Google+ obtain a very good fame on user experience

Amy Gahran says the Google+ user interface is less potentially misleading than Facebook's.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• CNN mobile columnist Amy Gahran reviews the Google+ app on her Android phone
  
• Google+ is still very much a "beta" service with plenty of glitches, mysteries and oddities
  
• Gahran: Google+ user interface is cleaner, more intuitive, more user friendly than Facebook's

Editor's note: Amy Gahran writes about mobile tech for CNN.com. She is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and media consultant whose blog, Contentious.com, explores how people communicate in the online age.

Google on Tuesday unveiled its attempt HP Compaq BUSINESS NOTEBOOK NX9110 SERIES battery to rival Facebook, a social-networking product called Google+.

I received an invitation from a friend and have been putting this nascent service through its paces -- especially on my Android phone.

Here's my experience so far:

(Do you want a Google+ invitation? Sorry, you may have to wait.)

First, a caveat: Absolutely everything about Google+, including its mobile experience, is in a state of flux Acer Aspire 5670 Series battery. So at least some of what I write here will definitely change in the coming days and weeks.

Google+ is very much a "beta" service, sporting plenty of glitches, mysteries and oddities. Therefore it's just as well that the vast majority of people using it so far seem to be serious social media geeks.

Yes, that does make for a lot of redundant, tiresome conversations probing the arcane nuances of Google+ and comparing it to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. But it's probably best to let the geeks Dell inspiron 1526 battery kick the tires on Google+ first. Later on, when the service becomes more widely available, less-geeky users will definitely benefit from this process. So be a little patient.

There are main components to the Google+ mobile experience are the free Google+ Android app (of course), and the mobile web app Dell Vostro 1510 battery (accessible via the mobile browser on most Web-enabled phones).

To get Google+ Android app working you must first install the app, then log into Google+ via the Web to set up a link to your phone. Then you should be able to use the app. This Google+ Android app video explains how the app is supposed to Toshiba PA3534U-1BAS battery work, after you've done this setup.

I was able to easily install the Google+ app and link my account to my first-generation HTC Droid Incredible. So far this app is running fine for me -- no freezes or crashes.

However, I've noticed some other Google+ mobile users have complained of problems: the app installed CANON Digital IXUS 65 battery slowly or not at all, or it crashed, or they're having problems getting their phone linked to their Google+ account. Given the vast diversity of Android devices, versions of the Android operating system running on them, and manufacturer-specific interfaces (like HTC Sense), this isn't surprising.

But for now, Android users have the best shot of enjoying a satisfactory mobile Google+ experience. That's because, so far there are no Google+ native smartphone apps for platforms other than Android. Google NIKON COOLPIX S3 battery says the iPhone app is coming soon, and others are probably in the works.

Google+ users on non-Android phones -- or who can't or don't want to install the app -- currently can use the mobile Web app. Here, functionality varies: Android and iPhone users of the Web app enjoy substantially more functionality CANON IXY Digital L2 battery than people on BlackBerry, Nokia, or WebOS devices, at least so far.

The Android app is really important, since ArsTechnica rightly observes: "The success of Google+ will partly depend CANON Digital IXUS 900 Ti batteryon the quality of the user experience the service offers on mobile devices. Because Google isn't just a Web developer but also major mobile platform vendor through Android, the company has an opportunity to offer deep integration between its new social networking service and the popular smartphone nikon coolpix s3 battery operating system."

What I like

Mostly, I like the Google+ Android app.

I am able to use all the other core functionality of Google+ via the Android app without difficulty. For instance, I can add people to my "circles" (contact groups that I define), read my "stream" (the Google+ equivalent of a Facebook news feed, or a tweetstream), and take and upload photos. So generally, I'm pretty satisfied with the app.

If you're uploading mobile photos or video to dell inspiron 1521 ac adapter Google+ (and you can only do this via the Android app so far, which puts iPhone shutterbugs out of luck), you might want to peruse your instant upload settings. By default, Google+ uploads everything you shoot as soon as you shoot it, to a private album, from which you can selectively share photos. Personally I only want to upload images I wish to share, so I've turned this option off.

