AllThingsD » volume

We're Holiday Shopping Online With iPads for iPads

Kara Swisher — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 18:00:16 +0000

With all the hyped hullabaloo around just how mobile-icious we are this holiday season — yes, it’s up, but it is also a retailer-cooked trend that reporters grab onto amid the news drought of the Thanksgiving weekend — one of the many statistics spewed out by a variety of sources was rather interesting.

According to IBM, in a report titled “The iPad Factor”:

“The [Apple] iPad generated more traffic than any other tablet or smartphone, reaching nearly 10 percent of online shopping. This was followed by iPhone at 8.7 percent and [Google] Android 5.5 percent. The iPad dominated tablet traffic at 88.3 percent followed by the Barnes & Noble Nook at 3.1 percent, Amazon Kindle at 2.4 percent and the Samsung Galaxy at 1.8 percent.”

And, over at eBay and its PayPal unit — which spewed out all kinds of data on mobile transactions that showed volume was between two and three times greater, mostly on Apple devices — the company noted that one of its bestselling items on Black Friday was the iPad 2, selling 250 per hour from 12 am to 8 am PT.

That tracks on an earlier survey by Nielsen with 48 percent of U.S. children 6 to 12 years old asking for the iPad, followed by iPod touch (36 percent), iPad mini (36 percent) and iPhone (33 percent).

Presumably, which will be used to order more.

Here’s a lovely IBM chart explaining it all:

IBM Holiday Benchmark Infographic BF2012

A Big Digital Kiss to Britannica: Change -- It Is Okay (Look It Up!)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:04:20 +0000

The folks over at Encyclopaedia Britannica posted today to say they are discontinuing the 32-volume printed book edition of the invaluable information resource “when our current inventory is gone.”

It’s an obvious and inevitable move — although I deeply loved my giant set of tomes back in the day. But my favorite part of the transition is how the organization handled it with class and forwardness, with a blog post titled: “Change: It’s Okay. Really.”

Really it is, in this case at least.

In a simple but elegant set of words, they wrote about its history:

For 244 years, the thick volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica have stood on the shelves of homes, libraries, and businesses everywhere, a source of enlightenment as well as comfort to their owners and users around the world.

They’ve always been there. Year after year. Since 1768. Every. Single. Day.

But not forever.

Indeed, as Kansas sings, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky. And Britannica Online for now.

Here is a funktastic video Encyclopaedia Britannica did that communicates its next life aptly via YouTube:

Tasty Geek: Nathan Myhrvold Takes His Modernist Cuisine to "Top Chef"

Kara Swisher — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:38:09 +0000

Being the huge fan of “Top Chef” that I am — hellllloooo, Padma! — it was even more a treat to see former Microsoft legend, controversial patent grabber and full-time fiddler Nathan Myhrvold as a guest judge this past week on the current season of the popular cable television show.

For those who usually associate him with geekery, he is also a big foodie and the author of fancy tome “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking.”

Right now, the six-volume, 2,400-page book set retails for $499 on Amazon. As described on the site: “The authors and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab have achieved astounding new flavors and textures by using tools such as water baths, homogenizers, centrifuges, and ingredients such as hydrocolloids, emulsifiers, and enzymes.”

“Top Chef” is now set in Texas, so the topic was barbecue, an apparent fave of the techie too. But I really liked the competitor chefs’ race in the Quickfire Challenge to pull off some feat of molecular gastronomy best.

A side of patent troll pâté anyone?

Here are the videos:

Stock Trades Near 52-week High on Message That It's an All "New eBay"

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 21:28:40 +0000

Two years ago, eBay’s CEO John Donahoe promised Wall Street analysts massive changes to improve the company’s e-commerce experience.

Today, he says it’s all “new eBay.”

At the company’s analyst meeting at its headquarters, the company demonstrated the major changes made over the past couple of years and laid out plans for how local, mobile and social will lead the next wave of commerce.

In the afternoon, Bob Swan, eBay’s CFO, took the stage to give the financial rundown that everyone had been waiting for since the morning.

Swan highlighted PayPal’s growth trajectory by saying that it expects to double revenues over the next three years to between $6 billion and $7 billion, compared with $3.4 billion in 2010.

He also talked up how mobile was gaining speed by saying that PayPal mobile transactions were estimated to double to $2 billion in total payment volume, and that mobile on marketplaces will double to $4 billion in gross merchandise volume.

Meanwhile, when looking at the company’s gross merchandise volume, he sees the business increasing from $60 billion in 2010 to $75 billion in 2013. And, to support the strength of the business, the company anticipates generating $7.5 to $8 billion in free cash flow by 2013.

