Showing the resilience of ad-supported streaming media -- and perhaps the over eagerness of investors -- Pandora has filed an IPO and plans to raise $100 million. As Bloomberg reports, the personalized radio platform "appeared to be a bust three years ago when the business was buried in music-royalty fees. Yet, in a dramatic turnaround, "Pandora negotiated better terms with the music industry, narrowed its losses and attracted more than 80 million users." paidContent points out, "The filing shows a company operating at a loss but with advertising revenues rising dramatically."  Indeed, Pandora posted …

Though still a private company, Facebook can't seem to keep a lid on its financials. In the fourth quarter, the social network "generated ~$250 million of net income," sources tell Business Insider. Previous reports pegged Facebook's profits at $355 million over the first nine month of 2010. "These sources say the company is on track to generate about $2 billion of EBITDA in 2011," while one optimistic insider says Facebook could bank $4 billion this year. "The projections are just projections, obviously, and Facebook probably isn't very concerned with generating cash at this point," Business Insider notes. "Even …

Any news or media publisher feeling as if they've finally figured out the digital landscape is in for a big surprise, insists Bret Taylor, chief technology officer at Facebook. "We haven't seen tons of other industries as impacted as games by Facebook, and we think that the next big change is seeing the next few industries being disrupted by social platforms in the same way gaming has been," Taylor tells BBC News. "If we had to guess, it's probably going to be orientated around media or news, because they are so social." But, with Facebook "Like" buttons now …

Trying to break open the possibilities for online monetization, PayPal has opened up its micropayment solution to "game developers, media publishers, or anyone interested in selling digital content on a global scale." First announced late last year, the Ebay-owned online payment company said it plans to offer "a competitive fee structure for micropayments, with pricing at 5 percent plus 5 cents for purchases under $12." According to ReadWriteWeb, PayPal's two-click micropayment solution "has the potential to change how publishers and other online merchants interact with their customers." When consumers pay for online content, PayPal for digital goods allows …

Following eyewitness sightings of a "strong" Steve Jobs seen walking around Apple HQ, the company's savior remains actively involved in key decision making. Despite a medical leave of absence, "Jobs ... has been taking business meetings at home and on the phone," reports The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources. Confirming an earlier report, sources say Jobs has visited Apple's Cupertino, Calif., campus since taking his leave. "Among products he is continuing to work on are the next version of the iPad tablet computer, expected out in the next couple of months, and a new iPhone, expected to be …

Nokia and Microsoft on Friday announced a broad partnership to prevent Apple and Google from gaining even more ground in the increasingly critical mobile space. "The alliance ... is a bold gamble," writes The New York Times -- "perhaps a last-ditch effort for both Nokia and Microsoft ... to gain a lasting foothold in the booming smartphone business." "Like Nokia, Microsoft's global share of the heating smartphone segment fell [last year] -- by more than half," reports CNN, citing Gartner data. Yet, "With a global juggernaut like Nokia signed on, Microsoft's chances at success have improved, …

Steve Jobs, whose health has been in doubt since taking a medical leave of absence last month, is looking well, according to eyewitness reports. "An eyewitness spotted Jobs on campus a few weeks ago and said he was looking good," according to Business Insider. Detailing the citing on his own blog, Matthew Cross, an author and consultant, says he saw Jobs walking out of Apple's Cupertino headquarters on January 31. According to Cross, Jobs had "a healthy spring in his step," his "voice was strong, it sounded like him on stage," and "he had a nice smile on …

Since Google first debuted Boutiques.com last November, the search giant claims that hundreds of thousands of boutiques have been created. Powered by visual search and image recognition technology, Boutiques lets literally anyone create a working ecommerce site. Google is also introducing a Designer Analytics feature, which will let boutique owners see which products, designs, and colors are selling. "With easy-to-understand data visualizations, Designer Analytics shows what colors, shapes and patterns are most loved and hated broadly (in categories such as shoes, dresses and handbags) and even down to how specific items are performing," Google explains. According to Softpedia: …

Proving that the market has room for more than one location-based service, Gowalla is on the verge of hitting the 1 million-user market. By comparison, location-based service leader Foursquare presently has about 6 million users. All told, Gowalla's growing community has now created and visited over 2.5 million locations -- dubbed "spots" -- around the world. To keep the party going, the start-up is improving its Highlights location review feature, and further integrating them into the Gowalla experience. "When Highlights were introduced to Gowalla back in September 2010, we described them as a useful way of simplifying location …

As rumors circulate about the size of Arianna Huffington's payday post AOL acquisition, some are suggesting that she share it with the thousands of bloggers who've showered HuffPo with free content. As Bloomberg-Businessweek reports, Dan Gillmor, the director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University, wrote that Huffington should cut checks to "the most productive contributors on whose work she's built a significant part of her new fortune." Fat chance, says Roy Sekoff, HuffPo's founding editor. "If people want to express their opinions, they do so on the site for free," he tells …