Tuesday, April 24, 2012

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Live Blog: Apple's Q2 Earnings Call Top
Apple - Apple Financial Results - Q2 2012Apple just released its FY2012 Q2 earnings and will host its earnings call at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern today. We will live blog this call for you below, but you can also listen in to the call here (QuickTime required).
 
Apple Q2 2012: 35.1M iPhones, 11.8M iPads, 4M Macs, and 7.7M iPods Top
ipodApple just released its second quarter financial numbers. Overall hardware sales decreased from its record previous quarter but with the notable exception of the iPods, they're up from the same quarter a year ago. Apple sold 88% more iPhones in the quarter than it did during the same time last year. Besides the huge year-over-year increase of iPhone sales, iPad and Mac sales increased 188% and 7%, respectively. However, the iPod didn't fare so well: Sales are down 15% over last year's quarter.
 
Apple's Q2 2012: $11.6B In Profit, $39.2B In Revenue, 35.1M iPhones Sold Top
apple_rainbow_logoApple has just posted their Q2 2012 financials, and revealed that over the last 14 weeks the company has pulled in $11.6 billion in profit on $39.2 billion in revenues, which breaks down to $12.30 per share. Analysts expected earnings of $10.02 per share on $36.81 billion in revenues. For a bit of comparison, those figures are up substantially year over year -- in Q2 2011, Apple pulled in $6 billion in profit on $24.7 billion in revenues. Apple also reports that they have sold 35.1 million iPhones this past quarter, up 88% year-over-year and beating analyst expectations of roughly 33.5 million sold.
 
Betaworks With A Twist: Sandbox Brings Its Startup Foundry To San Francisco Top
Screen shot 2012-04-24 at 5.06.34 AMAsk Sandbox Industries how it defines its company, and it will tell you that it is neither an accelerator, nor a venture fund. That's because the company is attempting to bring a new approach to the traditional incubator, following the lead of New York-based betaworks, the home of bit.ly, SocialFlow, Chartbeat and more. Betaworks, too, eschews "accelerator" and "venture fund" labels, opting instead to be a hybrid, building and investing in its own companies. Today, Sandbox is announcing that it is bringing the betaworks model to San Francisco, and is in turn refocusing its energy on its startup foundry.
 
Firefox 12 Has Arrived: Introduces Silent Updates For Windows Users And Improved Developer Tools Top
firefox-256A new version of Firefox used to be a big deal, but since Mozilla switched to a rapid release schedule, these updates are becoming pretty routine. Today, Mozilla launched Firefox 12. For most users, this is likely one of the least interesting Firefox updates in recent history, as it only introduces a few minor changes. For developers, however, this update is a bit more interesting. In total, this new version of Firefox includes 85 improvements to the browser's built-in developer tools.
 
Task-Tracking Service iDoneThis Wants You To Know How Awesome You Are Top
IDONETHISIt's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and sometimes you'll bust your tail without so much as a "well done!" to show for it. Deep down though, who doesn't want a little bit of ego-stroking every once in a while? That's exactly what prompted the folks at iDoneThis to team up with AwesomenessReminders -- with the new partnership in place, they're spicing up their task-tracking service by giving their users a heaping dose of self-esteem.
 
Zuck's So Busy Buying Billion $ Companies, Facebook May Delay IPO. And That's Good. Top
A Tale Of Two ZuckerbergsWould you prefer a CEO who's in the trenches making their company worth more, or one who sings and dances for potential investors? In Facebook's case, having Mark Zuckerberg remain the visionary rather than become a celebrity salesman will be crucial to the company staying on top. Zuckerberg's steered Facebook around so many pitfalls. And his dedication to the product is so inspiring to his employees that the social network risks disruption and demoralization if the IPO attempts to sew a business suit on the hoodie-clad 27 year old. Now CNBC reports that Zuckerburg has been so busy running the company and making huge acquisitions like the $1 billion+ buy of Instagram that it could force Facebook to delay its IPO from the May 17th date we've heard from multiple sources, to late May or even early June. The pre-IPO roadshow would have to be pushed back as well. Potential investors might groan, but one day they might be smiling all the way to the bank.
 
A Whole New Meaning For Dog House: Spotwag Uses Your Social Graph To Find Petsitters Top
photo-3I love my two cats Pepper and Magic and kind of think of them like two extra children and definitely part of the family. I also travel a lot — sometimes on my own, more often with my husband and two (human) kids. So this company launching today is right up my alley, and chances are you if you live in one of the 72.9 million households (63 percent of homes) in the U.S. with pets you might feel the same: it's called Spotwag, and it's a service that lets you leverage your social network, via Facebook, to find people to take care of your pets -- cats, dogs, lizards, whatever -- when you are away.
 
Now That Google Has Cloned It, What's Next For Dropbox? Top
Google DriveGoogle finally launched its long-rumored Google Drive online storage service today. This was probably one of Google's worse-kept secrets, so the launch itself wasn't much of a surprise to anyone - least of all Dropbox, which - until today - was pretty much synonymous with online storage for documents. If nothing else, Google Drive is a full-frontal assault on Dropbox on virtually every level. Google is not just massively undercutting Dropbox's pricing scheme, but thanks to integrating Drive with Docs, it is also able to offer far more features. With this kind of competition, the future doesn't look good for Dropbox.
 
Enterprise Mobile Startup DoubleDutch Raises $2M Series A From Bullpen, Floodgate & Others Top
flock-update-heroEnterprise mobile startup DoubleDutch has raised $2 million in Series A funding, the company is reporting today, in a round led by Bullpen Capital and including Mike Maples' Floodgate Fund, as well as Mint.com founder Aaron Patzer and YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim. The funding follows the company's previous raise of $1.2 million a year ago, led by Lightbank.
 
