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Facebook May Not Be Into Mobile Ads Yet, But Plenty Of Others Are

2012-02-02T14:20:49Z

Mobile advertising may not yet be something that Facebook has explored in its strategy to monetize its massive user base, and given the growth we’ve seen in the space, you can argue that it might be missing a trick.

What’s interesting is that while companies like Google are certainly making huge strides in mobile advertising (more on that below), there are a number of mid-range/smaller players that are also seeing significant growth, in a market that eMarketer projects will be worth $2.6 billion in 2012.

The implication here is that there is an opportunity, and one that is engaging users—or at least users are showing a great tolerance for the ads, as a tradeoff for other content. That opportunity is one that is being taken not just obvious Facebook competitors like Google, but many others.

Longer term that kind of fragmentation will probably lead to more consolidation, but for now as individual companies they continue to grow (and get funded, if you take the latest numbers from Rutberg on VC investments as an indication).

Here’s three examples of that growth from just the past day:

Today, mobile ad network Mojiva is claiming that it (not Google, not Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), not Millennial Media) has become the first mobile ad network to reach more than one billion unique mobile devices—smart phones, feature phones, tablets and touch screen devices such like the iPod Touch—globally on a monthly basis. It says that the U.S. is its single-biggest market, with 224 million monthly unique devices, within a reach that extends to 190 countries, covering 8,000 publishers and apps, with more than 45 billion monthly ad requests overall. (Note: we’re hoping to catch up with Mojiva to get clarification on how it has reached the one-billion mark before bigger competitors.)

That news comes on the back of a couple of other significant mobile ad milestones announced in just the last 24 hours—again some of the smaller players. Inneractive, a mobile app monetization exchange, says that in the last year it has seen some very significant growth on its own mobile network: ad clicks are up by more than 700 percent; ad requests up by nearly 700 percent; a 981 percent increase on Apple’s iOS platform ad requests; and ad revenues up by 522 percent. We’ve asked Inneractive if we can get more concrete numbers behind those percentages. In the meantime, there’s an infographic below with more details on their growth in the last year, including geographical breakdowns.

A third player, Jumptap, has some numbers specifically around how mobile advertising is playing out across tablets—again, using stats from its own ad network: tablet network traffic was up by 229 percent the day after Christmas compared to the same period a year ago. Over the whole of that month, apparently the Kindle Fire’s share on Jumptap’s network went up from 10 percent to 30 percent suggesting “a trend for lower-priced tablets.” And overall, it notes that Android has the majority of impressions on its network (up to 59 percent in December 2011, compared to 38 percent in December 2010), with Apple’s share diminishing further (down seven percent to 22 percent in December 2011).

And what about Google? (NSDQ: GOOG) It seems that for now its biggest strength in mobile advertising remains in mobile search, where it expects revenues to more than double in 2012 compared to 2011, bringing in sales of $5.8 billion compared to $2.5 billion last year—just under double the revenue that Facebook made in advertising on its main, non-mobile site last year.

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Farewell, Yahoo Apps, We Hardly Knew Ye: Deals, News Plus Eight Others Gone

2012-01-30T11:20:36Z

Looks like new CEO Scott Thompson is wasting little time starting to get Yahoo’s house in order: just a few weeks into the new CEO’s tenure, the internet company is pulling support for 10 of its less-popular mobile apps.

In a blog post from Friday afternoon—the traditional time that many companies like to break bad news—Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) announced that it would stop developing and supporting 10 apps that it offers across various mobile platforms. They are Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone); Yahoo! Mim (iPad); Yahoo! Answers (Android); Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone); Yahoo! Deals (iPhone); Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry); Yahoo! Movies (Android); Yahoo! News (Android); Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone) and Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone).

As you can see, the list is a mix of some of Yahoo’s more popular online brands and some services it created especially for mobile users, but all have one thing in common: they weren’t being used much by consumers. In the words of Yahoo itself, it is removing the apps as part of its effort “to continuously measure and scrutinize what’s working and what isn’t” as part of a new “mobile first” strategy.

What isn’t working? Yahoo has for years now been steadily falling behind Google in terms of how it has tackled the mobile opportunity.

This latest move seems like a particularly damning admission in the case of popular online brands such as Yahoo’s news and finance portals: it is yet another demonstration that Yahoo has failed to find mobile traction with consumers in some more obvious areas.

Meanwhile, others like Meme (Yahoo’s microblogging network), Deals and Shopping (mobile commerce initiatives) are signs that Yahoo’s attempts at creating me-too services to mimic those from more popular brands—like Twitter in the case of microblogging, or Groupon (NSDQ: GRPN) in the case of deals—have not come to much, either, at least on some platforms.

As for what is working, Yahoo says that it will continue to support a number of other apps: for now, News and Finance will continue, for example, on iOS; as will Sports, Mail, Messenger and Flickr. Yahoo is also pressing on with two new apps it launched last year, IntoNow, a GetGlue-like ‘check-in’ app for TV and other entertainment viewing; and Livestand, a Flipboard-like aggregated magazine (pictured).

But given that it’s easy enough to describe these apps in terms of popular competing services, one has to wonder if their days will also be numbered if take-up doesn’t take off.

Yahoo also notes that some of the technology in the de-commissioned apps, meanwhile, will be making its way into some of the apps that are staying online.

In his plans for building up Yahoo’s audience, usefulness and credibility once again, Thompson has made a point of talking up Yahoo’s culture of innovation—he mentioned it on his first conference call after taking the job; and again last week during his first quarterly earnings call. This should be the company’s way of making space to be able to execute on some of those ideas, and indeed Yahoo says it will be releasing new mobile products this year.

In that sense, it’s probably a step in the right direction. Thompson still has a very big task ahead, though, to convince an increasingly more distracted consumer base that this slightly tired Internet brand is one worth watching for the future.

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2012 Mobile Ad Spend Revised Up To $2.6 Billion, Google Fueling The Machine

2012-01-25T18:00:51Z

A big endorsement today for mobile advertising from eMarketer: their analysts today said they were revising up their forecasts for U.S. mobile ad spend to $2.61 billion, from their previous estimates of $1.8 billion. Why the rise? Google’s “exceptional” mobile advertising performance in mobile search advertising, and more reliable market data.

eMarketer were the same analyst house that last year revised up their mobile ad forecasts to over $1 billion—the first time a company had made that proclamation. In the event, those revenues reached $1.45 billion, they said, nearly double what they were in 2010. Their 2012 figure represents a rise of 80 percent on last year.

Yesterday Yahoo’s new CEO Scott Thompson claimed that there wasn’t yet a clear leader in mobile advertising, and that it was still an open field. That may be the case in that there is still a lot of room for growth, but there is actually a company dominating the mobile ad business at the moment: Google (NSDQ: GOOG).

In 2011 eMarketer says that Google had about 51.7 percent of all mobile ad revenues, with sales of $750 million. The second-two biggest platforms were far behind it. Apple’s iAd took in $92.4 million for a 6.4 percent share; while Millennial earned $90.9 million for a 6.3 percent stake.

Google totally dominated the mobile search category—an area where Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Millennial currently do not play—with some 95 percent of all revenues. Google was not shabby in display, either, leading in that category, too—although not as comprehensively, with only 24.8 percent of the market, with Millennial Media and Apple’s iAd very close to each other for second place.

