Facebook Beats Forecasts on Earnings and Revenue

SAN FRANCISCO — Wall Street is still not sure about Facebook.

After an eight-month roller coaster ride on the public market, the company on Wednesday beat earnings expectations by aggressively ramping up targeted advertisements to its users, including on mobile phones. It reported fourth-quarter revenues of $1.59 billion, representing 40 percent growth. Analysts were looking for a 34 percent growth in revenue, to $1.52 billion in this quarter, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Facebook earned $64 million in net income, or 3 cents a share. Excluding certain items, Facebook said it had a net income of $426 million in the fourth quarter, or 17 cents a share. Analysts had expected 15 cents a share.

But after the earnings report, the stock fell over 5 percent from Wednesday’s closing price of $31.24, before recovering.

Most Facebook users log in on their cell phones, and so the most closely watched piece of the quarterly earnings was how much money the company brought in from its mobile users. It reported that advertising on the mobile newsfeed accounted for 23 percent of its advertising revenues, up from 14 percent in the third quarter of 2012; at the time Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, told analysts he wished to “dispel the myth” that the company can’t profit in the mobile era.

This quarter, analysts expected the company to rev it up considerably; Aaron Kessler, an analyst at Raymond James, for example, estimated it would rise to more than 25 percent. “They’re experimenting a lot with ad formats,” he said “Not all of them will stick. It’s still in a somewhat experimental phase.”

Despite the stock’s decline after the earnings report, it is still much recovered since last year’s slump. After Facebook’s fairy tale debut in the public markets last year at $38 a share, the stock plummeted, as Wall Street soured on its ability to grow profits as fast as it had wished. Shares slumped to half the public offering price last September.

But the company focused on its advertising business; rolled out a series of new products aimed at taking on some of its biggest rivals, including Google and Apple; and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, took greater initiative to reassure investors it had their interests at heart. Facebook’s share price has steadily improved in the last few weeks, suggesting that the company’s charm offensive to investors is paying off.

Facebook’s biggest, long-term challenge remains how to profit from the enormous piles of personal data of its one billion users without alienating them or inviting the wrath of government regulators in the United States and abroad. Secondarily, it must figure out a way to profit abroad: The lion’s share of its revenues still come from North America and to a lesser extent, Europe.

In the last few months, Facebook has floated several trial balloons designed to please Wall Street and in particular, to persuade investors that it can thrive in the mobile era.

It offered marketers more refined targeting options, including Facebook Exchange, which allows companies to track users as they are browsing and shopping for products around the Web and show them advertisements for those products when they are logged back on to Facebook.

Before Christmas last year, in a bid to step into territory dominated by Amazon, it rolled out the Gifts application, which allows users to buy goods and services for their Facebook friends, and in turn, share with the company an extremely valuable piece of data: their credit card numbers.

Its most ambitious move came in mid-January with a new search tool that mines the vast data posted by individual users and brands. The tool, which the company calls “graph search,” promises to help users answer their questions about everything from jobs to restaurant recommendations. It is part of the company’s efforts to take on smaller sites like Yelp, for restaurants, and LinkedIn, for employment, and ultimately needle its biggest rival, Google, which dominates the search market.

Jared Belsky, executive vice president of a digital marketing agency, 360i, said marketers were more optimistic about the Facebook platform than even a few months ago. “They have so much information to share on consumers, they are getting better at making data available,” he said. “They’re helping us target better, but to a point.”

Facebook remains a shadow of Google: With about $5 billion in revenues in 2012, Facebook earned a little under one-tenth of what Google brought in. Even in the mobile advertising business, Google takes in over half of all revenues, compared with about 8 percent by Facebook, the research firm, eMarketer estimates.

As part of its aggressive appeals to mobile users, a few weeks ago, Facebook rolled out a way for users to make free voice calls using the Internet (think Skype) and leaving voice messages for friends unable to text (think Facebook app for cars).

