WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Like a good Hollywood sequel, Megaupload is back.
Kim Dotcom, the founder of the shuttered file-sharing site that housed everything from family photos to blockbuster films, on Thursday announced a new online storage service called Mega that will give users direct control - and responsibility - over their files.
Mega will launch in January 2013, just before the internet entrepreneur is scheduled to face an extradition hearing to the United States where he and other Megaupload operators face charges of online piracy, fraud and money laundering.
In a snub to U.S. prosecutors, the site will not utilize U.S.-based hosting companies as partners in order to avoid being shut down by U.S. authorities.
The U.S. government alleges that Megaupload, once one of the world's most popular websites, was directly responsible for illegally uploaded content on the site and that it netted $175 million from unlawful activities.
'The new Mega will not be threatened by U.S. prosecutors,' Dotcom told Reuters in an interview, adding that he was confident Mega would avoid violating U.S. law.
'The new Mega avoids any dealings with U.S. hosters, U.S. domains and U.S. backbone providers and has changed the way it operates to avoid another takedown,' he said.
ENCRYPTION KEYS
Mega is the follow-up to Megaupload, which was shut down in January this year when New Zealand police helicopters swooped into the flamboyant Dotcom's mansion outside Auckland to seize computers and other evidence at the request of U.S. authorities.
Users of the new cloud-based service will be able to upload, store and share photos, text files, music and films, encrypt those files and grant access using unique decryption keys.
'You hold the keys to what you store in the cloud, not us,' a statement on the Mega website said.
While the new site will operate faster and boast a bigger storage capacity, the encryption technology marks a major change from Megaupload as Mega operators will not have access to files and will therefore be immune to content liability.
Ensuring that files are not pirated will be the job of content owners, a major change from Megaupload, which the U.S. film industry says was directly responsible for taking down illegally uploaded content.
'Content owners can still remove infringing material and they will even get direct delete access if they agree not to make us responsible for actions of users,' Dotcom said.
Dotcom's announcement comes just weeks after a U.S. federal judge ruled that Washington's criminal case against Megaupload will go forward for now.
Dotcom, a German national who holds New Zealand residency, faces an extradition hearing in March even though a New Zealand court ruled that the January raid and seizure were unlawful, while the nation's spy agency was found to have illegally spied on Dotcom.
Thursday's announcement was delayed for about one hour after the website was overloaded by users. According to Dotcom, much of the traffic was driven by U.S. authorities.
'FBI agents pressing reload...We see their IP addresses,' he said on his Twitter feed.
(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu; Editing by Matt Driskill)
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Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Facebook shares fall as lock-up period expires
(Reuters) - Facebook Inc shares fell 4 percent to $21.07 in busy early trade on Wednesday morning on the company's approval to let employees sell some stock.
The world's largest social network waived a provision that prevented employees from selling shares until November 14. As a result, Facebook staffers were able to sell their vested shares on October 29.
However, because the markets were closed on Monday and Tuesday due to powerful storm Sandy, Wednesday was the first trading day. About 234 million shares held by employees are eligible for sale in the public market.
Facebook suffered a painful public debut earlier this year, as investors worried about the company's ability to keep up its revenue growth and the large pool of additional shares in the lock-up that are now hitting the market.
Wall Street also has cast a gimlet eye on Facebook and its ability to attract mobile revenue as more people turn to smartphones and tablet devices to access the web.
Last week, Facebook said it grew its mobile advertising revenue at a faster than expected pace, totaling $150 million in the third quarter. Estimates had pegged mobile revenue at $40 million to $50 million in the second quarter.
(Reporting By Jennifer Saba; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Claudia Parsons)
This news article is brought to you by GIRLS TEACH DATING - where latest news are our top priority.
The world's largest social network waived a provision that prevented employees from selling shares until November 14. As a result, Facebook staffers were able to sell their vested shares on October 29.
However, because the markets were closed on Monday and Tuesday due to powerful storm Sandy, Wednesday was the first trading day. About 234 million shares held by employees are eligible for sale in the public market.
Facebook suffered a painful public debut earlier this year, as investors worried about the company's ability to keep up its revenue growth and the large pool of additional shares in the lock-up that are now hitting the market.
Wall Street also has cast a gimlet eye on Facebook and its ability to attract mobile revenue as more people turn to smartphones and tablet devices to access the web.
Last week, Facebook said it grew its mobile advertising revenue at a faster than expected pace, totaling $150 million in the third quarter. Estimates had pegged mobile revenue at $40 million to $50 million in the second quarter.
(Reporting By Jennifer Saba; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Claudia Parsons)
This news article is brought to you by GIRLS TEACH DATING - where latest news are our top priority.
Softbank says considering various options with eAccess
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Softbank Corp said on Wednesday it is mulling various options with regard to its future stake in eAccess Ltd, which it acquired in a $1.84 billion deal earlier this month.
Softbank chief executive Masayoshi Son said it had not changed its intention to buy a 100 percent stake in the rival wireless carrier.
Japanese media reported this week Softbank is considering selling its majority stake in eAccess after it completes the buyout next February.
(Reporting by Mari Saito; Editing by Michael Watson)
This news article is brought to you by ANIMALS AND PETS - where latest news are our top priority.
Softbank chief executive Masayoshi Son said it had not changed its intention to buy a 100 percent stake in the rival wireless carrier.
Japanese media reported this week Softbank is considering selling its majority stake in eAccess after it completes the buyout next February.
(Reporting by Mari Saito; Editing by Michael Watson)
This news article is brought to you by ANIMALS AND PETS - where latest news are our top priority.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
In hurricane, Twitter proves a lifeline despite pranksters
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - As Hurricane Sandy pounded the U.S. Atlantic coast on Monday night, knocking out electricity and Internet connections, millions of residents turned to Twitter as a part-newswire, part-911 hotline that hummed through the night even as some websites failed and swathes of Manhattan fell dark.
But the social network also became a fertile ground for pranksters who seized the moment to disseminate rumors and Photoshopped images, including a false tweet Monday night that the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange was submerged under several feet of water.
The exchange issued a denial, but not before the tweet was circulated by countless users and reported on-air by CNN, illustrating how Twitter had become the essential - but deeply fallible - spine of information coursing through real-time, major media events.
But a year after Twitter gained attention for its role in the rescue efforts in tsunami-stricken Japan, the network seemed to solidify its mainstream foothold as government agencies, news outlets and residents in need turned to it at the most critical hour.
Beginning late Sunday, government agencies and officials, from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo(@NYGovCuomo) to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (@FEMA) to @NotifyNYC, an account handled by New York City's emergency management officials, issued evacuation orders and updates.
As the storm battered New York Monday night, residents encountering clogged 9-1-1 dispatch lines flooded the Fire Department's @fdny Twitter account with appeals for information and help for trapped relatives and friends.
One elderly resident needed rescue in a building in Manhattan Beach. Another user sent @fdny an Instagram photo of four insulin shots that she needed refrigerated immediately. Yet another sought a portable generator for a friend on a ventilator living downtown.
Emily Rahimi, who manages the @fdny account by herself, according to a department spokesman, coolly fielded dozens of requests, while answering questions about whether to call 311, New York's non-emergency help line, or Consolidated Edison.
At the Red Cross of America's Washington D.C. headquarters, in a small room called the Digital Operations Center, six wall-mounted monitors display a stream of updates from Twitter and Facebook and a visual 'heat map' of where posts seeking help are coming from.
The heat map informed how the Red Cross's aid workers deployed their resources, said Wendy Harman, the Red Cross director of social strategy.
The Red Cross was also using Radian6, a social media monitoring tool sold by Salesforce.com, to spot people seeking help and answer their questions.
'We found out we can carry out the mission of the Red Cross from the social Web,' said Harman, who hosted a brief visit from President Barack Obama on Tuesday.
SPREADING INFORMATION
Twitter, which in the past year has heavily ramped up its advertising offerings and features to suit large brand marketers like Pepsico Inc and Procter & Gamble, suddenly found itself offering its tools to new kind of client on Monday: public agencies that wanted help spreading information.
For the first time, the company created a '#Sandy' event page - a format once reserved for large ad-friendly media events like the Olympics or Nascar races - that served as a hub where visitors could see aggregated information. The page displayed manually- and algorithmically-selected tweets plucked from official accounts like those of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was particularly active on the network.
Agencies like the Maryland Emergency Management Agency and the New York Mayor's Office also used Twitter's promoted tweets - an ad product used by advertisers to reach a broader consumer base - to get out the word.
The company said offering such services for free to government agencies was one of several initiatives, including a service that broadcasts location-specific alerts and public announcements based on a Twitter user's postal code.
'We learned from the storm and tsunami in Japan that Twitter can often be a lifeline,' said Rachael Horwitz, a Twitter spokeswoman.
Jeannette Sutton, a sociologist at the University of Colorado who has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security to study social media uses in disaster management, said government agencies have been skeptical until recently about using social media during natural disasters.
'There's a big problem with whether it's valid, accurate information out there,' Sutton said. 'But if you're not part of the conversation, you're going to be missing out.'
As the hurricane hit one of the most wired regions in the country, news outlets also took advantage of the smartphone users who chronicled rising tides on every flooded block. On Instagram, the photo-sharing website, witnesses shared color-filtered snapshots of floating cars, submerged gas stations and a building shorn of its facade at a rate of more than 10 pictures per second, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom told Poynter.org on Tuesday.
Many of the images were republished in the live coverage by news websites and aired on television broadcasts.
LIES SLAPPED DOWN
But by late Monday, fake images began to circulate widely, including a picture of a storm cloud gathering dramatically over the Statue of Liberty and a photoshopped job of a shark lurking in a submerged residential neighborhood. The latter image even surfaced on social networks in China.
Then there was the slew of fabricated message from @comfortablysmug, the Twitter account that claimed the NYSE was underwater. The account is owned by Shashank Tripathi, the hedge fund investor and campaign manager for Christopher Wight, the Republican candidate to represent New York's 12th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Tripathi, who did not return emails by Reuters seeking comment, apologized Tuesday night for making a 'series of irresponsible and inaccurate tweets' and resigned from Wight's campaign.
His identity was first reported by Jack Stuef of BuzzFeed.
Around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Tripathi began deleting many of his Hurricane Sandy tweets. Tripathi's friend, @theAshok, defended Tripathi, telling Reuters on Twitter: 'People shouldn't be taking 'news' from an anonymous twitter account seriously.'
Tripathi's @comfortablysmug's Twitter stream, which is followed by business journalists, bloggers and various New York personalities, had been a well-known voice in digital circles, but mostly for his 140-character-or-less criticisms of the Obama administration, often accompanied by the hashtag, #ObamaIsn'tWorking.
On Tuesday, New York City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. appeared to threaten Tripathi with prosecution when he tweeted that he hoped Tripathi was 'less smug and comfortable cuz I'm talking to Cy,' presumably referring to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
For its part, Twitter said that it would not have considered suspending the account unless it received a request from a law enforcement agency.
'We don't moderate content, and we certainly don't want to be in a position of deciding what speech is OK and what speech is not,' said Horwitz, Twitter's spokeswoman.
But Ben Smith, the editor at Buzzfeed, which outed Tripathi, said Twitter's credibility would not be affected by rumormongers because netizens often self-correct and identify falsehoods.
'They used to say a lie will travel halfway around the world before the truth puts its shoes on, but in the Twitter world, that's not true anymore,' Smith said. 'The lies get slapped down really fast.'
For Smith, the ability to disseminate information via Twitter and Facebook on Monday night became perhaps even more important than his Web publication, which enjoyed one of its better nights in readership but went dark when the blackout crippled the site's servers in downtown Manhattan.
Buzzfeed's staff quickly began publishing on Tumblr instead, and Smith personally took over Buzzfeed's Twitter account to stay in the thick of the conversation.
'Our view of the world is that social distribution is the key thing,' Smith said. 'We're in the business of creating content that people want to share, more than the business of maintaining a website.'
(Reporting By Gerry Shih in San Francisco and Jennifer Ablan and Felix Salmon in New York; Editing by Robert Birsel)
This article is brought to you by BUY CHEAP COMPUTERS.
But the social network also became a fertile ground for pranksters who seized the moment to disseminate rumors and Photoshopped images, including a false tweet Monday night that the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange was submerged under several feet of water.
The exchange issued a denial, but not before the tweet was circulated by countless users and reported on-air by CNN, illustrating how Twitter had become the essential - but deeply fallible - spine of information coursing through real-time, major media events.
But a year after Twitter gained attention for its role in the rescue efforts in tsunami-stricken Japan, the network seemed to solidify its mainstream foothold as government agencies, news outlets and residents in need turned to it at the most critical hour.
Beginning late Sunday, government agencies and officials, from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo(@NYGovCuomo) to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (@FEMA) to @NotifyNYC, an account handled by New York City's emergency management officials, issued evacuation orders and updates.
As the storm battered New York Monday night, residents encountering clogged 9-1-1 dispatch lines flooded the Fire Department's @fdny Twitter account with appeals for information and help for trapped relatives and friends.
One elderly resident needed rescue in a building in Manhattan Beach. Another user sent @fdny an Instagram photo of four insulin shots that she needed refrigerated immediately. Yet another sought a portable generator for a friend on a ventilator living downtown.
Emily Rahimi, who manages the @fdny account by herself, according to a department spokesman, coolly fielded dozens of requests, while answering questions about whether to call 311, New York's non-emergency help line, or Consolidated Edison.
At the Red Cross of America's Washington D.C. headquarters, in a small room called the Digital Operations Center, six wall-mounted monitors display a stream of updates from Twitter and Facebook and a visual 'heat map' of where posts seeking help are coming from.
The heat map informed how the Red Cross's aid workers deployed their resources, said Wendy Harman, the Red Cross director of social strategy.
The Red Cross was also using Radian6, a social media monitoring tool sold by Salesforce.com, to spot people seeking help and answer their questions.
'We found out we can carry out the mission of the Red Cross from the social Web,' said Harman, who hosted a brief visit from President Barack Obama on Tuesday.
SPREADING INFORMATION
Twitter, which in the past year has heavily ramped up its advertising offerings and features to suit large brand marketers like Pepsico Inc and Procter & Gamble, suddenly found itself offering its tools to new kind of client on Monday: public agencies that wanted help spreading information.
For the first time, the company created a '#Sandy' event page - a format once reserved for large ad-friendly media events like the Olympics or Nascar races - that served as a hub where visitors could see aggregated information. The page displayed manually- and algorithmically-selected tweets plucked from official accounts like those of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was particularly active on the network.
Agencies like the Maryland Emergency Management Agency and the New York Mayor's Office also used Twitter's promoted tweets - an ad product used by advertisers to reach a broader consumer base - to get out the word.
The company said offering such services for free to government agencies was one of several initiatives, including a service that broadcasts location-specific alerts and public announcements based on a Twitter user's postal code.
'We learned from the storm and tsunami in Japan that Twitter can often be a lifeline,' said Rachael Horwitz, a Twitter spokeswoman.
Jeannette Sutton, a sociologist at the University of Colorado who has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security to study social media uses in disaster management, said government agencies have been skeptical until recently about using social media during natural disasters.
