opinion that social media played the biggest role in the protests as opposed to “Team Local Conditions,” represented by the amazing Aasif Mandvi. Bee’s defense, “Duh @JonStewart this is something you’d know if your oversized old person phone got Twitter #burn.” On a more serious note: When they were younger than I am now, my parents were witness to a student movement that eventually toppled a dictatorship in Greece through the radio. Communication in its sundry and consistently evolving forms is and always has been as powerful a utility as electricity and running water, and it’s important that we protect it as such no matter what its incarnation. You can find the full video (which you should watch a couple of times) here.
       
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| Referral Platform Zferral Acquires SaaS App Store Cloudomatic Posted: 28 Jan 2011 01:32 AM PST
Says Barreto,
In conjunction with the acquisition, Zferral will also integrate with billing startup Chargify to enable Chargify customers to easily create and manage billing for their affiliate programs. Zferral has seen a 380% paid subscriber increase in the past month and is projecting further growth. And CEO Jeff Epstein is still on the look out for talent, noting that the company is still “aggressively seeking awesome people.” So if you’re awesome, watch your back. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.        
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| Nokia Strikes Deals With Tencent, SINA To Bring Location-based Services To Ovi Maps Posted: 28 Jan 2011 01:19 AM PST  Nokia this morning announced two deals with leading Chinese Internet companies SINA and Tencent, who will be integrating with Nokia's Ovi Maps in China. Millions of users of SINA's microbloging service and Tencent's massively popular online community QQ (636 million users and counting) will be able to share their location through Nokia mobile devices, check-in to locations and upload content tied to location, such as recommendations and reviews of restaurants, shops and movie theatres. 
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| Coming Soon (Maybe): A TechCrunch Book Review Column Posted: 27 Jan 2011 06:59 PM PST
For a while I’ve been kicking around the idea of writing a semi-regular book review column here on TechCrunch. I don’t mean the pure “tech” books of the O’Reilly oeuvre, but rather works concerning digital culture and how technology is affecting politics, journalism, art and society as a whole. It would probably include the occasional novel too. And might – might – take the form of a very informal book club. The idea is far from fully-formed – and I have to make sure it doesn’t clash with Andrew Keen’s excellent TCTV show which often features authors as guests. But if you’re a publisher or an author and you have a forthcoming book that might fit the bill, do please feel free to let me know – either via this handy web form or by sending a copy to me c/o TechCrunch, 410 Townsend Street (Suite 100), San Francisco, CA 94107. Ebooks and non-US titles welcome. But if it’s self-published, it had better be good. (Image credit: Freefoto.com)        
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| StackMob Is ‘Heroku For Mobile’. And Proud Of It. And Potentially Just As Huge. Posted: 27 Jan 2011 06:36 PM PST
Truth be told, that is a pretty good way to describe what they’re doing. They’ve created a cloud-based system to ease the development and deployment of mobile applications. Or even more simply put, “we’re trying to solve the backend services for mobile applications,” is how co-founder Ty Amell phrases it. They want to be the single integration point for all the backend needs that an app developer may have. And like Heroku, this has the potential to be huge. Mobile app development is exploding right now. But at the same time, there aren’t a ton of experts at it that aren’t already locked up by either larger companies or well-funded startups. That means that a lot of great ideas are either being left on the table, or take way too long to come into being. StackMob’s goal is to condense development time by weeks if not months, by taking care of a huge range of needs that can be streamlined rather than forcing the developer to learn everything and implement it themselves. What kinds of things? It’s all across the backend board really. OAuth, social services (Twitter, Facebook, etc), storage solutions (Joyent now, Amazon coming shortly), advertising (coming soon), messaging (including Push), APIs, analytics, etc. A developer can pick and choose what they want or need to include from StackMob. And in some cases, it’s as easy as filling out a web-based form. “Everyone keeps reinventing the wheel everytime. Haven’t we learned our lessons yet?,” Amell asks. Currently, they’re focused on the iOS platform, but the grand goal is to work across many of the popular mobile platforms — including, of course, Android. But iOS is a good place to start as StackMob’s tools combine nicely with the SDK tools Apple provides to developers to get them going. Plus, StackMob co-founder Pouyan Salehi is ex-Apple.
