Twitter’s IPO: Going cheep? The microblogging firm’s shares may not be the bargain investors are hoping for

Twitter’s IPO: Going cheep? The microblogging firm’s shares may not be the bargain investors are hoping for

Nov 2nd 2013 |From the print edition

TWITTER is already a social-media star. Now it hopes to become the toast of the stockmarket too. The firm has gradually been unveiling more information about its business. But as it gets ready for its first day of trading as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange, which looks likely to be on November 7th, opinions about a fair price for the shares vary considerably. Read more of this post

Telecoms Selling TV Have Bigger Impact on Cable Firms; Verizon and AT&T Experiment With Delivery Outside Traditional Cable-TV Bundle

Telecoms Selling TV Have Bigger Impact on Cable Firms

Verizon and AT&T Experiment With Delivery Outside Traditional Cable-TV Bundle.

SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN and THOMAS GRYTA

Updated Oct. 31, 2013 8:31 p.m. ET

The way things are going, the term “cable TV” may have to be replaced by “phone TV.” Nearly a decade after Verizon Communications Inc. VZ -0.04% and AT&T Inc. T -0.17%began building pipelines to carry TV service to U.S. homes, they are nearing the market share of cable operators in areas where they operate, according to third-quarter results released by cable and phone companies in recent days. The top two cable providers,Comcast Corp. CMCSA +1.08% and Time Warner Cable Inc., TWC +2.80% shed 435,000 video customers in the quarter, while AT&T and Verizon added 400,000. Read more of this post

Kindles Power Up For Flight as Airlines Vie to Be First

Kindles Power Up For Flight as Airlines Vie to Be First

By Alan Levin, Todd Shields and Caroline Chen – Nov 1, 2013

One of airline travel’s least-cherished rituals, powering down electronic devices before takeoff and landing, is nearing an end — with qualifications. When and how you’re allowed to use your Amazon.com Inc. Kindle or Apple Inc. iPhone on U.S. flights will depend on what airline you’re flying, what device you’re using, what aircraft type you’re on, and maybe the weather outside. Read more of this post

Here’s What Happened When Cisco Lost A $1 Billion Deal With Amazon

Here’s What Happened When Cisco Lost A $1 Billion Deal With Amazon

JULIE BORT OCT. 31, 2013, 5:00 PM 9,479 6

Next week, on Nov. 6, Cisco will finally show off what it hopes will be a game-changing product built from its super-secret startup Insieme Networks. The product stems in part from a $1 billion deal with Amazon that collapsed before it was finalized. Insieme is creating Cisco’s answer to a new technology called “software defined networking” (SDN). SDN is a huge threat to Cisco because it changes the way companies build networks. It takes the high-end features built into expensive routers and switches and puts them into software that can run on cheaper hardware. Corporations still need to buy routers and switches, but they can buy fewer of them and cheaper ones. It also leads to all kinds of new startups based on networking software. Read more of this post

Get Ready for the Surge of Cheap Tablets

Get Ready for the Surge of Cheap Tablets

By Peter Burrows October 31, 2013

Apple (AAPL), Amazon.com (AMZN), and Google (GOOG) have a secret: Cutting-edge tablet parts may be pricey, but pretty good ones are getting cheap. You wouldn’t know it from those companies’ latest tablet launches, all of them well above $200. The new retina display-equipped iPad Mini 2 goes for $399. Phil Schiller, Apple’s vice president for product marketing, says his company isn’t interested in devices priced below $200. “We think there are two markets, the iPad and everything else,” Schiller says. Read more of this post

Facebook Holds Line on Balance of Ads for User Experience

Facebook Holds Line on Balance of Ads for User Experience

By Brian Womack and Sarah Frier – Nov 1, 2013

Facebook Inc. (FB) has decided not to push the limits of how many online advertisements people can tolerate.

The world’s largest social-networking company said this week that it doesn’t plan to increase the balance of ads that it shows to users in their news feeds, the main hub for content on its services. Facebook said ads took up 5 percent of the posts in news feeds in the second quarter and have risen only modestly since then. That amounts to about one ad for every 20 photos, status updates or other posts. Read more of this post

Architect Eli Attia: Google stole my life’s work; Eli Attia has developed an innovative building design and construction concept that Google sees generating $120 billion annually

Architect Eli Attia: Google stole my life’s work

Eli Attia has developed an innovative building design and construction concept that Google sees generating $120 billion annually.

