Google reported solid second quarter earnings with revenue up 24 percent but missed analyst's estimates for the first time in two years.

Google's earnings per share were $6.45, just below Wall Street's forecast of $6.52. The earnings miss is being partially blamed on Google adding 1,184 full-time employees, bringing it s workforce to a total of 21, 805 people.

Paid clicks increased 15 percent over the second quarter of 2009, but decreased 3 percent over the first quarter of 2010. Net revenue for the quarter was $5.09 billion, beating analyst's expectations of $4.99 billion.

Google has cash, cash equivalents, and short-term marketable securities of $30.1 billion compared to $26.5 billion in the first quarter of 2010.

"Google had a strong second quarter," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. "Solid growth in our core business and very strong growth in our emerging businesses drove 24% revenue growth year over year."

"We saw strength in every major product area, as more and more traditional brand advertisers embraced search advertising and as large advertisers increasingly ran integrated campaigns across search, display, and mobile. We feel confident about our future, and plan to continue to invest aggressively in our core areas of strategic focus."

GetJar, the second largest app store, has closed $11 million in Series B funding from Accel Partners.

The company says it will apply the new capital to continued innovations on its sites GetJar.com and m.getjar.com.

GetJar says it wants to aggressively expand its offering on "open" smartphone platforms such as Android, BlackBerry and Symbian. In the past year, GetJar has tripled the number of employees, quadrupled the number of downloads per month, signed partnerships with Sprint and maintained its profitability during the challenging economic environment.

"We doubled down in this Series B due to GetJar's momentum as the leading open platform in the mobile apps space," said Rich Wong at Accel Partners.

"Mobile app developers need to get discovered, build a marketing channel for mobile users, and scale to massive user bases. With over 1 Billion downloads to date, GetJar has led the industry to create this unique, cross platform app store solution."

Research recently released by Juniper forecasts that the global app market will be worth over $30 billion by 2015 with a significant part of this opportunity fro publishers coming from multiple platforms.

"We look forward to our continued partnership with Accel Partners and this new funding will be instrumental in taking GetJar to the next level in our business strategy for aggressive global expansion and product development," said Ilja Laurs, Founder and CEO of GetJar.

Global online advertising is on track to increase by 12.4 percent in 2010, to $61 billion, according to a new forecast by MagnaGlobal.

Paid search will continue to lead the in online advertising, increasing 16.5 percent to reach $29.8 billion this year.

"Google remains by far the global leader in Search, although a handful of other suppliers of search advertising are dominant in certain countries," Magna said in its report.

"Unfortunately for Google, China and Russia - the fastest growing large markets for online advertising - pose a challenge for foreign-based search engines."

Magna noted the "enormous influence-and profitability" of paid search increases the likelihood of government involvement in many countries in the years ahead, but that such actions are unlikely to constrain the medium's growth.

All other forms of online advertising will account for $31.2 billion, up by 8.7 percent. "Other online advertising is much more diffused, with a handful of global portals, such as Yahoo and Microsoft, and many regionally strong publishers (often associated with print publications) capturing most of that sector's revenue," the report said.

These trends should continue over the next five years, and Magna expects online advertising will grow by 11.7 percent in 2011 and by an average rate of 11 percent through 2015.

Global PC shipments are on track to total 376. 6 million units in 2010, a 22 percent increase from 308.3 million units shipped in 2009, according to a preliminary forecast by Gartner.

Worldwide PC spending is forecast to reach $245.4 billion in 2010, up 12 percent from 2009.

The worldwide home PC market will outpace the professional market with 29.5 percent growth in 2010, while the professional PC market is projected to grow 13.1 percent this year.

"PC demand in the consumer segment continues to strengthen even though the global economy remains uncertain. Consumers are now viewing PCs as necessities rather than luxury items," said Ranjit Atwal, principal research analyst at Gartner.

"In the downturn, PCs remained the electronic device of choice on which to spend household income in mature markets, and we do not expect this to change either in 2010 or beyond."