And while post-Salesforce/Heroku, ideas like this seem ripe for anyone to try to take advantage of, Amell and Salehi actually started StackMob well before the Heroku deal made this so hot. In fact, they already got funding well before that. While they haven’t disclosed it previously, they took a seed round from Harrison Metal, Baseline, Founder Collective, CRV, and some individuals back in May 2010. (Though they’re still not disclosing the amount.) Yes, those are a number of the same guys that funded Heroku. Funny how that works, huh? StackMob launched a very small alpha test in late November/early December. And they’re now comfortable enough to talk about the basic ideas of how the service will work. The plan is to launch a beta version by late February or early March. The model for this is a freemium one. Everything will be free to start out. It’s only if you decided you want to actually deploy your app that they’ll charge you based on how popular your app is, and how much of their backend resources it’s taking up. But not to worry, both Amell and Salehi are adamant about your work and data being your own. If you chose to leave StackMob for whatever reason, you’ll be able to take your work with you. “We want to make sure that developers know that they own their data,” Salehi says. “Mobile is where the web was in ’97 or ’99,” Amell says. “It’s booming — but there’s no framework or infrastructure. There’s no Ruby on Rails. No Django. Nothing that helps with that kind of stuff. There are apps that get really popular, but they don’t know how to monetize,” he says. ”We want to bring an experienced backend and ops team to the masses,” is how he finally puts it. In other words, Heroku for mobile! StackMob is currently a team of 5 people working in San Francisco. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about them in the coming months.
       
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| How Can I Illustrate The Dystopian Hellscape Presaged By Demand’s IPO? Posted: 27 Jan 2011 05:31 PM PST
Today, for example, I wanted to write something about Demand Media’s IPO. Given the hideously cynical nature of their business, the dreck that passes for their content, the appallingly low rates paid to their writers (who have – apparently – created $1.5bn worth of value) and now a plagiarism scandal (wait – they don’t even write their own dreck?), it’s clear that Demand is a hideous company. In fact it’s absolutely no exaggeration whatsoever to say that buying shares in them is the web content equivalent of buying stock in Nestle Africa or stocking up on Fanta in the 1940s. I mean, yes, there’s clearly money to be made, but I wouldn’t want that kind of karma. Still, the fact remains that – as I wrote in my Sunday column last week – Demand’s brand of SEO horseshit represents the future of web content. And with that in mind, I thought it might be a lark to put together a mock up of what that particular dystopian hellscape might look like. Say, the front page of NYTimes.com, as written by Demand. Imagine, then, my disappointment on discovering that Danny Sullivan has beaten me to it. Here’s his Demanded-up version of the New York Times’ online edition, with every headline turned into an annoyingly specific, Google-friendly question…
Click the preview (or here) to see the full version, and to read Sullivan’s thoughts on Demand.        
