And the hits — and not happy ones — keep on coming with the imminent approach of Hurricane Sandy to New York City.

Along with cancellation of tomorrow’s Google Android product event and postponement of our latest All Things Digital conference, D: Dive Into Mobile, which was set to take place tomorrow and on Tuesday, Facebook is also now putting the kibosh on two events it was planning in Manhattan this week.

The first is a Tuesday engineering open house that was planned for the social networking site’s New York HQ in mid-town. And, more importantly, its larger Gifts event at FAO Schwartz is now off too.

A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed the cancellations.

Facebook was set to unveil retail partnerships at the media gathering to “come see what’s new with Facebook Gifts,” after announcing the ability to buy physical gifts for other users last month.

It is the company’s major initiative into the world of social gift giving and e-commerce.

As Mike Isaac wrote when it was announced in late September:

It’s exactly what it sounds like. Users can choose, mail and pay for real-world, physical gifts — not the lame virtual ones Facebook offered a few years ago — to send to one another, all completely inside of Facebook. They’re tied to the significant event reminders that pop up on occasion — say, a friend’s anniversary, or a birthday. Or even better for Facebook, users can also just buy gifts for others for the heck of it.

It’s a major undertaking for Facebook, tackling an entire new segment of online commerce and adding a brand new revenue stream to its business. And to a degree, we’ve known it was coming for some time — after all, on the same day Facebook went public, it acquired Karma, the social gifting application upon which all of Gifts is based and built.

Perhaps more significant, however, is that users aren’t limited to just the desktop to send and receive gifts; the entire Gifts program is accessible on mobile phones.

It’s nothing like your grandpa’s Safari. RockMelt for iPad caters to the shifting attitudes we have in the way we experience content on tablets. The result is an attractive mish-mash of an interface design that borrows heavily from Facebook’s Timeline, Pinterest’s tiles and Twitter’s ever-flowing stream.

As CEO Eric Vishria puts it: “It is unquestionably a really different beast. And that is a good thing.”

Philosophically, RockMelt as a product builds on top of the two predominant schools of thought in how we browse the Web today. Google champions intent-based search — type in a word, receive endless pages of links. Social surfing, the other school, posits that our friends are better referrers of new content than any algorithm. While still nascent, the meteoric rise of Facebook and Twitter, and their ability to deliver massive traffic around the Web, give the theory legs.

RockMelt exists somewhere in the space between the two. First launched in 2010, it’s a browser like Chrome or Firefox but with deeply integrated social features. Navigating the Web, the idea goes, shouldn’t rely on either philosophy entirely, but incorporate the best of both worlds.

As browsing has changed over the past two years, we’ve shifted on other fronts as well. We’re moving from desktops to smartphones. From text to visuals, from the static to the stream.

Confused? Here’s an example: Don’t expect a browser window defined by the blank search bar up top. Open the app and integrate it with your Facebook and Twitter accounts, and you’re presented with a never-ending stream of squares and rectangles of different stories, populated by the people you’re connected to. It’s sort of like a portal site, only it is one curated by the folks whose views you (presumably) care about.

The reasoning here: First, the mobile browser market is clogged with competitors. Dolphin, Mozilla, Opera, Safari, Chrome — each one offers similar functionality, comes in a similar layout, all battling for the same slice of the mobile browser marketshare. RockMelt’s drastically different appearance, according to co-founder (and ex-Netscape veep) Tim Howes, makes it stand out among its contemporaries.

Second, consider the medium. We don’t use tablets in the same manner as we do our desktops. IPads are seen primarily as consumption-first devices, amenable to displaying products and content in easily swipe-able, fast-scrolling ways. There’s a reason sites like Fab.com and The Fancy have such high rates of purchasing through tablets.

So RockMelt for iPad takes our habit and works with it, presenting stories in pop-out panes that make content look more attractive.

“The thing about the Web is that it’s vast,” Vishria told me. “But it’s dirty.” RockMelt tries to solve the problem, as Vishria puts it, of combining the expansive nature of the Web with the beauty and richness of an app. Hence the new presentation.

Third, there’s the social component. Along with Facebook and Twitter integration, RockMelt builds another social layer into the browser itself. You can follow others who use the application, and the app will suggest more stories to you based on what they’re sharing. Moreover, you’re able to comment, share and add an array of “Like”-type emotions to each article (sort of like Buzzfeed’s “LOL” or “WTF” subcategories). The idea here is, not only will content circulate externally via Facebook and Twitter sharing, but internally via RockMelt’s additional social layer.

I’ve played with the application for the past two weeks, using it both with and without some of the social components. I’ll say this: It is attractive. It is fast. And to be frank, the initial feeling was jarring. When I imagine using a browser, I expect to experience the Web in a certain way, navigating my usual haunts via search bar, going to Facebook or Twitter only on occasion.

With RockMelt’s app, I feel like I’m browsing shelves in a store. I haven’t decided quite yet if that’s a good thing or bad thing.

Is this something I could come back to repeatedly? Is this too much of a shock to the system that I’m used to, the standby of the white search bar, the blank page?

Vishria believes that the process of discovery — the neat, pretty way content is wrapped up in little packages and presented to the user — will be what draws us in. Browsing and exploration will be what keeps us there. And to be fair, the search bar is still there — it’s just not the focal point.

Obviously the jury’s out on this — at least until the app has been in the wild for a few months or so.

To get a better sense of the product, check out RockMelt’s commercial below (complete with Honey Badger commentary).

It’s a rich trove of data that can prove extremely valuable to marketers and research firms, though only a handful of companies pay for access to the “firehose,” Twitter’s stream of real-time tweet data. And not all of those companies have full access, meaning the data may be less meaningful than, say, if you had access to every tweet ever tweeted since Twitter’s inception six years ago.

That’s Gnip’s pitch, at least. Gnip, a social data API aggregation company that sells vast amounts of social data to third-party analysts and marketers through its single API, announced on Wednesday that it will now offer the entirety of all archived tweets available for outside analysis. Provided, of course, that you pay to use Gnip’s new “historical powertrack” product.

Gnip has offered a similar service in the past. The company’s original offering touted filtered search results for firms, including a 30-day “backtrack,” which allowed for viewing complete Twitter data information over the past month. That’s useful for, say, a company who has just launched a media campaign and wants to see the effect of its impact on the Web — or at the very least, how that buzz has translated into chatter among the Twitter-literate.

Gnip was the first to do this; competitor DataSift followed suit shortly thereafter, offering more history than Gnip — up to two years of previous tweets.

The appeal of Gnip’s new service, then, is to contextualize a given search term throughout the entirety of Twitter’s history, perhaps seeing the impact (or lack thereof) that different marketing campaigns have had on generating social media buzz.

All of that said, whether lots of Twitter buzz translates to actual sales or market movement is still a point of contention between marketers and analysts — especially in the still-nascent days of brands and Big Media figuring out how to most effectively use platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare to reach consumers.

