financial

Facebook's revenue skyrocketed in the first half of 2011, according to a report from Reuters today.

Citing a source with "knowledge of its financials," the news service said Facebook doubled its first-half revenue this year, growing to $1.6 billion. In addition, Reuters said, the company was able to generate a profit of nearly $500 million.

Since it's a private company, Facebook does not divulge its financial performance. However, that hasn't stopped reports on its financials to continue to crop up.

Early last year, social blog Inside Facebook reported that the social network would generate about $1 billion in 2010, … Read more

Wall Street has responded favorably to Yahoo's decision to fire CEO Carol Bartz.

The company's shares opened up to nearly $14 per share today in the first moments of trading on the Nasdaq following Bartz's ouster. Following strong gains, Yahoo's shares have, at the time of this writing, started to subside a bit, leveling off at about $13.58, representing a more than 5 percent gain compared to their opening price of $12.91.

Word of Bartz's firing was first made public yesterday. In a note to Yahoo employees, Bartz said that she had been &… Read more

The Financial Times has removed its iOS apps from Apple's App store in response to a policy that gives the latter a 30 percent cut of sales.

To replace its dedicated iOS apps, London-based FT has rolled out its own mobile Web-based app designed for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad and accessible through Safari and other mobile iOS browsers. The mobile Web app has actually been online since May while FT prepped itself for a possible exit from the App Store. But now the mobile site is the only option for subscribers who want access to the Financial … Read more

Barnes & Noble's traditional business model is lagging, but its digital focus has helped buoy its financial performance, the company said today.

During its fiscal first quarter that ended July 30, B&N generated $1.4 billion in sales, representing a 2 percent increase over the same period last year. Its slight revenue increase becomes more impressive when one considers that the core of its operation--book sales in stores--were down during the period. In fact, the company reported that store sales decreased 3 percent year over year to $1 billion.

However, the company's Nook operation, led by … Read more

In the first day of trading following Steve Jobs' decision to step down as CEO of Apple, his company's stock is hardly feeling the effects.

As of this writing, Apple's shares are hovering at around $369.04, down 1.9 percent from yesterday's closing price of $376.18.

Steve Jobs announced his decision to step down as Apple's CEO last night. In a letter to Apple's board of directors and the public, Jobs said that he could no longer perform his duties as CEO, and recommended that he take over as chairman and his chief … Read more

Shares of Carbonite, a company that provides online backup services, are up today in their first day of trading.

The company's shares, which started the day at $10, hit a high of $13.40 today before leveling off at their current $11.88 per share. Although Carbonite might be happy with its first day of trading, the company's initial offering was substantially lower than it had originally projected. Rather than the initial $15 to $17 a share offering price, Carbonite said earlier this week that it had to reduce its opening range to $10 to $11 per share.… Read more

AOL once again posted a difficult quarter as the company's revenue couldn't keep pace with last year's figures.

The online media company said today that it took in $542.2 million during the second quarter, down 8 percent compared to the $592.2 million it posted during the same period last year. That revenue decline held AOL in the red, with an $11.8 million loss for the quarter.

AOL's revenue declines during the quarter stemmed mainly from subscriptions to its Internet service. The company generated $201.3 million in subscription revenues during the period, down … Read more

T-Mobile USA suffered a difficult second quarter as both revenue and subscriber totals fell, the company announced today.

During the three-month period ended June 30, T-Mobile generated $5.05 billion in revenue, down from $5.36 billion during the same quarter last year. And although it was able to post a profit of $212 million during the second quarter, that was down nearly 50 percent compared to the second quarter of 2010 when the carrier tallied a $404 million profit.

T-Mobile lost a net of 50,000 subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total to 33.6 million. According to … Read more

Online personal-financial management service Mint is giving some CNET readers the chance to try out a new feature it's testing.

Called Bill Reminders, the service sifts through the Mint user's bank statements from the prior month and plucks out the bills they pay. From there, users can determine whether they want to be notified about the bills to ensure they're not late on future payments.

According to Mint, the reminders are sent to users via e-mail, SMS, or both, depending on their preferences. Users of the company's iPhone app will receive notifications about upcoming bills right on their smartphone, but they will not be able to use Bill Reminders from the app. Mint told CNET in a phone interview yesterday that notifications will be available to Android users "at a later time."

In addition to having Mint find bills, the service also lets users input bills the company might have missed. To do so, users need only assign the bill a name, input an amount, choose a date, and save it.

One of the features Mint touts is its timeline. On the main Mint page, users can view the next month, and find out which days they need to pay bills, marked by green bars. The bars come in different sizes, depending on how much the user owes. The taller the bar, the more they owe.

I had a chance to try Mint's new feature, and I was generally pleased. It found several of my bills without any trouble, and inputting new bills was quick and easy.… Read more