Having the Google+ app installed on my phone offers one key advantage over the computer-based browser experience of Google+: sharing links.

With the app installed and activated on my Android phone, now when I'm using any of the Web browser I have installed on my phone (even Opera Mini), when I find a page I want to share, Google+ is listed as one of the many "share page" options (along with Evernote, Gmail, Messages, etc.)

This is actually easier than sharing links to Google+ on my computer. So far as I've been able to find there's no Google+ bookmarklet or browser toolbar button that's the equivalent of share on Facebook. I use these kinds of tools all the time for other services in my Web browser. I'm sure Google+ will have one eventually, but right now HP Pavilion dv6500 ac adapter on my Android phone at least I don't have to cut-and-paste the link.

I'll like it even better when Google releases an application programming interface for Google+, so other services I like and use frequently,such as PicPlz, for posting photos selectively to several services at once, can connect to my Google+ presence.

What's not working

One of the main glitches I've noticed with mobile Google+ involves the "huddle" feature -- a prominent part app, featured on its home screen.

As far as I understand it, a "huddle" is supposed to be the Google+ alternative to group texting services. It allows self-defined groups of mobile users to convene on-the-fly private discussions -- such friends deciding where to meet at the beach, or journalists in the field coordinating coverage of a breaking news event.

I was able to use the Android app to initiate a huddle and invite several friends. However, the only person who could actually join the huddle was also using the Android app. All other invitees, who were accessing Google+ via a their Web browser (desktop or mobile), would click to accept my invitation -- but then they were inexplicably routed to the main Google mobile info page. Rather frustrating.

Theoretically, Google+ users should be able to participate in a huddle via the mobile Web (although that didn't work for my friends), and even non-users should be able to participate via SMS, though that seems sketchy.

I searched Google+ Help for Huddle info -- but as of this writing the only result that yields is how to delete your account. Since Huddle is strictly a mobile service, info about it can be found in Google Mobile Help.

This isn't exactly intuitive from the user's perspective, and I hope Google fixes that soon. Help should always be where users expect to find it. Despite how Google has organized this project, users don't perceive the Google+ Android app as a separate service from Google+.

Another glitch: I noticed that my mobile notifications usually lag. I just accessed Google+ on my laptops Web browser and saw five new notifications of interaction from other users, similar to Facebook notifications. But I'm not seeing these on my Android app. That's been happening a lot.

Like I said: Google+ is really, really beta. But so far it's sufficiently functional, interesting, and engaging for me to want to keep using it.

Even better, in my opinion the Google+ user interface -- standard and mobile -- is cleaner, more intuitive, more attractive, more user friendly, and less potentially misleading than Facebook's. Plus, it offers huge potential to connect with all the other Google services I'm already using: Google calendar, Gmail, Google docs, and more.

Will Google+ catch on?

Influential tech blogger Robert Scoble doubts that Google+ stands much chance of getting adopted by the average Facebook user, and instead will only appeal to the geekier types initially invited. He thinks that would be just great, by the way.

I disagree -- and mobile is a big part of why I disagree. Consider this combination of factors:

• The opportunity to deeply, even inherently, integrate Google+ with Android

• Google's existing array of hugely popular consumer services (mail, docs, calendar, etc.)

• Google+ doesn't think too far outside the box -- which was the downfall of Google Wave. It emulates the best functionality from existing popular social media services, but offers in many ways, I think a more user-friendly experience.

• Mobile devices are fast becoming the most common way that people access the Internet, worldwide and in the U.S.

• At least 200 million people already have Google accounts, based on estimates of active Gmail users -- but the total number of Google account holders is probably much higher

So: What would happen if Google suddenly made Google+ available to all Google account holders and Android device users?

I'll bet the folks at Facebook are pretty worried about exactly that possibility right now.

Apple’s Final Cut Happen to another error,will it live long?

Apple’s Final Cut Pro is the leading video-editing program. It’s a $1,000 professional app. It was used to make “The Social Network,” “True Grit,” “Eat Pray Love” and thousands of student movies, independent films and TV shows. According to the research firm SCRI, it has 54 percent of the video-editing market, far more than its rivals from Adobe and Avid.

