Hasta La Gadget!

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced yesterday during his company’s first earnings call that “it wouldn’t really make much sense” for Facebook to come up with their very own smartphone device. This particular “Facebook phone” has been floating around as a rumor for a long time already, and according to the analysts in the market, they claim that this is just a matter of time before something like this hits the market. What do you think of Zuckerberg’s statement? Could it just be a red herring, and after all, he is technically correct since Facebook themselves does not yet have the capability of churning out a piece of hardware, but rather, they are involved with programming, leaving other companies with a more suitable expertise in this particular area of technology to get the job done. Case in point, HTC.

All I can say is, interesting times are ahead, and if one were to build a smartphone based on Facebook alone, it would definitely have to work very differently compared to the standard issue Android-powered smartphone.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Facebook CEO kicks off company’s first earnings conference call, Facebook introduces the recommendations bar,

One thing that stood out in Facebook’s relatively by-the-books earnings call is how few ideas Facebook seems to have outside of “make it like mobile.” That’s probably not the best news for you. More »

Facebook is trying to force itself into every aspect of your life, and it’s succeeding at doing so. Today the massive social networking site rolled out a new feature called the Recommendations Bar, which will pop up when you’re visiting to website to show you what your friends liked and shared from that website as well. The Recommendations Bar will pop up in the bottom right corner of your browser window – provided the website you’re visiting has put the plug-in to use – much like Facebook chat does, encouraging you to check out the stories that are popular with your Facebook friends.

When you decide to like something you see in the Recommendations Bar, Facebook will publish the like to both your profile and your friends’ news feed. Annoying maybe, but it seems to be working, as Facebook is reporting that early tests show a click-through rate that’s three times higher with the Recommendations Bar than with the more familiar Recommendations Box. Hearing that, it seems like this Recommedations Bar will only become more popular as time goes on.

The Recommendations Bar is just the latest social plug-in Facebook offers to websites. CNET counts 11 Facebook plug-ins total, so it sounds like it won’t be long before Facebook is a part of everything we do on the web. Expect to hear more about the success of the new Recommendations Bar soon, but in the meantime, be sure to check out our story timeline below for more information on Facebook!

Facebook rolls out Recommendations Bar for websites is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Facebook revealed its Q1 earnings in an SEC filing leading up to its big IPO earlier this year, but it’s now officially out with its first earnings report as a public company. For Q2 of 2012, it brought in $1.18 billion in revenue, up 32 percent year-over-year and slightly better than what analysts were expecting, while GAAP net income sat at a loss of $157 million (down from a profit of $240 million a year ago). Looking at things on a non-GAAP basis, though, net income is actually up from $285 million to $295 million.

What’s more, the company also confirmed that it has 955 million monthly active users (or what it calls MAUs) as of the end of June, up 29 percent year-over-year. As you can see in the chart after the break, those users are distributed fairly evenly across the world, including 186 million in the US and Canada, 246 million in Europe, 255 million in Asia, and 268 million elsewhere. Daily active users totaled 552 million for the same time period, up 32 percent year-over-year, while mobile users now stand at 543 million, up 67 percent from last year. Not surprisingly, a huge chunk — 84 percent — of the company’s revenue comes from advertising, which brought in $992 million for the quarter, an increase of 28 percent from last year. That apparently wasn’t enough to please investors, though, who have sent the company’s stock to a new low of less than $25 (down over ten percent) in after hours trading.

Update: Expectedly, the ever-recurring topic of a Facebook phone came up during the Q&A portion of the company’s earnings call, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t avoid the issue entirely. While not completely dismissing recent rumors of an HTC-built phone, Zuckerberg did say that building a whole phone “really wouldn’t make much sense for us to do.”

Continue reading Facebook posts first earnings as a public company: $1.18 billion in revenue, 955 million users

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Facebook posts first earnings as a public company: $1.18 billion in revenue, 955 million users originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jul 2012 16:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook today announced on its developer blog the introduction of a new feature: the recommendation bar. It is a new social plug-in that helps people find articles based on what their friends like and share from that site. In case you were wondering how it works – if you visit a page that uses the plug-in, you’ll see a small box on the bottom right corner of the screen. The box will allow you to Like the page you’re on as well as pull up a list. On the list, you’ll get suggested links based on what your friends have shared on that site before. I.e. if you’re on Ubergizmo (we don’t have the plug-in btw), you’ll get a list of other Ubergizmo articles that your friends have liked/shared before. A pretty simple and nifty feature if I might say so myself, though I can’t say how effective it is yet. At the moment, sites such as Mashable, Wetpaint, and The Mirror are already using it. Give it a shot and let us know what you think.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Mark Zuckerberg: No Facebook phone coming your way, Facebook CEO kicks off company’s first earnings conference call,