by wildcherry on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 | Business, News | No Comments

Despite the fact that Google reports its strongest revenue growth in a year and issues its firmest public statement saying it would like to continue doing business in China, Google stocks drops almost $30 after hours following its earning reports.

The Mountain View, Calif., company said its revenue rose 17% in the fourth quarter to $6.67 billion from a year earlier, up from only 7% revenue growth in the third quarter and 3% growth in the second quarter.

Google’s (GOOG 556.32, -26.66, -4.57%) paid-click data, a closely watched barometer for Wall Street, was up year-over-year, but grew at a slower pace than in the third quarter. Google said paid clicks grew 13% in the quarter compared with a year ago, but down slightly from third quarter growth, when Google’s paid clicks jumped 14%.

The paid click data was also below some analysts’ estimates. For example, Imran Khan of JP Morgan, had been looking for 16% year-over-year paid click growth.

Another slight disappointment in the numbers was the search giant’s revenue growth. Excluding traffic acquisition costs (TAC) Google’s fourth quarter revenue came in at $4.95 billion, on target with consensus estimates of $4.9 billion. Some investors, though, clearly had been hoping for the company to beat consensus, with its stock falling in after hours trading.

Tags: goldman sachs earnings, google earnings, google investor relations, google results, google stock, google stock price

by wildcherry on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 | News, Tech/Gadget | No Comments

Google is very close in acquiring Yelp. While the deal isn’t done, we’ve heard that it’s very likely to close. The price is supposedly at least $500 million.

Yelp was founded in 2004 as a way to let users leave reviews on local businesses. Comscore puts worldwide traffic at nearly 9 million monthly unique visitors, and it has been growing fast – the company says it’s real numbers are more like 25 million monthly uniques.

Yelp has whispered that 2009 revenues will be around $30 million and are expecting $50 million or so in 2010.

Tags: google acquire yelp, google purchase yelp, google stock, google yelp, yelp, yelp google

by gadgetqueen on Friday, November 13th, 2009 | Business, News, Tech/Gadget | No Comments

Google has acquired Gizmo5, a company that offers voice-over-IP software for mobile phones and computers, for about $30 Million intending to roll the company’s engineers into the team that develops the telephony application/controversy magnet known as Google Voice.

Whereas Gizmo5 offers Skype-like software for calling people over the interwebs, Google Voice is a special telephony thingy that lets you use a single phone number for multiple phones - and turn your voice mails into emails. “While we don’t have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5’s engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience,” reads a post on the official Google Voice blog.

Google Voice is itself the child of an acquisition. It was first developed by GrandCentral, a startup Google gobbled up in 2007.

Last month, during Google’s third-quarter earnings call, CEO Eric Schmidt told the world the company was pulling out its checkbook now that the recession is supposedly over. “We believe the worst of the recession is behind us and now feel confident about investing heavily in our future,” he said. The Gizmo5 buy marks the ad giant’s second acquisition in the four weeks since.

Google Voice sits at the heart of not one but two ongoing controversies. Google nemesis AT&T has argued that Voice violates Google’s beloved net neutrality, while Apple is under investigation by the FCC for rejecting Voice’s entry into its iPhone app store.

According to the Gizmo5 homepage, the VoIP service can already be used in tandem with Google Voice. Google has now closed Gizmo5 to new users, but existing users can continue to use the service. Existing users cannot, however, sign up for new call-in numbers.

Unlike Skype, the Gizmo5 network is based on open standards: the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). XMPP is what underpins Google Wave, the company’s new-age communication and collaboration thingy.

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