1 Billion

Back in December 2009, the number of tweets per month on Twitter reached 1 billion for the first time. Now in May, we reached yet another milestone: 2 billion tweets per month (or to be precise, 1.99 billion, which is close enough).

We actually called that this would happen at this exact point in time, based on a prediction we’d made for Twitter’s “tweet growth” in 2010 a while back.

Here’s a chart showing the number of tweets per month from December through May, i.e. the path from 1 to 2 billion tweets per month on Twitter:

Twitter saw the following numbers in May:

• 64 million tweets per day.
• 2.7 million tweets per hour.
• 44,481 tweets per minute.
• 741 tweets per second.

Maybe Twitter won’t quite be able to reach the almost 6 billion tweets per month we’ve predicted for the end of the year, but it’s clear that the Twitter platform is still growing at a healthy pace. Close to doubling the volume of monthly tweets in the last six months is no small feat.

Note: These numbers represent all tweets that pass through Twitter, including those using the Twitter API (i.e. from apps). For an explanation of how we are extracting the number of tweets, see the bottom of this post. It also shows the number of monthly tweets all the way back to July 2008.

Apple Has Paid $1 Billion To App Developers. (And Other Key Stats) —

Today at the WWDC event in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage for his keynote address. During it, he gave some key stats about three key pillars of Apple’s recent strategy: the iPad, the App Store, and the new iBooks store.

First, the key iPad stats:

• There have been 2 million iPads sold in 59 days.
• That’s 1 iPad sold every 3 seconds
• It’s in 10 countries now (9 new ones) — and 19 by the end of July
• There are over 8,500 native iPad apps
• These apps have been downloaded over 35 million times
• That’s about 17 apps per iPad

Next some iBooks stats:

• There are over 5 million book downloads in the first 65 days of the iBooks store
• That means each iPad has about 2.5 iBooks on them
• Apple has 5 of the top 6 book U.S. publishers and they say that Apple has taken about 22% of the U.S. eBooks market

App Store:

• There are over 225,000 apps in the App Store now.
• 15,000 apps submitted every week (both new and updates) across 30 languages
• 95% of all apps are approved in 7 days

Jobs also used the stage early on at WWDC to take his first shot at Google. He notes that the developer of Elements for the iPad recently emailed him to let him know that he earned more money in the first day of sales for the iPad than he did in 5 years from Google ads on his periodictable.com site.

Jobs also highlighted something that Apple has begun pushing recently thanks largely to its war with Adobe: HTML5. “We support two platforms at Apple,” Jobs said — HTML5 and the App Store. “Apple’s browsers are in the lead in supporting the HTML5 standard,” Jobs noted.

Should Facebook Be Worried About Diaspora? —

As Facebook has become an increasingly powerful magnet for controversy — over privacy and the way it handles user information, but also over the sheer size and dominance of the social network — interest has grown in finding some kind of open alternative. Perhaps the most obvious sign of that is the frenzy of support for a new project called Diaspora, which describes itself as “the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network.” But does this upstart platform, or any open-source alternative for that matter, stand a real chance of competing with Facebook?

Diaspora was put together by a team of students from New York University and went public on the “crowdfunding” platform Kickstarter in April, and within weeks had raised more money than any project the site had ever seen. By the time the fundraising closed, it had more than $200,000 from thousands of donations. That’s definitely a big vote of confidence in the idea, which is essentially to build an open and distributed social network that could duplicate some of what Facebook does, but without the proprietary standards and without being controlled by a single company (the team describes its vision in a video embedded below).

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg likes to say that the thing he is worried about the most is an unknown startup, but the fact remains that his company has 500 million users, and an estimated $1 billion in revenue, and even the team behind Diaspora admits that it is currently little more than an idea and some rough code. At this point, it seems a little like a contest between a mouse and an 800-pound gorilla — and those typically don’t end well for the mouse. Some observers have also raised questions about whether the money Diaspora has gathered through donations — some of which, ironically, came from Mark Zuckerberg himself — will be enough to produce anything workable, given the promises that Diaspora has made to those who donated (including T-shirts, CDs and a year’s worth of phone support). Jason Fried of 37signals argued in a recent post that the project has actually been “cursed” by the attention it has gotten, because it has raised expectations too high.

While there are other attempts to put together an open-source alternative to Facebook — including Appleseed, which has been around for several years — Diaspora seems to have tapped into a rich vein of anti-Facebook sentiment, fueled in part by the company’s recent changes to its privacy settings. There has also been increasing pressure on Facebook to allow users to extract their data from the social network and either back it up or move it elsewhere. The social network has pledged its support for the Data Portability project in the past — and Zuckerberg reiterated it vaguely in his recent speech launching the network’s new privacy controls — but it has done little to make that a reality.