The Facebook mobile application earlier this month became the most popular in the United States, accounting for 85 million unique users, according to the market research firm ComScore. The company had released a new, faster version of its application for the iPhone last August, followed later in the year by a new version for Android phones.

It showed more advertisements to desktop users and its mobile subscribers. Sponsored Stories advertisements appear in the mobile newsfeed and app developers can market their products with what are called app install ads.

One offering, Poke, a fleeting text application aimed squarely at young audiences, sank like a lead balloon. Poke was clearly intended to rival Snapchat, which is popular among teenagers, a demographic that Facebook desperately needs to hold onto.

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Report links Alex Rodriguez to performance-enhancing drugs

Alex Rodriguez with the Yankees last season. (Carlos Osorio / Associated Press)

By Bill Shaikin

January 29, 2013, 1:37 p.m.

As spring training dawned in 2009, Alex Rodriguez faced the cameras and confessed to his use of performance-enhancing substances from 2001 to 2003.

“My mistake … I was immature and I was stupid,” he said then.

Yet that very same year, the New York Yankees star was supplied with performance-enhancing drugs, according to a report posted Tuesday by Miami New Times. The newspaper cited 16 records from a now-closed Florida clinic that indicated Rodriguez was provided with human growth hormone and other substances as recently as last year.

The report also linked Washington Nationals pitcher Gio Gonzalez, Texas Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz, Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Melky Cabrera, Oakland Athletics pitcher Bartolo Colon and San Diego Padres catcher Yasmani Grandal to the clinic.

Cabrera, Colon and Grandal all were issued suspensions by Major League Baseball last year after failing drug tests. The other players, including Rodriguez, are at risk of suspension following an ongoing MLB investigation. Under the league’s drug policy, a positive test is not the only evidence that can warrant a suspension.

Rodriguez retained Sitrick and Co., a Los Angeles-based crisis management firm, which issued a statement on his behalf dismissing the New Times reporting on Rodriguez as “not true” and the clinic records as “not legitimate.” A spokesman told reporters Rodriguez denies using any performance-enhancing drugs during the 2009-12 period covered in the New Times report.

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Researchers Find Serious Security Flaws in Universal Plug and Play

Researchers have uncovered three sets of serious security flaws in the protocol for a component that allows computers and other devices to easily connect and communicate on a network.

The flaws were found in Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), a component that is embedded in nearly 7,000 different kinds of devices — including routers, printers, media players and smart TVs — to allow them to be easily discovered on a network for quick setup and information sharing.

The flaws would allow hackers to steal passwords and documents or take remote control of webcams, printers, security systems, and other devices that are connected to the internet.

Computer security firm Rapid7, which uncovered the flaws and has published a white paper detailing its findings (.pdf), said that it had found 40 million to 50 million network-enabled devices that were vulnerable to attack.

The researchers noted that although it’s currently time-intensive and difficult to exploit the flaws remotely, they expect that exploits and ready-made attack tools will be available soon.

Rapid7 says there are fixes available for the software libraries to fix the vulnerabilities, but each device manufacturer that is affected would have to build updates for each of its products to fix the flaws. Rapid7 and the U.S. government are urging users to disable UPnP or use devices that avoid it entirely.

The security firm has created a tool to help people determine if they’re affected.

They discussed their findings in a blog post:

The results were shocking to the say the least. Over 80 million unique IPs were identified that responded to UPnP discovery requests from the internet. Somewhere between 40 and 50 million IPs are vulnerable to at least one of three attacks outlined in this paper. The two most commonly used UPnP software libraries both contained remotely exploitable vulnerabilities. In the case of the Portable UPnP SDK, over 23 million IPs are vulnerable to remote code execution through a single UDP packet. All told, we were able to identify over 6,900 product versions that were vulnerable through UPnP. This list encompasses over 1,500 vendors and only took into account devices that exposed the UPnP SOAP service to the internet, a serious vulnerability in of itself.

