Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, September 8

• Amazon plans to sell $50 tablet: WSJ. Online retailer Amazon.com Inc plans to release a $50 tablet in time for the holiday season, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The 6-inch screen tablet comes with a mono speaker and is priced much lower than Amazon's Fire tablet, the cheapest variant of which is sold at $99. The company was not immediately available for comment. Amazon also plans to release 8-inch and 10-inch screen tablets, the report said. While other Amazon Fire tablets show advertisements as screen savers, it was not clear if the new 6-inch tablet's cost included ads, according to the report.

• Apple's New Ad Blockers Threaten to Remove Publishers' Mobile Ads: When Apple unveils its new iPhone and iOS 9 operating system this week, it could also drop a bomb on publishers, introducing ad-blocking technology that threatens to impact the revenue they make from smartphones. Ad blockers have been available on desktop browsers for years, but analysts say Apple's backing has the potential to make ad blocking more mainstream, making it available to a wider group of consumers. With Apple's new tools, developers can build ad-blocking apps that consumers can download to wipe out ads on mobile sites. Run-of-the-mill ads like banners and display placements are easy targets for ad blockers. But a small test by Adweek of a handful of apps shows that they remove native and branded content, too—putting the business model of publishers that have been at the forefront of native advertising—including BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Forbes and The Atlantic—at risk.

• Didi Kuaidi raises $3 billion as rival Uber China brings in $1.2 billion. Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Kuaidi is set to raise about $3 billion through its latest fundraising round, said two people familiar with the matter, just as funding at the Chinese unit of rival Uber reaches $1.2 billion. The inflow of cash raises the stakes between two of the world's most valuable start-ups. It also illustrates how investors are undeterred by the two companies spending heavily as they subsidize rides to gain market share, betting on China's Internet-linked transport market becoming the world's biggest. Didi Kuaidi, which has the largest market share of car-hailing apps in China, in July said it raised $2 billion, and that the amount may rise another "few hundred million" due to what it said was tremendous interest from global investors.

• One of Bollywood's biggest studios is betting it can win the online streaming race. Encouraged by an activist investor, the executive chairman of Eros International Plc is making its Eros Now streaming service a priority -- shelving a plan to create an old-fashioned television network to focus on video-on-demand optimized for mobile devices and priced for widespread adoption. The idea is to use the Mumbai studio’s bulging catalog of more than 2,000 films and new, exclusive series to build a critical mass of devoted users before Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. plant their flags in the world’s second-most populous country. “We thought, ‘We have the market share, we have the movies,”’ Lulla, 53, said in his London office on the city’s Georgian-era Manchester Square, looking every bit the mogul in a crisp, open-necked white shirt and slip-on shoes. “Why don’t we create our own platform?” Thanks to a production machine built by his father Arjan, who founded Eros in 1977, it releases upwards of 70 movies a year -- more than any U.S. rival. Eros is “exactly where Netflix wants to be in the next three to five years,” Lulla said. “I’m already there.”  Since a largely marketing-free soft launch about a year ago, Eros Now has attracted more than 26 million users. The official hard-sell unveiling was in July, with promises that movies will be available to stream immediately after they hit theaters. Promotions tease new digital series including “Khel,” a drama about “the twisted characters that populate the world of cricket,” and “Ponniyin Selvan,” based on a 2,000-plus-page novel about an ancient Tamil kingdom. A basic, ad-supported tier is free, while premium services cost from 50 rupees (about 80 U.S. cents) to 100 rupees monthly. Prices are higher outside India, where there’s opportunity in diaspora communities. In the U.S. it’s $7.99 -- which happens to be Netflix’s base cost.