The big unanswered question, however, is just how much of the frustration and irritation with Facebook exists only in the insular technology blogosphere — elevated by activism on the part of consumer advocacy groups in putting pressure on government — and how much is a real reflection of widespread dissatisfaction with the social network. And even if there is dissatisfaction, it’s not clear how deep it runs, or how long it will last. Facebook managed to weather a similar storm of controversy following its introduction of the news feed, something that was widely criticized but has since become hugely popular.

Alternatives like Diaspora have to prove that they have something compelling that will justify users adopting the service as a new standard or a new home for their content, or even justify exploring it as an alternative. Facebook, for all its flaws, is a known quantity with a well-established use case, and network effects mean that virtually any user of the site has dozens of friends he or she is connected to, which means that moving elsewhere will take a significant amount of psychological effort. Diaspora is going to need some pretty big incentives to change that behavior. It seems unlikely that “we are more open” will do the trick.

In addition to the psychological barrier, Diaspora and its fellow alternatives require users to have a certain amount of technological know-how, and that is going to restrict their appeal. Using Facebook is as simple as clicking a mouse button or typing in a text box, but from the sounds of the project, Diaspora in its initial stages will require users to run a version of the software on their own PCs (although the site says there will be a professionally hosted version as well). Not everyone is going to like that idea, or be able to implement it. Twitter has at least one competitor with a similar model — Identi.ca — but it has gotten very little uptake from mainstream users, even when those users were outraged about Twitter’s repeated downtime problems.

Everyone loves to root for an underdog (some are optimistic about Diaspora’s chances), and Facebook is clearly in the spotlight on privacy and other issues for a number of very good reasons. But it is going to take a lot more than some clever code and $200,000 to build something that can be a realistic alternative to the world’s largest social network.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Facebook Tries to Navigate the Privacy Storm

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Fabbio

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By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

In late April, I posted a long analysis about how Apple revenue and profits had closed in on Microsoft -- to within $1 billion. Judging from pageviews, comments and e-mail responses, few people seemed to get it. I saw the trend as being much more important than Apple market capitalization nearing Microsoft's. A month and two days later, Apple's valuation topped Microsoft's, which made headlines everywhere. But still few people seem to get the significance of the revenue and income comparisons. Until yesterday. Finally somebody gets it, yet missed to connect the final dot: iPad revenue could push Apple above Microsoft during this quarter.

Business Insider's June 2 Chart of the Day, "Apple Races to Catch Microsoft's Profits," graphically depicts what I explained six weeks ago. Jay Yarow and Kamelia Angelova write: "Apple's operating income is still trailing Microsoft. But, boy is it growing fast. In the most recent quarter, Apple reported operating income of $3.9 billion, while Microsoft reported $5.2 billion." The Business Insider chart shows "operating income after depreciation," which is a nice touch. The approach also accentuates Apple's dramatic operating income rise from 2000 to 2010.

I will repeat some numbers presented in my April 23rd post. During first calendar quarter, Apple revenue trailed Microsoft revenue by $1 billion behind Microsoft, while net income trailed by a little less -- about $940 million. In the same quarter in 2009, Apple revenue trailed Microsoft by $4.57 billion and net income by $1.36 billion. The bigger gap was obviously revenue. In the same quarter in 2005, the difference between Apple and Microsoft was $7.01 billion revenue and $3.6 billion net income.

Angelova's and Yarow's "Boy is it growing fast" understates just how much Apple has closed on Microsoft. They assert: "It's a very real possibility that Apple's income could surge past Microsoft's in the new few years." For revenue, I expect Apple to surpass Microsoft much sooner. In April, I asserted: "It's not a stretch of the imagination or reasonable speculation for Apple to close the distance during second calendar quarter or sometime later in 2010."

That assertion came before Apple shipped 2 million iPads within the first 60 days of availability. Assuming just $500 revenue per device, Apple opened a new product line worth $1 billion. On April 23, Wall Street analyst consensus for Microsoft revenue was $15.24 billion, with an estimate range between $14.59 billion and $15.91 billion. Apple was $13.7 billion with a much broader range of $11.6 billion to $15.08 billion. Today, the average analyst consensus for Apple is $14.02 billion, with a smaller range of $13.22 billion to $15.08 billion. For Microsoft: $15.22 billion, with range of $14.85 billion to $15.72 billion.

These numbers are close, and I don't believe they fully reflect the revenue lift iPad will give Apple during second quarter. Assuming that iPad doesn't cannibalize iPhone, iPod or Mac sales, Apple could reap an unexpected revenue windfall of $2 billion, estimating conservatively -- 4 million units at $500 each. The added revenue would easily put Apple above Microsoft, unless the software giant reaps more than expected from back-to-school PC sales or late closings on business annuity license contract renewals.

