The company on Wednesday launched Klout for Business, the company’s first foray into offering a complimentary tool set to brands in order for them to better understand the most influential people talking about specific brands across social networks.

Specifically, Klout will give businesses an analytics dashboard, detailing just how well a company is interacting with the most “influential people” — in other words, the folks who have the greatest reach on social networks — and which specific subject areas these people are most influential on, with respect to winning the chatter of others.

Sounds gorpy, yes. But I’d argue that it’s important. Right now, the Twitters and Facebooks of the world continue to argue how crucial it is for brands to spend their ad dollars on social, not just on traditional media outlets. But advertisers aren’t fully convinced, and the ad budgets haven’t shifted as much as the social giants would like.

So the value proposition of something like a Klout for Business, then, is to help a brand better understand how to expand their reach by targeting the most important, “influential” people on said networks. Theory is, if you do a better job recognizing and reaching the people who actually matter, that’ll go a heck of a lot further than blasting out an ad to the social masses (even if those ads are getting targeted better by the day, as Facebook and Twitter would say).

And, as I’ve argued in the past, this is an area that Klout — and competitor Kred, for that matter — should be focusing on. It’s much easier to convince a brand to care about who is most influential in the Twittersphere than, say, a regular dude like me.

Klout has long made its consumer pitch, hoping to convince people to care about their social influence scores with things like Klout Perks, or offers you win by reaching a certain influence threshold. But truly, I don’t see the masses really caring about that number, no matter how many freebies you offer them.

Thus, Klout for Business seems like a smart — and obvious — play. I’m just surprised it took so long.

Standing in the Starbucks line at the tail end of my last day in Austin, I’m not happy. I’m tired and somewhat underwhelmed by the tech-focused things I’ve seen during South by Southwest’s Interactive sessions. My feet hurt like hell. To top it off, some jerk accidentally steals my iced Americano.

And then it happens — a “South By” moment. The jerk, whose name I learn is Andy, returns with my coffee (already half-sipped), and we start chatting as the barista makes our new drinks. Turns out he went to college with my colleague Liz Gannes, and is a now an employee at a major tech company I’m interested in. We exchange numbers, and promise to meet for coffee at some point after the conference. And then he asks the usual question that bookends every SXSW conversation: “So, what parties are you headed to tonight?”

Moments like these are fast becoming the value of South by Southwest Interactive, once considered a premier place to discover the latest trends in tech, and the companies that will define the landscape of devices and the Web in the years to come.

Instead, many make the trek from Silicon Valley, New York, and other tech hubs for the chance to meet like-minded people, perhaps wander in and out of a few panels, and network, network, network.

“I have one friend who comes to South By exclusively for the parties, without going to a single panel,” said Nick Tommarello, founder of the Y-Combinator-incubated startup WeFunder, who was attending South By for the third time. “I come here to hang out with all of my friends.”

The parties are indeed something else. Venture capital firms rent out entire restaurants off Austin’s Sixth Street thoroughfare, offering open bars and top-tier music acts. Big-time Internet companies like Twitter host rooftop ragers, with throngs of people waiting around the block to get in. And then there’s the Path party, the highly exclusive, not-so-secret shindig that’s been thrown by the social startup for the past few years. It’s become so difficult to get into that even its own investors were rumored to be turned away at the door.

Make no mistake — this is where the real work of South By is done. Young, nerdy engineers and slick biz-dev types hop from one party to the next almost systematically. Partnerships are forged, secrets are traded. And the hosts use the occasion to attract promising talent, each party offering a glimpse into the “good life” after recruitment.

“The budgets for some of these things that I’ve seen are insane,” one Silicon Valley venture capitalist, who preferred not to be named, told me. “They just keep getting crazier and crazier.”

As a result, fewer startups use the occasion to launch significant product updates and releases at South By, in fear of being drowned out amid a sea of loud marketing noise, raucous parties and ridiculous publicity stunts.

“I’ve seen no apps that I really care about here,” said Matt Ceniceros, director at Austin-based marketing company PulsePoint group. Indeed, it’s almost a complete 180 from last year, when apps like Highlight, Banjo, and other location-based discovery apps gained much buzz — some would call it hype — at the conference, and then failed to take off in the months that followed.

Even larger companies like Facebook held only small, informal gatherings targeted mostly at members of the press, with no significant product launches. Twitter took the opportunity to treat many of its ads and media brand partners to a night of fun, but had little to say in the area of news.

“We felt there was way too much noise and distraction for the press at SXSW to choose this as a effective launch venue,” one startup employee told me, who preferred that I not name her, as her company was still in ‘stealth mode.’ “This was a good call,” she said.

Instead, companies like hers found it better to meet reporters and potential investors for drinks, or perhaps a chance introduction in a hotel lobby bar. Even for writers — people like me — it’s a time to meet new sources, VCs and startups, with the aim of formally catching up after the conference is over.

Later that evening, Andy from the coffee line ends up texting me. He’s at the Mohawk, an outdoor bar and late-night music spot, and wants to know if I want to join him in wandering around to different parties later in the evening. With just 12 hours before I have to catch a flight back home to San Francisco, I tell him I’ll be meeting him shortly.

It’s time to get to work.

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The app is an extension of Foursquare’s additions to its merchant tools updates from mid-2012, which allowed business owners to better control special offers to nearby customers using a more robust desktop dashboard.

