Apple reports record Q3 earnings

Apple (AAPL) blew past expectations — its own and Wall Street’s — to report record third-quarter earnings Tuesday.

Buoyed by strong sales of its new iPhone, an explosion of iPhone applications and price cuts on its flagship MacBook line, the company earned $1.35 per share on revenue of $8.34 billion — up nearly 12% year over year.

Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.17 on revenue of $8.2 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

Apple’s shares, which had closed at $151.51, down 0.91% for the day, rose sharply in after-hours trading. By 5:49 p.m. its shares had climbed 4.3% to $158.03.

The stock has been one of the market’s best performers of 2009, having risen nearly 80% against the Nasdaq’s 21%.

The strong results in the face of a global economic slump could be viewed as vindication of the company’s decision to stay out of the market for low-cost netbooks — which now dominate the consumer PC business and are squeezing the profit margins of Apple’s competitors.
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Digging a grave in a short-URL wor.ld

The Web is full of middlemen and aggregators. Google is the biggest. Digg once was the coolest. And now Twitter and URL-shortening services create (mostly) transparent bridges between Web content, like news stories, and online readers.

People both love and hate these go-betweens. On one hand, sites like Digg, Facebook and Twitter give readers access to all kinds of news and social content they might not otherwise see. But small changes can make a benevolent middleman seem downright meddlesome.
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