Despite a large uptick in the stock earlier today, Groupon’s fourth-quarter results caused its shares to plunge 23 percent in after-hours trading.

The Chicago-based company said its revenues were $638.3 million in the three months, just below expectation of $640 million and up 30 percent from a year ago.

But the fourth-quarter GAAP loss was 12 cents per share, or $81.1 million, which included a loss of seven cents from a non-operating item. That compares to a 12 cent loss a year ago, but was well over the two cent loss Wall Street had expected.

This comes after Groupon’s third-quarter miss, which puts the fate of CEO Andrew Mason into some question. He and several board members had a bit of a kerfuffle several months ago over this management abilities.

Still, on a conference call on the results today, Mason struck a positive tone on the poor results.

In addition, the company’s guidance was also disappointing, with first-quarter revenue between $560 million and $610 million. That’s much lower than the $650.3 million, that investors were estimating. Groupon also said it would have a possible operating loss in Q1 up to $10 million.

Groupon shares were down to $4.63 after the markets closed, after a nearly eight percent run-up earlier in the day.

Here is the company’s official press release on Q4:

GRPN

Demand Media said today that it planned to split its company in two parts, spinning off its domain registrar business from its media one in a bid to better clarify the company to investors.

Since it went public several years ago, there has been some level of difficulty for each part of the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Demand to easily explain itself to Wall Street, given the very different natures of its key — but very different — revenue units.

In a statement, Demand said that it was “our intent to spin off our registrar business and separate into two independent, publicly traded companies.”

The company noted that the two units “divergent strategic priorities and opportunities” would be better in the new configuration with a pure-play media company and domain services company.

The transaction is expected to take place in the next nine to 12 months, Demand said. But it still requires a number of company and regulatory approvals to do the tax-free spin-off that will create two different stocks.

The move makes a lot of sense on many levels, given the company’s two divisions have not coalesced in any way that has made much sense to investors.

As part of today’s announcement, Demand also released its fourth-quarter earnings.

Minus traffic acquisition costs, the company’s revenue for the three months was up 19 percent to $96.8 million, on net income of 12 cents of adjusted earnings per share.

Here are Demand’s two press releases from today, including its Q4 earnings:

Spin Off Announce FINAL 02.19.13

4Q.12 Results FINAL 02.19.13

Revenue was $599.5 million in the quarter, which was higher than the $573.7 million investors were estimating. While it was a small total rise of four percent from the same period a year ago, the company said its global advertising business was up 13 percent.

AOL said it “grew revenue year-over-year for the first time in eight years.”

That was made up of 17 percent growth in its search business and a 31 percent rise in its third-party ad business, which was tamped down by a drop of 3 percent in its domestic display ad sales.

AOL’s long-declining subscription business of dial-up services fell to $174.2 million, down 10 percent in the quarter from last year — though it grew sequentially.

In addition, the company, which had been buying a lot of its stock back recently, said its board has authorized $100 million more in repurchases, which could happen at any time in the next year.

AOL’s stock is up almost 72 percent from a year ago, closing yesterday ay $31.41. It is trending higher in after-hours trading.

CEO Tim Armstrong will talk about the Q4 performance in a call with analysts at 5 am PT.

Until then, here’s a whole bunch of lovely charts and other info from AOL:

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With three out of four of the best-selling digital toys of the last year, LeapFrog is expected by Wall Street to announce solid fourth-quarter returns today, buoyed by robust holiday sales. Analysts are looking for the Emeryville, Calif., educational toy company to earn 49 cents a share on revenue of $223 million in the period.

Strong Q4 earnings are typical, since LeapFrog usually has strong seasonal sales. This year, its LeapPad 2 sold out on Amazon, Target, Toys “R” Us and Walmart at the full $99 price.

The performance is a small beacon of light in the overall flagging state of the toy sector, which is quickly shifting to digital products, such as the tablets that LeapFrog makes.

With an increasingly tech-savvy generation of children to satisfy, LeapFrog is in a comfortable position to focus on considerable expansion in 2013, particularly internationally. It recently inked deals with Viacom International Media Networks to expand its Nickelodeon content to overseas markets in the U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

LeapFrog will have to invest in substantial R&D in 2013, and it faces more competition, as other kid-centric tablets have flooded the market recently.

LeapFrog will announce its fourth-quarter results at 2 pm PT.

Earlier today Yahoo reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates, on still-flattish revenue.

Still, up is up, even if it is not really that much up, so Wall Steet bid up shares of the Silicon Valley Internet giant in after-hours trading.

Now it’s onto the conference call with investors for CEO Marissa Mayer:

2:02 pm: Before the call, you can hear Mayer complaining about the goofy music played during the pre-conference call waiting time.

“We have to get better music,” she says to some minion. “This is not good music.”

Music to my ears! I say we get Beyoncé, lipsyncing or not.

The call starts quickly after that, with the ever-eager Mayer leaping right in with the fourth-quarter news, which is not all that bad.

It’s the first full year of growth in a while — though not the first quarter-to-quarter increase — even if it is only a very modest two percent increase.

That compares to industry-wide gains in revenue of many, many, many times that, but for Yahoo this is cause for a parade. A small parade, with good music, but a parade nonetheless.

