Estimates

So How Much Time Do You Waste On Twitter? — Making the rounds quickly on Twitter this weekend is Tweetwasters, a site that gives you an idea of how much time you’re really ‘wasting’ posting messages and status updates to the popular micro-sharing service. Users are calculating away and tweeting about it, ironically spending even more time on Twitter (not that there’s anything wrong with that). There’s even a WordPress plugin that lets you show off your Twitter usage stats to your blog visitors, and if you try hard you might just make the Tweetwasters Hall Of Fame. Tweetwasters estimates that a user spends about 30 seconds on creating a Tweet... [Tags: approximate number, crunch, estimates, hall of fame, mobile gadgets]

Omniture Shares Tumble; Pacific Crest Cuts Target, Estimates [Voices] — By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily Omniture (OMTR) shares are down sharply today following cautious comments on the stock this morning by Pacific Crest analyst Chad Bartley. Bartley writes that “feedback from the channel is markedly more negative” than it was two to three months ago. He says the poor economy is resulting in month-over-month slowing in the online business analytics sector; he says Q4 activity is weaker than expected in what is normally a seasonally strong period. “In general, existing customers are not expected to increase their investments in 2009,” he writes. Bartley also says... [Tags: additions, barron, blogger, business analytics, cautious comments]

Fairchild’s Year Without a Santa Claus [Digital Daily] — If life is a cement trampoline, then Fairchild Semiconductor just performed a flat back landing. It’s hand forced by those oft-cited “market conditions,” the company said Friday it is sacking 12 percent of its workforce, or 1,100 people, in an attempt to reduce expenses and spread holiday cheer. Fairchild (FCS) reduced its guidance as well. It had been expecting $338 million to $360 million in sales for its fiscal fourth quarter. Now it expects just $320 million. Fairchild is the latest semiconductor company to temper its estimates as demand for the computers and telecommunications gear in which its chips are... [Tags: broadcom, cement, chips, contracts, estimates]

Facebook Crosses 130 Million Global Active Users, Closes US Gap with MySpace — Facebook this week crossed another major growth milestone, announcing that the number of active users on the site (users who have visited in the last 30 days) now stands at a whopping 130 million. Facebook’s active user numbers have grown 30% since it crossed 100 million in August. Since the beginning of the year, Facebook global active users have more than doubled, with significant growth coming both in the US and internationally. Now that’s viral growth! In addition, Compete just released their November US numbers for Facebook and MySpace. Compete estimates MySpace November uniques at 56.4 million, up 2.7% from... [Tags: 100 million, estimates, facebook, gap, milestone]

Sony to cut 8,000 workers, close 10 manufacturing facilities — The global economic morass is has caught even the largest companies in its grip. Sony is the latest manufacturer to announce a series of cuts and revised future estimates of profit, but the company's restructuring plans are more drastic than most.Read More...... [Tags: economic morass, estimates, manufacturing facilities, restructuring, sony]

Dividend.com: RIM in Reverse — The company says the weak economy is to blame for lowered estimates.... [Tags: dividend, economy, estimates, rim]

Micron Extends Fall; Barclays Cuts Ests On DRAM Woes — Micron (MU) shares are down again today, after Barclays Capital analyst Tim Luke cut his estimates on the company in the face of continuing weakness in the DRAM market. For the August 2009 fiscal year, Luke now sees MU reporting a loss of $1.36 a share, down from 95 cents previously. For FY 2010, he sees a loss of 7 cents, compared to break-even previously. Luke chopped his price target on the stock to $4, from $6. He keeps his rating at Equal Weight. The estimate cuts come at a time when the global memory sector “remains in a state... [Tags: barclays, barclays capital, dram market, dram prices, equal weight]

Google to Curb Expenses as Wall Street Cuts Estimates on Google — Google CEO Eric Schmidt acknowledges Google is bracing for the recession, while Bank of America and Global Equities Research slash earnings expectations on the search engine giant. Despite enthusiasm over cloud computing and Web services, it's Google's search advertising that enables Google to break the bank, but to what strength? Financial experts expect that to be impacted given the current economic climate. - Many media pundits and bloggers put up stop signs over the Thanksgiving break last week about Google laying off workers after it was determined the layoffs were previously announced cuts of Google contractors. Yet despite a bang... [Tags: bank of america, ceo eric schmidt, earnings, economic climate, equities research]

Russian Oligarchs Losing A Ton In Financial Meltdown (SLIDESHOW) — In the past decade, while you were trying to survive the dotcom collapse and $4 gas, commodity-owning Russia was getting rich (well, some Russians, anyway). Moscow became a city of billionaires, and a year ago, these young, impossibly wealthy moguls were taking over the world. And now? They're still dynastically wealthy, of course. But they've taken it on the chin. In fact, by some estimates, the Russian oligarchs have lost more than $230 billion in the past six months. Some are even reaching for Putin's modest $50 billion bailout wad. (And getting it.)... [Tags: bailout, billionaires, collapse, commodity, decade]

Google: With Online Ads Weakening, BofA Cuts Estimates — Bank of America analysts Brian Pitz and Brian Fitzgerald have become the latest analysts to raise concerns about the impact on Google’s financial results from the continuing erosion of the online advertising environment. The Bank of America analysts cut their estimates for both Q4 and for all of 2009, asserting that “industry data points and channel checks indicate significant pressure on commercial queries and monetization.” For Q4, Pitz and Fitzgerald now see net revenue of $4.07 billion, down from $4.3 billion, with non-GAAP profits of $4.74, down from $5.24. The Street consensus is $5.09. For 2009, he slashed his revenue... [Tags: bank of america, bofa, brian fitzgerald, ceo eric schmidt, consensus]

