growth

Path takes a wrong turn, Yahoo's board gets new faces, and Amazon Instant Video adds Viacom content.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

Tumblr is on a roll.

The company's founder and CEO David Karp spoke at the Digital Life Design (DLD) Conference in Munich earlier today, and revealed that Tumblr is visited by over 120 million unique users each month, helping it tally over 15 billion monthly pageviews. What's more, the nearly 42 million microblogs currently in operation are re-blogged via RSS, Twitter, and Facebook an average of nine times, dramatically expanding their footprint across the Web.

The Next Web was the first to report on Karp's comments.

Just four months ago, Tumblr announced that it was generating 13 … Read more

Hard drive shortages and weak sales slow down the PC market, HTC announces phones that will get the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update, and Barnes & Noble takes on the Kindle with a new lineup, including the Nook Tablet and Nook Simple Touch.

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

IBM delivered strong third quarter earnings and raised it outlook amid strong software growth.

Big Blue reported third-quarter earnings of $3.8 billion, or $3.19 a share, on revenue of $26.2 billion, up 8 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were $3.28 a share.

Wall Street was looking for third-quarter earnings of $3.22 a share on revenue of $26.25 billion.

IBM also projected were 2011 non-GAAP earnings of $13.35 a share, up from its previous outlook of at least $13.25 a share. Wall Street was expecting $13.32 a share.

The quarter … Read more

Facebook is going to launch a music service. That's the oversimplified version of what the tech press expects to see at the company's September 22 developer conference, F8. What we are much more likely to see, as Om Malik reports: A new, Facebook-sponsored way for music distribution companies, in particular Spotify, to worm their way into the Facebook social network.

Because that's how Facebook rolls now. It's not a destination. Well, for consumers it is. But for everyone else in tech, it's a platform. Facebook started saying that at the first F8 conference in 2007. Since then, the company has solidified this position. Facebook's move to becoming a platform is one of the most canny business shifts in tech. Initially Facebook roped users in and sold ads against their page views. And then Facebook figured out that instead of selling advertising impressions, it could sell the network of users itself to other companies.

That's why Facebook never pushed its own gaming service and why Zynga is big. Because Facebook knows that Zynga knows how to make games. And if it wasn't Zynga in the social game spotlight, it'd be some other company. Meanwhile Facebook makes the network that Zynga can leverage. When Facebook wins, Zynga wins. And when Zynga wins, Facebook collects the rent.

It is a brilliant strategy, and it's playing out in other areas where, if Facebook were not a platform company, it would almost definitely have its own branded services.

For example, Facebook could take on LinkedIn as a jobs network. Why doesn't it? Because it's not a company that builds new specialized services. It's a company that lets other companies take on those tasks. For professional networking, for example, there's BranchOut, a rapidly growing Facebook-based service that does resumes, endorsements, and job search for "Main Street, not Wall Street," according to CEO Rick Marini.

Professional networking would seem like a natural fit for the social network service Facebook, and I asked Marini if he's worried about Facebook horning in on his territory, users, and revenue plan. On the contrtry, he said, BranchOut has a "special relationship" with Facebook. Kevin Efrusy, the man who brought the Facebook deal to VC firm Accel, is also on BranchOut's board of directors. Facebook, while it encourages other companies to succeed on its back, also nurtures special partners.… Read more

commentary The vice is just starting to clamp down on Sprint Nextel.

In a clear indication of increasing competitive pressure, the wireless carrier stepped up its spending on promotions in the second quarter, including an instant rebate and cash-back programs to lure in customers from rival carriers.

On a conference call today to discuss its quarterly results, executives attempted to reassure investors and analysts that those additional costs weren't a lingering trend, and that the first full quarter of the Verizon Wireless iPhone and a heavily discounted iPhone 3GS from AT&T warranted the special action.

"We … Read more

As Facebook approaches another subscriber milestone, its growth seems to be slowing.

The social-networking giant had 687 million users at the start of the month, according to data from Inside Facebook Gold. However, the data shows that Facebook's growth rate has declined for the second straight month.

Until two months ago, the typical growth rate for the previous year was at least 20 million new users, but Facebook logged 13.9 million new users in April and 11.8 million in May, according to Inside Facebook's data. While much of the company's growth comes from late-to-the-party countries, … Read more

Visteon and 3M today unveiled the C-Beyond concept to the market in India. This is the second Growth Market Car collaboration between the two companies.

Visteon brings numerous innovative options to the C-Beyond, including a compact heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) unit with thinner heat exchangers that take up less room in the interior. Electronics options include a scalable instrument cluster with an electronic or mechanical integrated control panel. A customizable instrument panel can be full-size or two-thirds size, depending on which consumers prefer. And "a rear-facing fan on the back of the center console cost-effectively eliminates the … Read more

Microsoft says that by next month, users worldwide will be able to get their hands on the free, online version of its Office suite.

In a post on the Office Blog earlier this week, the company said that it had expanded Office Web Apps availability in 150 new countries including Mexico, India, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, and that by next month it will hit "all remaining markets in Central and South America."

The free service, which contains Web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, was launched by Microsoft in June of last year. Microsoft says that 30 … Read more