Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, February 25

• Airbnb Admits It Removed 1,500 Listings in New York Before Releasing Data to Regulators: Before Airbnb Inc. shared data on its business in New York City, the home-rental website removed about 1,500 listings controlled by full-time landlords. The company disclosed the removals in a letter to New York state legislators on Wednesday as it faces criticism over becoming a platform for unregulated hotels.  Airbnb said it kicked off 622 hosts as part of the effort in November. The cuts helped portray a rosier picture of its New York City operations in the data released in December. The company had not outlined the extent of its removals when it initially presented the data publicly. The deleted listings accounted for about 4 percent of those offered in the city. Josh Meltzer, the company's head of public policy in New York, wrote in the letter to legislators that the listings "did not reflect Airbnb's vision for our community." Airbnb has faced questions from city officials who have said real-estate developers are using Airbnb to rent out homes instead of selling them to permanent residents. The practice risks driving up housing prices. Airbnb defeated a proposal in San Francisco last year that would have restricted the company's business in its hometown. Airbnb spent $8 million to fight the effort. "In New York City, where housing prices and availability are a critical issue, we want to work with our community and policymakers to help prevent short-term rentals from impacting the availability and cost of permanent housing for city residents," Meltzer wrote in the letter. "While home sharing has been around for centuries, our people-to-people home sharing platform is new. And Airbnb is a young company. We have learned that a one-size fits all approach to cities will not work." Along with the letter to New York lawmakers, Airbnb released updated data on its operations in the city. Of hosts renting their entire homes in New York City, 38 percent of revenue came from those listing two or more homes on the website. Hosts with six or more homes on Airbnb generated 6 percent of revenue.

• Salesforce quarterly revenue beats Wall St expectations: Salesforce.com Inc reported higher-than-expected quarterly revenue and raised its full-year revenue forecast, saying customers were stepping up purchases of its web-based sales and marketing software despite economic uncertainty.Shares of the world's largest maker of online sales software rose 7.2 percent to $67 in after-hours trading.The company raised its full-year revenue forecast to $8.08 billion-$8.12 billion, from $8.0 billon-$8.1 billion, and said forecast adjusted profit of 99 cents to $1.01 per share. Revenue rose 25.3 percent to $1.81 billion, above analysts' estimate of $1.79 billion. In the fourth quarter ended Jan. 31, revenue from sales cloud - a suite of software that allows companies to track leads, forecast and collaborate around sales opportunities - rose 12.3 percent to $708.9 million. The net loss narrowed to $25.5 million, or 4 cents per share, from $65.8 million, or 10 cents per share, a year earlier.

• HP Inc says to accelerate job cuts by 2016: HP Inc said it was accelerating its restructuring program and now expects about 3,000 people will exit by the end of fiscal 2016 instead of over three years as it announced in September. Then, Hewlett-Packard Co had said it expected to cut about 33,300 jobs over three years, of which up to 3,300 were to be cut in HP Inc. It said then that 1,200 people would leave the company by the end of 2016. The restructuring will result in charges and associated cash payments of about $300 million in the current year, the company said. "This move is basically HP Inc embracing the tough pricing environment and shifting their focus to building their portfolio," says Shannon Cross, an analyst for Cross Research. HP Inc (HPQ.N), which houses former Hewlett-Packard Co's legacy hardware business, reported a near 12 percent drop in quarterly revenue, as it struggles with weak demand for PCs and printers. Revenue in the company's personal systems business fell 13 percent in the first quarter ended Jan. 31, while it declined 17 percent in its printing division from a year earlier. PC sales have been falling sharply worldwide, and the launch of Windows 10 has so far failed to rekindle demand. Printer demand has been hurt as corporate customers cut printing costs and consumers shift to mobile devices.

• Google Fiber Is Finally Coming to San Francisco: Google Fiber is coming to its own backyard. Well, in moderation. On Wednesday, the high-speed broadband and cable business, announced that it will start servicing “some” apartments, condos and affordable housing units in San Francisco, the urban hub north of its Silicon Valley headquarters. It’s not saying how many connections, when they’ll come or how much they’ll cost.But it is definitely coming, unlike other cities where Fiber has said that it is “exploring” an arrival. That makes San Francisco among the largest metropolitan areas for Fiber, which has, so far, kept to smaller cities clamoring for its service (and where it can more quickly gain broadband market share).It’s a symbolic entry — landing near Silicon Valley — as well as a commercial one: The city is full of tech companies and techies that have also clamored for super fast Internet.Comcast* and AT&T, two of Fiber’s chief competitors, have both announced intentions to bring gigabit Internet to the city. While Fiber has primarily focused on residential lines, it could expand into enterprise services, something Comcast has made a push for.Google is accelerating its enterprise business, which includes a team dedicated to getting startups on Google services. It’s not clear if that includes Fiber, which is housed under the Access subsidiary of Google’s Alphabet. 

• Wow! Facebook’s New Reactions Are Here, but Still No Dislike Button. Facebook has been testing alternatives to the company’s now-famous “Like” button for a few months, and it’s ready to bring those alternatives to the masses. The company is rolling out new reactions like “wow,” “sad” and “haha” to U.S. users beginning Wednesday and the rest of the world shortly after, according to Tom Alison, engineering director for News Feed. It started testing these responses in countries like Spain and Ireland last fall, and while the company said at the time that it was open to adding more emotions it looks like it stuck with the same six it started with. Getting to those six was actually a lengthy process, said Alison. The company has been working on reactions for a year, and crafted the new options based on data about which stickers and user comments were most popular on Facebook. You’ll quickly notice what’s not included in the new list of reactions: A dislike button. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially said Facebook was building one, but it turns out that wasn’t actually the case. (Angry!) “I think … ‘anger’ and ‘sad’ actually covered a lot of what we saw people trying to convey,” Alison explained. Why change the “Like” feature at all? Engagement. You may not feel comfortable “Liking” a sad update in your feed, so Facebook wants to give you other options. Alison said it’s “a little early” to tell if engagement increased in countries where Facebook has been testing the new reactions, which probably means it hasn’t. (Facebook would likely broadcast it if engagement were up.) The new feature will be available on iOS and Android phones beginning Wednesday as part of a free app update.

• Uber China Rival Didi Kuaidi Raising $1 Billion at Valuation of More Than $20 Billion: Didi Kuaidi, the biggest ride-hailing company in China, has received at least $1 billion in commitments for a new fundraising round, according to a person familiar with the matter. Once the financing closes, it would value the Uber rival at more than $20 billion, said the person, who asked not to be named because the terms aren't final. The round is oversubscribed, and the company is still negotiating terms with investors, the person said. Didi Kuaidi declined to comment. Didi Kuaidi is spending heavily on adding new drivers and offering competitive fare prices as it aims to stay ahead of Uber Technologies Inc. in China. Uber spent more than $1 billion in the country last year and plans to spend a comparable amount in 2016. In the first three quarters of 2015, Uber lost $1.7 billion, much of that going toward expansion in Asia, Bloomberg Businessweek reported in January. Uber Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick said last week that the company is profitable in the U.S., according to Canadian technology blog BetaKit. It's unclear how the metric was calculated. Didi Kuaidi raised $3 billion last year at a $16.5 billion valuation. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the Chinese company's latest fundraising round. To take on Uber, Didi Kuaidi has formed an international coalition with the likes of Lyft Inc. in the U.S. and Ola in India. Uber was last valued by investors at $62.5 billion, and the company has raised more than $10 billion in the five years since it started picking up passengers.