The vulnerabilities we identified in the Portable UPnP SDK have been fixed as of version 1.6.18 (released today), but it will take a long time before each of the application and device vendors incorporate this patch into their products. In most cases, network equipment that is “no longer shipping” will not be updated at all, exposing these users to remote compromise until UPnP is disabled or the product is swapped for something new. The flaws identified in the MiniUPnP software were fixed over two years ago, yet over 330 products are still using older versions.

Rapid7 has alerted electronics makers about the problem through the CERT Coordination Center, a group at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, according to Reuters. CERT in turn has tried to contact more than 200 companies identified as having vulnerable devices, including Belkin, D-Link, Cisco Systems Inc’s Linksys division and Netgear.

Homepage photo: Aus36/Flickr

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Justin Bieber strips down voice, heartache on ‘Believe Acoustic’

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Justin Bieber is stripping down. Musically, that is.

The Canadian pop phenomenon showcases his vocal and song-writing talents with a new acoustic album, out on Tuesday, that also features three new tracks including a heartbreak ballad thought to be about his former girlfriend Selena Gomez.

“Believe Acoustic” sees Bieber, 18, change up the arrangements of songs from his fourth chart-topping album “Believe,” released last June, singing with only a guitar or piano-driven melody.

The album went straight to the top of the iTunes U.S. album charts on Tuesday, and won generally warm reviews.

Up-tempo songs such as “Boyfriend,” and “Beauty and the Beat,” which roped in electronic sounds with fast-paced dance beats, are slowed down as the singer uses his vocals to manipulate the vibe of the song.

“Believe Acoustic” sees Bieber return to his acoustic roots five years after he was discovered on YouTube, singing on the streets of Canada accompanied only by a guitar.

It was released following Bieber‘s failure to pick up a single Grammy nomination this year, despite having a chart-topping album and a sold-out world tour.

Bieber often performs acoustic versions of his hits, most recently at the American Music Awards in November, where he delivered a stripped-down version of dance song “As Long As You Love Me.”

But most ears now are turned to new track “Nothing Like Us,” which follows Bieber‘s widely reported split from former Disney Channel star Gomez.

It features Bieber singing a raw and emotion-filled ballad over a piano melody, with lyrics such as “Girl, why would you push me away?/Lost in confusion, like an illusion … But that is the past now, we didn’t last now.”

SIMPLE LOVE SONGS

Bill Werde, editorial director of Billboard music magazine, who interviewed Bieber last week, said the song was “directly about Selena” and that fans were anticipating the singer sharing “his feelings about something this personal.”

Werde said he hoped people would take notice of Bieber‘s song-writing and vocal production skills on the new album.

“Some of the best songwriters that are working out of our pop space are the ones that can take these very, very specific feelings that you would expect a teenager or a young adult to have and then sing and write about them in a way that makes them universal,” Werde told Reuters.

“That’s a skill that needs to be respected. It’s not easy to write great, simple love songs.”

Rolling Stone magazine gave the album three out of five stars, calling it “proof that the Bieb is, verily, a musician, whose songs work even with the high-gloss production stripped away.”

Newspaper USA Today said Bieber was a “master at maximizing his material.” But it added, “For people who’ve forgotten — or who never understood — the appeal of young performers like Bieber, ‘Believe Acoustic’ is a good place to hear it.”

The other new songs are “I Would,” a sweet love song, and “Yellow Raincoat,” a mellow survival song with the singer crooning softly “cause the fame and the money and the girl will drive you crazy … I’m thinking maybe just put on my raincoat.”

If “Believe Acoustic” reaches No. 1 in the Billboard 200 album chart next week, Bieber will become the youngest artist to have five No. 1 albums under his belt. He would also be one of the few artists, including The Beatles and Jay-Z, to have a No. 1 album each year for four consecutive years.

