Business & Tech

Google Launches Music Service; Coupons.com Becomes Available Via Facebook

A look at the ways Mountain View tech companies have made the news this week.


Every week, Mountain View makes news with technology developments, discoveries and sometimes controversies.

In the weekly “Bits and Bytes” column we’ll relay the past week’s news highlights from our backyard giants, start-ups and small businesses alike.

Apple’s iTunes remain a big whig in the online music world. But on Wednesday, Google announced a service that could stand in competition: an online music store that will allow people to buy and store as many as 20,000 songs online, and listen to them on multiple devices. It has secured partnerships with 1,000 record labels, including Universal Music.

Students and robots alike gathered Friday at the Googleplex for the First Lego League's annual robotics tournament. In the competition, comprised of 16 teams, the robots had to complete as many tasks as possible in a 2.5 minute window.

Coupons.com snagged their own deal this week: through a new platform called Brandcaster Social, brands can offer printable coupons on their Facebook fan pages. The company is quickly growing, raising $200 million in the past month, bringing its total value to $1 billion.

LinkedIn raised $88 million this week by selling 1.27 million shares. It’s the first time since the company went public in May that insiders were allowed to sell shares, which they did for $71 each. Still, the money gathered fell slightly short of the $100 million that the company was targeting.

Ginzamarkets Inc., which specializes in search engine optimization (SEO), has raised a $1.3 million round of funding, over three times more than what it raised in its last round. The money comes from local start-up accelerator 500 start-ups and angel investors.

Intuit Inc. reported an operating loss of $94 million, or 21 cents per share durings its first fiscal quarter 2012. But things are still looking slightly up from the same quarter last year, when the company reported a $104 million, or 22 cents per share.

Correction: A change was at 7:30 p.m. on the of publication to the amount raised by Coupons.com in past month. The company made $200 million not $2 million.


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