Swan wants to stress that these growth rates are being driven from the company’s core businesses, and not from the more innovative stuff eBay is working on in local, mobile and social. “We are in a different state than we were in March 2009, where the crystal ball was murky and full of potholes. Now the crystal ball is full of opportunities. We have unmatched advantages that position us to win.”

That’s possible because of the improvements the company has been making over the past two years.

“We’ve made significant and necessary changes necessary for growth. Two years ago, search was optimized for auctions and suffered. Two years from now, search will be a competitive advantage for eBay,” said Mark Carges,” eBay’s CTO of marketplaces. “We’ve rolled out many tailored experiences and selling on eBay will be vastly simplified.”

To illustrate the change, Carges showed how there’s no more irreverent banner ads on the search results page, and instead of returning up to 19 paid results, it gives shoppers the “best matches” and cuts the time in half that it takes to return results.

The company also launched the buyer protection program, which will return the price of the item and the cost of shipping to customers unhappy with purchases.

Christopher Payne, VP of eBay marketplaces North America, said the company will start to increase marketing spend on these improvements to drive awareness: “We’ve been intentionally quiet as we fixed fundamentals, but starting in the second half, we’ll start marketing this new experience.”

At lunch, analysts were so eager to talk to Donahoe he wasn’t even able to get to his seat. They crowded around him in the lobby to grill him on what impact Facebook, Apple and Google were going to have on the company’s payments aspirations.

Donahoe wasn’t phased, saying that PayPal is technology agnostic. He will support BlackBerry, Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone — and all of the iterations they produce from phones to tablets. What’s more, he says, the company is building the tools and technology for merchants to keep up in what can be a daunting world.

Analysts appear impressed with the improvements. Today, the company’s shares traded up nearly 8 percent, or $2.57, to $34.53, coming close to marking a 52-week high.

EBay Beats Street on Revenue, Profit

Voices — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:30:51 +0000

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.

Nielsen Claims Microsoft's Bing Moves to No. 2 Search Slot Over Yahoo

Kara Swisher — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 14:00:49 +0000

In what will surely cause a firestorm of controversy in the search arena today, the Nielsen Co. is reporting that–for the first time–Bing has pushed past Yahoo in August to become the No. 2 search engine in the United States.

In its report for August, Nielsen–one of many entities that releases search market share results–said the Microsoft (MSFT) search service had a 13.9 percent share of search volume in August, compared to Yahoo’s 13.1 percent.

That contrasts with the July report from comScore (SCOR), which shows that Bing had an 11 percent share and Yahoo (YHOO) had a 17.1 percent share.

According to comScore, Google (GOOG), of course, remained the Yertle the Turtle of all search, with a 65.8 percent share.

Nielsen reported a similar number, with a 65.1 percent share for Google. That’s up 0.9 percent month over month and 0.5 percent for year over year.

Bing is up 0.2 percent month over month and 3.2 percent compared to a year ago. In contrast, according to Nielsen, Yahoo is down 1.1 percent for the month and 2.8 percent for the year.

AOL (AOL) and Ask.com make up the other four percent of the market.

Here is Nielsen’s month-to-month chart and also its official press release:

Bing Overtakes Yahoo! as the #2 U.S. Search Engine

According to new research released by The Nielsen Company, for the first time, MSN/Windows Live/Bing Search overtakes Yahoo! as the #2 search engine in the U.S., with a 13.9% share of search volume in August 2010, a 0.25% delta increase from last month.

Although Google saw little change in its month-over-month search volume, it still dominates the search market, accounting for 65% of all U.S. searches.

Yahoo! followed Google and MSN/Windows Live/Bing Search with a 13.1% share of U.S. searches, falling from a 14.6% share in July 2010 to 13.1% (a 1.2% delta decrease or an 8% relative decrease).

In terms of a year-over-year comparison, Google has seen little change in its share of search while Yahoo! has seen a small but steady decline, going from a 16% share to 13.1% (a delta drop of 2.9% or a relative drop of 18%). MSN/Windows Live/Bing’s share has grown from 10.7% in August 2009 to 13.9% (a delta increase of 3.2% or a relative increase of 30%).

Bing-powered search

Microsoft and Yahoo announced a search deal in July 2009 where Microsoft would start powering Yahoo! Search while Yahoo! became the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Microsoft Bing officially started powering part of Yahoo! searches starting in August 2010. If we combined Bing-powered search in August, it would represent a 26% share of search.

About our methods

Nielsen’s search data only counts genuine intentional searches that people type into a search box. It does not include non-intended or “contextual” searches that are automatically generated by search engines based on a person’s browsing behavior.

