Google+ Brings Embedded Posts to Publishers (Just Like Twitter and Facebook)

In an effort to expand the reach of its social network, Google on Monday announced that third-party publishers can now embed Google+ posts into their websites.

Simply put: A site like AllThingsD could grab a publicly-made Google+ status update and, with the addition of a snippet of code, display it in a story.

At this point among the major players in social, it's a table stakes move. Twitter has long had embeds available, pitching the feature heavily to news sites and consumer outlets. And now both Facebook - which has made strides to surface more public-facing activity as of late - and Instagram have done the same. Google+ is a natural addition.

It's certainly a sensible move for all three companies, each of which aims for broad consumer recognition and appeal. It's also a trojan horse for potential new user signups if readers click through to the original social site.

Still, part of me wonders if there's a "peak embed" point. That is to say, if users will grow confused at the multiple types of embedded posts, and thereby not be inspired to click through. Or perhaps the different types of embedded posts will run together, and no one network will stand out.

Embeds should be available to publishers beginning today, with instructions on how to make it work found here.

Mobile Messaging App Pinnatta Raises $1.5 Million

Pinnatta, a mobile messaging app startup, announced on Wednesday that it raised a $1.5 million Series A round of funding. The app, which emphasizes the multimedia aspect of mobile messaging, raised the new round from Greek firms Odyssey Venture Partners and PJ Tech Catalyst. The new funds bring the startup's total amount raised to $2.2 million.

Zuckerberg to Meet With Top House Republicans on Immigration Reform

Mr. Zuckerberg is headed back to Washington.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to meet with four top House Republicans later this week, another in a string of moves into the political realm for the social giant.

The meeting, first reported by Politico, will include sitting Speaker of the House John Boehner, as well as other top Republican House leadership, with Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Whip Kevin McCarthy and Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

"Mark is coming to Washington to discuss issues important to the knowledge economy, including immigration reform," a Facebook spokesperson told AllThingsD.

Ostensibly that includes Zuckerberg's efforts with FWD.us, the political action group founded in conjunction with a host of tech executives that aims to upend U.S. immigration policy and potentially increase the number of foreign-born tech workers allowed entry into the United States.

The meeting is set to occur in Washington this Thursday.

Facebook Opens Registration For F8 Conference Featuring Oculus, WhatsApp, Instagram

Hands-On With Snapchat Discover: Fun Content For Short Attention Spans

How to Launch a New Photo App: Wait for iOS 7 Launch, Try to Get Featured. Then Hope.

Another new photo-sharing app? In 2013? Really?

Yup, really. But say this for the team behind Memoir, which is launching today: While sharing photos is a component of what their app does, it's not solely a photo-sharing app. It's more of a photo-storage and filing service, with ambitions to move someday beyond photos into other personal data.

Which is good, because it sure seems like the photo-sharing app space is full up, though people are still trying to prove otherwise.

Memoir was co-founded by Lee Hoffman and Angela Kim, and is a pivot out of Veri, a TechStars education startup they launched in 2011. They raised $1.2 million for that project from backers including BetaWorks and SV Angel, and used much of that to move into Memoir; they're also finishing a new funding round.

You can get a sense of what they're trying to do with Memoir in the video below, but if you want a very short sentence, it would be: TimeHop mashed up with Photo Stream.

More sentences: Memoir checks the metadata for pictures you have on your phone, plus those you upload to Facebook and other services (if you let it), and organizes them by date and location; it will also try to figure out who you were with when you took the photo. Then it stores all the images on its servers, and lets you access them whenever you want; it assumes your photos are private, and will only share them with friends if you ask.

The service is free now, and the company hopes to introduce a freemium model that will give you access to goodies like higher-resolution images, etc. One day, Hoffman and Kim can see Memoir storing and filing things that aren't photos.

For now, they're just hoping to pick up some momentum from today's Apple's iOS 7 launch.

They've held the launch of their app until this afternoon, with Apple's encouragement, in the hope that they get featured in Apple's App Store. There's no guarantee that they'll get that attention, and even if they do, a feature slot at the App Store is no guarantee of success.

