"Getting data privacy 'right' is an economic and social imperative. Trust and confidence in the security and privacy of the critical systems of our planet - especially the digital version of its central nervous system, the Internet - is foundational to individuals' continued engagement and reliance on such things as online commerce, e-health and smart grids. If individual consumers don't feel that their privacy and security are protected, they will not support modernization efforts, even though the capabilities of technology advancements are proven and the potential benefits to society are extensive."Here's an example of the tensions we face: The ability of smart grids to conserve resources relies on the ability of, and commitment from, consumers to monitor and modify their individual usage. An individual using a smart meter understands the difference in the cost of using electricity at peak versus non-peak hours and could opt to lower their usage during more costly time periods. At the same time, data from the meters can reveal sensitive information such as work habits, shower schedules, use of medical devices such as dialysis, and whether or not a house is occupied."
"I don't worry that the technology will have a negative impact on consumer privacy," wrote Mark Roberti, founder of RFID Journal in a June overview of the state of the RFID market where privacy is concerned. "Instead, I worry that ignorant legislators trying to score points with uninformed voters will pass laws that limit the many benefits RFID can deliver--and that is a much bigger threat to consumers."
Today's agreement in Europe appears not to be the kind of legislation Roberti feared. As a framework focused on self-reporting it may be too little, ultimately, but it's a start.
There has been a lot of talk as to whether or not social media is the front runner in another inflated internet bubble waiting to burst, leaving users “virtually” friendless and clueless. Will everyone be out of the loop, with no one keeping track of daily deals, happenings or status updates? Warren Buffet confirmed this fear stating that although it’s not as big as the dot com bubble, social media is not long term by any means. However, industry trends and buyer behaviors are stating otherwise.
Facebook has proven beneficial to marketing efforts for B2C companies, but B2B marketing has struggled to find its footing on the platform. That’s where LinkedIn has emerged as the go-to medium for B2B marketers.
A recent study done by BtoB Magazine, showed that when asked “Which of the following social media methods does your company currently use for your B2B marketing (i.e. not personal use)” 72% of B2B marketers said LinkedIn. After reaching more than 100 million users, LinkedIn has solidified its niche as Facebook in a business suit, and B2B companies have taken notice.
The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing (an annual report done by HubSpot, an inbound marketing software company) found that 61% of B2B marketers who participated in the survey acquired a customer through LinkedIn. The targeted and measurable aspect of inbound marketing is what makes it so attractive to smart business owners who are tired of spending money on marketing with no proof that it’s working. Former Chief Marketing Officer of McDonald’s, M. Lawrence Light said, “It no longer makes economic sense to send an advertising message to the many, in hopes of persuading the few.”
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Gionta nets 2 as Price, Canadiens blank Bruins
Carey Price returned as Montreal's starting playoff goalie with his third postseason shutout, Brian Gionta scored twice and the Canadiens opened the series with a 2-0 win over the Boston Bruins on Thursday night.
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Taptu allows iPad owners to “DJ your <b>news</b>” | VentureBeat
Anthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining ...
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Fox <b>News</b> Throughout History: Pics, Videos, Links, <b>News</b>
Fox News Throughout History: History is written by the pundits winners. As long as humans have existed, they've tried to spin historical events to shed themselves in the best light. And their enemies in the worst.
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Apple should see a material dip, on top of the one that occurred
after I indicated that I was short the stock on March 16th. Before we
delve into my opinion, let’s peruse the news from 1 a.m. this morning:
WSJ: Apple Crunched in Nasdaq Rebalance- In
a move likely to ripple across the stock market, Nasdaq OMX plans to
announce a rare rebalancing of its Nasdaq-100 index, which will reduce
the big weighting of Apple, which currently makes up more than 20% of
the index.
Bloomberg: Apple’s Weight in Nasdaq-100 to Be Reduced as Microsoft, Cisco Are Raised
So, why do you think Nasdaq decides to reduce Apple’s weighting now?