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Did I use the present tense? Sorry about that. Final Cut was the Canon Powershot SD300 charger industry leader. It did cost $1,000. But that’s all over now.

On Tuesday, Apple pulled a typical Apple move: it killed off the two-year-old Final Cut 7 at the peak of its popularity.

In its place, Apple now offers something called Final Cut Pro X (pronounced “10”). But don’t be misled by the HP Compaq Business Notebook NX6110 ac adapter name. It’s a new program, written from scratch. Apple says a fresh start was required to accommodate huge changes in the technological landscape.

Apple veterans may, at this point, be feeling some creepy déjà vu. You’ve seen this movie before. Didn’t Apple kill off iMovie, too, in 2008, and replace it with an all-new, less capable version that lacked dozens of important features? It took three years of upgrades before the new iMovie Acer Aspire 3614WLMi battery finally surpassed its predecessor in features and coherence.

Some professional editors are already insisting that Apple has made exactly the same mistake with Final Cut X; they pointed out various flaws with the program after an earlier version of this column was posted online on Wednesday. They say the new program is missing high-end features like the ability to edit multiple camera angles, to export to Dell Latitude D630 battery tape, to burn anything more than rudimentary DVDs and to work with EDL, XML and OMF files (used to exchange projects with other programs). You can use a second computer monitor, but you need new TV-output drivers to attach an external video monitor. You can’t change the settings of your exported QuickTime canon nb-4l charger movies without the $50 Compressor program.

Apple admits that version X is a “foundational piece.” It says that it will restore some of these features over time, and that other companies are rapidly filling in the other HP G7000 ac adapter holes.

For nonprofessionals, meanwhile, Final Cut is already tempting — especially because the price is $300, not $1,000. It’s the first Apple program that’s available only by download from the online Mac App Store, not on DVD. All of the programs CANON ZR-90 battery formerly called Final Cut Studio have been rolled into Final Cut except Motion and Compressor, which are sold separately. Final Cut Express and DVD Studio Pro are gone.)

The new Final Cut has been radically redesigned. In fact, it looks and works a lot like Dell Inspiron Mini 10v battery iMovie, all dark gray, with “skimming” available; you run your cursor over a clip without pressing the mouse button to play it.

Once you’re past the shock of the canon digital ixus 400 battery new layout, the first thing you’ll notice is that Apple has left most of the old Final Cut’s greatest annoyances on the cutting-room floor.

First — and this is huge — there’s no more waiting to “render.” You no longer sit there, dead in the water, while the software computes the Dell inspiron 1526 ac adapter changes, locking up the program in the meantime, every time you add an effect or insert a piece of video that’s in a dell latitude c640 battery different format. Final Cut X renders in the background, so you can keep right on editing. You cannot, however, organize your files or delete clips during rendering.

Second, in the old Final Cut, it was all too easy to drag the audio and video of a clip out of sync accidentally; little “-1” or “+10” indicators, showing how many frames off you were, were a chronic headache. But in the new Final Cut, “sync is holy,” as Apple puts it. Primary audio and video are always synced, and you can even lock other Acer Aspire 9300 Series battery clips together so that they all move as one.

In fact, an ingenious feature called Compound Clips lets you collapse a stack of audio and video clips into a single, merged filmstrip on the timeline. You can adjust it, move it and apply effects as if it were a single unit, and then un-merge it anytime you like. Compound Clips make it simple to manage with a complicated composition without going quietly insane.

In the old Final Cut, if you dragged Clip A so that it overlapped part of Clip B, even briefly, you wound up chopping away the covered-up piece of Clip B. But now, the timeline sprouts enough new parallel “tracks” to keep both of the overlapping clips. Nothing gets chopped unless you do it yourself.

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There are new features, too. The Auditions feature lets you compare alternative shots in the timeline, trying them out without having to place them individually. This is great if you’re sitting with a client or director, asking for input. Color Match does an impressive job making the overall color cast of one clip (a broad-daylight shot, for example) match the lighting of another (say, a sunset scene).

You can adjust the playback speed of a clip — slow-mo, fast-mo, whatever — just by pressing a key and then dragging the clip’s right edge, so that it occupies a longer or shorter chunk of the timeline. It’s visual, immediate and render-free.