Bieber, who surpassed Lady Gaga earlier this month to become Twitter’s most-followed person, will make his television hosting debut on “Saturday Night Live” on February 9, the night before the Grammy awards.

Bieber told Billboard he would not be attending the Grammy awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

Click on www.billboard.com for the full interview.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Jackie Frank)

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Well: Ask Well: Squats for Aging Knees

You are already doing many things right, in terms of taking care of your aging knees. In particular, it sounds as if you are keeping your weight under control. Carrying extra pounds undoubtedly strains knees and contributes to pain and eventually arthritis.

You mention weight training, too, which is also valuable. Sturdy leg muscles, particularly those at the front and back of the thighs, stabilize the knee, says Joseph Hart, an assistant professor of kinesiology and certified athletic trainer at the University of Virginia, who often works with patients with knee pain.

An easy exercise to target those muscles is the squat. Although many of us have heard that squats harm knees, the exercise is actually “quite good for the knees, if you do the squats correctly,” Dr. Hart says. Simply stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and bend your legs until your thighs are almost, but not completely, parallel to the ground. Keep your upper body straight. Don’t bend forward, he says, since that movement can strain the knees. Try to complete 20 squats, using no weight at first. When that becomes easy, Dr. Hart suggests, hold a barbell with weights attached. Or simply clutch a full milk carton, which is my cheapskate’s squats routine.

Straight leg lifts are also useful for knee health. Sit on the floor with your back straight and one leg extended and the other bent toward your chest. In this position, lift the straight leg slightly off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 to 20 times and then switch legs.

You can also find other exercises that target the knees in this video, “Increasing Knee Stability.”

Of course, before starting any exercise program, consult a physician, especially, Dr. Hart says, if your knees often ache, feel stiff or emit a strange, clicking noise, which could be symptoms of arthritis.

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Bucks Blog: When Good Drivers Pay More for Insurance than Bad Ones

Some big insurance companies charge higher auto rates for lower-income drivers, even if the drivers have safe driving records, an analysis from the Consumer Federation of America finds.

The federation, a nonprofit comprising 250 consumer groups, has argued that insurers often give nondriving-related factors, like occupation and education, more weight than driving-related factors, and that such practices unfairly penalize lower- and moderate-income drivers. Occupation and education, the federation says, are proxies for income.

In its latest report, the federation obtained insurance quotes in 12 different cities from the public Web sites of five big auto insurers, using information for two hypothetical women. The insurers — State Farm, Allstate, GEICO, Farmers and Progressive — represent more than half of the private auto insurance market, the federation said.

Both drivers shared certain characteristics: Each was 30 years old; had been a driver for 10 years; lived in a Zip code with a median income of $50,000; owned and drove a 2002 Honda Civic; drove 7,500 miles per year and carried the minimum auto liability insurance required by state law (minimums vary from state to state).

The first driver, however, was a single receptionist with a high school education who had a 45-day gap in her insurance coverage, but had never had an accident or moving violation. (Gaps in coverage often occur because drivers can’t afford their premiums, said Robert Hunter, the federation’s director of insurance and a former Texas state insurance commissioner.)

The second driver was a married executive with a master’s degree who owned a home, had continuous insurance coverage and one at-fault accident with $800 of damage in the last three years.

In two-thirds of the 60 quotes, the receptionist was quoted higher premiums, even though her driving record was clean. And in more than three-fifths of the cases, the premium quoted the receptionist exceeded the quote for the executive, who wasn’t as safe a driver, by at least 25 percent.

The federation argues that “largely uncontrollable” factors, like education and occupation, are often given greater weight in rate setting than actual losses.

Robert Passmore, senior director of personal lines for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, said in a telephone interview that it was reasonable to use such factors because “they are predictive of loss.”  Different insurers give different weights to different factors, he said, depending on what they saw as the best way to predict a given driver’s risk.