As a sign of how fragmented mobile display advertising remains, “other” was the biggest category of all with 39.6 percent of all sales.

How different mediums will grow. eMarketer predicts that spend in mobile search will double in 2012, with $1.28 billion spent in the medium compared to $652.5 million in 2011. Higher-value display and rich-media ads will see less investment—which could either be a sign that mobile is still working to earn its stripes as a credible medium with big brands, or a tacit belief that these formats simply are not working as effectively as search at the moment.

Display will be worth $861.7 million, a rise of 93.5 percent on 2011; video will be worth $151.5 million, a very respectable rise of 122 percent.

Very usefully for those of us who take forecasts with a grain of salt, eMarketer has also published a kind of leader board for how much different research groups believe mobile ads will bring in the year ahead. eMarketer is coming out at the top end with some of the more bullish predictions.

Mobile marketing and advertising services have also attracted the attention of venture capitalists: it was one of the big draws in a record-breaking year for mobile investment, according to research from the investment bank Rutberg & Co.

Yahoo: Revenues Slightly Down, Investors Await Words Of Wisdom From New CEO

2012-01-24T21:20:24Z

In its first earnings announcement since recently appointing Scott Thompson as its new CEO and the seeing off founder Jerry Yang, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) today reported Q4 revenues of $1.169 billion, down three percent on the same quarter last year.

Those revenues were slightly lower than the $1.19 billion expected by analysts polled by none other than Yahoo Finance.

Earnings per share stood at 24 cents—exactly the same as Q4 2010, and in line with analysts’ expectations. That probably comes as some relief to investors, considering all the turmoil the company has seen in the past year: changes have included a new CEO, numerous executive departures, an overhaul of its advertising system to partner up with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and AOL (NYSE: AOL), and continuing loss of market share in both display and search to other competitors like Google.

The numbers and business situation of Yahoo couldn’t be more different from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), which also reported earnings moments ago with sales of $46 billion for the quarter.

Some of the particulars from the Yahoo’s results release:

—Display revenue was $612 million, a four percent decrease compared to $635 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. For the full-year they were actually slightly up: $2.16 billion compared to $2.15 billion in 2010.
—Search revenue was $465 million, down a massive 27 percent compared to $640 million for the fourth quarter of 2010.
—North America revenue was $885 million, down from $991 million for the quarter last year.

Yahoo will be hosting an investor call to go through the earnings, and for its new CEO, Scott Thompson, to give a few more particulars about the state of the company. A call with investors and media three weeks ago when his appointment was announced were very light on specifics. We’ll update this post as that proceeds.

Update: The call is kicking off with a few words from Thompson. “I’ve validated what I believed coming in, the talent of the people and the huge opportunity ahead of us,” said Thompson. “I believe we have a lot of work to do and it’s still early.” He says that at the moment Yahoo has 702 million unique visitors worldwide. He says he will lay out the foundations for what he plans for 2012.

He says in the future he will provide more insight about the details of results covering regional differences.

“There is no question we need to do better and we will,” he says. “We need to better monetize the engagement that we have.”

Display was mainly affected by declines in the Americas—it actually grew in Asia Pacific and Europe, while declining in the U.S.

The sales force is getting overhauled, according to CFO Tim Morse. “Several major advertisers that reduced spend in 2011…have made meaningful commitments or 2012.”

Unique visitors are up by 11 percent around Yahoo’s “tent pole” events such as the Super Bowl, the Royal Wedding and others. Yahoo is putting more, Morse says, into its “editorial voice,” with the creation of original content. One recent notable announcement there is the project with Tom Hanks; another is the creation of Livestand.

Some frank and slightly depressing words that really size up not just the challenge ahead but perhaps hint at employee morale? “Despite these changes, revenue isn’t growing,” said Morse. “We expected better.”

Back to Thompson who gives a very robust pep talk for the future, which sounded very encouraging except that it’s Yahoo we’re talking about, which has been the subject of many robust speeches over the years. Some highlights:

“Our users need to use our services more frequently…We need to be a media company as well as a tech company.”

“I make decisions quickly and move fast, fast, fast. That’s how we get to playing offense rather than defense.”

“We will focus on balancing our investment resources and allocation of capital on products of today, tomorrow and long term…To strike the right balance, we need to focus on the products that are driving results today. But also the business of tomorrow. But also a small but meaningful percentage on products that will play out 12 months from now.”

“At least two fundamental building blocks customer experience and data…We want our users to spend more time with yahoo because they love what we are doing.”

“Data is the most underrated asset at Yahoo.”

“I believe our company can do much more to innovate and disrupt.”

Some questions from the analysts:

Future acquisitions?
These will be made to fill technology gaps, said Thompson.

What’s your strategy to turn around display?
Alas, no specifics but this: “We’re meeting with customers to understand why they don’t give us more of their spend. We’re after this with a real sense of urgency. Too early to say what actions we might take but full intention is to get that back and growing at a healthy rate.

Are there no sacred cows going forward? And what about premium video, any new deals?
Thompson: “I could interpret the first question in a variety of ways, as part of the work we’re doing we are understanding and evaluating all options going forward. Things we will continue, stop, and additional monetization strategies. We are being aggressive.”

Morse: “As for short-form, we had 9 of the top 10 original shows for web programing. We need to do more there (no numbers disclosed on traffic).”

What products do you think are appropriate areas for Yahoo to move into? And what about the declines in search?
Thompson: “Too early for strategic framework but we are looking at how to increase monetization.” Morse: “On search, in mobile it’s still too early on for how you monetize going forward. There is a lot yet left to evolve in mobile. I’m not concerned, I’m optimistic.” Thompson: “No winner has shown himself visible in mobile search.” (Google (NSDQ: GOOG) might beg to differ here.)

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Microsoft On Target In Fourth Quarter But Windows Sales Still Sliding

2012-01-20T00:10:41Z

Microsoft’s fourth-quarter earnings came in about where Wall Street had expected, but the decline of its Windows business continued during a holiday quarter when it seems pretty clear other gadgets dominated shopping lists.

Revenue for the quarter was $20.89 billion, a little off of what analysts were expecting but when the numbers are that big a miss of $40 million isn’t the end of the world. Earnings per share were $0.78, two cents better than expectations, and so overall there was much rejoicing in the after-hours market, which really shouldn’t be held during Happy Hour on the East Coast.

Still, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has a well-documented long-term problem. Windows continues to generate big profits but it’s in decline, buffeted by the mobile revolution that Microsoft mainly participates in through licensing agreements. This is a big year for Windows Phone and Windows 8, two projects that appear to show Microsoft has learned some lessons over the last five years but are still in “wait-and-see” mode.

In other areas, the company is doing quite well. Xbox sales continue to grow, leading Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices group to a 15 percent revenue boost, the best performance of any division. And the amount of money Microsoft continued to pour down the Internet drain decreased in its fourth quarter, to “just” $458 million, an improvement from last year’s loss of $559 million coupled with revenue growth of 10 percent.

