AOL today confirmed a couple of big changes at the top of the company, as first reported yesterday by Bloomberg and AllThingsD. Susan Lyne, the exec who had previously been at Gilt Groupe, is the new CEO of AOL’s Brand Group (including TechCrunch). Meanwhile, Artie Minson is stepping down as COO as the role gets restructured.

Internal memo from CEO Tim Armstrong below.

More to come. Refresh for updates.

Thank you for all the hard work on the 100 day sprint. The teamwork and alignment of resources is coming together nicely and it looks like there are going to be some exciting outcomes for consumers and customers.

One part of the sprint we have been working on is talent and we have announced a series of talented people joining AOL in our major segments of business. Moving to a segmented structure has allowed us to focus deeply on our brands and businesses. Returning to growth after 8 years of not growing is directly related to the talent we have and our ability to move the company into white space areas of opportunity while we improve our core business. Today, we are adding to the talent and focus of the company and I wanted to share some exciting news with you.

We are announcing a talent and leadership structure that is aligned with each of our operating units with the goal of increasing the communication flow and cross-segment operating teamwork. The update to our structure matches our strategy and will also put more decision making and resources directly into our brands. We have spoken many times of the work we are doing to improve our brands and product and today is another step in unleashing the power of our brands for consumers and customers.

We want to welcome to AOL a world-class talent who is recognized on a global basis for her experience in content, commerce, and leadership. She has been part of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women’s List, she has been the CEO of a publically traded brand, she is the chairman of one of the best women’s commerce businesses on the Internet, and she has been with AOL since the day we re-launched as a public company – as one of our stellar board members. Please help me welcome Susan Lyne, one of the most talented people in our space and someone who will continue to help us raise the talent and growth level at AOL. Susan is not only a world-class talent, she is a world-class person and you will see that as you get to know her. She joins Karen Dykstra, our former board member and current super-star CFO, as a leader who is moving from being a board member to being a full time AOLer. Please welcome Susan, she will be in the office today and you will hear more from her over the next week.

Susan will be CEO of the AOL Brand Group, a group that includes some of the Internet’s best brands. She will manage the AOL brand portfolio on a global basis. Susan has been a highly engaged board member and I have leaned on her often during the turn-around and having her join the company is a significant step for AOL. As part of the continued focus on our investment in the Huffington Post, Arianna will continue to report to me and we will continue the work with Susan on setting up cross-site scale as we grow the content business. Arianna and Susan have been friends for years and we will spend a lot of time working on deeper strategy for the future of the content business.

The company will be organized with Susan running the AOL Brand Group, Ned Brody running AOL Networks, and Bud Rosenthal, acting as interim CEO of AOL Membership. Susan, Ned, and Bud will report to me and will join Arianna and the other Sales, Technology, Legal, HR, and Communications leaders.

Another part of today’s announcement is that we will be restructuring the COO role within the organization. As part of the changes, our talented COO leader, Artie will work directly with me on our current and future commerce and subscription strategy and business. Artie has made meaningful contributions to AOL as part of the executive team and he is at a point in his career where he is looking for his next step and he will be doing that at AOL. Artie’s teamwork on the turnaround of AOL and his ability to look for growth opportunities in AOL’s core business is something we will continue as we look deeper into the subscription area.

We are building a company that improves our consumers’ and our customers’ lives. We’re going for world-class products and a creative organization that is backed up by a strong financial backbone. We’re going to do both – grow and strengthen. Please join me in welcoming Susan Lyne and let’s keep up the work that has allowed us to bring AOL back to life – TA

via TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/28/aol-confirms-susan-lyne-as-ceo-of-brand-group-artie-minson-out-as-coo-role-restructured-memo/

Ingrid Lunden johalputt TechCrunch

05:42

Yandex, the “Google of Russia” that runs the country’s dominant search engine along with a number of cloud-based apps, has just announced its quarterly and full-year earnings. And while the company saw one setback in its efforts to expand its presence internationally and on to new platforms like mobile, the mainline figures show that the company continues to grow. In the quarter that ended December 31, 2012, Yandex pulled in $290.4 million in revenues (8.8 billion roubles), a rise of 37% compared to the same quarter last year, and beating analyst expectations of $286 million. Full-year revenues are $955 million for the company.

