IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 26 January
26-01-2011
by Sylvia Leatham
EMC sees bright future for Ireland | Facebook to roll out 'sponsored stories'
The Irish Examiner reports that Labour Party finance spokesperson Joan Burton's Monday night performance on TV3 has become one of Twitter's highest-trending topics. During an appearance on 'Tonight With Vincent Browne', which has been widely described as a "meltdown" and led to a private discussion with Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, Burton repeatedly interrupted fellow guest Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins. Throughout the show, Twitter users sent messages criticising her. In a tweet sent on Tuesday, Burton described the TV3 performance as "challenging".
The paper also says that EMC, one of Ireland's top employers, says it has confidence in the country and believes there is a positive outlook ahead. The data storage giant, which employs 1,900 people across the island of Ireland, said Ireland can continue to deliver the skilled workforce and new ideas that will help EMC meet the increasing demands on its customers across the globe in the coming years. It said Ireland is a "key part" in its overall global business. "With continued investment in Ireland from multinationals, and with increasing exports, we see a very positive outlook for business in Ireland," said Jason Ward, EMC's country manager for Ireland.
In more news of the same story, the Irish Times says that EMC posted fourth-quarter revenues up 19 percent compared with the year-ago quarter. The company achieved all-time record consolidated revenue, net income and free cash flow during the quarter and said it expected to perform well in 2011. Fourth-quarter revenue rose to USD4.9 billion, while net profit increased 61 percent to USD629 million, or USD0.29 per share, up from USD391 million, or USD0.19 per share, a year earlier.
The Irish Independent notes that Danny Moore, former chief operating officer of NYSE Technologies, has announced the establishment of Belfast-based investment firm Lough Shore Investments. The firm plans to partner with established and emerging next-generation start-ups primarily based in Northern Ireland.
According to the Wall Street Journal, LinkedIn is boosting its advertising technologies, offering marketers more ways to target ads to users and making it easier for big advertisers to connect to the networking site. LinkedIn, which has more than 90 million members, plans to roll out updates for its marketing tools that let advertisers target people based on job titles, seniority, age and location, according to sources. LinkedIn will also release an application programming interface (API) that will allow large-scale advertising agencies to easily connect to the site.
The paper also says that some of what Facebook users post to the social network will soon start showing up in ads aimed at their friends. As part of an effort dubbed "sponsored stories", Facebook plans to allow advertisers to buy and re-publish Facebook messages that users voluntarily post about brands, such as a check-in at a local coffee shop or a 'Like' clicked about a product on a shopping site. The sponsored stories are exact copies of the likes, comments and location check-ins that users already post to their own walls, and already show up in their friends' home page news feeds. The difference is that sponsored posts will get posted again on the top right-hand column of the home page next to other ads. The user's name and photo will appear in the ad. Facebook said there is no option for users to opt out of the service.
The Financial Times reports that Yahoo's fourth-quarter sales fell 4 percent. Revenue dropped to USD1.2 billion excluding referral costs in the last three months of 2010, although profit doubled to USD312 million, or USD0.24 a share, ahead of the USD0.22 expected by market analysts. "We just completed a very encouraging quarter and year for Yahoo, where we saw our plans to turn round the company gain momentum," said Carol Bartz, chief executive.
Free! "In the papers" email newsletter -- get the full text to your in-box every business day. Email itp@enn.ie with 'subscribe' in the subject line.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 