At the very least, Gnip’s new offering means you won’t have to resort to thumbing the Dewey Decimal cards of the Library of Congress the next time you’re trying to gain access to one of your long-since-tweeted messages. Just be prepared to cough up some green.

According to sources close to the situation, Flipboard co-founder and CEO Mike McCue has approached Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and co-founder Jack Dorsey about moving off the board of Twitter.

It is not clear when McCue — who became a director of the San Francisco social communications company in late 2010 — will step down, but it could come soon.

The reason, sources said, is McCue’s growing feeling that the companies are on a product collision course, with a possible troubled or perhaps more attractive result.

In other words, Flipboard will either face increasing rivalry from Twitter or will end up as a possible acquisition target for it or other companies.

“How users consume and use Twitter is a key part of its future, and that is what Flipboard does well already,” said one person with knowledge of the situation. “There is going to be an inevitable crossroads for the two companies.”

Indeed, Twitter has bought several companies that help users read and discover, such as Summify.

The goal has been to better make sense of the massive amount of data that the service produces daily; to that end, Twitter has pushed to improve its user interface design on a number of devices.

And Twitter is a big part of Flipboard’s app, which is very dependent on the tweet feed and accounts for 70 percent of its links, sources said.

Flipboard is also more of a “mobile first” company, which is where Twitter is also headed even more aggressively.

Already popular on the Apple iPad, Flipboard launched its iPhone app late last year and it is prepping a version for Google Android soon.

That’s why, in addition to being a rival, it is also an obvious acquisition target for Twitter, as well as others such as Yahoo and Microsoft.

In fact, Google already tried to buy it last year, before Flipboard did a massive $50 million fundraising round that valued it at $200 million.

Its investors include Insight Venture Partners, Comcast’s venture arm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Index Ventures and a spate of well known angels, such as Dorsey, Facebook co-founder and Asana dude Dustin Moskovitz, Ron Conway, actor Ashton Kutcher and the investment company of former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

Co-founded by longtime entrepreneur McCue (Netscape, Tellme) and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll, Flipboard launched to much attention in mid 2010.

Its innovative social magazine concept is attempting to make the social networking universe more accessible, consumable and, perhaps most importantly, visually arresting via its rich app.

Essentially, Flipboard pulls information from media RSS feeds and sites such as Twitter and Facebook data streams and then reassembles it in an easy-to-navigate personalized format.

Google has mounted a competitor, called Currents, as has Yahoo with its Livestand offering, neither of which have gotten much traction. In fact, sources said, Yahoo is likely to shut Livestand down completely.

There have also been a spate of other similar readers, such as Pulse and Zite.

Spokespersons for both Flipboard and Twitter politely declined comment.

A few months back, after our staff more than doubled in size, AllThingsD launched our redesigned Web site. Today, we’re taking another step forward by launching an updated social media strategy.

You can explore the new features we’ve added by clicking the button below:

See the new features

But, before you go, I’d like to call out a few specifics that we’re particularly excited about.

The core of our expanded social media presence is the 15 new topic and category-based Twitter accounts. These new accounts — specifically about Apple, venture capital, personnel changes or mobile, to name a few — allow readers to more closely follow topics and companies they care most about.

We’ve chosen to keep the main @AllThingsD account live and real-time, meaning it will still deliver all of our stories within seconds of publishing.

But readers aren’t always awake when the news they care about breaks, so the new topic- and category-specific accounts are optimized through our partnership with SocialFlow, a real-time service for social media delivery.

SocialFlow listens for when the followers of a Twitter account are active, and chooses to tweet the posts that are best. Some articles may be held back for a short time, especially those published in off-hours, although we’ve chosen settings that will keep anything from getting stale and also maximize the relevance of our tweets.

The system is designed so that readers following our main @AllThingsD account can also follow others without being overburdened by additional tweets.

Following multiple accounts just means you’re more likely to see news that is important to you.

Aside from Twitter, which we know to be popular with our readers, we have also expanded our use of Facebook.

At the main AllThingsD page, we curate and offer commentary on some of our more topical and consumer-focused stories. Clicking “Like” on any of our pages will put our updates into your news feed along with your other friends.

Finally, I’m inviting you to interact with me on the various social streams. While tweeting at me via my personal Twitter account will get my attention most quickly, I’m also available to you via Google+, Facebook and also by sending an email.

Most of all, I encourage you to click the button below. It will take you to our new subscribe page, where you can follow any of the new accounts and customize how you get your news from AllThingsD.

Again, here’s the button to get you started:

See the new features

The execs at Yahoo were huddled yesterday and also today, getting ready for its investor day tomorrow morning.

It’s probably a good idea, especially since the Silicon Valley Internet giant has to come up with a good answer to how it is settling the recent kerfuffle with Chinese partner Alibaba Group.

A settlement announcement over the spinoff of Alibaba’s Alipay payments unit would be the best thing Yahoo could deliver by tomorrow, of course.

All parties–Alibaba, Yahoo and Japan’s SoftBank–I spoke to said a resolution was still being worked on, but one assumes reaching one sooner than later would be a big coup for Yahoo.

Barring that, China will surely be Question No. 1–and likely Nos. 2 through 23–from about 200 Wall Street analysts and big shareholders gathered from 8 am to 2 pm at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose to hear about how Yahoo is doing in 2011.

Given that the China problem has kept Yahoo stock stuck in the $16 doldrums for weeks now, after it had seen some progress before that, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and the passel of top execs presenting–Ross Levinsohn, Blake Irving and Tim Morse, among others–will have to scratch that itchy itch first before moving on to other questions.

In the interests of making the day interesting–and because press is not invited–I am here to help those investors without a clue of what to ask.

Thus, my list, in no particular order:

* Now that a newish management structure is in place, what is the big vision for Yahoo going forward?

* Please explain in detail the issues raised in the recent earnings call with the search and online advertising partnership with Microsoft, and should the deal be re-negotiated?

* Do you need to make more cuts in staff–which seems to have creeped back up in size?

* Why is Yahoo still in search in such a significant and expensive way, especially since market share is declining?

* How is the display market faring and how does Yahoo plan to innovate its flagship advertising business?

* Engagement is a key metric these days, so how is Yahoo going to improve its customer relationships, besides saying it will?

* What new and innovative products are in the pipeline–and you may not trot out Livestand for the umpteenth time as an example, unless you want me to start calling it Not-Flipboard–and when will they launch?

* Has Yahoo considered other ownership options that would better reward long-suffering shareholders?

* And, oh yes, China. Let’s not forget about China.

(Although media is not invited to the investor confab, I will be covering it via a live stream Yahoo is offering–you didn’t think I would miss it?)

MicroHoo is funky!