“It’s hard to believe this is only my first full quarter here at Yahoo,” says Mayer in an upbeat tone.

She notes that her focus on product excellence and user experience was continuing, with some “early positive trends” in both products and people.

Mayer then list a series of moves, from the free food and better smartphones for employees to the addition of well-regarded entrepreneur Max Levchin to the board to the refreshes of Yahoo Mail and Flickr to the acquisition of some sassy new mobile startups.

Mayer also notes that the company under her purview had removed “385 of highest priority obstacles,” although she did not name any specifics.

I imagine what No. 332 is: Switching out the iceberg lettuce at the URL cafeteria on Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif. HQ campus with some tasty organic mesclun as they have at Google, from whence Mayer came.

Better roughage means better returns!

2:14 pm: Mayer turns the call over to CFO Ken Goldman, also a newbie. As usual, he runs through the numbers that are already in all the releases already. But I am enjoying his New England accent, hoping he will say the slight increase in revenue was “wicked” good.

Goldman, in fact, calls the revenue increase “modest,” which is true, although it sounds like “mah-dist.”

What’s not mah-dist is how much stock Yahoo has bought back, using its windfall from the recent sale of assets in China. It’s $1.45 billion, with more that that left to use for more share buybacks. That should keep Yahoo’s stock up nicely.

Goldman also talks about increases in the company’s search business, although notes that the Microsoft relationship is still not the most fantastic.

He speaks more effusively of Yahoo’s Asian partners, including Yahoo! Japan and China’s Alibaba Group. It’s deserved, since they have been the company’s treasure trove against its meh core performance in recent years.

Not so tasty is the problem Yahoo has with a big-money contract dispute in Mexico, which Goldman reiterates is “without merit.”

2:28 pm: Goldman moves onto Yahoo’s cash position, which is strong and which he says is going to be used to make the company better.

Mayer is back on board, talking about key focuses over multiple years.

She says Yahoo needs a “chain reaction of growth,” which needs to be fueled by a dozen new products that become a daily habits for consumers to increase usage and other metrics.

A nuclear bomb explosion is not exactly the best metaphor for a company’s turnaround, but in Yahoo’s case it is probably a pretty good one, given how stubborn its decline has been.

Mayer then switches the metaphor to one she recently used about “returning to the roots” of Yahoo.

Actually, mixing the metaphors, Yahoo has to blast some significant roots that have gotten in the way of its innovation over the years.

“The best is yet to come,” promises Mayer, in what she says will be a multi-year effort.

Now onto questions from the analysts!

2:40 pm: The first question is about commercialization of its products. Mayer answers she is both pro-advertising and anti-ad — meaning they are good when they add to user experience and bad when they do not.

There will be slight margin declines due to this, which is the real point of the query, which Goldman says will not be too impacted.

The next question is on the weaker performance in display ads and whether mobile ads can ramp up quick enough or not.

Yahoo is not breaking out mobile revenue numbers as yet — it’s not impressive as yet, so that’s what’s going on there — although Mayer points to the number of mobile users increasing to 200 million now.

As to the declines in display, Mayer gives a non-answer, but it is likely due to big changes that new Yahoo COO Henrique De Castro has put into place in the way it sells ads and which AllThingsD.com previously reported on. Mayer earlier in the call had confirmed those changes.

The fact of the matter — which is just what the analyst was asking about — is that Mayer simply has to improve display revenue, which is Yahoo’s core business.

Mayer then addresses the issue of not providing usage metrics anymore. Yahoo has withheld a lot of them since she has taken over, and she says it is because they are not indicative of metrics that, well, she thinks you need to know.

Instead, Mayer points to other metrics that she feels are better, such as number of ads sold and price per click on search.

Speaking of search, the next question is about that. What can Mayer say — and she does — but that Yahoo must also improve in that area. Indeed, it is lucrative low-hanging fruit for the company.

Here comes an interesting observation she makes based on a question of mobile versus desktop, which Mayer says should not be separated as two areas as consumers don’t think that way.

Yahoo is tuning up a dozen products, she says, having started with Yahoo Mail and its Flickr photo-sharing app.

2:54 pm: Mayer is not saying which of this dirty dozen is next to get a makeover.

“We’re investing in small, nimble, excellent teams,” says Mayer, who then tries to reference a famous Margaret Mead quote, but ends up mangling it a bit.

It is, for the record: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

This is true, which might make some Yahoo staffers nervous, since Mayer’s recent stack ranking of them means she can start on employee layoffs anytime she likes to separate the wheat from the chaff.

3:01 pm: Whoo-whee, this is going long and I am getting weary. Mayer has to be some kind of digital Energizer Bunny — she just flew in from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and moved right into the prep for the Q4 earnings.

Tomorrow, she is presumably off to Las Vegas, where Yahoo’s global sales conference will start and she will doubtlessly be making an appearance.

I am exhausted simply by walking up and down the stairs at my house.

The next question is about third-party publishers and ad tech on mobile.

“Mobile monetization is new for everyone,” she says correctly, making the point that no one knows what is going to shake out.

She uses — as she has used — the example of when people thought search was not a moneymaker until Google proved otherwise.