The volume of searches being conducted by Yandex are growing at a nice pace compared to others in the market — recently passing Microsoft’s Bing to become the world’s fourth-biggest search engine, according to comScore. But looked at another way, Yandex’s domestic (Russian) search share has largely stagnated over the last couple of quarters. Currently it is at 60.5%, around the same mark that it has been on average over the last five quarters.

This is part of the reason why Yandex has been working hard to develop more products and services for people to use, and in more markets beyond simply Russia — as with Google, these extra channels become conduits for more ads. In Yandex’s case, this has seen the launch of services like Yandex Maps outside of Russia (and specifically Turkey), a Dropbox-style cloud storage service available internationally, Yandex.disk, and a number of apps, including the ill-fated but nice-looking iOS-based social/locaal discover app Wonder, launched only in the U.S.

As with Google, the lion’s share of Yandex’s revenues comes from advertising that it runs alongside its services. The main one of these is search. While the company continues to make headway in its search traffic, revenues from text-based search ads, Yandex’s biggest sales generator, actually accounted for a smaller part of declined slightly over last quarter, although they were offset by a rise in display ads:

Another trend to watch is how Yandex continues to try to grow its network beyond its own holdings. A couple of weeks ago we saw that AOL, another media company that makes revenues from online ads, was growing the amount of ads that it was running on third-party sites. The same goes for Yandex: the company still counts third-party as a small proportion of revenues compared to Yandex’s own properties — 6,181 million roubles versus 1,482 million roubles — but that’s growth of 41%, the highest of any of its ad segments. For the full year, the growth of third-party was even stronger, at 68%.

Full results below.

Yandex Announces Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2012 Financial Results


MOSCOW and THE HAGUE, Netherlands, February 19, 2013, Yandex (NASDAQ: YNDX), one of Europe’s largest internet companies and the leading search provider in Russia, today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and the full year ended December 31, 2012.

Q4 2012 Financial Highlights

Revenues of RUR 8.8 billion ($290.4 million1), up 37% compared with Q4 2011

Ex-TAC revenues2 (excluding traffic acquisition costs), up 36% compared with Q4 2011

Income from operations of RUR 3.1 billion ($102.3 million), up 19% compared with Q4 2011

Adjusted EBITDA3 of RUR 4.3 billion ($140.1 million), up 30% compared with Q4 2011

Operating margin of 35.2%

Adjusted EBITDA margin2 of 48.2%

Adjusted ex-TAC EBITDA margin2 of 57.5%

Net income of RUR 2.7 billion ($88.6 million), up 27% compared with Q4 2011

Adjusted net income3 of RUR 3.0 billion ($97.6 million), up 35% compared with Q4 2011

Net income margin of 30.5%

Adjusted net income margin2 of 33.6%

Adjusted ex-TAC net income margin2 of 40.1%

Cash, deposits and investments in debt securities of RUR 27.2 billion ($895.3 million) as of December 31, 2012

FY 2012 Financial Highlights

Revenues of RUR 28.8 billion ($947.1 million1), up 44% compared with FY 2011

Ex-TAC revenues2 (excluding traffic acquisition costs), up 41% compared with FY 2011

Income from operations of RUR 9.5 billion ($311.2 million), up 34% compared with FY 2011

Adjusted EBITDA3 of RUR 13.1 billion ($432.7 million), up 42% compared with FY 2011

Operating margin of 32.9%

Adjusted EBITDA margin2 of 45.7%

Adjusted ex-TAC EBITDA margin2 of 54.8%

Net income of RUR 8.2 billion ($270.7 million), up 42% compared with FY 2011

Adjusted net income3 of RUR 8.8 billion ($288.7 million), up 46% compared with FY 2011

Net income margin of 28.6%

Adjusted net income margin2 of 30.5%

Adjusted ex-TAC net income margin2 of 36.6%

“Yandex delivered strong fourth quarter and full year 2012 results with robust revenue growth, solid search share and a continuing stream of important innovations,” said Arkady Volozh, Chief Executive Officer of Yandex. “In Q4, we launched key products aimed at improving the user experience, including new mobile apps, personalized search and our Yandex.Browser, which has already captured a considerable share of the Russian browser market. I am also proud to report that, for the first time ever, we became the fourth largest search engine in the world, according to comScore.”