• Samsung to Cut 10% of Headquarters Staff, Economic Daily Says. Samsung Electronics is preparing to cut 10 percent of workers at its headquarters, according to a Korean newspaper, as the world’s biggest smartphone maker loses sales to Apple and Chinese vendors. Samsung is targeting workers in the human resources, public relations and finance departments, Korea Economic Daily reported Tuesday, citing people it didn’t identify. The Suwon, South Korea-based company also plans to cut some expenses next year, the report added. Samsung declined to comment in an e-mail. The moves come after new high-end Galaxy smartphones failed to impress consumers, triggering five straight monthly declines and wiping out more than $40 billion in Samsung’s market value since April. The company’s share of global smartphone shipments fell more than 3 percentage points in the second quarter, and it’s no longer the top seller in China, the world’s biggest mobile-phone market. Samsung, which had 206.2 trillion won ($171 billion) in sales last year, is estimated to post about 200.2 trillion won in sales this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

• Baidu to Boost Spending on India, Indonesia as Mobile Sales Boom: Baidu plans to boost investments in India and Indonesia as China’s largest Web search provider tries for a greater presence on smartphones. “They have a lot of characteristics that mimic China’s development,” Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Li said during an interview in Beijing on Monday. “There is no legacy of PC user behavior and probably mobile is going to have a very speedy development.” Baidu is spending on new businesses while locked in competition with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. In July, Baidu forecast sales below estimates, and Chairman Robin Li pledged to tap its $12 billion of cash to build out its shopping, taxi and delivery services amid China’s economic slowdown. China saw its first decline in smartphone shipments in six years during the first quarter, while India’s shipment volume surged 44 percent in the second quarter. India is now the world’s third-largest smartphone market. During the past two years, Baidu spent almost $1 billion on more than 20 investments, including Uber, travel website Qunar and video-streaming service iQiyi, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company is now exploring investments in the local education and medical sectors, Li said. The spending likely will be small, with Baidu interested in minority stakes as well as full acquisitions, she said. Baidu also is keen to make use of its relationships with educational institutions by providing student loans, President Zhang Ya-Qin said in a separate interview. It has issued 100 million yuan ($15.7 million) in loans, averaging 20,000 yuan each, since starting its lending program last month, he said.

• Facebook’s Messenger And The Challenge To Google’s Search Dominance. When Facebook announced M—an A.I.-powered personal assistant that lives inside Messenger—it fired a massive shell across Google’s bow. Indeed, if Facebook can successfully scale M to its entire audience (and WhatsApp’s, as well), this new product represents a direct assault on search and AdWords—the lifeblood of Google’s business. To understand how a digital personal assistant that lives inside a mobile messaging app represents a disruptive threat to Google, let’s look at why Google is in this situation in the first place. Google faces the classic innovator’s dilemma: somewhere in the recesses of its collective corporate mind, Google knows that keyword search—the current foundation of its empire—is not the future. Because Larry Page and Sergey Brin are visionaries, they know that the next-generation solution to the problem of search looks less like a clickable list of links and more like a primitive Star Trek computer or an early version of the A.I. from the movie Her. The future of search is an intelligent digital assistant that can complete tasks. Like Google today, the search engine of the future will be able to mine the vast expanses of the internet for relevant information and deliver it to you in milliseconds. But much unlike today’s Google, the future’s search engine will behave like a digital personal assistant that can understand and predict your needs, then deliver on them without requiring you to navigate to any web pages or tap around a bunch of apps. When you do ask for something, this search engine will not respond with a list of blueish links. Instead, it will respond with a definitive result or a completed task. When it doesn’t have the definitive result or can’t complete the task on the first pass, it will ask you further questions to get closer and closer, until the machine gets it right. it’s not yet clear if Larry Page and Sergey Brin would be willing to invest in an Alphabet spin-off that threatened to kill their golden goose: the risks are just so big, and the scale of the rewards so uncertain. Meanwhile, Siri remains a wildcard, Facebook is testing M, Microsoft is bringing Cortana to Android, and Slack is making a long-term run at the A.I. assistant game, too. This is why they call it a dilemma.