But it sure would be nice to show up today, when lots of you are going to be spending lots of time there.

Introducing Memoir from Memoir on Vimeo.

Social Analytics Startup Unmetric Raises $5.5 Million

Unmetric, a startup that aims to provide social media business intelligence to brands, announced on Thursday that it raised a $5.5 million round of venture funding. The round was led by new investor Jafco Asia, with participation from existing investor Nexus Venture Partners.

Facebook Starts Auto-Enhancing Photos Because Algorithms Are Better At Filters Than You

As Q2 Earnings Approaches, the Street Stays Bullish on Facebook's Mobile Prospects

Facebook's S-1 filing in early 2012 came with a rude awakening we're all quite familiar with by now: The world is going mobile, and Facebook's ad business needed to adapt fast in order to keep up with it.

Now, as Facebook prepares to report its second-quarter earnings this afternoon, something has shifted: Wall Street is actually optimistic about Facebook's mobile monetization prospects.

The Street's consensus calls for earnings per share of 14 cents on revenue of $1.62 billion, an estimate up from the EPS of 12 cents on revenue of $1.18 billion reported during Q2 of last year.

"While quarterly results at FB will likely remain volatile, we remain bullish on the direction and growth trajectory of the company," Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia wrote in a research note this week.

The biggest boon for some? The trending surge in Facebook's mobile revenue figures seen in recent quarters.

Mobile revenue accounted for nearly 30 percent of Facebook's ad business in the first quarter of this year, which was already a jump up from 23 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. That's expected by some analysts to grow, albeit slightly, to a daily run rate of nearly $5 million on mobile ads alone.

Facebook has made it clear that at least one of its more recent ad products - mobile app installation ads - has been quite successful in driving growth, and J.P. Morgan's Doug Anmuth expects that to continue.

"We remain bullish as we believe ad dollars are increasingly shifting to online, mobile, and social and we expect Facebook to capture a growing portion of ad budgets going forward," Anmuth wrote in a research note.

The big unknowns are the usuals that we'll be looking for. Will the company break out any metrics beyond its usual stats on daily and monthly active users? That may be something to watch for, given Facebook's increasing competition for mindshare from other mobile-based sites like Snapchat, WhatsApp and International competitors like Line and KakaoTalk.

Perhaps Facebook will detail some engagement-based stats that could rebut the chatter that the social giant is losing its cool with younger audiences.

Another wild card: The oft-speculated eventual appearance of auto-play video ads in the News Feed. Bhatia and Anmuth both expect the ads to debut in the latter half of the year, a potential multibillion-dollar revenue-driving opportunity for the company. "We see online video advertising as a key incremental growth driver for FB in 2014," Bhatia wrote.

And lastly, the payments question still remains. Driven largely by social games on the platform, Facebook's payments business has changed much over the past two years, again a result of the sweeping shift to mobile. Zynga, which once reigned supreme as Facebook's largest gaming partner, has taken a drastic hit as users have moved away from playing games on the desktop to more casual gaming on the phone and tablet.

As a result, Facebook's payments revenue cut has flattened. The past year has seen Facebook try to distance itself from being too connected to Zynga, giving way to the rise of other smaller, more mobile-focused gaming outfits like King and, to a lesser extent, Wooga.

Analysts expect flat sequential revenue in the payments business, though a slight uptick in year-over-year growth.

I'll be covering the print as it hits the wire at 1 pm PT, with a liveblog of the earnings call from my colleague Peter Kafka to follow.

Location Technology Startup SocialRadar Buys Gridskippr, Rolls Out SDK

Former Twitter, Facebook Product Pro Josh Elman Becomes Partner at Greylock

Venture capital firm Greylock Partners announced on Wednesday that Josh Elman, a Silicon Valley veteran of mainstream consumer tech companies, has been promoted to become the firm's newest partner.

Elman joined Greylock as a principal almost two years ago, after his time at Twitter as a product manager, where he lead the growth team for the microblogging service.

Before that, he was a product manager working on Facebook Platform, leading the launch of Facebook Connect, the product used on many, many websites today (including this one). And before that, he spent time in product management positions at both Zazzle and LinkedIn.