29 October 13 14:46, Moshe Lichtman

“Globes” can reveal the real story behind Google Inc.’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) sophisticated software for the construction industry under development at the company’s secret unit, Google X. “Globes” was the first to report this innovative technology, Google technology could halve construction costs, including how the company spun off Vannevar Technology Inc., founded and run by Google X executives, to further develop the software. Read more of this post

For Animation Studio, a Hit or Turkey?; As Hollywood Flocks to Cartoons, the Latest Entry Is Reel FX With ‘Free Birds’

For Animation Studio, a Hit or Turkey?

As Hollywood Flocks to Cartoons, the Latest Entry Is Reel FX With ‘Free Birds’

ERICH SCHWARTZEL

Updated Oct. 31, 2013 8:57 p.m. ET

With “Free Birds,” an animated movie about time-traveling turkeys that opens Friday, Reel FX Inc. is entering a mobbed market where results are often feast or famine. The film will be the 10th animated feature out of Hollywood so far this year, and the first original full-length release for Reel FX, even though the Dallas-based animation shop has been around for 20 years. After decades of working on ads, short films and promotions for other features, the studio is finally trying the big leagues. Laying the groundwork for a series of films already planned for the next several years, the studio has recently hired top animation talent behind franchises like “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda.” Read more of this post

Messaging App In Talks for Free Data Usage; Operators of Yixin negotiating with the Big Three in a move aimed at cutting into WeChat’s dominance

10.30.2013 18:55

Messaging App In Talks for Free Data Usage

Operators of Yixin negotiating with the Big Three in a move aimed at cutting into WeChat’s dominance

By staff reporter Qin Min

(Beijing) – The operator of China Telecom’s messaging app plans to arrange free data usage for people who use it in an effort to compete with rivals like the popular WeChat. Zhang Xing, the product manager of the app, called Yixin, said that people using China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom networks will get free data usage when they use Yixin. Read more of this post

How Much Is the Ten-year-old Dianping Worth?

How Much Is the Ten-year-old Dianping Worth?

By Tracey Xiang on October 31, 2013

Recent rumors said say that Baidu was in talks with Dianping for a potential acquisition that values Dianping at about $2 billion. Zhang Tao, founder and , CEO of Dianping, denied it, saying the company planed to go public within five years at an estimated valuation of more than $10 billion. Dianping turned ten in April this year and now is the most recognized brand in ratings and reviews in China. As of the third quarter of 2013, the service had more than 75 million monthly active users, 28 million reviews and 6 million merchants that in 2300 cities, disclosed by the company. Monthly pageviews was over 2.5 billion, with 70% from mobile. Mobile app users were over 80 million. Headquartered in Shanghai, Dianping has offices in more than 40 Chinese cities. Read more of this post

China’s answer to Craigslist surges on US debut

Last updated: October 31, 2013 3:01 pm

China’s answer to Craigslist surges on US debut

By Pan Kwan Yuk and Arash Massoudi in New York

The door is not exactly being kicked wide open, but after two years of accounting scandals and critical reports from shortsellers, Chinese companies are slowly making their way back to Wall Street. 58.com, China’s answer to Craigslist, surged almost 40 per cent to $23.69 with US investors showing their appetite for the company as it made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. The company, which was founded in 2005 and booked $107m in sales for the 12 months to June 30, raised $187m from its initial public offering after pricing its shares at $17 each. Read more of this post

Alibaba Splurge on Graduates Fuels Battle for China Talent: Tech

Alibaba Splurge on Graduates Fuels Battle for China Talent: Tech

Year of the Horse move over. For China’s Class of 2014, it’s looking like Dawn of the Geek. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. plans a fivefold recruitment boost to snare top graduates, with 1,000 new hires being offered as much as triple last year’s average pay. There’s also the added lure of stock in what may be the biggest initial public offering since Facebook Inc.’s $16 billion sale in 2012. The Chinese e-commerce giant founded 14 years ago by Jack Ma and 17 friends in an apartment is taking to campuses across the nation as talent becomes the latest battleground with Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Baidu Inc. China’s three biggest Internet companies have announced $3.5 billion of deals this year to win more of the country’s 590 million Web users and the $230 billion spent annually on e-commerce and online advertising. Read more of this post

Foxconn’s 4G License in Taiwan Kicks Off Asia Expansion Plans

Foxconn’s 4G License in Taiwan Kicks Off Asia Expansion Plans

Foxconn Technology Group’s purchase of mobile-phone spectrum in Taiwan is the next step in Chairman Terry Gou’s plan to move past contract manufacturing and become a global mobile content and services provider. Ambit Microsystems Corp., a wholly owned unit of Foxconn’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (2317), paid NT$9.18 billion ($312 million) for 20-megahertz of wireless bandwidth at auction, the National Communications Commission said yesterday. Winners have 120 days to pay their license fees and are then required to submit a business plan to the regulator. The successful bid marks Gou’s first foray into the telecommunications business since he founded the company 39 years ago. Read more of this post