'There's a big problem with whether it's valid, accurate information out there,' Sutton said. 'But if you're not part of the conversation, you're going to be missing out.'
As the hurricane hit one of the most wired regions in the country, news outlets also took advantage of the smartphone users who chronicled rising tides on every flooded block. On Instagram, the photo-sharing website, witnesses shared color-filtered snapshots of floating cars, submerged gas stations and a building shorn of its facade at a rate of more than 10 pictures per second, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom told Poynter.org on Tuesday.
Many of the images were republished in the live coverage by news websites and aired on television broadcasts.
LIES SLAPPED DOWN
But by late Monday, fake images began to circulate widely, including a picture of a storm cloud gathering dramatically over the Statue of Liberty and a photoshopped job of a shark lurking in a submerged residential neighborhood. The latter image even surfaced on social networks in China.
Then there was the slew of fabricated message from @comfortablysmug, the Twitter account that claimed the NYSE was underwater. The account is owned by Shashank Tripathi, the hedge fund investor and campaign manager for Christopher Wight, the Republican candidate to represent New York's 12th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Tripathi, who did not return emails by Reuters seeking comment, apologized Tuesday night for making a 'series of irresponsible and inaccurate tweets' and resigned from Wight's campaign.
His identity was first reported by Jack Stuef of BuzzFeed.
Around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Tripathi began deleting many of his Hurricane Sandy tweets. Tripathi's friend, @theAshok, defended Tripathi, telling Reuters on Twitter: 'People shouldn't be taking 'news' from an anonymous twitter account seriously.'
Tripathi's @comfortablysmug's Twitter stream, which is followed by business journalists, bloggers and various New York personalities, had been a well-known voice in digital circles, but mostly for his 140-character-or-less criticisms of the Obama administration, often accompanied by the hashtag, #ObamaIsn'tWorking.
On Tuesday, New York City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. appeared to threaten Tripathi with prosecution when he tweeted that he hoped Tripathi was 'less smug and comfortable cuz I'm talking to Cy,' presumably referring to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
For its part, Twitter said that it would not have considered suspending the account unless it received a request from a law enforcement agency.
'We don't moderate content, and we certainly don't want to be in a position of deciding what speech is OK and what speech is not,' said Horwitz, Twitter's spokeswoman.
But Ben Smith, the editor at Buzzfeed, which outed Tripathi, said Twitter's credibility would not be affected by rumormongers because netizens often self-correct and identify falsehoods.
'They used to say a lie will travel halfway around the world before the truth puts its shoes on, but in the Twitter world, that's not true anymore,' Smith said. 'The lies get slapped down really fast.'
For Smith, the ability to disseminate information via Twitter and Facebook on Monday night became perhaps even more important than his Web publication, which enjoyed one of its better nights in readership but went dark when the blackout crippled the site's servers in downtown Manhattan.
Buzzfeed's staff quickly began publishing on Tumblr instead, and Smith personally took over Buzzfeed's Twitter account to stay in the thick of the conversation.
'Our view of the world is that social distribution is the key thing,' Smith said. 'We're in the business of creating content that people want to share, more than the business of maintaining a website.'
(Reporting By Gerry Shih in San Francisco and Jennifer Ablan and Felix Salmon in New York; Editing by Robert Birsel)
This article is brought to you by BUY CHEAP COMPUTERS.
Hurricane Sandy wallops Internet commerce just as hard
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - From Fab.com to Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc, e-commerce companies scrambled on Tuesday to get goods to buyers on time after Hurricane Sandy tore a swathe of destruction across the U.S. northeast.
The storm -- which severed power to warehouses and offices, ripped up rails and roads and shuttered airports -- challenged the notion that Internet retailers might benefit from problems at store chains exposed to the elements.
Fab.com, a fast-growing design e-commerce start-up based in New York City, handled unusually strong volumes on Monday as people hunkered down at home. Then the problems began.
Fab operates out of two warehouses in hard-hit New Jersey, one self-owned and another run by warehouse company Dotcom Distribution. With both lacking power as of mid-afternoon, no packages were making it out the door on Tuesday.
'The biggest impact to us right now is that our warehouses have no power,' said Jason Goldberg, founder and chief executive of Fab.com. 'We're doing everything humanly possible to send packages as quickly as possible.'
Retailers from New York to Washington are starting to re-open and re-staff in the aftermath of Monday's destruction. But many of Fab.com's fellow Internet retailers were still struggling to fill orders, handle customer service and keep websites running ahead of the crucial holiday season.
Those efforts are geared at ensuring buyers do not wait too long for their products -- and averting a damaging backlash against their sites and reputation.
Amazon.com warned merchants on Tuesday that use its shipping service, Fulfillment by Amazon, that Sandy might impact the handling of orders. Third-party sellers on its marketplace that handle their own shipping were instructed to contact shoppers directly about their orders.
It advised them to temporarily deactivate online listings should they be unable to meet usual shipping standards.
'Because the Internet is an opaque purchasing method, customers don't always understand where their product is coming from or if they are going to be affected,' said Eric Heller, head of Marketplace Ignition, which helps online retailers sell through websites such as Amazon.com. 'We're encouraging sellers to proactively reach out to buyers that may be affected.'
RECOVERY PLANS
EBay pursued a similar tactic, emailing shoppers who purchased items from merchants that may have been impacted by the storm in recent days, asking for patience. It recommended that affected eBay Store-subscribers put their pages in 'vacation mode' to control purchasing and show shoppers that their operation has been temporarily disrupted, a spokeswoman said.
And Gilt Groupe, which runs a popular high-end fashion website, expects delivery times to take one to three days longer than normal, said Kevin Ryan, founder and CEO of the company.
Beyond logistics tangles, loss of power and telecommunications have hurt Internet firms that rely on telephone and Web-based customer service in the absence of store staff.
Fab.com's offices a block from New York's Hudson River were blacked out and closed until further notice. About a third of employees lacked power as of Tuesday afternoon. A dozen camped out at Goldberg's home working on recovery plans and preparing the company's online holiday stores for their Thursday launch.
Gilt's offices in New York have been difficult to access, so the company has not been able to run its usual photoshoots for a few days, Ryan said.
'We will need to get back in soon or there will not be any new sales up,' he said. 'I think we will get back in by Thursday and everything will be OK.'
Others like online eyeglasses start-up Warby Parker, in the SoHo district of New York City, sought temporary solutions to a loss of power and Web access. It found a temporary office that it will start using on Wednesday to handle customer inquiries.
'We've been scrambling to get our systems up and running,' said co-founder Dave Gilboa.
(Additional reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco; Editing by Edwin Chan and Chris Gallagher)
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
The storm -- which severed power to warehouses and offices, ripped up rails and roads and shuttered airports -- challenged the notion that Internet retailers might benefit from problems at store chains exposed to the elements.
Fab.com, a fast-growing design e-commerce start-up based in New York City, handled unusually strong volumes on Monday as people hunkered down at home. Then the problems began.
Fab operates out of two warehouses in hard-hit New Jersey, one self-owned and another run by warehouse company Dotcom Distribution. With both lacking power as of mid-afternoon, no packages were making it out the door on Tuesday.
'The biggest impact to us right now is that our warehouses have no power,' said Jason Goldberg, founder and chief executive of Fab.com. 'We're doing everything humanly possible to send packages as quickly as possible.'
Retailers from New York to Washington are starting to re-open and re-staff in the aftermath of Monday's destruction. But many of Fab.com's fellow Internet retailers were still struggling to fill orders, handle customer service and keep websites running ahead of the crucial holiday season.
Those efforts are geared at ensuring buyers do not wait too long for their products -- and averting a damaging backlash against their sites and reputation.
Amazon.com warned merchants on Tuesday that use its shipping service, Fulfillment by Amazon, that Sandy might impact the handling of orders. Third-party sellers on its marketplace that handle their own shipping were instructed to contact shoppers directly about their orders.
It advised them to temporarily deactivate online listings should they be unable to meet usual shipping standards.
'Because the Internet is an opaque purchasing method, customers don't always understand where their product is coming from or if they are going to be affected,' said Eric Heller, head of Marketplace Ignition, which helps online retailers sell through websites such as Amazon.com. 'We're encouraging sellers to proactively reach out to buyers that may be affected.'
RECOVERY PLANS
EBay pursued a similar tactic, emailing shoppers who purchased items from merchants that may have been impacted by the storm in recent days, asking for patience. It recommended that affected eBay Store-subscribers put their pages in 'vacation mode' to control purchasing and show shoppers that their operation has been temporarily disrupted, a spokeswoman said.
And Gilt Groupe, which runs a popular high-end fashion website, expects delivery times to take one to three days longer than normal, said Kevin Ryan, founder and CEO of the company.
Beyond logistics tangles, loss of power and telecommunications have hurt Internet firms that rely on telephone and Web-based customer service in the absence of store staff.
Fab.com's offices a block from New York's Hudson River were blacked out and closed until further notice. About a third of employees lacked power as of Tuesday afternoon. A dozen camped out at Goldberg's home working on recovery plans and preparing the company's online holiday stores for their Thursday launch.
Gilt's offices in New York have been difficult to access, so the company has not been able to run its usual photoshoots for a few days, Ryan said.
'We will need to get back in soon or there will not be any new sales up,' he said. 'I think we will get back in by Thursday and everything will be OK.'
Others like online eyeglasses start-up Warby Parker, in the SoHo district of New York City, sought temporary solutions to a loss of power and Web access. It found a temporary office that it will start using on Wednesday to handle customer inquiries.
'We've been scrambling to get our systems up and running,' said co-founder Dave Gilboa.
(Additional reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco; Editing by Edwin Chan and Chris Gallagher)
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
Ohio jury convicts teenager of Craigslist murders
AKRON, Ohio (Reuters) - A jury convicted 17-year-old Brogan Rafferty of murder on Tuesday in the deaths of three men, two of whom were lured to Ohio by a Craigslist ad promising work on a farm.
Rafferty and Richard Beasley, 53, were charged with murder in the deaths of the three men. Two men answered a social media ad for a $300-a-week job as a caretaker on a farm about 100 miles south of Cleveland.
Although prosecutors said Beasley pulled the trigger, they accused Rafferty of assisting in the crimes and the attempted murder of a fourth man, Scott Davis.
Rafferty was 16 when he was arrested in November 2011, but was tried as an adult. He faces up to life in prison in the killing of David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Virginia; Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron, Ohio; and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio.
The Summit County, Ohio, jury of seven women and five men took 20 hours to reach a verdict.
During the trial, Rafferty testified that he feared for his life after watching Beasley, a man he considered a father figure and spiritual leader, shoot Geiger in the head execution style.
During his testimony, Rafferty admitted he dug two holes that he said were meant to be graves. He told jurors that he felt trapped into doing what Beasley said because he was 'terrified' of the older man.
But prosecutors called Rafferty an apt pupil of Beasley's and said the teen had ample opportunities to turn the older man in and protect himself and his family.
Beasley, a friend of the Rafferty family, is scheduled to stand trial in January. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
In other incidents involving Craigslist and other social media, people advertising goods for sale or responding to ads have been attacked and killed.
In 2009, a former medical student was accused of killing a masseuse he met through Craigslist. In February, two men in Tennessee were accused of killing a man and a woman for 'unfriending' the daughter of one of the suspects on Facebook.
(Editing by Greg McCune and James B. Kelleher; Editing by Sandra Maler and Stacey Joyce)
This news article is brought to you by TAXES BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Rafferty and Richard Beasley, 53, were charged with murder in the deaths of the three men. Two men answered a social media ad for a $300-a-week job as a caretaker on a farm about 100 miles south of Cleveland.
Although prosecutors said Beasley pulled the trigger, they accused Rafferty of assisting in the crimes and the attempted murder of a fourth man, Scott Davis.
Rafferty was 16 when he was arrested in November 2011, but was tried as an adult. He faces up to life in prison in the killing of David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Virginia; Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron, Ohio; and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio.
The Summit County, Ohio, jury of seven women and five men took 20 hours to reach a verdict.
During the trial, Rafferty testified that he feared for his life after watching Beasley, a man he considered a father figure and spiritual leader, shoot Geiger in the head execution style.
During his testimony, Rafferty admitted he dug two holes that he said were meant to be graves. He told jurors that he felt trapped into doing what Beasley said because he was 'terrified' of the older man.
But prosecutors called Rafferty an apt pupil of Beasley's and said the teen had ample opportunities to turn the older man in and protect himself and his family.
Beasley, a friend of the Rafferty family, is scheduled to stand trial in January. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
In other incidents involving Craigslist and other social media, people advertising goods for sale or responding to ads have been attacked and killed.
In 2009, a former medical student was accused of killing a masseuse he met through Craigslist. In February, two men in Tennessee were accused of killing a man and a woman for 'unfriending' the daughter of one of the suspects on Facebook.
(Editing by Greg McCune and James B. Kelleher; Editing by Sandra Maler and Stacey Joyce)
This news article is brought to you by TAXES BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Ohio jury finds teenager guilty of Craigslist murders
AKRON, Ohio (Reuters) - An Ohio jury found 17-year-old Brogan Rafferty guilty of murder on Tuesday in the deaths of three men, two of whom were lured to Ohio by a Craigslist ad promising work on a farm.
Rafferty and Richard Beasley, 53, were charged with murder in the deaths of the three men. Two of them answered the social media ad for a $300-a-week job as a caretaker on a farm about 100 miles south of Cleveland.
Although prosecutors said Beasley was the trigger man in the shooting deaths, they accused Rafferty of assisting in the crimes and the attempted murder of a fourth man, Scott Davis.
Rafferty was 16 when he was arrested in November 2011 but was tried as an adult. He faces up to life in prison in the killing of David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Virginia; Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron, Ohio; and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio.
The verdict was reached by a Summit County, Ohio, jury of seven women and five men. They took 20 hours to reach a decision.
(Editing by Greg McCune; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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Rafferty and Richard Beasley, 53, were charged with murder in the deaths of the three men. Two of them answered the social media ad for a $300-a-week job as a caretaker on a farm about 100 miles south of Cleveland.
Although prosecutors said Beasley was the trigger man in the shooting deaths, they accused Rafferty of assisting in the crimes and the attempted murder of a fourth man, Scott Davis.
Rafferty was 16 when he was arrested in November 2011 but was tried as an adult. He faces up to life in prison in the killing of David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Virginia; Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron, Ohio; and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio.
The verdict was reached by a Summit County, Ohio, jury of seven women and five men. They took 20 hours to reach a decision.
(Editing by Greg McCune; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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Russia's Mail.Ru to launch global expansion with online games
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian email-to-social networking group Mail.Ru is targeting online gamers as it prepares to launch services in foreign markets under the 'my.com' name.
'Games is what we can begin to enter new markets with,' Dmitry Grishin, the chief executive officer of Mail.Ru Group, told reporters on Tuesday.
The company, part-owned by metals tycoon Alisher Usmanov, did not elaborate on its international plans, saying only that it has been testing various products in foreign markets for more than six months.
It has previously focused on the domestic, Russian-language market.
Rival internet group Yandex has already expanded to Turkey and Czech Republic and said recently it would take the fight against Google in other emerging markets to offset the inroads made by the U.S. giant in its home market.