One problem with that, said Foursquare: If you’re a small outfit, running around your store helping customers willy-nilly, you may not have the time to run back to your computer and update customers with your latest happenings, like turning time-sensitive specials on and off, or pushing those items directly to Facebook and Twitter.

Not sure I buy that argument entirely; if I were running around my shop, I would think I’d type faster on a big keyboard than the smaller one on my smartphone. Still, if I’m out of the shop and on the town, I could see it being a convenient way of pushing out specials to my Foursquare account.

The new app comes at a time when Foursquare faces questions about the long-term sustainability of its business, as it has pivoted to a more discovery-focused model. As it happens, the startup now faces more competition in the space, as Yelp already handles many local discovery queries, and Facebook’s Graph Search seems to push into the discovery space.

Of note: The new app is aimed solely at local business owners, not the major retailers looking to update their specials across an entire chain — those folks still need to update via the desktop.

Head over to the App Store or Google Play to download the new app.

Merry Christmas, Kevin Systrom!

The accusations leveled? Funes is mad about Instagram’s set of Terms of Service amendments made last week, which caused widespread furor among the app’s user base. The suit, which was first reported by Reuters, claims breach of contract based on “the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing,” along with a handful of other California civil code breach accusations.

“We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously,” a Facebook spokesman told AllThingsD.

In a nutshell: Instagram freaked everyone out last week when it updated its ToS, stating that the service had a right to introduce advertising products that accompanied user photographs. Along with the distaste folks had at the thought they may start seeing diaper ads plastered alongside pics of their kids’ faces, the uproar eventually made it seem like Instagram would sell the content created by users in their photos.

Eventually, Instagram dialed back the language, publishing an apologetic note to its site near the end of the week. But the damage had been done, as thousands of users had sworn to leave the service in favor of other photo-sharing applications — in particular, the recently updated Flickr app for iOS.

Funes and company’s biggest grievance with Instagram lies in that cancellation grey area; If users decide to delete their accounts, “customers forfeit all right to retrieve the Property that was previously entrusted to Instagram, which retains rights thereto in perpetuity,” the filing states.

The money quote: “In short, Instagram declares that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don’t like it, you can’t stop us.’”

Bummer of a present for CEO Systrom on Christmas Eve. Here’s hoping the gifts left in his stocking fare better.

The proceedings won’t move much until 2013, so for now, head on over to McSweeney’s for another fantastic privacy policy update, courtesy of Santa Claus.

Oh, and here’s the filing if you want to check it out:

Instagram Lawsuit

When I asked him to talk to me about why he decided to finally became a director at Yahoo after what was a very long mulling that started even before former Google exec Marissa Mayer became CEO, Max Levchin alerted me earlier today to a very solid post he did on the subject on his blog, which is called “too long to tweet.”

I now remember why I really like that Max Levchin: He blogs! (Also because he is an unapologetic coffee snob.)

In his essay, he breaks down the reasons into three parts: Personal, business and sentimental.

Noting his longtime admiration of Mayer, he noted “her decision to take the top role at Yahoo! was a very ballsy move, and when she asked for my help, I was excited about working with her.” Levchin, a well-known tech entrepreneur, also wrote that he hoped for a strong Yahoo, since it was a “massive net-positive for the Silicon Valley ecosystem, the market in general, and the US economy.”

Most of all, he said, Yahoo “showed me that computer geeks can start companies that create that future. I’d love to do my part in helping the company that inspired me.”

Levchin also emailed me to add: “If she gets the place into shape, it will be the absolute greatest turnaround in Valley’s recent history, possibly ever.”

Indeed.

Sources close to the situation told me that Mayer convinced Levchin to join the board by convincing him that he’d be able to help her inject entrepreneurial vigor into the company.

That would be good, and Levchin’s post is actually one of the best recitations of the kind of spirit Yahoo needs to revive itself that I have read in a long while.

It also tracks exactly on many conversations I have had with Levchin in the past about Yahoo’s troubles. He has long been intrigued by the opportunity despite management woes, innovation doldrums and the relentless talent exodus.

But judge for yourself — here’s the whole thing:

As announced by Yahoo! this morning, I have been asked and agreed to join its Board of Directors. It is an honor to be asked, in and of itself. There are three key reasons I accepted:

Personal: I’ve long respected Marissa’s talent and tenacity. Her decision to take the top role at Yahoo! was a very ballsy move, and when she asked for my help, I was excited about working with her.

Business: a stronger, fast-growing Yahoo!, with its tremendous resources is a massive net-positive for the Silicon Valley ecosystem, the market in general, and the US economy.

Sentimental: Yahoo! was one of the first true giants created by this amazing new thing, the Web. Before Google or Facebook, before almost everything there was Jerry’s Guide, right up there with What’s New page in Mosaic. Through amazing luck, I was a Computer Science freshman at UIUC in ’93, which gave me a glimpse into the fantastic future we are now living. Yahoo! showed me that computer geeks can start companies that create that future. I’d love to do my part in helping the company that inspired me.

They’ll certainly look familiar. Instagram badges are essentially a short bit of code that Web masters can embed into their sites, displaying an icon that leads back to a specific Web profile.

It’s no different from the millions of little Twitter bird icons you see pasted up across the entire Web, or perhaps the Tumblr T’s and Pinterest P’s. In short, a badge is an attractive hotlink anchored to your photo spread.