Hon Hai Makes Push Into Software Development, Telecom Services

Hon Hai Makes Push Into Software Development, Telecom Services

Company Plans to Hire More Than 2,000 Software Engineers and Build a Data Center

LORRAINE LUK

Oct. 31, 2013 8:21 a.m. ET

TAIPEI—In a strategy shift, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. 2317.TW -0.67% is making a push into software development and telecom services, its latest efforts to seek new avenues of growth as revenue from contract manufacturing slows. Chairman Terry Gou said Thursday the company plans to hire more than 2,000 software engineers to beef up content, software development and build a data center in Taiwan. Read more of this post

All in this together: How the extended family behind Booktopia is thinking about an exit

James Thomson Editor

All in this together: How the extended family behind Booktopia is thinking about an exit

Published 31 October 2013 10:12, Updated 31 October 2013 10:13

Somewhere among the possessions of Tony Nash, founder of Booktopia, is a journal the serial entrepreneur wrote in his 20s. In there is a line that reads: “One day in the future I would like to work with my brother and my sister and my sister’s future partner.” Amazingly, that’s exactly what happened. Booktopia is a true family business and Nash really does work with his brother, his sister and his brother-in-law, Steve Traurig, the company’s chief information officer. Nash is so much of a believer in the power of family that the business even includes his former partner, Angela Keil-Zippermayr, who is chief data officer. Read more of this post

Babylon’s come-uppance; Babylon is paying the price for years of transgressing every unwritten rule of the Internet

Babylon is paying the price for years of transgressing every unwritten rule of the Internet.

30 October 13 19:13, Doron Avigad

With all due sympathy for investors in Babylon Ltd. (TASE:BBYL), who have suffered a 60% plunge in the company’s share price following the cancellation of the agreement with Google, it must be said that Babylon the company, its products, its marketing strategy is getting today exactly what it deserves for years of straying from the path of straight dealing with consumers. Read more of this post

FireEye, Box, other tech startups shun buyouts for IPOs

FireEye, Box, other tech startups shun buyouts for IPOs

7:00am EDT

By Nicola Leske

NEW YORK, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Lured by the promise of red-hot valuations and the chance to run their own companies, the CEOs of many tech startups are resisting the urge to cash out through a sale and are opting to go public instead. Four sources familiar with the matter said recently that over the past year several tech startups, including cybersecurity company FireEye Inc, big data company Cloudera and cloud storage firm Box, rejected buyout bids in favor of initial public offerings in the future. Read more of this post

IMAX to partner TCL Multimedia to develop and produce a high-end home-theater system in less than two years.

IMAX effect to come home in joint effort
Thursday, October 31, 2013
TCL Multimedia Technology (1070) will partner Canadian big-screen pro IMAX Corp to develop and produce a high-end home-theater system in less than two years. The units, to be made under a 50-50 joint venture, will boast Imax’s projection and sound technology. But they won’t come cheap. To hit the stores in 2015, each unit will cost 1.52 million yuan (HK$1.9 million). Read more of this post

What to Do When an Online Community Starts to Fail

What to Do When an Online Community Starts to Fail

by Walter Frick  |   9:38 AM October 31, 2013

Success breeds success online. Indeed, if there is one maxim that dominates the fate of digital communities it is that of network effects — the more users participating in a community, the more valuable it will be to new users. As networks like Twitter and Facebook scale, their advantage over nascent platforms becomes seemingly insurmountable. And yet scale is no guarantee of sustainability, as two recent examples illustrate. Read more of this post

Lampert Channeling Bezos Can’t Remake Sears as Amazon: Retail

Lampert Channeling Bezos Can’t Remake Sears as Amazon: Retail

Edward Lampert, Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD)’s chief executive officer and largest shareholder, likes to ladle praise on digital retailers. In letters to shareholders and in annual meetings, he lauds websites like Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and EBay Inc. (EBAY) while dismissing J.C. Penney Co. (JCP), Best Buy Co., and Staples Inc. as merchants that struggled even after significant investments in physical stores. Read more of this post

Sony’s Loss Is Black Eye for CEO

Sony’s Loss Is Black Eye for CEO

Electronics Giant Cuts Full-Year Guidance After Second-Quarter Loss

JURO OSAWA and KANA INAGAKI

Updated Oct. 31, 2013 8:18 a.m. ET

TOKYO— Sony Corp.’s 6758.TO -1.73% turnaround strategy was thrown into doubt after the electronics giant unexpectedly reported weak results and slashed its full-year profit forecast by 40%. The poor numbers are a black eye for Kazuo Hirai, who came in as chief executive last year, vowing to finally push Sony out of a prolonged slump that began when its vaunted TV business started weakening. The results for the quarter ended Sept. 30 were particularly disappointing since signs of progress had been emerging with Sony’s TV division turning profitable in the previous quarter. Since last year, Sony has been cutting costs by slashing jobs and has been focusing on expanding its smartphone business under Mr. Hirai’s leadership. Read more of this post