At least according to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the Silicon Valley search giant’s first-quarter earnings conference call about its recent financial performance.

Yahoo’s results showed a continued worrisome revenue growth stall, due in large part to a search advertising fall-off, and a still-turning turnaround.

Yahoo reported revenues of $1.06 billion, down six percent from a year ago, on net earnings of 17 cents a share, down 28 percent.

The results were essentially in line with Wall Street expectations.

2:03 pm PT: The call started right on time, as per usual. Maybe they can’t get search right anymore, but Yahoo execs sure know how to start an analysts’ confab.

Bartz started off the call, noting “overall, our turnaround is proceeding on schedule.”

Well, the schedule of a three-toed sloth, I suppose, but it’s on schedule!

Bartz is too smart, though, and quickly noted the problems with search revenue declines, related to its search and online advertising partnership with Microsoft.

Still, she then used the unusual term “funky comparisons” to dismiss the key issue.

But isn’t she the one who struck the funky deal with Microsoft that has resulted in these funky comparisons and these even funkier search advertising revenues?

Just askin’!

Bartz proceeded quickly to noting Yahoo’s advances due to technology improvements, which showed a doubling of impressions to big events such as the Super Bowl and the Oscars.

It’s a good point, since Yahoo–for all its troubles–is still a huge traffic driver, including serving up 1.3 billion page views for the Oscars.

Bartz talked about monetization and said a lot of other stuff, but got to the finances quickly.

“Search was a mixed bag,” she said flatly. You can say that again–but not in a good way.

Bartz tried to put a good-news spin on it, but had to admit that “on the downside [Microsoft's] adCenter is not seeing strong RPS,” she said.

That’s revenue per search and a key number that Yahoo had thought would be better by now.

Bartz noted that the paid search markets internationally will be delayed until MicroHoo gets its act together.

Good idea!

2:16 pm: CFO Tim Morse took over to go through the numbers.

“We had good display momentum around the globe,” he said.

But search was, um, bad. It underperformed, but Yahoo had that guarantee from Microsoft to pay out, which Morse called a “financial floor.”

Morse pretty much read the press release from here on out.

2:24 pm: Bartz was back talking up the huge audience Yahoo has abroad. And it is true–the Yahoo brand is a golden one globally.

Also video consumption is up too, as it is across the Web, in terms of views and time spent. Yahoo’s “Primetime in No Time” got 500 million streams in the quarter.

Bartz turned to mobile, which is weak no matter what she said about the laudable Livestand. It’s one of many in a very competitive market.

Same for social, which Yahoo has essentially abdicated to Facebook. That said, Yahoo has tried to weave social within its myriad of sites and it gets it, especially compared to the socially awkward Google.

Bartz summed up that she hoped everyone gets that profitability and revenue growth were on track to get better, promising more at the investor day in May.

2:30 pm: Q&A time!

The first question is about display growth. It’s a softball, since display was up.

The next is about other revenue growth areas to come.

Bartz–who seemed not so prepped for such an obvious question–ticked off shopping, travel and uuuuuh….

Morse jumped in and talked about making internal connections, which I also did not understand.

An analyst then wanted to “dig into” search problems. I’d say it’s time to call in Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel!

Relative to RPS, Bartz acknowledged it was low and everyone was studying the issue. There is a plan, apparently. Again, Bartz was maddeningly vague.

I missed the next question and then it was back to search.

Bartz was not getting too specific about search, but would say video advertising was going to do well.

She did note that Yahoo expected a dip in Q1 related to search revenue, “but the dip went a little lower than we expected and lasted a little longer than expected.”

Bartz said she had recently sat down with Microsoft execs to go over the problems. How much would I have liked to have been a fly on that wall!

The next question was about video and it turns out Bartz loves the babbling babies too! I knew we had something cool in common.

The next question is about Japan and the possible deal to sell off Yahoo’s ownership of Yahoo Japan!

Morse said diddly, except “we continue to make progress.”

A question about display and possible content verticals.

Verticals Yahoo is interested in, according to Bartz: Entertainment, lifestyle, women, gossip.

“The things people really want to do, they want to disappear,” said Bartz, which was an interesting way of putting it.

Yet another question in what was beginning to feel like an endless call.

It was about Right Media, Yahoo’s advertising exchange. Cleaning it up, etc.

The next question is about communications, as in email.

Bartz even sounded bored and messed up a few words. “I’ve had too many Diet Cokes,” she joked.

Personally, I am considering disappearing into some content, since there is yet another question.

It’s–no surprise–an RPS question!

Funky!

Search guarantee payments from Microsoft are in place for another four quarters. Thank goodness.

Bartz got more detailed about the problems. There is some kind of prediction issue, which she said Microsoft is working on.

Now a local advertising question and its relationship with Facebook.

Bartz grabbed this one by the horns, noting you don’t have to run to the social networking powerhouse to get you a social ad!

It’s about branding with a social component. Which would be, um, Facebook, which was part of Yahoo’s Chrysler campaign referenced by Bartz.

A question about daily deals.

It’s growing, but more at Groupon and LivingSocial, which Morse does not mention.

Finally, the last question.

Another gigantic softball on engagement and Yahoo’s new content platform and some mobile deets query about whether Yahoo can make it there.

Bartz said she was working on it. As to content, Bartz said stats show big lifts.

“The good news is that it’s all in the right direction,” she said.

Up would certainly be good.

Late last month, BoomTown posted about a huge venture funding effort by the high-profile and even more highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad, Flipboard.

Today, its co-founder and CEO Mike McCue confirmed the $50 million round at an eye-popping $200 million valuation, in a wide-ranging interview at the start-up’s Palo Alto, Calif., HQ.

“We’re obviously thrilled, because we think it confirms our focus that people want a beautifully designed way to interact with content and to share it,” he said. “And there is a lot more to come–on a scale of one to 10, we’re just at a two or three.”

The bulk of the new second round of funding–Flipboard had previously raised $10.5 million–came from New York-based Insight Venture Partners.

Insight’s Jerry Murdock said in an interview that he was excited about the idea of “social endorsement” that Flipboard was pioneering.

“We back great entrepreneurs and Flipboard is that and also in an obviously unique position to solve a problem of media consumption in the digital age,” he said. “The sky is the limit. Or more precisely it is the best environment to consume curated real-time content for Twitter and Facebook, because of the user experience and social endorsement integration with the content.”

Insight is also an investor in Twitter.

Also stepping up in the new Flipboard round is Comcast’s venture arm, as well as previous investors, including Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures and a spate of well known angels, such as Twitter co-founder and product guru Jack Dorsey, Facebook co-founder and Asana dude Dustin Moskovitz, the ubiquitous Ron Conway, actor Ashton Kutcher and the investment company of former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

“From a Comcast perspective, we’re intrigued with Mike and what he’s doing with content aggregation,” said Amy Banse, Comcast Interactive Capital’s new head. “We think we can learn from him and he from us.”