Income is another matter. Apple already has indicated that iPad would drive down gross margins. Then there are new product-launch logistics. Profits tend to be less up front. Apple secrecy means that most major new products don't ramp up manufacturing until after the official announcement. As such, Apple incurs higher early manufacturing and shipping costs, which typically are recouped in part through higher pricing. As sales increase and manufacturing scales, Apple profits per device go up and, later on, the company brings prices down. The point: iPad revenue will likely widen the income gap between Apple and Microsoft.

My prediction: Apple and Microsoft revenue will be close during second calendar quarter. Based on the situation as it is today, I'd guess Apple revenue will pass Microsoft revenue in second quarter. If not, then the third. If I'm wrong, it wouldn't be the first time. You don't ever get to be right without taking the risk of being wrong.

So what's the significance of Apple topping Microsoft? Among the many scathing comments to my April 23rd post: "Apple makes hardware, Microsoft makes software, why even compare the 2?" To which another reader replied: "That's Mr. Wilcoxs' patented linkbait technology." Actually not. There are many reasons to compare the companies' performance. Among them:

• The historical Mac and Windows PC competition that many people still obsess about -- Betanews readers among them.
• Mobile devices are the future of computing, and it's a market where Apple and Microsoft compete and increasingly will do more so.
• By market capitalization, Apple and Microsoft are the second and third most valuable public companies.

So what do you think? Could Apple revenue top Microsoft revenue during this quarter? Should anyone care? Please respond in comments.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010



Apple - Microsoft - iPhone - iPod - IPad

The Star Wars Kid Is Back and He’s Going to Be a Lawyer — It was eight years ago that Ghyslain Raza slashed his way into our hearts with his Star Wars Kid video. Sadly, Raza suffered from severe bullying and abuse for his video and eventually ended up in a psychiatric ward for children. However, his video was seen 1 billion times and multiple thousands of geeks came immediately to his defense. While those must have been the worst years of his life, things are now looking up. He and his family sued the kids who leaked the video for $250,000, settled, and that seemed to be the end of it. Now, however, Ghyslain just became the president of the Patrimoine Trois-Rivières, a heritage society dedicated to conserving his hometown in Quebec. He's also working on law degree at McGill in Montreal.

iPad: $1 Billion Later, What Do You Think of It Now? —

The iPad has passed $1 billion in sales, according to simple multiplication of the company's 2 million announced sales of the product after a mere 2 months of availability.

Earlier this month Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe predicted that the iPad would become the fastest consumer product to hit $1 billion in sales. While that's a tough call to make definitively, it is undeniable that the iPad has surpassed mere hype and made at least a commercial splash. Some analysts believe it is changing the nature of personal computing, too. What do you think?

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Here are some of the most interesting opinions I've come across lately. (Including one from my wife.)

"The iPad is a new kind of PC. It ushers in a new era of Curated Computing -- a mode of computing in which choice is constrained to deliver more relevant, less complex experiences. Curated Computing is necessary to empower alternative form factors, such as touchscreen tablets, wearable and ambient devices, game consoles, and connected TVs. The iPad's Curated Computing experience makes the tablet form factor viable for the first time since it was introduced commercially more than two decades ago."

- Forrester's Sarah Rotman Epps, Apple's iPad is a New Kind of PC. (Brings to mind Chris Messina's Death of the URL.)

"In my initial review, I focused on capabilities. And tablets are stuck between the power and utility of the notebook and the size and features of a smartphone. But they also create a middle place in terms of usability. And that is what I missed in my first day with the iPad. It feels less like a computer than any computing device I've owned. It's easy on me in a way that the other devices are not. So I'm now convinced that tablets will have an important place in our homes and our lives."

- Tech investor Fred Wilson, I've Changed My Mind About the iPad. Wilson has also said that he prefers reading content in mobile Safari over content-centric apps. Take that, curated web.

Wilson's appreciation of the iPad's usability contradicts with usability expert Jakob Nielsen's assessment :

"iPad apps are inconsistent and have low feature discoverability, with frequent user errors due to accidental gestures. An overly strong print metaphor and weird interaction styles cause further usability problems."

Personally, I love mine. I wish there were more apps, but I really enjoy using Facebook, YouTube, Twitterific and a number of other apps on it. It feels casual, efficient, enjoyable. It helps me get my laundry folded and my dishes done. I like it, a lot.

