Pandora Had a Good Wednesday, and a Terrible Thursday. What About the Next Couple Years?

Why was Pandora worth $4 billion on Wednesday, and $2.1 billion by Thursday morning? Who knows. Better question: What happens to the Web music company over the next few years? Time for a Q&A with CEO Joe Kennedy
slim pickens

What Happens When a Social Media Company Goes Public? Twitpics, Blog Posts and Trending Topics.

LinkedIn is notable for being the first major social networking company to go public, but it’s also one of the first companies to go public whose leaders are avid social networking users.

LinkedIn Shares Jump 100 Percent Out of the Gates

LinkedIn, the business networking site, leaped in morning trading after its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange today. After pricing at $45, shares opened at $83 and were trading above $90 this morning.

Renren Evades Red Flags to Raise $743M and Soar 40 Percent on IPO Day

Investors are ravenous for social networking and Chinese Internet companies. That’s the only rational explanation for Chinese social network Renren’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange today, which raised $743.4 million and saw shares sustain a 40 percent gain in afternoon trading.

Sprint Left Scrambling After AT&T Deal

The combination between AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA would leave Sprint Nextel Corp. even further behind. The surprising deal would widen the gap between Sprint and its two larger rivals, and would place it last among the national wireless carriers.

Wall Street Welcomes the Content Farm: Demand Media Supersizes Its IPO

It’s the first big-name Web company to go public in a very, very long time. And there was enough appetite for Demand to sell more shares, at a higher price, than it had planned. Now everyone else gets to vote.

IBM Results Beat Expectations on Strong Hardware Sales

Strong hardware sales, led by the System Z mainframe business, boosted the quarter.

Apparently Two Motorolas Are Better Than One

Shares of the cellphone-making unit rose in their first day of trading, while the remaining company, Motorola Solutions, held its own. The issuing of separate stock marks the end of a long process to divide the communications giant in half.

News Byte

Hello MOTOS

Motorola’s days as lone entity on the New York Stock Exchange are over. This morning the company’s long-planned split became official when Motorola Mobility Holdings, which handles the company’s mobile and consumer products business, and Motorola Solutions, which oversees next-generation communications products for enterprise and government, began trading under the tickers MMI and MSI, respectively. As of this writing, both are doing relatively well, with Motorola Mobility up more than 7 percent at $32.39 and Motorola Solutions up .23 percent at $37.40.

Will Oracle and Microsoft Bid on Autonomy?

A sketchily sourced report out of London says that Oracle and Microsoft may be lining up to bid on the British Software firm Autonomy early in 2011. Rumors are always rumors of course, but there’s a good reason to give this one some thought.

Nortel Agonistes