Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, August 11

• One year later, Alphabet is a tale of two Googles: Today marks the one year anniversary of the day Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin picked a new name and an audacious corporate structure in an attempt to spawn gigantic tech businesses in industries way beyond web search. So far, the year has been great for Google. Unshackled from the unprofitable moonshots, its balance sheet and steady ads business growth has reassured investors. The business soars: Revenues topped 21 percent growth last quarter and operating margins keep getting fatter. More focus: One senior exec at Google recently explained a key change from the Alphabet reorg: Before, meetings cluttered with discussion of extraneous projects — the self-driving cars, medical doodads and internet balloons. Now, Google meetings are spent on Google alone. Porat appeases Wall Street: Not too long ago, investors were making fretful phone calls about Google’s abundant spending. Not anymore. Thank Ruth Porat, the former Morgan Stanley CFO who helped orchestrate the Alphabet reshuffle. “Implementing a competitive culture in what was becoming a behemoth — that’s critical,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Partners. “Ruth Porat has been priced into the stock.” About that stock: It has climbed nearly 24 percent since August 10th of last year. It’s been bumpier for “Other Bets,” the hodgepodge, ever-evolving group of companies outside of Google that Page and Brin desperately want to behave like lean, world-changing startups. Losses added: Alphabet poured $859 million into these units last quarter, nearly $300 million more than the same quarter last year. New equity: Employees at the non-Google company may soon have to get used to new stock packages — ones that aren’t tied to that soaring Google.

• China's JD.com revenue meets expectations as slowdown set to continue: JD.com Inc, China's second biggest e-commerce company, reported revenue for the second quarter of 2016 that was within company forecasts, even as the growth rate continued a steady decline that is expected to continue. The company said on Wednesday revenue for the quarter rose 42 percent to 65.2 billion yuan ($9.83 billion), within JD.com's forecast range of 64.2-66.2 billion yuan. But the company is predicting an even sharper decline in growth for the third quarter, compounding concerns that China's e-commerce sector is saturating. JD.com's revenue from Amazon-like online direct sales rose 40 percent in the quarter, versus a 67 percent jump in sales from services and other businesses.JD.com now expects revenues for the third quarter to be 59-61 billion yuan, a rise of 34-38 percent from the same quarter in 2015. Net losses were 132.1 million yuan ($19.92 million), compared to a loss of 510.4 million yuan in the previous year. The total value of merchandise transactions on JD.com's platforms was 108.7 billion yuan in the quarter, up 47 percent excluding online marketplace Paipai.com, which JD.com shut down. JD.com shares were up around 3 percent at $23.10 in pre-market trading in New York, but well below the $29.53 price at the beginning of the year. 

• VC Funding Is Drying Up for Media Startups: As venture capitalists exercise more caution and place fewer bets, they’re leaving media startups behind. Venture funding to media-tech companies slid for the third consecutive quarter to $91.7 million, the lowest amount since mid-2013, according to data from industry researcher CB Insights. Investment activity followed a similar trend, declining to the fewest number of deals since the second quarter of 2012. While U.S. venture deals were down overall in the first half of the year, the drop in funding to media companies has outpaced declines in other sectors, said Garrett Black, an analyst at researcher PitchBook. Investors worry the businesses are expensive to run compared with software makers and struggle to keep readers’ attention.The decline in venture funding comes amid a moment of reckoning across the digital media landscape. Web publishers like Mashable Inc. and International Business Times have fired dozens of employees this year. Smaller players are seeking new business models as they struggle to sustain themselves on digital advertising, which is being increasingly dominated by Google and Facebook Inc. Many of them are shifting their business to focus on web video, where advertising rates are higher. Media hasn’t traditionally been the top investment area for VCs, but some big wins drew interest to the sector. AOL spent $315 million to acquire the Huffington Post in 2011, and the publication has become a cornerstone of Verizon Communications Inc.’s media strategy since it bought AOL. German publisher Axel Springer SE took over Business Insider last year in a $343 million deal, a win for backers including Institutional Venture Partners and Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos.

• Bill Maris, the CEO and founder of Google Ventures, is leaving: Bill Maris, the founder and chief of Google Ventures (or GV), is leaving the firm and its parent, Alphabet,Recode has learned. His last day, said sources, is Friday. Maris would be the third high-ranking executive to depart from the Alphabet units outside of the main Google search business in recent months, as the tech giant continues to stumble through the transition into its new corporate structure. Sources say Maris is being replaced by David Krane, a managing partner for the venture arm and one of the earliest corporate communications managers at Google.Maris, an early web entrepreneur, founded Google’s venture capital arm in 2009 and quickly built it into a formidable presence in Silicon Valley. In 2015, the firm managed upwards of $2.4 billion in capital. Although GV cut back on investments in Europe and with early stage companies, the firm is still willing to cut checks. For the first six months of this year, it passed Intel Capital as the most active corporate venture arm, according to CB Insights. Under Maris, GV has had some high-profile misses — most notably, the disastrous app Secret. But those were outweighed by early bets in gigantic startups like Uber, Nest, Slack and Jet.com, which just went to Walmart for $3 billion.