My wife says it doesn't feel crazy, novel and magical anymore - now it feels indispensable and integrated into our lives. "It's like finding a lover," she says. "At first everything they do is exciting, but over time a good lover becomes more of a real person. Some of the initial fascination is gone, but it becomes a super important part of your life." I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that, but I appreciate her letting me quote her saying it in this post. So far at least, I do not feel jealous of the iPad.

What's your take on the iPad?

Discuss

iPad Goes International —

On Friday, Apple debuted their iPad tablet in nine countries. Apple already pushed back international sales a month with the explanation that the demand in the U.S. was too great to go international at that time.

May 28th saw the iPad on sale in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

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About a month ago, Apple had sold half a million devices and said inventory would not tolerate opening to foreign markets as soon as they had planned. Inventory is still an issue, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"Analysts estimate that Apple will sell about 1.7 million iPads in the April-to-June quarter and five million for the year world-wide."

Analysts also anticipate that about a third of Apple's sales will be U.S.-based and the rest shared with the remaining global market.

With over a million iPads sold, it has been described as "the fastest consumer product growth to the $1 billion revenue mark in history."

Discuss

It's like an API festival here at Gluecon. I tweeted that this afternoon. But it's not just Gluecon, though - they're one of the hottest topics in discussions about cloud computing.

In his presentation today at Gluecon, John Musser of Programmable Web illustrated how hot APIs have become and how they've matured.

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Perhaps most illustrative is his "API Billionaire's Club."

Members of the club include Google and Facebook with 5 billion AP calls per day. Twitter has 3 billion per day. Ebay has 8 billion per month. NPR gets 1.1 billion calls per month for its API-delivered stories. Saleforce.com gets 50% of its traffic through its API.

According to Musser, it took eight years to get to 1,000 API's but just 18 months to get to 2,000. This year, the number of API's are double what they were last year on a month-per-month basis.

Internet/platform as a service API's are now number one. That's illustrative of the increased usage of services like Amazon S3 and all its competitors. Maps are the number three API, dropping from the number one spot last year. Social API's are number two.

REST API's are far surpassing SOAP.

There's a real energy here at Gluecon around the discussions about APIs. The room was packed for the presentations on the topic.

We'll pour more into the topic in later posts.

Discuss

In 2007, Google managers made an offer to Viacom, the massive media company that owns Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks. Viacom, at the time, had sued Google for $1 billion, even as some of Viacom’s divisions posted content to YouTube as promotional clips.

Google, the released documents show, offered Viacom $592 million in guaranteed revenue share from ads run on YouTube, on the basis that a certain fraction of the clips belonged to Viacom. According to the deposition of a Viacom lawyer in the new documents, Viacom wanted $700 million.

Google execs had come to the conclusion that Viacom’s content was of extreme value to YouTube, because visitors were flocking to professionally-produced commercial video clips, contrary to the contemporary cliche that YouTube’s appeal was skateboarding dogs and talking cats.

A CNet report says other sources claim the offers listed in the documents weren’t the final offers, nor were they the highest numbers the two companies floated.

Google U.S. Economic Impact: $54 Billion —

Google plans to hold a number of events across the country this morning where the company will highlight its economic impact on local economies. Ahead of these events, Google just released detailed data about how much economic activity the company generated for local businesses, website publishers and non-profits in the U.S. in 2009. Nationwide, Google estimates that it generated about $54 billion in economic activity last year.

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According to Google, the company estimates its economic impact in each state based on "the economic value generated by Google Search and AdWords, Google AdSense and Google Grants in 2009." You can find a detailed description of the company's methodology here. Google did not try to estimate its impact on local consumers.

With $14.1 billion, California leads the pack among U.S. states, while Wyoming came in last with $24 million. You can download the full report with detailed numbers for every state here (PDF).

Given that these numbers were generated by Google itself, it's worth taking this data with a grain of salt, though Google's impact on the U.S. economic - and small businesses in particular - is undeniable, no matter how closely the real numbers line up with Google's estimates.

Why Release This Data Now?

We can obviously only speculate, but as the search giant is coming under closer scrutiny from antitrust agencies, it makes sense for Google to present itself as a good neighbor and a driving force behind many local economies.

We will attend the local Google event in Portland, OR later this morning and update this post once we get more information.

Discuss

Hewlett-Packard won the bidding war to buy Palm for $1.2 billion. But a new filing reveals that the courtship was a frenzied affair with serious offers from five companies.

Palm said in its latest statement to shareholders that it realized it needed to do something about its sagging sales in early February. On Feb. 17, Palm chief executive Jon Rubenstein organized a committee to explore options. From Feb. 25 to April 1, Palm contacted 16 companies about a possible deal, which could have been anything from licensing Palm’s WebOS operating system to a sale of the company.

