Deadline Facebook

Facebook‘s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were bullish about mobile ads and the apps that help drive them during the company’s Q1 earnings call today. Facebook posted revenue of $1.46B for the quarter, up 38% from … Read More »

The leading social network appears to have heard the complaints from marketers, including many in Hollywood, who say that their stuff often is lost in Facebook News Feeds that are awash with clutter. Pictures and images will become a lot … Read More »

There’s something in Facebook’s Q4 report that made investors nervous. The stock initially fell 7% in after hours trading before recovering to be virtually flat after the social networking company reported Q4 results that topped forecasts. Not including one-time expenses, … Read More »

The social media company calls this Graph Search — and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says it’s different from conventional Web search: The service, still in the beta testing phase, will just include information that Facebook users or friends have posted and shared with each other. For example, people could look for “friends who like Star Wars and Harry Potter,” or “photos of my friends before 1990,” he says. Results will only include information that’s already available to the user, with a special emphasis on people, photos, interests, and places. “Graph Search will appear as a bigger search bar at the top of each page,” the company says on a web site describing the plan. “When you search for something, that search not only determines the set of results you get, but also serves as a title for the page. You can edit the title – and in doing so create your own custom view of the content you and your friends have shared on Facebook.” Graph Search will begin in English, with other languages to come later. The company is working on a mobile application, and on ways for users to fine-tune the information that they make available. Facebook could use some fresh energy: The number of active users in the U.S. dropped by 1.4M last month, monitoring firm SocialBakers says according to a report on MarketWatch. Read More »

The stock is up more than 8% mid-day after two analysts upgraded their recommendations, and a third raised his price target. Bernstein Research’s Carlos Kirjner changed his rating to “outperform” from “market perform,” and upped his price target by $11 to $33. He says that investors underestimate Facebook‘s potential to sell ads that target people who visit the social network on smartphones and tablets. The company’s making progress in helping advertisers to insert provocative messages in users’ news streams — not just in separate displays. That should give Facebook more time “to become something different from (and better than) a very large display advertising publisher.” Kirjner projects that Facebook’s ad sales will hit $6.2B next year and $7.8B in 2014 — which he says is “materially above consensus” from other analysts. Read More »

Some investors anticipated that Facebook would be up today — but I don’t know anyone who envisioned a 12.5% pop to about $22.33 in mid-afternoon trading even as about 804M additional shares became available for sale. Indeed, the conventional … Read More »

You might think so based on today’s rally, which sent Facebook shares up about 19% as of mid-afternoon to about $23.20. Remember that yesterday the stock closed at $19.50, down 48.7% from the $38 IPO price in May. But that was before the company released its Q3 earnings report and led a conference call that seemed to address one of investors’ most nagging questions: Can Facebook make real money from ads to consumers who access the social network from their smartphones? Pivotal Research Group’s Brian Wieser was encouraged, raising his target price by $2 to $30 after hearing execs explain why “more mobility will lead to more consumption of Facebook.” Barclays Equity Research’s Anthony DiClemente also raised his target price, by $3 to $26. “Given mobile traction and potential revenue from new products,” he says, “3Q may mark a near-term inflection point in sentiment, as [Facebook] should benefit from the [year-over-year] effect of mobile for several quarters to come.” Read More »

Two analysts warned today that the social network giant could fail to live up to Wall Street’s financial expectations — which contributed to a 2.4% drop  in the share price. It closed at $20.40, which is down 8.4% over the last four days. BTIG’s Richard Greenfield downgraded shares to “sell” from “neutral” with a $16 price target. He warned that Facebook’s effort to include ads and other services designed to generate sales could backfire. They’re cluttering people’s news feeds with ads that are “relatively generic…with very little targeting and with a very low bar in terms of the level of creativity Facebook requires,” Greenfield says. “To make matters worse, we increasingly see brands violating Facebook’s social mission by deceptively trying to acquire Likes, so they can target you and all your friends going forward.” Read More »