(N.B. Q1 2012, perhaps confusingly, refers to sales and revenue for the 14-week period ending December 31st 2011. The naming refers to when the results are published, i.e. early 2012 - and not the period of economic activity itself - although fiscal years do vary from country to country so this might not hold true for all the examples below - I've indicated where there's a difference).

1. Apple

The obvious starting place since their results have been the most discussed of the lot. In short: scarily good figures, record-breaking in fact. $46.33 billion in revenue ($13.06 billion of which was profit). Share prices have soared yet again and, by way of contextualisation, there's a good point over at Techcrunch: only 3 companies have ever achieved figures like this before and they were all oil companies. (Unsurprisingly, US mobile network provider and iPhone carrier AT&T also posted a decent quarter with revenues up 3.6% to $1.1 billion).

2. Google

Basically share price falling (from super high to slightly less super high, but remains higher than Apple's) mainly due to the fact that Google missed some targets despite posting more mega profits. Main worry is about the increasing move to mobile and whether Google can fully translate its profit making aspects (search and Youtube) to this arena, despite the fact that Android tablet market share is up to 39% and will probably soon surpass Apple's iOS (which runs on the iPad). 2012 will probably be an interesting year in this respect.

3. Nokia

Mixed bag for the company trying to revive their mobile standing through collaboration with Microsoft with Windows Phone models such as the Lumia devices. Note, Nokia is Finnish so their fiscal year is different - these results are for their Q4 (which is the same period as Apple's Q1). Nokia massively improved on the previous quarter, Q3 2011, but not enough to avoid a significant drop compared with the same quarter in 2010. The Lumia devices are selling well, but apparently this seems to be at the expense of Symbian phones (Nokia's previous mobile OS). The company registered an operating loss of $1.3 billion. The reports also revealed that Microsoft paid Nokia $250 million to adopt Windows Phone - a figure which had previously been kept secret.

4. Nintendo

Very poor results for Nintendo's Q3 (again, same time period but different name as Nintendo use the Japanese fiscal year from April to April). Sales are down 31.2% on the equivalent period the year before but there was a big announcement promising a turn-up of fortunes - the follow up to the Wii, the Wii U, will probably be on sale towards the end of 2012.

5. Netflix

Interesting analysis of Netflix, who recently launched in the UK, over at Techcrunch. Though revenues are at an impressive $847 million for the last quarter, the profit margins of the new streaming service (which is the fast-growing side of Netflix) operates with pretty measly profit margins when compared to the much more lucrative DVD side (which is now shrinking in subscribers).

6. AirBnB

OK, so while they're not a publicly traded company (and don't release detailed financial reports yet), AirBnB did also release some very interesting data. After registering 4 million overnights in the past year, the company will be opening 6 new international offices (Barcelona, Milan, Copenhagen, Moscow and Paris) and looks set to really break the mainstream in 2012.

There we go, a smattering of highlights from the last fiscal quarter (whatever you want to call it).

So here are my tips for a couple of devices which are worth keeping an eye on - not necessarily for purchasing reasons (on that issue I wouldn't stray too far from the aforementioned A's of Apple and Amazon for now) - but more from the point of view tracking tablet trends:

1.) Firstly there's the Ainovo Novo7, a 7-inch Chinese tablet which is noteworthy for 3 reasons, only 1 of which will concern me here. That reason is its $99 price tag, which could very easily see it become a significant in developing markets or at the more 'disposable' end of developed markets.

(For the other two reasons why it's interesting, you'll have to read the Techcrunch write-up on the device. One of them though is the tablet's MIPS architecture, which is one of the reasons why the price tag is so low - and one reason why more Chinese tabs in the future will also be able to compete so effectively on this front in the future).

The bottom line though, is simply the bottom line. The Ainovo Novo7 has a USP - its price - and therefore does what many of the aforementioned failed forays into tablet computing didn't do, which is offer the consumer a unique (or at least, different enough) vision of what tablet computing is and could be. In the case of Ainovo, their vision is that it can be very cheap and almost disposable bit of kit, rather than the consumer fetish that Apple offers.