The problem is, of course, that Google is Yahoo’s biggest rival in this new mobile ad arena, along with Facebook and many others. And Google, as its recent results showed, does know how to make money compared to Yahoo.

The next question is about mobile monetization eating into desktop revenue.

Mayer notes that Yahoo has hired 120 people with computer science degrees in the quarter to work on that area.

In other words, get ready for a symphony of geeks to return Yahoo to relevance.

Would they can pull it off, as that would be a tune worth listening to.

Speaking of something worth listening to, here is a video of Diana Ross’ song, “Chain Reaction,” to enjoy:

Yahoo reported its fourth-quarter earnings today, with earnings higher than expected, but with a continued flattish revenue.

The Silicon Valley Internet giant aid its non-GAAP net profits were 32 cents a share, compared to 25 cents in the same period a year ago. But GAAP net earnings per diluted share were 23 cents in the fourth quarter of 2012, compared to 24 cents last year.

Shares jumped just above four percent in after-hours trading to above $21 a share, given Wall Street analysts were estimating a profit of 27 cents per share in Q4.

Net revenue, without traffic acquisition costs, was expected to be $1.21 billion. It was $1.22 billion and which is essentially flat from a year ago’s $1.17 billion. Search revenue was up nicely, while display sales declined.

Overall the results showed a non-sinking but none-too-powerful ship and not very impressive given almost every other Internet company grew revenue significantly in comparison. For example, Google reported last week that core revenue was up 21 percent in the quarter.

Still, up is up, even if it is not up that much. “I’m proud of Yahoo!’s 2012 and fourth quarter results. In 2012, Yahoo! exhibited revenue growth for the first time in 4 years, with revenue up 2 percent year-over-year,” said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer in a statement.

In other words, she’ll take two percent, given the nearly persistent revenue declines of recent years. It is progress, of course, even if investors are looking for more robust increases ahead.

Also of note: Yahoo said it repurchased 79.6 million shares at an average price of $18.24 for $1.45 billion in the fourth quarter, which most definitely was one of the reasons for its recent stock run-up.

Yahoo did not release information on consumer engagement and traffic in the Q4 report, which it had done until Mayer took over. As AllThingsD.com had previously reported, most metrics in the quarter were down significantly over last year.

The fourth quarter was the first that was entirely under the new regime of Mayer, who arrive at Yahoo in July from Google.

She’s gotten a big break from Wall Street, which has sent Yahoo’s stock up in recent months on the hopes of her turnaround plans.

Last week, Mayer said the long-suffering Silicon Valley giant would be returning “back to its roots,” as part of an effort to finally turn it around. It’s actually part of a bigger plan which AllThingsD.com had reported on previously, to focus Yahoo on being a center of content discovery on the Web, across multiple devices, with wide-ranging and “very friendly” partnerships with other companies.

More to come at the 2 pm PT, conference call with Mayer, which I will be liveblogging as usual.

Until then, here’s the official press release and deck from Yahoo:

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At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said the long-suffering Silicon Valley giant would be returning “back to its roots,” as part of an effort to finally turn it around.

That was among the little bits of strategery that Mayer revealed last week in an interview there. It’s actually part of a bigger plan which AllThingsD.com had reported on previously, to focus Yahoo on being a center of content discovery on the Web, across multiple devices, with wide-ranging and ” very friendly” partnering with other companies.

Given that Yahoo has little in the way of a platform at this point, or any kind of hardware business, Mayer stressed making nice with others on the Web.

“Yahoo has always been a very friendly company,” she said. “Our focus, in addition to technology, but also on media, means there is an opportunity for strong partnerships. That is what we will be focused on.”

This back-to-the-future plan is, in fact, a concept at the heart of the earliest days of Yahoo, with Mayer adding a mobile aspect now to give it current relevance.

“The nice thing at Yahoo is that we have all the content that people want on their phones. We have these daily habits,” she said. “I think whenever you have a daily habit and providing a lot of value around it, there is opportunity to not only provide that value to the end user but to create a great business.”

One can hope, as Yahoo’s revenue has been going steadily downward for years — none of which is Mayer’s fault, of course. But it is now her problem to fix, and today’s fourth-quarter report should be a good indicator about how the former Google exec is doing since she took the CEO job in July. It will be the first quarter reported that is fully under Mayer’s rule.

Wall Street analysts are estimating a profit of 27 cents per share in Q4, a rise from 24 cents in the same quarter a year ago. Net revenue is expected to be $1.21 billion, which is flat from a year ago.

The questions that will be asked on the conference call later today are likely to include: What Yahoo plans to do about its broken search relationship with Microsoft, the progress of long-running talks to shed its Yahoo Japan stake and how efforts to improve talent and cut lesser-performing employees is going.

It will be interesting to see if Yahoo surprises investors this quarter, as it did in the last one with a one-time gain from the sale of its Chinese assets. Also of interest will be to see exactly how much stock the company has bought back with the proceeds from that Asian windfall.

It has to be a lot, with Yahoo’s shares up almost 30 percent since the middle of last year, as Wall Street pins its hopes on seeing Mayer’s plan in action.

Now, Mayer is insisting by helping Internet users see more clearly, that investors will be able to discern a more lucrative path for Yahoo in the future.

