Also: Google’s stock takes the plunge; Gilt puts Jetsetter up for sale.
Google’s stock falls 8% after grim earnings come out early [CNNMONEY]
The company missed analysts’ estimates on both sales and profit. Google shares slumped on the news before being halted for about 3 hours. The stock resumed about 40 minutes before the end of the trading day and closed down 8%.
Elop: a Surface phone would stimulate the Windows Phone ecosystem [THE VERGE]
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has previously said he has “no indications” that Microsoft might be planning to launch its own Surface phone, but in an investor call today he appeared to welcome it. “It’s certainly a stimulant to the ecosystem,” says Elop, in response to questions on whether a potential Surface phone would be welcomed or seen as a competitor.
Fashion site Gilt puts Jetsetter up for sale [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
The Internet-based fashion company has been pitching Jetsetter to other online travel companies, private equity firms and other players in the past several weeks, people familiar with the matter said. Gilt had been seeking around $100 million for the unit, but so far there hasn’t been much interest, some of the people said.
Gilt’s move to sell the unit underscores how the New York based company has struggled at times to expand beyond its core business of holding time-limited online “flash sales” of women’s fashions. It is under pressure to increase its revenue and expand into new markets, having raised another $138 million last year from a group of venture capitalists, a deal that valued the small retailer at $1 billion.
What’s really going on with color is a small Apple talent acquisition [ALLTHINGSD]
Sources said that the Color engineering team is likely to work on cloud technology at Apple. They’re obviously not going to be working on live video apps for Android. As for Nguyen, it’s not clear what’s next.
Megaupload is dead. Long live Mega! [WIRED]
Instead the co-defendants plan to introduce a much-anticipated new technology later this year that will allow users to once again upload, store, and share large data files, albeit by different rules. They revealed details of the new service exclusively to Wired.
They call it Mega and describe it as a unique tool that will solve the liability problems faced by cloud storage services, enhance the privacy rights of internet users, and provide themselves with a simple new business. Meanwhile, critics fear that Mega is simply a revamped version of Megaupload, cleverly designed to skirt the old business’s legal issues without addressing the concerns of Internet piracy.
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