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Updated: Google Miss Sends Stock Down 9 Percent On Cost-Per-Click Questions

2012-01-19T21:11:23Z

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) missed analyst expectations for earnings per share during the fourth quarter, sending its stock plunging in after-hours trading Thursday. The company had been expected to produce earnings per share of $10.49, but it chalked up just $9.50 in earnings per share excluding special items and also missed revenue targets.

It’s important to note that Google has never provided its own earnings estimates on a quarter-to-quarter basis; these estimates are those of financial analysts that follow the company. They were looking for more than $2.71 billion in GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net income, which was a six percent increase compared to net income of $2.54 billion a year ago.

Google’s revenue growth was strong, up 25 percent to $10.58 billion before traffic-acquisition costs are factored in. Analysts tend to focus on that latter number, and they were expecting net revenue of $8.41 billion, as compared to the $8.13 billion in net revenue it otherwise recorded.

Without directly acknowledging the estimates of financial analysts gathered on Google’s earnings conference call, CFO Patrick Pichette noted the negative effects of currency fluctuations and an impairment charge related to a previous Google investment in Clearwire (NSDQ: CLWR) on Google’s earnings during the quarter. That might account for much of the disconnect between Google’s performance and the expectations of the financial community.

Analysts peppered CEO Larry Page with so many questions about the eight percent decline in the important cost-per-click metric—the average cost that advertisers pay Google per a click on their ads—that he half-jokingly asked for a break from discussion of the issue. Google doesn’t think it’s that big a deal: overall clicks increased as the result of site improvements, said Susan Wojcicki, senior vice president of advertising, who also said this was positive for both Google’s revenue and for the campaigns of its advertisers.

The surprise miss overshadowed what was otherwise a pretty decent quarter for Google, but seems right at home amid the disastrous few weeks the company has had to kick off 2012. Google+ now has 90 million users, Google said (without defining what a “user” is in this context) and advertising revenue on the core search site was up 29 percent compared to last year at this time.

Page and Wojcicki defended the decision to integrate Google+ into the company’s core search project, which Page said allows Google to provide a better product because it helps the search engine understand the differences between how two different individuals with identical search queries perceive the world. If Google had as much social data as Facebook or Twitter, that might be true, but it does not, and Page admitted that those companies don’t seem very interested in sharing that data with Google.

Page also said 250 million Android devices are in use, and the company also said that its display-advertising business is on pace to do $5 billion a year in revenue.

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Study: Search-Ad Clicks On Mobile Devices Are Growing Faster Than On PCs

2012-01-11T15:00:46Z

In the world of search advertising, mobile phones and tablets continue to outpace performance of search ads on PCs, although they still represent only a fraction of impressions and investment, according to a new report.

Quarterly figures from Marin Software indicate that mobiles and tablets accounted for 10 percent of all search ad clicks in the U.S. in Q4 2011. That is double the amount of clicks seen on those devices in Q3 2011.

On tablets, search ads—the ad units that typically appear alongside a search made through engines such as Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) or Bing—also accounted for the highest of all click-through rates.

Tablets’ CTR (the ratio of clicks/the number of times the ad appears) for the quarter, according to Marin, was 1.31 percent, compared to 0.95 percent on desktop computers. Smartphones had nearly as high of a CTR, at 1.25 percent. Marin does not break out which devices are proving “more” interactive, although recent figures from Jumptap indicate that at least on its network Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) devices continue to dominate in interactivity.

Search advertising is currently the most-popular form of interactive advertising, above display, and video and other rich media. It’s the case as well in mobile, where search is projected to have accounted for $349 million of the estimated $1 billion spent on mobile ads. But overall, PCs are still a vastly more popular platform for searches, and subsequent search ads. Marin notes that in the last quarter, mobile devices accounted for just seven percent of impressions on search ads, with PCs taking 93 percent:

On PCs search ads were estimated to have accounted for 25.6 percent of $73.8 billion spent on online advertising, or $18.9 billion, according to Publicis’ ZenithOptimedia.

Marin, which offers an online advertising management platform to brands and agencies, says that it based its conclusions on its own Marin Global Search Index. This includes more than 1,000 advertisers and agencies that invest over $2.7 billion annually in paid-search, which each brand or agency typically spending over $1 million annually on paid-search, social and display.

There are a couple of reasons why the numbers could be higher for tablets and mobile phones, which are worth pointing out here. As mobile ad skeptics have pointed out in the past, it can be much easier to “click” accidentally on ads on a touchscreen compared to a PC. That is partly due to the touch element, but also because of the smaller screen sizes. At some point advertisers might start demanding better metrics to try to account for accidental clicks on touchscreen and other mobile devices.

The other issue that could account for the rise in clicks in Q4 in particular is the fact that it covered the holiday season. As we’ve seen from other studies, mobile devices had a double-whammy for increased use over that time period, as people received or bought new devices for themselves as presents; and others used them to look for goods other information related to the holiday shopping season. We’ll have to keep an eye out how numbers look in Q1 of this year to see whether the increased clicks are a trend, or a seasonal blip.

Other changes that Marin noted in its quarterly report:

—Click volume is up by 56 percent across Google, Yahoo and Bing, while paid search spend increased 35 percent (note: Marin does not give hard figures for how much its customers actually invested in the quarter).

—Google’s clicks grew by 48 percent, and so did its CTR.

—Impressions are growing on Yahoo and Bing, which were up by 43 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago, and clicks were up by 44 percent. Marin attributes some of this to the companies’ new search alliance. However, the sites are still not getting more effective in their search ads: CTRs only increased by one percent.

—It’s still early days at Facebook. Marin also broke out how search ads are performing on Facebook and the numbers are still pretty low, with only a 0.1 percent CTR and $0.23 cost per click (CPC). That doesn’t look too good compared to Google and Yahoo/Bing who respectively had CTRs of 2.36 percent and 1.61 percent in Q4 2011. CPCs at for the portals were respectively $1.02 and $0.85. To be fair, Facebook is putting more effort, and seeing more success in display ads, although you can be sure that as Facebook grows even bigger it will look to improve its position in search against the likes of Google, too.

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What The Analysts Asked Yahoo Today, And How The New CEO Responded

2012-01-05T02:50:49Z

The markets didn’t punish Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) today when it announced it would appoint a payments technology specialist, Scott Thompson, as its CEO to run a business largely built on content, search and advertising. But it didn’t exactly reward it, either: the stock closed down by 51 cents at $15.82, a decline of some 3.1 percent.

Thompson, who officially starts his job on January 9, earlier today told investors in a call that his first priority will be to get to know the staff and culture that he will now be leading as he seeks to turn Yahoo around from a company that has lost its way back into a “great iconic brand.” Some have started to ask if he’ll have to take a crash course in Yahoo’s own business model, too:

Macquarie equity analysts were generally positive on the appointment, but they also took note of the fact that he is a specialist in payments, not advertising and media: still Yahoo’s stated main line of business.

“Yahoo should benefit from Thomspon’s leadership, but we must admit that we find the appointment somewhat surprising given Thompson’s background as a specialist in the online payments/technology space,” they wrote in a research note. “Yahoo has been in the midst of an identity crisis, unsure of its place on the Internet… All else equal, we would have preferred to see the Board hire a candidate with deeper experience in the online advertising/media space.”

