Facebook推出「查看附近好友」功能
Facebook週四發佈了一項名為“附近好友”的功能，允許用戶查看有哪些好友在附近。這也是該公司近一年來首次對核心產品展開重大升級。最近幾個月，Facebook一直將精力著眼於其他品牌，包括流動聊天服務
WhatsApp 和虛擬現實眼罩 Oculus，這兩家公司的收購總價超過 200億美元。該公司還開發了一款名為Paper的新聞閱讀器。
儘管Facebook正在努力開發其他資產，但仍需吸引接近10億的流動用戶反複使用核心應用。更何況，它還在流動端面臨著
Snapchat 等年輕社交網絡的猛攻。Facebook雖然陸續推出了話題標籤和趨勢話題等小功能，以及能夠直接覆蓋Android手機主屏的啟動器，但用戶並沒有實現迅速增長。
有了“附近好友”後，Facebook將幫助用戶建立前所未有的直接關係。這項功能可以同時兼容iOS和Android操作系統。與以往一樣，Facebook不會同時面向所有用戶推出，而是會逐步逐批發佈。如果用戶啟動這項功能，便可看到好友所在的城市和社區，以及與自己相距多遠。而且可以直接向好友發送短信或展開通話。不過，這項功能也有局限，必須兩位用戶同時開啟該功能，才能實現理想中的效果。用戶也可以縮小自己的“可見範圍”，只允許選定的好友查看自己的位置。一旦探測到附近有某些好友，系統還可以向用戶發送通知。
有趣的是，用戶同樣可以查看哪些好友不在附近，利用“旅行”功能瞭解已經外出遠行的好友動向，從而為對方提供出行建議。又或者，倘若用戶自己不久也將前往同一個地點，便可與對方約好見面時間。
圍繞地點開發的功能難免遭遇隱私問題。“附近好友”產品經理安德里亞‧瓦卡里(Andrea Vacarri)表示，這項功能會預設關閉，在得到用戶授權前，也只會顯示大概位置。
Facebook表示，該公司尚未考慮對這一功能展開商業化。不過，這項服務的確蘊含著廣告機會。例如，可以允許企業在該功能中推薦見面地點。而該服務本身也存在進一步延伸的空間：例如，可以效仿Tinder的方式，提供基於地理位置的約會功能。瓦卡里表示，他研究過這類應用，但不準備推出這樣的功能。“我們現在的精力都放在用戶體驗上。”他說。
這項功能其實源於兩年前，Facebook那時收購了瓦卡里的創業公司Glancee。這家總部位於芝加哥的公司可以幫助用戶通過流動應用尋找周圍有著類似興趣的人。Glancee最終變身為“附近好友”功能。
Facebook 2012年5月收購了Glancee，一個月後又收購了照片分享應用Instagram。幾天后，Facebook便在納斯達克上市。迫於投資者的壓力，Facebook當時正在努力探索流動領域。而如今，Facebook顯然已經掌握了訣竅，該公司上季度有53%的廣告營收來自流動廣告。
Facebook profit soars ( 臉書獲利大增 )
Facebook's growth might be slowing somewhat, but it keeps finding new ways to make money off of its users.The social network reported sales and profits that beat
Wall Street's expectations, sending the social network's stock soaring on Wednesday. Shares of Facebook (
FB,
Fortune 500) were up more than 15% in premarket trading Thursday.
Facebook said its userbase grew to 1.2 billion in the fourth quarter, up 16% from a year earlier. That's still growing, but Facebook is gaining fewer new users than in past quarters. Nevertheless, Facebook reported fourth quarter sales of $2.6 billion, up 63% from the same time last year. Profit at the
Menlo Park, Calif., company hit $523 million, up from just $64 million the year prior. Excluding one time items, earnings per share were 31 cents, beating estimates of 27 cents per share, according to analysts polled by
Thomson Reuters.
The all-important mobile market was a particular bright spot. The company said 945 million of its 1.2 billion users visit the site via a smartphone or tablet in the fourth quarter. That's up 39% from last year.
As a result, mobile is quickly growing in popularity with
advertisers, and Facebook said ad
revenue from mobile represented 53% of all ad revenue in the quarter -- up from 23% last year, and up from zero at the time of the company's initial public offering in May of 2011.
"2013 was the year we turned our business into a mobile business," Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call with analysts and journalists.
Related: What bearish investors are missing about Facebook
Over 90% of Facebook's revenue comes from ad sales, but overall ad revenue also grew sharply, rising 72% from last year. "The results showed a...healthy demand for social-based advertising," analysts at
Cantor Fitzgerald wrote in research note. "This was an all around impressive performance."
The company is also building a decent stockplie of cash.
Facebook said it had $11.5 billion in cash on hand at the end of the quarter. That's up from $9.3 billion the quarter before, and reflects the proceeds from a big stock sale last month.
In a bid to boost revenue, Facebook said earlier month that video ads will soon begin automatically playing in users' feeds. The company says users tend to more actively engage with videos that are playing. The rollout of this product will be gradual, and it remains to be seen how users will take to it.
The integration of regular ads into news feeds appears to be going well. On the conference call, Facebook CFO
David Ebersman said a big reason why ad revenue was up is because the company is getting a higher fee for integrated ads, which tend to attract more interest from consumers.
Last fall the company revealed ads on the popular photo sharing network
Instagram, which Facebook bought in 2012. Investors have largely cheered those and other moves, sending Facebook (
FB,
Fortune 500) stock up nearly 75% over the last year. While overall revenue at the company may still be relatively small, investors feel there is great potential to sell advertising on a platform that reaches one in every six people on the planet.