2.) Secondly, there's the Eee Pad Transformer (and, it's upmarket brother, the Transformer Prime) from Asus, which is getting a mention simply for the fact that it is already having some small but genuine market success thus far and looks set to improve on this hugely in 2012 (which is a pretty rare feat - just ask Dell or HP if you don't believe me).

Anyway, Asus seems likely to surpass Samsung on tablet sales next year with a projected 3 million tablets shipped (up from 1.8 million this year) which would make them third (I don't have to tell you who occupies the first and second spot) by market share - although still miles behind the top two.

Regarding the devices themselves, there's not a million things to say other than they continue with the standard Asus approach - affordable, low-mid to mid-range pricing with impressive specs and design that gives top-end devices a close run for their money. All in all, the two word summary is Value (capital V) and reliability (they're widely available, support is decent, and construction standards are above average - though they're no Sony). They offer the consumer a no-frills but solid and reliable tablet device, which undercuts the iPad pretty significantly on price but not as much as you'd expect on spec or build quality.

So, there we have it, a couple of devices that actually look like they might also make some sort of impact in the tablet market, unlike the countless others who look doomed from the off. We'll see what happens but one thing is for sure, 2012 will be the year that market share really starts to move around in the tablet market after four years of Apple domination (and 1 year of decent success also for Amazon).

For me the interesting thing is that the Kindle Fire is the first real tablet success that isn't an iPad - in the true sense of the word. There have been loads of devices which also weren't iPads - but really wanted to be (i.e. clones/rip-offs) that spectacularly failed. The Kindle Fire presents a quite different idea of what a successful tablet device can be and how it can work from a business point of view. In short: it is cheap (Amazon sells the devices at a loss) and the money comes from later digital media sales (books, films, games etc).

Apple meanwhile has a different vision: the device is extremely attractive in terms of design making it a consumer object of desire, which in turn justifies a pretty huge asking price. It's not quite as simple as Apple taking the high-end of the market while Amazon takes the low end since the two devices have some quite different functionality features.

However, the bottom line from the point of view of tablet computing is pretty clear to me - in order to establish a foothold in the tablet market you need to have your own idea of what tablet computing should look like, not only as a device and user experience but also as a business. Looking back on it now, it's frankly ridiculous how many companies tried to get a piece of the action (and lost a ton of money) by simply imitating the market leader Apple and their iPad device.

It's been almost four years since that definitive device was launched but we can finally now say that there is genuine competition in the tablet market - which is also interesting for the fact that the dynamic is rather similar to what happened in the smartphone market after Apple launched the iPhone: everyone scrambled around like mad trying to respond for a few years while Apple raked it in, before one or two others eventually figured out something to offer consumers and also managed to get a reasonably respectable market share.

Although I somehow doubt we'll have to wait another four years for the next viable tablet device to come along, I also doubt that it will come anytime soon judging by what's currently slated by the wannabe iPad and Fire competitors. In any case, for my money at least, the tablet market is finally becoming an interesting arena of competition with rival companies offering different ideas and visions for where things might develop in the future.

The bottom line is that both Facebook and Google essentially rely on income from advertising to support their business models and that successfully delivering an own-brand smart-phone would allow for greater control over such activities. Yes, Android is thus far enjoying massive success in giving Google a strong foothold in the smartphone market - but the same could not really be said of their previous attempts to team up with handset manufacturers to deliver a Google phone (from the G1, G2, to the Nexus One, and now more recent Samsung models).

Anyway, Google is clearly trying and that is no secret. Officially, Facebook isn't - though it has been rumoured in the past, and probably will be again in the future. Now, in terms of the likelihood of this speculation ever turning to reality, I should be upfront and let you know that I simply have no new info to add (just in case you thought I was Zuckerberg's secret confiante and had a breaking-news bombshell to announce).