Exclusive: Is Yahoo Japan Poised to Switch to Google Search?

Kara Swisher — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:53:03 +0000

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

In what would be a stunning blow to the massive search alliance between Microsoft and Yahoo, Google is apparently zeroing in on a deal to grab the algorithmic search business for Yahoo Japan, said several sources.

The agreement between Yahoo Japan and the U.S. search giant could be announced as early as today in Japan, sources said, and could be part of a larger deal between the two companies around mobile or other products.

Financial terms of such a deal were unclear.

News of the deal could come when Yahoo Japan announces its financial results at 3:10 pm Japan time on July 27, which is 11:10 pm PT today.

If Google (GOOG) and Yahoo Japan join together, the pair will control almost the entire market share of search in the Japanese market. It is not clear whether or not paid search is part of this deal at this time.

But in search query volume, Yahoo Japan currently has just over a 53 percent share of the search market and Google has just over 38 percent.

It is a monopoly in comparison to Microsoft, which has almost a three percent share.

Yahoo Japan is not actually owned by Yahoo, which holds a 35 percent stake. SoftBank Corp. has a stake of around 40 percent.

Both SoftBank Founder Masayoshi Son–one of the first key investors in Yahoo–and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang sit on the board of Yahoo Japan, which is operated independently and run by President and CEO Masahiro Inoue.

When Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) struck their wide-ranging search and online advertising partnership last year, Yahoo Japan–which now uses Yahoo technology for algorithmic search–was free to pick whatever search service it wanted.

That meant it was not obligated to use Microsoft’s Bing technology, which will be powering Yahoo in the U.S. by the end of the year, as well as in many other countries where Yahoo operates.

But, because Yahoo Japan is its own entity, any such deal was to be negotiated among the parties, putting Yahoo Japan in play, much as if it were AOL (AOL) or News Corp. (NWS) unit MySpace in the U.S.

Both those companies signed search deals with Google–and both are also now up for renewal.

Coincidentally, Bing just entered the Japan market with its branded search, but it has only a small share there.

And, ironically, Yahoo Japan’s Inoue said in an interview in January with a Japanese news organization that he was not impressed with some other Google services, such as its Street View mapping service.

In any case, if Yahoo Japan and Google do buddy up, it’s clear that Microsoft will likely try to block the deal from gaining regulatory approval in Japan, much in the same way it did successfully when Google tried to enter into a deal with Yahoo in the U.S. in 2008.

That deal crashed and burned after government opposition became evident.

It will also be interesting to see which search technology the Alibaba Group, which owns Yahoo’s name in China and of which Yahoo itself owns 40 percent, will select or if it will do search on its own.

Like Yahoo Japan, Alibaba–which is using Yahoo’s search and email technology now–is also not obligated to switch to Bing when Yahoo does. Such a deal is also subject to negotiation.

That said, Google’s relations with China remain tense, which could play a role in any talks with Alibaba.

Emails and calls to spokespeople at Yahoo, Yahoo Japan and SoftBank seeking confirmation were not returned as yet. Microsoft declined to comment.

A Verizon iPhone in January? I'll Believe It When I See It.

John Paczkowski — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:05:46 +0000

If Verizon iPhone stories are a dime a dozen, here’s 0.833333 cents’ worth.

“Two people familiar with the plans” tell Bloomberg that Verizon (VZ) will begin peddling the Apple (AAPL) phone in January, after the exclusivity deal with AT&T (T) expires. No details beyond that, though a research note this morning from Barclays (BCS) says we might expect an announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show.

“Our component and distribution checks indicate that Apple is likely to begin production of a CDMA iPhone, possibly with LTE support, in 4Q10 for launch at Verizon in January 2011, perhaps at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES),” analyst Ben Reitzes wrote. “We believe Apple’s U.S. unit volume is likely to grow from 11 million units in 2010 to at least 15 million in 2011 as a result, with 9 million at Verizon and 6 million at AT&T. We also believe Apple may launch the device in other CDMA markets, in particular China with China Telecom.”

Whatever. As I’ve said before, at this point I’d be happy to see the iPhone added to Verizon’s lineup, if only to put an end to these seemingly endless rumors.

Nearly Two Billion Tweets a Month; Giddy Foursquare Mayors Suspected

John Paczkowski — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:37:37 +0000

Here’s a promising metric for Twitter and its newly launched advertising system: The microblogging service hosted nearly two billion tweets in May. This according to Twitter itself and analytics house Pingdom, which says tweet volume is about double what it was last December (see chart below; click to enlarge).