Co-founded by longtime entrepreneur McCue (Netscape, Tellme) and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll in January, Flipboard launched to much attention in July.

The elegant Flipboard–which McCue recently told me in an onstage interview at the South by Southwest conference in Austin had zero revenues thus far–has changed the game on the consumption of social media.

Its innovative social magazine concept is attempting to make the social networking universe more accessible, consumable and, perhaps most importantly, visually arresting via its rich app.

Essentially, Flipboard pulls information from media RSS feeds and sites such as Twitter and Facebook data streams and then reassembles it in an easy-to-navigate, personalized format in a mobile tablet touchscreen environment.

In its current offering, there are pull-quotes, photos, videos, status updates and even the first paragraphs of linked-out content. There is also the ability to comment and share, as if one were on a social networking or microblogging site.

McCue said the new giant pile of cash will be used to increase its 32-person staff to about 50, international expansion, small acquisitions and more product development on more platforms.

The next in the arena will be the iPhone version of Flipboard, said McCue, followed by one for the Google Android mobile operating system eventually.

Left unsaid, of course, was the need for funding to fight the likelihood of increased competition in the hot space for delivering both professional and social content to consumers on a wide range of devices.

Rivals are varied, such as Silicon Valley’s most adorable news reader start-up Pulse and also Zite, a news reader which was recently sued for copyright infringement by a group of major publishers.

There are bigger potential players, such as Google, which is trying to find various ways to move into the social space.

In fact, said several sources, Google and others have made acquisition approaches to Flipboard, which has instead opted for raising more funding and staying independent for now.

McCue declined to talk about that, but did note that he is not surprised by publisher interest, especially of the worried and wary kind, in the arena.

“Anyone not respectful of others’ content is going to get in that kind of trouble,” he said, noting Flipboard has struck deals with 17 big publishers so far, including this morning’s announcement about a partnership with Oprah Winfrey’s and Discovery’s OWN cable network. “There is not one half to this equation.”

Right now, the Flipboard app is free and the business plan is advertising and some possible subscription scenarios.

McCue said advertising will be the key to Flipboard’s business plan in the future, although it’s not clear if the company will ever sell advertising itself.

Rather, it will partner with publishers seeking better distribution in the explosive tablet and smartphone market, where Flipboard has been gaining traction quickly.

But until that is sorted out, there is now $50 million more in the Flipboard kitty to figure it all out.

“With this funding, we can grow at the right pace and have a lot of flexibility to get the product right,” said McCue. “And, that’s the most important thing.”

Flipboard, the high-profile and highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad, is out raising another round of funding at an eye-popping $200 million valuation, according to numerous sources close to the situation.

The Palo Alto, CA, company declined to comment on its new funding efforts, which sources said had recently accelerated.

While that valuation might change, several sources considering the investment said it is unlikely to go down in the current frothy financing market in Silicon Valley, especially given Flipboard’s splashy profile and top-drawer pedigree.

Co-founded by longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur Mike McCue and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll in January, Flipboard launched to much attention in July.

That included $10.5 million in venture funding from Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures and a spate of well known angel investors, such as Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey, Facebook Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, the ubiquitous Ron Conway, actor Ashton Kutcher and the investment company of former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

At the time, it was unclear what Flipboard’s valuation was. But now, said several sources, it’s clocking in at a hefty $200 million, which is perhaps no surprise at a time of increasingly lofty investments in tech start-ups.

Suddenly, Foursquare’s $95 million valuation seems like a bargain! (Sorry, Dennis Crowley, for comparing you to the Kool-Aid pitcher dude.)

In any case, the elegant Flipboard–which McCue recently told me in an onstage interview at the South by Southwest conference in Austin had zero revenues thus far–has changed the game on the consumption of social media.

Its innovative social magazine concept is attempting to make the social networking universe more accessible, consumable and, perhaps most importantly, visually arresting via its rich app.

Essentially, Flipboard pulls information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook data streams and then reassembles it in an easy-to-navigate, personalized format in a mobile tablet touchscreen environment.

In this offering, there are pull quotes, photos, videos, status updates and even the first paragraphs of linked-out content. There is also the ability to comment and share, as if one were on Twitter or Facebook.

Flipboard has since added a number of features and will be launching its new iPhone app later this year.

Right now, the Flipboard app is free and the business plan is advertising and some possible subscription scenarios.

It will be interesting to see who will jump into this leader in a nascent market, besides its current investors. Sources said one likely target group for Flipboard could be a large traditional media company.

Until the financial dust settles, here is the video of an onstage interview by the Digital Solution’s Katherine Boehret with McCue at the All Things Digital event, D: Dive Into Mobile, in December:

(Full disclosure: ATD is part of Flipboard’s publisher beta program.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110323/pretty-flipboard-fundraising-at-an-even-prettier-200-million-valuation/feed/ 8 http://allthingsd.com/20110214/finding-the-scale-of-the-rest-of-the-world-lacking-early-designer-rejoins-facebook/ http://allthingsd.com/20110214/finding-the-scale-of-the-rest-of-the-world-lacking-early-designer-rejoins-facebook/#comments Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:00:23 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=3525 Aaron Sittig put in five years on the Facebook team, joining in the very early days of the company and designing many of the service’s icons as well as conceptualizing key experiences like tagging friends in photos. Last year, he was part of a stream of longtime Facebook folks who left the company to see what the world outside the walled garden had to offer.

But Sittig is now back at the mother ship, having rejoined in January with the title “product architect,” as Kim-Mai Cutler at Inside Facebook reported Friday.

This comes at a time when Facebook has more than 2,000 employees, plans to move to a corporate campus within the next year and says an IPO is likely in 2012. It’s a lot different from when Sittig first joined in 2005.

Sittig had been away from the company only six months before accepting an offer to return. He told NetworkEffect that he felt the outside world lacked the “scale and ambition” of Facebook. Plus, he was lured by some of Facebook’s recent hires: Sam Lessin and Justin Shaffer, brought in through the acquisitions of their companies Drop.io and Hot Potato, respectively (both of which occurred while Sittig was away).

Here’s Sittig’s explanation:

I left Facebook last June because I’d been there for five years and wanted to see what else I could apply myself to. I didn’t expect at the time that I’d head back.

I spent my time off advising companies and looking for new ideas. But for each idea I wanted to build myself, I kept realizing that Facebook was the only place with the scale and ambition where I could build my ideas successfully.

So that, combined with the steady influx of talented people like Sam Lessin and Justin Shaffer, convinced me to say yes when I was approached with an offer to rejoin.