“I definitely think that with the Web becoming so vast, there’s so much content and there’s so much social context, and now with mobile there’s so much location context and activity context, how do you pull all that together?” said Mayer in Davos. “The interesting way to take it is to bring some of that information … to actually make sense of the content. It’s the Internet ordered for you.”

How tall an order that is to fill, of course, remains to be seen.

But the action starts at 1 pm PT today with the results, following by a conference call with Mayer.

Until then, here’s Mayer in the video of her interview at Davos with Bloomberg TV, which is the first substantive one to date:

In a three-story building in Palo Alto, Calif. — formerly occupied by Danger, the developer behind the T-Mobile Sidekick — Groupon has been trying to build out a Silicon Valley technology center, one acquisition at a time.

The pursuit was kicked off two years ago with the purchase of mobile app development shop Mob.ly. Mihir Shah, the company’s CEO, started recruiting for the social buying company, and then became the Groupon’s VP of mobile.

Since then, there has been a hodgepodge of acquisitions, including Campfire, which builds chat, calendar and media-sharing tools, as well as Zappedy, which makes a platform for merchants to redeem Internet-based offers more easily.

Last week, it continued with Adku, a low-profile San Francisco start-up that helps e-commerce retailers fine-tune their recommendation engines using external factors, such as whether it is hot or cold outside.

None of the teams have been extremely big or expensive, but Groupon insists that they already are having a major impact on the company.

That may be hard to believe in a company of more than 10,000 employees, most of which are salespeople who are not working on technology.

But Adku’s co-founder Carlos Whitt, who is joining the company along with five others from his team, said the entrepreneurial vibe in the building is “ridiculously exciting.”

“The opportunity, the innovation and entrepreneurs are all there,” he said. “It’s a good intersection.”

Still, Groupon has not been able to attract every entrepreneur it pursues. It had been actively trying to buy other social start-ups, such as Gowalla. That particular deal went to Facebook. Another would-be Groupon acquisition target, Clever Sense, was won by Google.

No matter, according to Mob.ly’s Shah, who said Groupon is actively evolving beyond a daily deals service into a company that builds a set of key marketing tools for local merchants that increases sales, cuts costs and boosts productivity.

Some of the early tools include online calendars to make it easy for spas or gyms to book appointments online, and rewards programs that allow merchants to identify loyal customers who return and spend a lot of money.

Groupon also recently revamped its merchant center, where its customers can manage their daily deals and other programs in an online dashboard.

Shah said the idea is to create a marketing suite that makes small businesses more efficient and productive.

“We never want to stand still and be a big company,” he said.

But the big question is whether those tools will be sticky enough to keep merchants coming back to offer new deals, which is where Groupon gets all of its revenue from. That’s because most of the new tools are expected to be given away for free and not generate any additional income — at least for now.

It will also have to be enough to keep away other close competitors, such as LivingSocial, Google and Amazon.

The ability to spur innovation and keep ahead of rivals will be on the minds of analysts when Groupon reports its first financial results as a publicly held company this afternoon.

Wall Street is expecting the company to report three cents per share profit on revenue of $475 million in its fourth quarter earnings, according to Thomson Reuters.

That’s up from $430 million in revenues in the third quarter and will be Groupon’s first profitable quarter in nearly two years

In particular, analysts will be listening for updates on some of the company’s core programs, such as Groupon Now, which is its mobile product that allows consumers to purchase deals minutes or hours before redeeming them based on their location. Other metrics may be shared regarding loyalty and retention programs.

This is also Groupon CEO Andrew Mason’s first big chance to speak to the investment community since the end of the company’s quiet period (which he wasn’t really good at keeping, anyway).

Groupon’s stock increased nearly three percent yesterday to close at $24.19, which is just above its IPO price of $20 a share.

Because of that, Zynga’s stock is soaring today, trading up 16.5 percent, or $1.75 a share, at $12.35, to easily beat its 52-week high of $11.50.

Up until today, Zynga’s stock had struggled to stay at its IPO price of $10 a share.

Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian tried to do some backward math based on Facebook’s disclosure yesterday that 12 percent of its revenue was coming from the social games company.

Based on that alone, we know that Zynga accounted for roughly $450 million of Facebook’s $3.7 billion revenue in 2011.

But Sebastian took it a step further and estimated that, based on Facebook’s 20 percent jump in payment revenue during the fourth quarter, Zynga’s net bookings likely totaled $315 million in Q4, versus the $300 million he was previously forecasting.

He maintained the company’s “outperform” rating on the stock, and a $12 price target.

Here’s how he did the math:

We estimate that 12% of Facebook revenues came from Zynga in Q4, which implies roughly $135 million in Zynga-related revenues. We assume 75-80% of this amount is fees related to virtual good sales, with the remainder coming from advertising. Adjusting this amount for the 30% toll, we estimate implied net bookings to Zynga of nearly $250 million from virtual good transactions on Facebook. We estimate that Zynga also generated roughly $65 million in Facebook advertising bookings and transactions on other platforms (e.g., iOs, Android), which would suggest total net bookings of $315 million vs. our estimate of $300 million. Again, this a rough estimate and a directional indicator based on Facebook filings.

AOL said it earned 23 cents a share for the fourth quarter on revenue of $576.8 million, compared to 60 cents per share on $596 million in the same quarter a year ago.