• AOL Scoops Up Mobile Ad Network Millennial Media for $238 Million: AOL has acquired mobile ad network Millennial Media for $238 million, or about $1.75 per share. The Millennial deal is the newest step in building out AOL's tools to compete in mobile advertising against behemoths like Facebook, Yahoo and Google. With the deal, Verizon-owned AOL is getting access to mobile inventory in Millennial's 65,000 apps—equivalent to 1 billion active global users in markets like Germany, France and Japan. It will also help build out its cross-screen programmatic platform called One. AOL's move is the latest sign of the times for mobile ad networks like Millennial (which spent more than $300 million on its own acquisitions in recent years) that have struggled in recent years to keep up in a fast-paced industry. With Millennial now off the table, it could set off a wave of other deals for tech companies to gobble up smaller mobile ad networks that specialize in video and location-based targeting. To stay ahead, Millennial zeroed in on building up its automated capabilities the past couple of years by acquiring two other big mobile players. In 2013, it bought real-time bidding platform Jumptap in for $209 million. Then in September 2014, Millennial acquired ad network Nexage for $107 million. 

• Zomato raises $60M from Temasek, Vy Capital, is a Unicorn now: Restaurant listings and review firm Zomato, which is expanding its business into food ordering and table reservation, has entered the coveted ‘Unicorn Club’ as it has just raised $60 million (Rs 390 crore when it sealed the deal) in a fresh round of funding from Singapore government’s investment company Temasek and existing investor Vy Capital. Although it has not disclosed the valuation, back-of-the-envelope calculations show Zomato is now valued around $1 billion. This would make it one of the eight odd Indian unicorns, a tag meant for startups sporting over $1 billion valuation. Flipkart, Snapdeal, Ola, One97 Communications, InMobi, Quikr and Mu Sigma are the other known Unicorns from India. Though some of these firms were launched years ago, their current core business took shape just around five years back. For Zomato, this is its third round of funding since last November when it bagged $60 million and followed it up with another $50 million this April. It was valued at $660 million (post money) in November 2014.

Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, June 30

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• Amazon looks to offer loans to sellers in eight countries including India: Amazon.com will start a business loan program for small sellers in the United Kingdom on Tuesday and is looking to launch it this year in seven more countries including India. Until now, the e-retailer has offered the service only in the United States and Japan. Amazon Lending, founded in 2012, plans to offer short-term working capital loans in other countries where it operates a third-party, seller-run marketplace business. The countries are Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Spain and China, where credit is becoming a key factor in competing for new vendors and grabbing market share. The service is on an invite-only basis and is not open to all sellers on Amazon's platform. Amazon said it can safely offer loans based on internal data and because it takes loan payments out of the sales proceeds it pays sellers. Amazon offers three- to six-month loans of $1,000 to $600,000 to help merchants buy inventory. It makes money on interest and takes a cut of all sales on its marketplace, which now account for about 40 percent of total Amazon site sales. Amazon said it has offered hundreds of millions of dollars in loans since 2012, with more than half of its sellers opting for a repeat loan. Sellers interviewed by Reuters and writing on Amazon forums cited interest rates on Amazon loans ranging from 6 percent to 14 percent, in line with loans from banks and business credit cards. Stephan Aarstol, chief executive of Tower Paddle Boards, an Amazon seller, said he has taken four loans from the company starting in March 2014 because of the speed and simplicity of the process. It took him five days to get his first loan.


• Microsoft Said to Exit Display Ad Business, Cut 1,200 Jobs: Microsoft is shutting down its Web display advertising business and handing operations over to AOL and AppNexus, a person with knowledge of the matter said. About 1,200 jobs at Microsoft will be impacted, with some positions to be moved to AOL and AppNexus. Some people will be offered other positions at Microsoft, while other jobs will be cut, the person said.


• Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470 Million in Operating Losses on $415 Million in Revenue: Uber is telling prospective investors that it generates $470 million in operating losses on $415 million in revenue, according to a document provided to prospective investors. The term sheet viewed by Bloomberg News, which is being used to sell $1 billion to $1.2 billion in convertible bonds, doesn’t make clear the time period for those results. The document also touts 300 percent year-over-year growth. Investors in this round will be able to convert the notes at a compounded 11.5 percent discount if the company sells shares on the public market, the document shows. The bonds mature in 2022, with an 8 percent annual return if held through maturity. Uber aims to complete the deal by Tuesday, according to the document. The car-booking startup has been on a spree to raise cash. Uber is negotiating a $2 billion credit line from a group of Wall Street banks, a person with knowledge of the situation said last week. Earlier this year, it raised $1.6 billion in convertible debt from Goldman Sachs wealth-management clients, which valued the company at $40 billion. “These are substantially old numbers that do not reflect business activities today,” Uber spokeswoman Nairi Hourdajian said in an e-mail. Hourdajian declined to say why the numbers are being used to promote a current funding round.


• Uber to Acquire Mapping Technology and Know-How From Microsoft: Uber will acquire a portion of Microsoft’s maps technology and extend employment offers to around 100 engineers on Microsoft’s mapping team. Uber would not discuss the terms of the acquisition, which will bring it a data site outside Boulder, Colo., as well as cameras, image-analysis software and a license to the intellectual property. Although most Uber services rely on digital maps, much of its interest in mapping is focused on how to improve its carpooling service, UberPool. While Uber relies heavily on mapping technology from Apple, Baidu and especially Google, the company has taken strides to bring as much mapping expertise in-house as possible. Microsoft said the deal on Monday was part of a broader strategy to focus on its core products.


• The Apple Watch Hasn't Killed Fitbit: Two months after the Apple Watch launch, the leading wrist-based fitness tracking company is doing just fine. The Apple Watch was expected to be a disaster for companies like Fitbit. It hasn’t been. While Fitbit’s sales dipped as anticipation for Apple’s smartwatch grew, the company has bounced back this spring and appears to be doing just fine, according to data provided exclusively to Bloomberg by Slice Intelligence. After Apple’s monster first week, Fitbit products have actually outsold Apple Watches, according to Slice. Slice collects data from the e-mailed receipts of about 2.5 million people. Over the past year, Fitbit has outsold the rest of the fitness tracking market combined (excluding Apple). While the entire industry saw a bump during last year’s holiday season, companies such as Jawbone, Garmin, and Samsung saw their wearable sales decline quickly after Christmas. Fitbit’s never dropped to their pre-holiday levels, and began ramping up again this spring. People are seeking out Fitbit products specifically. When people buy Fitbit products online, the most common place they’re doing it is on the company’s own website. More than 43 percent of Fitbit sales take place on Fitbit.com, slightly edging out Amazon, which accounts for 40 percent of online sales of Fitbit devices. Apple Watch's and Fitbit's consumer bases don’t overlap much. Fitbit is tightly focused on fitness. Apple pitches its product as a more general-use device. There's also a significant difference in price, with Fitbit devices ranging from $60 to $250 and the Apple watch starting at $350 and going straight up to ridiculous. According to Slice, less than 5 percent of people who bought a Fitbit since the end of 2013 have also purchased an Apple Watch. For now, it seems like there’s room in wearable computing for both companies—but maybe not anyone else.


• Quikr is reportedly in talks to acquire Housing.com: Online classifieds firm Quikr is in talks to acquire real estate portal Housing.com.When contacted, co-founder and CEO of Housing.com Rahul Yadav confirmed the news but only to retract it later. SoftBank had invested in the promising online realty startup close to $90 million in December 2014 valuing the company around $270 million. SoftBank is said to have initiated talks with the potential acquirer Quikr, which has been looking to strengthen its newly launched property sales vertical QuikrHomes by way of inorganic expansion. The sale efforts seem to have been initiated by its investors as they are trying to salvage their investment in the company.