During a conference call with reporters, Mr. Hunter and Stephen Brobeck, the federation’s executive director, were asked why the analysis didn’t include smaller automobile insurers as well. They said it was because the analysis was time consuming and because the largest companies tend to offer the lowest rates, even though the federation still considered many of them to be unreasonably high for lower-income drivers.

The federation argues that the wide disparity in rates quoted, from company to company and market to market, suggests that the auto insurance market is not truly competitive, but the insurance industry rejects that position.

“Auto insurance provides important, cost-effective financial protection to millions of Americans, and most drivers have dozens of auto insurers constantly competing for their business,” said  Steven Weisbart, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group, in a prepared statement. “The price is risk-based and always will be.”

The federation’s analysis found that in every case, GEICO and Progressive quoted the safe driver — the receptionist — a higher premium than the driver who had caused an accident. In several cases, companies refused to provide a quote to the “good” driver, but offered one to the executive.

“We work to price each driver’s policy as accurately as possible, so that every driver pays the appropriate amount based on his or her risk of having an accident,” said Jeff Sibel, a spokesman for Progressive, in an e-mail.  “We use multiple rating factors, which sometimes include nondriving factors that have been proven to be predictive of a person’s likelihood of being involved in a crash.”

Geico didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

State Farm, however, charged the receptionist (the good driver) less than the bad driver in all 12 cities. In addition, in all the markets, State Farm’s quotes were either the lowest or the second lowest.

That suggests, said Mr. Hunter, that State Farm gives less weight to nondriving factors than other companies. A State Farm representative declined to comment.

Mr. Hunter said states should insist that insurance companies make the factors used in setting their rates transparent, so consumers know how their applications for coverage were being considered.

Do you think factors like education and occupation should be used to set auto insurance rates?

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Government Appetite Growing for Twitter User Data

Twitter said Monday that just 19 percent of federal and state government requests for user data were accompanied by probable-cause search warrants during the six months ending in December 2012.

In all, the San Francisco-based micro-blogging service, in its second so-called transparency report, said there were 815 demands for Twitter account-holder data. Twitter did not say what type of user data was sought in those 815 requests, but it likely includes a mixture of e-mail addresses associated with accounts, IP logs, tweets and direct messages.

Twitter neither said what data it hands over nor said what type of data requires probable-cause warrants. Twitter did not immediately respond for comment.

The disclosure came a week after Google and Yahoo told Wired that it requires probable-cause warrants to divulge to the authorities e-mail and cloud-stored content of its account holders, despite federal law not always demanding that.

Twitter said it complied with subpoenas, court orders and probable-cause search warrants 69 percent of the time in the latest reporting period.

Previously, Twitter reported that it complied with 75 percent of the 679 demands in the first half of 2012. In that original transparency report, Twitter did not chronicle what legal tools the government used to acquire user data.

To be sure, Twitter indeed fights for the privacy of its account holders, despite it sometimes being a losing battle.

Last year, for example, it was forced against its wishes to divulge the tweets and account information associated with the account of Malcolm Harris, who was arrested in an October Occupy movement march along the Brooklyn Bridge. Twitter fought for Harris, but in the end lost, even though no probable-cause warrant was used by New York state prosecutors.

Twitter also said it notifies its users about requests for data “unless we are prohibited from doing so by law or in an emergency situation.” In all, Twitter said 24 percent of all requests “resulted in notice to affected users.”

Worldwide, 81 percent of all requests for user data originated in the United States, Twitter said.

Meantime, the company said it received 3,268 notices to remove content under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the latest six-month reporting period, compared to 3,378 the previous six months.

Homepage photo: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

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Singer Chris Brown to be questioned over alleged punch: police

(Reuters) – R&B singer Chris Brown will be questioned as part of an investigation into allegations that he punched a man during a fight over a parking space in West Hollywood, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said on Monday.

Deputies responded to a call on Sunday about a fight involving six men on Santa Monica Boulevard, the department said. Witnesses said the Grammy-winning singer had assaulted a man during the brief altercation.

