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After the market closed today, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) reported results for the quarter ended March 31, 2012.

Revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs was $1 Billion for the first quarter of 2012, a 1% increase from the first quarter of 2011.

Income from operations decreased 11 % to $169 million in the first quarter of 2012, compared to $190 million in the first quarter of 2011.

Net earnings per diluted share increased 38% to $0.23 in the first quarter of 2012, compared to $0.17 in the first quarter of 2011.

First Quarter 2012 Revenue Highlights

• Display revenue ex-TAC was $454 million, a 4 percent decrease compared to $471 million for the first quarter of 2011.
• GAAP display revenue was $511 million, a 2 percent decrease compared to $523 million for the first quarter of 2011.
• Search revenue ex-TAC was $384 million, an 8 percent increase compared to $357 million for the first quarter of 2011.
• GAAP search revenue was $470 million, a 3 percent increase compared to $455 million for the first quarter of 2011.

Cash Flow and Cash Balance

• Cash flow from operating activities for the first quarter of 2012 was $297 million, a 45 percent increase compared to $206 million for the same period of 2011.
• Free cash flow was $196 million for the first quarter of 2012, a 247 percent increase compared to $56 million for the same period of 2011.
• Cash, cash equivalents, and investments in marketable debt securities were $2,652 million at March 31, 2012 compared to $2,530 million at December 31, 2011, an increase of $122 million.
• During the first quarter of 2012, Yahoo! repurchased 5 million shares for $71 million.
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Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2012 after the market closed today

Google reported revenues of $10.65 billion for the quarter and Google ended the Quarter with $50 Billion in the Bank.

Q1 Financial Summary

Google reported revenues of $10.65 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2012, an increase of 24% compared to the first quarter of 2011.

Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs (TAC). In the first quarter of 2012, TAC totaled $2.51 billion, or 25% of advertising revenues.

Google reports operating income, operating margin, net income, and earnings per share (EPS) on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP measures, as well as free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, are described below and are reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measures at the end of this release.

• GAAP operating income in the first quarter of 2012 was $3.39 billion, or 32% of revenues. This compares to GAAP operating income of $2.30 billion, or 27% of revenues, in the first quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP operating income in the first quarter of 2012 was $3.94 billion, or 37% of revenues. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $3.23 billion, or 38% of revenues, in the first quarter of 2011.
• GAAP net income in the first quarter of 2012 was $2.89 billion, compared to $1.80 billion in the first quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP net income in the first quarter of 2012 was $3.33 billion, compared to $2.64 billion in the first quarter of 2011.
• GAAP EPS in the first quarter of 2012 was $8.75 on 330 million diluted shares outstanding, compared to $5.51 in the first quarter of 2011 on 326 million diluted shares outstanding. Non-GAAP EPS in the first quarter of 2012 was $10.08, compared to $8.08 in the first quarter of 2011.
• Non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP operating margin exclude the expenses related to stock-based compensation (SBC) and a charge related to the resolution of a Department of Justice investigation in the first quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS exclude the expenses noted above, net of the related tax benefits. In the first quarter of 2012, the charge related to SBC and related tax benefits were $556 million and $118 million compared to $432 million and $92 million in the first quarter of 2011. In the first quarter of 2011, the charge related to the resolution of the Department of Justice investigation was $500 million.
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According to AllthingsD.com, “Yahoo’s CEO Scott Thompson is preparing a massive restructuring of the company, including layoffs that are likely to number in the thousands.”

The report goes on to say the changes and layoff will be announced by the end of March.

“Also among those being considered for targeting: Public relations and marketing, research, marginal businesses and weaker regional efforts.”

“Some parts will be cut away, leaving resources to go to better efforts,” said one person close to the situation, who noted specific announcements could take longer than this month. “But this has to be a true change to get this company back on track.”

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Grandparents.com, Inc., has become a public company.

The domain was acquired by the owners in 2010.