"I believe in investing in stuff that I know," Elman said in an interview. "That means I'll likely be looking at consumer tech, with a focus on looking for companies that find the best ways to connect people with one another."

He has worked with local social network Nextdoor, for example, on growth, product and strategy decisions.

"I think the fact that we're still so early in the days of mobile - with the rise of smartphones and tablets - we're just at the beginning of how we do that connecting," Elman said.

Elman will be based in Greylock's Menlo Park, Calif., office.

Facebook Beats as Mobile Revenue Jumps to 41 Percent of Ads Business

Facebook's numbers are in, and they look good across the board - especially in mobile.

The social giant posted its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday afternoon, reporting earnings per share of 13 cents on revenue of $1.81 billion. That beats analysts' expectations of an EPS of 14 cents on revenue of $1.62 billion.

But the biggest point of interest here is in the breakdown of Facebook's revenue numbers. Mobile revenue, the most closely watched part of Facebook's business, accounts for 41 percent of Facebook's total revenue. That's a leap from accounting for nearly 30 percent just last quarter.

"One of the things this quarter says to us is that News Feed ads work," Facebook CFO David Ebersman told AllThingsD in an interview. "They're really creating compelling returns for our advertisers."

Facebook has faced intense criticism from investors over the past year and a half, as Wall Street voiced concerns that the company couldn't adeptly handle the massive shift from desktop to mobile use. Most of Facebook's advertising products were optimized for desktop users for as long as the company has been around, and only over the past year has it tried to shift toward a "mobile first" environment.

The company, however, has made some inroads with new mobile advertising products - in particular with its mobile app installation ads aimed at application developers.

"They're growing very rapidly," Ebersman said of the ad product. "And we're enthusiastic because the app ecosystem is such a fast-growing and dynamic area - developers need effective ways to help people discover what they have built."

As far as overall user growth, Facebook is still increasing in both new users and engagement. Facebook's daily active users increased to 699 million, a jump of 27 percent year over year. And monthly active users swelled to 1.15 billion, a 21 percent increase year on year.

But again, the biggest number of note here is the mobile MAU number. Monthly active users on mobile jumped to 819 million, an increase of 51 percent year over year. Talk about a shift from desktop to mobile.

"We've made good progress growing our community, deepening engagement and delivering strong financial results, especially on mobile," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a canned statement. "The work we've done to make mobile the best Facebook experience is showing good results and provides us with a solid foundation for the future."

Facebook's stock is up nearly 20 percent in after hours trading, hovering around $31 per share.

Tune in to my colleague Peter Kafka's live coverage of the earnings call here.

Bee Cave Games Raises $1.3 Million Round of Seed Funding

Bee Cave Games, the developer of the social casino game Blackjack Casino, has closed a $1.3 million seed round of funding led by Matrix Partners. The round is aimed at helping the company grow and continue to support its existing game, which is available on Facebook. Last month, Zynga co-founder Eric Schiermeyer became a board advisor and investor in Bee Cave.

Facebook Says It Has Figured Out Mobile. Wall Street Says It Believes Facebook.

You can't say Wall Street has agreed to forgive and forget its past issues with Facebook. But it's getting closer: After a very strong Q2 earnings report, investors pushed shares up 17 percent in aftermarket trading.

Facebook is now trading at about $31 a share, nearly as high as it has been all year. That still doesn't bring it back to the $38 price from its 2012 IPO, but it's definitely progress.

Big picture: Facebook seems to have answered, at least for now, questions about its ability to handle the shift to mobile: Its users are headed there, and it is showing them ads there, and both usage and ad dollars are up.

Facebook also took pains to explain that it is still totally cool with the kids. Which sounds a bit strained when they say it, but until people can show statistics proving otherwise, investors may cut them some slack.

And Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also made a point of mentioning all the usage Facebook sees during prime time TV viewing hours. Translation: Hey Twitter - we can pitch social TV to advertisers, too.

Earlier:
It's more fun to come on an earnings call when Wall Street is psyched about your numbers, right?

At least that's the theory. Let's see how Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg do following a strong quarter, which has investors bidding up their stock more than 14 percent in after-hours trading.