Mini-notebooks continue to grow rapidly, but their growth is showing signs of slowing as the submarket for them matures. Worldwide mini-notebook shipments are preliminarily forecast to total 41.8 million units in 2010, a 30 percent increase from 2009 shipments of 32.1 million units. Mini-notebooks will account for 18.6 percent of mobile PC shipments in 2010, but their share will steadily decline after this year, falling to 13.9 percent of the mobile PC market in 2014.

"The mini-notebook segment will be impacted by increasingly competitive ultralow-voltage (ULV) products, the decreasing prices of all mobile PCs and the maturing preferences of consumers," said Raphael Vasquez, research analyst at Gartner.

"Some consumers purchased mini-notebooks based solely on price. Many consumers are now choosing purchases up the price curve rather than at the bottom of it."

Internet advertising revenue in the U.S. reached $5.9 billion in the first quarter of 2010, representing a 7.5 percent increase over the same period in 2009.

The numbers come from the latest analysis released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The figures mark the highest first quarter revenue level ever for the industry.

The $5.9 billion generated in the first quarter signals a recovery for the industry. In 2009, U.S. online ad spending declined 5 percent to $5.5 billion in the first quarter. Overall, in 2009, online ad spending fell 3.4 percent compared with 2008.

"The year-over-year growth we are seeing reflects marketers' confidence in the value and effectiveness of interactive advertising," said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB.

"The Internet, together with explosive technological innovation in devices and platforms, has transformed consumers' lives, giving them access to entertainment and information however, whenever, and wherever they want it. That's why the vibrant interactive advertising and marketing industry lends major fuel to the U.S. economy."



Separately, comScore reported that U.S. online display advertising rose 15 percent in the first quarter, delivering 1.1 trillion display ads with ad spending reaching an estimated $2.7 billion.

"Following a severe ad recession that began in late 2008 and continued through the first three quarters of 2009, we've been seeing a strong resurgence in the online display ad market," said Jeff Hackett, comScore senior vice president.

"The first quarter of 2010 posted strong volume in online display ads, coinciding with increasing expenditure from advertisers and higher CPMs for publishers. This pickup in activity should bode well for the online advertising industry as we move forward in 2010."

Time Warner Cable posted a first-quarter 30 percent increase in profit driven by the strong growth of its Internet, phone and digital cable customers.

Revenue increased by 5.4 percent to $4.6 billion during the quarter. Profit was 82 cents a share, beating analysts estimates of 74 cents on average, according to a consensus forecast from Thomson Reuters.

First quarter net income was $214 million, or 60 cents a share, compared with $164 million or 48 cents a share for the same time period the previous year.

Free cash flow for the quarter increased 77.7 percent to $652 million from $367 million a year earlier.

"We're off to a great start in 2010," said Glenn Britt, Chief Executive Officer, Time Warner Cable. "Through product enhancements, more effective marketing and cost management, we drove profitable first-quarter growth even in the face of more intense competition."

"We also paid our first regular dividend and reduced our leverage to our target on the timetable we promised more than a year ago. Our accomplishments in the first quarter demonstrate our commitment to providing innovative and increasingly valuable services to our customers, generating free cash flow and making smart capital allocation decisions to provide attractive returns for our shareholders."

Google has released its financial results for the first quarter of 2010 and the company reported revenues of $6.77 billion, an increase of 23 percent compared to the first quarter of 2009.

Google performed very well in the first quarter, with 23% year over year revenue growth driven by strength across all major verticals and geographies, said Patrick Pichette, CFO of Google.

Going forward, we remain committed to heavy investment in innovation -- both to spur future growth in our core and emerging businesses as well as to help build the future of the open web.

Google-owned sites generated revenues of $4.44 billion, or 66 percent of total revenues in the first quarter of 2010. This represents a 20 percent increase over first quarter 2009 revenues of $3.69 billion.

Not including certain items, Google said it earned $6.76 a share, beating analysts estimates of $6.60 a share.

Googles partner sites generated revenues of $2.04 billion, or 30 percent of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2010. This represents a 24 percent increase from first quarter 2009 network revenues of $1.64 billion.

Google said it increased its number of employees by nearly 800, the largest increase in staff since the first quarter of 2008. The company said it will keep acquiring companies and hiring aggressively for the remainder of the year.