Friday, September 16, 2011

RIM Share, Earnings Fall in 2nd Quarter

So there has to be concern now that RIM, a star in the mobile handset space, might suffer a similar fate, as hard as that is to imagine, though it once might have seemed unthinkable.

Canadians, more than other people, are going to worry about what is happening at Research in Motion, for reasons of national pride and influence in the broader telecom business. Nortel once was the biggest company in Canada, by valuation, as I recall, and no longer exists.

For the first time in over a decade, shipments of BlackBerry smart phones have declined, year-over-year, RIM second quarter results show. RIM also said it shipped fewer than half of its PlayBook tablets than it did in the previous quarter. Revenue declines

Revenue was down 15 percent to $4.2 billion from last quarter’s $4.9 billion, which, to be fair, is what it predicted it would make. But it’s on the lower end of the scale. Last quarter, RIM estimated that its second quarter revenue would be between $4.2 and $4.8 billion.

Revenue was down 10 percent from the $4.6 billion RIM made in the same quarter last year. RIM smart phone, tablet shipments decline (Wall Street Journal subscription required)

Although BlackBerrys have dominated the corporate smartphone market, their popularity in the consumer market has been short-lived. U.S. consumers have moved on to phones with big touchscreens like Apple's iPhone and various models that run Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

"They are just not selling. They are not competitive," said Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. "They are getting really hit hard by Android phones."

Mossberg Review of New Sony Tablet S

Basically, Walt Mossberg likes it.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Top 20 Traffic Referring Sites, According to Outbrain

Outbrain has revised its "Content Discovery and Engagement Report" for the second quarter of 2011. The report shows patterns in how people are accessing and engaging with online content based on data pulled from reader sessions across our platform of more than 150 top-tier publishers.

After re-examining its original data, Outbrain has revised its findings. The notable change is that Facebook is seen as sending more traffic to other sites, compared to Twitter. The original data suggested Twitter was sending sites more traffic.

Top 20 Traffic Sources to Content Pages

1 Google
2 Yahoo
3 AOL/Huffington Post
4 Facebook
5 MSN*
6 Drudge Report
7 CNN
8 Outbrain
9 StumbleUpon
10 Twitter
11 FoxNews.com
12 reddit
13 MediaTakeOut
14 Fark
15 Slate
16 Comcast
17 NewsNow.co.uk
18 Wikipedia
19 Digg
20 Real Clear Politics
*Includes Bing Live.com

Google Buys 1,023 IBM Patents to Defend Android

Android angry patentsGoogle bought 1,023 patents from International Business Machines Corp. to strengthen its defense against smart phone lawsuits from rivals.

Transfers recorded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s website show Google acquired the patents Aug. 17, 2011.

Consumers Still Prefer to Shop in Stores


According to a new report from The NPD Group, many U.S. consumers remain reluctant to purchase certain consumer electronics products online, even after using the Web to find out more about them. For some products, that makes sense. In other cases the reluctance is harder to figure out.

While 52 percent of consumers would seek out information about smartphones on the Web, just 23 percent could imagine themselves going online to purchase one. That might makes a great deal of sense to you. A smart phone is a highly personal item.

In some other cases, the findings are more puzzling. The research suggests that televisions are the fourth most-likely item that consumers research online prior to purchasing (56 percent); however, it's the least likely electronics product that consumers would actually purchase online (19 percent). TVs aren't personal. On the other hand, it's a bigger-ticket item than many other products, so that could explain the hesitance.

In contrast more people (66 percent) do both their research (66 percent) and expect to make an actual purchase (34 percent) online for PCs then for any other CE device.
Top consumer electronics products consumers were "extremely" or "very likely" to purchase online, included the following:
  • Computer software | 34%
  • Computer | 34%
  • eReader | 32%
  • Digital Camera | 30%
  • Computer accessories/peripherals | 30%
  • Tablet computer | 29%
  • Printer | 24%
  • Smartphone/mobile phone | 23%
  • Camcorder | 21%
  • Blu-ray player | 21%
  • Home audio | 20%
  • Television | 19%

Netflix Cuts Customer Forecast By 1 Million

Netflix is lowering its estimate of streaming customers from 22 million to 21.8 million and of DVD customers from 15 million to 14.2 million by quarter’s end.

The new Netflix pricing model, which took effect on Sept. 1, 2011, gives customers the choice of $7.99 per month to either stream movies over the Web or rent one DVD at a time via mail. The company’s former flagship offering of streaming DVD rental now costs $15.98 per month, a 60% increase from the previous $9.99.

Apparently pricing matters.

Netflix Cuts Customer Forecast By 1 Million as Price Hike Takes Effect

PayPal to Introduce Mobile Payments, Wallet, Promotion Platform

PayPal is introducing a new platform for retailers that includes mobile payment, mobile wallet, advertising and offer functions.

This is a big deal for PayPal and for mobile payments and mobile wallet users and providers.

Alphabet Sees Significant AI Revenue Boost in Search and Google Cloud

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said its investment in AI is paying off in two ways: fueling search engagement and spurring cloud computing revenu...