Prior to Facebook, Sittig worked at Napster, after it bought the Mac client Macster that he had helped develop. He studied philosophy at UC Berkeley. Sittig has made angel investments in companies such as Hearsay, which makes corporate social media management tools.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110214/finding-the-scale-of-the-rest-of-the-world-lacking-early-designer-rejoins-facebook/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110127/netflix-gets-social-extensive-facebook-integration-is-coming/ http://allthingsd.com/20110127/netflix-gets-social-extensive-facebook-integration-is-coming/#comments Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:00:57 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=2859 Netflix revealed it is in the process of implementing “an extensive Facebook integration” on Wednesday, marking a significant change from its previous absence from the social Web.

Netflix’s dramatic growth in user base and market cap have had a lot to do with the company anticipating market changes and making audacious bets, but it has been relatively plodding and hesitant about getting social.

Netflix explained in the shareholder letter (PDF) accompanying its quarterly earnings report that its Facebook integration will accompany an effort to split household accounts into multiple personal accounts.

In part because of the company’s history as a DVD mailing service, a Netflix account is affiliated with a particular address. That’s also the way traditional television providers measure their market: In terms of households.

But online video, Netflix notes, “is more naturally individual, since it is watched on personal screens like phones, tablets, and laptops, as well as on shared large screen televisions.”

In addition to helping identify discrete people within a household, Facebook integration would presumably allow Netflix to help users do things like share their personal viewing history in their newsfeed and recommend videos to friends. Understanding social networks could improve Netflix’s famously honed recommendation algorithm. It might also be an opportunity for Netflix to create social viewing experiences.

Currently, Netflix lacks much in the way of social features; it had yanked a previous effort to offer social sharing last year after saying that relatively few subscribers used it.

However, the company has recently staffed up for a renewed social effort.

Mike Hart, previously Netflix’s director of engineering for APIs, is now director of engineering for social. Hart told Fast Company in November that Netflix sees social as an international user acquisition strategy and an opportunity to avoid disruption by a competitor that is more social.

Netflix also appears to view personal accounts as an opportunity to charge more money. The company said in the shareholder letter that later this year it will start offering new account options that include multiple simultaneous streams. (So, for instance, you could stream TV episodes in the bedroom on your iPad while your spouse watches a movie in the living room through the Roku.) The streaming-only plan Netflix recently launched costs $7.99 (which some industry watchers say is too cheap) and allows just one stream at a time.

Netflix noted in the letter that its new grand internal vision is to target the number of active mobile phones in an area, rather than the number of households (though that might be a bit ambitious in places where it’s common for people to have more than one phone!).

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110127/netflix-gets-social-extensive-facebook-integration-is-coming/feed/ 7 http://allthingsd.com/20110120/ustream-turns-the-cameras-on-podcasting-star-adam-carolla/ http://allthingsd.com/20110120/ustream-turns-the-cameras-on-podcasting-star-adam-carolla/#comments Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:35:49 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=28346 Lots of people listen to Adam Carolla for free over the Internet. And in a couple weeks, they can start paying to see him: The podcasting star will start selling access to a live video stream of his show via Ustream. He’ll charge $9.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Carolla, who used to make a lot of money as a TV and radio personality, is still trying to figure out how to turn Internet popularity into real dollars; this revenue stream will complement ones he’s got coming in from podcast sponsorships, live shows and a best-selling book.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110120/ustream-turns-the-cameras-on-podcasting-star-adam-carolla/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110105/yuri-milner-to-talk-about-facebook-deal-on-bloomberg-tv-tonight-streamed-live-online/ http://allthingsd.com/20110105/yuri-milner-to-talk-about-facebook-deal-on-bloomberg-tv-tonight-streamed-live-online/#comments Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:36:16 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1969 When companies file normal IPOs, they go into quiet periods. But there has been nothing quiet about the latest financing behind Facebook, which has evaded the public markets by rigging a way to privately sell $1.5 billion worth of shares through Goldman Sachs in a deal that values the company at $50 billion.

Tonight, an hour-long special on the topic will air at 9 pm ET on Bloomberg TV (and will be streamed live on Bloomberg’s Web site), featuring Yuri Milner, CEO of Digital Sky Technologies and one of the key investors who helped put together that deal. Unfortunately, while Bloomberg’s press release listed Milner as a “guest,” it neglected to mention that he won’t be an actual live guest (as initially reported here). Instead, clips from a Milner interview last year will be interspersed with current commentary from writers David Kirkpatrick, Paul Kedrosky and Bill Cohan, and marketing professor Scott Galloway.

Goldman has reportedly given its clients limited information and only until the end of the week to pony up a minimum of $2 million to invest in Facebook. One Goldman customer told Reuters he felt like he was being expected to invest on “blind faith.”

BoomTown’s Kara Swisher yesterday described the Goldman-Facebook deal as “sneaky,” “elite” and “opaque.”

Here’s the promo for the Bloomberg program:

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110105/yuri-milner-to-talk-about-facebook-deal-on-bloomberg-tv-tonight-streamed-live-online/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110105/comcast-bringing-live-tv-to-your-ipad-in-your-house/ http://allthingsd.com/20110105/comcast-bringing-live-tv-to-your-ipad-in-your-house/#comments Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:57:34 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=27632 Here’s a logical, and cool, marriage between your iPad and your TV, brokered by Comcast: The cable company says it will let subscribers stream live TV to their tablets later this year.

The catch here is that the capability, which will be offered on Apple’s iPad as well as tablets running Google’s Android, will only work inside subscribers’ homes.

So you still can’t watch a live episode of “Two and a Half Men” on your iPad in the airport, but you will be able to watch it in your kitchen, while your better half watches “Frontline” in the living room. Or whatever.

It’s worth noting that Verizon announced its own version of this feature (with the same limitations), for its FiOS TV subscribers last summer, but has yet to roll it out.

Comcast will be demoing the feature later today at a Citigroup investors conference, but won’t be providing details about timing, or if there will be any programming restrictions on what you can watch on your tablet.

It’s possible there could be some holdouts, but the cable giant ought to be able to offer just about everything, since there’s no issue with carriage rights or ad loads, etc.–tablet watchers will be watching whatever’s already on live TV.

The killer feature, of course, would be the ability to do this on-the-go, but we’re not there yet, and it may take awhile to get there. Mobile rights for video–especially live video–are a whole different ball game.

Meantime, though, Comcast is offering a half-step–as previously promised, it will let traveling iPad users start to watch a selection of on-demand content, via its Xfinity TV app.

Comcast says it will offer some 3,000 TV shows and movies that iPad users can watch on-demand, over any network–AT&T’s 3G, or Time Warner Cable’s broadband, or whatever. Once that feature is up and running, which should be shortly, we’ll be able to compare that catalog to the ones that Netflix and Hulu Plus are offering for $7.99 a month.