These days, Twitter is carrying some 64 million tweets per day, 2.7 million tweets per hour, 44,481 tweets per minute, and 741 tweets per second. Which is impressive.

“Maybe Twitter won’t quite be able to reach the almost six billion tweets per month we’ve predicted for the end of the year, but it’s clear that the Twitter platform is still growing at a healthy pace,” Pingdom analysts note. “Close to doubling the volume of monthly tweets in the last six months is no small feat.”

Indeed. And that growth has got to be encouraging for a company hoping to justify its rich valuation by selling its audience to advertisers. Now if it could only figure out how to manage it a bit better. Ironically, the service has been suffering latency and availability issues today.

[Image Credits: Pingdom, Scarletbits]

Here's What Analysts Should Be Asking About at Yahoo's Investor Day: The Microsoft Search Deal (And No Silver Bullets)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 26 May 2010 07:17:51 +0000

This morning, Yahoo is holding its annual investor day at its Silicon Valley HQ, starring CEO Carol Bartz and a panoply of top execs at the Internet giant.

While this kind of dog-and-pony show is typical for companies–an effort to get all chummy with institutional investors and financial analysts and convince them that there is a grand scheme for the road ahead–what’s really at stake is the need to cover over problems and play up the prettier parts.

That’s why–after a period of rather fallow deal activity–Yahoo (YHOO) suddenly started pulling out the shiny objects just last week, designed, in part, to show that Yahoo is on the move and pushing vigorously forward.

We have a plan, folks! Silver bullets all around!

That included its acquisition of both social media start-up Associated Content and Koprol, a social location service in Asia, as well as a big, noisy partnership with mobile handset giant Nokia (NOK) related to email and maps.

But while those are all well and good, they will have almost zero impact on Yahoo until they get revved up and results can be judged.

Thus, it’s probably more helpful for those in analog attendance–the press was not invited as we are apparently considered akin to skunks at a garden party–to focus on some key issues that are present and accounted for right now and to grill Yahoo about them.

To be fair, Yahoo is planning on covering the most important of these at the moment: The status of its partnership deal with Microsoft (MSFT), related to search and online advertising.

It will be interesting to see what advertising operations exec Mark Morrissey, the Yahoo-side integration lead, has to say about it all and what impact the company expects from it.

Some key questions that need asking:

How soon does it roll out–late this year or early next year?

How does Yahoo get search share up–via improvements to its homepage and user experience–to make this as lucrative as possible?

Will the deal, which is intended to result in bigger search-query volume, finally bring a key metric–revenue per search–up, especially after the Microsoft RPS guarantees run out in 18 months?

Do the cost savings of letting Microsoft’s Bing power Yahoo search compensate for trading away control of a key source of income and revenue?

And perhaps most of all, will any of this put a dent in the overwhelming search dominance of Google (GOOG)?

Here’s a really good analysis by Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney on this very subject, with lots of nice numbers to chew over:

yhoo search deal

Of course, there are a lot of other thing to look at, such as:

The continuing issue around the talent drain (Yahoo is smart to trot out lively new Chief Products dude Blake Irving, formerly of Microsoft, to counter the drip-leak-of-execs issue), an explanation of its penny-ante (but pricey) marketing efforts so far, a report on what’s most innovative in its oft-clogged product pipeline, a detailed assessment of the online display market and thoughts on increased competition in this key Yahoo arena from Google. Also: What’s up with mobile?

You can see the whole agenda for the day here, and BoomTown will be following the proceedings via a Webcast.

Also, as Yahoo notes on its Welcome page for the event: “Everything you’ll hear today–from looking back at what we’ve done to looking ahead at the incredible opportunities we’re tackling–add up to one thing: creating shareholder value.”

So analysts, let’s don’t forget about the stock price, which has stubbornly stuck in the $15 range for a long time now.

In fact, it is now almost the exact same price as it was one year ago and 75 cents lower than at its last investor day in late October last year.

Yes, definitely ask about that.

2010 Could Be the Year of the Display Ad. Or the Cable TV Ad. Take Your Pick.

Peter Kafka — Fri, 14 May 2010 14:20:06 +0000

There are a whole lot of people–from scrappy start-ups to publishers to Google (GOOG)–betting that display advertising is finally going to start picking up on the Web.

So they’ll be heartened by this table, from a survey of ad buyers conducted by J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan. It shows display ads picking up 1.5 percent of ad budgets this year (click to enlarge):

Note that comScore (SCOR) says display ad volume (but not overall revenue) jumped 15 percent last quarter, and it’s tempting to believe that this is finally the year when Web advertising really moves beyond search advertising.

