Facebook earnings preview: changes to ads, payments, gifts and other revenue streams in Q1 + MORE

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on today’s first quarter earnings call that mobile app install ads were “one of most important new ad products” the company offers.
COO Sheryl Sandberg pointed out that 3,800 developers used the product to drive a total of 25 million app downloads in the App Store and Google Play…

Facebook plans to announce its 2013 first quarter earnings tomorrow after the stock market closes.
Analysts expect earnings of 13 cents per share on revenue of $1.44 billion during the period of Jan. 1 to March 31. In Q4 2012, which included the holiday season, Facebook had earnings of 17 cents per share on revenue of $1…

Facebook says that there are no plans for now to add advertising to Instagram, even though advertisers are approaching them, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said today during the company’s Q1 earnings call. But adding ads could end up stunting Instagram’s rapid growth. He said, more than once during the call, that Instagram is currently growing at a faster rate than FB did at the same age, and it now has 100 million users…

Bang With Friends, the service for lusty Facebook users, is going mobile. It raised $1 million this week to help you get more friends with benefits. The influx of cash will be focused on helping you see, from the comfort of your phone, just which friends you might want to hook up with
The site’s co-founder, who goes by C, revealed a little in an email exchange with Mashable, but still kept answers as murky as usual…

Facebook has shared user growth statistics for the first quarter of the 2013 fiscal year during the company’s earnings call today. The social network reported continuing growth, reaching 1.11 billion monthly active users for the quarter. It also reported 751 million mobile monthly active users, a continued increase from 680 million last quarter and 604 million the quarter before…

So you’ve accumulated a ton of Twitter followers for your brand – now what?
You need some actionable intel on them to make “social” work the way it’s meant to: With an eerie targeting ability that helps you sell your products and services to people based on who they are and what they like…

Although it’s the newest social tool to hit the industry, Vine has already made quite the name for itself among marketers and consumers alike. We have a feeling that this week’s update will only help to increase its popularity with content creators.
Yesterday Vine updated its app with two important features: front-facing support and mentions…

It looks like Facebook’s huge mobile risk is turning into a huge mobile opportunity.
The social network reported astounding mobile growth today, with 750 million monthly active users on mobile devices (a 54 percent increase from last year). That’s a significant chunk of the 1.1 billion monthly users Facebook saw during the quarter…

Yahoo continues its buying spree, announcing today that it had acquired Astrid, a Web- and mobile-based productivity app.
Astrid’s products will cease operations in 90 days. Premium subscribers will received refunds for the unused portions of the subscriptions.
Astrid is based in San Francisco and its staff consists heavily of Stanford alumni…

Not so fast, New York City. It appears that the implementation of the city’s e-hail app pilot program has been blocked, at least temporarily. Bloomberg is reporting that New York’s livery car groups have succeeded in preventing the city from testing out a new plan to allow people to hail and pay for a ride in one of the city’s taxi cabs using a service like Uber…

Facebook today reported $1.458 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2013 ended Marc 31 — an increase of 38 percent, compared with $1.06 billion in the first quarter of 2012. Earnings per share were $0.12, basically flat compared to Q1 2012.
Analysts were expecting 13 cents per share on revenue of $1…