The following table provides a summary of key financial results for the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2011 and 2012:

Q4 2012 Operational Highlights

Share of Russian search market (including mobile) averaged 60.5% in Q4 2012 (according to LiveInternet)

Search queries grew 26% from Q4 2011

Number of advertisers grew to more than 213,000, up 22% from Q4 2011 and up 5% from Q3 2012

Rolled out a new search platform code-named Kaliningrad

Launched Yandex.Browser

Launched Yandex.Search app for the iPad

Announced the formation of a Yandex.Money joint venture with Sberbank

1 Pursuant to SEC rules regarding convenience translations, Russian ruble (RUR) amounts have been translated into U.S. dollars at a rate of RUR 30.3727 to $1.00, the official exchange rate quoted as of December 31, 2012 by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

2 This is a non-GAAP financial measure. Please see “Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures” below for a discussion of how we define this non-GAAP financial measure. You will find a reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial measure to the most directly comparable US GAAP measure in the accompanying financial tables at the end of this release.

3 Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income are non-GAAP financial measures. Beginning with Q1 2012, our adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income include adjustments for the accrual of expense related to the contingent compensation that may be payable to certain employees through November 2013 in connection with our acquisition of the mobile software business of SPB Software. Beginning with Q3 2012, our adjusted net income includes adjustment for gains from the sale of our equity investments. Please see “Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures” below for a discussion of how we define adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income. You will find a reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income to GAAP net income, the most directly comparable US GAAP measure for both non-GAAP measures, in the accompanying financial tables at the end of this release.

via TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/19/yandex-the-google-of-russia-beats-estimates-on-sales-of-290m-as-search-volume-grows-but-domestic-share-stagnates-at-60-5/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Ingrid Lunden johalputt TechCrunch

04:57

Persado, an ad-tech spinoff of digital marketing firm Upstream that specialises in “persuasion marketing”, has picked up a round of $15 million, which it will use to establish a new headquarters in New York to add to its London base; invest in R&D; and persuade ad agencies and brands to use its technology to help sharpen their digital media efforts. Current customers already include Skype, Badoo, the mobile carrier TIM plus several other tier-one carriers that Persado says it cannot disclose. Bain Capital Ventures led the funding in this round.

As background, persuasion marketing technology, as conceptualized by Persado, works like this: a brand (or its media agency) creates a piece of marketing or an advertisement that is text-based, which can be email, SMS, display or search ad-based; the ad unit gets run through Persado’s algorithms, which have been developed to pinpoint certain criteria to make the ads more actionable and engaging (“applying mathematics to emotion, product and language” CEO Vratskides tells TechCrunch); and then the ad continues on its way to its originally intended destination.

The end results look something like this:

and like this:

Persado CEO and founder Vratskides, who was also the founder and CEO of Upstream, told TechCrunch that the company has created algorithms that crunch together lots of data on how well different types of ads perform. This information — a kind of big data play in itself — is then used to “read” the original text in the ads and effectively edit it to use more of the word and phrase cues that have proven successful in those past ads. This is not to say that the whole process is devoid of human interaction and is solely based on machine learning: Vratskides notes that people usher through initial ads from each client, although over time, Persado’s technology learns and increasingly “edits” content on its own.

The concept is another development in the area of ad-tech that provides customization that would have originally been the terrain of people: because of the sheer proliferation of digital ads on websites, mobile apps, emails, texts and more, that kind of role is becoming less feasible for a human to process each an every time. Others that work in a similar (but not the same) realm include OneSpot, which has a platform that automatically turns non-ad content into ads.

