For The First Time, Facebook’s 680M Mobile DAUs Surpassed Desktop DAUs — Zuck Says It’s Now A “Mobile Company”
Today is Q4 earnings day for Facebook, and we’ve learned some really interesting things about the growth of the social network. Surprisingly to some, mobile DAUs have exceeded those on the web, for the first time in the company’s history. We knew that Facebook was focused on growing its network leveraging mobile devices and platforms, but it’s impressive to see this usage increase in such a way so quickly. To those who have been following Facebook closely, the shift to mobile has been apparent. More and more, people are checking their Facebook messages on their mobile device and skipping the desktop version completely. This is a behavioral shift in users that Facebook is riding along with, and it’s smart. Here’s a quick look at the overall DAUs for Q4: Overall MAUs were at 1.06B, up from 1.01B in Q3. Here’s a look at the data from the the quarter: When the release hit the wires today, it came with a statement from Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg: In 2012, we connected over a billion people and became a mobile company. We enter 2013 with good momentum and will continue to invest to achieve our mission and become a stronger, more valuable company. As far as making money, mobile accounted for 23% of advertising revenue, which is up from 14% of advertising revenue in Q3 of of 2012. Back in September at TechCrunch Disrupt, Zuckerberg projected that one day, Facebook would make more revenue from mobile users. That’s not the case as of yet, but the shift is in full swing. At the time, he said: We’re going to execute this mission to make the world connected and build value over the long-term. The bigger question that will define how we’ve done is how we do with mobile. Facebook stock declined 7% in after-hours trading even though its revenue rose 40% To $1.59B for Q4 2012. Since the release, it’s popping back up a bit. During the earnings call, Zuckerberg discussed the power of mobile: It allows us to reach more people, there is more engagement from those people, and we’ll be able to make more money from those users. Mobile creates a more dynamic ecosystem. He also discussed Facebook’s new approach to build mobile-first applications and features. This is something that everyone has been waiting to hear from Facebook, as the company has been trying some new things, but
Some closure on the story of how 
Back in September, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a contest that aimed to challenge entrepreneurs and app developers to build awesome, innovative education apps on Facebook’s platform. The so-called 
Yesterday 
Vine, Twitter’s latest foray into video sharing, seems to be having some service issues at the moment. We’ve been trying to access and use the app here at TechCrunch with no progress, and Vine has tweeted to confirm the service issues. Vine launched last Thursday and has had a whirlwind of a week. Though relatively buggy for an app launched by a major company like Twitter, Vine was welcomed by the tech blogosphere as the next Instagram, as it lets you share six-second looping videos (with or without sound) to all your favorite social networks. However, the fun ended quickly as users noticed a slight porn problem on the app. A porn clip called “DildoPlay”, which showed up on the app’s Editors’ Picks section on Monday, made matters even worse. Twitter claims that the clip was chosen because of “human error.” Then, Apple removed Vine from the App Store’s Featured section, presumably after seeing that a porn clip had been featured within the app. Vine has since started censoring the app, filtering out searches for various porn-related search terms. Today, the string of obstacles gets a bit longer with the reported service outage. Vine is experiencing a temporary service interruption. Thanks for your patience. — Vine (@vineapp) January 29, 2013 Is everyone looking for the newly-hidden pr0n on Vine all at once, because the service appears to be down. — Eric Zeman (@phonescooper) January 29, 2013 We’ll be sure to update the post as soon as Vine is back up and running. Stay tuned. Update: It looks like service is back up for a few users, but Twitter has not confirmed that we’re at full stability yet.
Facebook yesterday 
Considering the long-standing struggles of Yahoo as a business, its board of directors battles, and Scott Thompson’s 
Kabam, a midcore game developer that staged a stunning new chapter on mobile platforms, is out bragging about its expected revenues for the coming year. The company said it ended 2012 with gross revenue of $180 million, up 70 percent from the year before. Gross revenue is bookings, so it doesn’t account for the 30 percent platform cut that a provider like Apple, Google or Facebook would take. Kabam didn’t reveal its margins, except to say that the company was profitable (which I honestly hope should be the case for any mature freemium gaming company). Kabam was a pioneer in midcore freemium gaming on Facebook. Unlike Zynga, they didn’t focus on reaching the largest audience possible or the stereotypical 35-year-old female casual gamer. Instead, they cultivated a smaller player base (usually more male) that spent more on average to play. As Facebook became a more challenging environment, they pivoted to mobile like many other game developers did. That mobile business, which includes extensions of their Kingdoms of Camelot franchise, is now a more-than $100 million business. Another tidbit the company shared was that it was valued at at least $500 million during a May 2011 round of funding that raised $75 million for the company. It also said the recent strategic investment from Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. was secondary, with the investors purchasing shares from earlier investors. On top of that, it says it has $45 million in cash in the bank. So why reveal all this? Kabam says it’s to “establish who’s leading.” But we occasionally see companies do this from time to time as positioning ahead of a sale or additional investment. Seattle’s PopCap actively talked about a potential IPO for months before EA turned around and bought the company for up to $1.3 billion including earnouts. The thing is that Kabam has raised at least $125 million. That’s substantially more than what other midcore developers like Kixeye, which has $19 million in funding, have raised. That just means the bar for an exit, whether that’s through a sale or through a public offering, is much higher. Kabam has mentioned an IPO in the past as a possibility, depending on what’s right for the company. But given how Zynga performed through 2012, it would be hard to imagine that public market investors have the appetite for another freemium gaming IPO. Zynga is valued at
