SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research), which revolutionized Internet searches with an easy-to-use website, has itself become an increasingly tricky business to grasp.

That issue leapt to the fore last week when the company stunned Wall Street by missing financial expectations for the fourth quarter — sending its stock into a tailspin and triggering a flurry of questions over what went askew.

Analysts say Google is simply putting its fingers in too many pies. Forays into television, Android mobile phones and music sales in the past two to three years have left the investment community straining to recognize the company.

A surprise drop in Google’s search advertising rates in the fourth quarter raised questions about how its rapidly expanding mobile business was affecting its main money-making machine.

With investors still uneasy about Google’s proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of smartphone maker Motorola (MMI.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the earnings disappointment underscored a big challenge facing Chief Executive Larry Page as he positions the company for new growth opportunities.

Some are wondering if Google has a clear strategy for generating revenue and growth out of a plethora of fledgling initiatives, from Android to its Facebook wannabe, Google+, especially since Page and management refuse to offer guidance.

“Right now people are skeptical about those bets paying off,” said Walter Price, a portfolio manager at RCM Capital Management, referring to Google’s efforts outside its flagship search business.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc, which revolutionized Internet searches with an easy-to-use website, has itself become an increasingly tricky business to grasp.

That issue leapt to the fore last week when the company stunned Wall Street by missing financial expectations for the fourth quarter — sending its stock into a tailspin and triggering a flurry of questions over what went askew.

Analysts say Google is simply putting its fingers in too many pies. Forays into television, Android mobile phones and music sales in the past two to three years have left the investment community straining to recognize the company.

A surprise drop in Google’s search advertising rates in the fourth quarter raised questions about how its rapidly expanding mobile business was affecting its main money-making machine.

With investors still uneasy about Google’s proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of smartphone maker Motorola, the earnings disappointment underscored a big challenge facing Chief Executive Larry Page as he positions the company for new growth opportunities.

Some are wondering if Google has a clear strategy for generating revenue and growth out of a plethora of fledgling initiatives, from Android to its Facebook wannabe, Google+, especially since Page and management refuse to offer guidance.

“Right now people are skeptical about those bets paying off,” said Walter Price, a portfolio manager at RCM Capital Management, referring to Google’s efforts outside its flagship search business.

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 24 (Reuters) – Facebook, the social networking company poised to go public this year, will not honor trades of its shares in the secondary markets for a three-day period beginning on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Lawyers representing Facebook sent a letter last week to at least one of the special markets where private company shares are traded informing them of the move, the source said. The letter, from the law firm Fenwick & West, did not provide a reason for temporarily halting private transactions of Facebook shares.

The suspension, which runs from Wednesday to Friday, comes as anticipation is building for Facebook to sell shares to the public later this year.

The fact that Facebook will not honor secondary market trades in its shares for three days does not necessarily mean the company is getting closer to filing a prospectus for an offering.

Facebook officials declined to comment. News of the suspension in honoring Facebook trades was first reported by Bloomberg News on Tuesday.

Shares of Facebook, the world’s largest Internet social networking company with more than 800 million users, recently traded at $34 a share on SharesPost, according to information posted on the website. That gives Facebook an implied valuation of $80 billion, according to SharesPost.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Matt Driskill)

By Alexei Oreskovic

(Reuters) – Yahoo Chief Executive Scott Thompson tried to manage expectations on his first earnings call as the new CEO, broadly addressing numerous issues the Internet company is grappling with — from a potential sale to reviving its core display advertising business — but declined to lay out a detailed strategy.

Analysts prodded Thompson for clues about his plans for Yahoo Inc, which fired former CEO Carol Bartz in September and last week saw co-founder Jerry Yang resign unexpectedly, but all they received were boilerplate comments about how the company needs to “do better” and “get innovative products that matter into the market.”

Thompson, along with Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse, gave few hints about the progress of Yahoo’s strategic review as well, dashing hopes that his arrival might hasten a transaction.

Morse said talks with Yahoo’s Asian partners — Alibaba and Softbank — about a restructuring were continuing but beyond that provided little concrete detail on where things stand.

Thompson, who was only hired as CEO two weeks ago, added that the company’s board has narrowed down its options to the ones that appear “most promising.”

Meanwhile, Yahoo’s net revenue and profit fell slightly in the fourth quarter, as it experienced year-over-year declines in both its search and display ad business.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – YouTube, Google Inc’s video website, is streaming 4 billion online videos every day, a 25 percent increase in the past eight months, according to the company.

The jump in video views comes as Google pushes YouTube beyond the personal computer, with versions of the site that work on smartphones and televisions, and as the company steps up efforts to offer more professional-grade content on the site.

According to the company, roughly 60 hours of video is now uploaded to YouTube every minute, compared with the 48 hours of video uploaded per minute in May.

YouTube, which Google acquired for $1.65 billion in 2006, represents one of Google’s key opportunities to generate new sources of revenue outside its traditional Internet search advertising business.

Last week, Google said that its business running graphical “display” ads – many of which are integrated alongside YouTube videos – was generating $5 billion in revenue on an annualized run rate basis.

Still, most of the 4 billion videos that YouTube now streams worldwide every day do not make money. Three billion YouTube videos a week are monetized, according to the company.

YouTube recently redesigned its website to more prominently showcase specialized “channels” organized around different types of content. In October, YouTube announced that it had struck 100 original video programming deals with media partners including Madonna and Jay-Z.

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 23 (Reuters) – YouTube, Google Inc’s (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) video website, is streaming 4 billion online videos every day, a 25 percent increase in the past eight months, according to the company.