Meanwhile, the people who are feeling most confident about their near-term future are the guys selling TV advertising. Broadcast TV is still losing share, but cable TV is up. And most buyers–74 percent–who do pay for spots say they’re spending more than last year.

Kylo and Loop Advance Viewing Web Video on TV

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 01:03:56 +0000

More consumers are watching TV shows over the Internet using computers hooked up to their sets. But this can be a hassle. The major Web browsers were made for close-up use, so they have icons, toolbars and menus that can be too small to see from an optimal TV-viewing distance. And they are meant to be used with mouses, or laptop touch pads, and keyboards.

So, many people wind up sitting on the couch with a laptop and a long cord, or with a wireless keyboard and mouse on a coffee table.

[ See post to watch video ]

There are various workarounds, such as using the browsers’ zoom controls, fiddling with screen resolutions, and using wireless adapters to eliminate cords. But now, a small company from Rockville, Md., Hillcrest Labs, thinks it has a simpler, better idea. It has invented a new kind of Web browser and a new kind of wireless remote control explicitly designed for using TV-connected computers from the couch.

One product is a free browser called Kylo, available at kylo.tv, which came out in beta form a few weeks ago. Hillcrest calls it “the Web browser for television,” and it runs on both Windows and Mac. It has huge icons, and a large on-screen keyboard for pecking out Web addresses and search terms with your cursor.

Kylo has an easy zooming control and a home page with a scrollable display of big tiles that link to 128 popular Web video sites.

The other is an unusual remote called the Loop, which controls the computer, not the TV. It’s a $99 bagel-shaped gadget with four buttons and a wheel. You wave the Loop in the air to move the cursor, to scroll and to select items. It came out last summer and works on Windows and Mac.

The Loop feels comfortable in the hand, and is designed to move the cursor with small wrist or arm movements. Your thumb controls the scroll wheel and buttons—the two largest correspond to the left and right mouse buttons.

Each product can be used separately, but the company sees them as a perfect combination for using a TV-connected computer.

I’ve been testing Kylo and the Loop, and they do work well together. Using an Apple (AAPL) Mac Mini and a Toshiba Satellite laptop plugged into my large flat-panel TV, I was able to sit across my family room and wield the two Hillcrest products to watch videos from all over the Web. I also used the Loop by itself to run other computer programs on the TV screen, including Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.

Hillcrest’s Loop remote control

But both products have enough rough edges and missing features that I consider them promising advances in solving computer-to-TV issues, rather than polished solutions.

I’ll get to some of these downsides in a bit, but I want to mention one right away. Hulu, one of the most popular video sites on the Web, blocks Kylo users from viewing its content. This isn’t Hillcrest’s fault, but it does reduce Kylo’s usefulness.

Kylo is fully capable of displaying Hulu’s TV shows and movies. But, just as little Hillcrest was about to unveil the new browser, Hulu cut off access for Kylo users. Hulu explains that it did this because under its agreements with its media-company partners and investors (including News Corp., which owns The Wall Street Journal and its Web sites) it is intended for streaming TV shows and movies to computer screens, not TV screens. This is because the media companies don’t want free computer-to-TV streaming to compete too much with cable and satellite providers, which are major sources of revenue for them.

Ironically, I was able to watch Hulu videos just fine on my TV using the Loop and the same computers, by merely switching from Kylo to other browsers. It seems Hillcrest’s crime was openly declaring that Kylo was explicitly meant for use on TV screens.

So, what are the other downsides of Kylo and the Loop? For one, depending on your TV-computer combination, setting the screen resolution to optimize Kylo might cut off menus and window controls when using other software. And Kylo lacks some common browser features, like the ability to email links to a site.

As for the Loop, because it is radically different from a standard mouse or TV remote, it takes time to master. Also, since the Loop only controls the computer, it can’t turn the TV on or off. It also doesn’t have volume and mute buttons. You still need your TV remote for some tasks. Further, once you’re at a Web site using Kylo, it can be hard to see the tiny controls often used for playing videos in full screen. And the Loop lacks an Escape button, which is the typical way to exit full-screen video mode.

But, for people who love using their computers with their TVs, these two works in progress are worth a try.

Find Walt’s columns online at the All Things Digital site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Could WebOS Licensing Be Palm's Salvation?

John Paczkowski — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:36:53 +0000

A worst-case scenario: If Palm’s handset sales further dwindle and its brand awareness continues to decline; if its webOS plug-in development kit fails to bolster its application ecosystem; if the company’s deal with AT&T proves as ill-starred as its deal with Verizon, sales volume continues to slip and it begins to run out of cash–what then?