According to a Press Release today, “the company formerly known as NorWesTech, Inc. (OTCBB: NWTH), a Delaware corporation (the “Company”), announced today that it completed a reverse acquisition transaction with Grandparents.com, LLC (“GP”) in which GP contributed substantially all of its assets to the Company in exchange for which the Company assumed certain liabilities of GP and issued one share of the Company’s newly designated Series A convertible preferred stock and a warrant to purchase shares of the Company’s common stock to GP.”

“An 8-K describing the transaction is available for review on the SEC website: http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1020475/000114420412011188/0001144204-12-011188-index.htm.”

“As a result of the transaction, the Company now owns and operates www.grandparents.com and owns all of the related trademarks and intellectual property.”

“In addition, GP now holds a controlling interest in the Company.”

“Pending the issuance of a new trading symbol, the Company’s common stock will continue to trade under its existing symbol, NWTH.OB.”

“Grandparents.com’s core mission is “enhancing relationships between the generations and enriching the lifestyle of grandparents and the age 50+ community.” The website primarily targets the 70 million grandparents in the United States and also the 50 million “boomers” and seniors that are not grandparents.  ”

“Members of the website have access to a range of features including groups, discussions, blogs, and features the Grandparents.com Benefits Club, which was launched in January 2011 through which over 200 marketing partners offer discounts and other benefits to website members on a variety of products and services, including financial, insurance and other products. :

“The website also features other stores, including the Grandparents.com Book Shop, which was launched in the fourth quarter of 2011 with over one million titles, including eBooks.”

“The Company, now headquartered in New York, New York, will continue to operate and develop the grandparents.com website under a management team that acquired the website from its founders in mid-2010.”

“The management team includes executive officers who served in similar capacities for GP, including one of the world’s most renowned artist managers, Steve Leber, Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer, NY real estate developer Joseph Bernstein as Co- Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and Jeffrey Mahl, a veteran of Internet ventures, including as Sr. V.P. at ESPN, Inc., as President and Chief Operating Officer.  A new five-member board of directors brings significant qualifications to the Company, and includes three present members of GP’s board of managers and two additional directors.…

Google just published on its blog,  40 changes to search quality

“This month we have many improvements to celebrate. With 40 changes reported, that marks a new record for our monthly series on search quality. Most of the updates rolled out earlier this month, and a handful are actually rolling out today and tomorrow. We continue to improve many of our systems, including related searches, sitelinks, autocomplete, UI elements, indexing, synonyms, SafeSearch and more. Each individual change is subtle and important, and over time they add up to a radically improved search engine.

Here’s the list for February:

• More coverage for related searches. [launch codename “Fuzhou”] This launch brings in a new data source to help generate the “Searches related to” section, increasing coverage significantly so the feature will appear for more queries. This section contains search queries that can help you refine what you’re searching for.
• Tweak to categorizer for expanded sitelinks. [launch codename “Snippy”, project codename “Megasitelinks”] This improvement adjusts a signal we use to try and identify duplicate snippets. We were applying a categorizer that wasn’t performing well for our expanded sitelinks, so we’ve stopped applying the categorizer in those cases. The result is more relevant sitelinks.
• Less duplication in expanded sitelinks. [launch codename “thanksgiving”, project codename “Megasitelinks”] We’ve adjusted signals to reduce duplication in the snippets for expanded sitelinks. Now we generate relevant snippets based more on the page content and less on the query.
• More consistent thumbnail sizes on results page. We’ve adjusted the thumbnail size for most image content appearing on the results page, providing a more consistent experience across result types, and also across mobile and tablet. The new sizes apply to rich snippet results for recipes and applications, movie posters, shopping results, book results, news results and more.
• More locally relevant predictions in YouTube. [project codename “Suggest”] We’ve improved the ranking for predictions in YouTube to provide more locally relevant queries. For example, for the query [lady gaga in ] performed on the US version of YouTube, we might predict [lady gaga in times square], but for the same search performed on the Indian version of YouTube, we might predict [lady gaga in India].
• More accurate detection of official pages. [launch codename “WRE”] We’ve made an adjustment to how we detect official pages to make more accurate identifications. The result is that many pages that were previously misidentified as official will no longer be.

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As part of Demand Media’s earning report, it appears Demand Media has plans for applying for a number of new gTLD’s.