Well, the competitive pressures that Apple faces are nigh guaranteed to
make it impossible for it to fulfill the pie in the sky expectations
that are being built for it. That in combination with a 20% weighting
create a recipe for a guaranteed crash in the Nasdaq unless something
was done about it. Signs of heavy reliance on on or two products for 70%
of their profit, while sourcing the most important parts of those
products from their biggest competitors, were starting to show. iPad 2
supplies are tight due to Japan’s woes, and Apple does not have the
mobile computing product diversity to handle it like the 150 or so
Android competitors it is battling. This means much more than just a gap
in profits for the quarter. These companies are in race, and Apple is
being forced to give up some of its lead due to diversification issues –
issues that Android manufacturers (who are more diversified because
there are so many more of them from different places) don’t have, or at
least not to the extent that Apple does. Thus, Samsung, LG, Asus, HTC,
etc. will be rolling out to customers who may have had an Apple iPhone
or iPad.
This is also another (of many) massive triumphs of BoomBustblog
research over that of the most esteemed Godman Sachs who put a $430
price target on Apple just as it was making all time highs and in direct
contravention to BoomBustBlog’s stated logic. See Shorting Apple and Why Software Developers Can Make More Money On Android Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
I have finally started dabbling with Apple
shorts and puts. My OTM S&P put positions were profitably stopped
out due to trailings yesterday when the market recovered some of its
losses. I have decided to use Apple in the place of the S&P puts
for the time being. Medium to long term, the trade is more evident and
obvious to anyone who is objective and follows BoomBustBlog. It is
significantly more risky shorter term. Alas, there are marginal gains
already, and once they accrue to the point of indemnifying my trailing
stop, I will add more. After I finish the current leg of my global real
estate research to be disseminated to institutions, I will offer
tidbits of the modeling (I have already offered subscribers significant
info on why I think Apple is a risky long play). From a contrarian
standpoint, it may be safe to go short with tight stops, after all
although Apple Gears Up To Combat The Margin Compression That Apparently Only It, Google & Reggie Middleton Sees Coming, we still have those guys over at West Street… Goldman’s
$430 Target, Screaming Buy On Apple At Its All Time High Is In Direct
Contravention To Reggie Middleton’s Logic – Who’s Right? Well, Who
Has Been More Right In The Past? I have taken The Challenge To Goldman Sach’s Apple Proclamation One Step
Farther, Apple’s Closed System Risks
Failure! Listen, everyone, regardless of what investment positions or
tech products you may have in your stable, needs to ask themselves the
appropriate “What if’s”. I have spurred the conversation with “Will Google Win The Mobile Computing War? Let’s Walk Through Where They Stand Now & How To Value Them”
Remember, I may not always be right, but it does pay to look at the track record… Did Reggie Middleton, a Blogger at BoomBustBlog, Best Wall Streets Best of the Best? More attention should be paid to the little guy, after all by now it is Now Common Knowledge That Goldman’s Investment Advice Sucks!
Didn’t you get the memo? I’m sure many traders have spurned Apple due
to the Japanese market being cut off right at the launch of the iPad 2,
but the issues go deeper than that. I will cover it in depth at a later
date, though.
Additional thoughts on the Apple short:
- Note For The Few Realistic Apple Bears… Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
- Buffet on Apple – Common Sense! Monday, March 21st, 2011
- Competition Heats Up In The Mobile Computing Space On Many Fronts – Prices Driven Down Once Again By The Big Players Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
- How the “I Love Apple, There Is No Other Fever” Adds To The Attractiveness Of An Ever So Unpopular Apple Short Monday, March 21st, 2011
And that Research in Motion short alert
given to subscribers is working like a charm – even more so if it get’s
caught in NASDAQ storm: Research in Motion Drops 10% After Hours, Precisely As We Warned Two Months Ago – MARGIN COMPRESSION!!! Thursday, March 24th, 2011
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Wi-Fi Photo Transfer is a free app that makes it insanely simple to download photos from your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.