Bring some better hardware to market and back it up with a strong carrier-driven advertising campaign? An easy answer, I suppose.

But there’s another option as well, put forth by Morgan Stanley (MS) analyst Ehud Gelblum: License webOS. If Palm were to shutter its manufacturing operations and adopt a licensing model for smartphones and other devices, it might just see its business improve.

Says Gelblum: “We calculate that if Palm licensed its OS for $7 per device and won 5-7 percent of the smartphone market in F2013, this could yield ~$0.40-0.50 earnings per share in F2013.”

Certainly an interesting idea–particularly with those possible returns–though it’s not without problems. For one thing, there’s the issue of competition. Android already has quite a bit of traction in the mobile OS market, as does Symbian. And soon, Windows Phone Series 7 will debut, giving device manufacturers yet another option.

Could webOS hold its own against these three? Perhaps, if Palm (PALM) were able to nail down some big hardware partners–HTC comes to mind. But the company would have to tweak webOS to run on non-Palm hardware to do so and, presumably, that would take some effort.

Still, it might be worth pursuing, particularly given the straits in which Palm finds itself these days. A sudden explosion in sales volume at Verizon (VZ) and, later this year, AT&T (T) seems increasingly unlikely.

Twitter Turns Fire Hose on Little Guys

John Paczkowski — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:19:16 +0000

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo (YHOO) are no longer the only ones drinking from Twitter’s fire hose of real-time data. On Monday, the company granted seven real-time search and discovery ventures access to the data as well: Ellerdale, Collecta, Kosmix, Scoopler, twazzup, CrowdEye, and Chainn Search. Each will be able to tap into the totality of Twitter’s data stream, sifting and indexing it and using it to further build out their services.

The price of that access? Unknown, but I can’t imagine it’s much. Twitter says it’s charging companies according to an as yet undisclosed scalable licensing scheme. For the likes of Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT), that means millions of dollars–enough to make Twitter profitable. For these seven upstarts, the fee is substantially less, at least until they evolve into more high-volume users.

In any event, it seems Twitter is finally pushing ahead with a business plan that could begin to justify the venture capital investment it has attracted.

Apple: Billions of Songs, Billions of Apps, Not Much Profit

Peter Kafka — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:53:05 +0000

Apple is patting itself on the back for delivering 10 billion songs from its iTunes Store. And it frequently boasts about the number of apps customers download from iTunes, as well–the tally is now past three billion.

But you won’t hear Apple boast about how much money it’s making from iTunes. Because there’s not much to boast about.

Even at today’s hyper volume, the digital store is still running at “a bit over break-even,” the company reminded analysts during its earnings call last month.

Here’s the relevant excerpt from that call, via Seeking Alpha (thanks to Venrock’s David Pakman for pointing this out yesterday at the Digital Music Forum East):

Maynard Um–UBS
We have seen a number of industry revenue forecasts for applications and just given kind of the expected explosive growth there I am just wondering if that is still a break-evenish type of business as you look forward over the next couple of years?…

[Apple CFO] Peter Oppenheimer
…Regarding the App Store and the iTunes stores, we are running those a bit over break even and that hasn’t changed. We are very excited to be providing our developers with a fabulous opportunity and we think that is helping us a lot with the iPhone and the iPod touch platform.

As Oppenheimer says, this isn’t a new development. Apple (AAPL) has always maintained that iTunes wasn’t a real money maker. It’s supposed to help sell iPods, iPhones, and soon, iPads.

For years, industry observers figured that as the iTunes business scaled, this would change. An alternate theory, held by some of Apple’s media partners–the company was being overly modest about its success.

Apple doesn’t break out iTunes sales, but lumps them into a category called “Other music related products and services,” which generated net sales of $4 billion last year. That’s an increase of 21 percent over 2008, and the company attributed this growth to “increased net sales of third-party digital content and applications from the iTunes Store.”

Insert Bad “Android Invasion” Pun Here

John Paczkowski — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:33:15 +0000

Since its launch in 2007, Android’s growth as a mobile platform has been nothing short of spectacular. And if you’re inclined to raise an eyebrow due to that superlative, consider this: Google (GOOG) and its partners are now shipping 60,000 Android devices per day. That’s nearly five and half million Android devices shipped per quarter–not an insubstantial number considering that Apple (AAPL) sold 8.7 million iPhones last quarter.

Furthermore, 60,000 per day is double the volume for last quarter, which bodes well for the Android ecosystem. This sort of growth will undoubtedly attract more developers who will bring more and better apps to the platform–something it sorely needs to compete with Apple’s iPhone OS.