• With New Budgeting Tools, AWS Makes It Easier For Developers To Manage Costs: Amazon today announced two new tools that make it easier for developers to control their expenses on its AWS cloud computing platform. The first tool, called Budgets, allows AWS users to define a monthly budget for their AWS cost. As the name implies, this means you can now set up a budget for all of your AWS spending, or set up a specific budget for just the EC2 service, for example. Then, when you get close to exceeding your monthly budget — or when your forecasted cost exceeds 100 percent — AWS will send you an alert. In addition, AWS is launching a new tool for its Cost Explorer service today that tries to forecast monthly cost up to three months into the future. This service can look at data on an aggregate level, but more interestingly, it can look at specific services, tags, availability zones, purchase options and API operations. Given that there is probably some variability in how you use AWS in a given month, the service will also show confidence intervals for its prediction. Estimating AWS cost is something of an arcane art, which is only complicated by Amazon’s granular pricing structure. The more complex the app you’re hosting on AWS, the harder it gets to figure out how much it’ll cost to run it on Amazon’s service (which also makes it hard to compare AWS cost to other cloud platforms). These new services will hopefully make it a bit easier to at least keep track of AWS cost without having to resort to third-party tools.

Daily Tech Snippet: Wednesday, May 13

• Tango, Messaging Startup and Alibaba Investee, Makes Big eCommerce Play with Alibaba's Backing: Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has been investing quite literally all over the map. In March of 2014, the company sunk a huge sum – US$215 million – into American messaging app Tango. At the time it seemed a bit odd: why would Alibaba invest so much into an American chat app with no real footprint in China? The picture has become a bit clearer today with the announcement of Tango shops. Tango VP Chi-Chao Chang told Tech in Asia that the goal is to make the in-app shopping experience convenient and social: Tango users will be able to browse and search merchandise. They will be able to share personalized catalogs or collections of merchandise with other Tango users, and securely purchase from millions of products available. To start, Tango shops will feature products from two partners: Wal-Mart and AliExpress. AliExpress, of course, is Alibaba’s consumer-facing global ecommerce platform, and Tango users will have access to the entirety of AliExpress’s offerings via the in app-search feature. Chang said that Tango will also curate special deals from both providers that will be made available to users on a daily basis. It should come as no surprise that as an investor and now a partner, Alibaba has been heavily involved in the development of Tango’s new shops feature. Chang said Alibaba has even given Tango “special access” to products most other companies don’t have access to, and I got the impression that without Alibaba, the launch might look quite different. “They have been extremely involved,” Chang said of Alibaba. More here: Tango Offers Shopping on Its Messaging Service: Tango, a peer-to-peer mobile messaging service, planned to announce on Tuesday it would start offering shopping services. Its catalog includes most of what is sold by Walmart and Alibaba, a total of two million products.Tango, which last year received an investment of about $250 million from Alibaba, may be making the strongest move yet. The shopping application involves a button on the screen that opens access to a wide range of products.People can browse the catalog in a number of ways, create personal selections for friends to browse, buy items, or message the details to friends. Payments are handled through credit card information stored in Tango. The company appears more interested in gathering customers, and data on them, rather than profiting directly on commerce. It is taking no commission on the mobile sales.Out of the gate, it is quite a range of goods. In a brief test of the service, from Walmart I found a casket with Yankees logos on the lining, for $2,399. There was also a $4.58 box of honey nut breakfast cereal. Alibaba had women’s dresses and antifreeze, among many products (things like guns and alcohol are not available.)Should this method of commerce catch on, it could have profound implications for brands that make their own mobile apps, hoping to attract shoppers. “Would you keep a Levi’s app and a Best Buy app, and an app for every merchant, or would you go to one place where it’s all there?” Mr. Setton said. “I’m biased, but I think this interface rules.”Maybe, but only over a limited empire. The catalog will initially be available only in the United States. Tango has about 300 million registered users, about one-quarter to one-third of whom are in the United States. It seems to be the first such messaging commerce app for the American audience, though Japan’s LINE and WeChat of China offer commerce capabilities.Tango, which started in 2009, has previously offered video calling, games and photo sharing, among other things. Tango’s technology enables it to send a lot of data at low cost to the company, offering free services to customers.

