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Apple Launches iBooks 2.0 and iBooks Author

Google missed street expectations in Q4, causing a sharp decline in share price, while Apple has a good week, announcind iBooks 2.0 and iBooks Author. Could it appear as early as Q1 2012? Check out this week's best and worst performers.

The AlwaysOn X Fund portfolio advanced 0.7% last week, while the NASDAQ was up 2.8%, and the S&P 500 was up 2%. For the year, the AO X Fund is up 5.4%, the NASDAQ is up 7%, and the S&P 500 is up 4.6%.

Google reported Q4 results below the street's expectations, which caused GOOG to drop 8.4% on Friday. For the quarter, Google saw its revenue grow 25%. EPS was up 9%, and traffic acquisition cost was at 24% vs. 25% a year ago. Cost-per-click dropped 8%, which could be the result of increasing traffic going to Facebook and Twitter.

Google+ now has 90 million users, but the company did not disclose how many of those are active. Android phone activations are at 700,000 on an annual basis, bringing the total to 250 million devices with more than 11 billion app downloads. For the week, GOOG dropped 6.2%. We are cutting our position by 1.8% to 7% of the portfolio.

On Thursday, Apple announced iBooks 2.0 and iBooks Author. The new products are focused on students and authors by providing easier tools for learning and self-publishing. Initially, Apple is partnering with McGraw Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin. The push comes after other companies such as Kno and Inkling already created successful products in this space, which is starting to see strong momentum. For the week, AAPL as up 0.1%,

This week, we are starting a 3% position in Pandora, a company we owned previously.

To learn more about GSV Asset Management—an investment management firm that leverages GSV Media's ideas, insights, and philosophy—go to gsvam.com. www.gsvmedia.com.





Michael Moe is an AlwaysOn contributing editor and a former co-founder of ThinkEquity.

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