LinkedIn Monetization Strategy Best Among Social Networks

Social media stocks may be taking a beating, but the world’s biggest online professional network, LinkedIn, is faring rather well. According to comScore, this June, LinkedIn reported 131 million unique visitors, making the site the 26th most visited web property in the world. During the previous quarter, LinkedIn generated 9.3 billion page views to report growth of 31% over the year.

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TaskRabbit Provides Livelihood for Some

In February 2008, Cambridge, Massachusetts–based Leah Busque struck gold when she came up with an idea of an online marketplace that one could visit to run her errands. The site began under the name RunMyErrand.com, with funding from angel investors. It was created as an eBay-like service where users could put up tasks that they wanted done, and service providers could bid for those tasks.

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Zynga’s Steady Decline in Stock Price

According to recent data, social online gaming appears to be slowing down. Not only is user engagement dropping, but the money spent on these games is also decreasing. A survey by researcher Frank N. Magid Associates revealed that on average players planned to spend $51 on games this year, compared with $78 last year.  The growth of online social games has slowed considerably, with 38% of social media users now playing games on the networks, compared with 36% a year ago. Another report on Facebook by IHS iSuppli said that last year, Facebook saw a significant decline in the number of Facebook gamers. In 2010, half of Facebook’s monthly active users were gamers, and that number fell to 25% by 2011. Online gaming developer Zynga is already feeling the heat.

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Facebook Stock Out of Favor

According to eMarketer, Facebook claims the biggest online display advertising market revenues from the U.S. after overtaking Yahoo last year. This year, Facebook is expected to account for 16.8% of the U.S. online display advertising market share. Google is projected to have 16.5% of the market share compared with 13.8% last year, and Yahoo’s share is expected to fall from 10.8% last year to 9.1% this year. But the growing market share is not helping Facebook’s stock price performance.

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Netflix Tumbling Downhill

Not a lot is going Netflix’s way at the moment. Despite meeting analyst expectations last quarter, the company’s disappointing subscriber growth and continued losses projected for the current quarter sent the stock tumbling. >>>

Amazon’s Fulfillment Center Investments Aimed To Corner More Market Share

There is little question that Amazon has redefined the e-tail industry. According to a recent study by Forrester, Why Amazon Matters Now More Than Ever, Amazon is a leading source of research for online buyers. The report claims that 30% of online buyers use Amazon to research products first, compared with 13% of buyers who use Google. Forrester estimates that Amazon’s share in the U.S. e-commerce revenues grew from 9% in 2001 to 19% in 2011. Amazon plans to increase its footprint and is investing heavily to ensure this growth continues.

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Apple: Siri Doesn’t Deliver

In a rare event, Apple’s recently announced quarterly results fell short of market expectations. After its meteoric rise, the stock also turned bearish. But given Apple’s strength, this should be just a minor bump in the road.

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Atlassian: A Cool Australian IPO-Ready Software Company

In the recent spurt of IPOs, where social media and consumer-focused Internet stocks have generally not fared very well, analysts believe that enterprise technology providers have a better chance, especially those operating in the SaaS model. Recently listed Proofpoint, Infoblox, and Splunk are cases in point. Another enterprise services provider, Atlassian, is expected to hit the IPO market soon.

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Microsoft Making Big Moves in Tablet, Social, Cloud

A Gartner report released earlier this month indicated that worldwide PC shipments fell 0.1% over the year to 87.5 million units in the second quarter of this year. This was the seventh consecutive quarter of flat to single-digit growth. Gartner believes that growing consumer interest in smartphones and media tablets is responsible for the declining PC sales.

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Although Euro Crisis Deals a Blow, IBM Moves Forward in Big Data

According to Gartner’s recent report, worldwide IT spending is projected to grow 3% over the year to $3.6 trillion this year. The estimates are higher than  expected growth rate of 2.5% over the year published earlier. By segment, computing hardware market is projected to grow 3.4% over the year to $420 billion. Enterprise software will see higher growth of 4.3% to $281 billion, and IT services are projected to grow 2.3% over the year to $864 billion. Analysts expects the most growth in telecom equipment spending, which is projected to rise 10.8% over the year to $377 billion, while the Telecom services segment will see the slowest growth at 1.4% to $1,686 billion. >>>