Fly Or Die: The Nook Simple Touch With GlowLight Top
scaledwm.IMG_8417It's a bit hard to officially review the Nook Simple Touch With GlowLight as it's almost exactly the same as the previous version but with one important improvement: it glows. Arguably, the Nook and the Kindle are equal contenders in the race to the e-reader throne and although I do prefer the Kindle Fire over the Nook Tablet, I feel the Nook Simple Touch is still an excellent choice and one of the best e-readers on the market. Luckily, it just got better.
 
Thanks Google, It Only Took You Six Years Top
Google DriveToday's launch of Google Drive, official at last, is kind of a relief. Internet rumors and reports have seen the industry discussing the possibility of a consumer-facing cloud storage service called "GDrive," since as far back as 2006. Of course, then, the product in development was an internal-only tool used by Google employees - not the Dropbox-like competitor Google launched today. Still, to say that we've been waiting for GDrive for a long, long, long time would be the understatement of the year.
 
Facebook Says It May Budge On 30% Revenue Share For Apps That Aren't Games Top
facebook creditsThere was a little gem that we almost missed yesterday in Facebook's amended IPO filing. But it looks like Facebook acknowledged that it may have to move away from a 30 percent revenue share with app developers if it expands Credits, its virtual currency, and payments beyond gaming. This is what it said in the filing yesterday: "We receive a fee of up to 30% when users make such purchases from our Platform developers using our Payments infrastructure. In the future, if we extend Payments outside of games, the percentage fee we receive from developers may vary." If Facebook cuts its 30 percent revenue share for other types of apps, the choice will set it apart from other platforms. Here's how:
 
PriceGrabber, ShoeDazzle, Legalzoom & Shopzilla Founders Back Online Social Platform For Retailers, Social Annex Top
social-annex-logoSocial Annex, a retail-focused social platform that's been in stealth mode for the past two years, is today announcing having gained the attention (and the investment) of some big backers of e-commerce, just in time for its public debut. In addition to Kamran Pourzanjani, the former CEO and founder of PriceGrabber, and Brian S. Lee co-founder of ShoeDazzle, Legalzoom, and Honest.com, Social Annex is now seeing investment from Jody Mulkey, CIO and SVP of Technology at Shopzilla, and Lawrence Ng, the co-founder of Oversee.net. Terms of the investments were not disclosed.
 
Google Drive Is Live With 5GB Of Free Storage And Google Docs Hookup Top
gdriveYou can try Google Drive now at drive.google.com.
 
Here Are The Winners Of The One-Sentence Pitch Competition Top
founder institute adeo ressiOver the weekend, we hosted a fun contest from the Founder Institute, where entrepreneurs posted a one-sentence pitch for their companies. We received more than 450 pitches, of which 421 followed the designated format ("My company, _(insert name of company)_, is developing _(a defined offering)_ to help _(a defined audience)_ _(solve a problem)_ with _(secret sauce)_"). Now, Adeo Ressi and his team have spent 15 hours to go through all of the entries, and they've chosen their winners. You can see the winning pitches, as well as Ressi's commentary, below.
 
Buffer Has Scheduled 10M Social Updates And Signed Up 180K Users Top
buffer logoWhen we last covered Buffer, a service for scheduling your social media sharing, the startup had just raised $400,000, and its founders were relocating from San Francisco to Hong Kong due to expiring visas. It sounds like the immigration situation hasn't been entirely resolved, and most of the team is still in Hong Kong — but on the bright side, Buffer's growth has continued. Buffer is designed for marketers and other folks who want to maintain an active social media presence without actually spending every second of their day on Facebook and Twitter. You can load the service up with content that you want to share, then it automatically gets posted throughout the day. Co-founder Leonhard Widrich tells me that on Monday, Buffer posted its 10 millionth update. The service is now posting one update every second.
 
A Closer Look: Facebook's Operating Margins Decline With Growing Headcount, International Growth Top
facebook_magnifyOne thing that has been remarkable about Facebook is its willingness to expand in developing markets that many other consumer Internet companies would otherwise write off because they're hard to monetize. But that growth abroad plus the company's increasing headcount and share-based compensation expenses are eating into its operating margins, according to yesterday's earnings numbers from a revised IPO filing. Facebook made $381 million in operating income (or 36 percent of its $1.06 billion in revenue) in the first quarter of this year. That's down from $388 million in operating income (or 53 percent of its $731 million in revenue) from a year ago. Net income is actually down 12 percent year-over-year to $205 million from $233 million a year ago. Here's a closer look at how revenues and costs are changing for the company:
 
Google Outs Google Drive On Its French Blog: Here Are All The Details Top
googlelogoAfter years of rumors, it looks like the Google Drive has finally arrived. While we are still waiting for official word from Google, but earlier today, the company apparently mistakenly posted the French translation of its announcement to its French blog (and quickly deleted it, of course). Thankfully, intrepid Google+ user Gerwin Sturm made a copy and ran it through Google translate.
 
With $1.5M From Adecco, Path.To Wants To Be The EHarmony For Jobs In Silicon Valley And Beyond Top
path.to homepage_1The job-hunting market today is getting a little more social: Path.to, a kind of About.me-meets-LinkedIn service that lets people create image-filled, sleek professional profiles for themselves online, is today relaunching itself as a network to connect those professionals with job openings. And taking a pro-tip from the matchmaking site eHarmony, Path.to has developed an algorithm to create "compatibility" scores between job seekers and job vacancies. It says it is the first online job service to offer this feature. It is also today announcing a $1.5 million round of strategic funding from HR giant Adecco to help it along the way.
 

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