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| Egypt Situation Gets Worse, People Reporting Internet And SMS Shutdown Posted: 27 Jan 2011 05:16 PM PST
The world is watching in shock at the moment as reports continue to flood in of Egyptian protests mounting and the government pre-emptively striking back before tomorrow’s planned demonstrations by cutting off the nation’s Internet connection, along with access to social media services like Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry. Along with The Arabist and CNN’s Ben Wedeman, Reuters is now reporting that users in Cairo are experiencing phone and Internet shutdown. “Egypt has shut off the internet,” read one headline. Reuters is also reporting that the Egyptian Prime Minister’s office denied that Facebook and Twitter have been shut down despite countless claims to the contrary.  @gordon_reynoldsGordon Reynolds Dictating Tweet over the phone from Cairo. All internet access shut down. Feel like a captive. about 17 hours ago via webRetweetReply The flood of communication blackout reports on Twitter and elsewhere came shortly after a gruesome video of an Egyptian protestor being shot was posted by the AP. One source with relatives in Cairo says he is communicating with them via landline and they are confirming reports that riot police are setting cars on fire. “You can not text message in Egypt at the moment,” he said. No one either inside or outside of the country quite understands exactly why and how the blackout is happening or how it will end but it is believed that these efforts are an attempt by a 30 year-old regime to quash protest organization by a social media and tech savvy youth . As TC’s Mike Butcher points out, the major service providers in Egypt are TEDATA, Egynet DSL and Vodafone. Vodafone has been quiet about the issue since it denied blocking Twitter on January 25th. Naturally, you can follow the movement on Twitter on #Jan25 and #Egypt. Angel investor Shervin Pishevar has also conceived of an open mesh router network that could function as a backup in situations where governments try to shut off communications. Pishevar is looking for volunteers and those interested can tweet at @Shervin. Image: Ahmed Shokeir        
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| Zynga Close To Acquiring Whereoscope, The App That Lets You Track Your Kids Posted: 27 Jan 2011 04:39 PM PST
Our understanding is that a term sheet has been signed but the deal has not yet closed, so it’s not a sure thing yet. Both Whereoscope and Zynga declined to comment. If it does close, we believe it will be for sub-$5 million, likely in valuable Zynga equity. Given the fact that Zynga isn’t exactly focused on child location monitoring, this is probably a talent acquisition. But it’s a quick and positive outcome for the founders, especially given that the app launched less than six months ago. Whereoscope’s application provides a straightforward way for parents to keep tabs on their kids using a concept called geofencing. Here’s a description from our launch coverage:
It seems obvious that Zynga will eventually want to launch mobile games with location components, which the Whereoscope team would be well-suited for. And it isn’t hard to imagine a game that includes geofencing, where users are rewarded in-game for visiting certain venues in the real world.        
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| Facebook Shares Dip 7% In Most Recent SecondMarket Auction Posted: 27 Jan 2011 04:34 PM PST
Did it peak? I have no idea. We still have to update our two week old chart showing a high valuation of $50 billion. Maybe things are just cooling down for a while. We’ll know more after next week’s super confidential Facebook share auction. Here’s the email.
       
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| Five Reasons The PSP2 Won’t Succeed Posted: 27 Jan 2011 04:31 PM PST
Why? It’s got its competitor beat on nearly every spec, it’s got the backing of droves of Sony fanboys, and million-selling franchises just waiting to be put on its crisp 960×544 screen. How can it fail? I’d say by not addressing the fundamental needs of a handheld gaming console and ignoring strong trends in the market.        
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| Vodafone Egypt Remains Silent As Access Goes Down Ahead Of Friday Protests Posted: 27 Jan 2011 04:26 PM PST
Respected blog The Arabist reports that DSL and 3G services have been taken offline in Cairo. This is confirmed by CNN correspondent Ben Wedeman, on the ground in Cairo. Now, coincidentally or not, this has come literally within the hour after AP TV posted a video of a man being shot point blank by police. The man appears to be dead, though that is not confirmed. The main ISPs in Egypt at TEDATA, whose own site appears to be down, Vodafone, and Egynet. In addition, Italy-based Seabone has reported that there was no Internet traffic going into or out of Egypt after 12:30 a.m. local time.        
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| As MySpace Implodes, Tagged Doubles Staff And Gives Everyone A Raise Posted: 27 Jan 2011 03:19 PM PST
So it’s no surprise they let half their staff go, some 500 people, in early January. Another, smaller, social network has apparently found a say to be relevant in a Facebook world. San Francisco based Tagged logged revenues of over $30 million in 2010 and are profitable with a staff of 50. We reported on that in late 2010 when I interviewed founder Greg Tseng. They’ve been profitable for the last three years. And now they’re hiring. In an email to Tagged staff that we’ve obtained, Tseng gave an across the board 10% raise to every full time employee. And he let them know that they intend to double staff from 50 to 100 employees. How are they doing it? They’re focusing on something Facebook has ignored for the last several years – letting users meet other users on the site. Facebook wants to mirror your real world social graph and doesn’t provide many tools to meet new people. Tagged is all about that, something we discussed extensively in our interview last year. The email is below.