Court Holds iPod Blameless for Hearing Loss

Ben Worthen — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:00:55 +0000

A lawsuit that blamed Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPod music player for causing hearing loss fell on deaf ears at a federal appeals court.

The lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2006, argued that because iPods don’t come with a decibel meter that lets users know how much noise the device is producing, consumers don’t understand the potential damage they could be causing themselves by listening to loud music for long periods of time. It also claimed that the earbuds that come with the iPod increase the risk that damage could occur because they are designed to be placed inside the ear.

In dismissing an appeal in the case Wednesday, a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals called the claims “obvious” and said that a reasonable person could easily avoid hearing loss by turning the volume down.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Special Delivery: Web Utility Limelight Networks Buys Ad Platform Eye Wonder

Peter Kafka — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:35:18 +0000

How do you break through in a no-growth industry? Try a different industry. That appears to be the thinking behind this one: Content delivery network Limelight Networks (LLNW) is shelling out $110 million in cash and stock for Eye Wonder, a video ad platform.

Even if you don’t follow this stuff, you may have heard of Limelight’s much bigger rival, Akamai (AKAM), which moves a good portion of the Web’s data.

This was supposed to be a booming business, but it hasn’t panned out in recent years. The problem: Big Web players are putting more and more stuff online, but the prices content delivery networks charge to bring it to your desktop keep dropping lower and lower.

So you’re left with a fast-moving industry that doesn’t actually go anywhere, at least in terms of revenue. Citi’s (C) Mark Mahaney, citing industry analyst Dan Rayburn, figures that volume increased around 35 percent this year, but that pricing dropped by the same amount.

Limelight’s most recent financials illustrate the dilemma quite nicely: Third-quarter revenue of $32.5 million was up just one percent from the previous quarter and down slightly from the $33.1 million the company generated the previous year. Its losses, at least, are shrinking.

So diversification couldn’t hurt, right? And this makes sense on paper: Privately held Eye Wonder specializes in selling video and “rich media” ads–the kind of data-intensive stuff that was supposed to help the likes of Limelight grow in the first place.

[Image credit: kamshots]

Nokia: 2010 Will Be Better–We Promise

John Paczkowski — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:54:02 +0000

A bit of good news for Nokia in its seemingly endless parade of bad. The company said today that it expects handset industry volumes to rise 10 percent in 2010 from 2009 as the market rebounds from the econalypse.

“Going into 2010, the overall mobile devices market is stabilizing and it is growing more in the areas where Nokia has competitive advantages,” CFO Timo Ihamuotila said during the company’s Capital Markets Day event today.

And while the company expects its mobile device volume share to be flat in 2010 compared with 2009, it also expects to increase its “mobile device value market share” a bit.

Of course, to do that, Nokia (NOK) needs a device that can compete with the likes of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, and its recent efforts–the N97, for example–have fallen far short of that goal.

“Last year’s N97 flagship was an exercise in how not to create a touchscreen phone, complete with an odd three row keyboard featuring a space bar mysteriously moved right of center,” says technology strategist Michael Gartenberg.

“The N900 feels more like a science experiment to me,” Gartenberg observes,” than a product that’s designed for mainstream users….I used to feel Nokia’s hardware designs defined cool, but these days they just remind me of an aging movie starlet trying to re-capture some former beauty.”

2010 will be different, though. At least according to Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. “I see great opportunity for Nokia to capture new growth in our industry,” he said. “We have measures in place to push smart phones down to new price points globally, while growing margins….We have three targets for 2010: execution, execution, execution.”

ComScore's October 2009 Search Data: Google and Microsoft Up, Yahoo Down

John Paczkowski — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:06:18 +0000

ComScore’s October search market analysis is in and it’s good news for two of the Big Three search engines. Google and Microsoft both posted gains for the month, while Yahoo suffered a decline.

Google (GOOG) claimed 65.4 percent of the domestic search market in October, up from 64.9 percent in September, according to comScore. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s (MSFT) share rose to 9.9 percent from 9.4 percent in September. A modest bit of growth for the month, but quite impressive year over year. Search volume was up 30.8 percent from October 2008.

And Yahoo (YHOO)? Well, the company’s search market share slipped to 18 percent in October from 18.8 percent in September. Below, a table showing comScore’s (SCOR) search volume and market share data, via JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan (click to enlarge):

Econalypse No Deterrent to Smart-Phone Purchases

John Paczkowski — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:45:00 +0000

Given the havoc the econalypse has played with other industries, the smart-phone market is in extraordinarily good shape. Shipments of the devices rose 4.2 percent to 43.3 million globally compared with 41.5 million shipped in the third quarter of 2008. That’s up 3.2 percent from shipments of 41.9 million in the second quarter of this year, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report.