Wall Street analysts had expected the New York-based Internet company to earn 16 to 17 cents on revenue of $572 million.

While the results are still down significantly from a year ago, AOL’s stock has been rising — gaining more than 25 percent in the quarter — since CEO Tim Armstrong has improved advertising revenue.

That was up 10 percent in the quarter, the third consecutive quarterly increase.

Subscription revenue from its access business continued to fall — down 18 percent — although that was the lowest rate of decline in five years.

AOL also noted that it had encouraging improvements in certain areas of its business:

Video: AOL grew its videos, video views, video ad impressions and revenue at double-digit rates.

Brand Advertising: Project Devil advertisers, impressions and revenue grew at double-digit rates.

Local: Patch grew traffic, advertisers and ad impressions more than 100% year over year.

Traffic: Consumer usage was flat to Q3 2011, as growth in the Huffington Post Media Group sites offset declines at MapQuest and AIM.

But read for yourself — here are all kinds of charts and graphs from AOL:

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The comments follow a less than stellar fourth-quarter performance in which the gigantic e-commerce provider spent nearly as much money as it brought in the door — even during its busiest quarter of the year.

Profits for the quarter fell 58 percent, while annual earnings were cut nearly in half.

Some analysts were hoping that the end of the year would be a low point for margins and that Amazon would start growing in 2012 as it benefited from the steep investments made the prior year.

But that’s not part of the plan.

“We’re incredibly optimistic about the opportunity that we have, and that’s why we have invested the way we have and why we’re continuing to invest in the business,” said Amazon’s CFO Tom Szkutak in a conference call with analysts.

For clarity, Piper Jaffray analyst Charles Munster asked again: “So, your outlook in terms of investment philosophy hasn’t changed versus last quarter going forward?”

“No, no,” Szkutak said. “We are continuing to look as we always do. We learn every week, month and quarter about customer adoption. We are looking at a lot of positive things across the business in terms of adoption, specifically Kindle growth from a device standpoint and content that’s following that.”

Other categories seeing growth, he said, include clothing, consumables, consumer electronics and Amazon Web Services.

“There’s a lot of interesting opportunities that we continue to invest in. So we are pleased with the performance in Q4 and what it means going forward for us.”

Over the past year, Amazon has invested heavily in infrastructure, including 17 fulfillment centers around the globe. At the end of the year, it had 56,200 employees, up 67 percent year over year, with most of the hiring coming in operations and customer service.

It has also invested heavily in the digital content business, including the Kindle.

It’s widely assumed that Amazon is breaking even or taking a slight loss on the sale of each Kindle Fire. It’s also securing expensive partnerships with content companies across music, video and books, and giving some of that content away as part of the $80 Prime membership, which also includes free two-day shipping.

All of those are bets that Amazon is hoping will reap profits over the long term, as customers continue to consume after they purchase an e-reader or tablet or sign up for Prime.

So far, it’s too early to see how the investment is faring, especially when it comes to new categories.

“It’s very, very early,” Szkutak said, “but so far, we like what we see, so that’s why we are continuing down the path of adding more content and making Prime better. … Because we are investing a lot, we are making sure we understand it very well.”

A lot of details, like Kindle sales numbers, are still being kept under wraps, but he promised Amazon will someday share more about how it is doing.

Unfortunately, the market isn’t as patient. In after-hours trading, the stock was down almost 10 percent at one point. During the session, it ended up down, 8.7 percent, or nearly $17 , to close at $177.50 a share.

Yahoo will report its fourth quarter earnings tomorrow, after the markets close, which most expect to be lackluster compared to a year ago.

To call this report a surprise would be, well, wrong.

In fact, it will be the 13th quarter in which the Silicon Valley Internet giant has done worse that the previous year. (This has happened as Internet advertising has boomed for sites like Google and Facebook, as a point of reference.)

Welcome aboard, new CEO Scott Thompson! Now, what are you going to do about it?

Probably cut costs first, including staff, and try to quickly figure out an all-new, this-time-it’ll-take strategery about what to do to turnaround the much beleaguered Yahoo.

But, first, the depressing quarter to deliver again.

The estimates for that weak performance have a range, but the consensus of analysts is expecting revenue to be $1.19 billion on profits of 23 to 24 cents. If Yahoo has managed to rein in costs more than expected, some analysts are hoping for a slightly better report.

Still, all the indications are for more negative signs in user engagement, search share, display advertising stats and more.

Thus, we await the light at the end of the tunnel.

As Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney noted in his cheat-sheet analysis:

“Valuation remains intriguing, but we’re still waiting for convincing Top-Line Turnaround Story Proof. With new CEO Scott Thompson, we believe YHOO will be another wait-and-see turn-around story.”

Of course, much of the action is taking place elsewhere, with the company ferreting away at the deal to sell off a big stake in Yahoo’s Asian assets and also subtracting and adding new board members.

But tomorrow, it’s once more unto the Wall Street breach, dear friends, or close the wall up with our purple dread.

Until the results are in, here’s a recent video I did for WSJ.com’s online Digits show on the possible layoffs at Yahoo:

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo has instituted a hiring freeze across the company and is considering a reduction in force in support units of the company.