Yes, it’s teensy and incremental. But that’s only the case because icons like these are ubiquitous across the Web, a mainstay of brand promotion. Once you’ve got your social promotional aspects — like a Facebook business page — up and running, the next step is to link to it with badges like these. And millions of people are already doing it with their other social accounts.

Funny thing is, Instagram is building out its network in a way atypical of the Facebooks and Twitters of the world — it is basically working in reverse.

Think about it. Instagram came to prominence via the iPhone and (eventually) Android, growing to upward of 100 million users without ever having an actual Web presence. Only two weeks ago did the company roll out Web profiles so that users could share their photo repositories from the desktop. That’s the complete opposite of the growth trajectory of every Internet company of the past decade. (Though some may argue that this could become the norm.)

Also of note: Instagram’s announcement comes published on the site’s business blog. Obviously, the most likely candidates to use badge icons will be those with their own Web sites, and those are usually the folks with something to sell.

My hunch is that with the debut of badges, combined with Web profiles, Instagram is laying out a more traditional way for brands to take advantage of the app going forward. Companies are already having a tough time figuring out the best way to maintain their Facebook and Twitter presences; to extend that maintenance to Instagram in a familiar, Web-centric way could cut down on some confusion on the business end.

The big question here will be how many visitors Instagram’s Web profiles will see over time. It is a mobile-centric app, after all, so conditioning people to treat it as a Web site as well may not be so simple. And that’s the exact opposite direction of Facebook users’ movements now, as we’re seeing desktop views migrate to mobile en masse.

Badges are available on the site’s business blog beginning Wednesday.

Speaking at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Monday morning, Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president of research at Gartner, predicted that iPads will outnumber BlackBerrys in enterprise by 2014. “Tablets will continue to shake up the business world,” Sondergaard said. “In less than two years, iPads will be more common in business than Blackberries. Some CIOs are now placing orders for tens of thousands of iPads at a time.”

If that comes as a surprise, it really shouldn’t. Now that the iPad meets many enterprise-level security requirements and supports the mobile device management solutions that businesses often demand, more companies are embracing “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) programs that allow their employees to use the gadgets they use at home in the workplace as well. So, too, are more companies making the iPad standard issue hardware for their employees. SAP, for example, currently manages about 18,000 iPads. According to Sondergaard, large deployments like that will become increasingly common in the years ahead.

“Just two years from now, 20 percent of sales organizations will use tablets as the primary mobile platform for their field sales force,” Sondergaard said. “And by 2018, 70 percent of mobile workers will use a tablet or a hybrid device that has ‘tablet like’ characteristics.”

Another big media departure from Yahoo: David Rice, VP of media properties, has left the Silicon Valley Internet giant to take over as SVP and GM of CBS Interactive Games, according to sources close to the situation.

Rice left Yahoo Monday and starts at CBS on Monday, sources said.

Earlier this week, the head of Yahoo’s Omg! and Yahoo TV, Liz Coughlin, left to run business operations at next-gen digital content site Young Hollywood.

The media properties at Yahoo have always been its most successful and powerful units, including powerhouse sites such as Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports.

Which is why Rice is a great get for CBS. Hired in 2010 as part of the crew brought in by former Chief Product Officer Blake Irving, the former Microsoft exec was the key media product manager in charge of strategy and execution of Yahoo’s home page, news, sports, finance, entertainment, lifestyle, games and more.

CBS Interactive Games is a big digital division at the company, with more than $50 million in annual revenue, 32 million unique monthly visitors and one billion page views a month, according to comScore. GameSpot is its flagship site, along with GameFAQs, Metacritic, ComicVine and a variety of video streaming and eSports offerings.

Rice will be in charge of all operations at CBS Interactive Games — at Yahoo, he had only media product duties, although the many properties are all huge.

In a related move this past week, new CEO Marissa Mayer hired former Google sales exec Henrique De Castro to become COO at Yahoo. Mayer also told staff that all media units would report to him.

Yahoo said today in a regulatory filing that it had hired one of Google’s top sales execs, Henrique De Castro, as its COO.

Earlier today, I had reported that CEO Marissa Mayer had been close to nabbing the advertising exec, who has most recently been Google’s president of partners business solutions.

De Castro is getting a pile of money for taking the job, including a $600,000 yearly base salary and an annual bonus that could double that figure. In addition, the Silicon Valley Internet giant will give him $36 million in stock grants, including a one-time retention equity award of $18 million and $18 million in the form of performance-based stock options.

He is also getting $1 million in “make-whole” cash for forgoing compensation from Google and $20 million in stock to replace his shares at the search giant that will vest over four years.

That is a very big check, although Mayer garnered an even bigger one when she joined the company in July.

Yahoo’s regulatory statement on the De Castro hiring is embedded below in its entirety, so you can read about his new riches for yourself (unless Yahoo’s persnickety legal head tries to block it).

Said a Google spokesperson about the departure: “We’re grateful to Henrique for all of his contributions at Google and wish him all the best in his new role at Yahoo!”

Both Mayer and also former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson have made previous overtures to nab De Castro, who has held a number of high-level jobs for Google across the globe, including at DoubleClick, in display ads and with major partners.

While he had previously rebuffed those efforts, this time De Castro bit.

There were signs he might this past week, after De Castro canceled a major offsite for his employees, and several attendees who know him well said he was not present at the company’s first night of its annual Zeitgeist event for advertising and publishing clients. The suave De Castro is usually a more noticeable fixture at such gatherings.