“Demand for converged mobile devices has remained strong all year,” said IDC analyst Ramon Llamas. Driving that demand: Nokia (NOK), which maintained its position as the overall leader in the converged mobile device market, Research In Motion (RIMM), whose BlackBerry made some significant share gains internationally, and Apple (AAPL) and the iPhone, whose share of the smart-phone market rose to 17.1 percent from 16.6 percent in the previous quarter (see table below; click to enlarge).

“Apple reached its highest volume yet in a single quarter,” Llamas said. “The nearly global availability of the iPhone 3GS sparked another round of annual replacements for Apple loyalists, while the lower price on the iPhone 3G put the device well within reach of customers wary of the price. Although the iPhone has struggled within emerging markets, its arrival at China Unicom this year could foreshadow greater shipment volumes.”

[Image credit: AMUSEMENT]

A Verizon-iPhone Deal? Analyst Says "Chances High"

John Paczkowski — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:59:17 +0000

Apple has a lot to gain by ending iPhone carrier exclusivity in the U.S. and signing up Verizon as a second carrier partner. As I’ve noted here before, such a deal could more than double U.S. iPhone sales in the near term. That said, it does have some noteworthy downsides, top among them, the end of the estimated $450-per-iPhone carrier subsidy AT&T (T) has been paying.

That’s the word from Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall, who believes Apple (AAPL) will bring the iPhone to Verizon (VZ) in the second half of 2010 and forfeit AT&T’s “sweetheart” carrier subsidy as a result.

“While [Apple] started off with exclusive arrangements in 2007 with the original iPhone launch, the company has since migrated towards multiple carriers per region,” Marshall wrote in a note to investors. “In our view, diverse carrier support is a key element to driving global penetration of the iPhone. Therefore, we believe the chances are high the iPhone will find its way onto the [Verizon] network in 2H10.”

Of course, should things play out that way, the iPhone will no longer be the powerful subscriber-retention tool it is today. And Marshall believes that will lower the subsidy it commands from an estimated $450 to around $300.

This might seem to imply a nasty hit to Apple’s bottom line, but Marshall figures any losses Apple might suffer would be more than made up in volume. He sees Verizon selling roughly 14 million iPhones in the 2011 calendar year. And with an average selling price of $500, that’s another $7 billion in revenue for Apple.

A Verizon-iPhone Deal? Analyst Says "Chances High"

John Paczkowski — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:59:17 +0000

Chinese iPhone Sales "Disappointing," Perhaps Because iPhone Not Yet on Sale in China

John Paczkowski — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:35:44 +0000

“Sales of iPhone through China Unicom, to state it mildly, have been disappointing. Volumes since launch have run at a fraction of stated goals.”

So says Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar, who, in a research note to investors this morning, warned that Chinese sales of the iconic handset are not nearly as good as expected. Certainly, they’re nowhere near capturing the full two percent share of the Chinese wireless market that some observers have predicted. Which I suppose makes perfect sense because the iPhone hasn’t yet gone on sale in China.

Let me say that again: The iPhone is not yet available for purchase in China from China Unicom or any other carrier–at least, according to Apple (AAPL), which is presumably in position to know. So how is it that Northeast Securities is issuing bulletins warning of lousy sales? I have absolutely no idea, but I’m looking into it and will update here when I find out more.

UPDATE: Kumar tells Eric Savitz over at Tech Trader Daily that his analysis is based on presales of the device, which have been occurring since Oct. 1. Reports Savitz: “[Kumar] says that Unicom has set a goal of selling 300,000 phones a month, which would be a little under 75,000 units a week; and he says that pre-sales in the first few days of availability were extremely low, at around 1,000 units.”

Huh. Okay. Though even taking Kumar at his word, it seems like quite a stretch to extrapolate “disappointing sales” from a few days of presale availability.

UPDATE: Nice analysis of all this from Dan Butterfield at iPhonAsia.

Chinese iPhone Sales "Disappointing," Perhaps Because iPhone Not Yet on Sale in China

John Paczkowski — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:35:44 +0000

“Sales of iPhone through China Unicom, to state it mildly, have been disappointing. Volumes since launch have run at a fraction of stated goals.”

Huh. Okay. Though even taking Kumar at his word, it seems like quite a stretch to extrapolate “disappointing sales” from a few days of presale availability.

UPDATE: Nice analysis of all this from Dan Butterfield at iPhonAsia.