The predicament of too many digital ads and too few people on the ground to improve them is partly what attracted Bain to Persado. “The creation of the most effective marketing messages is a universal problem and a highly manual process for digital marketers today,” said Bain Capital Ventures partner Deepak Sindwani in a statement. “Persado solves this problem through its unique data science, software, and information service, systematically generating the best messages across all online marketing channels, for any product and any customer, at any time. We are excited to partner with Persado to pursue this enormous market opportunity and build the next great company in online marketing.”

Vratskides himself started the company out of what he called “frustration” over how so many of the ads he saw running through Upstream simply did not have what it took to really engage customers. “When it comes down to marketing messages that verbalize to consumers, these days there are just creative poeple who stare at the ceiling and come up with messages to convey offers,” he said. “What we offer is a way to sell with science.”

via TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/13/persado-gets-15m-led-by-bain-to-persuade-the-ad-world-to-turn-to-their-persuasion-marketing-technology/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Ingrid Lunden johalputt TechCrunch

04:42

Timbre launched last September as a bootstrapped mobile iOS app to help people discover and share live music recommendations in their vicinity. The simple-but-engaging user interface and service proved to be a hit, and within two months, with no spend on media or marketing, it saw more than 100,000 downloads. That attention then brought something else: VCs, who came knocking on Boston-based developer Intrepid’s door. Today, with $360,000 in seed funding from Fred Destin at Atlas, Boston Seed Capital’s Nicole Stata and Bantam Group’s Joe Caruso, Timbre is opening up its app to work beyond the U.S. and in 34 countries, with more features to boot.

Mark Kasdorf, CEO and founder of Intrepid, says that the update today will be the first in a series of upgrades to the app that will be released in the next several months.

For an app with social elements, Timbre stands apart from several others in that it does not require users to log into Facebook, or any other social network, in order to be used. (A user can, however, log in to Facebook and Twitter to automatically share their findings if they so choose.)

This has a double purpose, Kasdorf tells me: it means are more simple onboarding for users — “A three year-old can use it,” he says. But it also means that Timbre doesn’t have to rely on Facebook’s Graph data to work. The latter is a new, but possibly growing issue for developers: Facebook has recently started to become more proactive in how it blocks apps that could be seen as direct competitors of its own services, which are expanding, and that can prove to be a nail in the coffin for some.

Still, he says it is “inevitable” that longer term it will leverage some of what the Facebook login has to offer. “I don’t think it’s a bad decision to use Facebook logins, but for a number of reasons, it didn’t make sense for us to use it right now.”

What Timbre does use are APIs from Seatgeek to provide ticketing and concert data in the U.S. For the rest of the world, that information is provided via Last.fm’s API. It also uses iTunes’s APIs in different markets to provide preview music links and the option to by full tracks of songs through Timbre.

Kasdorf notes that there may be more partners added in longer term: today Timbre makes “a little bit of money” on ticketing and affiliate sales of iTunes tracks, and it’s a business that, as user numbers grow, Kasdorf hopes will become a bigger revenue stream. As for what else might be on the cards, there are some plans for more curated services: “Imagine a group of friends using your app,” he says. “We can help you figure out what to do on a Friday night.” He also notes that Timbre hopes to develop better relationships with bands and labels: “Timbre will be a great way to break bands and songs,” he says.

Intrepid was not seeking funding when the VCs started to approach the developer, and the round was oversubscribed. “People got excited about it, with our early adoption numbers, it wasn’t hard to raise money,” Kasdorf said.