       
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| LinkedIn’s Largest Shareholders And How Much They Own Posted: 27 Jan 2011 03:16 PM PST
Out of the 5 percent stockholders, the company’s largest shareholder is LinkedIn’s founder and chairman Reid Hoffman and his wife Michelle Yee, owning 19 million shares or 21.4 percent of the company. He’s followed by Sequoia Capital (16.8 million shares or 18.9 percent), Greylock Partners (14 million shares or 15.8 percent) and Bessemer Venture Partners (4.6 million shares or 5.1 percent). Seqouia was LinkedIn’s earliest investor in 2003, followed by Greylock in 2004. Bessemer participated in LinkedIn’s three later rounds in 2007 and 2008. Among the executive officers and directors, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner holds 3.8 million shares, or 4.1 percent of the company, CFO Steven Sordello owns 1 million shares or 1.1 percent of the company, and VP of Product Deep Nishar owns 970,000 shares or 1.1 percent of the company. Until we know the offering price, we won’t know how much these shares are worth.        
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| Kindle Books Overtake Paperback Books To Become Amazon’s Most Popular Format Posted: 27 Jan 2011 02:56 PM PST
The statistic for hardcover books itself has doubled, with three times as many Kindle books as sold as paperbacks in 2010. Free Kindle books are excluded from this number or it would be much higher. The Kindle store now has over 810,000 books, with over 670,000 of them priced at $9.99 or less. This number includes 107 New York Times bestselllers. Because of its aggressive focus on digital Amazon had its first ever $10 billion quarter. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos predicted this digital to print milestone would happen in the second quarter of this year, so it has come ahead of expectations but, in any case, was inevitable.        
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| Microsoft Still More Profitable Than Apple — Barely Posted: 27 Jan 2011 02:55 PM PST
As I suspected, Microsoft was barely able to eek out a profit win over Apple. For the quarter, Microsoft earned $6.63 billion in profit compared to Apple’s $6 billion. Assuming the trends hold, Apple should indeed take the profit crown next quarter. Let’s look at the numbers. Apple’s $6 billion profit quarter was easily their best ever — a full $1.7 billion above their previous record (set only the quarter before). Microsoft, meanwhile, saw their profit dip a bit year-over-year, by around $30 million. Microsoft’s profit did rise quarter-to-quarter, but not as high as Apple’s did. Instead, Microsoft’s profits were up about $1.2 billion quarter-to-quarter. The holiday quarter is typically the best for both companies. So next quarter should produce a dip for both. But again, following the trends, Microsoft’s should dip further than Apple’s. When Apple passed Microsoft is revenue for the first time October, they beat them about about $4 billion. This most recent quarter, they pushed the revenue gap to almost $7 billion. Apple now holds about a $70 billion edge over Microsoft in terms of market cap. As Reuters noted yesterday (while incorrectly guessing Apple would pass Microsoft in profit today), the last time Apple’s profits were ahead of Microsoft’s was 1990. Times were much different than. Microsoft was just releasing Windows 3.0. Apple was gearing up to release System 7. Microsoft was rising, Apple was falling. Times have changed. And we should see that fully next quarter.        
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| Tracing The Origins Of Leaked Oscar Screeners Posted: 27 Jan 2011 02:42 PM PST
One enterprising gentleman has put together a spreadsheet with various screener-related information for your perusal. It's actually a continuation of a long-running spreadsheet, tracing the origins of screeners, leaks, cam copies, and the like for the past several years.        
