Techmeme: Tesco Inks Deal For Rakuten's Kobo To Take On Blinkbox Books' Customers, Other Assets (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

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January 28, 2015, 8:05 PM

Top News

Facebook:

Facebook Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Results — Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2014. — “We got a lot done in 2014. Our community continues to grow and we're making progress towards connecting the world …

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Beats Estimates In Q4 With $3.85B Revenue, User Growth Up To 2.9% QOQ To Hit 1.39B — Facebook beat the street's estimates for the 10th straight quarter in Q4 2014. It now has 1.393 billion users, up 3.18% quarter over quarter, which was a little faster than Q3's 2.2% but slower than Q2's 3.125%.

More: Wall Street Journal, Engadget, ABC News, Seeking Alpha and bizjournals. Tweets: @joshconstine

Garett Sloane / Adweek:

Facebook mobile ad revenue accounts for 69% of total ad revenue in Q4, up from 53% Q4 2013; 1.19B mobile MAUs — Facebook Just Shared Insane Q4 Mobile Numbers and Ad Sales — Its smartphone promos alone did $2.5 billion — Facebook's mobile sales continue to skyrocket …

More: VentureBeat, VatorNews, Guardian, CNNMoney, CNET, ZDNet, The Next Web, Marketing Land, Re/code, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, NBC News, Fast Company, MobileSyrup.com, Variety and Deadline. Tweets: @joshconstine

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Facebook video views hit 3B per day, up from 1B daily views in September 2014 — Facebook Now Has Over 3B Video Views Per Day — If it's starting to feel like every visit you make to Facebook these days is full of videos, you are not alone. Facebook today reported in a strong set …

More: Bloomberg Business and GeekWire. Tweets: @sarahfrier

Ben Kepes / Forbes:

Amazon to introduce WorkMail, a cloud email and calendar service aimed at Microsoft Exchange's market, in Q2 2015 — Amazon Changes The Game Again—AWS Introduces WorkMail — Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud computing business unit, continues to surprise industry commentators with both its growth and its incessant innovation.

More: Wall Street Journal, AWS Official Blog, VentureBeat, ZDNet, Ink, Bits, & Pixels, Bloomberg Business, CIO.com, Business Insider, Re/code, The Verge, Ubergizmo, Technology Personalized, GeekWire, The Next Web and TechCrunch

Eric Lempel / PlayStation.Blog:

Sony announces Spotify-powered PlayStation Music streaming service for PS4, PS3, and Xperia devices; Music Unlimited shutting down March 29 — PlayStation, Meet Spotify — Hello everyone! I'm thrilled today to introduce a new music destination called PlayStation Music, with Spotify as the exclusive partner.

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Qualcomm Cuts Outlook, Warning Its Snapdragon 810 Dropped From a Flagship Device — Wireless chipmaker Qualcomm said Wednesday that it is cutting its financial outlook for the next two quarters as its Snapdragon 810 chip was dropped by a large customer. — The company also blamed continued concerns …

More: Android Authority, ZDNet, PC World, The Register, Android Police, Ars Technica, Gigaom, CNET, 9to5Google, Forbes, iDownloadBlog.com, Reuters, TechnoBuffalo and Pocketnow

Facebook:

Facebook Super Bowl hub collects posts and videos from friends, news outlets, players, and teams — Introducing a New Super Bowl Experience on Facebook — By Alex Himel, Engineering Director and Dan Reed, Head of Global Sports Partnerships — More than 50 million people joined …

More: Reuters, Marketing Land, The Verge, TIME, Wired, The Next Web, VentureBeat, iDownloadBlog.com, Gigaom, Ubergizmo, LostRemote, SocialTimes, Pocket-lint and The Daily Dot

Ina Fried / Re/code:

FTC fines TracFone Wireless $40M for throttling customers after advertising “unlimited” data — FTC Says Unlimited Data With Throttling Doesn't Count as Unlimited — In a case that could have broad implications, the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday ordered prepaid mobile provider TracFone …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Slack Buys Screenhero To Add Screen Sharing And Voice Chat To Its Work Messaging Platform — Slack, the enterprise collaboration service that has raised $180 million and proven to be a runaway success with 365,000 daily active users, has made another acquisition to add more functionality …

More: Several People Are Typing, The Screenhero Blog, VatorNews, Engadget, Android Authority, The Next Web, The Verge, BetaKit, FierceMobileIT News, Mashable, Wired, Business Insider, Computerworld, VentureBeat, iMore and tech.co

CBC News:

