Facebook is 10
Everyone’s favorite procrastination tool turned a decade old this week. The company celebrated with individualized videos that capture users’ first moments on the platform, pictures shared and most liked posts. Facebook’s founder and CEO shared a few words on the day that spoke of the social network’s history and what he clearly sees as a long runway ahead. “The first ten years were about bootstrapping this network,” he wrote in a post. “Today, only one-third of the world’s population has access to the internet. In the next decade, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to connect the other two-thirds.”
Recently, Facebook’s future has been called into question by various reports, as the site admitted less teens than before were joining the network. However, the company’s earnings report impressed investors as profits hit $523 million — not a bad birthday present for the platform.
Sony: So long, Vaio
Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls: It tolls for PC. Sony is unloading its VAIO brand on Japan Industrial Partners in a deal worth between 40-50 billion yen ($391-$488 million), as reported by Nikkei. Both parties hope the deal goes through by the end of March 2014. Sony came to the decision to sell after thorough consideration of “factors, including the drastic changes in the global PC industry,” according to a release. “The company has determined that concentrating its mobile product lineup on smartphones and tablets and transferring its PC business to a new company established by JIP is the optimal solution.”
IDC reported last year global PC shipments would plunge by more than 10 percent in 2013. PCs have taken a backseat to smartphones; shipments of the intelligent mobile devices around the world broke 1 billion this past year, according to a separate IDC report.
Twitter and LinkedIn suffer growing pains
Future growth troubled two social media standbys that announced earnings this week. Both Twitter and LinkedIn saw less people than before joining up. Both companies beat Wall Street predictions on earnings and revenue projections, but concerns over slowing growth caused the two tech titans’ stock prices to plummet. Twitter shares slipped almost 13 percent in after hours trading, while LinkedIn’s stock bottomed out yesterday at $191.13, 14.5 percent less than close.
Last week, the birthday behemoth Facebook, which reported boosts in mobile usership, saw its stock increase by as much as 9 percent.
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