Social networking

LinkedIn beats Street, but stock takes a dive

LinkedIn earned 45 cents per share on revenue of $324.7 million in the first quarter, up 72 percent from the year-ago quarter. Though the results were good enough to handily beat analyst estimates, LinkedIn's shares are down around 10 percent in after-hours trading.

The professional social network, which now counts 225 million members, posted net income of $22.6 million.

"Q1 was a strong quarter for LinkedIn with member engagement and financial results reaching record levels," CEO Jeff Weiner said in a statement. "We remained focused on delivering great products that increasingly make LinkedIn the … Read more

T-Mobile employee: I used vacation time to go to the bathroom

Some stories make you wonder.

Some, however, make your eyeballs cease to move.

This, for example, is the story of a T-Mobile employee who says she was made to clock out to use the bathroom.

Which, to the average objective eye, seems a trifle inhumane.

Kristi Rifkin was employed by T-Mobile in its Nashville, Tenn., call center. It seems that, on the whole, she felt her job was relatively sweet music.

However, things changed when she fell pregnant for the second time.

As ABC News reports, her pregnancy was tough. On the advice of a doctor, she had to drink … Read more

Twitter's new exec brings IPO experience

Twitter said Thursday it has hired a new head of corporate development who happens to have years of experience with, among other things, IPOs.

Last week, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said that the company "isn't even thinking about" an IPO, despite months of speculation in the media and elsewhere that the social networking giant is preparing to go public.

And while Cynthia Gaylor, Twitter's new head of corporate development, has plenty of experience with other things, including mergers and acquisitions, it's notable that IPOs were an important part of her portfolio during her time as … Read more

Prank quiz to sell Galaxy S4 asks 'enemy combatant' question

I am sure that Samsung has set various sales targets for the Samsung Galaxy S4.

These might be along the lines of: more than the iPhone, a lot more than the iPhone and so many more than the iPhone that we'll end up buying Apple.

Everyone can dream. … Read more

Twitter gives developers new embedded timeline options

Developers got a little more control today over how embedded Twitter timelines appear.

In a blog post Thursday, Twitter said it has made some minor modifications to the way its embedded timeline tool works.

For one, the post said, developers can now choose how many tweets appear, so long as they're happy with a number from one to 20.

Second, Twitter now lets developers decide whether they want a scrollbar to appear on an embedded timeline. Apparently, this is something that people have been asking about. But while Twitter is now enabling those who want to get rid of … Read more

Keith Richards: Apple's iPod shortchanges customers

Keith Richards wearing white headphones would be like Josh Groban wearing a skirt.

Or Steven Tyler wearing men's clothing.

Somehow, it wouldn't seem right.

Fortunately, it is unlikely to happen, because the Rolling Stone who once fell out of a tree has revealed he doesn't own an iPod. … Read more

Facebook's Q1 by the numbers

Facebook's Q1 results are in and there's food for both bulls and bears to chew over. One bullet point in particular stands out: The number of people using the social network via smartphones and tablets soared 54 percent from a year earlier. Here's the year-over-year comparison to the same quarter in 2012. (We'll update the stats after Facebook's conference call gets underway this afternoon.)

Daily active users: 665 million, up 26 percent Monthly active users: 1.11 billion up 23 percent Mobile monthly active users: 751 million, up 54 percent Instagram: 100 million monthly active … Read more

Tumblr CEO says average cost of ad campaign tops six figures

NEW YORK -- Companies are spending, on average, "north of six figures" on advertising campaigns on Tumblr, the CEO of the blogging platform said Wednesday.

David Karp, speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York, noted that advertising remains Tumblr's biggest challenge, but it's seeing good traction with its efforts.

"Budgets are starting to ratchet up," Karp said. He noted that "some of the best advertisers in the world" are turning to Tumblr.

Tumblr sits alongside the Internet elites in terms of audience, but the 6-year-old blogging medium has lagged far … Read more

Misspell Google search terms? It's probably hunger

It's hard to know whether those who can't spell are stressed, oppressed by excess multitasking, or merely uneducated.

The people behind the highly nutritious Snickers bar decided to prove that it might be none of the above.

It is, they posited, merely hunger that drives you to ignorance.

So, as AdAge reports, Snickers got together with Google to see whether they could encourage better spelling of Google search terms, as misspelling was causing Google's servers to seize up and spew smoke and curses.

I made up that last part.

As part of the campaign, the Snickers-sponsored machines … Read more