DVR commercial skipping: 50% or 97%? Depends on whom you ask — How many DVR owners skip ads? Not even the networks agree, with estimates ranging from "half" to "all." TiVo wants to save the industry it helped to pulverize.Read More...... [Tags: estimates, tivo]

What's Wrong With Actually Turning Electronics Off? — The WSJ is running an article about some guys in Spain who claim to have patented an algorithm that can detect if an electronic device is in "standby mode" and cut the power. The issue, of course, is that plenty of electronic appliances and gadgets don't really turn off. Instead, they continue to draw power even if switched "off." In reality, they're in standby mode, and continue to draw power. Some estimates say that all of these devices drawing power represent 10% of power usage, and in some techie areas, such as here in Silicon Valley, some estimates say that... [Tags: algorithm, drawing power, electronic appliances, electronic device, estimates]

Norway-based browser-maker Opera Software (OPERA.OL) stock jumped 11% today after the company beat estimates for Q3 earnings. Opera only commands 0.7% of the desktop browser market -- already trailing the much-newer Google (GOOG) Chrome -- which has 0.8%. But that's not where the revenue comes from: Opera is reporting strong growth in license revenues for its Opera Mini mobile browser. Bloomberg: Shares climbed as much as 1.9 kroner, or 11 percent, to 18.5 kroner, and were at 18.2 kroner as of 9:31 a.m. local time, the highest intraday level since Sept. 12, valuing the company at 2.2 billion kroner ($310... [Tags: 5 million, bloomberg, desktop browser, estimates, google]

Henry Blodget: After All That, Stock Market Finally At Fair Value — After thirteen months of a historic stock market plunge (yes, the worst since the Great Depression), occasionally interrupted by the usual sucker's rallies (of which last week's move may be the latest or may be the start of a recovery), the stock market is, finally, back to a rough approximation of fair value. The best measure of fair value is the "cyclically adjusted P/E ratio," which smooths out the fluctuations in corporate profit margins by averaging earnings over 10 years. (The straight P/E ratio, based on one year's earnings, can be wildly misleading: when profit margins are high, P/Es look... [Tags: 10 years, amp, andrew smithers, assumptions, corporate profit]

New Stimulus Goal: Move From Big Negatives To Zero Growth — Now that the government has spent nearly $1.4 trillion to stabilize the financial system, economists and policy makers -- and the president-elect -- are trying to figure out how much must be invested in a stimulus package to stop the recession, and what that money should be spent on. The size of a possible stimulus plan rises as the economy contracts, and that is happening at a 4 percent annual rate, according to current estimates, or eight times as fast as it was this summer. Just offsetting that contraction requires a federal infusion of at least $400 billion, many economists... [Tags: chief economist, contraction, contracts, economists, economy]

Developers Concerned that Facebook’s Implementation of Demographic Restrictions is Limiting App Revenues — Since Facebook announced its Demographic Restrictions feature in August, developers have been eager to take advantage of the new functionality (and simultaneous policy change) allowing them to target of-age users with advertising related to alcohol sales. However, since the new policy went into effect three weeks ago, some developers are experiencing challenges with Facebook’s implementation of Demographic Restrictions that are limiting their ability to derive revenues from the new feature. Here’s how one top developer put it in a recent email to Inside Facebook: <fb:restricted-to location=”us” type=”alcohol”> excludes users who have chosen to hide their year-of-birth from their friends even... [Tags: advertisement, advertisers, alcohol sales, audience, challenges]

OmniVision: Caris Cuts Rating; Expects EPS Warning — Caris & Co. analyst Betsy Van Hees this morning cut her rating on OmniVision (OVTI) to Average from Buy, while lowering her price target on the stock to $6 from $13. The move comes ahead of the company’s earnings report for its fiscal third quarter ended October, which is set for December 2. Van Hees said the move reflects “expectations that demand for mobile handsets and laptops will remain muted” into the first half of next year. OmniVision supplies PC and mobile phone companies with image sensors. Van Hees expect the October quarter results to be at the lower end... [Tags: amp, earnings report, estimates, fourth quarter, guidance]

Web investing - stats on round size and estimated pre-money — Last week Julien Wallen posted some interesting data on funding for web startups.  The whole post is well worth a read (including DFJs position as most prolific investor in this space over the last 4-5 years….) but the following two tables are the ones I found most interesting. This first table gives the average investment size by stage, with the median Series A coming in at $4.8m. In this second table Julien has worked backwards from the hard data about round size and rules of thumb guiding normal levels of dilution to estimate pre-money valuations, again by stage.  This is... [Tags: 8m, dilution, estimates, fuller explanation, inexact science]

Solar: Can U.S. Upside Trump European Slowdown? [Voices] — By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily So here’s the crux of the debate on the solar stocks, which today have gained ground for the fourth straight session, posting some impressive cumulative gains after a long, long slide. The bearish view is that the stocks, while certainly badly beaten up in recent months, still must endure a period of tighter credit, collapsing prices, too much supply, a stronger dollar and strapped governments pulling back on subsidy programs. The bears argue that solar valuations are low in part because the market is adjusting to low-margin commodity pricing; P/E... [Tags: barron, bears, blogger, columnist, commodity pricing]

CNN IBN Live Streaming from Mumbai — CNN IBN is offering live streams with the latest news on the ground from the terrible attacks that have struck Mumbai, India. CNN IBN has a live stream here, although a note: it’s a Windows Media stream. We’re looking for alternative streams for those who can’t play it. Warning: the footage will disturb viewers. Terrible stuff. Update: reports include estimates that 16 separate sites that were attacked and 150 Wedding guests may be held as hostages inside the Taj hotel. For previous coverage, see also: Deccan Mujahideen and Mumbai Attacks. Related PostsNo Related Post... [Tags: cnn, cnn ibn, deccan, estimates, hostages]