I have no idea if Facebook will try to launch their own smart-phone - and if they did, it would probably for all the reasons discussed in the Guardian article linked above. The reason I'm even here (in the digital debate so to speak) is simply to ponder the question from a consumer point of view: why would anyone buy a Facebook smartphone?

After all, Facebook's brand presence is unlikely to get it much traction in the market. People are not used to paying for something with Facebook written on it and, moreover, Facebook's brand image is so massively tied up in social networking that to see a single other 'Facebook' product out there would be downright confusing for many consumers.

So what's the strategy going to be? Obviously Facebook would have to team up with a currently established smartphone manufacturer (most of whom would welcome the deal) in order to design and build the device although I would be curious if the terms of co-operating with Google on the same task prohibit such a partnership with Facebook.

In any case, who would be an attractive partner for Facebook (i.e. who could sell enough devices to make it a success)? Apple? They tend not to like compromising their brand image at the core level (though they do have partnerships with various lower-level start-ups and companies). Is HTC or Samsung likely to be attractive if they're also working with Google? Probably not.

Motorola, RIM, Nokia (and increasingly also HTC) are all slightly worryingly poised in terms of their own business positions that a partnership as huge as this would represent somewhat of a risk for Facebook when those companies are all undergoing something of a change in direction and re-design of their smartphone strategy in order to try and get back on track after previous initial success (apart from Nokia who are now aiming for their first smartphone hit with the their Windows phones).

OK, so it's hard therefore to say that a Facebook phone is likely to be attractive to consumers because of some superior and revolutionary handset, which means that the only real unique selling point for consumers could be something to do with Facebook functionality on the phone. But what could this actually mean?

• A better user experience with a superior Facebook app? What would stop others from copying this (the technology in these devices is pretty similar after all)? Even more pertinent - how could this app actually improve user experience? Surely Facebook mobile is currently as optimised as it could be (I doubt they've deliberately kept better features 'on-the-shelf' to save as some kind of joker for later).
• Related to the above - the All Things D post gives the very good point that it might be attractive for users to 'escape the confines of the app' - since a Facebook phone wouldn't need an app to access Facebook functionality - and allow integration of normally app-native info like events into a phone's calendar function. This does indeed sound good assuming people use Facebook functions like events in the same way as they would a 'normal' smartphone calendar - which I don't think they always do. In other words, this would certainly be a unique feature (as it's unlikely that Facebook would allow optional integration with other smartphone's native calendar apps) - but it might not be strong enough to tempt consumers into buying the phone. In other words, escaping the app is only significant if the user experience is noticeably improved, and while there is some scope for this, it really depends more on how people are currently using Facebook and if more of this can be done on a smartphone than is the case right now.
• New functions which are only available on the Facebook phone? Again, unless this was built upon a unique technological basis, it would be simply ridiculous to restrict it to only a small group of Facebook phone users (after all, Facebook mainly works because people can interact on an equal level). Even if some new technological innovation could offer a uniquely superior Facebook mobile user experience, how long would this edge last? How good does it have to be in order to become a significant market factor (for both Facebook, and consumers)?
• Some other Facebook-unrelated USP, with Facebook coming as part of the deal, but not being the major selling point. So imagine for example a much cheaper smartphone option (price as USP) which also doubles up as Facebook phone. This would probably work for consumers - but only for as long as the USP held up. In other words Facebook's success would be at the mercy of factors over which it has no control.

Anyway, I'll end this speculative ramble here with the only conclusion which seems solid to me right now (and probably also to you if you've read all of this flimsy conjecture) - I can't think of a single really sound reason why a Facebook phone would gain significant traction in the already congested smartphone market. The original blog post at All things D does come up with a few good ideas, but I'm personally not convinced that this alone would be enough to achieve the kind of success that would make such a venture worthwhile (i.e. that the gulf between an app and non-app experience of Facebook could be big enough in a way that favours the latter).

