News Byte

Twitter’s Tanking

in News on December 30, 2013 at 6:49 am PT

After a wild run last week that saw them soar to an all-time high of $74.73, shares of Twitter are crashing brutally back to earth. The company’s stock tumbled more than six percent in early trading Monday, falling to $59.43. The reason? That’s not entirely clear, though perhaps investors are realizing that there’s no fundamental business change with which to rationalize last week’s run.

News Byte

Rdio Killed the Vdio Star

in News on December 27, 2013 at 12:56 pm PT

Not even a year old, and already Vdio is taking a dirt nap. Rdio said on Friday that it is scrapping the nascent video-streaming platform with which it had hoped to take on Netflix and Hulu. “Despite our efforts, we were not able to deliver the differentiated customer experience we had hoped for, and so Vdio is now closed,” the company said in a message to users of the service. Evidently, Rdio’s bottom line has taken precedence over its dreams of becoming a global entertainment streaming platform.

News Byte

BlackBerry Shares Sink on Lazaridis Letdown

in Mobile on December 26, 2013 at 1:14 pm PT

Evidently some folks really did believe BlackBerry co-founder Mike Lazaridis was going to swoop in like a deus ex machina and return the dilapidated smartphone pioneer to its former glory. Shares in the sadly diminished company closed down nearly nine percent at $7.05 on the revelation that Lazaridis has abandoned his, let’s face it, largely fantastical bid for the company, and reduced his combined stake with co-founder Doug Fregin to below five percent from eight percent.