SnapChat has convinced media companies like CNN and Yahoo and Vice to be part of its new Discover feature, and they were easy to convince because of SnapChat's 200M-plus millennial audience. But who ultimately benefits from these deals?…
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Twitter beats on earnings but misses on user growth
Twitter’s stock rose slightly today after the company announced its fourth quarter earnings. It beat by a significant amount, although it missed in terms…
Read MoreGoogle misses slightly on fourth quarter earnings and stock dips
Google’s fourth quarter earnings missed Wall Street expectations today, but only by a slight amount. The stock dipped down 3 percent in after…
Read MoreHere’s why Facebook got away with a 335 percent hike in ad prices
Ads dominated the discussion during Facebook’s fourth quarter earnings call this Wednesday. COO Sheryl Sandberg told analysts that the company is charging 335 percent…
Read MoreCan media do for Snapchat what it did for Facebook?
Snapchat is distancing itself from its core messaging feature with its new Discover product. Instead of offering new communication tools, it’s focusing…
Read MoreYahoo stock rises as it turns Alibaba investment into separate company
Yahoo is splitting its remaining Alibaba shares into a separate company called SpinCo. The move will help Yahoo avoid the tax pitfalls of the investment.…
Read MoreSnapchat’s chief money man left the company. But why now?
A week after news broke that Snapchat was charging $750,000 for one day of ephemeral ad placement, Snapchat’s head of revenue Mike Randall is out,…
Read MoreUber’s raking in money in SF, but the story is complicated
Uber is now on a pace to make $500 million a year in revenue in the San Francisco market alone, according to…
Read MoreOn the way to $220M in funding, Instacart quietly changed its business model
In its early days, grocery store delivery startup Instacart made its money two ways: Through delivery fees and product markups. It charged…
Read MoreWill Pinterest prove its worth in 2015?
The next year will be the most important one of Pinterest’s life. Until now, the company has focused on its application and its audience,…
Read MoreMedium hires its first head of content advertising
Medium has hired someone to develop its native advertising partnerships, the first such role for the company. As Mathew Ingram previously reported,…
Read MoreMoney is pouring into media, but will it find the value it seeks?
Vox Media has closed a financing round that values the company at almost $400 million, and BuzzFeed is valued at twice that level -- but will the funds that made these bets see enough of a return to justify those numbers?…
Read MoreThe numbers behind Jill Abramson and Steven Brill’s new media venture don’t add up
Jill Abramson, former executive editor of the New York Times, is launching a new journalism startup with media entrepreneur Steven Brill that the two say will pay writers $100,000 or more per article. But many are skeptical of the venture's economic viability…
Read MoreDespite strong revenue, investors aren’t pleased with Twitter’s Q3. Here’s why
Twitter's user growth rate is on the decline which has shareholders worried about the future of the company. On the earnings call, CEO Dick Costolo said, "It's more critical than ever that we increase our pace of execution."…
Read MoreMarissa Mayer defends her acquisition strategy by pointing at $200 million in mobile revenue
Yahoo's mobile effort is starting to bear fruit. Will it save the company?…
Read MoreHere come the ads: It’s business time at Snapchat
Will Snapchat be able to make money? The company is ready to learn the answer.…
Read MoreEllo investor, co-founder: Funding or not, we hate ads and we want to “shift values”
How will the popular new social network maintain its ad-free philosophy if it’s pressured to bring in venture level returns?…
Read MoreIs an ad-based business model the original sin of the web — and if so, what do we do about it?
Ethan Zuckerman of MIT, who helped develop the first online pop-up ad, argues that an ad-based model is responsible for the privacy-invading nature of the modern web -- but even if that's true, how do we fix it?…
Read MoreTwitter may be considering a Facebook-style feed — but would that help its growth or derail it?
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo suggested during the company's earnings call that it is considering algorithmically-filtered features similar to Facebook's newsfeed, but some users say if it implements a Facebook-style approach they will leave…
Read MoreSnapchat reportedly in funding talks that value it at $10 billion, as much as Airbnb and Dropbox
If a $3 billion acquisition offer shocked you, prepare to faint at the latest Snapchat news: The company is reportedly in financing talks that would value it at $10 billion. Investors are placing their bets that Snapchat is the next Facebook...or at least the next WhatsApp.…
Read MoreAmazon: Hachette spat can be fixed with lower ebook pricing
The online retail giant says it will be happy to stick with the 30 percent cut it already gets from Hachette ebook sales if the publisher agrees to slash its ebook pricing, a move which Amazon claims would be central to the future of reading.…
Read MoreNewspaper companies need to stop lying to themselves, says longtime newspaper editor
Former newspaper editor David Boardman says too many newspaper companies and industry executives are fooling themselves by pretending that their business is better than it really is. They need to face reality, he says -- and maybe even stop printing newspapers altogether…
Read MoreFoursquare to charge some businesses for access to its data
Foursquare is beginning to capitalize on its rich location data by charging a small percentage of users.…
Read MoreTumblr’s David Karp has “no regrets” about Yahoo acquisition
Microblogging network Tumblr (s yhoo) was arguably the highest-profile acquisition made by Yahoo under CEO Marissa Mayer. So how are things going…
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