Let's listen in. Actually, I'll listen: You guys watch me type a liveblog.

5:04 pm: Greetings. Listening to Mark Zuckerberg, reading with enthusiasm.

Points out that results today come from big investments a few years ago. Promises patience for more long-term payouts.

Did you know there are 5 billion people who aren't on Facebook? Facebook is coming for you, people who are very likely not reading this liveblog!

Facebook advertising isn't just making money for Facebook, it is somehow improving the world's overall economy.

Ratio of daily active users to monthly active users is increasing - that is, as more people come on to Facebook, more people spend more time on Facebook.

By the way, don't believe those "Facebook engagement decreasing" reports: Market share steady or increasing.

Now, about those teenagers you keep hearing about: They're still totally using Facebook! Here Zuck uses a phrase that I don't feel totally comfortable retyping. So.

Instagram: Still totally growing!

Instagram video growing fast. Facebook Graph Search and Facebook Home, not so much, but that's totally cool, says Zuck. Think long-term!

5:10 pm: Zuck still pumped, and now he's talking about ads, which is not a thing he would have been pumped to talk about a few years ago. Maybe even one year ago.

Shoutouts to all the Facebookers! "You're all helping to connect the world and push it forward."

5:11 pm: Now, Sheryl Sandberg, who is less forcefully excited. But reciting impressive numbers regardless.

Also talking up app ads, local ads.

And hey, don't look now but FB is up 20 percent since this afternoon's numbers.

Now taking time to talk up all the TV-watching, and TV-talking, that happens on Facebook. In other words: In case you didn't catch this earlier, Twitter, we are totally coming after the social TV business you've been building. Heads up!

(Apologies, missed a couple minutes here while multitasking.)

5:17 pm: And now CFO David Ebersman.

Usage numbers are great. 699 million average daily users in June. Total time spent: 20 billion minutes each day.

(More apologies. Was busy asking Facebook beat reporter Mike Isaac why he was Tweeting about the call while I covered the live blog for him.)

(Bunch of statistics you do not want to read about in a liveblog. If you are looking for that stuff, by the way, it's all over here.)

We're still going to pour a lot of money into capex, Ebersman says. So get used to it. (Google had to explain this to investors for a while, too.)

News Feed ads will be main ad growth engine for rest of the year. But note that they started up a year ago, which means Q3 and Q4 comps will be a little tougher. Okay, analysts? (Guide that number down a bit!)

Also, expenses are going to grow at a faster clip then revenue this year. (Got that, analysts?)

5:25 pm: And now, ladies and gents, here's Q&A, with Mike Isaac!

3:25 pm: Mike Isaac here, taking over for Peter on the questions from analysts.

3:26 pm: A question from Doug Anmuth on ads.

Basically, is your big ad growth a lot more ads in the feed, or better ad products?

3:26 pm: Sandberg: Both! All!

Also, we've got a big increase in demand from marketers.

3:27 pm: Mobile app install ads question - Sandberg says they're small but growing.

"It's basically an entirely new market ... we're growing quickly and helping to grow the market."

I asked about mobile app install ads, too, in a chat with Ebersman earlier. They're sorta mum on its success specifically, but I hear that developers like them.

3:28 pm: Oh, if you've noticed, my time stamp is wonky. That's because I'm sitting in an airport in Aspen, Colorado, liveblogging from the terminal as my flight has been delayed. Ho hum.

3:29 pm: A question on monetizing Instagram! Please tell us you have something in mind for that pretty photo-sharing app.

3:29 pm: Zuckerberg on Instagram: Non-answer.

Yes, we want to build a business. "Probably through advertising." But right now they're focused on just letting the thing grow like crazy.

True. It's up above 130 MAUs. Pretty crazy.

3:30 pm: Sandberg on growth in ad spend: Yes! Soon!

"I'm a believer that over time, this is where people are spending their time, and any marketer who wants to reach people is going to spend here."

Fingers crossed, Sheryl.

3:31 pm: Growth is still strong across regions outside of the U.S., Sandberg said.

Particular focus on Asia, seeing increasing adoption in APAC and the rest of the world.