While the details of any layoffs — which are expected to be small and selective for now — are still being worked out, sources said that the stricture not to fill hundreds of open positions is the first step toward significant cost-cutting initiatives across the Silicon Valley Internet giant, in the wake of what it expects to be another weak quarterly report next week and a looming proxy fight.

Yahoo reports its fourth quarter earnings Tuesday. While the company has managed to improve the results in the last part of the quarter, sources said they will still show continued weakness in its key businesses and consumer usage.

That’s as competitors such as Google and Facebook have been showing significant growth, especially in the display advertising market.

Thus, new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson appears to be zeroing in on costs and managing for margins, said multiple sources, much as his predecessor Carol Bartz did at the start of her tenure.

But many think Yahoo needs even more drastic changes, including massive cuts in staff and also product arenas, to give the company new life.

That includes shifts in leadership at the top levels too. In a major move this week, co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down from the company’s board and all roles there. More directors are expected to leave soon, too.

That will likely come after negotiations to sell part of its lucrative stakes in both the Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan are successfully completed.

While not a certainty, Yahoo’s board hopes that will happen sometime before activist shareholder Daniel Loeb initiates a proxy battle against the company in the coming month.

Sound complex?

It is, and also troubling to Yahoo’s long beleaguered rank and file, who have been worried about more layoffs.

The Yahoo troops have been under intense pressure and have suffered from ongoing attrition. Just yesterday, for example, Yahoo lost one of its top advertising execs, Seth Dallaire, to Amazon.

The company can ill afford such departures of key talent, even as it seeks to pare employee numbers in other parts of its business.

At the end of its last quarter, Yahoo reported that it had 13,700 staffers, down from 14,100 in the previous year.

Yahoo, of course, declined comment.

If you thought things were going to quiet down with Yahoo now that it has installed new CEO Scott Thompson in place, think again!

That’s because of a very unusual — well, to be fair, unusual for most companies, but not for perpetually storm-tossed Yahoo — confluence of important events about to take place all at once over the next six weeks.

And, like a very dicey game of corporate Jenga, each has the ability to upend and impact the other significantly, either for the good or, well, for the bad.

Here are the four horsemen of the possible Yahapocalypse, all riding into town very soon:

Q4 Results: Yahoo will report its fourth quarter earnings on January 24th, after the markets close. While sources said the company has managed to turn around what was looking like a first-class disaster, it’s still not going to be a pretty picture when it comes to advertising growth, consumer engagement and other key metrics.

Simply put, Yahoo needs to show investors a fast-growing business. Instead, sources said the Q4 results will likely come in at the bottom of the expected range, which should be unimpressive, even though this has been business as usual at Yahoo for some time.

If Google and others have strong reports, of course, it will make the situation worse.

Along with goosing its ad business again, Yahoo needs to spur innovation and intro some cool new products in new arenas to make Silicon Valley and others perk up.

Proxy Fight?: Weak results will give a nice lift to potential efforts by activist investor Daniel Loeb of Third Point — a major Yahoo shareholder — to wage a proxy fight for control of the company. He’s already here in Silicon Valley this week searching for possible board members for an alternate slate of directors.

As I wrote earlier today, the earliest nominations for directors can be submitted is February 24. Loeb then has a month after that to submit a competing roster.

Worse for Yahoo, many of Yahoo’s major investors are mulling backing Loeb if he initiates a battle for control of the company.

There’s no doubt that Loeb is and means to be a thorn in Yahoo’s side — he already made a lot of noise about its consideration of partial investments from private equity firms, due to low share prices — until major changes take place at the company.

And by major, Loeb’s intent seems to be along these baseball lines: Throw the bums out!

Board in Flux: Speaking of the board, it’s not the pretty picture of solidarity as you might think.

Actually, no one in their right mind thinks that. This board is about as dysfunctional as they come. (It’s like that group on “American Horror Story,” minus the bald dwarf in the basement.)

Right now, several sources report, various factions are jockeying over which board members go and which stay. The Wall Street Journal reported last week on a formal search for new board members to replace outgoing ones, but it’s much more complex than just that.

While some departures seem most obvious — longtime board members Vyomesh Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson — the really interesting part will be the possible exit of Chairman Roy Bostock.

While it now is more of a when rather than an if, many sources report, how it goes down is the key part of the move. And who will be the chairman then will be the big conundrum — either an internal candidate, such as David Kenny, or a fresh-eyed outsider.

Another question mark: Whether co-founder Jerry Yang could also move along off the board with Bostock. While Internet company founders usually stick on boards, it’s not a given, especially with all the turmoil at Yahoo, some of which is related to Yang.

For now, make no mistake, Bostock is still in charge of the board and Yang is the only real power behind that power, despite the recent influence of director Brad Smith.

But, with all the pressure by shareholders, some sources suggest that it might finally be time for some significant change at the board level, starting with the pair most associated with all its troubles.

Or, um, not.

If there is going to be any action at all, expect it before February 24th — when Loeb can start making real trouble.

Asian Solution: A lot of the above hinges on whether Bostock and Yang can deliver the promise of a deal with its long disgruntled Asian partners, Alibaba Group and SoftBank.

The trio is now engaged on negotiations about a tax-free deal, in which Yahoo would sell back some of its stakes in its Asian properties and get money and other operating assets in return.

