LCD TV shipments fall for the first time; Microsoft kept its Surface tablet under wraps, even from PC partners.
NPD: Global LCD TV shipments fall for first time [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
Global television shipments fell 8% in the first quarter from a year earlier, as LCD-TV volume posted its first year-over-year drop, according to research firm NPD Group. LCD TV shipments fell 3% to 43.1 million units from a year earlier and were down by a third quarter-to-quarter. World-wide TV shipments fell 32% from the fourth quarter to 51.2 million.
Microsoft kept PC partners in dark about Surface [REUTERS]
The earliest that Microsoft’s personal computing partners were told about the tablet was last Friday, just three days before it was shown to the media at an event in Los Angeles, according to sources in the U.S. and Taiwan technology industry who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Spotify finally launches Web radio, for real. And that’s a problem for Pandora. [ALLTHINGSD]
So Spotify now has a chance to expose many more people to its product, in the hopes of eventually converting some of them to paid subscribers. And Pandora, which has consistently argued that it hasn’t seen any impact from Spotify’s U.S. launch last summer, may no longer be able to say that. Because if you like Pandora, you may very well like Spotify just as much.
They work! Facebook mobile ads are clicked 13x more, earn 11x more money than its desktop ads [TECHCRUNCH]
Mobile Sponsored Stories are getting over 13 times the click-through rates and earn 11.2 times the money per impression (eCPM) on mobile compared to all of Facebook’s desktop ads, and 1.93 times the CTR and 2.65 times the eCPM of Sponsored Stories on the web in the two weeks since Facebook began selling them separate from web ads.
B&N earnings: Nook SimpleTouch drags revenues down, though digital content sales are up [PAIDCONTENT]
Barnes & Noble reported Q4 revenues of $1.4 billion for the period ended April 28, on losses of $1.08 per share. Following Microsoft’s $300 million investment during the quarter, B&N is now breaking out the Nook segment separately in its earnings. Nook revenues were $164 million for the quarter and $933 million for the fiscal year ending April 28.