But that is only the case in my opinion - and right now - if Facebook succeeds in furthering some of its key partnerships (like the Skype integration for instance), which also works to change the way people use the network, then the Facebook phone will surely become increasingly logical. After all, it's not to say that the idea doesn't make sense for Facebook from their own point of view (I fully agree with the Guardian tech analysis linked above - it makes perfect sense for Facebook to think about something like this) but just that it simply doesn't seem to be that viable from a business perspective, for now at least. We'll see how things develop - I doubt this'll be the last we hear on the issue...

I also have a few Apple products but am not so attached to them that I felt such grief for the passing of the man who had done more than anyone else to create them.  I did however massively admire and respect Steve Jobs for reasons beyond the extent of success he had achieved - or rather for the attributes which enabled him to achieve this success: honesty, dedication, humility and passion - and was thus saddened that an inspirational and decent man had passed away at a relatively young age - when he clearly had so much more life left in his heart and mind.

Anyway, since Jobs's death, the Youtube video of his 2005 Stanford graduate address has received a massive volume of traffic - and with good reason. It is this which best showcases who Jobs was as a man (and not, I would suggest, the current Apple product range) and why his passing was mourned by so many. (Segments of Jobs's speech have also been edited into this interesting video tribute by a musician called AzR).

Anyway, unsurprisingly, Apple's latest product - the iPhone 4S - which launched on Friday is something of a hit. In the same way that the internet is a hit, or Avatar was a hit, or Facebook... In other words; - it's an absolute monster hit, with over 4 million devices sole already over the initial weekend (more than doubling the sales figures of the previous version).

However, it's not all plain sailing though as apparently Apple have not done too well in one aspect of their product design - that of durability - according to this little experiment from mobile phone warranty company Squaretrade, who tested the iPhone 4s against the Samsung Galaxy SII in a drop test (it's exactly what it sounds like).

Check out the short video posted over at techcrunch for the results - but, be warned, if you are an iPhone 4S owner, you'll probably be feeling like you wished you'd bought some insurance for the thing after you see this...

However, all that looks set about to change in what most are recognising as the beginning of a new chapter for tablet computing. Whereas previous non-iPad tablets have essentially tried to compete with Apple on their own terms (i.e. 'we're gonna make an iPad type thing even better than Apple's iPad thing') and therefore failed miserably, now finally there is a device which offers a fundamentally different approach to tablet computing than the iPad. That device is Amazon's Fire tablet.

The whole idea of the Fire tablet isn't that it is meant to be just as nice to look at and use as the iPad, since this is a game nobody can beat Apple at (if there's one thing they do head and shoulders better than everyone else, it is product design). True, it is pretty similar looking and feeling to the iPad, but that is not really the point - everyone should know by now that if you think product design is your selling point, and you're not Apple, then you can pretty much expect a few 'where we went wrong meetings' in the next six months...

No - Amazon (unlike HP, Blackberry, LG, Toshiba, Motorola et al) knew that the only way to establish a foothold in the tablet market was not to try and take customers directly off Apple, but instead to attract new customers; those who don't have an iPad already and aren't going to get one. The key to this, as an excellent analysis in the Guardian recently showed, is undercutting Apple in the only way possible - on price.

As is often the case, Apple's only major weakness is its extortionate pricing (profit margins on the iPad are reportedly 40%) though this is of course also what has helped make it the most valuable company in the world (on and off depending on how its only share-price rival, Exxon Mobil, is doing).

Amazon are therefore launching a tablet which is going to cost a fraction of what the iPad does (two-fifths precisely, at $199) safe in the knowledge that for them the tablet is simply the means to enable huge profits from content delivery, rather than the main profit-making aspect in the whole process. In other words, same as with the Kindle, Amazon is able to offer a super cut-price gadget (perhaps even selling at a loss), knowing that the additional profits from content will still ensure the viability of the entire revenue model.

We know that this works extremely well because we've seen the tremendous success of the Kindle over the past couple of years - especially since the huge price drop just over a year ago. And it is this track record of success with such a revenue model that makes Amazon's Fire tablet one to take seriously as a new device and as the one most likely to become only the second tablet computing success ever (assuming we count the iPad and iPad 2 as essentially one device).