Japan electronics firms struggle to regain glory days

Updated: Thursday October 31, 2013 MYT 5:14:08 PM

Japan electronics firms struggle to regain glory days

TOKYO: Japan’s top electronics firms on Thursday reported mixed earnings, with Sony slashing its full-year profit outlook while hard-hit Panasonic turned in strong earnings and boosted its annual forecast. The firms have undergone painful restructuring to stem years of losses as they struggle to keep up in the low-margin television business, while rivals including Apple and South Korea’s Samsung surge ahead in the lucrative smartphone sector. Read more of this post

Rally in China Internet Stocks Begins to Stall; Much of Gains ‘Built on Hope’

Rally in China Internet Stocks Begins to Stall

Much of Gains ‘Built on Hope’

MIA LAMAR

Updated Oct. 30, 2013 5:45 p.m. ET

HONG KONG—A blistering four-month rally in Chinese Internet stocks is starting to stall as investors question whether expectations are running ahead of reality. After months of big gains, shares in Chinese Internet stocks have roughly doubled so far this year and are now valued at around 30 times expected 2013 earnings, BarclaysBARC.LN +0.90% said in a report. That compares with a gain of around 30% this year for the Nasdaq NDAQ -0.79% Composite Index, home to U.S. technology bellwethers GoogleInc. GOOG -0.56% and Apple Inc., AAPL +1.59% Barclays said. Read more of this post

Internet Games Prove Challenging for South Korea

October 31, 2013, 7:21 AM

Internet Games Prove Challenging for South Korea

By Jaeyeon Woo

South Korea’s government may find it difficult to stake out a winning position regarding online games if victory means coordination between the appendages of two arms of government. On one hand, ruling-party lawmakers are calling for measures to curb the playing of online games, citing antisocial side effects, while on the other, a ministry says the industry is an important cog in a strategy of vouchsafing the country’s economic success in creative industries. Read more of this post

Facebook’s Feast Can’t Last Forever; Social-Media Company Still Remains a One-Trick Advertising Pony

Facebook’s Feast Can’t Last Forever

Social-Media Company Still Remains a One-Trick Advertising Pony

MIRIAM GOTTFRIED

Oct. 30, 2013 6:31 p.m. ET

What’s not to like?

Facebook FB -0.78% reported third-quarter earnings Wednesday that beat expectations. But all eyes were on its revenue, particularly the portion that came from mobile. Overall revenue rose 60% to $2.02 billion, with ad sales rising 66% to $1.8 billion. Mobile ads represented 49% of that, up from 41% in the second quarter. Facebook’s ability to manage the shift to mobile is crucial. And its ability to do so while also rapidly expanding overall revenue means it isn’t simply moving sales around. Read more of this post

UPS Crunches Data to Make Routes More Efficient, Save Gas

UPS Crunches Data to Make Routes More Efficient, Save Gas

United Parcel Service Inc., the world’s biggest package shipping company, is using data from customers, drivers and vehicles in a new route guidance system that will save time and money and reduce fuel burn. The On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation, or Orion, system is being introduced this year to 10,000 of the Atlanta-based company’s 55,000 U.S. drivers, UPS said today. Orion has been in development nearly 10 years and is the company’s biggest technological advancement in the same timeframe, UPS said. Read more of this post

Drones Delivering Pizza? Venture Capitalists Wager on It

Drones Delivering Pizza? Venture Capitalists Wager on It

Commercial drones will soon be populating U.S. airspace, and venture capitalists like Tim Draper are placing their bets. Draper, an early investor in Hotmail, Skype and Baidu Inc., is now backing DroneDeploy, a startup that’s building software to direct unmanned aircraft on land mapping and the surveillance of agricultural fields. Draper even expects drones to one day bring him dinner. Read more of this post

New rule to ring in costly accounting change for telcos

New rule to ring in costly accounting change for telcos

12:47pm EDT

By Huw Jones

LONDON (Reuters) – Standard setters have reached broad agreement on the first global rule telling companies how to book revenues in a reform that may encourage listings and bump up IT costs for telcos. Revenue is the most important line in a company’s earnings statement and policymakers want to make it easier for investors to compare firms and help bring down the cost of capital by making markets more efficient and transparent. The new rule is part of wider efforts to create a single set of global accounting standards. Read more of this post