In the section of the earnings report “looking forward” to 2012 to serve as guidance to investors of the company’s Demand states:

“”Excluding up to $5 million of 2012 operating expenses, which the Company expects to incur related to its generic Top Level Domain (“gTLD”) initiative”

Demand Media did not address its $5 Million dollars anticipated investment in the new gTLD’s its conference call which followed the earnings report.

At roughly $200K per application it could mean the Demand is planning on applying for some 25 new gTLD strings.

Interestingly at least two former execs of Demand that received restricted shares in Demand and may well still be shareholders, formed another company,  Donuts, which according to reports is planning on applying for 10 new gTLD extensions.

It’s possible that Demand and Donuts may wind up applying for one or more of the same gTLD extension which could lead to a bidding war in an auction between Demand and shareholders of Demand.

Its also should be noted that the stock market loved Demand Earnings report sending the stock up 30% in trading on Friday.…

Marchex, Inc. (NASDAQ:MCHX) reported its results for the quarter ended December 31, 2011, on Thursday after the market closed.

Shares of March fell over 5% on Friday following the earnings report to close at $4.80 a share, giving the company a lower market cap, once again, than the $165 million dollar purchase of the domain name portfolio of Yung Yee.

According to the earnings report Marchex sold during the fourth quarter, $2.3 million in  domain names and sold $9.4 million for 2011

Here are the results:

Fourth Quarter 2011 Consolidated Financial Results:

• Revenue was $39.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to $28.0 million for the same period of 2010.

• GAAP net income applicable to common stockholders was $920,000 for the fourth quarter of 2011 or $0.03 per diluted share. This compares to GAAP net income applicable to common stockholders of $593,000 or $0.02 per diluted share for the same period of 2010. The fourth quarter 2011 results included non-cash stock-based compensation expense of $3.7 million, compared to non-cash stock-based compensation expense of $2.9 million for the same period in 2010.

• We provide a reconciliation of GAAP diluted EPS to Adjusted Non-GAAP EPS in the financial tables attached to this press release and we encourage investors to examine the reconciling adjustments between the GAAP and non-GAAP measures. Adjusted non-GAAP EPS for fourth quarter 2011 was $0.08, compared to $0.04 for the same period in 2010.

• Adjusted operating income before amortization was $5.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to $2.3 million for the same period of 2010. A reconciliation of non-GAAP adjusted operating income before amortization to GAAP operating income is included in the financial tables attached to this release.

• Adjusted EBITDA was $6.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to $3.4 million for the same period of 2010. A reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to GAAP net cash provided by operating activities is included in the financial tables attached to this release.

Full Year 2011 Consolidated Financial Results

• Revenue for the year ended December 31, 2011 was $146.7 million, compared to $97.6 million in 2010.
• GAAP net income applicable to common stockholders was $2.7 million or $0.08 per diluted share for 2011. This compares to GAAP net loss applicable to common stockholders of $3.2 million or $0.10 per diluted share in 2010.
• As discussed in the summary of the fourth quarter 2011 consolidated financial results, a reconciliation is provided of GAAP diluted EPS to Adjusted Non-GAAP EPS in the financial tables attached to this press release and we encourage investors to examine the reconciling adjustments between the GAAP and non-GAAP measures.
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Web.com Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:WWWW), announced results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2011 yesterday after the market closed.

Web.com owns Register.com and purchased NetworkSolutions.com last year.

Shares rose over 2% in aftermarket trading last night after the earnings were announced

Summary of Fourth Quarter 2011 Financial Results:

• Total revenue, calculated in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), was $73.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to $37.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. Non-GAAP revenue, which adds back the impact of the fair value adjustment to acquired deferred revenue, was $96.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, above the company’s guidance range of $93.0 million to $95.0 million.
• Operating loss, calculated in accordance with GAAP, was $32.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2011 and included a $23.4 million negative impact related to the fair value adjustment to acquired deferred revenue and prepaid registry fees, and $17.0 million of restructuring charges and corporate development expenses. For the fourth quarter of 2010, the company reported a GAAP operating loss of $4.4 million which included a $7.6 million negative impact from the fair value adjustment to acquired deferred revenue and prepaid registry fees.
• GAAP net income from continuing operations was $3.6 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2011, and included the above mentioned impact related to the fair value adjustment to acquired deferred revenue and prepaid registry fees, restructuring charges and corporate development expenses, and an income tax benefit of $53.7 million. GAAP net loss from continuing operations was $16.1 million, or $0.63 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2010.
• Non-GAAP operating income was $23.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to $8.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2010 and representing a record non-GAAP operating margin of 24%.
• Non-GAAP net income from continuing operations was $12.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, or $0.28 per diluted share, above the company’s guidance of $0.22 to $0.24 per diluted share. The Company had non-GAAP net income of $6.6 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2010.
• Adjusted EBITDA was $24.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to $9.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2010 and representing a record 26% adjusted EBITDA margin.
• The Company generated cash from operations of $4.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2011 and $13.4 million excluding the pay down of accrued restructuring expenses and certain expenses associated with the Network Solutions acquisition.
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Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) reported its earnings for the 4th quarter of 2011 after the market closed today.

Shares of Demand are up over 2% in after hours trading, but fell almost 5% in trading today.

• Q4 2011 Content & Media revenue ex-TAC grew 15% year-over-year and increased 5% compared to the third quarter of 2011. The 5% sequential improvement represented the second consecutive quarter of accelerating sequential growth and included the return to sequential growth for eHow for the first time since the first quarter of 2011.

• Q4 2011 Registrar revenue grew 17% year-over-year and 2% compared to the third quarter of 2011. During the fourth quarter of 2011, the number of registered domains grew by a net 482,000 compared to 404,000 in the fourth quarter of 2010, due to growth from new partners and organic growth from resellers.

• Q4 2011 and year ended December 31, 2011 loss from operations and net loss include $5.9 million of accelerated non-cash amortization expense associated with content intangible assets removed from service in conjunction with the Company’s previously announced plan to improve its content creation and distribution platform.

• Q4 2011 free cash flow grew more than fivefold year-over-year to $18.3 million. The increase was driven by a 30% increase in cash flow from operations, combined with a 13% decrease in capital expenditures and a 59% reduction of investment in intangible assets. The intangible assets investment decline was a result of decreased content spend on eHow as the Company changes its content and distribution platform.

• At December 31, 2011, cash & cash equivalents balance was $86.0 million.

“Demand Media’s record 2011 financial performance, while navigating early year search algorithm challenges, underscores the strength of our complementary advertising and subscription businesses,” said Demand Media’s President and CFO Charles Hilliard. “Importantly, our fourth quarter results delivered both growth and significant free cash flow, reflecting the value of our long-lived content library as well as our disciplined investment approach.”

Business Highlights:

• Demand Media ranked as a top 20 US web propertythroughout 2011, and ranked #17 in January 2012¹.

• Demand Media recently launched the first two major channels in its partnership with YouTube: eHow Home and LIVESTRONG Woman.

• eHow.com ranked as the #19 website in the US, with 48.2 million unique users in the US in January 2012¹.

• LIVESTRONG.COM/eHow Health ranked as the #3 Health property in the US based on unique visits in January 2012¹.
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According to a Press Release today Cyberplex Inc. (TSX:CX),  subsidiary, Tsavo Media  will have to repay  Yahoo! approximately $4.8 million over a reasonable time period” for sending low quality traffic to Yahoo advertisers.

“Yahoo! is retroactively charging Tsavo for what Yahoo! is now saying was actually low quality traffic, ranging back over many months during 2011.”

“While the Company and Yahoo! remain in discussions on this issue, the Company now expects that Yahoo! will enforce its decision to charge back this amount citing its right to do so pursuant to the terms of Tsavo Media’s agreement with Yahoo!.”

“Cyberplex also announced today that its President, Ted Hastings, has provided his resignation.”

According to TechCrunch.com, Tsavo Media  operates a network of roughly 300 websites and blogs which generated the traffic.

“‘The company’s network of Internet publications includes crappy websites like LumaGardening.com, ThinkFashion, TechSerious, WealthyGeek, Twirlit, DiscoverFame and KidGlue.”"…