The jump in video views comes as Google pushes YouTube beyond the personal computer, with versions of the site that work on smartphones and televisions, and as the company steps up efforts to offer more professional-grade content on the site.

According to the company, roughly 60 hours of video is now uploaded to YouTube every minute, compared with the 48 hours of video uploaded per minute in May.

YouTube, which Google acquired for $1.65 billion in 2006, represents one of Google’s key opportunities to generate new sources of revenue outside its traditional Internet search advertising business.

Last week, Google said that its business running graphical “display” ads – many of which are integrated alongside YouTube videos – was generating $5 billion in revenue on an annualized run rate basis. [ID:nL1E8CJE74]

Still, most of the 4 billion videos that YouTube now streams worldwide every day do not make money. Three billion YouTube videos a week are monetized, according to the company.

YouTube recently redesigned its website to more prominently showcase specialized “channels” organized around different types of content. In October, YouTube announced that it had struck 100 original video programming deals with media partners including Madonna and Jay-Z.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc’s (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) accelerated efforts to carve out a position in the fast-growing mobile and social networking markets leapt into the spotlight Friday, a day after the giant Internet company reported a rare earnings miss.

The company’s investments in its Android mobile software and fledgling Facebook-like Google+ social network represent some of the company’s key growth opportunities going forward. But Wall Street is still trying to understand the near-term impact on Google’s business.

On Friday, Google’s shares fell more than 8 percent. Google missed both its revenue and earnings targets after cost-per-click (CPC) — or money that marketers pay Google when Websurfers click on its search ads — decreased for the first time in two years despite record U.S. online commerce during the holiday season. Several brokerages cut their price targets on the stock.

Google+ — the company’s recently-launched social network — has 90 million users now, up from 40 million three months ago. Android is now the world’s most-used mobile software platform, ahead of Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) iOS, providing an important avenue for consumers to reach Google’s various Web services and increasing the total number of people who view its ads.

In the short run, however, the rates for mobile advertising appear to be cheaper than on the company’s mainstay desktop search engine.

“We could be seeing a little bit of an effect of more of a proportion of their searches becoming mobile,” said Ryan Jacob chairman and chief investment officer of Jacob Funds, which owns Google shares. “They are just not getting the same kind of pricing on the mobile side as they do on the desktop,” he said.

Google’s heavy investments in mobile and social network initiatives — to stave off competition from rivals Apple and Facebook — and its planned $12.5 billion acquisition of smartphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (MMI.N: Quote, Profile, Research) have raised investors’ concerns.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc’s quarterly results fell short of Wall Street’s heightened expectations for the holiday season as declining search advertising rates contributed to a rare miss, triggering a 9 percent slide in its shares.

The No. 1 Internet search engine underperformed on both revenue and earnings in the fourth quarter, disappointing investors who had counted on record U.S. online-commerce to prop up results.

Its shares dived to about $583 in after-hours trade, from the Nasdaq close of $639.57 before the results. Several analysts zeroed in on an 8 percent drop in cost-per-click, or money paid by advertisers to the company, versus analyst estimates of a slight increase.

“Expectations had got ahead of themselves for Google, largely because investors don’t have a good feel for what happens outside the U.S.,” said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan. “North America has remained strong, but there are parts of the world where there’s a lot of economic pressure.

“I would have to assume Europe — particularly Germany and some others undergoing austerity measures — the underlying demand in those countries is weak.”

Google’s net revenue, which excludes fees shared with partner websites, was $8.13 billion in the fourth quarter, versus $6.37 billion a year earlier. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S were looking for $8.4 billion.

That shortfall marks an unusual slip-up for a company that has exceeded Wall Street’s revenue targets for eight consecutive quarters.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc’s (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) quarterly results fell short of Wall Street’s heightened expectations for the holiday season as Europe’s economic malaise weighed, triggering a 9 percent slide in its shares.

The No.1 Internet search engine underperformed on both revenue and earnings in the fourth quarter, disappointing investors who had counted on record U.S. online-commerce to prop up results.

The company’s shares dived to about $583 in after-hours trade.

“Expectations had got ahead of themselves for Google, largely because investors don’t have a good feel for what happens outside the U.S.,” said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan. “North America has remained strong, but there are parts of the world where there’s a lot of economic pressure.

“I would have to assume Europe — particularly Germany and some others undergoing austerity measures — the underlying demand in those countries is weak.”

Google’s net revenue, which excludes fees shared with partner websites, was $8.13 billion in the fourth quarter, versus $6.37 billion a year earlier. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S had looked for net revenue of $8.4 billion.

That shortfall marks a rare miss for a company that has exceeded Wall Street’s revenue targets for eight consecutive quarters.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc’s quarterly results fell short of Wall Street’s heightened expectations for the holiday season as Europe’s economic malaise weighed, triggering a 9 percent slide in its shares.

The No.1 Internet search engine underperformed on both revenue and earnings in the fourth quarter, disappointing investors who had counted on record U.S. online-commerce to prop up results.

The company’s shares dived to about $583 in after-hours trade.

“Expectations had got ahead of themselves for Google, largely because investors don’t have a good feel for what happens outside the U.S.,” said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan. “North America has remained strong, but there are parts of the world where there’s a lot of economic pressure.

“I would have to assume Europe — particularly Germany and some others undergoing austerity measures — the underlying demand in those countries is weak.”

Google’s net revenue, which excludes fees shared with partner websites, was $8.13 billion in the fourth quarter, versus $6.37 billion a year earlier. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S had looked for net revenue of $8.4 billion.

That shortfall marks a rare miss for a company that has exceeded Wall Street’s revenue targets for eight consecutive quarters.