Mail.Ru operates two of the three largest Russian language social networks, Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir, instant messaging networks Mail.Ru Agent and ICQ and email service Mail.ru.
It also has a 1.17 percent stake in U.S. game maker Zynga, a 0.75 percent stake in social networking site Facebook and 4.12 percent of shares in daily deal website Groupon.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)
This news article is brought to you by GLAMOROUS FASHION NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
'Games is what we can begin to enter new markets with,' Dmitry Grishin, the chief executive officer of Mail.Ru Group, told reporters on Tuesday.
The company, part-owned by metals tycoon Alisher Usmanov, did not elaborate on its international plans, saying only that it has been testing various products in foreign markets for more than six months.
It has previously focused on the domestic, Russian-language market.
Rival internet group Yandex has already expanded to Turkey and Czech Republic and said recently it would take the fight against Google in other emerging markets to offset the inroads made by the U.S. giant in its home market.
Mail.Ru operates two of the three largest Russian language social networks, Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir, instant messaging networks Mail.Ru Agent and ICQ and email service Mail.ru.
It also has a 1.17 percent stake in U.S. game maker Zynga, a 0.75 percent stake in social networking site Facebook and 4.12 percent of shares in daily deal website Groupon.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)
This news article is brought to you by GLAMOROUS FASHION NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Sandy takes down Huffington Post, Gawker websites
(Reuters) - Sandy, one of the biggest storms ever to hit eastern United States, flooded servers of Datagram Inc in New York City, bringing down several media websites it hosts, including Huffington Post and Gawker.
'We are continuing to battle flooding and fiber outages in downtown New York and Connecticut,' a notice posted on Datagram's website said. http://r.reuters.com/wat63t
'Verizon and other carriers in the area are down as well. Generators are unable to pump fuel due to the flooding in the basements,' Datagram said.
New York-based Datagram offers server-hosting services, network and Web application support, and database administration.
Sandy, which was especially imposing because of its wide-raging winds, brought a record surge of almost 14 feet to downtown Manhattan, well above the previous record of 10 feet during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said.
'Due to power outages caused by Superstorm Sandy, our own website is experiencing technical difficulties,' said Huffington Post, which is owned by AOL. http://r.reuters.com/vat63t
All Gawker Media websites, including Gizmodo and Lifehacker, were down.
'Gawker is temporarily down because the 57th Street Crane just flooded our servers with sea foam, or something. Back with you shortly,' Gawker said in a tweet. http://r.reuters.com/bet63t
BuzzFeed, a fast-growing website known for its quirky content that spreads quickly online, had gone down earlier but was back online with limited functionality.
'Elements of BuzzFeed's site and many story pages are back online, thanks to a Content Delivery Network, Akamai, which hosts the content at servers distributed around the world,' the company said in a post. http://r.reuters.com/zat63t
MarketWatch website, owned by News Corp, was also down and cited 'technical difficulties.' http://r.reuters.com/get63t
Verizon and AT&T were not immediately available for comment about outages.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore)
This news article is brought to you by PARENTING KIDS - where latest news are our top priority.
'We are continuing to battle flooding and fiber outages in downtown New York and Connecticut,' a notice posted on Datagram's website said. http://r.reuters.com/wat63t
'Verizon and other carriers in the area are down as well. Generators are unable to pump fuel due to the flooding in the basements,' Datagram said.
New York-based Datagram offers server-hosting services, network and Web application support, and database administration.
Sandy, which was especially imposing because of its wide-raging winds, brought a record surge of almost 14 feet to downtown Manhattan, well above the previous record of 10 feet during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said.
'Due to power outages caused by Superstorm Sandy, our own website is experiencing technical difficulties,' said Huffington Post, which is owned by AOL. http://r.reuters.com/vat63t
All Gawker Media websites, including Gizmodo and Lifehacker, were down.
'Gawker is temporarily down because the 57th Street Crane just flooded our servers with sea foam, or something. Back with you shortly,' Gawker said in a tweet. http://r.reuters.com/bet63t
BuzzFeed, a fast-growing website known for its quirky content that spreads quickly online, had gone down earlier but was back online with limited functionality.
'Elements of BuzzFeed's site and many story pages are back online, thanks to a Content Delivery Network, Akamai, which hosts the content at servers distributed around the world,' the company said in a post. http://r.reuters.com/zat63t
MarketWatch website, owned by News Corp, was also down and cited 'technical difficulties.' http://r.reuters.com/get63t
Verizon and AT&T were not immediately available for comment about outages.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore)
This news article is brought to you by PARENTING KIDS - where latest news are our top priority.
Monday, October 29, 2012
China's Baidu eyes soft fourth quarter as economy bites
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Baidu Inc, China's largest search engine company, posted its slowest quarterly revenue growth in more than two years and forecast softer-than-expected growth this quarter, hurt by weaker sales as China's economic engine sputters.
However, the company -- which still grew revenue by 50 percent in the third quarter -- said it added a record number of new advertisers for the quarter and was focusing on boosting revenue from fast-growing mobile search traffic.
'Their large customers' spending has not been so robust and has been quite flat, but Baidu has done a decent job of bringing new customers online,' said Michael Clendenin, managing director of technology consultancy firm RedTech Advisors.
Baidu has dominated China's search market since Google Inc relocated its search engine to Hong Kong in a row over censorship in 2010, and accounts for nearly 80 percent of all online searches.
It posted net income of $478.6 million in the three months ended September 30, up roughly 60 percent year-on-year. Baidu said it earned $1.39 per American Depository Share in the third quarter, excluding stock-based compensation expenses.
Revenue rose 49.7 percent to $994.6 million, and Baidu forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $979.3 million to $1.010 billion, below an average analysts' forecasts of $1.03 billion according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, but up from $715.9 million a year ago.
Despite a slowdown in spending by its big advertising customers, Baidu said it added a record number of advertisers in the third quarter and now had a total 390,000 active online marketing customers.
Credit Suisse downgraded the company in October to 'underperform' from 'neutral', due to concerns about its ability to monetize its mobile search traffic and worries about the erosion of its search market dominance.
Baidu Chief Executive Robin Li said on Tuesday that the firm's PC search traffic was 'not as exciting' as mobile search traffic, which was growing at triple digit rates.
'We are working hard to improve the monetization system for mobile and to educate our customers to take full advantage of mobile,' Li told analysts on a phone hook-up.
'But we expect it would take some time to close the gap,' he added, referring to both effective monetization and moving advertisers to mobile devices.
Baidu is also facing a challenge from China's top anti-virus software firm, Qihoo 360 Technology. A search engine launched by Qihoo in August has started to gain traction, accounting for 5-10 percent of search traffic since its launch, according to data from research firm Analysys International.
But analysts don't expect Qihoo to peel away much of Baidu's search market dominance because of the sheer size of the incumbent's resources.
'It's been one of these emotional hangovers on the (Baidu) stock but the reality is Qihoo is not monetizing and won't be monetizing probably until Q1 and even then it will be at a very small base,' Clendenin said.
Baidu shares have fallen about 2 percent this year on expectations that it will be hurt by slower economic growth in China, underperforming a 14 percent rise on the Nasdaq exchange.
(Additional reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Richard Pullin)
This article is brought to you by CHEAP COMPUTERS.
However, the company -- which still grew revenue by 50 percent in the third quarter -- said it added a record number of new advertisers for the quarter and was focusing on boosting revenue from fast-growing mobile search traffic.
'Their large customers' spending has not been so robust and has been quite flat, but Baidu has done a decent job of bringing new customers online,' said Michael Clendenin, managing director of technology consultancy firm RedTech Advisors.
Baidu has dominated China's search market since Google Inc relocated its search engine to Hong Kong in a row over censorship in 2010, and accounts for nearly 80 percent of all online searches.
It posted net income of $478.6 million in the three months ended September 30, up roughly 60 percent year-on-year. Baidu said it earned $1.39 per American Depository Share in the third quarter, excluding stock-based compensation expenses.
Revenue rose 49.7 percent to $994.6 million, and Baidu forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $979.3 million to $1.010 billion, below an average analysts' forecasts of $1.03 billion according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, but up from $715.9 million a year ago.
Despite a slowdown in spending by its big advertising customers, Baidu said it added a record number of advertisers in the third quarter and now had a total 390,000 active online marketing customers.
Credit Suisse downgraded the company in October to 'underperform' from 'neutral', due to concerns about its ability to monetize its mobile search traffic and worries about the erosion of its search market dominance.
Baidu Chief Executive Robin Li said on Tuesday that the firm's PC search traffic was 'not as exciting' as mobile search traffic, which was growing at triple digit rates.
'We are working hard to improve the monetization system for mobile and to educate our customers to take full advantage of mobile,' Li told analysts on a phone hook-up.
'But we expect it would take some time to close the gap,' he added, referring to both effective monetization and moving advertisers to mobile devices.
Baidu is also facing a challenge from China's top anti-virus software firm, Qihoo 360 Technology. A search engine launched by Qihoo in August has started to gain traction, accounting for 5-10 percent of search traffic since its launch, according to data from research firm Analysys International.
But analysts don't expect Qihoo to peel away much of Baidu's search market dominance because of the sheer size of the incumbent's resources.
'It's been one of these emotional hangovers on the (Baidu) stock but the reality is Qihoo is not monetizing and won't be monetizing probably until Q1 and even then it will be at a very small base,' Clendenin said.
Baidu shares have fallen about 2 percent this year on expectations that it will be hurt by slower economic growth in China, underperforming a 14 percent rise on the Nasdaq exchange.
(Additional reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Richard Pullin)
This article is brought to you by CHEAP COMPUTERS.
Apple software, retail chiefs out in overhaul
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook on Monday replaced the heads of its software and retail units in the company's biggest executive shake-up in a decade following embarrassing problems with its new mapping program and unpopular store-related decisions.
Software chief Scott Forstall, who oversaw the launch of the flawed mapping software and much criticized Siri voice-enabled assistant, will leave Apple next year.
Forstall, seen as a polarizing figure inside Apple, had been billed as one of the future candidates to take the top job at Apple. He was the executive behind the panned Apple Maps app that the company announced with much fanfare in summer.
Apple said in a statement that retail chief John Browett 'is leaving,' without elaborating; that a search for his replacement is underway; and the retail team would report directly to Cook. Browett had riled up the retail store staff when he reduced the number of employees in his unit.
The departures come a little more than a year into Cook's tenure as chief executive. Cook replaced the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, considered one of the best executives of all times by many analysts and investors.
'These changes show that Tim Cook is stamping his authority on the business,' Ben Wood, analyst with CCS Insight, said. 'Perhaps disappointed with the Maps issues, Forstall became the scapegoat.'
Apple upended the tech industry with the release of its iPhone smartphone in 2007. But the company is facing increasing competition from search giant Google, whose Android has become the world's most popular mobile software, as well as from Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft and Samsung.
'Competition is moving much faster to be more Apple-like,' said Tim Bajarin, president of technology research and consulting firm Creative Strategies. 'They're finding they need to streamline the management team in order to get things going faster.'
Apple's launch of its own mapping service in September, when it began selling the iPhone 5 and rolled out its updated iOS 6 software, led to widespread user complaints, particularly since it replaced the popular Google Inc Maps.
Apple's Siri personal assistant software also came under a lot of criticism, including for not providing information on business location, when it was launched last year.
Both the services were introduced with much fanfare by Forstall, who had supervised their development as senior vice president of iOS software.
The executive changes hand over substantially more responsibility to Eddy Cue, the head of Internet Software and Services who helped create the iTunes music store and App Store. The 23-year Apple veteran already is in charge of Cloud services and will take on Apple Maps and Siri. Craig Federighi will oversee Apple's mobile iOS software as well as its OS X Mac software, Apple said.
Putting the mobile and personal computer software teams under the same manager could improve operations within the company, particularly as the capabilities and features of smartphones and PCs increasingly converge, said analysts.
'If you have two different heads, you have two different fiefdoms,' said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.
Another executive who will get extra responsibility under the shake-up is Jonathan Ive, Apple's head of industrial design, who has played a key role in Apple's success by imbuing its gadgets with a distinct look and feel.
That magic touch could help reinvigorate the look of Apple's software, which has been criticized by some technology observers, Gillis said.
RETAIL SWITCH
Shares of Apple, the world's largest publicly traded company by market value, have declined 14 percent in the past month since reaching a 52-week high of $705.07 in September.
Browett, former CEO of British electronics retailer Dixons, took over as senior vice president of Apple's retail stores earlier this year, replacing Ron Johnson, who went on to become the CEO of JCPenney.
'I think ultimately they probably discovered that his experience with Dixons didn't translate that well to the Apple stores and he just probably wasn't the right fit,' Bajarin of Creative Strategies said.
Apple, which described Monday's moves as a way to increase 'collaboration' across its hardware, software and services business, said Forstall will serve as an advisor to Cook until his departure.
Last week Apple delivered a second straight quarter of disappointing financial results, and iPad sales fell short of Wall Street's targets, marring its record of consistently blowing past investors' expectations.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)
This article is brought to you by BUY A NEW COMPUTER.
Software chief Scott Forstall, who oversaw the launch of the flawed mapping software and much criticized Siri voice-enabled assistant, will leave Apple next year.
Forstall, seen as a polarizing figure inside Apple, had been billed as one of the future candidates to take the top job at Apple. He was the executive behind the panned Apple Maps app that the company announced with much fanfare in summer.
Apple said in a statement that retail chief John Browett 'is leaving,' without elaborating; that a search for his replacement is underway; and the retail team would report directly to Cook. Browett had riled up the retail store staff when he reduced the number of employees in his unit.
The departures come a little more than a year into Cook's tenure as chief executive. Cook replaced the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, considered one of the best executives of all times by many analysts and investors.
'These changes show that Tim Cook is stamping his authority on the business,' Ben Wood, analyst with CCS Insight, said. 'Perhaps disappointed with the Maps issues, Forstall became the scapegoat.'
Apple upended the tech industry with the release of its iPhone smartphone in 2007. But the company is facing increasing competition from search giant Google, whose Android has become the world's most popular mobile software, as well as from Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft and Samsung.
'Competition is moving much faster to be more Apple-like,' said Tim Bajarin, president of technology research and consulting firm Creative Strategies. 'They're finding they need to streamline the management team in order to get things going faster.'
Apple's launch of its own mapping service in September, when it began selling the iPhone 5 and rolled out its updated iOS 6 software, led to widespread user complaints, particularly since it replaced the popular Google Inc Maps.
Apple's Siri personal assistant software also came under a lot of criticism, including for not providing information on business location, when it was launched last year.
Both the services were introduced with much fanfare by Forstall, who had supervised their development as senior vice president of iOS software.
The executive changes hand over substantially more responsibility to Eddy Cue, the head of Internet Software and Services who helped create the iTunes music store and App Store. The 23-year Apple veteran already is in charge of Cloud services and will take on Apple Maps and Siri. Craig Federighi will oversee Apple's mobile iOS software as well as its OS X Mac software, Apple said.
Putting the mobile and personal computer software teams under the same manager could improve operations within the company, particularly as the capabilities and features of smartphones and PCs increasingly converge, said analysts.
'If you have two different heads, you have two different fiefdoms,' said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.
