• Amazon Posts Strong Q1
    Beating analysts’ estimates, Amazon saw net sales during the first quarter increase by 23% to $35.7 billion. The tech giant credited retail and cloud-computing sales with the strong performance, Reuters reports. “More fees from Amazon’s Prime shopping club and media streaming services, along with growing advertising revenue, also boosted results.”
  • Tribune Media Ditching Tribune.com Debut
    Just weeks before its scheduled launch, Tribune Media has reportedly decided to ditch a new national news hub, Tribune.com. “In addition to pulling the plug on Tribune.com, Tribune Media also scrapped its plan to relaunch Television Without Pity, a popular TV commentary website,” Politico reports. As such, more than 18 Tribute employees are being cut, according to Politico.
  • Venture Capital Hits $16.5B In Q1
    During the first quarter of the year,1,800 companies raised $16.5 billion in venture capital, according to fresh findings from the National Venture Capital Association and PitchBook. “The absolute numbers sound big,” Inc. writes. “However, NVCA and PitchBook found that while the amount of capital invested in 2017’s first quarter was slightly higher than 2016’s fourth quarter, the number of companies swung to its lowest since Q4 2011.”
  • Women Still Scarce At VC Firms
    At venture capital firms in the United States, just a fraction (7%) of “decision-makers” are women, according to fresh analysis from Axios. Worse yet, “Women effectively control just 4.7% of all venture dollars raised in the past five years by U.S.-based firms,” Axios reports. For its findings, the publication said it identified 1,019 decision-makers at 227 U.S. venture capital firms, 72 of whom were women.
  • Tech Giants Support 'News Literacy'
    Facebook and Mozilla are contributing to a $14 million initiative to boost news literacy. As Poynter reports: “The News Integrity Initiative, which will be administered by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, will unite an initial group of 19 organizations and individuals around the world to make journalism more informative and help news consumers understand it better.”
  • New H-1B Visa Guidelines Target Programmers
    Using the H-1B visa process, companies should now find it harder to bring foreign tech workers to the United States, according to new guidelines issued by The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services department. “The new guidelines … require additional information for computer programmers applying for the work visa to prove the jobs are complicated and require more advanced knowledge and experience,” Bloomberg reports. “The new policy is effective immediately.”
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