In addition to adding accessibility for 34 countries, the other big update today to Timbre is the addition of curated lists. For example, one list launched today, for the Grammys, lets users tap and listen to nominated music. You can see how this might get used for more services longer term, such as ways to promote festivals. Other updates today include easier options to share what you find, as well as improved ticket purchasing options.

via TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/07/with-360k-from-fred-destin-at-atlas-and-more-timbre-takes-its-local-music-discovery-app-global/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Ingrid Lunden johalputt TechCrunch

04:12

Samsung continues to come good on its commitment to investing in more startups that will help it build out its portfolio of services beyond hardware. Today the company announced that it has taken a strategic investment in Cloudant — a specialist in cloud-based mobile enterprise solutions, specifically around the area of NoSQL and database-as-a-service technology. By way of an investment from In-Q-tel, Cloudant counts the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies among its backers, and customers. And, perhaps in keeping with what you might expect from a company that works with the CIA, the value of Samsung’s investment announced today has not been disclosed.

Other investors in Cloudant inclue Y Combinator (Cloudant was in the 2008 class) and Avalon Ventures, with disclosed investments in the company totalling $4 million.

The news comes in the same week that Samsung launched another investment vehicle, in addition to Samsung Ventures, to raise its profile among the startup community: it’s committing $100 million in the Samsung Catalyst Fund for components and subsystems startups. That’s in addition to the $1 billion it has already committed to its Venture Americas fund and other R&D efforts worldwide.

Samsung says that its Cloudant investment will be used to further R&D into mobile application data management and data distribution technologies — an area that becomes increasingly important with the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and other connected devices that rely on content stored in the cloud. Cloudant’s technology covers the storage, processing, transfer, and management of the data that is consumed on these devices.

“Samsung Ventures believes a globally distributed data layer and management of that data is especially critical for large enterprise businesses,” said Hyuk-Jeen Suh, Senior Investment Manager with Samsung Ventures America, in a statement. “We felt that this is the right time to strategically invest in Cloudant to support the company’s vision to manage the proliferation of data to be created by, for example, mobile devices, machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies, and the ‘Internet of things’ in the future.”

For Samsung, Cloudant’s technology is potentially useful both for itself as service provider to its consumer base, but also as a service that can be sold out as part of larger enterprise solutions that Samsung could potentially offer bundled with its own hardware, or as a separate IT solution. Enterprise is an area that companies like Apple increasingly like to tout as a target audience for its hardware, with the company securing deals with both government and private organizations.

Samsung has been slowly building up its holdings among startups that are aimed at mobile enterprise solutions. In January, it also disclosed a strategic investment in Fixmo, a Canadian mobile security and risk management specialist. Like Cloudant, Fixmo’s technology is something that Samsung could use integrated into its own consumer offerings as well as an enterprise-focused solution.

via TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/06/samsung-ventures-cloudant-cia/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Ingrid Lunden johalputt TechCrunch

03:59

Some closure on the story of how Yandex — the Russian search giant — built a social discovery app that relied on Facebook interconnection to gather data, and then found Facebook blocking its service within hours of launching. Today Yandex said that after discussions with the social network, Facebook has finally, terminally said that the app violates its Platform Policies, and so it will not reinstate the ability to use Facebook’s Graph API. As a result, Yandex is planning to pulll the app from the app store and put it on hold for now.

The full statement from Yandex:

“We discussed the issue with Facebook and it was confirmed that Facebook views the application Wonder as something that violates the Facebook Platform Policies (section I.12) and that the access to Facebook’s Graph API will not be restored.

“According to Section I.12, no data obtained from Facebook can be used in any search engine or directory without the company’s written permission. The reason behind Facebook’s decision to revoke our access to their data appears to be that they do consider Wonder to be a search engine, while our understanding of what it is differs from this view.

“Wonder’s functioning, in its current state, as well as the quality of user experience it provides, largely depends on the access to Facebook’s Graph API. Since this access was revoked, we decided to put our application on hold for the time being. We will be considering partnership opportunities with other social networks and services to offer our users a richer internet experience via Wonder.”

The emergence of Wonder, and a week before the blockage of Voxer, has kicked off a new level of scrutiny about how Facebook allows other apps to appropriate its data: in effect, the company has said that it is not sharing with apps that don’t share back.

More to come.

via TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/30/wonder-no-more-yandex-says-facebook-has-given-a-final-no-on-graph-api-usage-will-pull-its-social-app/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Ingrid Lunden johalputt TechCrunch

03:57