Five companies made offers, but the filing only identifies HP (Other bidders named were Lenovo). Palm was most interested in offers from HP and two other companies, while the last two wanted to license Palm’s patents. In early March, Palm’s board decided a sale was the best option. HP made its first actual offer on April 13 for $4.75 a share for $1 billion. It asked for 30 days of exclusive negotiations. A second company offered $600 million in cash, and a third company offered a stock deal that would take longer to complete than the other deals.

Palm told HP it would not give an exclusive negotiating period unless HP improved its offer. HP declined. Palm told the other two companies that their bids were not competitive and those companies dropped out. A fourth company then offered $6 to $7 per share with a transaction to take place within 14 days.

On April 18, Palm sent both HP and that fourth company a draft of merger agreements. HP and Palm executives met starting April 20 and HP increased its offer to $5 a share on April 22. Then the fourth bidder dropped its offer to $5.50 a share with provisions that included a $60 million penalty if the deal did not go through. Palm and the fourth bigger tried to work out a deal from April 23 to April 25, to no avail.

Rubinstein told HP on April 24 that its offer wasn’t competitive and that it had to “significanty and immediately” improve its offer to stay in the bidding. HP raised its offer to the winning $5.70 a share bid that day. Rubinstein told the fourth company that he had a better offer on April 25. Then that company responded by telling Palum it would offer to buy its patents and take a non-exclusive license on the WebOS for $800 million.

Palm’s board considered that offer and turned it down. Then HP and Palm locked into negotiations from April 24 to April 28. On April 28, the merger was announced.

Companies: Hewlett Packard, Palm

Facebook Showed More Ads Than Yahoo or Microsoft in Q1 —

While Facebook is not making the most money of any of its competitors from advertising, new comScore numbers indicate that it has become the largest display advertiser on the Web. The Wall Street Journal writes that the data, which is scheduled to be released later this week, "are the latests to show Facebook closing the gap with more established Internet-ad giants".

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According to comScore's CMO Linda Abraham, the jump in display advertising on Facebook could be a result of the site's redesign, which allowed more advertisements to be squeezed in on each page. Abraham also speculated that the takeover of advertising from Microsoft didn't seem to be a primary factor.

As we argued when Facebook took over Microsoft's share of onsite advertising, this all seems to be part of Facebook's larger advertising strategy. Not two weeks after giving Microsoft the boot, Facebook began accepting PayPal, making advertising for its 400 million users a much simpler reality. The company's press release on its relationship with PayPal directly spoke to this goal, saying that "the option to pay with PayPal makes it even easier for advertisers, particularly small international companies, to run campaigns on Facebook".

These efforts appear to have paid off, as Facebook has delivered 176.3 billion display ads in the first quarter of 2010, pulling well ahead of Yahoo's 131.6 billion banner ads and Microsoft's 60.2 billion ads. As the Journal points out, however, the revenue from these ads falls far behind Yahoo and Microsoft. Facebook earned $500 million in 2009 and is expected to earn more than $1 billion in 2010, while Yahoo earned $6.5 billion in 2009, mostly from advertising revenue.

Facebook is still growing, however, and we can only wonder what advertising moves the company has in store regarding its controversial Open Graph. Already, it must be making some interesting deals, such as its "Instant Personalization" connections with Yelp, Pandora and CNN. While display advertising may be an easy way to compare Facebook with giants like Yahoo and Microsoft, it might be only a fraction of what Facebook has in store for us.

Discuss

During the first quarter of 2010, Facebook served up more banner ads than any other website, according to new data from comScore published in The Wall Street Journal.

In total, the social networking site displayed 176.3 billion ads during the period, for an average of better than 50 billion ads each month. That total represents 16.2% of the total number of banner ads served across the entire Web, and places the site ahead of the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft — the latter by nearly triple.

Of course, Facebook isn’t quite monetizing on the level of those Internet giants just yet, with recent estimates placing the company’s 2010 revenue at around $1 billion (Yahoo is expected to do nearly $5 billion in revenue this year).

Their monetization strategy expands beyond banner ads though, exemplified by the recent launch of a virtual currency – Facebook Credits – that sees the company takes a 30% cut from game developers with apps on the social network. Some see this eventually morphing into a PayPal competitor.

For now though, the company has established a larger footprint than anyone else when it comes to showing display ads, another impressive milestone as Facebook continues its march to becoming the most trafficked site in the world (it currently sits at number three).

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Tags: facebook

By Jessica E. Vascellaro, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Facebook Inc. is catching up to rivals Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) in selling display ads.

In the first quarter, Facebook pulled ahead of Yahoo for the first time and delivered more banner ads to its U.S. users than any other Web publisher, according to market-research firm comScore Inc. (SCOR).

