Revenue Sharing A Good Strategy For Zillow

The real estate market in the U.S. does not seem to be on the verge of any recovery. In a survey conducted by Trulia and RealtyTrac.com of 2,018 homeowners across the country in April of this year, 54% of the surveyed population believes that the housing market recovery will take another two and a half years. The sentiment is reflected in declining home prices, which fell 3% sequentially last quarter, the largest quarterly drop since Q4 2008.  The National Association of Realtors also reported that existing home sales fell 0.8% over the previous month to 5.09 million in April, and the U.S. Department of Commerce reported that new home starts fell 10.6% from March to April. But that has not stopped online real estate portal Zillow.com from filing for an IPO listing scheduled to raise $51.75 million later this year.

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Lack Of New Model Drags On iPhone Sales At Verizon

There were high expectations from the Verizon iPhone, awaited with great eagerness. Though it did lead to strong first quarter results for Verizon, the phone’s release on Verizon hasn’t affected AT&T as much as it was expected to. AT&T sold 3.6 million iPhones, up by a million, with iPhone churn unchanged, while Verizon sold 2.2 million iPhones. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

LivingSocial Monetizing Splendidly

Earlier this month, Groupon’s IPO news was accompanied by market’s revised valuation assessments pegging the company to be worth $30 billion. I believe that their highly unprofitable performance may bring their valuations down to more realistic levels. But, one cannot deny the strength of their business model that has helped them to achieve such fast-paced revenue growth. And it is not just Groupon. Their model of revenue sharing with merchants has also been successfully adapted by their competitor LivingSocial, which too now boasts significantly higher revenues.

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For-Profit Education Sector Taking Huge Hit

The for-profit educational sector continued to face tighter scrutiny amid high student loan default rates, high interest rates, big debts, and accusations of “deceptive marketing practices.” Recently, the Department of Education (DoE) announced its final interpretation of the rule of gainful employment, which were less severe than anticipated. The new rules are aimed at protecting both students and taxpayers by regulating the federal aid provided to for-profit colleges. The DoE estimates that students at for-profit institutions account for 12% of all higher education students yet contribute to 26% of all student loans and 46% of all student loan dollars in default. According to the new rules, for schools to qualify for federal student aid, they have to ensure a minimum of 35% of their students repay loans and that loan payments constitute up to 30% of the former student’s discretionary income or 12% of their annual income. The DoE expects 18% of for-profit schools’ programs to fail this litmus test at some point, and 5% of programs to lose eligibility under the new law. The stricter rules have already translated to stringent enrolment norms being incorporated by for-profit schools. As enrollment figures tighten, some schools’ financial performance has also wavered.

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Twitter Sharpens Focus On Monetization

A lot has been happening with the best-known microblogging service, Twitter, of late. There was speculation that the company was going to be a $8 billion to $10 billion acquisition target for Google and Facebook early this year. That hasn’t happened, but Twitter has been busy acquiring third party Twitter application TweetDeck and advertising company AdGrok. And that is not all – Apple has decided to integrate Twitter deeply into iOS5 when it releases the operating system later this fall.

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Samsung, Motorola On Android Worried About iCloud

Samsung this week unveiled its Galaxy S II Android phone, while Apple announced its iCloud service that provides free online storage for apps, books, and media files for iOS devices. The iCloud integrates all the storage needs for devices in the iOS ecosystem, while Google has different services to cover them.

While Samsung may benefit in the short term with the delay in the iPhone 5, the new iCloud service is a googly that it needs to deal with. Another problem both Samsung and Motorola need to deal with is the crowded Android market and the need for a differentiating factor. Both Samsung and Motorola had both done well with their Android-based smartphones. While Samsung is almost closing its gap with Nokia, Motorola has managed a turnaround. However, as the market is getting crowded with Android smartphones, what will be their differentiating strategy? Let’s take a closer look. >>>

ERII Holds On; Long-Term Hold

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that nearly 1.1 billion people lack access to safe water, and 2.6 billon people lack access to basic sanitation. Given below is a map of water stress present in the world today as published by the worldwatercouncil.org. >>>

Athenahealth, Healthcare IT Sector Show Strong Growth

According to a report released earlier this year, the U.S. Electronic Health and Medical Records 2009-2015 – Meaningful Use Spending Forecast and Analysis, by IDC Health Insights the electronic health record (EHR) market was estimated to be worth $1.98 billion in 2009. These projections cover software license and maintenance costs for products that meet meaningful use certification criteria. The market is projected to grow to $3.8 billion by the year 2015, translating to a growth rate of 11.5% annually. The report estimates the ambulatory electronic records software spending by providers to grow to $1.41 billion by 2015 from $0.64 billion in 2009. The inpatient EHR software market is projected to grow to $2.4 billion by 2015 from $1.34 billion in 2009. Recently announced results by athenahealth reflected such positive sentiment.

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