Facebook: Video Apps Ge...

Facebook today revealed statistics from a variety of video apps that have integrated with the new Timeline interface through the Open Graph API. According to the performance numbers out of the likes of VEVO, Viddy, and DailyMotion, video apps are getting tons of traction from integrating with Facebook’s newest look and feel. Some highlights from Facebook’s blog post on video app growth on Timeline: Video sharing iPhone app Viddy has doubled its average daily sign-ups since launching its Timeline app in February. Most impressively, its monthly active users have boomed from 60,000 to more than 920,000. We’re hearing separately that at the moment, fully 90 percent of new Viddy users sign up for the app through Facebook. VEVO has seen “exponential growth” since it deepened its Facebook integration across its web and mobile apps. Fully 60 percent of its traffic now comes from Timeline posts on Facebook. The company has seen its daily user registrations grow by 200 percent since turning on Facebook-only registration. Izlesene , a Turkish video site, has seen its monthly active users grow to 6.5 million from 250,000 since it made its debut on Timeline in September 2011. Social video site Dailymotion has had more than 9 million people add their app to their Facebook Timelines in the past two months alone. The popularity of online videos often grows “virally,” passing from person to person, so it makes sense that a massively popular social network like Facebook would be a boon to services that host videos. It really is just the beginning when it comes to seeing how well video can do in this format — Ustream and Magisto, for example, just launched their own respective Facebook Timeline integrations this week. It’ll be exciting to see how the numbers progress in the weeks and months ahead, and if the engagement grows or wanes as more services become available on the platform.

Groupon’s Profit In 201...

Daily deals site Groupon today issued a pretty significant revision of the financial results it previously reported for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2011. According to the company, it actually made $14.3 million less in revenue during the fourth quarter of 2011 than it previously reported — $492.2 million, compared to the previously stated $506.5 million. It also spent more in operating expenses than it previously said it did — resulting in its Q4 operating income and net income being $30 million and $22.6 million less, respectively, than the company initially said it was. How did this mixup occur? Groupon said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the revisions “are primarily related to an increase to the Company’s refund reserve accrual to reflect a shift in the Company’s fourth quarter deal mix and higher price point offers, which have higher refund rates.” (Full disclosure: I’m not sure what that means.) Not surprisingly, Wall Street was none too happy about the news. Groupon issued the revision on Friday afternoon after trading stopped for the week, but at the moment (2:45 PM Pacific Time) the company’s stock price is down 6.4 percent in after-hours trading. The company’s stock price as of market close today was $18.38, which was already well below the $20 share price of its initial public offering back in October. Groupon’s accounting practices have raised many eyebrows in the tech and business worlds, particularly in the run-up to its stock market debut last fall, so this is not a completely unexpected situation. Going forward, though, the company vows that it has its financial house in order. Groupon’s CFO Jason Child said in a press release today: “We remain confident in the fundamentals of our business, as our performance continues to highlight the value that we provide to customers and merchants.”

Pontiflex Launches Self...

Pontiflex , a company focused on what it calls “mobile signup” ads, is reaching out to smaller advertisers today with the launch of AdLeads , its self-serve platform. Co-founder and CEO Zephrin Lasker says this has always been one of his goals for the company, ever since it launched five years ago — to allow any business, regardless of size, to pay for marketing leads collected via Pontiflex ads (advertisers only pay when someone actually enters their contact information into a sign-up form). With the growing importance of mobile, Lasker says this is “the next big step” beyond Google AdWords for many small businesses. “We’re on our phones all the time,” he says. “They might as well be taped to our foreheads. Anybody from a small business owner to a media planner can tell that everybody’s attention has shifted.” Lasker also walked me through the process of creating and managing a campaign in Pontiflex. The whole process of creating an ad, creating the form, and targeting an ads based on geography and topic only took a few minute, then you can track the performance of the ads in real-time. Behind the scenes, he says Pontiflex has developed its own set of audience for targeting the audience that will be the most responsive to an ad. The minimum campaign size is $100, and you can currently place self-serve ads in nine countries. More than 300 businesses participated in the AdLeads beta test. Pontiflex is planning an ad campaign to promote the new platform, with some “secret” promotional efforts in the works, but Lasker says he’s hoping the biggest growth will come from word-of-mouth.