We've been using iPhoto, jailbreak tweaks, and Image Capture to download photos to our computer. None of these methods are as quick, as painless, or as wireless as Wi-Fi Photo Transfer.
There isn't a single setting to alter once you download the app. It works by making the photos folder on your device (DCIM, if you're an iOS explorer) visible from your web browser so you can download photos straight to your computer. Your computer and device must be on the same Wi-Fi network for this to work.
You can view all your photos in a convenient thumbnail view to select multiple items, or you can download them one by one (in various sizes, too).
This free app is a can't-miss. In fact, we used it to download the screen-grabs for this very post you're reading now.
Price: free from the App Store (universal app)
NOTE: if you're downloading screen captures you've taken on your iDevice, this app mislabels them as JPG so you get an error trying to open them in Photoshop. Once you download the screen captures, change the JPG extension to PNG in the file name and you'll be all set. This note is only for iDevice screen captures, achieved by holding down the Home button and Sleep button simultaneously for a second.
(Via App Storm)
Google reported solid quarterly earnings this afternoon, but EPS was slightly below expectations and expenses were high.
The expenses were apparently cause for investor concern, and shares have dropped more than 5% after hours.
In particular, cap ex spend was $890 million. Google explained most of that was related to the purchase of new buildings in Dublin and Paris.
Operating expenses were also up thanks in large part to the 10% one-time salary raise, which kicked in this quarter.
In a Q&A with investors during the earnings call, several analysts wondered if this level of expenditure is the only way Google can continue to grow revenue more than 20%. Execs tried to reassure them that Google is measuring and paying very close attention to the expense side of the equation.
The basics:
Gross Revenue of $8.58 billion was slightly better than expected and rose a strong 27% year over year.
Net Revenue of $6.54 billion slightly better than expected.
Adjusted EPS of $8.08 is slightly--slightly--below expectations of $8.13. Revenue was strong, so the key will be whether the earnings miss is the result of lower margins (bad) or, say, a higher tax rate (irrelevant).
Paid clicks growth was better than expected at 18% year over year (vs 15%-17% expectation). This is Google's key revenue unit, and better-than-expected unit growth is positive.
Revenue per click increased 8% year over year, at the high end of expectations.
Free cash flow was a solid $2.2 billion. Cash flow from operations was spectacular--$3.2 billion--but the company spent an astronomical $890 million on capital expenditures, much more than expected. (What on earth are they spending all this money on?)
Product highlights: Android is getting 350,000 activations per day. Chrome now has 120 million users -- that means 120 million people who are more likely to be "locked in" to Google services. YouTube revenue is doubling every year, but still no concrete numbers to share.
Bottom line, Google remains robustly healthy. 27% year over year revenue growth in a company this size is extremely impressive, and the core search business is humming along. The high capital expenditures are a question and concern--it will be interesting to hear what the company says about them on the call.
Here are some slides from the deck Google used on its earnings call. Scroll past them for our live blog of the call itself.
You've got to love 27% growth from such an enormous base.
Traffic acquisition costs are looking good as well:
But this is what investors are worried about -- costs rising as a percentage of revenue, particularly R&D and sales and marketing. A lot of that is salary-related:
Here's another way of looking at it: operating margins are getting lower:
Here are our notes from the call:
4:27 ET: We're waiting for the call to start. We'll see if Larry Page jumps on, since he just took over as CEO last week. He's reportedly investor and press shy, so we'll be curious to see how he performs.
One slightly curious note: the call isn't being broadcast on YouTube as it has in the past.
4:31: Larry will join at the beginning of the call. It's also Patrick Pichette, CFO. Two of the new senior VPs are on board as well -- Susan Wojcikci (advertising), Jeff Huber (local and commerce). Plus Nikesh Arora, the chief business officer, who's been on past calls.