Canada's electronic spy agency tracks millions of online movie, photo, music, and other downloads worldwide — CSE tracks millions of downloads daily: Snowden documents — Global sites for sharing movies, photos, music targeted in mass anti-terror surveillance

More: Wired, The Intercept, Techdirt, Ars Technica, TorrentFreak, RT, SiliconBeat, CIO.com, Engadget, The Verge, The Hill and PandoDaily. See also Mediagazer

Washington Post:

Google says it fought gag orders in WikiLeaks investigation — Google has fought all gag orders preventing it from telling customers that their e-mails and other data were sought by the U.S. government in a long-running investigation of the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks …

More: Ars Technica, eWeek and 9to5Google

Tweets: @ioerror, @dangillmor, @csoghoian, @csoghoian, @tbridis, @emptywheel and @anonyops

See also Mediagazer

Matthias Schaefer / The Jawbone Blog:

Jawbone launches marketplace for third-party devices and apps in the US — Experience the Internet of You: Introducing the Jawbone Marketplace — “At Jawbone, we embrace the promise of the Internet of Things. We can only put all this together if we work with others …

More: 9to5Google, Fortune and The Next Web

Andrew Grush / Android Authority:

Evleaks reveals render showing off One M9 in two sizes, with improved aesthetics — With HTC set to unveil its next flagship in March, we're already hearing quite a few rumors on what to expect from the One (M9). In addition to talk of specs, there have also been several leaked images …

More: Android Central, 9to5Google, Ubergizmo, Pocketables, Gotta Be Mobile, Droid Life, Phandroid, PhoneDog.com, Forbes, MobileSyrup.com, TechnoBuffalo, The Verge, Android Police, PC World, AndroidGuys and Neowin. Tweets: @evleaks

Lulu Yilun Chen / Bloomberg Business:

China accuses Alibaba of bribery and lax oversight of illegal operations on its platforms in report withheld until now to avoid disrupting the company's IPO — China Accuses Alibaba of Lax Oversight of Merchants — Don't Miss Out — … (Bloomberg) — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has a …

More: Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney, BBC, AdAge, International Business Times, Forbes, Consumerist, New York Times, CNBC, Associated Press, Quartz, Reuters and Asia Stocks to Watch. Tweets: @isaacstonefish

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:

TechStars Ventures Raises $150 Million As It Expands Into Series A Investments — Techstars has raised $150 million for its latest vehicle, Techstars Ventures (formerly known as Bullet Time Ventures) as it expands from seed into Series A investment. — “The $150 million third fund is focused …

More: Feld Thoughts, Techstars, VentureBeat, Hi, I'm David G. Cohen, Re/code, Xconomy, Wall Street Journal and GeekWire

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:

UserTesting raises $45.5M Series C led by Accel Partners to expand usability testing business — Accel Chooses “A” And “B” With UserTesting's $45.5 Million Round — When rolling out a new product, or making changes to an old one, companies can spend thousands of dollars on testing to ensure …

More: UserTesting, VentureBeat, PE Hub Blog, PR Newswire, Wired, Xconomy, bizjournals and Forbes. Thanks:@stevemnich

Ben Popper / The Verge:

Firmware update prevents DJI drones from flying over Washington, DC after White House crash — Drone maker DJI will disable its units over Washington, DC, after White House crash — Rookie pilots will get a little extra help determining what's a no-fly zone

More: Wall Street Journal, TIME, The Next Web, Gizmodo, Ars Technica, bizjournals, Mashable, Ubergizmo, The Hill, TechCrunch and Digital Trends. Tweets: @jacknicas

Associated Press:

Samsung's 4Q earnings drop 27 percent, beats forecast — SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics Co. says its quarterly earnings dropped 27 percent in the fourth quarter but its result beat forecasts. — The world's top smartphone maker reported Thursday that its October-December earnings …

More: Yahoo! Finance, Bloomberg Business, Reuters and newswire.co.kr

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Tesco Inks Deal For Rakuten's Kobo To Take On Blinkbox Books' Customers, Other Assets — Some closure in the ongoing story of retail giant Tesco offloading its digital content effort blinkbox. Assets from blinkbox Books — specifically customer accounts and existing e-book libraries …

More: Publishers Weekly and Engadget

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg Business:

Snapchat original series “SnapperHero” to be made by YouTube and Vine stars, sponsored by AT&T — YouTube Stars Expand to Snapchat — Don't Miss Out — … (Bloomberg) — Snapchat Inc. is getting its own superhero series, the latest sign that the ephemeral-messaging startup …

More: Variety, Re/code, The Next Web, AdAge, Tubefilter, Wireless Week, Comicbook.com and Mashable. See also Mediagazer

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