And that’s the big picture here: Comcast and the other big cable providers, which continue to insist that cord-cutting isn’t real, want to make sure that it doesn’t become a reality, by offering their subscribers access to as much stuff, in as many places, as they can. It’s going to take years to find out whether that works or not, but best to start experimenting ASAP.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110105/comcast-bringing-live-tv-to-your-ipad-in-your-house/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20110104/holy-start-up-pileup-social-networking-gets-professional/ http://allthingsd.com/20110104/holy-start-up-pileup-social-networking-gets-professional/#comments Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:30:09 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1931 The same variety of apple has apparently been falling from trees all over Silicon Valley, hitting Web entrepreneurs on the head and inspiring them to create better ways to connect personal and professional social networks.

Beyond the directory-style LinkedIn, that could mean facilitating professional profiles on social sites, pushing job postings through networks, introducing contacts, soliciting referrals and sharing resources.

Part of the reason this idea has been so resonant with Web entrepreneurs–and investors too–is the trouble they’re having with hiring qualified people to work at their own companies.

(Unlike in other parts of the world right now, unemployment rates are not as much of a problem among techies.)

Assetmap, a pre-launch San Francisco-based start-up, for example, wants to help companies and nonprofits understand what assets they may have at their disposal through their networks.

These connections already exist, but they’re often unexploited, according to Assetmap co-founder Nathaniel Whittemore, who let me in on a bit of what he’s doing.

Whittemore told NetworkEffect the failings of sites like LinkedIn include “forcing a distinction between personal and professional that is becoming less and less obvious and failing to recognize that the one-to-one friend-based social graph isn’t the only graph that has value for business.”

Whittemore and co-founder Danny Moldovan hail from the world of social entrepreneurship. Former Northwestern classmates, they had both been at the fast-growing activism platform Change.org.

They have teamed with Jayson Vantuyl, co-founder of Engine Yard, the Ruby on Rails hosting service. At the moment, they are funded by friends and family while looking for outside capital, and plan to launch this spring.

There are many early companies in this space with fancier pedigrees.

Top Prospect, a social recruiting site that rewards users with $10,000 or more for helping friends find jobs, was funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, Ron Conway, David Goldberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Rick Thompson, Chamath Palihapitiya and other angels.

Also based in San Francisco, Top Prospect was founded by Rotem Perelmuter, who formerly sold an online radio service to MTV Networks during the dot-com boom (and more recently ran a hedge fund). The site is currently in open beta.

Delicious founder Joshua Schachter’s Tasty Labs, which has gotten money from Union Square Ventures, hasn’t said much about what it is doing, but is also working on something similar to the idea of an asset map.

Elsewhere, BranchOut, which bills itself as offering “your professional profile on Facebook,” raised $6 million from Accel Partners, Floodgate, Norwest Venture Partners and many angels.

And Hashable, a network for introductions, raised $4 million, also from Union Square Ventures.

And Namesake, from Ad.ly and Newroo co-founders Brian Norgard and Daniel Gould, offers a pretty site for “opportunity routing,” with features such as a real-time stream and chat.

It goes on–other young start-ups in the space include Sumazi, Pursuit, Identified and Gild. (You knew this would happen: Gild turns the social recruiting concept into an online game.)

It wouldn’t really make sense to combine social and professional networks by starting from scratch, so these sites are built on top of existing networks like LinkedIn and particularly Facebook. If you want to try them out, be prepared to cough up those Facebook Connect credentials a whole bunch of times.

(Cute explainer graphics above from Assetmap, Top Prospect and Identified, respectively.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110104/holy-start-up-pileup-social-networking-gets-professional/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20101215/heres-your-itunes-in-the-cloud-for-your-iphone-but-from-mspot-not-apple/ http://allthingsd.com/20101215/heres-your-itunes-in-the-cloud-for-your-iphone-but-from-mspot-not-apple/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:00:48 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=27066 At this point it seems pretty safe to say that we’re not getting any “iTunes in the cloud” music service from Apple in 2010. But you can get a version of that concept, on your iPhone, today, for free.

Apple has approved developer mSpot‘s music app, which does what Apple hasn’t done yet but may well do at some point: It takes your music from your PC, moves it to a server and lets you pull down tunes to your iPhone whenever you want.

Or at least in the immediate future. Given that mSpot has yet to reach any licensing deals with music labels or publishers, I’m not sure how long the service can keep going. But we can get back to that in a minute.

First the details: MSpot lets you synch up to two gigabytes of music from your hard drive to its servers, and then stream it via another PC’s browser, or download it to your phone via 3G.

Because mSpot compresses your files, those two gigs will translate into a lot more music on your phone (at a much lower fidelity) than they do on your computer. But if you want more storage you can get another 40 gigs for $3.99 a month.

This is roughly the same idea that both Apple and Google have discussed with the music industry for much of 2010, but neither of those two heavyweights has the licenses it needs to launch. How can mSpot pull it off?

Good question. The answer is that mSpot CEO Daren Tsui argues that he doesn’t need a license, for a variety of reasons.

I’ll spare you the technical details, but common sense supports his position–why shouldn’t you be able to move your music from one machine to another? And the law, via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, may be on his side as well.

But so far the big labels have argued that the big guys do need licenses to offer cloud services (short version–they say that moving music to the cloud and back constitutes a new use). And Tsui has in fact been trying to get an agreement with the labels for much of this year.

He’s already had this service running on Google’s Android platform since late June without a legal problem, so that can give him some confidence that the labels won’t take him to court. But that’s not a guarantee.

For starters, the labels are already suing Michael Robertson’s MP3tunes, which uses a similar concept. And it’s not uncommon for the labels to negotiate with music start-ups, then move on to lawsuits if things hit an impasse.

And if Tsui does strike a deal, that means he needs to start paying the labels. How’s he going to do that and keep offering the service for free? By offering new paid options and cutting the music guys in on a piece of that revenue, he says.

So we’ll see! Note that Spotify, which has a lot of buzz, 700,000 paying users and some deep-pocketed investors, has yet to get its music service licensed in the U.S.

And mSpot is a much smaller fry. The Android app has a million downloads so far and some 500,000 registered users. And the 6-year-old company raised $2.3 million in 2005, and that’s it. But Tsui says mSpot is profitable on revenue from other media services it sells.

Here’s hoping he gets to spend that money building cool stuff, not hiring lawyers.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101215/heres-your-itunes-in-the-cloud-for-your-iphone-but-from-mspot-not-apple/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20101115/dont-count-on-music-subscriptions-or-streaming-from-apple-tomorrow/ http://allthingsd.com/20101115/dont-count-on-music-subscriptions-or-streaming-from-apple-tomorrow/#comments Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:20:56 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=25828 What’s Apple planning at its iTunes announcement tomorrow? Good question!

But I’ll be very surprised if it is music related–like a new music subscription service, or even one that lets you stream music you already own to multiple devices.

(UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal says that Apple has finally signed the Beatles to an iTunes deal to be announced “soon”. Which makes tomorrow’s announcement a much easier guess.)