They wonder, in fact, not whether he will master Yahoo’s business as it exists at the moment, but whether he will “surprise by defining and executing Yahoo’s vision in an unexpected way.”

Regardless, doing something unexpected was not the message being conveyed in today’s call, in which Thompson and Ray Bostock, the chairman of the board, sought to convey a balance between business as usual, and spring cleaning to unearth some hidden treasures.

Some of the questions asked by analysts on the call today:

Getting to know you: “The first thing is to meet the team as many as possible to understand more of the culture and the people,” Thompson said. He could be starting from a very blank slate indeed: Kara Swisher at AllThingsD alleges that Yahoo’s board, in fact, consulted “almost no one” in upper ranks about the appointment (but is that exactly standard?).

Who is Yahoo’s target customer? Is it you, the user? No, said Bostock: “Our customers are advertisers. Scott knows how to reach out to advertisers.”

Biggest lesson from PayPal to apply to Yahoo? “Balancing the consumer and merchant need,” said Thompson. “I feel strongly that we need that between the consumer and the content/advertising. [We need to make] this relevant to their business.”

What does Yahoo need to do next? Thompson mentioned user data, an area that could be one for privacy people to watch: “I only got a glimpse of [Yahoo’s] data [but] I feel certain that the wealth of data is going to be exploitable [for] super competitive capabilities in our space in advertising and marketing.” Also some non-speicific references to the talent, engineering and otherwise, that remains at Yahoo that needs to be used more to “build great innovative products and put them inside customer experiences.”

Yahoo going private? Doesn’t sound like it… “I don’t expect Yahoo not to be a public company going forward,” noted Bostock. “If we thought to take it private we’d have one hell of a challenge.” Going private was one option being floated last year, with founder Jerry Yang supposedly interested in teaming up with PE houses to buy up the company. TechCrunch, in fact, cited one financial analyst who said this determination to remain public was the main reason the stock didn’t do so well today.

What about Asia? The negotiations around Yahoo’s assets in Asia and their JV partners Alibaba and Softbank continue as before. “This will not be a distraction for Scott,” said Bostock. “There is a team working on that. [Thompson] will be a part of the key decision making but given where we are there is no way that this will be a distrction as he works on the core business.”

What about all those executive departures at Yahoo, especially last year? All I can do is speak from my track record,” said Thompson. “People determine the success or failure of all these business and whether you win or lose in the market… I want to make sure [the staff] are all here tomorrow and a year from tomorrow.” Great talk, but up against a challenging reality: as Om Malik puts it, the talent exodus at Yahoo is a one-way street at the moment, and its leading to well-paying jobs at the still-ascendant Facebook and Google (NSDQ: GOOG).

And what about mobile? This is one area of common ground between Yahoo and PayPal: both started as non-mobile companies and both took a stab at the market, realising the role it would increasingly play with consumers.

The difference is that PayPal found a place for itself, which is still growing, while Yahoo has moved in mobile in fits and starts and certainly has not developed something as meaningful as what its competitor Google has created in terms of a portfolio of mobile services and its own platform. “Mobile is a really big question. Mobile is a wave that is bigger than people can even imagine it to be,” says Thompson. But where he sees Yahoo fitting into that has yet to be articulated but I suspect he will put a stronger emphasis on this than his predecessor, given his track record at PayPal.

Still, where Thompson sounded most vague of all was on questions of how to approach advertising and content, which remain the company’s big business areas. Whether that was out of caution or a lack of ideas so far is unclear.

Interestingly, even with a dip in the share price today, Yahoo still closed the day higher than it did on the day when Bartz was announced as CEO nearly three years ago on January 13, 2009, when it traded at around $12.

Yahoo! Stock Chart by YCharts

(As an endnote, the WSJ has an overview of some of the more uncanny similarities between the two appointment announcements. On its own, it doesn’t make for a very encouraging picture of change at a company that really needs it.)

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Report: Yahoo To Name PayPal Head As CEO. Sign Of A More Commercial Push?

2012-01-04T11:49:43Z

Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) faced a pretty big whack of upheavals in 2011—not least of which was the none-too-quiet departure of their outspoken former CEO Carol Bartz. Will the company this year try to stabilize and play things a bit more quietly? Just days into 2012, a report has emerged that it could be naming a new CEO—Scott Thompson, the current president of eBay’s PayPal—with the announcement coming possibly as soon as today.

The news was first put out into the ether by Kara Swisher at AllThingsD, who got the original tip from an anonymous source, which means that the information has not been confirmed by either eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) or Yahoo, but Swisher has been on top of (and accurate about) much of the executive-upheaval news at the internet portal.

Swisher describes Thompson as a bona-fide “Internet geek,” but he is actually something a little more specific: his background is in commerce and payments (prior to PayPal he worked for Visa). And most recently, his big emphasis has been in mobile commerce, an area where PayPal has grown and is growing its presence a lot.

That raises tantalizing questions about what could be Yahoo’s next strategic step. More effective ways of monetizing the traffic that passes through its advertising, search and portal networks? Possibly even looking at a new direction in transactions? That’s an area where companies like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) have established a strong base, largely through their mobile businesses.

Of course, a cynic might argue that a leopard cannot change its spots, and that Yahoo’s organizational issues may prove to challenge any new ideas. Once a leader in search, advertising and online information portals, Yahoo has in more recent years seen those businesses hit hard, particularly by competition from Google and increasingly Facebook (both now make more than Yahoo from display ads, an area where it was once king).

That has led to the company to try many different things over the past several years to turns things around—some meanderings in mobile, many executive changes, new products and services, and more recently an ad partnership with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and AOL (NYSE: AOL), two former arch competitors also hit by the Facebook/Google-naut. It actually beat analyst forecasts during its last quarterly earnings—but that seemed to be more due to lowered expectations.

After Bartz left the company in September 2011, Yahoo began to explore various options for itself, including the possible sale of part or all of the company. That has involved protracted negotiations with private equity firms, and also Softbank and Alibaba, who are shareholders and have respective JVs with Yahoo in Japan and China. These are still ongoing and could either result in the sale of those JVs, or, if you believe some reports, the outright sale of Yahoo to Alibaba.

The appointment of a CEO like Thompson, who could offer a new direction for Yahoo, could prove to be useful regardless of what the outcome is of those other negotiations.

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What's Coming In 2012: Digital Advertising, Up Close And Personal

2011-12-30T12:00:08Z

This is the fifth in a series of posts this week that will highlight key people, companies and trends to watch in 2012 in the sectors we cover most, from publishing to legal, and from mobile to advertising.

According to figures from ZenithOptimedia, global advertising revenues will reach $486 billion in 2012, a rise of 4.7 percent compared to 2011. With wider economic pressures bearing down on the overall ad market, digital ad spend is still seeing healthy growth: it will account for slightly more than one-fifth of all ad spend, but more than half of all growth, as advertisers become more confident in digital media metrics, and the ad industry gets more sophisticated in what it offers to brands and publishers in the name of digital advertising—which will remain a key way of funding digital content, as media companies continue to tinker with other charging models. Here are some specific areas to watch in this space:

Social media and advertising. Social networks already make money from marketing and advertising services—according to an estimate from eMarketer in September, Facebook apparently will have made some $3.8 billion in advertising revenue in 2011—so 2012 will be the year that we see more social networks, not just Facebook, look at leveraging their audiences to grow this even more.