Another executive who will get extra responsibility under the shake-up is Jonathan Ive, Apple's head of industrial design, who has played a key role in Apple's success by imbuing its gadgets with a distinct look and feel.
That magic touch could help reinvigorate the look of Apple's software, which has been criticized by some technology observers, Gillis said.
RETAIL SWITCH
Shares of Apple, the world's largest publicly traded company by market value, have declined 14 percent in the past month since reaching a 52-week high of $705.07 in September.
Browett, former CEO of British electronics retailer Dixons, took over as senior vice president of Apple's retail stores earlier this year, replacing Ron Johnson, who went on to become the CEO of JCPenney.
'I think ultimately they probably discovered that his experience with Dixons didn't translate that well to the Apple stores and he just probably wasn't the right fit,' Bajarin of Creative Strategies said.
Apple, which described Monday's moves as a way to increase 'collaboration' across its hardware, software and services business, said Forstall will serve as an advisor to Cook until his departure.
Last week Apple delivered a second straight quarter of disappointing financial results, and iPad sales fell short of Wall Street's targets, marring its record of consistently blowing past investors' expectations.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)
This article is brought to you by BUY A NEW COMPUTER.
Apple software, retail chiefs out in sweeping overhaul
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook on Monday replaced the heads of its software and retail units in the company's most sweeping executive shake-up in a decade following embarrassing problems with its new mapping program and unpopular store-related decisions.
Software chief Scott Forstall, who oversaw the launch of the flawed mapping software and much criticized Siri voice-enabled assistant, will leave Apple next year and serve as an advisor to Cook in the meantime.
Forstall, seen as a polarizing figure inside Apple, had been billed as one of the future candidates to take the top job at Apple. He was the executive behind the panned Apple Maps app that the company announced with much fanfare in summer.
The moves, which come a little more than a year into Cook's tenure as CEO, were described by Apple as a way to increase 'collaboration' across its hardware, software and services business.
'These changes show that Tim Cook is stamping his authority on the business,' Ben Wood, analyst with CCS Insight, said. 'Perhaps disappointed with the Maps issues, Forstall became the scapegoat.'
Critics of the maps debacle, which led Cook to apologize to customers, had been calling for Forstall's head. 'Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?' Fortune editor Philip Elmer Dewitt wrote on Sept 29.
The moves hand over substantially more responsibility to Cue, the head of Internet Software and Services who helped create the iTunes music store and App Store. The 23-year Apple veteran already is in charge of Cloud services and will take on Apple Maps and Siri.
Apple said a search is underway for a new retail chief to replace John Browett and that the retail team would report directly to Cook. Browett had riled up the retail store staff when he decided to reduce the number of retail employees.
Browett took over as head of Apple's retail stores earlier this year, replacing Ron Johnson, who went on to become the CEO of JC Penney.
Last week Apple delivered a second straight quarter of disappointing financial results, and iPad sales fell short of Wall Street's targets, marring its record of consistently blowing past investors' expectations.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)
This news article is brought to you by PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Software chief Scott Forstall, who oversaw the launch of the flawed mapping software and much criticized Siri voice-enabled assistant, will leave Apple next year and serve as an advisor to Cook in the meantime.
Forstall, seen as a polarizing figure inside Apple, had been billed as one of the future candidates to take the top job at Apple. He was the executive behind the panned Apple Maps app that the company announced with much fanfare in summer.
The moves, which come a little more than a year into Cook's tenure as CEO, were described by Apple as a way to increase 'collaboration' across its hardware, software and services business.
'These changes show that Tim Cook is stamping his authority on the business,' Ben Wood, analyst with CCS Insight, said. 'Perhaps disappointed with the Maps issues, Forstall became the scapegoat.'
Critics of the maps debacle, which led Cook to apologize to customers, had been calling for Forstall's head. 'Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?' Fortune editor Philip Elmer Dewitt wrote on Sept 29.
The moves hand over substantially more responsibility to Cue, the head of Internet Software and Services who helped create the iTunes music store and App Store. The 23-year Apple veteran already is in charge of Cloud services and will take on Apple Maps and Siri.
Apple said a search is underway for a new retail chief to replace John Browett and that the retail team would report directly to Cook. Browett had riled up the retail store staff when he decided to reduce the number of retail employees.
Browett took over as head of Apple's retail stores earlier this year, replacing Ron Johnson, who went on to become the CEO of JC Penney.
Last week Apple delivered a second straight quarter of disappointing financial results, and iPad sales fell short of Wall Street's targets, marring its record of consistently blowing past investors' expectations.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)
This news article is brought to you by PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
France considers law forcing Google to pay for linking news
PARIS (Reuters) - President Francois Hollande told Google's chief executive on Monday that France would legislate to force the web search engine to pay for displaying links to news articles unless it struck a deal with French media outlets.
Press associations in France, and other European countries, want Google to pay when it displays links to newspapers in Internet searches.
In reply, Google has threatened to stop indexing articles from the French press.
'The President ... said he hoped negotiations between Google and press organs could begin quickly and conclude before the end of the year,' Hollande's office said in a statement after his meeting with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
If no deal were struck, France would press ahead with a law similar to one being drafted in Germany, the statement said.
Earlier this month Brazil's National Association of Newspapers stopped using search engine aggregator Google News, arguing that it refused to pay for content and was driving traffic away from newspaper sites.
(Reporting By Nicholas Vinocur; Editing by Robert Woodward)
This news article is brought to you by TAXES BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Press associations in France, and other European countries, want Google to pay when it displays links to newspapers in Internet searches.
In reply, Google has threatened to stop indexing articles from the French press.
'The President ... said he hoped negotiations between Google and press organs could begin quickly and conclude before the end of the year,' Hollande's office said in a statement after his meeting with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
If no deal were struck, France would press ahead with a law similar to one being drafted in Germany, the statement said.
Earlier this month Brazil's National Association of Newspapers stopped using search engine aggregator Google News, arguing that it refused to pay for content and was driving traffic away from newspaper sites.
(Reporting By Nicholas Vinocur; Editing by Robert Woodward)
This news article is brought to you by TAXES BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Sandy foils Facebook staffers' long-awaited stock sales
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc's Silicon Valley headquarters are far away from the eye of Hurricane Sandy, yet for employees of the social networking company, the storm hit home.
After nearly six months of watching helplessly as the value of Facebook's stock crumbled, Facebook employees finally got the greenlight to cash in some of their stock on Monday as the 'lock-up' on trading them expired.
Unfortunately, any would-be sellers will have to wait a little longer, as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq were both closed on Monday because of Sandy, the exchanges' first weather-related shutdown in 27 years. Both exchanges said they would remain closed on Tuesday as well, pending confirmation.
Roughly 234 million shares of Facebook stock owned by company employees were eligible for trading on Monday. Facebook had moved up the lock-up expiration date for employees by a few weeks, a move that analysts said could help bolster morale among the company's rank-and-file who have been unable to sell shares even as other insiders and early investors have sold.
The end of the employee lock-up also comes as Facebook's stock has been on the rise, gaining more than 12 percent last week after the company reported better-than-expected quarterly results.
Facebook shares closed Friday's regular session at $21.94.
The world's No. 1 online social network became the first U.S. company to debut on the public markets with a valuation of more than $100 billion.
But Facebook's May initial public offering has been marked by a series of setbacks, including a glitch with the Nasdaq on its first day of trading and controversial revelations that the company had pre-briefed analysts for its underwriters ahead of the IPO, advising them to reduce their profit and revenue forecasts.
Shares of Facebook, which were priced at $38 in the IPO, declined to as low of $17.55 in September as investors fretted about its slowing revenue growth and limited mobile advertising revenue.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)
This news article is brought to you by DATING ADVICE 201 - where latest news are our top priority.
After nearly six months of watching helplessly as the value of Facebook's stock crumbled, Facebook employees finally got the greenlight to cash in some of their stock on Monday as the 'lock-up' on trading them expired.
Unfortunately, any would-be sellers will have to wait a little longer, as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq were both closed on Monday because of Sandy, the exchanges' first weather-related shutdown in 27 years. Both exchanges said they would remain closed on Tuesday as well, pending confirmation.
Roughly 234 million shares of Facebook stock owned by company employees were eligible for trading on Monday. Facebook had moved up the lock-up expiration date for employees by a few weeks, a move that analysts said could help bolster morale among the company's rank-and-file who have been unable to sell shares even as other insiders and early investors have sold.
The end of the employee lock-up also comes as Facebook's stock has been on the rise, gaining more than 12 percent last week after the company reported better-than-expected quarterly results.
Facebook shares closed Friday's regular session at $21.94.
The world's No. 1 online social network became the first U.S. company to debut on the public markets with a valuation of more than $100 billion.
But Facebook's May initial public offering has been marked by a series of setbacks, including a glitch with the Nasdaq on its first day of trading and controversial revelations that the company had pre-briefed analysts for its underwriters ahead of the IPO, advising them to reduce their profit and revenue forecasts.
Shares of Facebook, which were priced at $38 in the IPO, declined to as low of $17.55 in September as investors fretted about its slowing revenue growth and limited mobile advertising revenue.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)
This news article is brought to you by DATING ADVICE 201 - where latest news are our top priority.
PayPal cutting jobs as part of major reorganization
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - PayPal is cutting about 325 jobs as part of a major reorganization by its new president, David Marcus, designed to regain an innovative edge and head off rising competition.
PayPal, the online payment pioneer owned by eBay Inc, said on Monday the full-time jobs would be eliminated as it combines nine product-development groups into one. The company is also cutting about 120 contractors.
EBay will take a $15 million pretax restructuring charge in the fourth quarter related to the job reductions.
PayPal, which started in the late 1990s as a scrappy Silicon Valley start-up, had almost 13,000 employees earlier this year.
'In a large company, at some point you reach the law of diminishing returns when more people means slower,' said Marcus, who used to run mobile payments start-up Zong, which PayPal acquired last year.
'You have a lot of duplication of roles with nine product groups merging into one,' he said.
Wall Street considers PayPal the crown jewel of eBay because it is growing fast and profit margins are expanding. But in Silicon Valley, PayPal is considered a slow, bureaucratic behemoth - a reputation that has made it difficult for the company to attract and retain smart software engineers and designers.
PayPal needs such talent more than ever because a slew of payments start-ups, including Square, Stripe and Dwolla, are developing rival services and products that are beginning to catch on with merchants and consumers.
'PayPal has been on a very strong growth trajectory, but it's facing a period of disruption ahead,' said Kevin Hartz, chief executive of ticketing start-up Eventbrite.
'We just haven't seen a lot of innovation that's needed for them to continue their leadership,' added Hartz, who was an early investor in PayPal and owns a small stake in Square now.
Marcus said he is reorganizing PayPal to help engineers and designers develop new products and services more quickly - to keep up with new rivals.
Marcus has organized demonstrations of rival services at PayPal headquarters in San Jose, California, and screen shots of competing products line the walls of some corridors.
'It's important to face the reality of the situation,' Marcus said. 'In some cases, we don't have better products and we have to do something about it.'
In the past, it took PayPal six to nine months to develop and launch a product, partly because there was a long application process to assemble the required teams of employees.
After products were released, engineers and developers moved on to other projects. That meant any problems with new products took a long time to update and fix, Marcus said.
Marcus' new approach involves giving smaller groups of engineers and designers the freedom to coalesce quickly and release early versions of products that will be tested with a small sub-set of PayPal users and updated quickly, he said.
'JOLTED'
Hill Ferguson, PayPal's new head of global product, and Chief Technology Officer James Barrese oversee the new, single-product development group.
'We had multiple different product teams coming to me with their ideas and requests, which was crazy,' Barrese said. 'We brought that all together and can make much swifter decisions. Hill and I sit in a room and decide to do something and it's done.'
The company launched PayPal Here, a credit card processing service for small merchants that competes with Square, earlier this year. The product was initially developed by a group that consisted of one product developer, two engineers and two designers.
'We are using that model for how we work going forward,' Ferguson said.
PayPal is now assembling a small team of engineers and designers to change the company's core online checkout service, Ferguson and Marcus said.
Hartz said customers who pay for tickets through Eventbrite using PayPal are 'jolted' over to PayPal's website to complete the transaction. That can reduce 'conversion,' or the percentage of customers who complete purchases, he said.
Marcus said PayPal will be working to fix such issues.
'We want to do what's right for merchants and customers. Neither want to be re-directed when they pay,' he said.
TALENT MAGNET?
Marcus, Ferguson and Barrese hope their changes will attract software engineers and designers to the company again. That may be tough.
Soon after eBay acquired PayPal in 2002, some of the founders and early executives, including Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Jeremy Stoppelman, David Sacks and Max Levchin, left to start other businesses such as LinkedIn Corp, Yelp Inc and Yammer. Thiel and Levchin are among investors in Stripe now.
That talent drain at the top of PayPal, combined with a lack of incentive to innovate further, meant top engineers often went elsewhere.
'They aren't a very strong magnet for talent right now,' said Elad Gil, a Silicon Valley investor who owns stakes in Stripe and Square. 'It's possible that may change.'
Douglas Crockford, an expert in JavaScript, came to PayPal from Yahoo! Inc recently, joining Bill Scott, former director of User Interface Engineering at Netflix Inc.
Ed Sexton came to PayPal in September as a lead engineer after working at Apple Inc and Jive Software Inc. Sexton had previously worked at eBay for about five years.
'I heard from my colleagues that there was an insurgence of new management at PayPal, some of whom I worked with in the past when I was at eBay,' he said.
One attraction was PayPal's recent embrace of Hadoop, an open-source technology for crunching lots of data quickly.
'They are looking to staff engineers for this technology. That brought a lot of comfort to me,' Sexton said.
Sexton's LinkedIn page now says, 'NO JOB OFFERS PLEASE. Currently having the time of my life at PayPal.'
(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by John Wallace, Bernard Orr)
This news article is brought to you by SAVING MONEY BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
PayPal, the online payment pioneer owned by eBay Inc, said on Monday the full-time jobs would be eliminated as it combines nine product-development groups into one. The company is also cutting about 120 contractors.
EBay will take a $15 million pretax restructuring charge in the fourth quarter related to the job reductions.
PayPal, which started in the late 1990s as a scrappy Silicon Valley start-up, had almost 13,000 employees earlier this year.
'In a large company, at some point you reach the law of diminishing returns when more people means slower,' said Marcus, who used to run mobile payments start-up Zong, which PayPal acquired last year.
'You have a lot of duplication of roles with nine product groups merging into one,' he said.
Wall Street considers PayPal the crown jewel of eBay because it is growing fast and profit margins are expanding. But in Silicon Valley, PayPal is considered a slow, bureaucratic behemoth - a reputation that has made it difficult for the company to attract and retain smart software engineers and designers.
PayPal needs such talent more than ever because a slew of payments start-ups, including Square, Stripe and Dwolla, are developing rival services and products that are beginning to catch on with merchants and consumers.
'PayPal has been on a very strong growth trajectory, but it's facing a period of disruption ahead,' said Kevin Hartz, chief executive of ticketing start-up Eventbrite.
'We just haven't seen a lot of innovation that's needed for them to continue their leadership,' added Hartz, who was an early investor in PayPal and owns a small stake in Square now.