It’s easy to understand why Apple might head in that direction: Generally, because it seems inevitable and because Google has been talking about doing something similar. And specifically, because Apple has that shiny new North Carolina data center to play with.

But the music industry sources I’ve talked to so far today don’t know of any new deals between Apple and the big music labels. So that would rule out a new subscription service, which would definitely require a new rights deal.

And that also makes it very unlikely that Apple does the next best thing: Letting users upload their iTunes catalog to the cloud, and letting them access it anywhere they want.

Does Apple have to get a special deal with the labels in order to do that? Not necessarily. Some start-ups are offering similar services, without a deal (though one of them, MP3tunes, is getting sued).

And you can make a common-sense argument that simply storing someone’s data, then letting them access it again, shouldn’t require a deal. But the labels argue that it does.

So unless Apple wants to make them go ballistic–and freak out the movie and TV studios, the folks that Steve Jobs really wants to court–it’s hard to see Apple announcing a service without signed paperwork.

Okay. So what are they announcing? Again–got me. Hoping to find out before tomorrow, but if not I’ll be watching at 10 am Eastern like the rest of you.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101115/dont-count-on-music-subscriptions-or-streaming-from-apple-tomorrow/feed/ 28 http://allthingsd.com/20101101/twitter-tests-the-waters-with-in-stream-ads/ http://allthingsd.com/20101101/twitter-tests-the-waters-with-in-stream-ads/#comments Mon, 01 Nov 2010 20:06:39 +0000 Voices http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=31859 As promised, Twitter is now starting to throw paid ads into users’ streams and hoping not to cause too many ripples in the process. In an initial test with the 900,000 users of third-party client HootSuite, the ads–Promoted Tweets–will be inserted into users’ personal timelines when relevant, based on context and connections. Given the potential for rebellion, Twitter is assuring users its approach to the rollout will be “deliberate and thoughtful.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101101/twitter-tests-the-waters-with-in-stream-ads/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101014/google-q3-beats-earnings-estimates/ http://allthingsd.com/20101014/google-q3-beats-earnings-estimates/#comments Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:45:28 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=24548 After showing off financial numbers that blew away Wall Street’s earnings estimates, what could Google do for an encore? Trot out even more numbers, via a tantalizing but not-that-revealing striptease.

Here are the three data points that the search giant showed off during its earnings call this afternoon. All of them “begin with the letter B,” as product SVP Google Jonathan Rosenberg noted, and all of them come with caveats:

• $2.5 billion: Non-text display ad revenue run rate. That number includes ads from its DoubleClick unit as well as YouTube.
• 2 billion: YouTube monetized views per week.
• $1 billion: Mobile annualized revenue run rate.

All of those seem big–and they are! But they’re also deliberately fuzzy enough that it’s hard to tell exactly what they mean.

For instance: As Henry Blodget notes, those display-ad dollars are gross revenue, which means that Google only keeps a portion of them. And while that two billion YouTube views number is up from a billion a year ago, it’s proportionally the same: A year ago YouTube said it was monetizing a billion views a week while serving up a billion views a day; now the video site says two billion views a week and two billion a day.

Meanwhile Google officials, who routinely announce that YouTube is close to profitability, refused to tell analysts whether YouTube is actually profitable.

No matter! The point of b-as-in-big numbers was to impress Wall Street with Google’s ability to create new revenue streams beyond its core search ads. And the data, along with the company’s impressive Q3 performance, seems to have worked: Shares are up nine percent in after-hours trading.

——————

EARLIER

There’s the beat Wall Street was looking for. Google reports earnings of $7.67 a share and net revenues of $5.48 billion. The consensus was for $6.67 and $5.25 billion. GAAP EPS was $6.72.

Google (GOOG) has been plowing money into capital expenditures and people–it now has 23,300 employees, up from 21,800  months ago, a 6.8 percent increase–but it has been able to keep operating income quite healthy, anyway. Adjusted operating income was $2.93 billion, well above the $2.77 billion consensus.

GOOG is up considerably, now seven percent, in after-hours trading. Robot cars for all!

You can listen to (and watch) Google’s 4:30 pm ET earnings call by clicking on this YouTube link. I’ll add updates from the earnings call occasionally starting here:

As in recent quarters, CEO Eric Schmidt is sitting this one out.

CFO Patrick Pichette starts off. Aha! Teases that “we may have” Schmidt available for the first 30 minutes of Q&A before he gets on a GooglePlane.

300 of those new 1,500 employees came from acquisitions.

Discussion of “long-term” growth–”the next 5 to 10 years.” “Simply put, we’re on this growth agenda at full throttle…investing heavily in people and in product.”

There’s a “war for talent” in our industry, which is “out of synch” with the broader economy. Currently exploring how to attract and retain people. Winners and losers determined by this battle.

Re: Product investment, which you’ll hear about from product SVP Jonathan Rosenberg. He’s going to tell you about some numbers, but don’t expect to hear an update on these–they’re merely “proof points” about Google’s success.

Here’s Rosenberg, teasing new previously unreleased numbers.

Here they come. Starting with search and Google Instant:

Impact has been “very minimal” on revenue and “quite expensive” from a resource perspective.

But! “We launched it because we could.”

As search gets better, ads have to keep pace. Great momentum with AdWords.

New ad formats appear on more than 10 percent of query. Some formats show clickthrough rates as much as 10 percent on some, up 30 percent in others.

Big numbers, “which all begin with the letter B.”

$2.5 billion: Non-text display ad revenue run rate. That includes DoubleClick, YouTube.

2 billion: YouTube monetized views per week

$1 billion: Mobile annualized run rate

Mobile search queries up 5 times in the last few years.

Back to Pichette, to tamp down numbers.

In some cases, there is overlap with numbers. For instance, with AdMob, numbers counted in both display and mobile.

Time for Q&A, Schmidt is now on the line.

Schmidt says query growth is pushing click growth, and so are new ad formats. Ads are more compelling, etc.

Pichette notes that AdX numbers are included in the $2.5B display total.

Q: Please talk about YouTube. Of the two billion monetized views, what percent is that of total views? And are you profitable yet?

Pichette: Re: Profitability, “We have not made any comments on it.” [Except of course when they do, over and over.]

Rosenberg: Note that we’ve said we do two billion views per day–that will give you context.

Sorry, missed a Q.

Schmidt says growth of Android is “well past what I had ever hoped for.”

90,000 apps on Android “and growing very fast.”

Question about “proprietary benefits” of Android.

Schmidt: Android is the “largest single platform play” in mobile today.

We’re growing it by giving software away. How does that help us? Well, for starters, people who use Android search two times more than anyone else. Obvious benefit for us there, and search is more lucrative for us there as well, and that makes Android “hugely profitable.”

And we can add other value-added services to Android, but that’s not the focus right now.