These advertising services will be a crucial piece to put into place for Facebook in particular as it gears up for a widely-expected IPO. Keeping in mind recent IPOs for Groupon (NSDQ: GRPN) and Zynga, in which people questioned the longer-term business models for these social media properties, Facebook will be looking for big and consistent sources of revenue to demonstrate to the investor community that it has a solid foundation for the long haul.

As my colleague Jeff pointed out, they may also be the source of more debates about online privacy. Facebook has already started laying the groundwork for how it might draw on the content and nature of a users’ activity on the site as a route to promoting products and services to others within users’ timelines. Similarly, Twitter is moving to new ways to advertise brands to users, for example, with promoted tweets populating people’s timelines. There are very likely more innovations along these lines in the pipeline.

New ad formats on social networking sites may, to some, feel like a violation of an individual’s space, and we may see more challenges and questions coming from regulators and users as a result. On the other hand, some argue that if these services free to use, this is the price to pay. What might equally be interesting is to see whether ad-driven sites like these at any point consider paid, ad-free versions of their services.

Ads get a bit more personal. I don’t think that it will be only social networking sites that make use of our personal information in new ways in advertising. Companies like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) are also looking at ways of leveraging its databases to make its advertising units more valuable. One example is a new search ad format that automatically inserts your gmail address to sign you up for marketing lists if you click on a link in the ad. The other area that is worth watching here is mobile advertising, where an advertiser uses potentially a combination of an opted-in user’s location, browsing activity and purchasing habits to deliver relevant ads and offers to consumers.

Consolidation: small, medium and large? Last year saw some significant acquisitions that pointed to ongoing consolidation as digital advertising continues to mature: Google’s $400-million AdMeld purchase (which officially closed earlier this month); ValueClick’s $75-million acquisition of mobile ad firm Greystripe; and Adobe’s purchase of Efficient Frontier, all of which further pad out the bigger companies’ ad services business.

There will very likely be at least a few more deals like these, but the question is whether consolidation could also extend to bigger players like Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and AOL (NYSE: AOL). They are still some of the strongest companies in online advertising (with 13.1 percent and 4.2 percent of the overall display market, according to eMarketer) but they are being hit hard by companies like Google and Facebook, once known respectively for search and social ads but already now bigger than AOL and Yahoo in display revenues.

If you believe the reports, Yahoo is already in play: Alibaba, the China-based internet giant that is a parter of Yahoo’s in that country, currently wants to buy Yahoo out of China, but Jack Ma, Alibaba’s founder, apparently also has an option to buy Yahoo outright, too. He has already enlisted the help of lobbyists in Washington, which could prove useful if Ma decides to bite.

As for AOL, it recently had to weather an embarrassing leaked letter from one of its biggest investors, Starboard Value, ripping apart the company’s business strategy and accusing it of focussing too much on “money-losing” areas like its content business. AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong’s response has been: be patient. But if things don’t start looking brighter for AOL in 2012, investors like Starboard could take things up another notch and call for something a little stronger.

Read the rest of the posts in our Coming in 2012 archives.

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Highlights Of 2011: The Year In Advertising, By The Numbers

2011-12-22T11:00:11Z

This is the fourth in a series of posts over this week that looks at the most significant developments of this year in the sectors that we cover, from publishing to mobile to advertising.

Despite the economic slowdown, digital advertising and marketing revenues grew in 2011 and remained a cornerstone of many digital content strategies. Here are five numbers charting their progress this past year.

$1 billion: 2011 was the first year that revenues from mobile advertising in the U.S. passed the $1 billion mark, according to researchers at eMarketer. Growth is coming from increased confidence in the medium, but also because advertisers are getting better scale for their investment: some 38 percent of U.S. consumers use a smartphone and access the mobile internet at least one time each month. The $1 billion figure includes display, search and messaging-based advertising, with search ads making up the biggest portion, at $349 million. But while $1 billion is a milestone of sorts, that number is still small when you compare it to the bigger advertising pie…

$464 billion: This is the total number of ad dollars spent in 2011, according to Publicis’ ZenithOptimedia. That’s a 3.5 percent rise compared to ad spend in 2010, and shows that ads are remaining somewhat resilient despite the economic slowdown in the U.S. and Europe and worries about the larger debt crisis. Online ad growth is actually outpacing that: it rose 12 percent in 2011, and made up 15.9 percent, or $73.8 billion, of overall ad spend. As with mobile ads, search ads made up the biggest share of online ads (25.6 percent), with display (22.6 percent) and classified (4.7 percent) following.

3: The number of internet portals needed to work together to match the weight and heft of Google (NSDQ: GOOG) or Facebook when it comes to competing in display advertising. In September, AOL (NYSE: AOL), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) officially joined forces in an ad sales alliance: each will continue to pursue their own ad businesses, but also sell each other’s unsold inventory. Although they didn’t say it, the move looked defensive: all three make significant ad revenue from display ads, an area where both Facebook and Google are increasingly moving, beyond their respective bases of social and search advertising. The display market was worth $12.33 billion in the U.S., says eMarketer. But display ads cannot save everything…

4.5 percent: The percentage of AOL owned by Starboard Value, which this week sent a damning letter to AOL’s CEO, Tim Armstrong, outlining what it believes have been strategic mistakes made by Armstrong and AOL’s board. Among the problems, Starboard believes AOL has put too much money into trying to save its display business: the advertising that AOL sells against its own properties (which include TechCrunch, Huffington Post, Engadget and many others) is not covering the cost of running them. It calculates that AOL could be losing more than $500 million per year on this business. Other unprofitable areas that it names in its letter include the local-content business Patch, which also hinges on an advertising-based business model. AOL’s response? We’re still in turnaround mode.

$700 million: The amount of money raised by Groupon when it made its initial public offering in November. The daily deal— in which direct marketing meets online retail—has proven to be one of the more popular formats for promoting businesses and brands this year, spawning a million Groupon (NSDQ: GRPN) competitors and outright clones, even as Groupon’s own stock seems to have hit a few rocks.

Read the rest of the posts in our Highlights of 2011 archives.

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Updated: BT Sues Google Over Android, Other Services

2011-12-19T06:13:59Z

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is no stranger to patent lawsuits these days, but the latest development could be the first to see a carrier go after the search giant over such violations. UK-based BT (NYSE: BT), one of the biggest telcos in Europe, on Sunday filed suit against Google over patent violations connected to a host of Google products, from mobile services like the Android Market to more universal products like Maps, Search and the new Google Music, plus many others.

The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Delaware, relates to six patents owned by BT covering such areas as navigation, location-based information, and how information for cloud-based services is stored, retrieved and used.

Throughout the filing (via Foss Patents), BT makes liberal mention of the many Google services that it claims are examples of how the company violates BT’s patents. In all, some 10 different Google products are mentioned by name.

As with other patent cases, BT is asking for both an injunction and damages from Google.

It’s not clear yet whether BT will be filing a similar case in Europe, or whether it will be filing similar cases against other companies besides Google. We have contacted the company and will update the story as we learn more. The case means BT is the sixth company to go after Google in patent courts.