No arrests were made. The alleged victim was not named in a department statement that said Brown and his entourage had left the scene before deputies arrived.

Investigators plan to contact the singer about the incident at a later time, according to the department.

Brown, 23, is serving a five-year probation sentence after pleading guilty to assaulting fellow R&B star and former girlfriend Rihanna on the eve of the 2009 Grammy awards.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Well: Keeping Blood Pressure in Check

Since the start of the 21st century, Americans have made great progress in controlling high blood pressure, though it remains a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure and kidney disease.

Now 48 percent of the more than 76 million adults with hypertension have it under control, up from 29 percent in 2000.

But that means more than half, including many receiving treatment, have blood pressure that remains too high to be healthy. (A normal blood pressure is lower than 120 over 80.) With a plethora of drugs available to normalize blood pressure, why are so many people still at increased risk of disease, disability and premature death? Hypertension experts offer a few common, and correctable, reasons:

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Jane Brody speaks about hypertension.

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¶ About 20 percent of affected adults don’t know they have high blood pressure, perhaps because they never or rarely see a doctor who checks their pressure.

¶ Of the 80 percent who are aware of their condition, some don’t appreciate how serious it can be and fail to get treated, even when their doctors say they should.

¶ Some who have been treated develop bothersome side effects, causing them to abandon therapy or to use it haphazardly.

¶ Many others do little to change lifestyle factors, like obesity, lack of exercise and a high-salt diet, that can make hypertension harder to control.

Dr. Samuel J. Mann, a hypertension specialist and professor of clinical medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, adds another factor that may be the most important. Of the 71 percent of people with hypertension who are currently being treated, too many are taking the wrong drugs or the wrong dosages of the right ones.

Dr. Mann, author of “Hypertension and You: Old Drugs, New Drugs, and the Right Drugs for Your High Blood Pressure,” says that doctors should take into account the underlying causes of each patient’s blood pressure problem and the side effects that may prompt patients to abandon therapy. He has found that when treatment is tailored to the individual, nearly all cases of high blood pressure can be brought and kept under control with available drugs.

Plus, he said in an interview, it can be done with minimal, if any, side effects and at a reasonable cost.

“For most people, no new drugs need to be developed,” Dr. Mann said. “What we need, in terms of medication, is already out there. We just need to use it better.”

But many doctors who are generalists do not understand the “intricacies and nuances” of the dozens of available medications to determine which is appropriate to a certain patient.

“Prescribing the same medication to patient after patient just does not cut it,” Dr. Mann wrote in his book.

The trick to prescribing the best treatment for each patient is to first determine which of three mechanisms, or combination of mechanisms, is responsible for a patient’s hypertension, he said.

¶ Salt-sensitive hypertension, more common in older people and African-Americans, responds well to diuretics and calcium channel blockers.

¶ Hypertension driven by the kidney hormone renin responds best to ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers, as well as direct renin inhibitors and beta-blockers.

¶ Neurogenic hypertension is a product of the sympathetic nervous system and is best treated with beta-blockers, alpha-blockers and drugs like clonidine.

According to Dr. Mann, neurogenic hypertension results from repressed emotions. He has found that many patients with it suffered trauma early in life or abuse. They seem calm and content on the surface but continually suppress their distress, he said.

One of Dr. Mann’s patients had had high blood pressure since her late 20s that remained well-controlled by the three drugs her family doctor prescribed. Then in her 40s, periodic checks showed it was often too high. When taking more of the prescribed medication did not result in lasting control, she sought Dr. Mann’s help.

After a thorough work-up, he said she had a textbook case of neurogenic hypertension, was taking too much medication and needed different drugs. Her condition soon became far better managed, with side effects she could easily tolerate, and she no longer feared she would die young of a heart attack or stroke.