Overall, Facebook.com served 176.3 billion display ads on its website over the first three months of 2010, or 16.2 percent of the total, said comScore. Yahoo served 131.6 billion banner ads to Yahoo users, and Microsoft served 60.2 billion, according to comScore. The data don’t include ads that Yahoo and Microsoft delivered to other Web sites through their networks, a major source of revenue for each.

By revenue, Facebook has a long way to go to catch up to its more established rivals. The social-networking site earned more than $500 million in revenue in 2009 and is forecasting revenue of more than $1 billion in 2010, according to people familiar with the matter. Yahoo earned $6.5 billion in revenue in 2009, mostly from advertising.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Mobile marketing firm Adenyo has acquired MoVoxx, a US-based mobile advertising company that counts multiple Fortune 500 companies as clients and reaches millions of users on both smartphones and more basic ‘feature phones’. MoVoxx was founded in 2006 and had previously raised money from Greycroft Partners, Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital and BV Capital. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed.

MoVoxx CEO Alec Andronikov says that the company has grown to reach 40 million unique users though in-app display ads as well as SMS, which can reach a much broader array of devices. The company recently launched a new GeoSense platform that sends location-based ads to users, even on devices that don’t come equipped with GPS.

Adenyo offers a SaaS mobile ad platform that serves over 1 billion ad impressions a month. It includes an analytics engine to determine which ads to serve to which users, as well as a system to handle payments and coupons. Adenyo CEO Tyler Nelson says that the company has built up a strong presence in the European market as well as Canada, but that “feature phones” in the United States are around 3-4 years behind, and that Adenyo hasn’t yet addressed them. MoVoxx already has a large base of users on these feature phones, and will give Adenyo a strong foothold in the United States. This, Nelson says, is important as clients look to launch global campaigns across North America and Europe.

Canada-based Adenyo recently raised $30 million in funding, and it sounds like it has more acquisitions in the pipeline.

Filed under: iPad

Yesterday, we reported on an incredible statistic: If iPad sales continue at the current rate through the end of June, Apple could realize US$1 billion in revenue. Today, Yankee Group's Carl Howe puts that number into perspective, noting that the iPad "...will likely take the crown for the fastest consumer product growth to the $1 billion revenue mark in history." That is, of course, if current sales trends continue.

If it happens, it will have taken place in less than 120 days. Howe compares the iPad's meteoric rise to the revenue arc of Google. As a company that's barely over 10 years old, Google produced one of the fastest growths to $1 billion in revenue and the fastest growth to a market valuation greater than $1 billion.

It's also important to note that these iPad numbers account for US sales only. Once international sales begin, Apple should really blow the roof off of this thing.

TUAWiPad could produce the quickest climb to the $1B mark originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 06 May 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Swiss electrical engineering company ABB has been eying its opportunities in the U.S. Smart Grid industry for a while. Now it’s fortifying itself to compete in the states by acquiring Ventyx — maker of Smart Grid software among offerings for other industries — for $1 billion.

ABB will add Ventyx’s grid management software to its portfolio of products targeted at utility customers. Right now, it makes a lot of the physical equipment used by energy vendors to revamp their grid operations. By bundling software along with these products, it is planning to turn itself into a one-stop shop for all things Smart Grid — making it a more formidable rival to General Electric and Siemens, which have both been pursuing similar strategies.

The software itself will help utilities and grid operators keep closer tabs on energy demand, so they can make sure it never exceeds supply, keeping the grid healthy and averting millions in maintenance costs following brownouts and blackouts. Ventyx says its systems can also make it easier for these customers to integrate renewable sources of energy like wind and solar into their current power mixes.

This is the first acquisition deal over $1 billion that ABB has made in more than a decade — indicating just how crucial Smart Grid software capabilities are going to be to its overall business strategy going forward. It is also yet another sign that big players are sprinting to get involved with this burgeoning industry — including Cisco Systems, Intel, and IBM (all trolling for smaller companies and startups that can give them the technology and employees they need to get ahead fast).

Ventyx appears to be a special case for ABB, which says the deal is not going to kick off a series of acquisitions — rather, it was too compelling of an opportunity to pass up. With the new software in its arsenal, ABB hopes to boost its revenue 9 to 12 percent in the next two years, according to Reuters.

Ventyx is a fairly new entity — the result of a 2007 merge between two smaller companies, Indus and MDSI, under the ownership of Vista Equity Partners. The company brought in $250 million in revenue last year.

Tags: Smart Grid

Companies: ABB, Ventyx

Scott Karp of Publish 2.0, who I've met and is a nice guy, says the kind of thing we rail against on Rebooting the News.