3:33 pm: Sandberg says Facebook exchange is actually a small part of the company's business. They're expanding their on-the-ground sales force, too.

3:34 pm: Ebersman chimes in on how much the company is spending.

No end in sight to the amount Facebook is spending to invest in the business.

But he cites being "disciplined" and "focused" in their spending.

In other words, it's not all kegs and sushi bars for the campus. Lots of smart spending, he says.

3:36 pm: Sandberg: Facebook loves brands. Brands love Facebook.

The end.

3:37 pm: More TV talk in this call. Quite a direct shot over the bow at Twitter, the social company that has long promoted its "second-screen-ness" and complementary nature to television.

3:38 pm: Ebersman again on spending: Hardware costs probably going to go down, but product development is a variable.

5:39 pm: Hello again! It's Peter Kafka! I'm very excited!

Some talk about lumps and inflections re: mobile.

There was "more feed eligible demand" this quarter, says Ebersman. Yet, price didn't drop as they sold more ads.

5:43 pm: New question: Five percent of News Feed is now ads. Is that the "right" number and how does that vary across geography? Also a multipart question I didn't get.

Ebersman: Re: Five percent, it was 0 percent a year ago. We're happy with it. Varies by geography, and also by person (which maybe explains why I don't see that many ads in my feed compared to some complainers).

5:45 pm: Q: When are you going to get around to rolling out video ads? Also, what's going on in Europe?

Sandberg: We totally have video ads - you can embed a video in your post. "We're exploring how we can expand that" but if you think I'm going to talk about a product we haven't announced, then I would like to sell you a premium Bebo membership.

5:46 pm: Q: Hey Mark, how do you get partners to participate more actively in your platform? (And not worry you'll dump them in a year?)

Zuckerberg: We've been charging developers for distribution, and they like it. That's a shift.

5:48 pm: Big picture question for Zuck. How has life/perspective changed since you wrote founder's letter in your S-1 (14 months ago?)

Zuck: We hit the 1 billion people mark, which used to be a rallying cry. Now we have bigger ambitions. But now, meh. "The real goal is to connect everyone in the world, and map out everything there is." But! We weren't happy with mobile 18 months ago, so we had to do a lot of work on it. Coming into 2013, we started to see that we were in better shape.

So: Sort of a big picture answer. But maybe not really?

3:50 pm: Isaac here again!

Sorry about the timestamp.

3:50 pm: I swear we aren't time traveling.

3:50 pm: Question: Really guys, what ad units made you guys kill this quarter so hard?

3:51 pm: Sandberg: Direct response marketers are big contributors to growth. E-commerce doubled! They use all sorts of our ad products.

Lots of growth in mobile app install ads. Small market, but we offer a product that no one else has.

Yep, that ad unit is shining.

3:53 pm: Again, a question on growth.

Really, how?

3:54 pm: Direct response marketers are bumping up their ad budgets because they're getting good returns, Sandberg says.

Okay then.

3:55 pm: Ooh! A sort of sideways question on hiring and perhaps a way to talk about the ZuckerPAC, Fwd.us.

3:55 pm: Mark takes the hiring question.

Hiring great people is hard. But "our country doesn't produce the volume of engineeers that our companies want to hire." So basically that's why he's doing this Fwd thing.

3:56 pm: Sandberg highlights General Electric's Instagram campaigns.

They aren't paid ads, but rather fancy photos of GE-related products and such.

In other words, brands are willing to experiment.

3:57 pm: A custom audiences question - Sandberg said they've doubled the number of marketers using that particular product over the period of two quarters. Lots of big brands doing it.

3:58 pm: Sandberg plays up "PMDs" - or third-party ad sellers - and wants brands to buy through multiple sales channels.

3:59 pm: Last question is a softball. Why do consumers like your stuff?

3:59 pm: Zuckerberg says Instagram is easy, everyone loves photos and capturing moments.

4:00 pm: His comments on Facebook "Home" are interesting.

Look at it over the long term. Sort of like a seed that Facebook is planting.

"Expect these to become market-leading products."