4:33: Page notes 27% revenue growth. Tremendous improvements still ahead. Now he's talking management changes.
"Everything we told you last quarter has happened." He's managing day to day operations as CEO. Eric Schmidt is on government and partner outreaches -- last quarter he was in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, and Spain. Sergey working "very intensively" on a few projects.
4:34: Also made changes to simplify their org structure. He's thanking Jonathan Rosenberg, who's been on most of these past calls.
That's about it. Now it's on to Pichette.
4:35: Expenses show the 10% across the board raise for the first time.
Gross revenue up 27%, $8.6B. It actually rose 2% quarter to quarter -- and last year Google had the Nexus One goosing revenue. Plus this year the disaster in Japan.
Google Network revenue up 19%. Negatively impacted by loss of search distribution deal, plus search quality improvement -- spam control. It always serves us well.
Other revenue was down 10% year over year to $269 million. That's mostly Google Apps and Enterprise Search, a very small business.
Aggregate click growth up 18% year to year, and 4% from last quarter. The shift from offline to online is driving that.
4:40: International revenue was 53% of total.
TAC was 25% of total revenue, $2.2B.
Overall opex totaled $2.8m, including stock-based compensation.
Opex increase is primarily payroll, some advertising.
Op margin 37.6%
Headcount up 1,900 during the quarter. total 26,316 employees.
Capex is facilities, data centers. Facilities driven by purchases of buildings in Dublin and Paris. Capex is "lumpy from quarter to quarter" depending on when it wants to make capex investments.
4:43. Boasting about Android, fastest growing mobile OS, and Chrome, fastest growing browser. Pushed frontier of mobile search which is adding to overall search volume. YouTube "win win" platform for content owners and users.
Second half of 2010, grew 25% year to year. This quarter 27%. Compared to comp of 23% a year ago. "We are building multibillion dollar businesses" and confident now is the time to invest. Discipline.
4:45: Local and commerce SVP Jeff Huber.
Ambitious hiring this quarter by design. 2011 will be biggest hiring in history, hired 1,900 this quarter. Core and growing businesses are doing well, so "who wouldn't want to invest in this business." Over half the "Nooglers" who joined will be in new areas like YouTube, Chrome, Enterprise.
Search: improving quality. Launched over 90 quality improvements, including changes to ranking algorithms. Impacted about 12% of queries, and addressed over 80% of sites that users reported.
Had adverse affect on revenues on SOME SITES in Display network. But improving search is always the best thing to do in the long run.
Personal, as in building around people. Launched the +1 button, easier to share results. "This is just the beginning" more personal search coming soon.
Mobile traffic up 500%+ over last two years.
350,000 Android devices activated per day. Recently launched in-app billing.
Chrome: users "very valuable". Investing in Chrome marketing. Now more than 120m daily users, more than 40% added in last year.
Chrome OS "also going well" and look forward to launching devices later this year.
Enterprise: growing across businesses and schools. New deals, reseller agreements. University of Texas, Boston U.
Pleased our ITA deal closed, travel search lots of room for innovation there.
Huber is now thanking Jonathan Rosenberg as well. "Friends and colleagues for over 15 years. He will be missed"
4:49: Now it's Susan Wojcicki.
Lots to be excited about in ads. Search is still core, but big oppty for growth.
"How can we search the perfect ad for every query?" New creative types, new ways for advertisers to set up campaigns. Product Listing Ads, introduced Q4 last year.
Display advertising: bought DoubleClick 3 years ago, lot of integration, lot of progress. Display Network up 5x since acquisition, doubling annually in Brazil, UK, and Japan.
Display advertisers either performance oriented (conversions) and brand oriented (awareness). Launched new stuff for brand advertisers, like Display Ad Network Reserve -- buy premium inventory on a guaranteed basis. Also tools to measure effectiveness of campaigns -- not just clicks.
Ad Exchange -- transaction volume has tripled in past year, 2/3ds of that inventory bought via real-time bidding.
