Pending Larry joins Big Bird and Romney binders on Twitter
A placeholder for a quote from Google's CEO in a prematurely released earnings report spurs Twitter creativity.
After a draft press release of Google's third-quarter earnings with a placeholder for a quote from CEO Larry Page leaked out prematurely, an enterprising parodist created a "Pending Larry" twitter feed. Page joins Big Bird and Romney binders in the realm of recent Twitter parody feeds.
Google's stock tanked about 9 percent before trading stopped at midday following the accidental leak of the release. The company posted earnings of $9.03 a share on revenue of $11.33 billion, missing expectations for $10.65 a share on sales of $11.86 billion. Google's Motorola division accounted for much of the miss, reporting an operating loss of $527 million, mostly coming from its handset division.
Google issued a statement, placing blame for the leaked press release on RR Donnelley: "Earlier this morning RR Donnelley, the financial printer, informed us that they had filed our draft 8K earnings statement without authorization. We have ceased trading on Nasdaq while we work to finalize the document. Once it's finalized we will release our earnings, resume trading on Nasdaq, and hold our earnings call as normal at 1:30 PM PT."
Pending Larry had a few tweets regarding the mess created by RR Donnelley:
The official press release contained the formerly pending Page quote. Despite the poor Motorola showing, Google "had a good quarter," he said:
"We had a strong quarter. Revenue was up 45 percent year-on-year, and, at just fourteen years old, we cleared our first $14 billion revenue quarter," said Larry Page, CEO of Google. "I am also really excited about the progress we're making creating a beautifully simple, intuitive Google experience across all devices."