4:00 pm: Just look at how naturally they fit into the flow of peoples' daily lives to get an idea of how long it will take to get popular, Zuckerberg says.

4:01 pm: And we're done!

Kafka and Isaac - out.

Facebook Tweaks News Feed Algorithm to Show More Relevant Ads

Facebook on Friday announced a slight change to its News Feed algorithm that aims to give greater weight to user feedback on undesirable ads. From now on, Facebook will try to show more relevant advertisements to users inside the News Feed, which may mean fewer ads delivered. Facebook's goal for marketers, the company said, is to deliver the right ads to the people who want to see them the most, even if it means fewer ads delivered overall.

Facebook Hits 100M Users In Africa, Half The Continent’s Internet-Connected Population

How Digg and Betaworks Built an Ad for a Steve Carell Movie in a Day

If you scanned Digg yesterday, you might have seen an ad for "The Way, Way Back," a new movie where Steve Carell "plays an awesome jerk."

No big deal. The news aggregator has run lots of ads in the past. What's interesting is the company that built the ad - Digg owner Betaworks, using other parts of Betaworks' collection of new-media startups.

Here's the story, told via Digg general manager Jake Levine: Last Thursday, Digg talked to Graham Retzik, who heads up digital marketing for Fox Searchlight; Retzik was looking for a way to give "The Way, Way, Back," a small movie with a few big names, a quick push.

Digg's solution: Build an ad built on top of Betaworks' Tapestry app, using Betaworks' Giphy, a GIF search engine/producer.

Retzik said yes, and a Betaworks "creative SWAT team" went to work. A day later, they had produced this, which has run on Digg and Tumblr - Betaworks' first seed investment (Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that the ad had also run on the Betaworks-backed Bloglovin network):

This is Betaworks' first "cross-brand partnership," Levine says. But I would expect to see more to come.

Betable Snags Zynga VP for Chief Revenue Officer Post

Betable, the startup that lets developers integrate real-money gambling into their virtual games, announced Thursday it hired Ryan Linton as its new Chief Revenue Officer. Linton comes most recently from his position at Zynga as Vice President of Revenue Operations, responsible for building more revenue channels at the social gaming giant and creating partnerships with other companies.

Facebook Trading at Highest Price Since Week of IPO

On an average day, over the past year, shares of Facebook have hovered in the low-to-mid 20s, at least 10 points beneath the company's debut price of $38 per share in May of last year.

But Thursday was not an average day.

Following the news of a massive earnings beat on Wednesday afternoon, shares of Facebook are trading at their highest levels since IPO, at nearly $34 per share about an hour before the market closes. That's a single-day gain of nearly 30 percent.

Probably worth noting, too, that Facebook's trading volume is at a high, with more than 300 million shares exchanging hands before market close. That's a volume number that's second only to the company's IPO date, where more than half a billion shares moved through the market.

What drove the massive gains? Facebook finally showed a drastic shift from desktop to mobile monetization in its earnings numbers, as mobile ad revenue now accounts for 41 percent of Facebook's overall ads business.

Mobile first? Perhaps not quite yet, but soon enough.

No Dice: Zynga Decides to Abandon Real-Money Gaming Efforts in the U.S.

In its lackluster second-quarter report today, at the very bottom of its press release, Zynga made a very important strategic announcement, saying that it would not pursue real-money gaming in the U.S.

It added that it would continue to evaluate its tests of such gaming products in the United Kingdom, where betting is legal. U.S. online gaming, in comparison, requires Zynga and others to jump a series of long-term and difficult hurdles.

While some investors had been counting on the potentially lucrative online business to be a potential growth area for the troubled San Francisco online social gaming company, management said it has decided to focus on fixing its core business instead.

Said Zynga in a statement:

"Zynga believes its biggest opportunity is to focus on free to play social games. While the Company continues to evaluate its real money gaming products in the United Kingdom test, Zynga is making the focused choice not to pursue a license for real money gaming in the United States. Zynga will continue to evaluate all of its priorities against the growing market opportunity in free, social gaming, including social casino offerings."

No surprise, given this surprise, Zynga's stock is off 14 percent so far in after-hours trading.