This is Mayer’s first big hire at Yahoo, having added only lower-level or less well-known execs to her stable of talent since she was appointed.

She touted the hire in a tweet, although the news was long out the door, while also noting on Twitter it was her first full day at the office since having her first baby two weeks ago.

My first full day back in the office, and I’m excited to kick it off by announcing my new COO, Henrique de Castro: businesswire.com/news/home/2012…

— marissamayer (@marissamayer) October 15, 2012

The hiring does create a potential issue in the sales arena, especially with current head of revenue Michael Barrett. De Castro and Barrett worked together at Google and multiple sources said the pair did not get along there.

It might not matter. While Barrett has publicly said he planned to stay at Yahoo under Mayer — he was hired by interim CEO Ross Levinson this summer before she arrived — many sources said he does not want to be at the company for the long term.

De Castro has a lot of work to do for the big payout he is getting and it will be a big challenge for him to turn around the troubled organization.

Along with declining growth, search market share, engagement and more, Yahoo also has had a management turnover issue of epic proportions.

De Castro will presumably be in charge of making it all better at Yahoo when he arrives sometime before the beginning of the year and is likely to focus on operations while Mayer zeroes in on products.

One area of trouble: While she has lavished attention on cultural issues and on the company’s tech troops, sources said most of the advertising and media leadership at Yahoo have had little interaction with Mayer since she arrived this summer.

Advertising, of course, is Yahoo’s biggest money maker.

The Portugal-born De Castro has a lot of experience here and is decidedly more of a charmer than Mayer.

More importantly, he is a very high-profile hire, as well as a colorful one. He speaks a menu of languages, dresses with a lot of style and is a worldwide traveler. I know him a little bit and find him to be smooth and confident, even if a little cagey.

Before Google, De Castro worked at Dell and also McKinsey.

All this makes him a perfect choice for Mayer, who is also a former Googler, since she has been considering purchasing a range of companies in the advertising tech space. The most likely candidate of late is PubMatic, which has been in early talks with Yahoo about being acquired.

The Silicon Valley start-up would be a solid add to Yahoo’s ad platform offerings, especially if it wants to stay competitive with Google. PubMatic helps publishers effectively manage their display ad inventory, and competes with Google’s AdMeld.

(Ironically, Barrett ran that start-up, which he sold to Google for $400 million about a year ago.)

Here is the De Castro hiring document from Yahoo:

YHOO-20121015-8K-20121015

And here is the official press release from Yahoo:

Henrique de Castro Named Chief Operating Officer of Yahoo!

October 15, 2012

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced today that Henrique de Castro has been hired as chief operating officer (COO). Reporting directly to Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, de Castro will be responsible for strategic and operational management of Yahoo!’s sales, operations, media and business development worldwide.

“Henrique is an incredibly accomplished and rigorous business leader, and I’m personally excited to have him join Yahoo!’s strong leadership team,” said Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!. “His operational experience in Internet advertising and his proven success in structuring and scaling global organizations make him the perfect fit for Yahoo! as we propel the business to its next phase of growth.”

“The combination of Yahoo!’s unique properties with high quality content, its renewed focus on outstanding user experience and its massive reach bring tremendous value to users, advertisers and partners,” said de Castro. “This is a pivotal point in Yahoo!’s history, and I believe strongly in the opportunity ahead. I can’t wait to join Marissa and the team and get started.”

De Castro brings more than 20 years experience leading operations, strategy, partner management and revenue generation for some of the world’s leading brands. Most recently, he was vice president of Google’s worldwide Partner Business Solutions group, where he was responsible for advertising platforms and services for Google’s publisher and commerce partners. Prior to that, he led Google’s media, mobile and platforms organization, where he helped to grow the business significantly. Prior to Google, de Castro spent two years at Dell Corporation, where he managed sales and business development operations across Western Europe. He has consulted for McKinsey & Company, where he advised numerous clients across many different industries. His career also includes senior positions in private equity and advertising businesses.

De Castro will join the company on or before January 22, 2013, or as soon as he has satisfied his obligations to his current employer.

Young Hollywood, the high-profile next-gen digital media start-up, has hired a top Yahoo content exec, Liz Coughlin.

The Beverly Hills-based Young Hollywood named Coughlin SVP of business operations, overseeing new business initiatives and all digital operations.

At Yahoo for a decade, Coughlin was most recently in charge of omg!, one of the largest celebrity sites on the Internet, as well as Yahoo TV. She also worked on corporate strategy, partnerships and large events for the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Previous to Yahoo, she worked at the Digitas advertising agency.

“Right now, Young Hollywood is small, but it’s special, and where content production and media business is headed,” said Coughlin in an interview yesterday. “Trying to build new forms of content with the use of new devices and metrics and new forms of programming is an exciting place to be.”

Coughlin officially left Yahoo last week.

Currently, Young Hollywood creates “Entertainment Tonight”-style celebrity and lifestyle programming for other online outlets such as YouTube, Hulu and also Yahoo, as well as working on various marketing initiatives for large brands.

While the site wants to remain an accessible entry point for newbies, it doesn’t want the narrative arc for successful sellers to arrive at the inevitable plot point: “And then I started a real business.”

–From a story by Rob Walker in Wired about Etsy

Some are getting this faster than others. Example: TweetMeme CEO Nick Halstead announced on Wednesday that the company would soon close the doors on the popular, consumer-facing product.

