Business

Anthony Ha is a writer at TechCrunch, where he covers media, advertising, and startups. Previously, he was a staff technology writer at Adweek, worked as a senior editor at the tech blog VentureBeat, and was also a reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing.... ? Learn More Online real estate site Zillow came out slightly ahead of analyst predictions in its second quarter earnings results, reporting $27.8 million in revenue and earnings of 5 cents per share. Wall Street estimates had put revenue at $27.1 million and  earnings at 4 cents per share. Net income was $1.3 million, down from $1.6 million during the same period last year. The revenue numbers mark another revenue record for Zillow — the previous record was last quarter’s $22.8 million. That’s also a 75 percent increase over Q2 2011. In the earnings press release, CEO Spencer Rascoff says: “Zillow had an excellent second...

Ryan has spent more than five years covering business, technology, and telecom-related subjects for a variety of publications based in New York and San Francisco. Ryan currently works as a writer for TechCrunch. ? Learn More Zipcar is seeing increased competition in the car-sharing market, which is one reason that it might not be growing as quickly as it, or analysts, like. Zipcar reported second-quarter loss of $422,000 today, or $0.01 a share, compared to a net loss of $5.6 million, or $0.17 a share, in the prior year’s second quarter. The earnings came on revenues of $70.8 million, which is up 15 percent from $61.6 million in the second quarter 2011. But Wall Street analysts expected the company to break even this quarter, with revenue rising 18.7 percent to $73.1 million. And Zipcar missed its own revenue forecast of between between $71 million and $74 million. Zipcar shares popped during the IPO, rising to nearly $30 a share. But ever since, they’ve been on a gradual decline, an...

Rip Empson is a writer and rabble-rouser at TechCrunch. He covers startups, music, social, mobile, health, and education. You can reach him at rip[at]techcrunch[dot]com ? Learn More Activision Blizzard announced its second quarter results today, beating estimates with net revenues at $1.08 billion, compared to $1.15 billion for the second quarter last year. Meanwhile, net revenue from digital channels came in at $343 million and represented 32 percent of the company’s total revenues, up from a 27 percent-share last quarter. Earnings per share came in at $0.16, compared to $0.29 for Q2 2011. The consensus on Wall Street was that Activision would see 18.7 percent revenue growth and 20 percent earnings-per-share growth to $829.7 million and $0.12, respectively. For the first quarter (the period ending March 31st), the company’s net revenues were $1.17 billion, with net revenues at $587 million and EPS at $0.33. So, all in all, Activision beat estimates, the fifth quarter in a row they’v...

Colleen Taylor is based in San Francisco where she is a reporter for TechCrunch TV. Previously she worked for GigaOM, where she reported on startups and Silicon Valley. Earlier, Colleen reported for Mergermarket, an online newswire and subsidiary of the Financial Times focused on M&A. Before that, she was a contributing editor for Electronic News, the semiconductor industry trade newsletter. Colleen... ? Learn More Yelp today reported its earnings for the second quarter of 2012, its second ever financial report as a publicly-traded company. Overall, the reviews site showed continued top-line revenue growth and a smaller net loss than it has posted in the past — a performance that bested the estimates of Wall Street analysts. Yelp’s Q2 revenue was $32.7 million, up 19 percent from the previous quarter and up 67 percent year-over-year from the second quarter of 2011. The company’s operations are not yet in the black, but the bottom line performance was better than many expected. Ye...

Ingrid is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect. When it comes to work, she feels most... ? Learn More Facebook is making a big effort to diversify its revenue generation into areas like payments around gaming and other services, but today the game is still ads-ads-ads, and it’s growing. In its Q2 earnings which have just come out, Facebook reported advertising revenue of $992 million. That works out to 84% of  its total quarterly revenues of $1.18 billion. Looking back to Facebook’s S-1 filing from before the IPO, that’s actually an increase as a percentage of revenues from last quarter, when ads made up 82% of revenues. The company has gradually been working down its proportion of revenue from ads. Fa...

Colleen Taylor is based in San Francisco where she is a reporter for TechCrunch TV. Previously she worked for GigaOM, where she reported on startups and Silicon Valley. Earlier, Colleen reported for Mergermarket, an online newswire and subsidiary of the Financial Times focused on M&A. Before that, she was a contributing editor for Electronic News, the semiconductor industry trade newsletter. Colleen... ? Learn More Tesla Motors, the electric car company led by PayPal founder Elon Musk, today announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2012. As we’ve written before, car companies aren’t typically on TechCrunch’s radar, but Tesla is unique. It has Silicon Valley headquarters, techie leadership, startup roots, and a completely fresh approach to making automobiles. In a way, Tesla’s vehicles are essentially very big, very expensive new gadgets. The announcement today encompassed the standard earnings information — revenue, spending, profits, and the like — which we’ll g...