Scott Karp: "Apple could generate $1 billion in iPad revenue this quarter. Wonder who is smarter, Steve Jobs or his critics? You do the math."

Okay I did the math and got the answer: Does Not Compute.

1. I assume I am one of the critics he's talking about. It's true, I make less money than Apple does, in fact, I don't make any money at all, I spend money. I've been blessed by a few "liquidity events" in my life, enabling me to work on what I want to work on. It has always been thus for me, even when I was young, I adjusted my cost of living so that I could work for myself. Does this make me less smart than Steve Jobs? I don't see why it would.

2. Is it possible for someone to make a lot of money and also do things that are bad for the environment? Things that deserve criticism? Should we give everyone who makes a lot of money a free pass -- making them immune from discourse? The idea is silly on its face. In fact some business models, ways of making money, are based on cashing in public value in the ecosystem. Did Exxon fully pay for the ecological disaster of the Exxon Valdez? Did they earn a lot of money since then? Did they pay for the cost of the war in Iraq which has kept oil prices higher than they probably would be otherwise? Is this good? (Imho, no, it is not.) Should we criticize BP even though they surely made more money last year than 99.9999999 percent of us? I'm sure Scott didn't mean to say that, after all -- I think he believes in the power of journalism. Most journalists make less money than the titans they cover (at least I hope so). Money ain't everything Scott, and it sure does not equate to wisdom.

3. I feel Apple is screwing us in some ways and blessing us in others. I bought Apple stock and have held it through the bad times and now am profiting in the good times. Yet I think it's good news that the FTC is reigning in their power re the developers. Not only good because it is morally a good thing, but also good for shareholders. I buy all their products, although sometimes I protest. I feel like I'm using the Disney version of a computer with the iPad, and I prefer punk rock (although I like Disney movies too). I'm a lot like Jon Stewart, not quite a fan boy because I think I see when they are wrong, but certainly a fan.

So come on Scott, this is an old-fashioned 1.0 homily, the kind of thing my grandfather used to say for crying out loud. We now live in a world that's been messed up by unrestrained business models, possibly to the point where the planet will soon not sustain human life. Isn't it time to get rid of the shortcuts and use our minds when thinking instead of falling back on folksy sloganeering?

We’ve gone through a strange change, from people not realizing that they need to be their own brand, to people not realizing how being the brand impacts the way they do business. It’s interesting, really. Tom Peters was the first person I recall talking about it, back in the Alan Webber days of FastCompany (The Brand Called You). Back then, we were all cubicle farmers and beige employees of the cog-world (okay, not true, but that’s what it felt like). But now, we’re getting the opposite, where people have all the tools to make a brand and do so, but don’t really know how to leverage that brand into anything resembling a business. So, in some ways, there’s been a bit of a see-saw. We used to have people that would prosper by turning their wonderfulness into a personal brand.

We Got There – Kinda

In a way, lots of us have found our way to the tools that allow us to try and build a brand. I meet finance professionals with blogs. I know videobloggers who have a day job doing research for the research and quantification sector. We have access to the tools. Not everyone’s getting themselves to the promised land by blogging, but the tools are there. We CAN try and build personal brands and that’s something.

But What About Business and Personal Branding?

The trick of being in a personal brand is that there’s a big difference between being known, being known for something, and also being able to turn that into business.

I’ve got a recognizable personal brand. It took years to build it. From that, it took years to figure out how best to make business from it. Because just being known doesn’t transform instantly into business.

I met Kathy Ireland a few months ago. She went from being a model into running a successful business with over $1 Billion in sales. Her speech at the Disney Social Media Moms event made no bones about the fact that it was hard going from being known for being beautiful into being respected for her business acumen. She told lots of stories about times when she and her business partner slept on the chairs in an airport to save money between business flights. The end point: no one just hands you money and business because they know you.

Your first takeaway: make sure you’re progressing from being known into being known for something you’ve done, and then work at finding a way to build a business from that. Your second takeaway: no one wants to hand you money just because people know who you are.

It’s Still Not About You

Being a personal brand isn’t all that useful to anyone else, if it’s just about you. It just doesn’t get people as fired up to be “supporters of Chris,” for instance. But instead, if you’re “human business workers,” all committed to improving relationship-minded sustainable human business practices, well, then I’ve got the sense that we’ll do a lot more.

As a personal brand, it’s really important to talk about everyone else as much as you can. It’s just too boring and unhelpful to tell everyone about you. It’s okay to “model the change you want to be,” or even let people learn from the lessons you’ve suffered through, but make sure you bring it back to them, and be helpful. It’s about the community you can touch and help succeed.