The TweetMeme product was originally built as a curation tool, helping users on the casual consumer level to surface the most relevant, popular links across different categories. TweetMeme tracked the most shared tweets on Twitter, breaking them down into sub-groups so that users could browse them more easily, sort of like a Digg for Twitter.

But as of October 1, the site will shut down for good. And the reasoning, Halstead spells out for us, is simple: Going forward, that’s not where the money is.

“Three years on and the consumer news market has moved on,” Halstead wrote in his post. “We will be sad to see TweetMeme go, but it is no longer competitive or cost effective for us to continue to keep the infrastructure going behind it.”

Sure, it’s probably a bummer for those who use TweetMeme to find interesting things amid the 400 million tweets that flow through Twitter’s pipes every single day. But Twitter is trying to beef up its own capabilities on this front. In the past year, we’ve seen the company pay more attention to the “Discovery” tab, which aims to surface the most relevant tweets depending on your interests and the people you follow (though admittedly, it has a long way to go). And Twitter updated its search functionality in 2011, so that users can comb through tweets much more easily on Twitter.com.

But more importantly, it’s not that TweetMeme is an outright failure; it’s that DataSift, the company’s other business, is booming.

Granted, it’s not as immediately sexy as a consumer-facing service. DataSift takes in the vast amount of Twitter information and analyzes it, then spits out those analyses in digestible formats for businesses. It’s potentially valuable for brands trying to gather business intelligence, or even for day-traders looking to move shares on breaking news.

“Our core business, DataSift, has now grown to over 10,000 users, offices in 4 cities, $14m in investment and an amazing ecosystem of applications built upon it,” Halstead wrote.

Meanwhile, as Twitter works harder to create better ways of surfacing tweets to its own user base, standalone third-party companies like TweetMeme become less relevant over time.

And again, there’s job security in hedging your bets on using Twitter data in the “right ways.” If you’re a company situated in the left-hand quadrants of Twitter’s fancy graph of its third-party ecosystem, you’re safe — Twitter is encouraging developers to create businesses that target customer relationship management (i.e., ways of a brand dealing with complainers on Twitter, among other things), and analytics companies like DataSift.

In other words: When you see one business shrinking while the other is gaining momentum quickly, is it really a tough choice as to where you’ll spend your resources? I think not, and apparently neither does Halstead.

At the end of the day, they’re both trying to sell a product. Themselves. And they both do a great job in their distinctive niche.

– From a project in which @alicetiara, an assistant professor at Fordham studying social media, asked her students to compare the Twitter accounts of a politician and a celebrity

During the June quarter, Mac shipments to business in the U.S. grew 56.6 percent, even as overall PC sales slipped 8.8 percent, according to Needham analyst Charlie Wolf. Meanwhile, Mac business shipments worldwide increased 22.1 percent, amid a 4.5 percent decline in overall business PC sales. That’s significant growth, though the Mac is still far, far outdistanced by its enterprise rivals. In the U.S., the Mac’s share of the business market was just 5.9 percent in June — and that was an all-time high.

But growth is growth, and given the overall decline in the business PC market, the Mac is clearly gaining traction there. There are a few obvious reasons for this. First, Apple’s OS X operating system has become increasingly more business-friendly over the years, and now plays well with Windows applications, thanks to software like Boot Camp, Parallels and VMware’s Fusion. Second, the so-called “consumerization of IT,” which sees the rank and file acclimatizing enterprise to consumer devices like the iPad and iPhone, and opening the door for bigger hardware like the Mac.

As Wolf notes, Mac adoption in the business sector was pretty slow through 2007. But after? “Something did happen around the beginning of 2008 to propel Mac sales in the business market, and it seems reasonable to infer that it was Apple’s other products, most notably the iPhone and iPad, rather than the Mac itself that contributed to the significant share gains,” Wolf explains. “In our opinion, the role of the iPad cannot be overemphasized. Some observers estimate the iPad sales in the business market might represent up to half of all iPad sales.”

Now, Wolf is speculating a bit here, but that speculation seems reasonable, given recent statements from Apple. During the company’s last earnings call, it estimated that the number of iPads in use at the Fortune 500 had tripled over the past year, and the number of iPhones doubled. Said Wolf, “No doubt many mobile professionals purchased an iPhone for their personal use, which cast a favorable light on Apple’s app ecosystem. Arriving in April 2010, the iPad undoubtedly reinforced the more positive perception of Apple products, encouraging some IT professionals to consider the Mac in their purchasing decisions.”

Correction: An early version of this post incorrectly identified Parallels as a VMware product.

I think of 4chan as a hobby and not a business. To that end, I don’t operate it in a way that any sane business person would.

– 4chan founder moot, on the occasion of the site’s billionth post

Internet stocks got a much needed boost today, after the market rose to its highest levels in three months on solid earnings reports and less worry about the economic disaster in Europe.

The downhill-sliding of Facebook stopped again today, with a 3.9 percent rise to close at $21.92. While still off more than 42 percent since its May IPO, the social networking giant got itself back on the prettier side of $20.

Content portal AOL also had a 3.7 percent gain, likely due to news of a patent dispute settlement, to close at $33.83. It is up an impressive 124 percent for the year.

LinkedIn, one of the few Class of Web 2.0 winners, rose 2.8 percent to $111.55; the business network is up 77 percent for the year.

Better still: Zynga, which has been suffering badly of late, was up about 8.1 percent to close at $2.94 (the online gaming company is still down 69 percent year to date). The same was true of Groupon, another stock loser of late, with its shares rising more than 10 percent to $7.25, which is still down 65 percent for the year.