YouTube: revenue doubling year over year, shared with more than 20k content partners. The more money we make for them, the more engaging stuff they upload.
AdMob: over 150 million iOS and Android devices, up 50% in last four months.
Advertisers starting to run mobile-only campaigns. Incorporating local -- how far are you standing away from the advertiser's location right now?
4:55: Pichette taking over again for Q&A.
Q: Opex up 45% year over year excluding traffic acquisition cost. Is this kind of spending required to retain 20%+ revenue growth? Or one-off?
A. Clearly the effect of the one-time salary change. Salary increase flows through to other stuff like 401(k) and vacation, so disproportionately felt in first quarter. "Nooglers" as well. One-time step change in labor, but after that regular.
Marketing has increased since last year because it's providing great returns. Both customer acquisition and key products like Chrome.
Still disciplined: quarterly reviews to get your next funding.
Q. What about marketing costs? What's going on?
A. Professional services. Chrome -- really pushing the web. When they get Chrome, instead of having to look for Google, they get it. It's there already. "Everybody who uses Chrome is a guaranteed locked-in user of Google."
Q. How does Larry view the company differently than it was?
A. Position hasn't changed. We're a tech company, focused on users, looking for products that can affect billions of people. Computer science helping find problems for billions of people.
If you think that way, Chrome, Android, search all make sense. The 70/20/10 is very alive. "Search is the next billion dollar business." 90 improvements on one side, 40 on the other -- search still in our infancy. Mobile, display, enterprise.
10% is commerce, social, stuff that's nascent. Strategy same core lenses, same products that serve billions of people.
Q. But financially? Any meaningful difference?
A. No. Build great products, same financial discipline.
Q. More about opex. Customer acquisition in Chrome, salespeople. Do you think your 20%+ growth rate would be achievable without these costs? Will you still get the growth without the costs?
A. Strategy in context of last 4 to 5 quarters. Trajectory of revenue growth, 23%, 25%, 27%. We're funding revenue growth with discipline. "Carpe diem, it's there to take."
Q. Imagine display is $20B based on various figures. Right now you're at 10% or so. How big can that be? And as display gets bigger, how does that affect margins?
A. Search unique with very very high margins. Display more paperwork. But still very good margin product. "All of those dollars I want." Plus great "symbiotic" relationship -- display ads now showing up in search.
Could say that display was stalled at $50 to $60B because video wasn't there. YouTube helps reach 23 to 24% more consumers. Efficiency of Web applied to video. All efforts trying to build that display, rich media and video. Every profitable dollar of revenue is good.
Q. What about social data? You don't run social network. Do you need it for search?
A. Jeff Huber -- it's important, we use 200+ signals for ranking search today. It's one of many inputs. Assets that apply to that, we do have large number of users coming to our door every day. Considerable percentage logged in, using multiple products.
Pichette: launch of +1 is commitment to get every signal. Continued focus on social as one of 200 signals.
Q. Does Chrome give you any signals you can integrate into search results?
A. Huber -- will be part of story over time, personalized today. Chrome experience, can sign into Chrome, will sync info across computers.
Q. Where are those bold steps to control expenses? We don't see it. And is social really just one of 200 variables?
A. On expenses, you see ramp-up on one side. Guarantee you everybody who has cost center has to demonstrate productivity. Data center, incredibly steep. Sales force. We always think of cost per x. Cost per bit for data centers. Even food, everybody has productivity curve.
Google is growing 25% year over year from a $25B base. Tide coming with it, but every element of the company is "scrubbed and scrutinized." The unit costs haunt many of my managers.
Huber now on social: one of many signals. We regularly measure and tune.
Pichette again: expenses, we really want to lay the ground clear on these issues.
Q. Search algo changes -- how does that affect search ads and cost per click? And what's driving display ad revenue growth -- ad units or more targeting?