• Aliyun, Alibaba's Cloud Unit, Makes Push in the Middle East, to set up Data Center in Dubai: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s cloud-computing subsidiary is teaming up with Dubai-based Meraas Holding LLC as the company uses its technology to extend its influence beyond China. The joint venture of Alibaba’s Aliyun and Meraas will provide a broad swath of technology to businesses and governments in the Middle East and North Africa. Jack Ma, Alibaba’s executive chairman, and the rest of the Hangzhou, China-based multinational’s management team, laid the groundwork for the deal in a meeting last September with the ruler of Dubai, Aliyun President Simon Hu said in an interview. The joint venture will provide technical services for transportation, communication, urban infrastructure, electricity service, economic development, and urban planning, as well as cloud computing, Hu said. In a presentation to investors this month, Alibaba said that an expansion of cloud computing services was a priority for the coming fiscal year. “At the end of this year or next year, no matter where you are when you go to Dubai, no matter whether eating or sightseeing, you will encounter one of the infrastructures that is provided by Aliyun,” Hu said. As part of the venture, Aliyun and Meraas will build a technology hub consisting of a data center, along with hospitality, residential and commercial spaces. By expanding its cloud abroad, Aliyun ratchets up competition with companies such as Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. These U.S. firms haven’t put large data centers in the Middle East. More here

• After Big-Bang Start, Can Tesla's Battery Hit $1 Billion Faster Than the iPhone? Tesla’s new line of big, stackable batteries for homes and businesses started with a bang. The reservations reported in the first week are valued at roughly $800 million, according to numbers crunched by Bloomberg. If Tesla converts even a fraction of those reservations into actual sales, the battery roll-out could measure up as one of the biggest ever for a new product category. The new line of storage batteries is designed to extend solar power into the night and save companies money on its electric bills during expensive peak hours. Any comparison of batteries to smartphones and erection pills is, of course, a stretch. Most of Tesla’s battery revenue will come from utilities, not the consumers who snapped up iPhones and Viagra. The price of the new batteries is also much higher. Tesla’s Powerwall units designed for home users cost $3,000 to $3,500 per unit, not including installation, while the commercial batteries are sold in roughly $25,000 incremental blocks. Tesla hasn’t even defined what qualifies as a "reservation" at this point. Of the $800 million in reservations from the first week, almost $625 million came from businesses and utilities that would seem likely to complete the transaction. The remaining reservations from home users are little more than expressions of interest made through a no-strings online reservation system. Manufacturing giant batteries will also be much more difficult to scale than Pfizer’s little blue pill, which was filling 46,000 prescriptions a day by the end of its first month on the market. Tesla won't begin shipping batteries until this summer, and it’s already sold out through mid-2016. Still, approaching $1 billion of interest, just days after introducing path-breaking product, marks a significant achievement. Tesla is going to need that battery revenue as soon as it can get it: The company is burning through cash to invest in the Model X electric SUV due later this year, the more affordable Model 3 slated to arrive 2017, and a $5 billion battery factory to power it all. In a call with analysts last week, Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the battery business could someday exceed electric-car revenue. Electricity storage products aren't new. But Tesla’s price, power, and packaging set these batteries apart in a way that echoes the gap between the first iPhone and the smartphones that came before it. Now Musk has brought an Apple-launch level of public interest to what's essentially a infrastructure product, albeit one with potential to transform the way electrical grids are managed and the speed that solar power is adopted. The next daunting challenge will be to turn that interest into bookable revenue for Tesla.

