Zynga Diversifying Revenue Streams

Market research firm eMarketer projects that 62 million people, nearly a quarter of the U.S. Internet-using population, will become social gamers by the end of this year. The social gaming population is expected to grow to 73 million by 2013. Virtual goods transactions are expected to remain the leading source of revenue for social game developers. In another report by In-Stat, the worldwide market for virtual goods is projected to grow to $15 billion in 2014 from $9 billion in 2011. The recently listed social games developer, Zynga (Nasdaq:ZNGA), will benefit from this growth.

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Athenahealth Growing On All Fronts

According to researcher Millenium Research Group, EHR software market will grow 12% annually over the years through 2016 to $8.3 billion. An IDC report titled IDC MarketScape: U.S. Ambulatory EMR/EHR for Midsize and Large Practices 2011 Vendor Assessment claims that the ambulatory EHR market will see significant growth over the next few years, with adoption rates rising from 25% in 2009 to more than 80% by 2016. A survey commissioned by the Optum Institute for Sustainable Health on 10 hospitals found that 70% of the hospitals claimed to have their systems attested to meaningful use stage 1 criteria already, and 75% of them expected to reach stage 2 by 2014. The continued growth in investment and adoption of EHR systems is helping drive performance for leading provider, Athenahealth.

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Online Real Estate Sector Improving

Analysts believe that the housing market may have finally bottomed out last year. According to real estate research firms, 2011 home prices fell 2.1% over the year. Researchers believe that during the current year, the housing market will see growth of 0.2% across all markets. Another report estimates growth to continue into 2013, when home prices will grow 3% through 2016. With unemployment finally dropping and the economy picking up, home shopping may soon be on the rise again.

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Robust Results From Genpact, Cognizant

According to a recent report by Gartner on global IT spending, worldwide IT spending is projected to grow 3.7% in 2012 to $3.8 trillion. Earlier estimates had pegged the year’s growth at 4.6%. Revenues from IT services are expected to grow at a comparatively slower pace of 3.1% to $874 billion. Gartner expects the Eurozone crisis to impact technology spend. Despite these worrisome predictions, IT services outsourcers are continuing to surpass market expectations.

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LinkedIn Executing Steadily

According to a recent report, Talent Acquisition Factbook 2011: Benchmarks and Trends of Spending, Staffing and Key Talent Metrics, worldwide spending on recruiting software, services, staff, content, and consulting is estimated to be over $130 billion.  The improving U.S. job market will also help spur growth in recruiting. Recently listed LinkedIn is working hard to be the leader in this market.

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Groupon After IPO

According to Daily Deal Media, the daily deals market has become volatile. The report reveals that worldwide, nearly 800 daily deal sites shut down in the second half of 2011. The total included 1,348 sites in Asia alone. But there was growth in the European and Latin American markets, where there were 235 and 324 new deals sites, respectively. Analysts believe that the shutting down of sites is more an indicator of bigger players like Groupon taking out competition and not of a shrinking market opportunity.

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Nokia Pins Hopes On Lumia

In April 2011, Nokia (NYSE:NOK) entered into an agreement with Microsoft to adopt the Microsoft Windows Phone platform. They released their Lumia range of phones, their first phones based on the Windows operating system, in November 2011. In their recent financial results they reported sales of more than one million Lumia phones, exceeding analyst estimates. Let’s take a closer look.

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ADP, Paychex Benefiting From Job Growth

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total nonfarm payroll employment in the country grew by 243,000 jobs last month as the unemployment rate fell to 8.3%. Job growth was widespread across the private sector, specifically in leisure and hospitality, and manufacturing. The numbers spell good news for payroll processing firms, which managed to beat market expectations in the recent quarter results and are expected to perform better in the coming quarters.

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Hulu Growing Fast, Needs More Content

According to a study by media agency, OMD, 80% of the online population in the U.S. streams video regularly. The study conducted on 1,600 respondents who streamed videos regularly showed that 24% of those studied had cancelled their cable subscriptions. While the study did not specify reasons for cancellation, analysts believe that cable’s services were replaced by online video streaming services such as those of Hulu and Netflix. Another study by Nielsen also showed that over the past three years, the number of unique visitors to online video services has grown 26% and the time spent by them on online streaming has doubled. Online video streaming provider Hulu has also seen strong growth.

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Amazon And India’s $200 Billion E-Commerce Market

According to a recently released Forrester report, U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2010 to 2015, online retail sales in the U.S. grew 13% in 2010 to $176.2 billion. Online retail sales are expected to grow at a rate of 10% annually over 2010–2015 to reach $278.9 billion. Within the U.S., e-commerce accounts for 8% of total retail sales. Excluding grocery sales, e-commerce accounts for 11% of total retail sales in the country, and that number is expected to grow to 15% by the year 2015. Online retailer Amazon.com is obviously benefiting from this growth.

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