Source: USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Hashtags are coming to Facebook today.

The feature, made so popular on Twitter to add context and shared interests to tweets, will be clickable on Facebook.

Hashtags are also a staple of Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest.

When a user clicks on a hashtag within their Facebook profile, they will see a feed of what other people and pages are saying about a topic or event.

“Imitation is the best form of flattery, though this is long overdue,” says Teresa Caro, senior vice president of social at Engauge, a marketing and advertising agency. “Facebook has to do this to be relevant among advertisers, especially as they try to reach consumers.”

Facebook faces stiff competition on the advertising front — in particular from Google — since search is so influential in consumers’ purchasing decisions, she says.

“Facebook and hashtags are two words social marketers absolutely must pay attention to,” says Michael Lazerow, chief marketing officer of Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

“The door is open for companies to better discover their customers’ immediate interests, creating the potential for increased real-time marketing based around ongoing pop culture, sports and other major events,” Lazerow says.

Facebook made the announcement in a blog post on Wednesday. It hopes to capitalize on the kind of user activity that generated 66.5 million likes, comments and posts during the Academy Awards this year.

The new feature on Facebook is one of several in the pipeline expected from the social network in coming weeks.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Google mapped out a key strategy with its $1 billion acquisition of map-software provider Waze on Tuesday.

“I am excited to announce today that we have accepted an offer to join Google,” Waze CEO Noam Bardin said in a blog post Tuesday morning.

Google would not comment beyond its own blog post announcing the deal, but a source told USA TODAY the deal’s amount. The source asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak on behalf of the search-engine giant.

Google has mulled a deal with Waze since late May, according to Bloomberg News. The acquisition plan was first reported Monday by Globes, an Israeli financial daily. It listed the price as $1.3 billion. (Wave was started in Israel and moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley.)

Facebook reportedly was also interested in acquiring Waze, according to Reuters reports.

The move helps Google to buttress its mapping tool and compete with Apple, Facebook, Nokia and others as more consumers eschew PCs in favor of smartphones and tablets.

“Increasingly, mobile maps will be a portal to access content such as ratings, reviews and services from all over the world,” says Julie Ask, a tech analyst at market researcher Forrester. “The amount of time and engagement of consumers will only go up in time as maps develop.”

Waze’s mobile app solicits input from about 50 million users to improve directions and display traffic and road-hazard details.

Waze raised $30 million in 2011 in a funding round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures Hong Kong.

“Why not stay completely independent? We asked ourselves: ‘Will Waze still be a fun project to participate in, and a fun place to work, as a stand-alone public company?’ ” Bardin said in Tuesday’s post. “Choosing the path of an IPO often shifts attention to bankers, lawyers and the happiness of Wall Street, and we decided we’d rather spend our time with you, the Waze community.”

An acquisition of Waze will likely be scrutinized by U.S. regulators.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Tech’s biggest week of the year unfolds Monday with Apple’s first major product event in nine months, the year’s preeminent video gaming show and a dark cloud lingering over the industry.

It starts here first at Apple’s developers’ conference, with hopes among the Apple faithful of a wow product — whether a new iPhone, iPad or groundbreaking mystery gadget. Apple CEO Tim Cook opens the show with a keynote address.

The klieg lights are particularly intense on Apple, which is expected to announce new software for iPhone and iPad, presaging new products in the pipeline. Pressure has intensified on the company without its iconic leader and visionary, Steve Jobs, and Apple’s stock and coolness factor have taken hits accordingly.

Though Apple faces withering competition from the likes of Samsung — now the world’s biggest seller of smartphones — Google and others, tech analyst Patrick Moorhead doesn’t expect anything eye-popping now.

“As Apple painfully learned from Maps and (voice-activated service) Siri, don’t bring something out unless it’s perfect and unique,” says Moorhead, president of Moor Insights & Strategy, alluding to consumer criticisms of both products. “What I do expect are a lot of software and service announcements.”

Down the coast in Los Angeles, the drama isn’t as high but is just as crucial. There’s a hardware war brewing between Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4. Both consoles could cost about $400.

Interest is keen for PlayStation 4 hardware, which was absent at its official launch in February but is expected to be launched Monday. Should PS4 do well in the U.S., it could tip the balance of power.

For now, Sony leads in global shipments through PS3 but trails Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in the USA.

The concurrent tech conferences come against a backdrop of reports that nine major Internet companies — including Apple, Google and Microsoft — quietly cooperated with the previously undisclosed covert government surveillance program known as PRISM.

Apple, Google, Microsoft and several other companies have denied involvement in the program. So far, none of the nine companies’ stocks has taken a hit and the scandal isn’t likely to create a consumer backlash against the company’s commercial products, Moorhead and other analysts say.

Apple, which issued the strongest denial last week, would rather focus its energies on products — and its fans are pining for it to redefine another market as it did the phone and digital tablet with iPhone and iPad, respectively. Its last major new product release was iPad Mini in October.