While it’s good news that the talks are finally proceeding with some level of normal functionality, it’s still a complex situation and one with a lot of outstanding questions.

Most important: Which operating assets will be bought in the deal to hand over to Yahoo? And also, what will the valuations be?

Sources close to the situation said that the talks remain slow-going and frustrating — “The stop-and-go of all time,” joked one person involved. But they are moving forward, which is no small thing when it comes to these three.

That’s critical for Yahoo, which can ill afford to disappoint shareholders if no lucrative, cash-rich deal happens in Asia. And, it needs to happen before Loeb can act on a proxy fight too, since a successful end to its Asian issues will negate his momentum dramatically.

Oh Yeah, Running the Core Business Stuff: As usual, a full and fraught month for Yahoo and its directors, who have other things to do, I assume.

But not me and not new CEO Thompson. By the way, the former eBay exec will presumably be very busy doing some significant rejiggering of the core Yahoo business in the meantime.

Could that mean a new product direction for Yahoo, for example, around data? Could it mean a passel of new execs? Could it mean layoffs?

Or, could it mean Thompson will finally solve the ultimate sword-in-the-stone question: What is Yahoo?

And that, in the end, will be the real victory.

Microsoft had a solid fourth quarter, which is why the conference call with Wall Street analysts should be relatively short and sweet.

Or sweet, at least.

Microsoft reported beat expectations on profits that rose 30 percent, as well as on revenue. Of particular note were its Office, Entertainment and Devices and Servers and Tools units. Even the revenue at its perpetually money-sucking Online Services division was up 17 percent.

(You can see Microsoft’s charts and other data here, if you really want more.)

Here’s a liveblog of the call:

2:31 pm PT: Well, Microsoft investor relations dude-in-chief Bill Koefoed sounds unusually jaunty in his greeting.

And why not? The results are good for Microsoft, even a little giddy, with a lot of impressive numbers and solid launches of several products, from Xbox Kinect to Office 365 to Bing, the very pricey but pretty search service.

Next up is CFO Peter Klein, who also sounds like this particular call is a relief.

He talks about the results a bit, most of which are up.

“In summary, we are pleased,” says Klein about the quarter and the year. He also notes that he is “excited.”

It’s party time in Redmond!

2:38 pm: Peppy Bill is back, going through the numbers. Solid!

Klein then moves onto the future and he remains “excited.”

Now, it is onto Q&A from the analysts.

This is where I zone out a little and start to wonder if a doughnut is a wise choice for an afternoon tasty treat.

That would make me “excited.”

Lots of congrats, which only makes me hungrier. One analyst asks why it was so much stronger than expected.

Klein: The economy has improved, businesses are expanding, peeps love them some cloud.

There is a question about how the troubled Yahoo search partnership is going. Klein promises some improvement by the end of the year.

Still, bummer!

But it is quickly back to happy, with a question about the strength of Xbox and its subscribers.

“It’s fantastic,” says Klein.

Like I said, sweeeeeeet.

Microsoft has a lot to crow about in its fourth-quarter earnings today, including a 30 percent jump in profits and strong overall revenue growth in its many divisions.

It is sure a lot better than what Yahoo and Nokia turned in this week in their quarterly results.

Here’s all the charts and other data to peruse before I start liveblogging the Microsoft conference call with Wall Street analysts at 2:30 pm PT:

SlidesFY11Q4

PressReleaseFY11Q4

FinancialStatementFY11Q4

The bigger picture is that Armstrong’s turnaround is still in progress. Ad revenue was down 29 percent in the last quarter, though that number is worse than it looks. A big chunk of the decline comes from moves AOL has intentionally made that will cut revenue in the short run in return for more profitable sales down the road.

A more representative data set for Armstrong are his display ad sales, which are down 14 percent overall and 8 percent in the U.S..

The bad news is that the rest of the Web ad industry is well into rebound mode; the good news is that AOL has trained Wall Street to expect numbers like these. If you’re waiting to see positive sales numbers, Armstrong said during AOL’s earnings call this morning, wait until the second half of this year.

While many division leaders might just release a dull memo, the former Google exec went right to the videotape, and I mean really went for it.

The adorkable result is an all-hands Q4 music video, which BoomTown acquired, in which a suit-wearing Eun moves into Lady Gaga territory and shakes his very buttoned-up booty.

While I like to see this kind of corporate playfulness and fun-poking, let’s hope AOL’s fourth-quarter earnings–being announced in a little more than a week and expected to remain weak–show as many jazz hands as Eun’s effort below does.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110124/viral-video-aol-media-head-david-eun-gets-jiggy-in-internal-all-hands-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110119/ebay-beats-street-on-revenue-profit/ http://allthingsd.com/20110119/ebay-beats-street-on-revenue-profit/#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:30:51 +0000 Voices http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=35353 Helped again by its thriving PayPal unit, eBay today reported Q4 revenue of $2.5 billion, a five percent increase year-over-year, and non-GAAP income of $683.8 million, or 52 cents per diluted share. Analysts had been expecting 47 cents EPS on $2.49 billion in revenue, on average. The PayPal unit saw a 26 percent jump in total payment volume, to $26.87 billion, adding more than $5 billion in additional payment volume.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110119/ebay-beats-street-on-revenue-profit/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101212/what-privacy-problem-web-ad-targeter-media6degrees-raises-17-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20101212/what-privacy-problem-web-ad-targeter-media6degrees-raises-17-million/#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:00:45 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=26951 One way to gauge what’s really going on with privacy and Web advertising: Follow the money. If investors really think privacy problems are going to weigh the industry down, it’s going to be a lot harder to get checks out of them.