The new Timeline Index presents a tidy, clickable chronological list of everything in your movie: clip names, markers, clip keywords and so on.

Like iMovie, Final Cut can analyze newly imported video and figure out which shots have people in them — one person, two people, group shots — and put them into virtual folders automatically. You can also apply keywords to any portion of any clip —“Closeup,” “Grandma,” whatever; the program puts keyworded clips into appropriately named virtual folders, too. Final Cut can also stabilize shaky footage during the import process, and even eliminate hums or hisses in your audio.

The bottom line: The rewritten Final Cut is much, much easier to use than the old one, and its immediacy keeps your creative flow going.

But not everyone will fall in love. Switching to the new Final Cut from the old one is like coming home from college to discover that your parents remodeled your bedroom. Longtime Final Cut jockeys, in particular, may grind their teeth for a few days — and not just because they have to pay $300 for the “upgrade,” same as newcomers.

Here’s one example. The new “magnetic timeline” works like iMovie’s; your clips always snap to the left, leaving no gaps. You can no longer freely park clips temporarily off to the right, using the timeline as a workspace.

Also, the fact that Final Cut is much less intimidating may be a bitter pill to swallow for professionals who have sweated blood to master the old version. Online, some early adopters are already cursing how “consumer-y” the new program looks.

Video editing screams out for horsepower. Final Cut is now a 64-bit program, meaning it can exploit Macs with more than 4 gigabytes of memory for even better speed. And you’ll need it; on even medium-powered Macs, scrolling and dragging operations can get laggy.

I also ran into a bunch of typical first-release bugs. Don’t entrust your next Cannes entry to this program until Apple produces the inevitable bug-fix patch.

The biggest disappointment is that Final Cut X can’t open old Final Cut projects. They’re now orphaned, stuck forever in the old program. Apple says the architecture of the new program is too different from the old one. Well, O.K., but what a drag to have to maintain your video projects in two separate collections: B.X. (before X) and A.X.

Of course, that’s the way Apple rolls. Here’s one more Apple-imposed migration to a new, very different platform.

Yes, some bugs need fixing, and the “coming soon” features need to come soon. But despite the footnotes, and if you can get past the shock of the new, Final Cut X is already intuitive, powerful and very sweet.

F.T.O will settle down into Google for investigation

Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters . Google has been the subject of repeated antitrust probes in recent years, most of them involving proposed acquisitions.

The Federal Trade Commission is preparing to issue subpoenas to Google as part of a wide-ranging civil antitrust investigation into practices in Google’s search engine business, according to two people with knowledge of the Acer Aspire 3614WLMi battery matter.

For several months, lawyers at the commission have gathered information about Google’s search and advertising Dell Latitude D630 battery business and whether the way it orders search results and related advertising constitutes illegal anticompetitive behavior.

This month, commissioners privately debated whether to authorize its Bureau of Competition to issue subpoenas to Google and are close HP Compaq Business Notebook NX6110 ac adapter to moving forward. As of Thursday afternoon, commission formalities remained before the investigation is officially started, but two people with knowledge of the matter said a final decision to issue the subpoenas canon digital ixus 400 battery was imminent in a matter of days. They agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because the action was not yet final and because it could be postponed if the commission required additional information.

The commission’s action was first reported online by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Spokesmen for Google and the Federal Trade Commission declined to comment canon nb-4l charger.

Google has been the subject of repeated antitrust inquiries in recent years, most of them involving proposed acquisitions. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department have conducted HP G7000 ac adapter reviews of Google’s acquisitions of the Internet advertising companies DoubleClick and AdMob.

More recently, the Justice Department reviewed Google’s purchase of ITA Software, a travel services company. In that case, the government cleared the merger only after Google agreed to conditions and continuing government monitoring. Just this month, the Justice Department began an investigation into Google’s $400 million acquisition of Admeld, which provides advertising services to publishers.

In 2008, the Justice Department also blocked a proposed advertising pact between Google and Yahoo because of concerns about its effect on Dell Inspiron Mini 10v battery competition. Last year, it also opposed a sweeping court settlement between Google and publishers and authors, in part because the agreement would have given Google too much power over the market for digital books.