There’s always a chance it might refresh everyday markets like watches or TVs, as rumored. But that will come another day — the question is how soon, says Charles King, principal analyst at market researcher Pund-IT.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

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REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Lean In is leaning down.

In Phase 2 of her national movement for female empowerment, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg is seeking a younger demographic: She wants high school and college students to become part of the “Lean In” generation before they enter the workforce.

So there she was early Friday, in the faculty lounge with 28 former and current female students from Sequoia High School, chatting about their futures, taking questions and posing for photos before delivering a commencement address here.

“I really believe this is the Lean In generation,” Sandberg, author of the best-selling book Lean In, told the rapt students.

Sandberg invited a USA TODAY reporter to shadow her at the high school, near where she lives and works. The visit is part of an outreach program via the non-profit Leanin.org, a community created to encourage and support women, to buttress the book’s themes of self-confidence, deconstructing stereotypes and rebranding feminism.

“Treat yourself as an equal,” Sandberg told the students.

At Sequoia, where 97% of students go to college, an excited group of students eagerly awaited the chance to chat with Sandberg. “She’s a pioneer for our generation,” says senior Joy Robinson, 17. “We don’t all aspire to be CEOs, and her message on feminism makes it clear we can do anything.”

Araceli Efigenio, a 17-year-old senior who owned a copy of Lean In before she learned she was going to meet the Facebook exec last week, says the book taught her “not to be afraid” of tackling ambitious, long-term goals.

The sit-down with Sequoia students was not a one-off photo opp for Sandberg. During her book tour earlier this year, she occasionally dropped in on high school students to spread the Lean In gospel. But those visits were private gatherings and the message was limited to small groups.

During a 15-minute commencement speech that followed, Sandberg told graduates to “believe in yourselves. Don’t listen to anyone who may attempt to put limits on you.”

“I see too many people holding themselves back because they feel intimidated,” she said later. “I see too many people sitting not at the table, but on the side of the room.”

ADDRESSING FINANCIAL DISPARITIES

Friday’s discussion and speech are part of a carefully crafted message to an estimated 3.4 million high school graduates and 1.78 million college grads in the USA. Until now, Sandberg tailored her message with laser-like focus for young female professionals.

A major theme of Lean In is the financial disparity between the sexes, based in large part on a confidence gap.

But the career and financial gap is established long before men and women enter the workplace. Males have higher expectations for starting pay ($79,700 to $66,200 for women) and prime career pay ($162,300 to $126,500), according to a 2011 Charles Schwab survey of teenagers.

When last spotted, Sandberg was doing her best celebrity impersonation in the press: the cover of Time magazine, a segment on 60 Minutes and splashed across the front page of USA TODAY.

She was pitching her first book, Lean In, which landed No. 1 on the New York Times‘ best-seller list for non-fiction. The thin book sparked a national dialogue on the evolving roles of women in the workplace, and raised the profile of Sandberg, sparking rumors of a distant run for political office. She denies any interest in a political career.

The flurry made Sandberg the object of adulation — and, in some cases, derision. Most of the criticism leveled at the 43-year-old mother of two centers on the decades-old debate over whether working women can “have it all” — a career and family.

“People love the book and there are those who think I’m horrible (because of it),” she told the students.

The Lean In generation is ripe for change because it is connected via social-networking services such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, raising the opportunity for more open and honest conversation about gender in the workplace, Sandberg said in an interview Thursday.

The message has spread rapidly. Some 600,000 copies of the book have been sold, and it recently returned to No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. “I’m enormously gratified by its success, but more satisfied with activity” around the Lean In movement, she said, noting 200,000 members in the movement.

Her mission transcends equal rights; she makes an economic argument, too. “We should use the talents of the full population,” says Sandberg, who once said she leaves work at 5:30 p.m. to go home to see her kids.

Women are 51% of the U.S. population and 47% of the workforce, yet only 4% are CEOs and 17% board members, according to market researcher Catalyst. They also earn, on average, 77 cents for every $1 a man earns, says the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

In aligning herself with influential women such as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., feminist Gloria Steinem and tech CEOs, Sandberg — Facebook’s No. 2 exec after CEO Mark Zuckerberg — insists progress can be made on equal rights.

“This generation can lead us to gender equality in the workplace,” she said Thursday.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

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SAN FRANCISCO — The possibility of another Google dustup with federal regulators has the makings of a revised movie title: Play it again, Uncle Sam.

Should the Federal Trade Commission expand a preliminary probe and decide to launch a full-fledged investigation over how Google sells online display ads, it will be déjà vu all over again for the search-engine behemoth.

In January, the FTC closed a review of Google’s search business without taking action. This time, according to Reuters and others, it is scrutinizing how Google builds on its share of the approximately $15 billion industry that includes the sale of banner ads on web sites.

Google accounts for 17.6% of digital ad revenue in the U.S., up slightly from last year, eMarketer estimates. Facebook is close behind. In 2008, Google earned 2.9% of all U.S. display ad revenue, compared to Yahoo, which accounted for 18.4%, according to eMarketer.