Marcus said he is reorganizing PayPal to help engineers and designers develop new products and services more quickly - to keep up with new rivals.
Marcus has organized demonstrations of rival services at PayPal headquarters in San Jose, California, and screen shots of competing products line the walls of some corridors.
'It's important to face the reality of the situation,' Marcus said. 'In some cases, we don't have better products and we have to do something about it.'
In the past, it took PayPal six to nine months to develop and launch a product, partly because there was a long application process to assemble the required teams of employees.
After products were released, engineers and developers moved on to other projects. That meant any problems with new products took a long time to update and fix, Marcus said.
Marcus' new approach involves giving smaller groups of engineers and designers the freedom to coalesce quickly and release early versions of products that will be tested with a small sub-set of PayPal users and updated quickly, he said.
'JOLTED'
Hill Ferguson, PayPal's new head of global product, and Chief Technology Officer James Barrese oversee the new, single-product development group.
'We had multiple different product teams coming to me with their ideas and requests, which was crazy,' Barrese said. 'We brought that all together and can make much swifter decisions. Hill and I sit in a room and decide to do something and it's done.'
The company launched PayPal Here, a credit card processing service for small merchants that competes with Square, earlier this year. The product was initially developed by a group that consisted of one product developer, two engineers and two designers.
'We are using that model for how we work going forward,' Ferguson said.
PayPal is now assembling a small team of engineers and designers to change the company's core online checkout service, Ferguson and Marcus said.
Hartz said customers who pay for tickets through Eventbrite using PayPal are 'jolted' over to PayPal's website to complete the transaction. That can reduce 'conversion,' or the percentage of customers who complete purchases, he said.
Marcus said PayPal will be working to fix such issues.
'We want to do what's right for merchants and customers. Neither want to be re-directed when they pay,' he said.
TALENT MAGNET?
Marcus, Ferguson and Barrese hope their changes will attract software engineers and designers to the company again. That may be tough.
Soon after eBay acquired PayPal in 2002, some of the founders and early executives, including Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Jeremy Stoppelman, David Sacks and Max Levchin, left to start other businesses such as LinkedIn Corp, Yelp Inc and Yammer. Thiel and Levchin are among investors in Stripe now.
That talent drain at the top of PayPal, combined with a lack of incentive to innovate further, meant top engineers often went elsewhere.
'They aren't a very strong magnet for talent right now,' said Elad Gil, a Silicon Valley investor who owns stakes in Stripe and Square. 'It's possible that may change.'
Douglas Crockford, an expert in JavaScript, came to PayPal from Yahoo! Inc recently, joining Bill Scott, former director of User Interface Engineering at Netflix Inc.
Ed Sexton came to PayPal in September as a lead engineer after working at Apple Inc and Jive Software Inc. Sexton had previously worked at eBay for about five years.
'I heard from my colleagues that there was an insurgence of new management at PayPal, some of whom I worked with in the past when I was at eBay,' he said.
One attraction was PayPal's recent embrace of Hadoop, an open-source technology for crunching lots of data quickly.
'They are looking to staff engineers for this technology. That brought a lot of comfort to me,' Sexton said.
Sexton's LinkedIn page now says, 'NO JOB OFFERS PLEASE. Currently having the time of my life at PayPal.'
(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by John Wallace, Bernard Orr)
This news article is brought to you by SAVING MONEY BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
China eyes consolidation in eight industries: paper
BEIJING (Reuters) - The Chinese government is reviewing a plan to push forward mergers and acquisitions in eight industries it views as key, including automobiles, rare earths and aluminum, the Economic Information Daily newspaper reported on Monday.
The paper also said the steel, cement, machinery manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and electronic information industries may also see restructuring.
The consolidation is being contemplated by China's National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration of the State Council, the newspaper reported.
Officials on the State Council, China's cabinet, have called for a targeted policy to speed up consolidation of the eight industries, the paper reported.
'Enterprises are small and scattered, and there are problems with the low level of specialization and socialisation,' Zhu Hongren, chief engineer at the Ministry of Industry told the Economic Information Daily. 'This has resulted in inefficient resource allocation and other oustanding issues.'
(Reporting By China Economics Team; Editing by Nick Edwards)
This news article is brought to you by MOVIE CRITIC NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
The paper also said the steel, cement, machinery manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and electronic information industries may also see restructuring.
The consolidation is being contemplated by China's National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration of the State Council, the newspaper reported.
Officials on the State Council, China's cabinet, have called for a targeted policy to speed up consolidation of the eight industries, the paper reported.
'Enterprises are small and scattered, and there are problems with the low level of specialization and socialisation,' Zhu Hongren, chief engineer at the Ministry of Industry told the Economic Information Daily. 'This has resulted in inefficient resource allocation and other oustanding issues.'
(Reporting By China Economics Team; Editing by Nick Edwards)
This news article is brought to you by MOVIE CRITIC NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Badminton: "Facebook me!" Chong Wei invites fans to wedding
(Reuters) - Anyone who wants to attend the wedding of Malaysian badminton player Lee Chong Wei could be one of 10 lucky fans winning invitations by posting on his Facebook page.
The Olympic silver medalist is getting hitched to sweetheart Wong Mew Choo on November 9 and the chosen few will be able to rub shoulders with celebrities and government dignitaries, local media reported.
The competition, likely to trigger some feverish online traffic, begins on Sunday and closes on November 5, Chong Wei's press office said.
Hopefuls, who must first click 'like' under Chong Wei's fan page, are invited to explain why they wish to attend the wedding reception at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
'The 10 best comments will be picked by Chong Wei and his would be wife Wong Mew Choo, based on creativity,' Sachi Choo of Chong Wei's agency told the Bernama news agency.
Results will be announced on November 6 and will be of some interest to officials from the Prime Minister's office, Health and Trade Ministries, who have confirmed their attendance.
(Reporting by Alastair Himmer in Tokyo; Editing by Nick Mulvenney)
This news article is brought to you by ANIMALS AND PETS - where latest news are our top priority.
The Olympic silver medalist is getting hitched to sweetheart Wong Mew Choo on November 9 and the chosen few will be able to rub shoulders with celebrities and government dignitaries, local media reported.
The competition, likely to trigger some feverish online traffic, begins on Sunday and closes on November 5, Chong Wei's press office said.
Hopefuls, who must first click 'like' under Chong Wei's fan page, are invited to explain why they wish to attend the wedding reception at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
'The 10 best comments will be picked by Chong Wei and his would be wife Wong Mew Choo, based on creativity,' Sachi Choo of Chong Wei's agency told the Bernama news agency.
Results will be announced on November 6 and will be of some interest to officials from the Prime Minister's office, Health and Trade Ministries, who have confirmed their attendance.
(Reporting by Alastair Himmer in Tokyo; Editing by Nick Mulvenney)
This news article is brought to you by ANIMALS AND PETS - where latest news are our top priority.
Star Silicon Valley analyst felled by Facebook IPO fallout
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The firing of Citigroup stock analyst Mark Mahaney on Friday in the regulatory fallout from Facebook Inc's initial public offering was greeted with shock and dismay in Silicon Valley, where Mahaney was a well-known and well-liked figure.
'Pretty shocked,' was the reaction of Jacob Funds Chief Executive Ryan Jacob, who described Mahaney as one of the most respected financial analysts covering the Internet industry.
'I'd put him at the top. If not at the top, then near the top,' said Jacob. 'He really knew what to look for.'
In addition to firing Mahaney, Citigroup paid a $2 million fine to Massachusetts regulators to settle charges that the bank improperly disclosed research on Facebook ahead of its $16 billion IPO in May.
The settlement agreement said Mahaney failed to supervise a junior analyst who improperly shared Facebook research with the TechCrunch news website. (Settlement agreement: http://r.reuters.com/pyj63t)
The settlement agreement also outlined an incident in which Mahaney failed to get approval before responding to a journalist's questions about Google Inc -- and told a Citigroup compliance staffer that the conversation had not occurred -- even after being warned about unauthorized conversations with the media.
Mahaney declined to comment.
Mahaney got his start in the late 1990s, during the first dot-com boom where he worked at Morgan Stanley for Mary Meeker, one of the star analysts of the time. He went on to work at hedge fund Galleon Group before moving to Citigroup in 2005. Unlike most of his New York-based peers in the analyst world, Mahaney worked in San Francisco's financial district, close to the companies and personalities at the heart of the tech industry.
Earlier this month, Mahaney was named the top Internet analyst for the fifth straight year by Institutional Investor. The review cited fans of Mahaney who praised a 'systematic' investment approach that allows him to avoid the 'waffling' often evidenced by other analysts.
Mahaney's Buy rating on IAC/InteractiveCorp in April 2011, when the stock traded at $33.32, allowed investors to lock in a 51 percent gain before he downgraded the stock to a Hold at $50.31 a few months later, according to Institutional Investor.
But it wasn't only his stock picks that put him in good stead. He earned kudos for simply being a nice guy.
'He's a kind and thoughtful person and that's evident in the way he deals with people,' said Jason Jones of Internet investment firm HighStep Capital. 'He's very well liked on Wall Street because of that.'
A CAUTIOUS VIEW ON FACEBOOK
Mahaney was only indirectly involved in the incident involving the Facebook research, according to the settlement agreement by Massachusetts regulators released on Friday. But the actions of the junior analyst who worked for him provide an unusual glimpse into the type of behind-the-scenes information trading that regulators are attempting to rein in.
While the Massachusetts regulators did not identify any of the individuals by name, Reuters has learned that the incident involved TechCrunch reporters Josh Constine and Kim-Mai Cutler as well as Citi junior analyst Eric Jacobs.
Jacobs, Constine and Cutler all did not respond to requests for comments.
In early May, shortly before Facebook's IPO, Jacobs sent an email to Cutler and Constine. Constine attended Stanford University at the same time as Jacobs.
Constine, who studied social networks such as Facebook and Twitter for his 2009 Master's degree in cybersociology at Stanford, had a close friendship with Jacobs, according to the settlement agreement.
'I am ramping up coverage on FB and thought you guys might like to see how the street is thinking about it (and our estimates),' Jacobs wrote in the email. The email included an 'outline' that Jacobs said would eventually become the firm's 30-40 page initiation report on Facebook.
He also included a 'Facebook One Pager' document, which contained confidential, non-public information that Citigroup obtained in order to help begin covering Facebook after the IPO.
Asked by Constine if the information could be published and attributed to an anonymous source, Jacobs responded that 'my boss would eat me alive,' the agreement said.
A spokeswoman for AOL Inc, which owns TechCrunch, declined to answer questions on the matter, saying only that 'We are looking into the matter and have no comment at this time.'
Ironically, Mahaney was one of a small group of analysts at the many banks underwriting Facebook's IPO who had cautious views of the richly valued offering. Mahaney initiated coverage of the company with a neutral rating.
Analysts at the top three underwriters on Facebook's IPO - Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan - started the stock with overweight or buy recommendations.
Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Facebook had pre-briefed analysts for its underwriters ahead of its IPO, advising them to reduce their profit and revenue forecasts.
Facebook, whose stock was priced at $38 a share in the IPO, closed Friday's regular session at $21.94 and has traded as low as $17.55.
'There were tens of billions of dollars in losses based on hyping the name, a lack of skeptical information and misunderstanding the company,' said Max Wolff, chief economist and senior analyst at research firm GreenCrest Capital.
'It's highly unfortunate and darkly ironic that one of the signature regulatory actions from this IPO so far involves punishing analysts for disseminating cautious information about Facebook,' he added.
(Editing by Jonathan Weber, Mary Milliken and Lisa Shumaker)
This article is brought to you by COMPUTERS.
'Pretty shocked,' was the reaction of Jacob Funds Chief Executive Ryan Jacob, who described Mahaney as one of the most respected financial analysts covering the Internet industry.
'I'd put him at the top. If not at the top, then near the top,' said Jacob. 'He really knew what to look for.'
In addition to firing Mahaney, Citigroup paid a $2 million fine to Massachusetts regulators to settle charges that the bank improperly disclosed research on Facebook ahead of its $16 billion IPO in May.
The settlement agreement said Mahaney failed to supervise a junior analyst who improperly shared Facebook research with the TechCrunch news website. (Settlement agreement: http://r.reuters.com/pyj63t)
The settlement agreement also outlined an incident in which Mahaney failed to get approval before responding to a journalist's questions about Google Inc -- and told a Citigroup compliance staffer that the conversation had not occurred -- even after being warned about unauthorized conversations with the media.
Mahaney declined to comment.
Mahaney got his start in the late 1990s, during the first dot-com boom where he worked at Morgan Stanley for Mary Meeker, one of the star analysts of the time. He went on to work at hedge fund Galleon Group before moving to Citigroup in 2005. Unlike most of his New York-based peers in the analyst world, Mahaney worked in San Francisco's financial district, close to the companies and personalities at the heart of the tech industry.
Earlier this month, Mahaney was named the top Internet analyst for the fifth straight year by Institutional Investor. The review cited fans of Mahaney who praised a 'systematic' investment approach that allows him to avoid the 'waffling' often evidenced by other analysts.
Mahaney's Buy rating on IAC/InteractiveCorp in April 2011, when the stock traded at $33.32, allowed investors to lock in a 51 percent gain before he downgraded the stock to a Hold at $50.31 a few months later, according to Institutional Investor.
But it wasn't only his stock picks that put him in good stead. He earned kudos for simply being a nice guy.
'He's a kind and thoughtful person and that's evident in the way he deals with people,' said Jason Jones of Internet investment firm HighStep Capital. 'He's very well liked on Wall Street because of that.'
A CAUTIOUS VIEW ON FACEBOOK
Mahaney was only indirectly involved in the incident involving the Facebook research, according to the settlement agreement by Massachusetts regulators released on Friday. But the actions of the junior analyst who worked for him provide an unusual glimpse into the type of behind-the-scenes information trading that regulators are attempting to rein in.
While the Massachusetts regulators did not identify any of the individuals by name, Reuters has learned that the incident involved TechCrunch reporters Josh Constine and Kim-Mai Cutler as well as Citi junior analyst Eric Jacobs.
Jacobs, Constine and Cutler all did not respond to requests for comments.
In early May, shortly before Facebook's IPO, Jacobs sent an email to Cutler and Constine. Constine attended Stanford University at the same time as Jacobs.
Constine, who studied social networks such as Facebook and Twitter for his 2009 Master's degree in cybersociology at Stanford, had a close friendship with Jacobs, according to the settlement agreement.
'I am ramping up coverage on FB and thought you guys might like to see how the street is thinking about it (and our estimates),' Jacobs wrote in the email. The email included an 'outline' that Jacobs said would eventually become the firm's 30-40 page initiation report on Facebook.
He also included a 'Facebook One Pager' document, which contained confidential, non-public information that Citigroup obtained in order to help begin covering Facebook after the IPO.
Asked by Constine if the information could be published and attributed to an anonymous source, Jacobs responded that 'my boss would eat me alive,' the agreement said.
A spokeswoman for AOL Inc, which owns TechCrunch, declined to answer questions on the matter, saying only that 'We are looking into the matter and have no comment at this time.'
Ironically, Mahaney was one of a small group of analysts at the many banks underwriting Facebook's IPO who had cautious views of the richly valued offering. Mahaney initiated coverage of the company with a neutral rating.