But unlike those cases, which affected only small portions of Google’s business, the current investigation focuses on Google’s main business: Internet search and advertising. If it leads to charges against the company, its impact could be CANON ZR-90 battery more far reaching, according to antitrust experts.

“This is the main act,” said Ted Henneberry, a former trial lawyer at the Justice Department and partner at Orrick Herrington and Sutcliffe.

If Google is found to have abused its dominant position in Internet search and advertising, the F.T.C. would not levy fines. But it has the authority to issue cease-and-desist orders for violations of the trade commission act, and it can also file a lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction against certain dell latitude c640 battery behaviors. The Justice Department and the F.T.C. share jurisdiction over antitrust issues. But as a matter of practice they alternate as to which agency takes the lead in an investigation.

Critics of Google have been pushing for a broad antitrust investigation into the company’s search business, where it controls about two-thirds of the market in the United States. In the past, company executives have said that the increased scrutiny from regulators is a normal byproduct of its success.

Addressing its search results specifically, company officials say that its ranking decisions are made to benefit users and that, as with any ranking system, some parties will be unhappy with their placing.

The company’s market share has remained steady in recent years. According to the research firm comScore, Google controlled 65.5 percent of the Dell inspiron 1526 ac adapter market in May; Yahoo had 16 percent and Bing had 14 percent.

Last year, the European Commission opened its own antitrust investigation into Google’s search business, after complaints from smaller companies, which claimed that Google downgraded their sites in its search results while giving favor to its own Web services. That investigation is pending.

By making a site more or less likely to rise to the top of its search results, Canon Powershot SD300 charger Google theoretically could affect how much traffic a Web site got and therefore how much it could charge for advertising. If another company’s Web site for, say, a travel service, competes with an ancillary business of Google’s, manipulation of search results could be considered anticompetitive.

Google’s main Acer Aspire 9300 Series battery search-advertising business accounts for most of the company’s revenue, which totaled $29.3 billion last year.

FairSearch.org, an organization that represents several of Google’s critics including the Web sites Expedia, Travelocity, Kayak and Microsoft, said it was encouraged by reports of the F.T.C. inquiry.

“Google engages in anticompetitive behavior across many vertical categories of search that harms consumers,” the organization said in a statement. “The result of Google’s anticompetitive practices is to curb innovation and investment in new technologies by other companies.”

According to comScore, Google in May became the first company to have one billion unique visitors to its site in one month, a rate that was up 8 percent over a year earlier. Google’s share price is down 19 percent since the beginning of the year.

Ron Johnson Decorate Apple Stores novel make sales success

J. C. Penney has poached the head of Apple’s retail stores to head the department store chain, betting that a deity of the digerati can revive its sales in the same way he found success in brick-and-mortar stores for Apple.

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Ron Johnson has gotten widespread credit for being the mastermind of Apple’s hugely successful retail Dell Vostro 1700 battery strategy.

Related DealBook: Ackman Scores Big With Penney's Latest Hire (June 14, 2011)

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• Penney, J C, Co
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Ron Johnson of Apple will become Penney’s chief executive on Nov. 1, when Myron E. Ullman III, the current chief executive, steps down to become executive chairman, the company said Tuesday.

Given that most products can be bought online, retailers have been trying to give shoppers reasons to go to stores — known as “retail theater” or “retailtainment” in the industry. HP Compaq Business Notebook 6710b ac adapter Arguably, no business has done that better than Apple under Mr. Johnson, who turned the boring computer sales floor into a sleek playroom filled with gadgets.

Retail analysts said the expectation was that Mr. Johnson could similarly transform Penney, which like many traditional big mall retailers has been Acer TravelMate 2483WXMi battery struggling since the recession and the huge growth of online shopping.

“If he can take a little bit of that magic and sprinkle it on to J. C. Penney, you could really create the next generation of retailing,” said Deborah Weinswig, a retail analyst with Citigroup. “We’re at a very interesting kind of Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z70 charger intersection right now where retail needs to be fun, it needs to be exciting.”

