It’s no surprise that Facebook is flush, but the sheer mass of its riches -- just revealed to Gawker -- is remarkable. “They're even more staggering than we expected,” Gawker’s Ryan Tate writes. “A gusher of profits has left the social network with a cash hoard to rival established companies like 3M, eBay and Yahoo.” Currently with about $6.5 billion in assets ($3.5 billion of which is in cash) Facebook’s balance sheet is expected to balloon -- particularly if, as expected, it raises $10 billion at a $100 billion valuation in an initial public offering. “The big picture is this: …

It’s mid-December, which can only mean one thing: Yearly trend wrap-ups! In the telling field of search, Google just released its annual Zeitgeist report, and it’s a doozy. “It was a weird year,” remarks ReadWriteWeb. “Perhaps it's not surprising that, of all the grim and tumultuous events that transpired this year, the top Google searches were mostly frivolous.” “The No. 1 trending search was Rebecca Black.” Black, if your don’t recall, achieved YouTube infamy for her music video, “Friday.” Yet, as Google must be happy to reports, its own social network, Google+, was the No. 2 trending search. Two Apple …

In Facebook’s early days, the media kept an eye out for fierce backlashes and signs that users were moving on, or rejecting the platform en masse. Now that its network has surpassed 800 million active users worldwide -- and about 200 million stateside -- the question has become how big can Facebook get. Key to its success as a public company -- which Facebook plans to become next year -- The New York Times suggests that the social network will trouble scaling domestically. “The company is running into a roadblock in this country,” NYT writes. “Some people, even on the …

Though he’s not the first to say so, respected blogger Dave Winer insists that apps are not the future of digital information and services. His one-word reason? “Linking,” Winer writes on his Scripting News blog. “Visualize each of the apps they want you to use on your iPad or iPhone as a silo. A tall vertical building. It might feel very large on the inside, but nothing goes in or out that isn't well-controlled by the people who created the app. That sucks!” Winder continues: “The great thing about the Web is linking. I don't care how ugly it looks …

Despite showing a few gray hairs, Google remains a highly desirable employer, reports TechCrunch, citing the latest Employees’ Choice Awards from Glassdoor, a jobs and career community where employees can anonymously rate companies and CEOs. Based on surveys collected from U.S. employees in 2011, the top five Best Places to Work were: Bain & Company, McKinsey & Company, Facebook, MITRE, and Google. “Facebook actually slipped from the top spot last year to number 3 on the 2012 list and Google had moved up to the fifth slot from number 30 on last year’s list,” remarks TechCrunch. The findings must be …

Younger consumers are fed up with the iPhone, and baffled by Android! Who says? Nokia. (Hold your laughter.) In an interview with Pocket-lint, Niels Munksgaard, director of Portfolio, product marketing and sales at Nokia Entertainment Global explained: “What we see is that youth are pretty much fed up with iPhones. Everyone has the iPhone," he said. "Also, many are not happy with the complexity of Android and the lack of security. So we do increasing [sic] see that the youth that wants to be on the cutting edge and try something new are turning to the Windows phone platform.” As for …

Are consumers suffering from gadget overload? The New York Times wonders. “Are [people] exhausted by the consumer equivalent of the brain fatigue -- information overload -- that is caused by a constant updates of devices and online media?” it asks. The answer: Yes and no. Nearly half of consumers -- 48% -- do “feel high-tech manufacturers bring new products to market faster than people need them,” according to new research from nonprofit product testing and certification organization Underwriters Laboratories. According to NYT, the finding has two possible explanations: “The first, obvious one is that the pace of innovation is too …

AllThingsD reports that Microsoft is replacing Andy Lees as head of its Windows Phone Business -- sort of. Terry Myerson, the corporate vice president who has led engineering efforts for the phone unit, will add business development, marketing and other responsibilities, according to AllThingsD. “He will not, at least for now, though, get the division president title that Lees had.” Meanwhile, Lees, who has headed Windows Phone for more than three years, will still report to CEO Steve Ballmer and focus on ways Microsoft can work across multiple types of devices from phones to slates to PCs. “I have asked …

Despite strong subscription and ad revenue streams, music service Spotify will never be profitable. That’s according to Michael Robertson, founder and former CEO of MP3.com, and currently CEO of personal cloud music service MP3tunes, as well as radio recording service DAR.fm. Why? Because the music labels on which Spotify’s relies dictate one-sided business terms. In the world in which Spotify operates, “The supplier [i.e., music labels] will always elect the formula that captures the largest amount of money for themselves, completely disregarding the financial viability of the store [Spotify],” Robertson writes in GigaOm. “If the store miraculously managed to generate a profit, …

Speaking of apps, The New York Times notes that the 1 millionth mobile app just went to market -- and then considers the implications. “Apps shrink the programs that were once available only on a desktop computer to make them usable on smartphones and mobile devices,” it writes. “The pace of new app development dwarfs the release of other kinds of media. “Every week about 100 movies get released worldwide, along with about 250 books,” said Anindya Datta, the founder and chairman of app navigator Mobilewalla. “That compares to the release of around 15,000 apps per week.” Adds Dr. Datta, …