1. Google is dying

2. Social media marketing should not be aimed at monitoring the brand impact of ad campaigns

Ok, so the first one is kinda obviously an overblown, attention-seeking bit of hot air, while the second is on a slightly less apocalyptic level - though it too provides an example of a direct negation of current zeitgeist thinking on a particular web topic.

Both however, are taken from fairly thought-provoking pieces which are proving to be interesting talking points on a couple of popular tech blogs (judging by the number of intensely-worded coments that each is generating) - on The Guardian and Mashable respectively.

I've decided to link them here as I think both offer some genuinely fascinating points, albeit ones which contradict the received wisdom (perhaps the reason why they're attracting some intense debates in the comments sections).

Anyway, the first is taken from a lecture by Roger McNamee (US investor and musician) from a conference earlier in the year - but which has now been made available in full as a video online. The talk is generally being accused of being another example of Apple Fanboism (McNamee is very harsh on Google - at one point blaming them for turning the web into a sea of crap - though there is a little more to his theory than just this soundbyte), all the while proclaiming Apple as the saviour of content creators who actually wish to profit from their work.

It's quite hard to fit a full summary in here, and there's no doubt that there is some clear bias (and a fair bit of complete tosh) in McNamee's thesis, but I still consider it to be an interesting account of what has been happening in the tech world over the past 15 years or so, especially in terms of his thoughts on the following:

1. The consequences of Google's policy of using a clean search interface which, even in the results, displays every site result equally in terms of graphic design/layout etc (regardless of what the site actually looks like, Google shows it as a bit of blue text on a white background).

According to McNamee, this is just one way in which Google undermines professional content creators' efforts to brand themselves online. Apparently, it means that those who invest in graphic and aesthetic design for branding and marketing purposes are having their work negated, at least at the web search stage, by Google's search result interface. (This is where the sea of crap idea comes in - McNamee believes Google thus unfairly assists those who do not produce quality products/sites/brands by placing them on equal footing with those who do).

So the idea is basically that, as a result, we now use specialised search tools for specific things (Wikipedia for info, Twitter for news, Facebook for 'matters of taste' as McNamee has it) as the general search tool of Google now gives us too much of what we don't want (that sea of crap again).

An interesting narrative of how Google's search interface might relate to the popularity of certain mobile apps (though I personally think that the size of the mobile device's screen has a bit to do with it as well). Nonetheless, it is an interesting idea, and one I've not heard too much before, even though McNamee's examples, such as Twitter being a source of news, somewhat undermine his overall hypothesis sadly.

2. McNamee reckons that, since Google makes no money from Android, its stake in the mobile market is irrelevant from a business perspective and that thus, when the day arrives that most searches are done via specific mobile apps, Google's significance (based on the current dominance of its web search) will be greatly reduced.

This of course posits that Google will be entirely unsuccesful with every other product that they're currently developing over the next few years, which I reckon is somewhat absurd (even Microsoft, the biggest one trick pony of them all, has scored at least a handful of post-Windows hits; xBox, IE 9 etc). Nonetheless, it is interesting to consider the future value of the web search market, and the extent to which Google's future depends on it.

3. McNamee sees Apple as a company which fundamentally ignores the world wide web in terms of how its products work and make money (they use the internet of course, and can thus access the web, but fundamentally Apple's revenue model could continue undisturbed even if every website in the world suddenly disappeared).

So, essentially we have a consideration of Apple's walled garden approach to designing technology products, considered in the context of a future world of mobile computing which increasingly renders the web ever more closed and 'walled off'. Ok it might make Apple products annoying (in my eyes at least), but it also places the company in a great position to dominate mobile computing which is much more comfortable with the walled garden concept.

Anyway, these are just the thoughts which I found most interesting on there, there's plenty more to ponder over on the Guardian blog where a clip of the lecture is posted (the full thing is also available over at Fora.tv)

Now for the second thought-provocation of the day, which comes in the way of a guest post over at Mashable, detailing how most social media marketing falls down in its use of social data, not because the tools that are being used are inadequate - but instead because the goals to which they are being put to use are unsuitable and/or unfeasable.