Analysts at the top three underwriters on Facebook's IPO - Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan - started the stock with overweight or buy recommendations.
Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Facebook had pre-briefed analysts for its underwriters ahead of its IPO, advising them to reduce their profit and revenue forecasts.
Facebook, whose stock was priced at $38 a share in the IPO, closed Friday's regular session at $21.94 and has traded as low as $17.55.
'There were tens of billions of dollars in losses based on hyping the name, a lack of skeptical information and misunderstanding the company,' said Max Wolff, chief economist and senior analyst at research firm GreenCrest Capital.
'It's highly unfortunate and darkly ironic that one of the signature regulatory actions from this IPO so far involves punishing analysts for disseminating cautious information about Facebook,' he added.
(Editing by Jonathan Weber, Mary Milliken and Lisa Shumaker)
This article is brought to you by COMPUTERS.
Citi fined $2 million over Facebook IPO, fires two analysts
BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Citigroup fired its top Internet analyst, Mark Mahaney, and paid a $2 million fine to a Massachusetts regulator to settle charges that the bank improperly disclosed research on Facebook IPO and information on other tech companies.
It was the first formal charge involving an underwriter's disclosure of sensitive financial information ahead of the social media company's $16 billion initial public offering in May. Lead underwriter Morgan Stanley has come under criticism for revealing revised Facebook Inc earnings and revenue forecasts to select clients on conference calls ahead of the IPO, leaving the rest of the investing public in the dark.
In the Citi case, a junior analyst working for Mahaney emailed some research to journalists at the Techcrunch news website, who published some of the information in a blog post, according to the Massachusetts complaint released on Friday.
The state's top securities regulator, William Galvin, charged Citigroup Global Markets Inc with breaking Massachusetts securities laws that prohibit analysts at underwriting firms from sending 'written research or other written content' until 40 days after Facebook's IPO.
He would not say how close his office might be to charging any other firms, or what kind of evidence they may have. Gavin said the Citi case was completed first because his office was able to obtain emails showing how the analysts broke the rules.
Some market participants questioned whether the Citi analysts' actions were that bad. They noted that Mahaney has consistently received high marks in surveys of institutional investors.
Citi fired Mahaney and the junior analyst, and said it was pleased that the matter with Massachusetts has been resolved.
Galvin told Reuters he is still probing the other underwriters involved in Facebook's IPO, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.
'Unfortunately, the message from this is that analysts should give less information to cover their behinds. But the smooth functioning of markets requires the exact opposite of this,' said Max Wolff, chief economist and senior analyst at research firm GreenCrest Capital.
'This is a move in the wrong direction,' he added.
Legal experts say it is unclear whether industry rules specifically prohibit brokerages from giving information to select groups of clients in a phone call, as Morgan Stanley did. So far, there has been no regulatory action against Morgan Stanley or any of its analysts.
STAR ANALYST MISCONDUCT
According to the Massachusetts complaint, an unidentified junior analyst sent some of Citi's confidential views on investment risks and revenue estimates for Facebook to two employees at TechCrunch.com, which is owned by AOL Inc, three weeks before Facebook went public on May 18.
Mahaney failed to supervise this junior analyst, according to the Massachusetts complaint.
One of the most respected Internet analysts on Wall Street, Mahaney had already been in trouble with his bosses for sharing information with journalists.
On April 11, Citi's director of research for the Americas sent Mahaney a 'letter of education,' noting that he had broken the bank's rules when he spoke to journalists at Bloomberg and the New York Times without first obtaining legal approval, according to the complaint.
Only weeks after receiving that letter, Mahaney again broke Citi's rules when he passed unpublished views about Google Inc's YouTube revenue estimates and profitability to a reporter at Capital Magazine, a French publication, the civil complaint said.
Mahaney came to Citi in 2005 from Galleon Group, the hedge fund led by Raj Rajaratnam, who was later convicted in one of the biggest insider trading crack-downs in U.S. history.
FACEBOOK DEBACLE
After Facebook's debut, smaller investors were outraged to learn about the Morgan Stanley's conference calls that they felt gave an edge to its big clients.
The head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Wall Street's self-regulator, said not long after the May 18 Facebook debut that allegations surrounding Morgan Stanley's conference calls were a matter of 'regulatory concern.' FINRA declined to comment further on Friday.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Schapiro also said at the time that there are 'issues we need to look at specifically with respect to Facebook.' An SEC spokesman said there has been no public action since.
'The knives have been out looking for someone to blame for Facebook's IPO and it looks like this analyst has been caught in the middle,' said Jill Fisch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who focuses on securities regulation and capital markets.
'All these rules are designed to stop misuse of information for trading. This does not raise market regulation issues.'
With various regulators looking at the Facebook listing, Galvin is the first to come out with a fine, albeit a small one.
Gavin has long had a reputation of being an aggressive regulator who has filed suit against Wall Street's top banks for securities law violations. But some have criticized him because he often settling high-profile cases for small sums.
'This is a recurring theme,' Gavin said on Friday. 'The banks promise there is a firewall between research and marketing, that they will observe the quiet period, but that is clearly not the case.
He added, 'This is about not having two sets of rules one for preferred clients and one for everyone else,' Galvin said.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Alistair Barr; Additional reporting by Suzanne Barlyn and David Henry in New York; Writing by Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Merritt; Editing by Dan Grebler, David Gregorio and Tiffany Wu)
This article is brought to you by BUY COMPUTERS.
It was the first formal charge involving an underwriter's disclosure of sensitive financial information ahead of the social media company's $16 billion initial public offering in May. Lead underwriter Morgan Stanley has come under criticism for revealing revised Facebook Inc earnings and revenue forecasts to select clients on conference calls ahead of the IPO, leaving the rest of the investing public in the dark.
In the Citi case, a junior analyst working for Mahaney emailed some research to journalists at the Techcrunch news website, who published some of the information in a blog post, according to the Massachusetts complaint released on Friday.
The state's top securities regulator, William Galvin, charged Citigroup Global Markets Inc with breaking Massachusetts securities laws that prohibit analysts at underwriting firms from sending 'written research or other written content' until 40 days after Facebook's IPO.
He would not say how close his office might be to charging any other firms, or what kind of evidence they may have. Gavin said the Citi case was completed first because his office was able to obtain emails showing how the analysts broke the rules.
Some market participants questioned whether the Citi analysts' actions were that bad. They noted that Mahaney has consistently received high marks in surveys of institutional investors.
Citi fired Mahaney and the junior analyst, and said it was pleased that the matter with Massachusetts has been resolved.
Galvin told Reuters he is still probing the other underwriters involved in Facebook's IPO, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.
'Unfortunately, the message from this is that analysts should give less information to cover their behinds. But the smooth functioning of markets requires the exact opposite of this,' said Max Wolff, chief economist and senior analyst at research firm GreenCrest Capital.
'This is a move in the wrong direction,' he added.
Legal experts say it is unclear whether industry rules specifically prohibit brokerages from giving information to select groups of clients in a phone call, as Morgan Stanley did. So far, there has been no regulatory action against Morgan Stanley or any of its analysts.
STAR ANALYST MISCONDUCT
According to the Massachusetts complaint, an unidentified junior analyst sent some of Citi's confidential views on investment risks and revenue estimates for Facebook to two employees at TechCrunch.com, which is owned by AOL Inc, three weeks before Facebook went public on May 18.
Mahaney failed to supervise this junior analyst, according to the Massachusetts complaint.
One of the most respected Internet analysts on Wall Street, Mahaney had already been in trouble with his bosses for sharing information with journalists.
On April 11, Citi's director of research for the Americas sent Mahaney a 'letter of education,' noting that he had broken the bank's rules when he spoke to journalists at Bloomberg and the New York Times without first obtaining legal approval, according to the complaint.
Only weeks after receiving that letter, Mahaney again broke Citi's rules when he passed unpublished views about Google Inc's YouTube revenue estimates and profitability to a reporter at Capital Magazine, a French publication, the civil complaint said.
Mahaney came to Citi in 2005 from Galleon Group, the hedge fund led by Raj Rajaratnam, who was later convicted in one of the biggest insider trading crack-downs in U.S. history.
FACEBOOK DEBACLE
After Facebook's debut, smaller investors were outraged to learn about the Morgan Stanley's conference calls that they felt gave an edge to its big clients.
The head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Wall Street's self-regulator, said not long after the May 18 Facebook debut that allegations surrounding Morgan Stanley's conference calls were a matter of 'regulatory concern.' FINRA declined to comment further on Friday.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Schapiro also said at the time that there are 'issues we need to look at specifically with respect to Facebook.' An SEC spokesman said there has been no public action since.
'The knives have been out looking for someone to blame for Facebook's IPO and it looks like this analyst has been caught in the middle,' said Jill Fisch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who focuses on securities regulation and capital markets.
'All these rules are designed to stop misuse of information for trading. This does not raise market regulation issues.'
With various regulators looking at the Facebook listing, Galvin is the first to come out with a fine, albeit a small one.
Gavin has long had a reputation of being an aggressive regulator who has filed suit against Wall Street's top banks for securities law violations. But some have criticized him because he often settling high-profile cases for small sums.
'This is a recurring theme,' Gavin said on Friday. 'The banks promise there is a firewall between research and marketing, that they will observe the quiet period, but that is clearly not the case.
He added, 'This is about not having two sets of rules one for preferred clients and one for everyone else,' Galvin said.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Alistair Barr; Additional reporting by Suzanne Barlyn and David Henry in New York; Writing by Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Merritt; Editing by Dan Grebler, David Gregorio and Tiffany Wu)
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New York man who sued Facebook faces criminal charges
(Reuters) - A New York man was arrested Friday on charges he forged documents in a multibillion-dollar scheme to defraud Facebook Inc and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, through a lawsuit claiming a huge ownership stake in the Internet company.
Paul Ceglia, 39, a one-time wood pellet salesman from Wellsville, New York, was charged with mail and wire fraud over what federal prosecutors and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service said was fabricated evidence to support his claim to a large stake in Facebook through a 2003 deal with Zuckerberg.
Ceglia's accusations against Zuckerberg had marked a bizarre twist to Facebook's march toward its highly anticipated initial public offering in May. Facebook's origins were also the focus of a separate legal challenge by Zuckerberg's Harvard University classmates, the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, in a saga chronicled in the 2010 film, 'The Social Network.'
Ceglia sued the Silicon Valley company and its chief executive in 2010, claiming that a 2003 contract he signed with Zuckerberg entitled him to a stake in the social media network. Zuckerberg had done programming work for Ceglia's company, StreetFax.com, while at Harvard University.
This past March, as part of that case, Facebook attorneys released emails sent by Zuckerberg to show Ceglia's claims were false. The attorneys cited work by forensic experts who found that Ceglia had typed text into a Microsoft Word document and declared it was the text of emails with Zuckerberg.
Ceglia sought 'a quick pay day based on a blatant forgery,' U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said in a statement announcing the criminal charges. 'Dressing up a fraud as a lawsuit does not immunize you from prosecution.'
A lawyer for Ceglia could not immediately be reached for comment.
'Ceglia used the federal court system to perpetuate his fraud and will now be held accountable for his criminal scheme,' Orin Snyder, a partner at law firm Gibson Dunn who is representing Facebook and Zuckerberg in the civil case, said in a statement.
PARTNERSHIP CLAIMS
In his lawsuit, filed in federal court in Buffalo, New York, Ceglia had claimed that Zuckerberg shared his plans for a social networking site with him while working at StreetFax. He contended that their contract granted him part ownership in Zuckerberg's project in exchange for a $1,000 investment.
To build his case, Ceglia submitted what he said were emails from Zuckerberg that proved the pair had discussed the project that would eventually become Facebook.
But Zuckerberg said he had not even conceived of the idea for Facebook until December 2003, and submitted his own emails to prove his version of the timeline.
Ceglia went through a string of lawyers from prominent firms, including DLA Piper and Milberg, who worked with him on the case but later withdrew.
Ceglia was arrested at his home on Friday morning and appeared in federal court in Buffalo in the afternoon. In the hearing, a federal judge set bail at $21,000 and stayed the bail order until Monday at noon to give prosecutors a chance to appeal it, authorities said.
Each of the charges against him carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Investigators for the Postal Inspection Service, which is conducting the probe, made the arrest following Ceglia's return to the United States this week after spending time out of the country, according to a source familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly on the case.
The judge in Friday's hearing ordered Ceglia and his family to surrender their travel documents.
Separately on Friday, Massachusetts fined Citigroup Inc $2 million to settle charges that two bank analysts improperly released confidential information about Facebook's financials before the technology company went public.
The case is USA v. Paul Ceglia, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.
(Additional reporting by Nate Raymond; editing by Martha Graybow, Bernadette Baum and Matthew Lewis)
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Paul Ceglia, 39, a one-time wood pellet salesman from Wellsville, New York, was charged with mail and wire fraud over what federal prosecutors and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service said was fabricated evidence to support his claim to a large stake in Facebook through a 2003 deal with Zuckerberg.
Ceglia's accusations against Zuckerberg had marked a bizarre twist to Facebook's march toward its highly anticipated initial public offering in May. Facebook's origins were also the focus of a separate legal challenge by Zuckerberg's Harvard University classmates, the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, in a saga chronicled in the 2010 film, 'The Social Network.'
Ceglia sued the Silicon Valley company and its chief executive in 2010, claiming that a 2003 contract he signed with Zuckerberg entitled him to a stake in the social media network. Zuckerberg had done programming work for Ceglia's company, StreetFax.com, while at Harvard University.
This past March, as part of that case, Facebook attorneys released emails sent by Zuckerberg to show Ceglia's claims were false. The attorneys cited work by forensic experts who found that Ceglia had typed text into a Microsoft Word document and declared it was the text of emails with Zuckerberg.
Ceglia sought 'a quick pay day based on a blatant forgery,' U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said in a statement announcing the criminal charges. 'Dressing up a fraud as a lawsuit does not immunize you from prosecution.'
A lawyer for Ceglia could not immediately be reached for comment.
'Ceglia used the federal court system to perpetuate his fraud and will now be held accountable for his criminal scheme,' Orin Snyder, a partner at law firm Gibson Dunn who is representing Facebook and Zuckerberg in the civil case, said in a statement.
PARTNERSHIP CLAIMS
In his lawsuit, filed in federal court in Buffalo, New York, Ceglia had claimed that Zuckerberg shared his plans for a social networking site with him while working at StreetFax. He contended that their contract granted him part ownership in Zuckerberg's project in exchange for a $1,000 investment.
To build his case, Ceglia submitted what he said were emails from Zuckerberg that proved the pair had discussed the project that would eventually become Facebook.
But Zuckerberg said he had not even conceived of the idea for Facebook until December 2003, and submitted his own emails to prove his version of the timeline.
Ceglia went through a string of lawyers from prominent firms, including DLA Piper and Milberg, who worked with him on the case but later withdrew.
Ceglia was arrested at his home on Friday morning and appeared in federal court in Buffalo in the afternoon. In the hearing, a federal judge set bail at $21,000 and stayed the bail order until Monday at noon to give prosecutors a chance to appeal it, authorities said.