So use that context to think about this news: Media6Degrees, a behavioral advertising technology start-up, has raised a $17 million funding round led by Menlo Ventures.

Earlier investors U.S. Venture Partners and Venrock, which had helped the 2-year-old company raise another $12 million before the new B round, are re-upping.

The money is targeted for general expansion, not M&A, says CEO Tom Phillips, who joined the company in 2009 after a three-year stint at Google.

Phillips says his company will end up booking $20 million in revenue in 2010. And he says that by Q4 it had ramped up to a $30 million annual run rate–that is, it will do about $7.5 million in the last three months of the year.

Media6 describes what it does as “Social Targeting,” which sounds as if it’s trying to find links between your various social networks. But the company’s work has nothing to do with your Facebook or Twitter profiles. While it doesn’t like the term “behavioral targeting,” that’s essentially what it’s doing.

In a nutshell, Media6 Web marketers track the surfing behavior of their existing customers, then try to find similar behavior patterns–a matching “social signature”–for other surfers, so they can show them ads.

Depending on your perspective, that’s either creepy or a common-sense strategy to help advertisers spend their money more efficiently. If it does weird you out, you can go ahead and opt out. But Phillips and his company would like you to know that the company never tracks individuals–only their anonymized browsers.

Still don’t want any part of this stuff? In theory, companies like Media6 will be in trouble if lots of surfers really do start opting out of data collection. They can do that by telling individual Web sites and ad networks not to track them–or, more ominously, by using browsers with “do not track” filters built into them.

But we’re a very long way from that kind of change. And the start-up’s investors seem to be betting that it’s never going to come.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101212/what-privacy-problem-web-ad-targeter-media6degrees-raises-17-million/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20101202/50-percent-of-smartphones-sold-in-china-last-quarter-run-android/ http://allthingsd.com/20101202/50-percent-of-smartphones-sold-in-china-last-quarter-run-android/#comments Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:41:58 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=53550 The smartphone market in China is growing at an extraordinary rate, largely thanks to Google’s Android OS. Chinese consumers purchased 8 to 10 million smartphones last quarter, up from an estimated 2 to 3 million in the same period last year. And according to Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt, the bulk of them ran Android.

Interesting, when you consider that prior to 2010, the Chinese smartphone market was ruled largely by Nokia’s Symbian OS and Windows Mobile.

How quickly things change. According to McCourt, Android now represents nearly 50 percent of smartphone volume in the country, up from zero last year. And Apple’s iOS, while a niche player with less than 500,000 iPhones sold last quarter, is ramping up quickly, thanks to the successful launch of the iPhone 4 in the country last month.

“Apple (must be) viewed as somewhat disappointing through Q3:10, but we suspect iPhone 4 and a WiFi-capable iPhone 3GS will substantially improve iPhone results in Q4:10 and beyond in China,” McCourt said in a note to clients. “The bigger picture is that the Chinese market for smartphones is exploding, but is at a much earlier stage of development than North America or Western Europe.”

Which means it’s a major geographic growth opportunity for the smartphone industry. Certainly, Apple views it that way. As COO Tim Cook said during an earnings call earlier this year, “If you look at greater China, which we define as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the iPhone units were up year-over-year over nine times. We added another 800 points of distribution in China. The revenue, we have never released this number before but I will do this in this particular case, through the first half of the fiscal year that we just completed, for the six month period, our revenue from greater China was almost $1.3 billion and this is up over 200 percent year-over-year. So we are well pleased with how the company is positioned to take advantage of the growth in greater China.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101202/50-percent-of-smartphones-sold-in-china-last-quarter-run-android/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101119/jupiter-networks-to-acquire-trapeze-networks/ http://allthingsd.com/20101119/jupiter-networks-to-acquire-trapeze-networks/#comments Fri, 19 Nov 2010 20:15:04 +0000 Beth Callaghan http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=32888 Juniper Networks announced on Tuesday that it will acquire Trapeze Networks in a bid toward strengthening its position in the enterprise WLAN market. The $152 million cash deal should close in the fourth quarter of 2010.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101119/jupiter-networks-to-acquire-trapeze-networks/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101108/priceline-q3-greeted-with-unreserved-enthusiasm/ http://allthingsd.com/20101108/priceline-q3-greeted-with-unreserved-enthusiasm/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 23:16:13 +0000 Voices http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=32178 Fresh on the heels of positive earnings reports from rivals Orbitz and Expedia, online travel agency Priceline posted Q3 results today that, excluding one-time items, handily topped analysts’ forecasts. Revenue jumped 37 percent to $1 billion, and gross bookings climbed 47 percent, largely on the strength of its hotel business. The company’s Q4 outlook was also better than expected, and the stock–which has been on a nice run since July–jumped almost 6 percent in after-hours trading.

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