The main point is that social data usually has a few key characteristics which often get forgotten when we design methods for using it in business and marketing (often imagining the data to be more ideal and comprehensive than it is). In fact it is usually quite limited in the following ways:

1. Social data is often based on small sample sizes
2. Social creators aren’t necessarily representative of your audience
3. Social data usually measures extremes

However there are still uses to which it can be put, especially if we have acknowledge these limitations to the data:

• Source your creative.
• Improve your media plan.
• Identify your key influencers.
• React to your consumers.

Anyway, I'll leave it there so you can check the post for yourself, but the bottom line is that if you're unsure about the effectiveness of your social media strategy, often the best way to go about a re-think is to return right back to the beginning and reconsider what data social media provides you with - rather than build a plan around a body of data which it could provide you with, in theory, but actually rarely does in practice.

Unlike in the smart-phone arena, where there are now a number of successful rivals to the iPhone (albeit many of which only arrived a good few years after Apple launched their first handset), at the moment only one tablet is selling well and we all know exactly which one that is...

Plus, it's not like others aren't trying, check out for example these recent reviews of the Motorola Xoom Android tablet at Engadget and Guardian technology; both indicate that there's not much deeply wrong with the Xoom - just that while, in terms of price, it is generally equal with the iPad - in terms of features and functionality, it isn't...

That, thus far, has been the tablet story. Since the iPad launch, many other rival items have been brought to market and very few offer any significant reason to buy them over the iPad. What needs to happen before that becomes the case is something like the breakthrough Amazon recently had with their Kindle e-reader; i.e. when one device emerges with a unique selling point and sweeps away the rest of the competition (or at least claims a decent market share) in a sector which has proven potential for huge revenues if you can get the right device to market in the right way.

For the Kindle it proved to be the huge price reduction which came into effect around a year ago (thus undercutting devices such as the iPad - with which it did not compete at a functional level, only at a monetary/price one) and also the massive brand potential of Amazon with their excellent expertise in cloud-based services (which make managing a Kindle an absolute pleasure).

So let's return to tablets. Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, is determined that his company won't just build 'another tablet'. Meanwhile, Sony's highly anticipated entry to the tablet market is currently due for September this year for their S1 device - though this has already been pushed back a little bit so who knows if this latest date will stick. Sony will hope to capitalise on the might of the Playstation in the console gaming market to give them a USP for their device by means of excellent gaming capabilities. Nokia, on the other hand have yet to release even this much info though it seems likely judging from the aforementioned interview with Stephen Elop (check out the full thing over at Engadget), that the company is well aware of the need to enter the tablet market with a well-defined USP.

Thus far though, despite the fact there's now dozens of devices available to choose from, there's only one tablet that really works at a market level - and it is the one built by Apple. The next big success will come when someone else comes along with an alternative decent idea for what a tablet can do and how it could be made and sold. Unless it happens in the near future, the only big tablet hit I can see on the horizon is the iPad 3...

So, it is with some surprise that I greet this latest bit of news about Apple's current plans for iTunes. Apparently, they're negotiating to make it so that once you buy a song once, you have the right to download it as many times as you like: i.e. if you accidentally delete it/get a new phone or computer (whatever), or simply want a tune on both an iPod and an iPad etc, you WON'T have to pay for it twice. Genius. Pure Genius...

This of course seems like common sense to pretty much any iTunes user but in all honesty, after years of hating iTunes, I'd just accepted that it would never be good or intuitive in any way. Well this latest change (if it goes through) will go some way towards changing my perception (and that of countless others no doubt). There's no shortage of further potential for improvement, but for now it's nice to see for once Apple doing something with iTunes that actual consumers will welcome (as opposed to record companies or shareholders, who usually seem to be the only ones considered). Who knows, one day iTunes might even be a great bit of software from a user perspective? (little joke to finish with there...)