Each of the charges against him carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Investigators for the Postal Inspection Service, which is conducting the probe, made the arrest following Ceglia's return to the United States this week after spending time out of the country, according to a source familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly on the case.
The judge in Friday's hearing ordered Ceglia and his family to surrender their travel documents.
Separately on Friday, Massachusetts fined Citigroup Inc $2 million to settle charges that two bank analysts improperly released confidential information about Facebook's financials before the technology company went public.
The case is USA v. Paul Ceglia, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.
(Additional reporting by Nate Raymond; editing by Martha Graybow, Bernadette Baum and Matthew Lewis)
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Citi fined $2 million by Massachusetts over Facebook IPO
BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts top securities regulator said on Friday that his office fined a Citigroup Inc unit $2 million after research analysts improperly disclosed confidential information about Facebook Inc's initial public offering.
William Galvin, the state's Secretary of the Commonwealth, said the bank's Citigroup Global Markets Group violated state securities laws when one of its top analysts failed to supervise a junior colleague who emailed confidential information about the bank's views on financials for Facebook.
Facebook, which went public on May 18, made the biggest technology company IPO ever and was heavily touted on Wall Street, but the stock flopped after its listing.
Citigroup said the bank is happy that the matter is resolved, adding: 'We take our internal policies and procedures very seriously and have taken the appropriate action.'
(Reporting By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and David Henry; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
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William Galvin, the state's Secretary of the Commonwealth, said the bank's Citigroup Global Markets Group violated state securities laws when one of its top analysts failed to supervise a junior colleague who emailed confidential information about the bank's views on financials for Facebook.
Facebook, which went public on May 18, made the biggest technology company IPO ever and was heavily touted on Wall Street, but the stock flopped after its listing.
Citigroup said the bank is happy that the matter is resolved, adding: 'We take our internal policies and procedures very seriously and have taken the appropriate action.'
(Reporting By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and David Henry; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
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German publisher Burda makes offer for social network Xing
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German publisher Burda on Friday said it has made a takeover bid for business social network Xing AG of 44 euros per share.
Burda added it already holds 38.89 percent in Xing.
Xing has a market value of about 200 million euros ($259.19 million), based on a Thursday closing price of 37.31 euros per share. ($1 = 0.7716 euros)
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger)
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Burda added it already holds 38.89 percent in Xing.
Xing has a market value of about 200 million euros ($259.19 million), based on a Thursday closing price of 37.31 euros per share. ($1 = 0.7716 euros)
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger)
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Thursday, October 25, 2012
Obama epithet raises ire of Romney campaign
(Note language in paragraph 6)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's use of a barnyard epithet in what was widely interpreted as a swipe at Mitt Romney in a soon-to-be-published magazine article drew an angry response from the Republican candidate's campaign on Thursday.
Obama and Romney have traded jabs about each other's honesty and trustworthiness for weeks, especially during a series of televised debates, but the president seemed to have taken that to a new level in the lead-up to the November 6 election.
An article in the latest edition of Rolling Stone recounts how the magazine's executive editor, Eric Bates, offered Obama some words of encouragement from his 6-year-old daughter at the end of an October 11 interview in the Oval Office.
Grinning, Obama was quoted as saying: 'I do very well, by the way, in that demographic. Ages six to 12? I'm a killer.'
'Thought about lowering the voting age?' Bates joked.
'You know, kids have good instincts,' Obama said, according to an advance copy of the wide-ranging interview to be published on Friday. 'They look at the other guy and say, 'Well, that's a bullshitter, I can tell.''
The Romney campaign quickly fired back in response to Obama's comment, which was widely circulated in political blogs and social media.
'President Obama is rattled and on the defensive,' senior Romney adviser Kevin Madden said. 'He's running on empty and has nothing left but attacks and insults. It's unfortunate he has to close the final days of the campaign this way.'
The White House did not dispute the accuracy of Obama's quotes, but a re-election campaign official stressed that the comments were 'part of a casual conversation at the end of the interview.'
With the race for the White House in a dead heat after the candidates' third and final debate on Monday, Obama has used a hectic schedule of campaign rallies this week to raise questions about whether Romney can be trusted to run the country.
Obama has even taken to using the term 'Romnesia' to mock what he sees as his rival's politically motivated shifts in policy positions.
But when asked during the Rolling Stone interview whether Romney had lied to the American people when he appeared to have changed positions in the final stretch of the campaign, Obama would only say that the Republican and his aides had tried to 'fuzz up' his proposals.
The article was written by presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.
(Additional reporting by Sam Youngman; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Eric Walsh)
This article is brought to you by BUY CHEAP COMPUTERS.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's use of a barnyard epithet in what was widely interpreted as a swipe at Mitt Romney in a soon-to-be-published magazine article drew an angry response from the Republican candidate's campaign on Thursday.
Obama and Romney have traded jabs about each other's honesty and trustworthiness for weeks, especially during a series of televised debates, but the president seemed to have taken that to a new level in the lead-up to the November 6 election.
An article in the latest edition of Rolling Stone recounts how the magazine's executive editor, Eric Bates, offered Obama some words of encouragement from his 6-year-old daughter at the end of an October 11 interview in the Oval Office.
Grinning, Obama was quoted as saying: 'I do very well, by the way, in that demographic. Ages six to 12? I'm a killer.'
'Thought about lowering the voting age?' Bates joked.
'You know, kids have good instincts,' Obama said, according to an advance copy of the wide-ranging interview to be published on Friday. 'They look at the other guy and say, 'Well, that's a bullshitter, I can tell.''
The Romney campaign quickly fired back in response to Obama's comment, which was widely circulated in political blogs and social media.
'President Obama is rattled and on the defensive,' senior Romney adviser Kevin Madden said. 'He's running on empty and has nothing left but attacks and insults. It's unfortunate he has to close the final days of the campaign this way.'
The White House did not dispute the accuracy of Obama's quotes, but a re-election campaign official stressed that the comments were 'part of a casual conversation at the end of the interview.'
With the race for the White House in a dead heat after the candidates' third and final debate on Monday, Obama has used a hectic schedule of campaign rallies this week to raise questions about whether Romney can be trusted to run the country.
Obama has even taken to using the term 'Romnesia' to mock what he sees as his rival's politically motivated shifts in policy positions.
But when asked during the Rolling Stone interview whether Romney had lied to the American people when he appeared to have changed positions in the final stretch of the campaign, Obama would only say that the Republican and his aides had tried to 'fuzz up' his proposals.
The article was written by presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.
(Additional reporting by Sam Youngman; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Eric Walsh)
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Iran rejects UN criticism of its cyber security rules
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran rejected criticism from a U.N. human rights investigator over its tighter cyber security rules, saying they are necessary to protect it against cyber attacks and have nothing whatsoever to do with freedom of expression.
In his latest report, U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, said he was concerned about reports of government activities 'that seemingly infringe on freedom of expression and the right to information.'
He said authorities have reportedly targeted websites they see as promoting terrorism, espionage, and economic or social crimes.
These include sites that contain 'pornographic content, insult Islam or Government officials, proselytize unrecognized religions, or establish anti-government political groups,' Shaheed said.
In a response to his report, presented to U.N. General Assembly delegations this week and sent to Reuters on Thursday by Iran's U.N. mission, Tehran said its cyber policies were unrelated to human rights.
'Establishment of (a) cyber council for securing domestic Internet relates to security and sovereignty of states rather than an issue dealing with promotion and protection of human rights,' the Iranian statement said.
'As a country frequently targeted by highly sophisticated vicious cyber attacks, often orchestrated by certain States, Iran has every right and reason to strengthen its cyber space security,' the Iranian response said.
'Contrary to the report (and its) assessments based on overly misleading information, this has nothing to do with the freedom of expression at all.'
STUXNET FALLOUT
The Islamic republic tightened cyber security after its nuclear program was attacked in 2010 by the Stuxnet computer worm, which caused centrifuges to fail at its main uranium enrichment facility.
Tehran, whose nuclear program is suspected by Western powers and their allies of developing the capacity to produce weapons, accused the United States and Israel of deploying the worm.
Authorities said in April a computer virus was detected inside the control systems of Kharg Island - which handles the vast majority of Iran's crude oil exports - but the terminal remained operational.
Communications and Technology Minister Reza Taqipour said last month that Iran needed to develop its own network to ensure the safety of the country's information.
Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and has refused to halt it despite increasingly draconian U.N. and Western sanctions.
Shaheed is in New York to present his annual report on rights in Iran to the U.N. General Assembly's Third Committee, which focuses on human rights.
His report details how rights activists in Iran face beatings with batons, mock hangings, rape and threats that family members will be raped or killed.
Earlier this week Shaheed, a former Maldives foreign minister, reported that minority religions in Iran continue to face persecution.
Tehran has so far not granted Shaheed access to the country. In its response, the Islamic republic said his overall report was biased, selective and 'fails to reflect the actual situation of human rights in Iran.'
(Editing by Xavier Briand)
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In his latest report, U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, said he was concerned about reports of government activities 'that seemingly infringe on freedom of expression and the right to information.'
He said authorities have reportedly targeted websites they see as promoting terrorism, espionage, and economic or social crimes.
These include sites that contain 'pornographic content, insult Islam or Government officials, proselytize unrecognized religions, or establish anti-government political groups,' Shaheed said.
In a response to his report, presented to U.N. General Assembly delegations this week and sent to Reuters on Thursday by Iran's U.N. mission, Tehran said its cyber policies were unrelated to human rights.
'Establishment of (a) cyber council for securing domestic Internet relates to security and sovereignty of states rather than an issue dealing with promotion and protection of human rights,' the Iranian statement said.
'As a country frequently targeted by highly sophisticated vicious cyber attacks, often orchestrated by certain States, Iran has every right and reason to strengthen its cyber space security,' the Iranian response said.
'Contrary to the report (and its) assessments based on overly misleading information, this has nothing to do with the freedom of expression at all.'
STUXNET FALLOUT
The Islamic republic tightened cyber security after its nuclear program was attacked in 2010 by the Stuxnet computer worm, which caused centrifuges to fail at its main uranium enrichment facility.
Tehran, whose nuclear program is suspected by Western powers and their allies of developing the capacity to produce weapons, accused the United States and Israel of deploying the worm.
Authorities said in April a computer virus was detected inside the control systems of Kharg Island - which handles the vast majority of Iran's crude oil exports - but the terminal remained operational.
Communications and Technology Minister Reza Taqipour said last month that Iran needed to develop its own network to ensure the safety of the country's information.
Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and has refused to halt it despite increasingly draconian U.N. and Western sanctions.
Shaheed is in New York to present his annual report on rights in Iran to the U.N. General Assembly's Third Committee, which focuses on human rights.
His report details how rights activists in Iran face beatings with batons, mock hangings, rape and threats that family members will be raped or killed.
Earlier this week Shaheed, a former Maldives foreign minister, reported that minority religions in Iran continue to face persecution.
Tehran has so far not granted Shaheed access to the country. In its response, the Islamic republic said his overall report was biased, selective and 'fails to reflect the actual situation of human rights in Iran.'
(Editing by Xavier Briand)
This news article is brought to you by MUSIC UNITED 1 - where latest news are our top priority.
China's ZTE slumps to quarterly loss, margins bleed
HONG KONG (Reuters) - ZTE Corp, the world's fourth-biggest maker of mobile phones and fifth-ranked telecommunications equipment manufacturer, reported a $310 million quarterly net loss, its first since listing in Hong Kong in 2004, on shredded margins, project delays and accounting changes in China.
Shenzhen-based ZTE, led by Shi Lirong, had previously warned its quarterly loss could be as much as 2 billion yuan - eight times its first-half profit - triggering a 16 percent drop in its stock price on October 15, a self-imposed 50 percent pay cut by executives, and warnings from Fitch ratings agency.
In the third quarter of last year, ZTE made a profit of 299 million yuan.
'Things should move up from here, in terms of profitability and margins. We have to watch whether their telecom equipment business overseas picks up,' said Michael Li, an analyst with Everbright Securities in Hong Kong.
ZTE has also faced accusations in a U.S. Congress committee report this month that it - and local rival Huawei Technologies Co Ltd - is a potential cyber security threat. Both ZTE and Huawei deny the committee's allegations.
Telecoms gear contributes about half of ZTE's total sales, while consumer devices - handsets, tablets and dongles - make up about a third. The company, which employs more than 80,000 people, generates more than half its revenues outside China.
ZTE recently sold a majority stake in ZTE Special Equipment Co (ZTEsec), a business that sells surveillance systems to governments and law enforcement agencies.
An investigation by Reuters earlier this year found that ZTE had sold to Iran's largest telecoms firm a powerful surveillance system capable of monitoring landline, mobile and internet communications. Reuters also reported that ZTE had sold or agreed to sell Iran embargoed U.S. computer equipment. The company said later it was curtailing its business in Iran and had stopped looking for new customers there.
FULL-YEAR PROFIT
Earlier this month, ZTE blamed its forecast third-quarter loss on delays in some international telecom projects and a large number of low-margin contracts in Europe and Asia, but said it expected to be profitable for the full year.
Net profit for the full year is forecast at around 642 million yuan, according to a mean forecast from a Reuters poll of 11 analysts since the company's mid-October profit warning.
'The company's fundamentals are not so strong and transparency is also a concern,' said a fund manager, who was not authorized to talk to the media, so didn't want to be named.
ZTE, which competes with Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent SA and Nokia-Siemens in providing equipment to telecom carriers, has been frustrated by project delays in the high-margin African market, while sales in Europe have slowed due to the broad debt crisis there.
CHINA MOBILE HOPES
Like many in the consumer gadget business, ZTE wants to move up the smartphone value chain with higher-end models like its Grand series, but remains way behind Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc in consumer recognition.
ZTE shipped 8 million smartphones in April-June and analysts said executives told them shipments would be around 25 million this year, lower than earlier targets.
Analysts say ZTE should benefit from China Mobile Ltd's expected spending next year to develop its 4G network.
ZTE shares have more than halved this year, dropping the firm's market value to below $5 billion. The benchmark Hang Seng stock index has gained almost 18 percent over the same period, while the CSI 300, made up of leading Shanghai and Shenzhen shares, is down 2 percent.
ZTE has switched to a stricter way of logging new contract revenues in its home market. It previously signed procurement contracts with carriers' provincial branches, but now also requires agreements with their head offices, increasing the time needed to seal some deals, analysts said.
(Reporting by Lee Chyen Yee; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
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Shenzhen-based ZTE, led by Shi Lirong, had previously warned its quarterly loss could be as much as 2 billion yuan - eight times its first-half profit - triggering a 16 percent drop in its stock price on October 15, a self-imposed 50 percent pay cut by executives, and warnings from Fitch ratings agency.
In the third quarter of last year, ZTE made a profit of 299 million yuan.
'Things should move up from here, in terms of profitability and margins. We have to watch whether their telecom equipment business overseas picks up,' said Michael Li, an analyst with Everbright Securities in Hong Kong.
ZTE has also faced accusations in a U.S. Congress committee report this month that it - and local rival Huawei Technologies Co Ltd - is a potential cyber security threat. Both ZTE and Huawei deny the committee's allegations.
Telecoms gear contributes about half of ZTE's total sales, while consumer devices - handsets, tablets and dongles - make up about a third. The company, which employs more than 80,000 people, generates more than half its revenues outside China.