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| LinkedIn Files For IPO; Revenue $161 Million For The First Nine Months Of 2010 Posted: 27 Jan 2011 01:43 PM PST
In terms of revenue, during the nine months ended September 30, 2010, LinkedIn’s net revenue doubled to $161 million from $80.6 during the same period in 2009. Net income for the first nine months of 2010 came in at $10 million. LinkedIn’s total net revenue in 2009 was $120 million, which LinkedIn obviously surpassed in 2010. The company took a $3.9 million loss in terms of net income, with 2010 as the first profitable year for the network. As of September 30, 2010, LinkedIn had $89.6 million in cash. The company currently has 990 employees and over 90 million members. LinkedIn also shed light on its revenue breakdown by source. According to the filing, 41 percent of 2010 revenue came hiring solutions ($65.9 million), 32 percent came from marketing ($51.4 million); and 27 percent came from premium subscriptions ($44.1 million). Net revenue from LinkedIn’s hiring solutions products increased $42.2 million, or 178 percent from 2009 to 2010. Other interesting things to note from the filing, with regard to LinkedIn’s risks: “We expect our revenue growth rate to decline, and as we continue to invest for future growth, we do not expect to be profitable on a GAAP basis in 2011.” “The number of our registered members is higher than the number of actual members, and a substantial majority of our page views are generated by a minority of our members… If the number of our actual members does not meet our expectations or we are unable to increase the breadth and frequency of our visiting members, then our business may not grow as fast as we expect, which will harm our operating and financial results and may cause our stock price to decline.” In terms of competition, LinkedIn says this in the document: Other companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter could develop competing solutions or partner with third parties to offer such products. We face competition from a number of smaller companies in international markets, such as Xing in Germany and Viadeo in France, that provide online professional networking solutions, as well as Internet companies in the customer relationship management market, such as Salesforce.com (Chatter and Jigsaw). With respect to acquisitions, LinkedIn paid $560,000 for mSpoke and $3.9 million for ChoiceVendor.        
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| Microsoft Sold 8 Million Kinects In 60 Days Posted: 27 Jan 2011 01:26 PM PST
Microsoft earnings just got released prematurely 10 minutes before market close, and aside from growing revenues 5% in the 2nd quarter to $19.9 Billion, the company’s slides reveal some impressive growth numbers for their Entertainment and Devices devision, which generated $3.7 in revenue this quarter versus $2.4 last year, and sold 8 million Kinects, a motion controller for the Xbox 360, in the two months since its launch. All in all division revenue is up 55% this quarter. Included in this number are sales of Xbox 360, the Kinect, the Zune and Windows Phone 7. Xbox Live memberships grew 30% and Xbox 360 console unit sales were up 21%, making“the world’s fastest growing game console” according to Microsoft. For those of you that have given up on Microsoft understanding consumer electronics, its increasing dominance in the gaming and device sector is a light at the end of the tunnel. Said Microsoft CFO Peter Klein about the division’s success,
Watch out Wii.        
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| Amazon’s Jeff Bezos: “We Had Our First $10 Billion Quarter” Posted: 27 Jan 2011 01:20 PM PST
Founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos said in a statement: We had our first $10 billion quarter, and after selling millions of third-generation Kindles with the new Pearl e-ink display during the quarter, Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com. Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected – and it’s on top of continued growth in paperback sales. As usual Bezos and Amazon remain coy about the actual number of Kindles sold but refers to sales in the millions of third-generation kindles. And for every 100 paperback books Amazon has sold, the Company has sold 115 Kindle books; and the company has sold three times as many Kindle books as hardcover books. Additionally, the U.S. Kindle store now has more than 810,000 books. Amazon’s North America sales, were $7.21 billion, up 45% from fourth quarter 2009. International sales, which include Amazon’s U.K., German, Japanese, French, Chinese and Italian sites, were $5.74 billion, up 26% from fourth quarter 2009. Worldwide Electronics & Other General Merchandise sales grew 60% to $7.39 billion. For the full year, net sales increased 40% to $34.20 billion, compared with $24.51 billion in 2009. Net income increased 28% to $1.15 billion in 2010, or $2.53 per diluted share, compared with net income of $902 million, or $2.04 per diluted share, in 2009.        
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Show me a handmade device case like 
After 
Attention publishers and authors!
It was almost exactly two years ago that 
It happens, sometimes. I have what I think would be a fun idea for a joke, only to discover – often half-way through writing it – that someone else has already beaten me to the punch(line).
Back in August we 
I recently over heard someone saying of MySpace – “It used to be dirty, underground, seedy and successful. Now it’s prom at a private school.” The company is struggling to reinvent itself. But traffic continues to plunge. Comscore says they had 80 million worldwide unique visitors in December. They had around 90 million in October before the big 
Has the pixel to print tipping point been reached? Last July we 
A week and a half ago, after Apple announced their 
Professional social network LinkedIn has just submitted its 
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