Angry Birds’ Maker Rovi...

Rovio has made a killing out of its Angry Birds franchise, and today it announced a deal that points to how the mobile games maker is hard at work developing what could well be the follow up to that: today it announced that it has bought Futuremark Games Studio, the gaming arm of software developer Futuremark. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The team behind Futuremark Games Studio, also based in Finland like Rovio, are all coming over in the deal. Games that the developer has made include Unstoppable Gorg and Hungribles , as well as Shattered Horizon — which, like Angry Birds Space, plays with the zero gravity concept. The deal signifies a couple of things. First, Rovio is making some definitive moves to enhance its developer expertise in cutting-edge mobile games. Just as Angry Birds Space, released last week, is now using a new physics engine for the gameplay, so, too, does this point to the company looking for the latest innovations. “They are an incredibly talented and experienced team, and we are thrilled to have them on board,” said Mikael Hed, Rovio Entertainment’s CEO said in a release . “Rovio’s success is founded on the excellence of our team, and Futuremark Games Studio is going to be a superb addition.” Second, it shows that there is some consolidation underway in mobile gaming at the moment, with smaller studios getting picked up by bigger players. That’s something that Bart Decrem , VP of mobile games at Disney, also talked about with TechCrunch the other week. (Decrem implied that Disney was looking for specific hires rather than acquiring studios — although with this move from Rovio, who knows what might happen next.) This is Rovio’s second acquisition in the last year. The company also bought Kombo Animation Studio last summer for an undisclosed amount. Futuremark’s CEO Jukka Makinen says that the remaining company will continue to focus on benchmarking software, used by the gaming industry to test and improve the performance of their games. “Future will now focus on supporting gamers and industry with 3DMark,” he said in a statement. The company is planning to release a new version of the software later this year that will let developers test across different platforms and form factors.

Boutique Fitness Schedu...

If you live in a big city, you’ve probably got a lot of fitness options outside the traditional gym — everything from boot camps to cycling classes to Yoga studios. Now a startup called FITiST wants to help you navigate that world, creating plans and scheduling classes across multiple boutique fitness studios. FITist has already launched in New York City and Los Angeles, and today it announced that it’s one of the first two startups to join WellTech , a New York-based incubator for health and wellness startups. After you join FITiST, you can choose from a number of plans, which are essentially different class packages targeted to help accomplish different fitness goals — they’re created by an editorial board that includes experts in personal training, nutrition, anatomy, and more. If you’re looking to slim down, for example, you can sign-up for a package that includes six cycling classes, six core/Pilates, four performance, and four yoga. Some of the packages are tied to a more specific circumstance. One is called “Bride” (i.e., you want to look great for your wedding), another, “New Mom”. You can also sign-up for an all-access pass of unlimited classes, or create a completely customized program with FITiST’s help. The company says that its early members include fitness buffs who “had kind of plateaued,” but are starting to see results again thanks to FITiST’s plans. FITiST also has access to a curated network of studios, so you can sign up directly from the site. That means you can try out a bunch of different facilities, or can set up classes in different locations depending on your schedule. It also offers last-minute deals on classes starting at 9pm the night before. Not surprisingly, this is going to be more expensive than your standard gym membership, but the plans I’ve seen cover a pretty broad price spectrum, from $75 to $760 a month. And yes, the company wants to expand to other cities eventually. As for WellTech, the incubator is providing at least $50,000 in funding, as well as the usual mix of mentoring, office space, and marketing. WellTech’s founders include SpaFinder CEO Peter Ellis, and it’s financed by Ellis’ firm Jubilee Investments. WellTech also announced that Wizpert , a startup that connects users with fitness experts in real-time, has joined the program.