Questions on cost: Cost per employee has declined. Can you continue that? And on mobile, will you stay with the “indirect monetization” Android strategy?

Pichette: Wouldn’t read anything into the cost-per-employee numbers. But we’re continuing to be frugal and generous.

Ad boss Nikesh Arora: We’re excited about the revenue model we have. We have no reason to change the model we have with Android.

Schmidt: And display will become a very big component of mobile.

Q: On display, can you break out YouTube and AdX numbers? And what do you think of competitive Android marketplaces?

Pichette: No breakout of numbers. [Duh.]

Schmidt: Goal of the app store is to make money for developers. Not a revenue goal for Google. More stores are a “win for everybody.”

Question about CPC on mobile devices. Rosenberg: They’re lower than desktop, because there aren’t many practical ways to consumate transaction. But on the iPad, activity looks a little bit more like it does on a PC, because there’s more room to enter credit card numbers, etc.

Q: Please discuss cannibalization between smartphone and PC–are iPad and tablet searches incremental or cannibalization? And can you give us color on international 26 percent growth?

Rosenberg: We don’t see cannibalization. We see mobile as complimentary to desktop. Different use patterns–mobile search is on weekends, during lunchtime, etc.

Arora: Generally, trend positive across the board. U.K. a bit weaker, but some of that is FX. Southern Europe way better than Northern. Asian markets robust.

Q: Competitors make $300 profit per handset sold over the lifetime of a device.You’re approaching this with a different model, but do you think that’s an upper limit on that number?

Schmidt: Our model is that handset makers and manufacturers make a lot of money from the phone, and we make money from advertising. So can’t compare the two, and premature for us to guess what we can do. “It should be highly lucrative” and a “very very strong revenue stream compared to a PC.”

Q: On social search. How do you “capture the signal” without access to the data feeds, as you have with Twitter.

Schmidt: “There are some ways we can do that” now, and we’re working on new ways.

Sorry, stepped out. Back now.

Q: TAC rate seems to be lowest since IPO. Sustainable? Growth has been driven by volume, not price. Sustainable, and/or will pricing increase going forward?

Pichette: MySpace deal is now over. That saved us a bunch of money. And mix of our partners will effect our TAC. That’s about it.

Rosenberg: Can’t answer volume/price question without “being forward-looking.” [Heh]

Q: Microsoft/Facebook deal was exclusive. But do you think you’ll see exclusive data deals? And what about Groupon, etc.? Can you compete there?

A: Value of exclusive data is “swamped” by “vastness” of the Web. So no concern there.

Schmidt: Always a concern that large chunks of data are not accessible to search engines….long pause… up to the content owner to decide how much to expose. We believe the world is better off if more information is searchable. “We fundamentally believe that.”

Rosenberg: Daily deals are very exciting. “A lot of small companies doing a fabulous job there.” We participate a little bit via sitelinks. But no question “that’s a very exciting and hot space.”

Q: When will Google Instant be on the BlackBerry or iPhone? What’s Android activation rate? And why not let advertisers bid directly on mobile inventory?

Rosenberg: Instant availability on other platforms “relatively soon”–probably this fall.

Not updating Android activation numbers.

Q: Given that non-core search is more material, do you think you’ll keep allocating resources with your 70-10-10 model? And when do you anticipate mobile overtaking desktop?

Schmidt: On mobile vs. display: Even if we knew I don’t think we’d talk about it.

On core vs. emergent: We talk about this all the time. Depends. Android is very small, and growing fast, so they get all the resources they need. We end up still at 70-10-10, but that’s not really a formula for us.

Pichette: What really matters the most to us is as Eric says, “When you see a hockey stick, pour gasoline on that fire.”

Q: Big-picture data question: What does Google think about leveraging user data to better target ads (see Facebook, Yahoo, etc.)–particularly with search data and display?

Schmidt: “We have a pretty strong opinion that we’re not going to do very much of it.” We’re intensely serious about privacy.

So “we’re not going to do the kinds of things that we could do with it… without your explicit permission. And in many cases we probably won’t do it forever.”

A question on display, which I’ve missed but will have to return to.

Pichette wraps things up. Today’s data points “are not about giving you information” for coming quarters, but to give you confidence that we’re building long-term businesses.

Call ends.

Mark Mahaney’s cheat sheet will help you decipher the numbers:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101014/google-q3-beats-earnings-estimates/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101006/netflix-adds-another-studio-sony-agrees-to-window/ http://allthingsd.com/20101006/netflix-adds-another-studio-sony-agrees-to-window/#comments Wed, 06 Oct 2010 16:35:46 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=24207 More movement from Netflix as it transitions from discs to digital: A  distribution deal with Sony that reduces its access to DVDs in exchange for lower fees and more rights to stream movies to your home.

Netflix (NFLX) wouldn’t release details about the pact, and hasn’t put out a press release announcing it, as it had with earlier deals with Time Warner’s (TWX) Warner Bros, GE’s (GE) Universal and News Corp.’s (NWS) 20th Century Fox.

But spokesman Steve Swasey confirmed that Netflix and Sony have reached another “28-day” arrangement, similar to the ones Netflix has reached with the other three studios.

Swasey wouldn’t release other details, but we can guess that the deal follows the pattern established with the precedent Netflix set in its January deal with Warner: Netflix agrees not to rent Sony’s (SNE) movies for the first 28 days after they go on sale. In return, it will pay the studio a reduced fee when it does rent the discs, and will get more movies to offer via its growing Web streaming service.

This seems like a win-win for the both sides: The studios get to wring every last penny out of their DVD business, and Netflix gets to build up the business it really cares about–delivering movies to your home via the Web.

But analyst Rich Greenfield, who wrote about the Sony deal in a note published Tuesday (registration required), says these deals have only been good for Netflix: Its costs have gone down, and its subscriber base has increased, but the studios have continued to see their DVD sales slip. “Clear victory for Netflix,” he writes.

His logic:

“* The studios have essentially played right into Netflix Founder and CEO Reed Hasting’s plan to reduce DVD costs to fund his company’s aggressive digital media rights acquisition plan.
* Netflix is rapidly bringing down its physical [cost of goods sold] by reaching delayed release window deals with studios and using fresher digital content to shift consumer behavior to streaming, reducing the number of DVDs utilized per customer per month (lowering its mailing costs).
* We suspect the Netflix window needed to be substantially longer than 28 days to justify the price reduction the studios have given Netflix – meaning a six month window might have impacted Netflix subscriber trends, whereas 28 days simply has not. Unfortunately studios were more focused on bolstering sell-through, which is largely complete within the first month of a DVD’s release, rather than damaging the long-term prospects of Netflix.
* Netflix continues to aggressively purchase digital movie rights having recently acquired rights to Relativity Media content and EPIX content, with Starz content increasingly important for Netflix to renew (at far higher costs) when their current agreement ends in 12 months.

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