Good morning! Here is the news:
- Vic Gundotra, the executive responsible for Google+, is out of the company, effective immediately.
- Google+ is reportedly going to get a major overhaul, with much of the team heading to work on Android. It's also said that Google will stop forcing people to use Google+.
- The war of words between Netflix and Comcast went up a notch. Comcast accused Netflix of degrading its service on Comcast. And Netflix said, "Comcast is double dipping by getting both its subscribers and Internet content providers to pay for access to each other."
- Microsoft reported earnings, and everything was pretty much in line with expectations.
- Microsoft's Surface business tanked on a quarter-over-quarter basis. On the one hand, most businesses fall after the holiday season, but on the other hand, the Surface is a young business that should be growing sequentially.
- Amazon also delivered a yawner of an earnings report. Revenue and EPS were in line with expectations and the stock didn't move after hours.
- Here's the untold story of how Larry Page was basically exiled within Google, then came back to run the company.
- One theory on why Facebook and Google are buying Virtual Reality and Drone companies: It's a form of marketing. "Facebook buying Oculus makes it more possible to hire engineers into the ads group," says ex-Googler, current VC, Hunter Walk. "They know that if they do a great job, there's a chance to go work on other advanced technologies that may be even more interesting."
- Apple, Google, and other big tech companies paid only $342 million to settle their class action poaching lawsuit.
- Pinterest announced a new mobile search feature last night. It also announced that it's at 30 billion "pins" and pins are up 50% in the last six months. It's a goofy metric, but we suppose it shows that engagement continues to be strong.