Also up strongly was recommendations site Yelp, which gained 8.7 percent to $25.43.

Also up smartly: Travel site Kayak, up 4.2 percent to $32.68; video service Brightcove, up almost 6 percent to $14.74; reservation site OpenTable, up 1.9 percent to $40.29; music streaming service Pandora, up 2.5 percent to $9.79; and collaboration software company Jive, up just over 2 percent to $19.11.

In contrast, Internet giant Yahoo gained less than a half of a percent in today’s trading, though it did finally remain above the $16 price barrier to close at $16.04. It is down a little more than a half of a percent for the year, despite the recent splashy hiring of new CEO Marissa Mayer.

Google, too, saw only a quarter percent rise, to $642.82. The search giant is also down a half of a percent for the year.

New research from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) suggests that, following the release of the third-generation iPad in March 2012, business use of the device increased.

According to CIRP’s surveys of more than 1,000 consumers who purchased iPads from December 2011 through April of 2012, 21 percent of those who bought the new iPad said they will use the device for business. That’s 8 percent more than those who said they had similar intentions across all iPad models. Which is interesting. Because for the most part, other uses of the iPad — entertainment, Internet, email, reading etc. — were largely similar across all models. (Two notable exceptions to that: A decrease in gaming usage, and an increase in social networking.)

So what’s behind that 8 percent increase in business usage?

One possible explanation: With its Retina screen and 4G connection, the third-generation iPad is viewed as more suitable for business use. But that’s secondary to the more obvious explanation: Enterprise has warmed to the idea of the iPad as a standard-issue business sidearm.

A year ago, 86 percent of the Fortune 500 were deploying or testing the iPad. As of April 2012, 94 percent of the Fortune 500 and 70 percent of the Global 500 were either deploying or testing it. Driving that trend: A steady increase in useful business apps and the so-called “consumerization of IT,” which sees the rank and file acclimatizing enterprise to consumer devices.

“Now that Apple has launched three generations of the iPad, it’s become clear that they intend it as a tool, not a toy, especially with the improved display and faster connection,” CIRP partner Michael Levin told AllThingsD. “Apple also appears to have pushed into the business segment, so perhaps that effort has started to pay off. On the other hand, business use still represents a fraction of all uses, relative to entertainment and games, so it’s still way early for Apple to declare victory in the enterprise space.”

A data point to consider in advance of Apple’s earnings next week.

In my mind, the ones who have no fear of failure are merely the dreamers, and the dreamers don’t build great companies.

– Joe Kraus, an investing partner at Google Ventures, from a story about failure in Silicon Valley by Melissa Block of NPR’s All Things Considered

Now, Lenovo, which bought the ThinkPad brand when it acquired IBM’s personal computer business in 2005, is stripping away some of the weight of the ThinkPad, with a new lightweight model that falls into the Ultrabook category.

The China-based PC maker is also introducing new ThinkPad X, T, W and L Series models, including the lightweight X230, and the ThinkPad X230t, a 12-inch convertible tablet that comes with a fully attached keyboard.

First, the X1 Carbon: Lenovo is claiming the featherweight title with this one, calling it the world’s lightest 14-inch professional Ultrabook. It clocks in at three pounds and, as one might expect from the name, is built with carbon fiber. It has an HD display and backlit keyboard, and is running Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors. Business users will appreciate the option to connect to 3G wireless networks via the laptop, provided that they’ve subscribed to a data plan through a carrier, for those times one needs to get work done and Wi-Fi is as unavailable as water in the desert.

While Lenovo says the laptop can be fully charged in 30 minutes, it’s unclear how long the battery charge is expected to last; and a few other details about the product — such as price and the number of built-in ports — are still unknown. The X1 Carbon Ultrabook will hit the market this summer.

Lenovo’s first entrant in the Ultrabook market, the IdeaPad U300s, which AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg reviewed late last year, costs $1,095 and comes with a 128 gigabyte drive, 4GB of memory and Intel’s i5 processor. And at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Lenovo showed off the $849 ThinkPad T430u Ultrabook, which is 12mm thick and weighs less than four pounds.

And then there are Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X, T, W, and L Series laptops, which also include Intel’s third-generation Core processors, Dolby audio, HD displays and ThinkPad Precision keyboards with optional backlighting. The T430s is the ThinkPad line’s lightest 14-inch (non-Ultrabook) laptop, while the T530 has a 15-inch full-HD display. But the most notable feature of these laptops is probably the addition of 4G/LTE broadband availability through Lenovo’s upcoming contract-free broadband service. The laptops will go on sale in June, and will range in price from $879 to $1,399.

A punched-up X230 ThinkPad will hit the market in June for $1,179, claiming up to 24 hours of battery life in a 12.5-inch form factor and weighing less than three pounds. This laptop also comes with 4G/LTE mobile broadband access.

If you’d rather have your X230 in tablet form, Lenovo has thought of that, too: The ThinkPad X230t has a rotating display that can be folded over to create an instant tablet. It is touchscreen enabled, comes with a stylus pen and also works with a ThinkPad laser mouse. (Lenovo has been playing with this form factor for a long time, actually. For an idea of how it works, check out this YouTube video.)

The convertible tablet (tabtop? laplet?) will start at around $1,479.

