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Facebook [stckqut]FB[/stckqut] might be sending less traffic to publishers’ websites now than it did in January, or more traffic, or the same amount of traffic. It depends on who you ask.

In recent years publishers have increasingly relied on Facebook to drive users to their websites, and some sites now receive as much as 90% of their traffic from the social network.

But that trend has some media executives nervous. Facebook could begin to charge for the traffic it sends to their properties, they say, or give preference to content hosted directly on its network through features such as its Instant Articles initiative.

As a result, there’s a growing thirst for data about Facebook referral trends. Online measurement companies regularly release data aggregated from a selection of sites, which they say offers insight into Facebook’s systems beyond the experiences of individual publishers.

The problem is, those companies examine different groups of sites and use different methodologies to analyze their data, therefore arriving at very different conclusions.

Source: Is Facebook Driving Less Traffic to Publishers’ Sites?

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Sales from Black Friday were down a bit this year as retailers didn’t move as much merchandise for the sales that stretched from Thanksgiving through the following day.

CNBC reported the sales fell to $12.1 billion, which included about $2 billion on Thanksgiving and $10 billion on Friday. That info came from a report from ShopperTrak, which also indicated brick-and-mortar stores saw their sales rise for the two days.

The report found that while retailers count on the day after Thanksgiving to spur sales, many had released info on prices right after Halloween and reaped more sales over an extended period of time.

Source: Black Friday sales drop over last year to $12.1 billion – Phoenix Business Journal

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. [stckqut]WMT[/stckqut] has long set the standard for efficient supply chain operations that help the company squeeze costs so it can offer continuous discounts to customers. But the formidable capabilities the giant used to dominate traditional brick and mortar rivals will not do for e-commerce.

Amazon.com Inc. [stckqut]AMZN[/stckqut], digital from its start in 1994, has buried many traditional retailers online. Wal-Mart, determined to avoid a similar fate, has poured billions of dollars into a digital transformation singular not only for its size and scope — 15 acquisitions and 3,600 new hires – but also for the way its new Silicon Valley epicenter has upended Wal-Mart’s historic approach to technology.

The heart: A massive overhaul project begun in 2012 and named Pangaea, for the prehistoric supercontinent that broke apart to rearrange world geography. For Jeremy King, the diehard engineer who is chief technology officer of Wal-Mart’s global e-commerce operation, Pangaea was a chance to rearrange the world’s biggest company. Mr. King’s team has remade everything from how Wal-Mart’s website works and looks to underlying transaction software, databases and servers, and the backend data center tools to manage it all. Wal-Mart built new cloud infrastructure and data centers and wrote its own search engine in its all-out effort to develop the technological wherewithal to compete with Amazon.

“Pangaea replaces everything,” says Mr. King, in an interview. “My peers, they think I’m out of my mind. Most people don’t replace entire systems in one shot, especially with from-scratch development,” he says. “But given how rapidly this place is changing, we didn’t have time to screw around.”

Source: Wal-Mart Revamps E-Commerce Technology as Amazon Applies Pressure

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Cummins Inc. [stckqut]CMI[/stckqut] serves a well-established and growing market, a market that is central to our goods and economy. The company has a healthy financial situation in all aspects including debt and a well-covered dividend. The market is currently pricing in a dramatic decrease in revenue and income for the next year but estimates are predicting a much more muted decrease.

With diesel prices at levels lower than recent years, it allows the company to serve a more enticing market. Any slowing found in international markets is outdone by the massive growth seen in domestic markets which makes up a majority of the revenue anyway.

With cash steadily flowing in and a dividend that has plenty of room to run, I see this as an opportunity to initiate and accumulate shares of the company. The stock has fully valued share price of $130 while the market currently is pricing it in the high $90s. This separation of market pricing to valuation confirms for me that now is a time to add CMI to my portfolio.

Source: An Analysis Determining If Cummins Inc. Should Motor Its Way Into My Portfolio

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Video will comprise 70% of the total mobile traffic, up from 50% estimated earlier. Though Alphabet, Inc.’s [stckqut]GOOG[/stckqut] YouTube will account for 70% of the total video traffic in most mobile networks, Netflix [stckqut]NFLX[/stckqut] has the potential to reach 20% in the regions it operates.

Another report that got Netflix shares soaring this week came from “Land Down Under”.  Per a report from the Australian Communications and Media Authority, Netflix attracted 2.5 million subscribers in the first six months of 2015, making a grand entry in Australia.

Per the report, nearly 17% Australians or 3.2 million consumers used streaming services in the first six months of 2015, of which a major chunk (78%) belongs to Netflix Australia. For the seven-day period prior to Jun 2015, 2.2 million consumers subscribed to streaming services, of which 88% used Netflix Australia, outpacing local streaming service providers like Stan, Presto and Quickflix.

We believe Netflix has tremendous growth opportunities. The company is aggressively expanding internationally, especially in emerging economies where the potential for subscriber growth is high. The company plans to cover 200 countries by 2016. Currently, it is available in over 50 countries apart from the U.S., including 13 European nations. Netflix entered Canada in late 2010 and has since expanded its business to Latin America & the Caribbean (Sep 2011), the U.K. and Ireland (Jan 2012) and the Netherlands (Sep 2013). In 2014, Netflix expanded its services to six new European countries — Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Source: Netflix Continues to Gain: Will it Sustain the Momentum?