Be a Value Brand, Not a Name

I just had a great stay at the Renaissance Hotel in Las Vegas a few days back. Every single staffer treated me like I was a friend, and like they were so happy I was part of their experience. They gave me such value. They had advice for where I could go. They knew some ins and outs I needed to know. It was pure value for me as a frequent traveler.

I try to be a value brand. I try to give everyone so much more than what I ask for, that you think, “wow, I really DO want to help Chris promote Invisible People, because he’s given me lots of actionable business ideas over the years.” That’s my angle, and it’s working really damned well. Be a value.

Story Story Story

Connect folks to the story that brings them passion. I wrote about a charter school I visited, and learned tons about people’s take on education in the US (and abroad). That’s a story I could bring via my brand, but then let go so that it found the people who are passionate about such matters. See? I become the elbow of every “deal,” where in this case, stories of meanings become the deal.

You can do that. Don’t make the brand about you. Make it about the stories you can tell, adding your value and insight and passion, and then build on that. (This is where the business comes from, you know.)

Think Community Every Day

As a personal brand, it’s not YOUR community, but it’s a loosely joined group of people who feel affinity for some of your ideas or for the space you represent. In a way, I’m saying, “make sure you realize that it’s never your community; it’s a place you’re privileged to access.” People who throw “MY” around before the word “community” are often surprised when that community doesn’t march in the same order that you intend. Surprise! The trick of this is that you have to recognize that you’re in service of the community, not the other way around. You’re possibly a leader, or at least someone that’s known, but that doesn’t make you the important part of the equation. With me?

Brands Need Refreshing

Never rest on your laurels. Madonna never did. She changed up her game every year. Soda pop companies tidy up their brand all the time. Now, think of a few brands that don’t do that, who are still in the past. Where are they?

The same is true with your brand. You. Lord knows I work on my brand that way. You think I’m the social media guy? I’m building myself to be the human business guy. I used to be the podcamp guy. I used to be just a blogger. I’m always working on the angle of the brand. Now, it won’t be there for you yet, because I’m talking about my planning, not my current situation. But that’s the very point I’m making. This isn’t accidental, or it isn’t for people who use brand as part of their success.

Brand is Only ONE Asset

A brand is an asset. But it’s only ONE asset. You can’t feed your family on a personal brand. You have to deliver something of value. You have to have a product or a service or something else where you make the real money. The brand is just the powerful emotional flag that people can rally around. If you don’t have more assets, or aren’t developing the other assets, well… enjoy that flag.

What Else?

What else did I miss? What else can I help you with on this? How have you put this into service?

Hewlett-Packard said it would acquire Palm for about $1 billion in cash. The following is an email that Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein sent to employees on Wednesday.

Facebook’s new Like button was announced last week, which allows users to “Like” any piece of content on an outside site with one click. Those likes are then transported back to Facebook and integrated into users’ profiles. This feature is expected to create a vast Facebook-centric recommendation network that transcends the social network, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg estimating over 1 billion likes on the first day of its launch. And it poses a serious threat to existing social recommendation services. One of these is Glue, a social browsing assistant that shows ratings and recommendations of movies, books, restaurants, stocks, and other things as you surf the Web (via a browser plug-in). Today, Glue is launching new personalization features that use your past likes to help you pick your next favorite movie, album or book.

Glue, which uses semantic technology to show related products and media across categories, will now scan new releases in movies, music, and books and will highlight the ones that are most relevant to you based on what you already like. Glue will also keep updating your recommendations in real-time. So as you like more on the system, the movies, music and books that are most relevant to you bubble up to the top of your recommendations.

Via its toolbar, Glue is also beginning to provide additional context to recommendations as you surf the web. Glue’s toolbar will show you similar things that you’ve already liked, reviews from your friends, allowing you to tap into your recommendations to decide if the movie, album, or book is for you.

Additionally, Glue has redesigned its homepage to display a summary of your messages, friend updates and new suggestions. New streams automatically collapse likes from a friend, making it easier to see updates from all friends. Suggestions can also be filtered by recency, relevancy and new releases.

Currently, Glue has over 400,000 registered users and receives over 1.5 million new ratings every month, which is impressive for the bootstrapped startup. But will these new feature updates be able to save Glue from Facebook’s potential takeover of the social recommendations space? Glue’s founder Alex Iskold says that he is “flattered” by Facebook’s move to extend their Like button beyond the social network. In fact, Iskold is very familiar with Facebook’s implementation of its Like button and Open Graph API. But Iskold believes that the Like button is more publisher-focused vs. user-centric. Iskold maintains that Glue’s plug-in allows users to interact with their recommendations wherever they browse and on the sites they visit. He adds that Glue will plan to integrate Facebook’s Like button in some way, but is not sure yet how it will be added to the platform.