For the most part, these new entrants are still geared toward the professional market. But Tom Butler, Lenovo’s global director of product marketing, says the company is looking to appeal to consumers, too, in what Lenovo calls the “PC-plus” era. “From a ThinkPad perspective, we’re looking at the ‘consumerization’ of tech, so we’re addressing not only the IT departments but also the consumer,” he said.

Given the growing BYOD trend in corporations, it seems like a wise move. But whether workers given the option to work on their own laptops would prefer to bring in a consumer-ized Lenovo ThinkPad or a MacBook Air — or another, thinner Mac laptop reported to be on the way — is still to be seen.

It’s not a sustainable diet, but that’s what was available at the relatively few shops around San Francisco and New York City that are accepting Pay with Square and PayPal’s mobile app.

In case you’ve missed it, there’s a battle brewing over the future of mobile payments — that is, the ability for consumers to ditch the leather wallet and purchase things with their mobile phones. Companies like Google, PayPal, Square, wireless providers and credit card companies are debating various forms of mobile payment technology.

But in the battle over who gets to control your digital wallet, it’s important not to forget the consumer experience. Is it really that much easier to pay with a mobile phone than it is to just pull out cash or a credit card?

That’s what I set out to find this week, mainly using Pay with Square.

Square is a company known for creating a device for small businesses that plugs into an iPhone and can read a swiped credit card, but the company recently renamed and relaunched its app for consumers. Now called Pay with Square, the app works only at stores that are using Square’s register system for the iPad. Currently, around 75,000 merchants across the U.S. are accepting payments via the Pay with Square app.

In my experience, Pay with Square proved to be an easy, enjoyable app to use to purchase things using my smartphone — though it won’t be an everyday app for me until there are more businesses accepting it.

The free Pay with Square app works with iPhone and Android phones. It used to have a wallet-like interface, but now it simply lists nearby merchants, and has a rotation of featured businesses at the top of the page.

I first used Pay with Square at a coffee shop in San Francisco. I had to link the app to my credit card account, and then upload a picture of myself; otherwise, I wouldn’t be allowed to pay. Square says this provides a layer of security on top of other standard security measures it puts in place, alongside the security your credit card company provides.

Of course, a customer could upload a picture of their cat or something, and use that as their Pay with Square image. It’s up to the merchant to decide whether it’s a good idea to accept payment from someone whose photo doesn’t align with what they look like.

Then, on the coffee shop’s page within the app, there was the option to auto-open a tab for payments. Once I indicated in the app that I wanted to open a tab, my name and photo appeared a few moments later on the cashier’s iPad register, and the cashier was able to tap on my name and charge me.

Square has been touting the idea that this app actually allows for “hands-free” payments, which means a user shouldn’t even have to take her smartphone out of her pocket in order to pay, provided that the auto-open tab is turned on. I had mixed experiences with this at shops in New York.

One shop I bought coffee at didn’t see my name right away, even though I had turned on the tab in the iPhone version of the app. I tried to buy another item using the app on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android phone, and my name didn’t appear at all on the list of customers in the store.

But at another downtown coffee shop I was able to walk in, place my order and say, “Charge it to Lauren Goode” — without taking my phone out of my pocket — and the transaction was completed in seconds. This worked well on both iPhone and Android.

The app has a new tilt-to-map feature that I like a lot. Tilting your smartphone at an angle turns the screen into a full map, with little red pins showing where Square-friendly merchants are. I could also tweet from within the app that I was at a shop and paying with Square, text-message the same notification, and email the store’s link to a friend.

One part of the app that I found lacking was the amount of information that some merchants list on their pages within the app. Some show addresses, phone numbers, business hours and full menus. But a couple of Square-friendly venues in the app only listed their business phone numbers or addresses, so I had to exit the app to run an additional search and find out what the business actually sold.

This past March, online payments giant PayPal introduced PayPal Here, a Square-like dongle for small businesses to accept credit card payments on a mobile phone; PayPal also has a mobile app that uses location services to recognize where a customer is. PayPal already has the advantage of a massive user base of over a hundred million and, unlike Square, it is available in international markets.

But PayPal’s triangle device for payments still hasn’t been fully rolled out yet, so locating businesses where I could test that in conjunction with the PayPal app was challenging. The company says it’s still in “beta,” so it’s unclear how many merchants are actually using the triangle.

So that’s how I found myself buying beef jerky from a merchant amid a row of warehouses in Brooklyn on a rainy day. The founder of Kings County Jerky used to use Square, but he is now using the PayPal triangle.

Once I arrived, I opened the PayPal application on my iPhone. It recognized my location and listed a couple places nearby that would take my money via my PayPal app.

Since data service on my phone happened to be particularly bad in that area, I initially had trouble dropping the digital pin within the app that’s supposed to let the merchant know I was there. The merchant also had to reboot his phone once to process the payment on his end.

But once I switched over to Wi-Fi, I had four options for paying him: Pay directly from my PayPal account through the app; handing him my credit card, which he would swipe through the PayPal triangle; and scanning my credit card. The last resort would be for the merchant to manually enter my credit card number into his phone, though he would get charged a slightly higher fee for processing my payment that way.

Mobile connection issues aside, paying through my PayPal account on the app was relatively quick and painless.

In terms of loyalty rewards and discounts, mobile payment companies are trying to make paying with a smartphone compelling, but I haven’t been using the apps long enough to glean the rewards. Square, for example, gives merchants the ability to offer purchasers 10 percent off transactions just for being repeat customers, and while Google Wallet is currently only available on five Android smartphone models, the company has partnered with name-brand retailers to offer small promotions to app users.