Since Mr. Johnson did not seem to be in line for the chief executive job at Apple, the move to J. C. Penney, based in Plano, Tex., gives him a chance HP Compaq Business Notebook 6710b ac adapter to run a company. Still, it was seen as a surprising step at a time when Apple’s retail stores continue to thrive.

“My lifetime dream has been to lead one of the large great retailers, to reimagine what it could be,” said Mr. Johnson, who was vice president for merchandising at Target Stores before joining Apple in 2000.

“In the U.S., the department store has a chance to regain its status as the leader in style, the leader in excitement,” he said in an SONY NP-BG1 charger interview. “It will be a period of true innovation for this company.”

Investors cheered the hire, with Penney shares rising 17 percent, to close at $35.37.

Yet the job ahead will be very different from Mr. Johnson’s role at Apple, which already had a cult following when he joined it. And Apple’s imprint Olympus CAMEDIA C-765 ULTRA ZOOM battery got bigger and bigger with a its rat-a-tat hits, from the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad.

“Apple sells best-in-class product and faces basically little to no competition,” said Michelle Clark, an analyst with Morgan Stanley. “J. C. Penney, on the other hand, operates in an intensely competitive industry and sells merchandise that is undifferentiated versus peers and in fact has been JVC BN-VF733 battery lagging peers.”

J. C. Penney’s sales in 2010 were $17.76 billion, up 1.2 percent from the prior year, but still more than 10 percent below 2007 sales.

J. C. Penney had first contacted Mr. Johnson three or four years ago, Mr. Ullman said.

This time, the wooing of Mr. Johnson started with two activist investors. In November, Pershing Square Capital Management and Vornado Realty Trust bought 26.4 percent of Dell Inspiron 510m ac adapter J. C. Penney stock. In January, William A. Ackman from Pershing and Steven Roth from Vornado joined the Penney board, and as part of that arrangement, got to appoint an additional director. While Mr. Johnson was intrigued by the possibility, he did not want to become just a board member, and asked for the chief executive position, according to people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.

“Ron Johnson is the Steve Jobs of the retail industry,” Mr. Ackman said in an interview.

Still, Penney seems to have limited Mr. Johnson’s role. He will have the marketing, product and merchandising functions reporting to him. But all other major departments, including finance, stores, JCPenney.com, corporate communications and legal IBM THINKPAD R50E battery will continue to report to Mr. Ullman.

“His role is more like that of a chief merchant than it is of a C.E.O.,” said Ms. Clark of Morgan Stanley.

To make up for Mr. Johnson’s stock options at Apple, he will receive restricted Penney stock worth $50 million as of Monday’s close. With the jump in stock price, it was worth more than $58 million by the close on Tuesday.

He is also investing $50 million of his own money in J. C. Penney by buying warrants on the company’s stock. In 2017, the warrants will give him Sony DCR-HC14E charger the right to buy more than seven million shares at $29.92 a share, meaning that if he can raise the stock price he stands to make a hefty profit.

Mr. Johnson’s annual salary will be $1.5 million, and he will be eligible for a bonus of 125 percent of that amount if he meets certain targets. Still, “this guy has become enormously wealthy on Apple stock options,” said Charles Wolf, an analyst with Needham and Company. “He certainly doesn’t need the money.”

During his tenure at Apple, Mr. Johnson received total compensation valued at $141 million, according to Equilar, an executive compensation Dell inspiron 5160 battery research firm. The analysis excludes the years 2008 and 2009, during which Mr. Johnson realized additional stock gains valued at more than $100 million, Equilar said.

Mr. Johnson did not specify what his plans were for Penney.

“I don’t have a priority list,” he said. “I have so many ideas in my head that I can’t quite sort them out, to tell you the truth.”

As for his experience, he said: “Apple has taught me, really, what breakthrough innovation is and how to energize teams to accomplish that ACER Aspire One 10.1 ac adapter. I’ve seen that happen on the product side at Apple; we’ve done that in our stores. I think that’s what I bring.”

While Mr. Ullman, who has been chief executive for seven years, has been praised for bringing in brands like Liz Claiborne, MNG by Mango and Sephora into Penney’s stores, his tenure has been marked by the recession, when the company’s middle-class shoppers cut way back on spending.

Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting.

