Technology Stock Roundup: Facebook Shares Continue To Climb

Facebook (FB) shares rose again last week as the company signed on an important brand and also took measures against illegal firearm sales.

Facebook Inks Ad Deal with Mondelez

Digital advertising could be entering a new era considering that a company like Mondelez (MDLZ) has now tried and tested its effectiveness.

In September last year, Mondelez found that advertising on Facebook resulted in better ROIs than TV. Its Facebook advertising campaigns last year led to significantly higher sales, which had the company change its approach to digital advertising. Mondelez appears to have inked a close partnership with Facebook spanning 52 countries including the U.S., U.K., France, Spain, Brazil, India and the Middle East. It also hinted at preferential rates depending on ad volumes.

Mondelez is also exploring possibilities with Twitter (TWTR), using trending data on Twitter to create an “Oreo Trending Vending Machine” using the Twitter hashtag #eatthetweet. The vending machine will be seen at the South by Southwest festival (SXSW).

Yahoo Wants More Personal Data

A few years back, Yahoo (YHOO) had opened up its services, such as mail, Flickr and News to Google (GOOG) and Facebook users even when they didn’t have a Yahoo account. Yahoo has now decided against this practice, requiring such users to create a Yahoo ID if they wanted access to Yahoo services. It’s true that Yahoo services have been undergoing many changes that have made them more popular. The growing engagement on Yahoo properties is testimony of this fact. So Yahoo may not lose a whole lot of users because of this decision.

On the other hand, it does have something to gain. If more users create Yahoo accounts and use these IDs to access Yahoo services, Yahoo will be able to collect more data on them, which will enable it to serve ads more effectively. In the not-too-distant future, it could also open its login mechanisms to third-party developers, allowing users to log in to other sites with their Yahoo IDs. This is what Google, Facebook and several other sites are already doing in order to collect additional data about user preferences and behavior.

So the decision has the potential to provide a more personalized experience to users and at the same time generate addition revenues for Yahoo.

 Apple Leading in the U.S./Gaining in Emerging Markets?

The recent comScore report for the three-month period ending Jan 2014 shows Apple (AAPL) as the market leader with 41.6% market share. This was up by a percentage point from the three-month period ending Oct 2013. Samsung gained 1.3 percentage points, but remained well behind Apple at 26.7%. Samsung’s growth is just slightly ahead of Apple’s although its market share is significantly lower. Rapidly gaining additional market share, especially at Apple’s expense seems unlikely at this point.

A recent post on CNN Money mentions a number of surveys in both developed and emerging markets. According to the survey of 4,505 people in five emerging markets, Apple’s smartphones are more coveted as the next device they hoped to buy. The survey shows that 32% on average wanted a iPhone as their next device, while 29% wanted a Samsung phone.

The difference was highest in China where 42% wanted iPhones. Apple may have a very small share of these markets at present, but demand appears strong and is likely to drive up market share going forward.

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Other stories you may have missed-

• Samsung Wins Consolation Prize: Judge Lucy Koh has ruled in a California court that Samsung Electronics Co, (0593xq) need not withdraw the 23 older-model smartphones and tablets that infringed on Apple patents. The Judge said that she was not convinced that the infringing patents were responsible for driving consumer demand. Samsung currently owes Apple $930 million in damages for various patent infringements.
• Roku Dongle Challenges Google Chromecast: Roku has announced a dongle that looks and works similar to Google’s Chromecast. The device, which will ship next month, is priced at $50, slightly higher than the Chromecast’s $35. But this should not be too much of a deterrent to adoption, since Roku offers 1,200 apps compared to the Chromecast’s 14.
• Google Also Interested in Real Estate Market: Google’s investment arm Google Capital has spent $50 million to pick up a 4% stake in Action.com, the largest U.S. online real estate auction firm. The company uses auction technology similar to that of eBay’s that could disrupt the market for online property agents such as Zillow and Trulia. Notably, Google Capital was able to inject a representative on Auction.com’s board.

Amazon Could Add Music Streaming to Prime: Prime subscribers could have reason for cheer, as there are rumors that the company will soon start a music streaming service. Details are limited at this stage but it appears that executives are talking money with record labels. Prime subscribers weren’t too thrilled when Amazon (AMZN) raised fees, but a free music service included in the annual $79 fee (compared to rival service Spotify’s $7.99 a month) is not a bad deal at all.

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