Paying with Square was an easy way to pay with my mobile phone and, for me, the current lack of merchants accepting it was its biggest downside. This category of technology is too young here in the U.S. to see what the real benefits — and drawbacks — will be, but consumers can likely expect to see more options to pay with their smartphones in the near future.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120430/paying-with-squares-new-mobile-payments-app/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20120330/yahoo-layoffs-set-to-begin-next-week-followed-by-restructuring-the-week-after/ http://allthingsd.com/20120330/yahoo-layoffs-set-to-begin-next-week-followed-by-restructuring-the-week-after/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:00:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=191538

Yahoo is preparing to begin layoffs of what could be thousands of employees starting next week, according to multiple sources, and is then expected to announce a new restructuring of the company the week after.

The swirl at the Silicon Valley Internet giant has grown more intense this week, as new CEO Scott Thompson has brought in top management for a series of meetings both Tuesday and Wednesday to outline the plans.

What has emerged — although sources noted that Thompson and others communicating the pending changes said nothing was yet set in stone — is the picture of a drastically slimmed-down organization with a focus on media, advertising and new but unclear “future” initiatives.

First the layoffs: Sources said the cuts will be deep and mostly aimed at the product, research and marketing units of Yahoo, which are likely to take place Wednesday. The ultimate goal, said multiple sources, is to cut many thousands from Yahoo’s staff of close to 14,000 employees, which is actually much larger, due to contract workers not officially in its roster.

The entire cut will not take place at once, said sources, since Thompson and others are still trying to figure out how to dispense with its ad technology org and, potentially, its search business. He has been in discussions with both Microsoft and Google about this, although there are other possibilities, too.

Both these parts of Yahoo together have about 2,500 staffers, whose fate is not yet sorted out.

Also still baking is the new structure, although sources said it is most likely to be comprised of a global media division, one that encompasses Yahoo’s communications and search businesses, and ones focused on global and also regional sales. There could also be a small organization of about 50 aimed at future innovation.

Americas head Ross Levinsohn is the likeliest exec to run the media arm, while Shashi Seth — who now heads search and marketplaces — would be the obvious candidate for the the communications/search one.

Thompson has already been conducting a search for a new worldwide sales head, although one possible internal exec for the job could be Rich Riley, who was recently running Yahoo’s Europe, Africa and Middle East region.

It is not clear how Chief Product Officer Blake Irving fits in the possible new org, since much of the development could now move to the decentralized units.

Some current operational execs — such as service engineering and ops head David Dibble, CFO Tim Morse, and top lawyer Mike Callahan — are likely to continue to operate as before.

Thompson, along with consultants he has hired from the Boston Consulting Group, presented the possible plan in front of Yahoo’s senior execs on Tuesday. That was followed by more meetings with a wider range of top management yesterday, although Thompson was not as highly specific in these meetings.

In fact, according to a half-dozen sources, Thompson apparently grew somewhat testy in one of the gatherings, when asked if there was a strategy he was going to announce in more detail to the group.

(Dear Scott, these are very talented employees who love the company and who have been through the wringer and it’s not their fault that leadership has failed them, so it might be a good idea to treat them with as much respect as possible right now.)

More to come, obviously.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120330/yahoo-layoffs-set-to-begin-next-week-followed-by-restructuring-the-week-after/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120325/turning-attention-to-the-payment-side-square-rebrands-its-card-case-as-pay-with-square/ http://allthingsd.com/20120325/turning-attention-to-the-payment-side-square-rebrands-its-card-case-as-pay-with-square/#comments Mon, 26 Mar 2012 02:35:45 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=189904 Mobile payments start-up Square has built its business by targeting small business owners who shied away from traditional credit card systems, offering an easy-to-swipe, low-fee solution with a Square dongle attached to a mobile device.

Now it’s working on the other side of the equation: The consumer. The company is rebranding its consumer product, formerly dubbed Card Case.

Pay with Square, as the app has been renamed, now has participating merchants listed at the forefront of the free app, rather than hidden on cards in the old app’s virtual wallet. It also includes a curated list of featured merchants, a search bar, and a tilt-to-map option, which allows the user to tilt their phone to make a map appear and display a merchant’s location.

Square has also added geo-fencing capabilities to the Android app, which will allow customers to pay for an item at a participating store simply by walking in and telling the merchant their name.

Square’s move comes as mobile payments continue to heat up — and as competitors like PayPal and Intuit move into Square’s traditional territory.

Square first launched Card Case last May, but the app has gained little traction. While Square now claims $4 billion a year in mobile payments transactions, only about 75,000 of its one million merchants are accepting payments via Card Case.

Megan Quinn, director of products for Square, said that merchants that have taken payments through the app have seen a 22 percent increase in revenue.

“Square isn’t just about accepting credit cards,” Quinn said. “Our focus is the whole ecosystem, and we don’t think anyone is making the whole experience as easy and delightful as we are.”

Square’s app update comes just as online payments giant PayPal has started focusing on offline payments solutions for both big and small businesses, including PayPal-branded point-of-sale payments systems in Home Depot stores across the U.S., as well as a mobile payments dongle for iPhone that rivals Square’s small business solution. PayPal claims more than a hundred million users worldwide, whereas Square has yet to expand beyond the U.S., though it’s clearly taking steps in that direction.

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