Editor’s Note: Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD), Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM)
Twitter Outshines Facebook With Earlier Focus on Mobile (Bloomberg)
Twitter Inc., the microblogging service that plans an initial public offering, is outpacing its bigger competitors Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) in a crucial growth area: mobile advertising. Ads on smartphones and tablets will make up more than half of Twitter’s ad revenue this year, according to EMarketer Inc. That puts it ahead of Facebook, which generated 41 percent of its ad revenue from mobile promotions in the latest quarter. Google, the largest search engine, is estimated to get slightly less than one quarter of its revenue this year from mobile ads, EMarketer said.
LinkedIn’s Market Cap Passes Salesforce, Long The Bellwether Symbol Of Cloud Services (TechCrunch)
For the second week in a row, LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD)’s market capitalization finished higher than salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM). Linkedin ended trading on Friday with a $32.56 billion market cap while the Salesforce market cap was $29.59 billion. Salesforce is a darling of Wall Street and has long been the symbol of the SaaS and new world of the enterprise, the first to surpass $1 billion in annual revenues. But with LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD)’s rise, the financial markets have another company to point to as a leader of the SaaS world.
Yelp Sues Business For Faking Its Own Reviews (Small Business Trends)
Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP) filed suit against a business (a law firm no less!) over what it claims are fake reviews the business created for itself. While there have been stories before of companies “outed” for being behind fake review efforts, and even FTC complaints, Yelp filing a lawsuit is new. Yelp claims that the McMillan Law Group, of San Diego, had employees create fake accounts to leave positive reviews. Mike Masnick at TechDirt observes they allegedly were not very good at covering their tracks. Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP) also alleges that the McMillan law firm participated with a group of other San Diego law firms, to ‘trade” favorable reviews.
Autoplay Might Be The Problem With Facebook’s Video Ads (Forbes)
It looks like Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is experimenting with autoplay on videos in the news feed. This will work better in some mobile environments than others of course: but the real problem could be what it portends. For we already know that they intend to introduce video ads to the service. And it’s possible that there will be considerable consumer resistance to those being on autoplay. There’s all the usual concerns about bandwidth here. Yes, this will be fine if you’ve got a deal for near unlimited bandwidth on a 4G (or enhanced 3G perhaps) network, or if you’re over WiFi most of the time.
LinkedIn Stock Sale Could Bring In $1 Billion (CIO Today)
With an amazing increase in share value over the past year, LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD) is finally using its success on the stock market to bring in real, usable money. According to a Securities and Exchange filing, LinkedIn plans to sell 4.17 million shares of its Class A stock to raise $1 billion, based on the company’s $240.40 share value. There are few companies that experience the type of share value increase that LinkedIn has seen since its initial public offering in 2011. Since its IPO, LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD)’s share value has increased from $45 to $240, a fivefold increase in just two years.
Yelp Target of Unusually High Options Trading (YELP) (Zolmax)
Shares of Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Friday. Stock investors bought 8,447 put options on the stock, AnalystRatingsNetwork reports. This represents an increase of 135% compared to the typical volume of 3,596 put options. In other Yelp news, SVP Joseph R. Nachman unloaded 9,380 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $63.02, for a total value of $591,127.60. A number of analysts have recently weighed in on YELP shares. Analysts at UBS AG raised their price target on shares of Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP) from $42.00 to $70.00 in a research note to investors on Thursday. They now have a “neutral” rating on the stock.
Options Action Web Extra: Tweeting about Facebook? (CNBC.com)
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