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Apple Announces the PC Death Knell

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Steven P. Jobs discussing iCloud, which will automatically sync photos, videos and music without the need of a PC HP Pavilion TX2500 battery.

If Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, gets his way, the PC could be on its last legs.

For over two years now, Mr. Jobs and other Apple executives have been pushing the concept of a “post-PC era” where most people no longer have, or need, traditional computers Acer TravelMate 5620 Series battery and instead engage with the digital world though iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Although the company has been discussing this concept for some time, it has not offered Olympus Li-42B charger a solution to ditch the PC and go completely mobile. Apple iOS mobile device still needed a PC to transfer or back up music, photos, videos and other files.

Until now, that is.

On Monday, during a presentation in San Francisco CANON Digital IXUS 55 battery to showcase its new software and services, Apple finally began giving people the option to bypass a PC altogether.

“We are going to demote the PC to just be a device. We are going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud,” CANON Digital IXUS 90 IS battery Mr. Jobs said.

Once these new services begin later this fall, people who buy an iOS device can fully get by without a computer. They will no longer need to plug an HP Pavilion dv9500 ac adapter iOS device into a PC to activate it; iCloud will automatically sync and backup people’s photos, music and documents. All software will be updated over the Internet.

With Monday’s announcement’s, Apple Acer TravelMate 2413LCi battery is reiterating the irrelevance of the personal computer that Mr. Jobs helped invent 30 years ago.

But where is the PC going to go? There has obviously been some argument about Apple’s computerless society theory, with many saying the NIKON COOLPIX 885 battery traditional computer isn’t going the way of the dodo, but instead will become a secondary device to mobile gadgetry.

Apple also can’t believe the PC is going away completely. If the company did see this future, they would not have also announced updates to the Mac OS X Canon PowerShot SD870 IS charger software on Monday.

Scott Forstall, the senior vice HP Pavilion DV8000 battery president of iOS software, summed up the company’s belief during the conference saying that “We are living in a post PC world.” Mr. Forstall noted that a number of iPad owners don’t even have a PC Acer Aspire 3000 ac adapter in their home. ”Now, if you want to cut the cord, you can,” he said.

For Mr. Jobs, who has likened the PC to a pickup truck used only for work, it really could be the beginning of the end for the home computer COMPAQ PRESARIO R3000 battery.

Groupon's I.P.O. Plans Valuate for $30 Billion

As Groupon would say, the deal is on.

The social buying site on Thursday filed to go public, a hotly anticipated debut that could raise $3 billion, according to two people close to the company who were not authorized to speak publicly. At that level, the company would be worth roughly $30 billion, surpassing the value of Google at its initial public offering.

Groupon is part of an elite club of social Internet companies that is fanning investor ardor for the next generation of technology Dell XPS M1730 battery giants. The gaming company Zynga is preparing to file for an offering that could value it at more than $10 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Facebook, which recently raised $1.5 billion in a financing led by Goldman Sachs, is expected to file by next year. It’s the giant of the group, valued Dell xps m1530 battery at as much as $80 billion.

On Thursday, the online music service Pandora moved one step closer to the public markets by setting its I.P.O. price range at $7 to $9, according to its latest filing. Pandora plans to raise as much as $141.6 million in its offering, at a $1.4 billion HP Pavilion dv9000 battery valuation.

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“I think its all about pent-up demand,” Bing Gordon, a venture capitalist and a director of Zynga, said. “Markets are often good predictors, and I do think social JVC GZ-MG20 charger is just getting started.”

The first wave of new technology stocks has already sparked a frenzy, prompting worry that this boom could be a bubble. Shares of LinkedIn, a company that has struggled to maintain sony vgp-bps9 battery profitability, more than doubled on its first day of trading in May. At Thursday’s closing price of $78.63, it was still trading around 75 percent above its offering price.

LinkedIn’s stunning debut has KODAK EASYSHARE Z1085 IS battery pushed Silicon Valley and Wall Street bankers to revise expectations higher on all types of technology offerings. According to one person close to Groupon, the company and its bankers have struggled to pinpoint the final valuation for the I.P.O. The person cautioned that it could move Sony CCD-TRV608 battery higher or lower based on market conditions.