ZTE recently sold a majority stake in ZTE Special Equipment Co (ZTEsec), a business that sells surveillance systems to governments and law enforcement agencies.
An investigation by Reuters earlier this year found that ZTE had sold to Iran's largest telecoms firm a powerful surveillance system capable of monitoring landline, mobile and internet communications. Reuters also reported that ZTE had sold or agreed to sell Iran embargoed U.S. computer equipment. The company said later it was curtailing its business in Iran and had stopped looking for new customers there.
FULL-YEAR PROFIT
Earlier this month, ZTE blamed its forecast third-quarter loss on delays in some international telecom projects and a large number of low-margin contracts in Europe and Asia, but said it expected to be profitable for the full year.
Net profit for the full year is forecast at around 642 million yuan, according to a mean forecast from a Reuters poll of 11 analysts since the company's mid-October profit warning.
'The company's fundamentals are not so strong and transparency is also a concern,' said a fund manager, who was not authorized to talk to the media, so didn't want to be named.
ZTE, which competes with Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent SA and Nokia-Siemens in providing equipment to telecom carriers, has been frustrated by project delays in the high-margin African market, while sales in Europe have slowed due to the broad debt crisis there.
CHINA MOBILE HOPES
Like many in the consumer gadget business, ZTE wants to move up the smartphone value chain with higher-end models like its Grand series, but remains way behind Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc in consumer recognition.
ZTE shipped 8 million smartphones in April-June and analysts said executives told them shipments would be around 25 million this year, lower than earlier targets.
Analysts say ZTE should benefit from China Mobile Ltd's expected spending next year to develop its 4G network.
ZTE shares have more than halved this year, dropping the firm's market value to below $5 billion. The benchmark Hang Seng stock index has gained almost 18 percent over the same period, while the CSI 300, made up of leading Shanghai and Shenzhen shares, is down 2 percent.
ZTE has switched to a stricter way of logging new contract revenues in its home market. It previously signed procurement contracts with carriers' provincial branches, but now also requires agreements with their head offices, increasing the time needed to seal some deals, analysts said.
(Reporting by Lee Chyen Yee; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
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ZTE posts a first quarterly loss, margins bleed
HONG KONG (Reuters) - ZTE Corp, the world's fourth-biggest maker of mobile phones and fifth-ranked telecommunications equipment manufacturer, reported a net loss of 1.95 billion yuan ($310 million) for July-September, its first quarterly loss on record, as margins thinned, overseas projects were delayed and it made accounting changes at home in China.
Shenzhen-based ZTE, led by Shi Lirong, had previously warned its quarterly loss could be as much as 2 billion yuan - eight times the size of its profit in the first half of this year - triggering a 16 percent drop in its stock price on October 15, a slew of broker downgrades and warnings from Fitch ratings agency.
At that time, ZTE blamed its forecast loss on delays in some international telecom projects and a large number of low-margin contracts in Europe and Asia, but said it expected to be profitable for the full year.
(Reporting by Lee Chyen Yee; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
This article is brought to you by AFFORDABLE COMPUTERS.
Shenzhen-based ZTE, led by Shi Lirong, had previously warned its quarterly loss could be as much as 2 billion yuan - eight times the size of its profit in the first half of this year - triggering a 16 percent drop in its stock price on October 15, a slew of broker downgrades and warnings from Fitch ratings agency.
At that time, ZTE blamed its forecast loss on delays in some international telecom projects and a large number of low-margin contracts in Europe and Asia, but said it expected to be profitable for the full year.
(Reporting by Lee Chyen Yee; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
This article is brought to you by AFFORDABLE COMPUTERS.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Lockheed, Intel, others team up to tackle cyber challenges
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Five U.S. technology companies, including top weapons maker Lockheed Martin Corp and chip maker Intel, plan to team up to tackle 'grand challenges' in cyberspace amid growing concerns about computer security.
The non-profit research consortium, to be known as the Cyber Security Research Alliance (CSRA), will also include Advanced Micro Devices, Honeywell International and EMC Corp's RSA Security division as founding members.
The consortium will coordinate industry research and work closely with government to develop 'break-through technologies' to improve cybersecurity, said its president Lee Holcomb, a senior executive at Lockheed's information systems and global solutions division.
Initial prototypes could be developed within a year to 18 months, possibly addressing the security issues raised by the proliferation of so-called embedded devices, such as controllers in cars and the power grid, Holcomb told Reuters in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
'We're going to try to bring together the government, academia and industry to collectively lay out a road map for what are the critical problems and what are the technical solutions and approaches that may work,' he said. 'How do we make it real?'
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last week highlighted the growing threat of cyber attacks, noting that hackers were already going after banks and were developing the ability to strike U.S. power grids and government systems.
An August cyber attack on Saudi Arabia's state oil company, Saudi Aramco, that crippled some 30,000 computers, was probably the most destructive attack ever directed against the private sector, he said. U.S. financial institutions have been under sustained attack in recent weeks by suspected Iranian hackers.
Ron Perez, director of security architecture at AMD, said the alliance grew out of an ad hoc group of industry executives that began meeting in late 2009.
'What's new here is the recognition that there are challenges out there that are bigger than any one company, any one university, or consortium of universities, and even bigger than what the government can do on their own,' he said.
'To really address these problems, it's going to take a long-term, well thought-out collaboration process,' Perez said. 'And then we need to pick the low-hanging fruit and start delivering on some of those processes.'
Holcomb said each of the five founding companies had paid $60,000 in membership dues, but 15 to 20 other companies had expressed interest in joining the non-profit alliance.
The group also plans to convene a public symposium early next year with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to connect researchers with officials from the private, academic and government sectors.
(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Richard Pullin)
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The non-profit research consortium, to be known as the Cyber Security Research Alliance (CSRA), will also include Advanced Micro Devices, Honeywell International and EMC Corp's RSA Security division as founding members.
The consortium will coordinate industry research and work closely with government to develop 'break-through technologies' to improve cybersecurity, said its president Lee Holcomb, a senior executive at Lockheed's information systems and global solutions division.
Initial prototypes could be developed within a year to 18 months, possibly addressing the security issues raised by the proliferation of so-called embedded devices, such as controllers in cars and the power grid, Holcomb told Reuters in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
'We're going to try to bring together the government, academia and industry to collectively lay out a road map for what are the critical problems and what are the technical solutions and approaches that may work,' he said. 'How do we make it real?'
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last week highlighted the growing threat of cyber attacks, noting that hackers were already going after banks and were developing the ability to strike U.S. power grids and government systems.
An August cyber attack on Saudi Arabia's state oil company, Saudi Aramco, that crippled some 30,000 computers, was probably the most destructive attack ever directed against the private sector, he said. U.S. financial institutions have been under sustained attack in recent weeks by suspected Iranian hackers.
Ron Perez, director of security architecture at AMD, said the alliance grew out of an ad hoc group of industry executives that began meeting in late 2009.
'What's new here is the recognition that there are challenges out there that are bigger than any one company, any one university, or consortium of universities, and even bigger than what the government can do on their own,' he said.
'To really address these problems, it's going to take a long-term, well thought-out collaboration process,' Perez said. 'And then we need to pick the low-hanging fruit and start delivering on some of those processes.'
Holcomb said each of the five founding companies had paid $60,000 in membership dues, but 15 to 20 other companies had expressed interest in joining the non-profit alliance.
The group also plans to convene a public symposium early next year with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to connect researchers with officials from the private, academic and government sectors.
(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Richard Pullin)
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Zynga shores up 2012 view after revenue beat, shares jump
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Zynga Inc raised the lower end of its 2012 earnings outlook after quarterly revenue beat Wall Street's rock-bottom expectations, driving its shares 13 percent higher.
As pressure fell on the embattled 'FarmVille' creator to show Wednesday that it has stabilized its spiraling business, the company assuaged investors with a series of minor announcements, from a new deal with British firm bwin.party to offer online real-money gambling in the United Kingdom to a $200 million share buyback plan that would lift its dismal share price.
The company also projected that its cost reduction plan, initiated this week, would yield $15 million to $20 million in pretax savings.
The spate of news proved a rare bright spot for Zynga, which has been trying to stave off user losses that prompted it to slash its 2012 outlook twice in recent months.
'On the margin these are positive things,' said Arvind Bhatia, an analyst with Sterne Agee. 'But fundamentally they'll still have to turn around the business. I'm not so sure these are necessarily enough to get this stock going much higher.'
Even taking into account the after-hours share rally, Zynga would still have lost three-quarters of its market value since debuting last December at $10.
CEO Mark Pincus sounded chastened on a conference call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday, repeatedly calling Zynga's recent performance 'disappointing' while vowing to turn around the company he founded in 2006 by churning out new hits for mobile devices.
'The last couple of months have obviously been challenging for us,' said Pincus, who blamed delays and poor execution in the company's game development pipeline. 'We didn't create enough new heat for our players. But we know when we launch great games our players engage.'
A day after Zynga cut five percent of its workforce and announced it would shutter several game studios around the world, Pincus reiterated his vision of a leaner, more nimble Zynga - a company once known for its aggressive pace of expansion.
For instance, Zynga cut bait this week on 'The Ville,' a major initiative that never gained traction after its public debut this summer. 'That game missed our expectations but we moved quickly to reduce and redeploy that team,' Pincus said.
But even with the cost cuts, Zynga has not adequately addressed some fundamental investor concerns over whether the company can thrive, given its stubborn reliance on sales from 'FarmVille' and 'CityVille,' one-time cash cows for Zynga that are both fading fast.
Chief Financial Officer David Wehner blamed those two aging games as reasons why Zynga recorded bookings of $256 million from July through September, the worst quarterly performance since late 2010 when the company was still enjoying a meteoric ascent toward its December, 2011 initial public offering.
Average daily bookings per average daily active user, a metric that roughly measures how much revenue the company squeezes out of each gamer, dropped sharply to $0.047, a decrease of 11 percent from a year prior.
Quarterly revenue rose to $317 million, an increase of 3 percent from a year ago. The company revised its full-year adjusted earnings to between $152 million and $162 million, up from $147 million and $162 million.
NO SURE BET
Zynga's partnership with bwin.party could ultimately prove to be a lucrative new source of revenue, although Wehner cautioned that it was still a fledgling effort.
'We view this as the first step into real money gambling,' said Wehner, who declined to give guidance for the deal's financial impact when asked by several analysts.
'It's a good first step but only the first step,' he said.
Although profitable, real money gambling operations are seen as the holy grail for online gaming companies. Analysts said the UK deal was guaranteed to be a sure bet for Zynga, while others were skeptical.
'I'm not sure that will automatically be a win for them,' Bhatia said. 'Most of the players they have want to have a casual experience and not get involved in real money gaming. And those who do are probably already doing that on other platforms.'
Pincus and Wehner also said the company would invest more heavily in 'mid-core' games, which require more development resources but are more immersive than casual titles like 'FarmVille.'
To underscore how the company prioritizes mobile games, Zynga now operates on a publishing schedule of two new Web games and four new mobile games per quarter, Pincus added.
That was enough good news to lift the gloom around the game maker, which has been fighting to reverse a dramatic exodus of players. Zynga had cut its 2012 earnings forecast most recently on October 4 when it warned investors its top line would be affected by poor performance in core money-making Internet games.
Zynga's stock was up at $2.41 in extended trade after closing at $2.129 on the Nasdaq.
(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Bernard Orr)
This article is brought to you by COMPUTERS FOR SALE.
As pressure fell on the embattled 'FarmVille' creator to show Wednesday that it has stabilized its spiraling business, the company assuaged investors with a series of minor announcements, from a new deal with British firm bwin.party to offer online real-money gambling in the United Kingdom to a $200 million share buyback plan that would lift its dismal share price.
The company also projected that its cost reduction plan, initiated this week, would yield $15 million to $20 million in pretax savings.
The spate of news proved a rare bright spot for Zynga, which has been trying to stave off user losses that prompted it to slash its 2012 outlook twice in recent months.
'On the margin these are positive things,' said Arvind Bhatia, an analyst with Sterne Agee. 'But fundamentally they'll still have to turn around the business. I'm not so sure these are necessarily enough to get this stock going much higher.'
Even taking into account the after-hours share rally, Zynga would still have lost three-quarters of its market value since debuting last December at $10.
CEO Mark Pincus sounded chastened on a conference call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday, repeatedly calling Zynga's recent performance 'disappointing' while vowing to turn around the company he founded in 2006 by churning out new hits for mobile devices.
'The last couple of months have obviously been challenging for us,' said Pincus, who blamed delays and poor execution in the company's game development pipeline. 'We didn't create enough new heat for our players. But we know when we launch great games our players engage.'
A day after Zynga cut five percent of its workforce and announced it would shutter several game studios around the world, Pincus reiterated his vision of a leaner, more nimble Zynga - a company once known for its aggressive pace of expansion.
For instance, Zynga cut bait this week on 'The Ville,' a major initiative that never gained traction after its public debut this summer. 'That game missed our expectations but we moved quickly to reduce and redeploy that team,' Pincus said.
But even with the cost cuts, Zynga has not adequately addressed some fundamental investor concerns over whether the company can thrive, given its stubborn reliance on sales from 'FarmVille' and 'CityVille,' one-time cash cows for Zynga that are both fading fast.
Chief Financial Officer David Wehner blamed those two aging games as reasons why Zynga recorded bookings of $256 million from July through September, the worst quarterly performance since late 2010 when the company was still enjoying a meteoric ascent toward its December, 2011 initial public offering.
Average daily bookings per average daily active user, a metric that roughly measures how much revenue the company squeezes out of each gamer, dropped sharply to $0.047, a decrease of 11 percent from a year prior.
Quarterly revenue rose to $317 million, an increase of 3 percent from a year ago. The company revised its full-year adjusted earnings to between $152 million and $162 million, up from $147 million and $162 million.
NO SURE BET
Zynga's partnership with bwin.party could ultimately prove to be a lucrative new source of revenue, although Wehner cautioned that it was still a fledgling effort.
'We view this as the first step into real money gambling,' said Wehner, who declined to give guidance for the deal's financial impact when asked by several analysts.
'It's a good first step but only the first step,' he said.
Although profitable, real money gambling operations are seen as the holy grail for online gaming companies. Analysts said the UK deal was guaranteed to be a sure bet for Zynga, while others were skeptical.
'I'm not sure that will automatically be a win for them,' Bhatia said. 'Most of the players they have want to have a casual experience and not get involved in real money gaming. And those who do are probably already doing that on other platforms.'
Pincus and Wehner also said the company would invest more heavily in 'mid-core' games, which require more development resources but are more immersive than casual titles like 'FarmVille.'
To underscore how the company prioritizes mobile games, Zynga now operates on a publishing schedule of two new Web games and four new mobile games per quarter, Pincus added.
That was enough good news to lift the gloom around the game maker, which has been fighting to reverse a dramatic exodus of players. Zynga had cut its 2012 earnings forecast most recently on October 4 when it warned investors its top line would be affected by poor performance in core money-making Internet games.
Zynga's stock was up at $2.41 in extended trade after closing at $2.129 on the Nasdaq.
(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Bernard Orr)
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