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Pandora 4th-Quarter Loss Widens, Results Beat Expectations

Via The Wall Street Journal

Pandora Media Inc.’s (P) fiscal fourth-quarter loss widened as a rise in the Internet-radio provider’s expenses outpaced its revenue growth.

However, shares climbed 21% to $14.15 after hours as the results beat the company’s expectations. It also provided revenue guidance for full year and current quarter mostly above analyst expectations.

For the full year, Pandora sees revenue of $600 million to $620 million, while analysts polled by Thomson Reuters forecast $600 million. Pandora projected adjusted bottom-line results would range from a loss of five cents a share to a profit of five cents a share, while analysts had forecast a loss of two cents a share.

For the first quarter, Pandora sees revenue of $120 million to $125 million, compared with the $120 million estimate from analysts. The company projected an adjusted loss for the quarter of 13 cents to 10 cents a share, while analysts predicted a loss of 10 cents a share.

Pandora’s robust listener growth has brought with it mounting royalty costs for the songs it plays. The company, which went public in 2011, has also faced a lag in making money from mobile phones. Pandora, like other Internet companies, has experienced growth in use of its service on mobile devices, but hasn’t yet been able to make as much ad revenue as on traditional desktop computers.

[Full article here]

Posted
March 7th, 2013

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Who Has The Winning Innovation Model, Google, Apple, or Samsung?

Via Forbes

Next week, Samsung will launch the Galaxy S4 and it is fueling Apple-like speculation. But not only the S4.
Samsung just announced a partnership with Reliance in India to supply infrastructure to the country’s second 4G network and to bring out a $100 4G phone integrated with a very low-cost data package. It’s also announced a new 5.9 inch Phablet for later in the year and just launched the Galaxy Note 8.

Samsung’s rate of innovation should have US companies worried – and we discovered last week that it does. Google acknowledged it is concerned over the power of Samsung in the Android community – and presumably is ability to take search revenue.

As Samsung powers away in smartphones and tablets, Google and Apple are switching their attention to wearables (Google Glass and iWatch). Will this be enough to convince the markets, after March 14th, that they have a strategy to combat Samsung?

[Full article here]

Posted
March 7th, 2013

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Apple’s next trick? Wearable tech, analyst says

Via The LA Times

Apple’s next big venture could be wearable technology, starting with a “smart watch.”

In a note released Wednesday, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray said he expects Apple to jump into the wearable tech market some time in 2014 or beyond.

“We believe that wearable computers will ultimately be a major future trend,” the note said. “Longer term (over the next 10+ years), wearable computers could eventually replace the iPhone and smartphones in general.”

Munster’s predictions come after rumors last week that the Cupertino tech giant is working with Intel on a Bluetooth watch that would work with the iPhone.

Besides wearable tech, Munster also had quite a few other Apple predictions.

He said he expects an Apple to start selling a TV set in time for the next holiday shopping season, priced between $1,500 and $2,000. The model would have a screen measuring between 42 and 55 inches and include Apple’s Siri and FaceTime features.

[Full article here]

Posted
January 2nd, 2013

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Yahoo adds to Facebook suit

From The Washington Post

On Friday, Yahoo added to its claims of infringement against Facebook, in addition to denying that it violates any of the patents named in the social network’s countersuit.

The additional claims involve the “System and Method to Determine Validity of and Interaction on a Network” and the “System and Method Allowing Advertisers to Manage Search Listings in Pay for Placement Search System Using Grouping,” which the company says is violated by Facebook Ads.

In the filing, Yahoo also hits out at Facebook for asserting patents in-suit that it purchased from other companies — notable, as Facebook recently purchased 650 patents from Microsoft. The patents, originally held by AOL, were viewed as a way for the social network to better defend itself against infringement claims.

[Full story here]

Posted
April 27th, 2012

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Instagram: No Threat to the Art World

From Tech News World

My test was to take the worst possible shot I could, complete with poor composition and overexposure, by pointing the not-very-good tablet lens vaguely into the sun, and focusing on a lousy subject matter. I took the rather dull shot, and I’m please to be able to report that despite trying all of the filters and their respective Lux setting, the shot was still rubbish and of no commercial, artistic, or other value whatsoever.

Instagram, the popular photography and social networking app for the iPhone, with a whopping 27 million iOS users, recently became available for Android. Around 5 million Android users reportedly signed up for the app in the first few days of the Android release. Then social network Facebook offered US$1 billion for the company. What’s going on?

I’ve been a big fan of photographic filter apps for phones, and I’ve looked in-depth at Neilandtheresa’s Vignette (Nasdaq: VIGN) app. I’m still a heavy user of Vignette — which I gave four-and-a-half review stars out of five — primarily because of its sophisticated post-process film and camera effects like infrared, cross-process, tilt-shift and so on.

[Full story here]

Posted
April 27th, 2012

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Google earnings miss; IBM, Microsoft, Intel beat Street

Story via USA Today.

By Scott Martin

Tech bellwethers Google, Microsoft, Intel and IBM reported earnings Thursday, providing a mixed view of the sector.

Google’s (GOOG) fourth-quarter profit came in lower than Wall Street expected. The Internet advertising giant reported a profit of $2.7 billion on revenue of $10.6 billion. Revenue was up 25% from the year-ago quarter. Among factors adding to costs, Google added roughly 1,100 jobs in the quarter.

The Internet search leader also added to its Google+ ranks, reporting more than 90 million users of the social network. That’s “well over double what I announced just a quarter ago,” said Google CEO Larry Page on the earnings conference call.

[Full story here]

Posted
January 20th, 2012

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Did Anonymous Undo The Goodwill Built Up By ‘The Internet’ This Week?

Story via Forbes.

By Kashmir Hill

This week, the Internet puts its power on display, of both the light and dark variety. On Wednesday, popular sites staged a black-out to protest two anti-piracy bills which resulted in over a dozen politicians pulling their support, leaving the future of SOPA and PIPA looking bleak. Senator Ron Wyden wrote a grateful “letter to the Internet” for “ showing that the Internet is not just a platform for ideas, commerce, and expression, but also for political action that will defend those principles.”

The next day, though, the Internet showed its darker side. The sites of the bills’ supporters — including RIAA and MPAA — were blacked out by force, when Anonymous attacked them, along with the sites of the Department of Justice, the FBI, the U.S. Copyright Office, and Universal Music, in retaliation for the criminal indictment of file-sharing site Megaupload. The sites were down for less than 12 hours, but this builds on what can only be called political thuggery by these particular advocates. This has included punishing companies that were pushing for SOPA by posting private information about their executives and their families, and Photoshopping a 25-year-old aide for the House Judiciary Committee into a pornographic photo. Not your usual tried and trued political lobbying.

[Full story here]

Posted
January 20th, 2012

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The Impact of Information and Communication Technology on Economic Growth: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries by Ayoub Yousefi

By Ayoub Yousefi

Abstract

This study examines whether, and to what extent, information and communication technology (ICT) has helped to improve economic growth. We adopt the traditional growth model as a framework to estimate contributions of labor, ICT, and non-ICT capital to economic growth in developed and developing countries. The estimates of the growth model by using time-series cross-country data of a total of 62 countries for the period of 2000–2006 reveal that economic growth effect of ICT differs across different income groups of countries. The paper concludes that ICT plays a major role in the growth of high and upper-middle income groups, but fails to contribute to the growth of the lower-middle income group countries. Such findings suggest that the level of investment in ICT is not the cause of slow growth in lower-middle developing countries as previously thought.

[Full story: Economics of Innovation and New Technology]

Posted
September 21st, 2011

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