Update: BT would not comment on whether it would file further cases around these patents, part of what it describes as a “large portfolio…which are valuable corporate assets.” BT believes the suit is a “well-considered claim,” a spokesperson added. [original post continues]

This is not the first time BT has waged a high-profile patent battle to claim a cut of the profits in the runaway tech industry. However, its last bout didn’t end so well: in 2000, BT sued the ISP Prodigy, along with 16 other ISPs, over their use of hyperlinks—which BT had claimed it had patented and therefore wanted licensed by the ISPs.

BT lost that case in 2002 when a judge decided that the patent didn’t really cover what BT claimed it did.

Nielsen: Android And Apple Dominate The App Space But Mobile Browser Rules

2011-12-15T14:00:43Z

Apple’s and Android’s stronghold on the U.S. smartphone market has been the case for many quarters already, and figures out today from Nielsen show how that has translated into a domination of the business of mobile content as well: phones based on Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iOS together account for 71 percent of all smartphones in the U.S., and some 83 percent of all apps that have been downloaded in Q3, according to new figures from the research group.

The two platforms have been gaining users in a crucial period of growth for smartphones as it picks up early adopters: penetration in the U.S. now stands at 44 percent, more than double the 18 percent penetration in Q3 2010. That still means that there is still more than half the market to play for—an opportunity companies like Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) hope to catch.

Nielsen, which today publishes its latest State of the Media report, notes apps have remained a popular source of mobile content, with the number of smartphone users downloading apps now at 62 percent. That population is largely concentrated on the two leading platforms, which together account for 83 percent of all app downloads.

The growth on iOS and Android, combined with the declines on other platforms, point to how app ecosystems appear to be coalescing around the dominant players:

—On Android, 49 percent of smartphone owners have downloaded apps, a massive rise on the four percent that had done so in 2009.

—Apple has the second-strongest platform friendly for apps, with 34 percent. But that is actually a slight decline on 2009, when 37 percent of iOS owners downloaded an app.

—But when it comes to other platforms, the percentages of users downloading (and presumably using) apps has actually gone down. Eleven percent of BlackBerry users have downloaded apps, down from 32 percent in 2009. And only three percent of Windows Mobile users have downloaded apps, compared to 18 percent in 2009. The WebOS platform has seen a decline to one percent from five percent, while Symbian remained level at one percent in both years.

What would have been interesting to see is how Windows Phone users rank in terms of app downloads today. Microsoft has made a huge effort to court developers to make apps for the platform and it has seen rapid growth in terms of the number of apps in its Marketplace catalog. But the platform and its app store were not around in 2009, so that may be why Nielsen chose not to include it.

Taken together there are around one million apps on the market today, but the vast majority of those are on Apple’s iOS and Android, which both claim around half a million apps each. Microsoft’s Marketplace annouced 40,000 apps in November 2011.

Overall, content is still weighted to mobile internet, not apps. Although apps downloads are growing, they remain less popular than plain old mobile internet usage, according to Nielsen’s figures. The amount of consumers accessing mobile internet sites in Q3 was 57 million, while app downloads (and again, presumably usage as well) were at 49 million across all smartphone platforms. On individual platforms, like Android, apps are actually more popular than mobile web:

Nielsen notes that games have been the most-downloaded type of app in the last 30 days, and indeed, game downloads overall have grown the most of all “rich media” uses on mobile devices, rising 83 percent versus Q3 2010. That still only works out to 35 million of all smartphone subscribers downloading games, which points to how those who are into games tend to be engaged and probably repeat users.

The other gaming category charted by Nielsen, online game playing, grew the most of any category, at 95 percent, but it is also the smallest, with 16 million of all users engaging in online gaming.

Mobile video, still seen as a great opportunity by content players, is still not seeing huge use compared to other types of content: 31 million people used mobile video in Q3 2011.

Mobile music services have been a particular focus in the last few months, with the launch of Spotify in the U.S., Apple rolling out new features for iTunes and totally new companies like Rara.com wading into the waters—among many other developments. Although it’s still early days for streaming services—there are only about five million people paying for digital music of any form today on mobiles, according to figures from Omnifone and Loudeye—music streaming is more popular than downloads, at 29 million versus 18 million of all consumers using the services; and both are growing very fast, at 66 and 65 percent, respectively. If you combine the two kinds of music offerings, it works out to 47 million of all users engaging in mobile music services, nearly as many as downloading apps of any kind.

International. Nielsen’s monthly reports usually focus on what is happening in the U.S. market—and that’s the case here, too, but this time around Nielsen has also included some comparative figures from other markets. Among them:

—In one graphic charting notable mobile usage in different markets, Nielsen points out that the UK has smartphone penetration of 38 percent, a fair bit lower than 46 percent figure announced by UK regulator Ofcom yesterday but still among the leaders world-wide.

—Argentina has the highest smartphone and multimedia phone penetration in Latin America, at 60 percent.

Nielsen’s survey is based on device metering data from “thousands” of consumers; detailed, monthly analysis of bills for 65,000 mobile customers in the U.S.; and surveys covering around 300,000 consumers each year.

Perhaps given the recent wave of interest in privacy issues around companies like Carrier IQ (who once ran a trial with Nielsen) and how data is mined by companies for research and other purposes, Nielsen makes the point of noting that all its data is volunteer-, opt-in based.

Related

Updated: Apple TV Streaming Quietly Goes International

2011-12-08T13:36:53Z

Back in August, we wrote about how Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) had started to offer U.S.-based users of its Apple TV device the ability to stream shows purchased from iTunes via Apple’s iCloud. Now it looks as if that service is becoming available internationally.

Apple has not made news of its new streaming capabilities official yet, but people have spotted the service working in the UK, Australia, and Canada.

Update: As you might expect with something that has not been officially announced, there have been some patchy reports of this service not actually working consistently in these markets. We will update this post as we learn more.

As with the updated service from earlier this year, now Apple TV users are able to download films directly from their televisions from iTunes, as well as access shows that had been purchased via iTunes previously from another device such as an iPad.

With Apple yet to announce the service internationally officially, there may be more markets being added.

The news comes on the heels of Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) announcing updates to its own Xbox gaming and media platform and points to how companies like Microsoft and Apple are competing as much on technology as they are content in their offerings. Microsoft’s update this week included a new voice-based search facility for users of the Kinect for Xbox 360 to find games, films and other content in a user’s own library, as well as items available through the Xbox Live cloud-based system.

But content is significant, too, and Mircrosoft also announced a number of deals to expand its offerings in various markets: they include adding Lovefilm from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) and Hulu in Japan with Hulu Plus in the U.S., as well as Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) and even Verizon’s FiOS TV service. The full content list is here.

In contrast, Apple’s list of non-Apple Garden partners is significantly smaller, consisting of Netflix, MLB, NBA and NHL content, and internet-based aggregators like YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) and Vimeo. A rumored deal for Hulu Plus has yet to come good, and outside the U.S. the list of non-Apple content is very thin indeed, with only MLB and the internet-based content on offer.

With Microsoft’s upgrade arguably more substantial than Apple’s, it puts the ball back in Apple’s court for what it might come up with next: some believe it might be a new take on the TV altogether.