But most patients should not have to consult a specialist. They can be well-treated by an internist or family physician who approaches the condition systematically, Dr. Mann said. Patients should be started on low doses of one or more drugs, including a diuretic; the dosage or number of drugs can be slowly increased as needed to achieve a normal pressure.

Specialists, he said, are most useful for treating the 10 percent to 15 percent of patients with so-called resistant hypertension that remains uncontrolled despite treatment with three drugs, including a diuretic, and for those whose treatment is effective but causing distressing side effects.

Hypertension sometimes fails to respond to routine care, he noted, because it results from an underlying medical problem that needs to be addressed.

“Some patients are on a lot of blood pressure drugs — four or five — who probably don’t need so many, and if they do, the question is why,” Dr. Mann said.

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How to Measure Your Blood Pressure

Mistaken readings, which can occur in doctors’ offices as well as at home, can result in misdiagnosis of hypertension and improper treatment. Dr. Samuel J. Mann, of Weill Cornell Medical College, suggests these guidelines to reduce the risk of errors:

¶ Use an automatic monitor rather than a manual one, and check the accuracy of your home monitor at the doctor’s office.

¶ Use a monitor with an arm cuff, not a wrist or finger cuff, and use a large cuff if you have a large arm.

¶ Sit quietly for a few minutes, without talking, after putting on the cuff and before checking your pressure.

¶ Check your pressure in one arm only, and take three readings (not more) one or two minutes apart.

¶ Measure your blood pressure no more than twice a week unless you have severe hypertension or are changing medications.

¶ Check your pressure at random, ordinary times of the day, not just when you think it is high.

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Yahoo Earnings Beat Forecasts

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo reported earnings Monday that were considerably above Wall Street expectations.

Yahoo reported net income in the fourth quarter of $272 million, or 23 cents a share, compared to $295.6 million, or 24 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.

But using a non-standard accounting method favored by Wall Street analysts, the net income was 32 cents a share. Analysts had expected 28 cents a share, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

The company said revenue was up 1.5 percent from the same quarter a year ago at $1.35 billion.

“I’m proud of Yahoo’s 2012 and fourth-quarter results,” Yahoo’s chief executive, Marissa Mayer, said in a company press release. “In 2012, Yahoo exhibited revenue growth for the first time in four years, with revenue up 2 percent year-over-year.”

Yahoo’s fourth-quarter earnings arrived at a critical juncture for Ms. Mayer, who joined the company six months ago.

Since then, her sheer presence at Yahoo headquarters seems to have jolted the company’s stock back to life. Yahoo’s stock is up more than 10 percent since July, and closed at its highest price since September 2008 on Thursday at $20.52.

Yahoo’s stock jumped more than 4 percent Monday in after-hours trading after closing at $20.31 in regular trading.

With Ms. Mayer’s honeymoon coming to an end, investors are eager to see whether she can deliver revenue growth.

Yahoo’s revenue has largely languished in an increasingly competitive landscape, in which it now finds itself vying with Facebook and Google for engineers, and for greater share of the online display advertising market.

The company’s search business, which Yahoo outsourced to Microsoft in 2009, is on its last legs, propped up only because of a revenue-guarantee clause in its contract with Microsoft that is set to expire in two months, though search revenue rose 4 percent in the fourth quarter to $482 million compared to $465 million for the year-ago quarter.

But as Ms. Mayer has acknowledged, Yahoo’s future growth may well depend on its mobile strategy. Without its own mobile hardware, browser or social platform of its own, Yahoo has a long way to go.

In the past, Ms. Mayer has said the company’s mobile growth may come from smaller-scale acquisitions of mobile app companies. Yahoo acquired Stamped, a mobile app, for an undisclosed sum last October. In December, Yahoo acquired OnTheAir, a small video-conferencing start-up, whose five-member team will focus on mobile products. Last week, it made its third acquisition with Snip.it, a San Francisco start-up. Like Stamped and OnTheAir, the service was immediately shut down. The team said it would be working in the “social news” area.

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