11 TechCrunch Stories You Don’t Want to Miss This Week (7/25)

It was earnings week at TechCrunch, so most of the coverage was dominated by reports about Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, and Pandora. Fortunately there were a ton of other great stories from our writers. Here are the top stories from 7/19 to 7/25 on TechCrunch.

  1. No one thought Facebook’s earnings would be this good. They set revenue per user records around the world, and their stock hit an all-time high. Facebook’s market capitalization is now around $190 billion, which is above Amazon’s market capitalization of $165 billion. That’s right – Facebook is now worth more than Amazon. Remember back in 2012 when people were saying that Facebook didn’t get mobile? Well…maybe they didn’t get it then, but they definitely get it now: 63% of Facebook’s ad revenue now comes from mobile. Facebook’s earnings have beat projections for eight quarters in a row. Although the earnings we the biggest news for Facebook this week, their acquisition of Oculus also became official on 7/21.
  2. Kim-Mai Cutler discusses the pressures driving adaptive re-use and Silicon Valley’s strange reverse commute. There are consequences and trade-offs with every policy choice, and tough choices loom ahead for San Francisco.
  3. Late on Friday TechCrunch learned that Apple made another acquisition; one that it is using to boost its e-books effort and “beat Amazon at its own game.” Josh Constine and Ingrid Lunden have the exclusive scoop on Apple’s acquisition of BookLamp.
  4. Sarah Perez analyzes a new report from Developer Economics. There is a “disappearing middle class of app developers,” and the app economy is a winner takes all game.
  5. The Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game is now #1 in the App Store with a 5-star rating. This is the “E True Hollywood Story” of how Sarah Buhr made it off the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood D-List.
  6. Ryan Lawler and the TechCrunch TV team went inside Levi’s Stadium, the new home for the San Francisco 49ers. This is the most high-tech stadium ever created.
  7. Amazon reported disappointing earnings this week with in-line sales of $19.34B and a larger than expected per-share loss of $0.27. Although Amazon is a great place for shoppers, it’s not as good for investors.
  8. In other Facebook news, the team has added a Pocket-like “save” feature to the platform. The update lets you store articles and read them at a later date. There’s big potential here, even if it is a little overdue.
  9. Danny Crichton argues that we can’t live in a world where everyone wants to be a founder.
  10. Duolingo is a free language learning service, and this week they announced the launch of a digital language certification program.
  11. A UK startup named MaidSafe argues that servers need to die in order to save the Internet. The mindset has always been “how do we make servers better,” but we really should be focused on how to remove them.

A few other notable stories that didn’t quite make the list include Bose suing Apple-owned Beats over patents it holds related to noise-cancelling headphones, a Thiel fellow crushing his $120K Kickstarter within a few hours, Yahoo buying Flurry, and our response to Banana Republic’s “Spring Startup” fashion show (We tried tweeting at Banana Republic, but they didn’t respond).

If there are any other stories you think we might have missed in the recap, feel free to share in the comments section.