Related

Chinese Flock To Carry Out Mobile Searches

2011-12-08T11:17:28Z

Need another indicator for how mobile is exploding in China? Look to search…

Average daily searches this fall (Q3) hit 718 million, according to EnfoDesk and Analysys International.

That is 55.5 percent up from 2010, and 15.7 percent up from the previous three months.

Daily search page views in Q3 were a phenomenal 2.87 billion.

This market, like the search market generally, is led by Baidu…

Though, by sales, Google occupies second place in the Chinese search market generally, it is only fourth-placed for mobile search share.

Analysys expects Tencent’s SoSo search engine to grow fast on mobile.

Carrier IQ Responds More To Privacy Allegations, But Many Questions Remain

2011-12-02T09:32:50Z

As more detail unfolds of companies swearing off any involvement with Carrier IQ (and some admitting using it for diagnostics) amid allegations over privacy on mobile device use, Carrier IQ has released a new statement to try clarify and defend its position—although some pretty big questions remain about what data Carrier IQ can seen, where it is used, and why.

After a couple of days of increasing scrutiny over the service and how the data it can read gets used, Carrier IQ enlisted the help of an independent security analyst to try to get on top of the conversation.

As you would expect in a press release from the company itself, that security analyst determined that the claims involving such actions as keystroke collection and other kinds of surveillance were “erroneous.”

It also addressed claims about specific content that gets touched by Carrier IQ analytical software. It’s position is that it only looks at the behavior of content, not the content itself: “Our software does not record, store or transmit the contents of SMS messages, email, photographs, audio or video. For example, we understand whether an SMS was sent accurately, but do not record or transmit the content of the SMS. We know which applications are draining your battery, but do not capture the screen,” the statement says.

Carrier IQ also took the opportunity to also “vigorously disagree” with claims that it is violating wiretapping laws, and went into a bit more detail about how its services actually get used by mobile carriers.

According to the statement, one way it gets used is in the area of customer care: when someone calls, for example, to complain about dropped calls, the operator’s service team use the data to figure out how the device has been used and what may be causing the call problems, as a route to solving the issue. (Insert joke here about how this confirms that Carrier IQ couldn’t possibly be working with AT&T (NYSE: T) and the iPhone.)

Ironically, one of the several operators we spoke to yesterday about Carrier IQ—an operator that said it does not work with the company at all—cited this very kind of diagnostic use as something it does regularly. But it does so within a specific service, which a user has to opt in to (and pay to use) in order for it to work. The operator claimed that otherwise, that data does not get collected and used.

The problem, however, remains that there are still questions that have been raised, initially by Trevor Eckhart, and later by others.

We’ve put the full statement from Carrier IQ at the bottom of this post. First, here are the follow up questions that we have put directly to Carrier IQ

Encrypted search terms. Was Eckhart right about his analysis of your ability to see this, or not? This is not addressed in the most recent statement released by Carrier IQ, although it’s a key issue given how search queries have been used by law enforcement authorities.

Regarding the list of content that is not covered by Carrier IQ’s service (SMS, photos, email, audio and video). Is that the full list, or is there more? Does Carrier IQ have access to application-related data, such as how long apps are used and in what manner? Does it record, store or transmit that data to carriers upon request? Does it monitor e-book usage, or what locations have been entered on a map?

Information requests from carriers and other entities. If a carrier or other entity, such as a government, does ask for any of the above, does Carrier IQ provide it or refuse? What’s Carrier IQ’s position on this matter in other jurisdictions outside of the U.S.—since it appears that the software is used around the world.

Opting in and opting out. Do you have a Carrier IQ-approved method for removing your software from handsets, if a user chooses not to allow this information to be collected, regardless of how it might affect handset performance? Trevor Eckhart and others have suggested ways of eradicating it, but it seems that there are complications around several of the methods (not everyone wants to to to the trouble of rooting or jailbreaking their devices, for example).

We have put these questions to Carrier IQ and will update the story as we learn more. The company’s statement in full:

We measure and summarize performance of the device to assist Operators in delivering better service.

While a few individuals have identified that there is a great deal of information available to the Carrier IQ software inside the handset, our software does not record, store or transmit the contents of SMS messages, email, photographs, audio or video. For example, we understand whether an SMS was sent accurately, but do not record or transmit the content of the SMS. We know which applications are draining your battery, but do not capture the screen.

“Having examined the Carrier IQ implementation it is my opinion that allegations of keystroke collection or other surveillance of mobile device user’s content are erroneous,” asserts Rebecca Bace of Infidel Inc. a respected security expert.

Privacy is protected. Consumers have a trusted relationship with Operators and expect their personal information and privacy to be respected. As a condition of its contracts with Operators, CIQ operates exclusively within that framework and under the laws of the applicable jurisdiction. The data we gather is transmitted over an encrypted channel and secured within our customers’ networks or in our audited and customer-approved facilities.

Carrier IQ is aware of various commentators alleging Carrier IQ has violated wiretap laws and we vigorously disagree with these assertions.

Our software makes your phone better by delivering intelligence on the performance of mobile devices and networks to help the Operators provide optimal service efficiency. We are deployed by leading Operators to monitor and analyze the performance of their services and mobile devices to ensure the system (network and handsets) works to optimal efficiency. Operators want to provide better service to their customers, and information from the device and about the network is critical for them to do this. While in-network tools deliver information such as the location of calls and call quality, they do not provide information on the most important aspect of the service - the mobile device itself.

Carrier IQ acts as an agent for the Operators. Each implementation is different and the diagnostic information actually gathered is determined by our customers – the mobile Operators. Carrier IQ does not gather any other data from devices.

CIQ is the consumer advocate to the mobile operator, explaining what works and what does not work. Three of the main complaints we hear from mobile device users are (1) dropped calls, (2) poor customer service, and (3) having to constantly recharge the device. Our software allows Operators to figure out why problems are occurring, why calls are dropped, and how to extend the life of the battery. When a user calls to complain about a problem, our software helps Operators’ customer service more quickly identify the specific issue with the phone.

Related

About.com Rolls Out Lifestyle Content On Flipboard

2011-11-30T00:01:29Z

As the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Co.-owned About Group continues its turnaround efforts in the face of weak display and cost-per-click ad sales, the flagship guide site is hoping that its placement within the social reader app Flipboard will help bring in new readers and advertisers.

As of this afternoon, About.com began providing content from its main Twitter feed, its homepage and six content categories: Health, Travel, Style, Parenting, Food and Home & Garden. It expects to have around 50 new articles each day on Flipboard’s editor-selected Living and Travel sections.

Flipboard has been striking a number of high-profile content deals over the last few months, with features from Condé Nast’s The New Yorker and Comedy Central’s Colbert Report, while About has been syndicating its RSS feeds for years. But in a lot ways, this one is different for both media companies.

For Flipboard, the addition of About.com’s lifestyle content helps build out its general news and feature offerings, with much of it directed towards women. That is also designed to open the app up to more advertisers, especially as it plots its expansion to the iPhone.

The main difference with Flipboard’s deal with About.com as opposed to previous ones is that the guide site is not exactly a destination that users generally seek without a purpose in mind. Traditionally, About has gotten 80 percent of its site traffic through search, from users who want to know how to cure a headache or how to make french toast.