• Verizon Bets on Video Ads in $4 Billion Deal for AOL: The nation’s biggest wireless operator sees its digital future in a company that still offers dial-up Internet service. However backward that may seem, Verizon Communications’ $4.4 billion all-cash deal for AOL, announced on Tuesday, illustrates how the communications industry has changed — even if the underlying rationale has not — from the days when the Internet pioneer told users “You’ve got mail.” AOL may be known for its dot-com rise and fall and for current web content like The Huffington Post , but Verizon is looking to gain the company’s powerful but little-known mobile video and advertising technology. That could make Verizon’s own phone and Internet offerings more appealing to consumers, and to advertisers. The motive is clear. Consumers are increasingly watching videos — from YouTube to HBO — on mobile phones, tablets and laptops. And big media companies and advertisers are only beginning to grapple with this rapidly evolving market. By layering AOL’s technology atop its 109 million wireless connections and growing cable television business, Verizon is betting that it can make billions of dollars by selling ads against streaming video. Comcast, the biggest cable operator, acquired NBCUniversal, the big television and movie studio company. AT&T, Verizon’s nearest rival, is acquiring DirecTV, the satellite television business. And Sprint, another wireless operator, is making its own forays into content. “The telecoms are clearly saying, ‘We’re not going to be dumb pipes,’ ” said Jonathan Miller, the chief executive of AOL from 2002 to 2006, who is now a venture capitalist. Yet in acquiring AOL, Verizon gets more than just new advertising technology. It also takes ownership of a company with a troubled legacy and a muddled present. AOL operates the dwindling but still profitable dial-up Internet business, runs a collection of news websites and employs big personalities including Arianna Huffington and its chief executive, Tim Armstrong. Verizon covets two main pieces of AOL’s mobile and video technology offerings. One is its big network of original video content, which is home to lucrative online video advertising. The other is its so-called programmatic advertising business, a system that matches online advertisers with consumers across different platforms, and collects valuable data along the way.

• Will It Be a Summer of Consolidation in Ad Tech? AOL could just be the beginning as rumors fly. Verizon's $4.4 billion purchase of AOL spark a summer of acquisitions in the ad-tech space? It depends on whom you ask. Yahoo has reportedly considered making Foursquare a big offer in recent weeks. The Google-purchasing-Twitter chatter has gone on for months and won't die. Yelp is reportedly entertaining suitors from Yahoo to Google and Amazon, with some analysts speculating that foreign companies Alibaba and Rakuten are in the mix. Even mighty Salesforce.com has found itself the subject of speculation about a Microsoft takeover. Rich Guest, president of North American operations, Tribal Worldwide, said the Twitter-to-Google hubbub makes the most sense. "I think that there were first rumors of an AOL-Verizon tie-up during CES 2015, which gives credence to the school of thinking that believes 'where there is smoke, there is likely fire,'" Guest explained. "Twitter is an amazing platform, which could add value to the product portfolios of many media or technology companies. Given all of the rumors of a Twitter-Google tie-up, I wouldn't be surprised if that happened sometime in 2015." MediaCom CMO Stephanie Fierman said, "I think many expect a transaction involving Yahoo at some point in the foreseeable future."

• GoDaddy Earnings: Quarterly Revenue $376M, +17% Y/Y; Net Loss Narrows to $43M; Shares Gyrate, end 3% down: Web-hosting company GoDaddy Inc (GDDY.N) posted a 17.5 percent rise in revenue in its first quarterly report as a public company, helped by customer additions and an increase in revenue per average user. GoDaddy forecast revenue of between $390 million and $395 million for the second quarter and between $1.60 billion and $1.61 billion for the full year. The company, which manages about 59 million Internet domains, nearly a fifth of the world's total, said it had 13.1 million customers at the end of the first quarter ended March 31, compared with 11.9 million a year earlier. Average revenue per user rose to $115 from $105. GoDaddy, known for its racy TV commercials, said bookings rose about 14 percent to $498.7 million in the first quarter. The company's net loss narrowed to $43.4 million, or 34 cents per share, for the first quarter ended March 31, from $51.3 million, or 40 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose to $376.3 million from $320.2 million. The company's shares rose as much as 5.5 percent in after-market trading, before reversing course sharply to trade down as much as 3.7 percent. Up to Monday's close, the stock had risen more than 33 percent since GoDaddy went public on April 1.