But the push to offer that targeted advertising has also landed the company in trouble. Earlier this month the Facebook was sued for allegedly mining personal messages sent over the site for information it can sell to
advertisers. There have also been lingering questions over whether people are growing bored with the site. Several recent studies have shown that younger audiences are turning away from Facebook, instead using
Snapchat and other apps.
行動大獲利 臉書Q1獲利6.42億美元
 |
| 臉書每月行動活躍用戶數正式突破10億人，總用戶數達到12.76億人 |
全球最大社群網站臉書23日公布今年第一季財報，獲利達6.42億美元（約台幣194.88億元），另營收大增72%，主要原因是行動裝置用戶及行動廣告增多。臉書顯示自己已由個人電腦成功轉移到行動裝置，23日表示廣告營收相形去年同期大增82%，來到2.27億美元。在其中，行動廣告佔59%；去年同期，行動廣告占比還不到1/3，而上一季占53%。
臉書本季總營收相形去年同期升72%，來到25億美元，而營業獲利則大進步，由去年的2.19億美元，上升到6.42億；換算則為每股獲利25美分，營業獲利跳升到34美分，都輕易超越分析師估計的24美分。
臉書股價23日盤中漲2.8%；盤後的電子股市升到每股63.07美元。
Despite 19% Revenue Growth, Google Q1 Earnings Disappoint Investors
Hurt once again by falling ad prices on smartphones and tablets, Google GOOG -1.47% disappointed investors with first-quarter earnings that came in slightly under expectations.
Google said in its first-quarter earnings release that it earned $6.27 a share before costs such as the sale of its Motorola Mobility unit on gross revenues of $15.4 billion and net revenues of $12.19 billion after subtracting the commissions paid to partners for acquiring Web traffic (known as “ex-TAC”). Analysts polled by
Thomson Reuters had expected a profit before certain costs of $6.33 a share on gross revenues of $15.6 billion, or $12.3 billion in net revenues.
 |
| Facebook will become a big mobile digital ads company |
Investors initially appeared disappointed in the results. In extended trading shortly after the market close, Google’s shares were falling about 6%. They had risen 3.75% on Wednesday, to $556.54.
Google’s ad business repeated a familiar pattern of the past year or so, with the number of clicks on ads rising–by 26% from a year ago–as the cost per click on the ads fell, this time by 9%, a bit less than the fourth quarter’s 11% drop. In other words, the business is still fundamentally sound, but Google still hasn’t shown when it will deliver on consistent promises it has made, including today on a conference call, that mobile ads eventually will be even more lucrative than its ads shown on desktop computers.
超級財報週：蘋果iPad銷售衰退16％，臉書獲利成長近200％
美國時間4月23日，蘋果和臉書同時發布今年1～3月的財報。根據《華爾街日報》報導，蘋果不論是獲利或營收，紛紛超出分析師預期：
|
2014年1~3月
|
2013年1~3月
|
成長率
|
營收
|
456億
|
436億
|
4.6％
|
每股盈餘
|
11.62
|
10.09
|
15.2％
|
淨收入
|
102.2
|
95.5
|
7％
|
至於各產品線銷售情況，iPhone依舊持續成長，較去年同期增加16.8％，但iPad卻衰退15.7％，這將是蘋果未來發展的一大隱憂：
|
2014年1~3月
|
2013年1~3月
|
成長率
|
iPhone
|
4370萬支
|
3740萬支
|
16.8％
|
iPad
|
1635萬台
|
1940萬台
|
-15.7％
|
Mac
|
410萬台
|
390萬台
|
5.1％
|
iTunes、軟體與服務
|
45.7億美元
|
41億美元
|
11.5％
|
在公布財報的同時，蘋果也宣布擴大庫藏股計劃，從原先的600億美元，提高為900億美元；此外，今年6月還將進行股票分割計劃，由1股分割為7股。不過，所有投資人最關心的依舊是，今年何時蘋果會推出新產品？
另一方面，臉書在第一季的表現也相當亮眼，儘管面對其他即時通訊軟體的競爭，但是無論是營收和獲利，均有大幅成長：
- 營收達25億美元，較去年同期大幅成長72％。
- 每股盈餘為0.34美元，高於分析師預期的0.24美元。
- 獲利達6.42億美元，較去年同期成長193％。
- 廣告營收達22.7億美元，較去年同期成長82％，佔總營收90％；其中行動廣告營收佔比為59％，較去年同期成長30％。
分析
- Facebook 行動廣告營業獲利大增，可預見之未來 Facebook 與 Google 將相互競爭；
- 行動廣告相關於 Apps 活動，因此 Facebook 大幅使用者將有助於它的營收，而許多公司開始經營 Facebook 粉絲團及相關活動也有助於 Facebook 行動廣告營業獲利成長；
- 『許多社群網站開始賺錢』將是對 Google 廣告產生競爭，這已經確認；日後除了 Google 外將出現第二家可比較國際社群網路 Facebook 其營收大部分來自於廣告收入；
- 台灣廠商須思考什麼樣的產品與 Facebook 合作能創造更新的價值，產生更創意之差異化加值，可以思考 Facebook 之社群海量資料之應用結合；
- Facebook 可思考可擴充之延伸業務，也可以透過併購擴充業務，例如 :
%5B1%5D.png)
