SAN FRANCISCO, July 31 (Reuters) – Private equity firm
General Atlantic LLC has invested $125 million in Box, the
fast-growing cloud storage start-up seen as a likely candidate
for an initial public offering.

The investment – the third funding round by Box in the last
18 months – valued the company at between $1.2 and $1.5 billion,
people familiar with the matter said.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter Inc and NBC Universal’s move to suppress a British reporter’s tweets related to the network’s Olympics coverage may have backfired after the incident became fodder for Twitter chatter around the world on Monday.

The microblogging service suspended Guy Adams, the Los Angeles correspondent for London-based daily The Independent, after he sent a tweet on Friday revealing NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel’s email address.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Social media companies, once hailed by their Silicon Valley boosters as world-changing businesses with limitless potential, are instead proving a sobering reminder of how investors can be seduced by Internet hype.

With few exceptions, the first wave of social media firms to trade on the public markets has delivered a disastrous performance that conjures memories of the dot-com bust of 2000.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 27 (Reuters) – Social media companies,
once hailed by their Silicon Valley boosters as world-changing
businesses with limitless potential, are instead proving a
sobering reminder of how investors can be seduced by Internet
hype.

With few exceptions, the first wave of social media firms to
trade on the public markets has delivered a disastrous
performance that conjures memories of the dot-com bust of 2000.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc reported a drastic slowdown in revenue growth and failed to offer financial forecasts to quell fears about its ability to boost advertising growth, sending its shares plummeting to a record low.

In its inaugural earnings report since becoming the first American company to debut with a value of more than $100 billion, Facebook reported revenue increased 32 percent in the second quarter to $1.18 billion, in line with average forecasts.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter suffered its second widespread outage in 5 weeks on Thursday, a blow to the micro-blogging service’s reputation and reliability.

Twitter – infamous for its “fail whale” outage messages in its early years – went dark for hours on June 21. On Thursday, users trying to log on to its website were greeted only by an incomplete error message: “Twitter is currently down for. We expect to be back in.”

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Game provider Zynga Inc slashed its 2012 outlook and quarterly results badly missed Wall Street targets, sending its stock plunging 35 percent and casting a chill over Facebook Inc on the eve of the social network’s inaugural results.

Investors now fear a larger-than-expected hit to Facebook’s earnings, which relies on the “FarmVille” creators for about 15 percent of its revenue. Shares in the No. 1 social network, which has yet to regain investor confidence since its botched May IPO, slid more than 7 percent to a new low of $27 in after-hours trading.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 25 (Reuters) – Zynga Inc, the
social gaming company, slashed its 2012 earnings outlook after
its second-quarter results badly missed Wall Street’s targets,
sending its stock plunging more than 40 percent to a record low.

The miss by the creator of the “Farmville and “Hidden
Chronicles” games also dragged down shares of Facebook Inc
. Facebook, which relies on the game publisher for some 15
percent of its revenue, is to release its inaugural results as a
public company on Thursday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Zynga Inc, the social gaming company, slashed its 2012 earnings outlook after its second-quarter results badly missed Wall Street’s targets, sending its stock plunging more than 40 percent to a record low.

The huge miss for Zynga, creator of the “Farmville and “Hidden Chronicles” games, dragged down shares of Facebook Inc, which relies on the game publisher for some 15 percent of its revenue.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 27 (Reuters) – Mobile payments company
Square is close to securing around $200 million in new funding
from private-equity investor Suhail Rizvi at a valuation of
about $3.25 billion, a source familiar with the matter told
Reuters, less than the company had hoped for.

Square, headed by Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack
Dorsey, has secured previous financing from prominent venture
capitalists and some said it had been seeking new funding at a
$4 billion valuation.