A. Huber: 12% of queries affected. Was Web search only, not ads. NO effect on CPC. Did affect display network, but focus is on user experience.
Wojcicki: Can buy audiences, target more effectively. It's both. End to end platform to enable buying across the Internet for all advertisers and all publishers.
Pichette: Some properties tuned to display like YouTube, but entire Web is more powerful than any single prop.
Q. What about tablet share -- is it as important as smartphone share?
A. Jeff Huber: tablets doing well, lot of growth in that segment. Dynamics -- hybrid between mobile and desktop when you look at user behavior. Optimistic about Honeycomb. Xoom was product of the show at CES in January. More products, more innovation.
Enable advertisers to target tablets, which will help that segment.
Q. Employee bonuses and social -- define success?
A. This is an internal matter. We focus a strategy across many platforms, we wanted to signal to employees that social is an important signal and worth investing. No further comment.
Q. Search important, but engagement might be more important. Have you looked at 70/20/10 and think about shifting to build greater engagement? Look at how other products and services can be integrated in?
A. Web in general, how platforms are growing, we're focusing in areas where engagement matters. Local, mobile, YouTube, all about engagement. Mobile, Chrome. Technology fuels engagement. At highest level, search itself is more engaged today than it was 3 years ago. It's part of our strategy.
Q. Engagement through frequency rather than share of time.
A. When you are in YouTube, you're spending more time in YouTube. Android phone, now visiting and in town, additional signals sharing with friends etc.
Q. Does Chrome give you potential to create unique products, apps, content services?
A. Huber: great opportunities in that. Chrome Web Store -- same model as Android Market, bringing it to that platform.
Q. How much is a mobile user worth today, and how do you think about larger acquisitions?
A. Can't answer about mobile user. Look at our focus, we're very excited about mobile. Great potential there. Monetization side -- click to call ads. Locally targeted ads, ability to engage users where they are. Smartphone will be way people do everything -- inform, entertain. It will merge.
Q. Do you think value can go up order of magnitude in 3 years?
A. Wojcicki: very early in what mobile can do. Will grow overall opportunity, overall pie.
Nobody is going to say a substantive thing about acquisitions.
We haven't found big one that will significantly accelerate our growth. We have a really focused agenda, don't want massive distraction. Google is a specific culture --- big acquisition must be both financially sensible and cultural fit. "That's a pretty high bar to pass."
Q. Non cost-per-click ads -- what kind of growth are you seeing? And does Google have a video strategy outside of user-generated content?
A. We have new people on board with YouTube to expand beyond user-generated.
Huber: user-generated is huge. But we're interested in "long-form premium content," another area is developing content of, by, and for new medium being created. Next New Networks acquisition was there.
Wojcicki: we're allowing advertiser to bid with CPA (cost per action) then Google figures out CPC (per click) in background. Also CPM (per impression). Depends on whether advertisers are more performance or ad-driven. As we introduce new kinds of ads for brand advertising, CPM will become a bigger deal.
Q. How bad was Japan? You also said 350k Android activations per day -- can you give breakdown smartphone v tablet and US v international?
A. Our first response to the events was to help the Japanese community. People finding people and disaster recovery. Focus on community, not optimizing revenue.
Tons of searches, by the way, but not monetizable searches. Japan is great market for us. Historically they bounce back fast. We can't predict how will rebound on advertising, but it's a 1st world economy that will recover.
Huber: Android. Not going to answer the question. But we have strong partnerships in Europe, Japan, Korea, and international is growing. Android is relatively early on in tablets, Honeycomb just came out. Big innovations coming.
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Obama Exclusive: I Was Born in Hawaii and I Don't 'Have Horns <b>...</b>
I thought the president would take a pass when I asked him about Donald Trump's rise to the top of the Republican field in my exclusive interview today. Far from it. He grabbed at the chance with a big smile... ABC News' George ...
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Taptu allows iPad owners to “DJ your <b>news</b>” | VentureBeat
Anthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining ...
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