“I would urge any investor to think about the fundamentals,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester OLYMPUS LI-50B battery Research retail analyst. “Sure Groupon could be the next Amazon, but as an investor do you have the patience to wait them out?”

Groupon, based in Chicago, has enjoyed a meteoric rise SONY Cyber-Shot DSC-w320 battery in its short life.

Shortly after its founding, Groupon notched revenue of $94 million in 2008. Two years later, it swelled to $713 million. The company — which now employs more than 7,000 people and has 83 million subscribers across 43 countries — reported HP Pavilion dv2000 battery $644.7 million of revenue in the first quarter of 2011 alone.

As its prospects have grown, so has investor interest. In 2010, the company was worth roughly $1.4 billion, based on a fund-raising round led by the Russian firm D.S.T. Global. Groupon spurned a $6 billion takeover bid from Google in December Sony NP-F970 battery, opting instead to raise nearly $1 billion from Fidelity Investments, T. Rowe Price and other investors.

At a $30 billion market value, Groupon would top that of Google at its market debut. Google raised $1.67 billion in August 2004, putting its value at $27 billion. (In its filing, Groupon put its I.P.O. value at $750 million, a nominal amount used HP Compaq Business Notebook 6715b ac adapter to calculate the registration fee.)

In a letter to prospective shareholders,Dell Inspiron 1501 AC adapter Groupon’s chief executive, Andrew D. Mason, highlighted the company’s growth opportunities but cautioned investors to temper their profit expectations.

“In the past, we’ve made investments in growth that turned a healthy forecasted quarterly profit into a sizable loss,” he said. “When we see opportunities to invest in long-term growth, expect that we will pursue Acer Aspire 3610 battery them regardless of certain short-term consequences.”

Like many start-ups, Groupon is still struggling to turn a profit. Last year, the company’s loss topped $450 million, compared with $6.9 million in 2009 and $2.2 million in 2008. The company’s biggest expense is marketing. Groupon spent $263.2 million on advertising and subscriber e-mails in 2010, compared to just $4.5 million the year before.

“We cannot be certain that we will be able to attain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis,” the company said in its filing.

With less-than-ideal financials under generally accepted accounting principles, Groupon is trumpeting a nonstandard metric that Canon ZR25 battery excludes marketing and acquisition costs. On that basis, it reported $60.6 million in operating income last year and $81.6 million in the first quarter this year.

To some, the use of such nonstandard measures harkens back to the days of the technology boom in the late 1990s, when unusual metrics like “eyeballs” were touted instead of numbers like net income. Those specialized figures were often used to present a rosier picture of a company’s financials, obscuring their profitability.

Groupon argues that its massive marketing budget is both necessary now and will dwindle over time. Locked in a race for subscribers around the world, the company is willing to spend a tremendous amount of money in the short-term to secure a dominant market share. It says it will cost less to maintain those subscribers over time.

As an example, Groupon said in its filing that it spent $18 million to add about 3.7 million subscribers in the second quarter last year. By March 31 of this year, those customers generated $145.3 million in revenue and $61.7 million in gross profit.

Groupon’s investors and early employees stand to reap a windfall in an I.P.O.

The company’s largest shareholder, its co-founder and board member Eric P. Lefkofsky, owns 64.1 million shares, or roughly 21.6 percent of the company’s Class A common stock — a stake that would be worth billions of dollars. The venture capital firm, Accel Partners, which invested in Groupon in November 2009, owns a 5.6 percent stake. Mr. Mason, who made $184,599 last year, controls 7.7 percent of company’s Class A shares.

While Class A shares will be sold in the I.P.O., Mr. Mason, Mr. Lefkofsky and Bradley Keywell, a co-founder and director will hold onto all of Groupon’s Class B shares. The dual-class stock structure, already in place at Facebook and Google, allows founders to effectively maintain control of their companies while still trading in the public markets.

The rush to go public, at increasingly higher valuations, has fanned concerns that the market is, once again, starting to feel bubbly.

Groupon, which will trade under the ticker “GRPN,” has hired Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse as underwriters for the offering.

Claire Cain Miller and Ben Protess contributed reporting.