If About has any fans among web users, it’s likely that its focused on the guides themselves as opposed to About.com. In September, the company’s new CEO Darline Jean reorganized its guide teams, which oversee its individual guides. At the same time, the site has added roughly 115 more guide sites for a total of nearly 1,000 by the end of this year.

The Flipboard deal could put more focus on the About brand, something that the company has tried to do through marketing campaigns. Flipboard is still relatively new and by planting About’s lifestyle content within the app, it’s conceivable to think that users will be more favorably disposed towards it and its content (though About is by no means trumpeting this move as some sort of game-changer, of course). With competition coming from the likes of Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) and others, this deal is a small, but potentially positive step in About’s attempt to reverse its revenue declines.

Related

One More Step In The Google/Motorola Merger: EU Approval Sought

2011-11-28T15:19:50Z

The Federal Communications Commission in the U.S. may have dealt what might possibly be a fatal blow to AT&T (NYSE: T) in its bid to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom; (NYSE: DT) now another mega mobile merger is coming up to bat against the regulators: Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is formally seeking approval from EU regulators for its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola (NYSE: MMI) Mobility.

According to a filing on the European Commission website dated November 25, Google and Motorola are applying under Council Regulation 139/2004, which covers all rules around merger regulations for the European Commission. The provisional deadline for the regulator’s decision has been set for January 10, 2012.

The acquisition is also being investigated currently by the Department of Justice.

This is the only merger/acquisition case involving Google that is currently being heard by the European Commission, although there are three other cases currently listed where Google is being investigated for antitrust violations.

The plaintiffs in those cases are price-comparison site Foundem; another price-comparison service called Ciao, owned by Microsoft; (NSDQ: MSFT) and French search company 1plusV, which operates the site eJustice.fr.

It’s not clear how and whether those existing cases could serve to make it more difficult for Google to push its Motorola buy through the courts, but as we noted when the Motorola deal was first announced, Motorola has seen its position in the European market declining for some time now—figures from Strategy Analytics put its share at less that one percent, although it is pushing ahead with the launch of a new Xoom tablet and Razr touchscreen device. Couple that with more investment from Google in flagship Android devices and we could see a reversal in that trend.

Motorola, meanwhile, has been most talked about in Europe of late because of its face-off with Apple in a German court: the company is going after Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) for what it claims are violations of patents it holds in the area of cloud services. Apple faces potential injunctions on its devices and services if Motorola proves to be successful in that ongoing case.

Related

One More Step In The Google/Motorola Merger: EU Approval Sought

2011-11-28T15:19:24Z

The acquisition is also being investigated currently by the Department of Justice.

Related

Black Friday Roundup: Strong Start, But Will Sales Hold?

2011-11-28T14:23:41Z

Despite warnings from groups like the OECD that Europe and the U.S. are heading into recession, the flurry of online and mobile activity that has kicked off the holiday shopping season seems to be indicating an altogether different sentiment from consumers.

comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) has released its figures noting that Black Friday sales—the day after Thanksgiving that has come to mark the start of holiday shopping—were up 26 percent compared to the same day a year ago.

In total, comScore said that some $816 million was spent online in the U.S. on the Friday, the biggest day yet in holiday season shopping (comScore records from the beginning of November). To date, some $12.7 billion has been spent online, an increase of 15 percent on the same month a year ago.

What’s not clear is whether that growth in online shopping was reflected in physical, retail shopping, too—or whether more dollars are pouring into online at the expense of brick-and-mortar operations. In years past, online sales were usually shifted to “Cyber Monday” where retailers would push online deals to coincide with people returning to work but still wanting to shop for the holidays. Now the two periods seem to be merging ever closer together.

While the holiday shopping season is usually geared to physical goods, what’s notable in the top-ten most popular gadget buys from Thanksgiving weekend, is that they also point to a much larger proliferation of devices geared at consuming more digital content.

In a list compiled by PriceGrabber, a division of Experian, lists the usual suspects of Sony’s PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, and the Nintendo Wii; while Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is the single-most mentioned brand, with three products in the top ten (iPod, MacBook Pro, and iPad 2).

Some other notable highlights:

Amazon: comScore noted that Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) was the most-visited online retailer so far this year, with 50 percent more visits than its nearest online competitor, Walmart—those rankings do not include auction sites like eBay (NSDQ: EBAY). Amazon, meanwhile, itself today noted that this year has been their best-ever for Kindle sales, which sold four times as many as it has on any other Black Friday. As usual, Amazon has not given a figure on how many Kindles that means, exactly, or how well, say, the Kindle Fire tablet has been selling compared to the basic $79 Kindle device. Nor is it clear where those Kindles are getting bought: Amazon sells them online through its own portal, but also through 16,000 retail locations.

B&N: For balance, it’s worth pointing here that Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) has not released any numbers on sales of the Nook over Thanksgiving weekend, but it has today announced a deal whereby those who buy any Nook device gets a $25 gift card, usable for either books or Nook accessories.

eBay/PayPal: Although it was overlooked in comScore’s retail rankings, the auction giant’s payment service PayPal noted a big rise in shopping activity, too, particularly on the mobile platform that working hard to promote these days. There, it says it had a six-fold increase, to 516 percent, in mobile payments volumes on Black Friday compared to the same day a year ago. Customer numbers were up four-fold (371 percent). Like Amazon, the company does not give us that number in actual terms.

eBay’s mobile site, meanwhile, received a bump, too. The number of items purchased on Black Friday was up 2.5 times. GSI Commerce, the eBay company that runs online shopping sites for brick-and-mortar retailers, noted a 254 percent increase in sales via mobile on Black Friday as well. Milo.com, which is eBay’s service that lets consumers compare prices for an item across local stores before purchasing, was also up 692 percent. In other words, the kind of high growth that you see when a service is still relatively new but of interest to consumers.

More on the mobile factor: Even if you combine the number of people using mobile sites to supplement physical shop visits with those that buy directly from mobile devices, mobile commerce still represents a small part of holiday shopping, but its role is growing, and fast: IBM Coremetrics noted a rise in both areas. The number of those using mobiles for research went up to 14.3 percent from 5.6 percent a year ago. Sales, however, remained in single digits, at 9.8 percent versus 3.2 percent in 2010.

The researchers noted that Apple’s iPhone and iPad were the two most-common devices used for mobile commerce in the period, respectively at 5.4 percent and 4.8 percent respectively (meaning that together they accounted for ten percent of all online sales on Black Friday). Android was the third most-used mobile platform at 4.1 percent. Interestingly, it looks like the iPad is also a more sticky device—either that, or iPads belong to people who are more serious online buyers: the conversion rate for those browsing on iPads is 4.6 percent compared to an average of 2.8 percent on other mobile devices, the researches said.

But there is still a long way to go to make the mobile experience more engaging and effective. IBM Coremetrics noted that the “bounce rate” on mobile devices was 41.3 percent compared to 33.1 percent for general online shopping: that means people are visiting one page and leaving before exploring any further—and like a restaurant customer nibbling on an appetizer instead of gorging on a full meal, that makes for bad business in the longer run.

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