That surely got the attention of the feds, who have heard loud whispers from Google’s competitors about it leverages its utter dominance in search to gain inroads in other markets.

The European Union is investigating Google for how it operates its search business and has opened a separate probe into Google’s handset unit, Motorola Mobility, over the licensing of its patents to rival device makers.

It makes the recent remarks of Google CEO Larry Page all the more interesting. In an unusual question-and-answer session at the company’s developers conference last week, Page preached the importance of integrity and fair play in big business while criticizing rivals Oracle and Microsoft.

Time will tell who wins that conversation.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Google may be on another collision course with the U.S. government over how it does business.

The Federal Trade Commission is mulling an antitrust probe into whether the technology giant is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, according to a published report in Bloomberg late Thursday, citing unnamed sources.

The fresh inquiry, on the heels of the FTC’s decision to close a review of Google’s search business in January without taking action, is in the preliminary stages, the report said.

Microsoft isn’t involved in the FTC’s review of the display-ad market, an unnamed source told Bloomberg.

Google has been drawing regulatory scrutiny as it bolsters its share of the $17.7 billion industry that includes the sale of banner ads on web sites.

The European Union is investigating Google over how it operates its dominant search business and has opened a separate probe into Google’s handset unit, Motorola Mobility, over the licensing of its patents to rival device makers.

Canada’s Competition Bureau, meanwhile, is preparing to start a formal inquiry into Google’s search practices.

Google and the FTC declined comment on the Bloomberg report.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Meg Whitman said it would take five years to turn around Hewlett-Packard.

On Wednesday, when the computing giant announced quarterly results that exceeded analysts’ estimates, she stuck by her plan.

“This is a marker that the turnaround is on track,” Whitman, HP’s CEO, told USA TODAY in a phone interview after HP’s announcement. “This (2013) is a fix-and-rebuild year, and we think revenue growth is possible in 2014.”

Whitman stressed her five-year plan isn’t expected to show its first fruits until next year. The company plans to eliminate 29,000 jobs by year’s end, and Whitman believes it can bounce back by building more PCs with touch-control screens, selling more tablets and expanding its product lines in business software, data analysis and storage, and technology consulting.

“We’re moving as fast as we can to capture the new world order of tech,” said Whitman, outlining the company’s new slew of products in mobile, cloud computing, security and big data this year. “PCs are evolving, yes, and we are evolving with them.”

HP’s second-quarter results announced Wednesday — earnings and revenue were down from the same quarter a year ago — come amid several darkening clouds on the computing front. The slumping PC business represents about 30% of HP’s revenue and 10% of its profits.

HP said it earned an adjusted 87 cents per share on revenue of $27.6 billion. In the same quarter a year ago, HP reported a profit of 98 cents on revenue of $30.7 billion.

The earnings did beat estimates, however. Analysts polled by FactSet expected HP to report earnings of 81 cents per share on revenue of $28.1 billion.

Investors were pleased. HP shares vaulted nearly 14%, to $24.10, in after-hours trading. The company announced its results after markets closed.

To be sure, Whitman still faces a reclamation project after being on the job for more than a year.

Despite long-standing insistence by analysts that HP sell of its PC business, which has consistently posted single-digit profit margins, that is unlikely to happen. But HP’s hardware woes go beyond PCs. Sales of servers, storage gear and networking equipment aren’t growing fast enough, analysts say.

“Restructuring cost savings and low market expectations have created the impression that HP is recovering,” Topeka Capital analyst Brian White said in a note. “However, we continue to believe the path to a sustainable, long-term turnaround will be riddled with challenges and disappointment.”

Although HP is in the process of transforming its product line and organization, recent results of its rivals show the challenges inherent in the new digital world, where consumers are eschewing traditional PCs for smartphones and tablets.

Dell fell far short of earnings’ estimates last week, and IBM reported its first earnings miss in eight years last month.

PC sales are suffering their steepest decline since records were kept — and HP remains the world’s largest vendor. Operating margins suggest HP should spin off its PC division, which accounted for nearly 30% of its previous quarter’s revenue.

Printers, where HP is also king, make up about 20% of its revenue.

Of course, Dell’s problems run deeper: It is coping with large shareholders, including billionaire Carl Icahn, over a pending privatization offer from CEO Michael Dell.

Whitman’s task is also complicated by the high-priced acquisitions of tech consultant Electronic Data Systems, business-software maker Autonomy and device maker Palm that fared poorly. HP has written off most of their value, to the tune of $15.3 billion in losses over two quarters last year.

HP does have an advantage over Dell and IBM in that it relies less on the overall PC and mainframe market as a percentage of revenue than those two companies, says Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

“HP is more diversified than Dell in consumer tablets, printers and the public cloud,” Moorhead says. “And it’s more diversified than IBM in PCs, consumer electronics, printers and the cloud.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.