Facebook’s mobile ad revenue doubles in fourth quarter

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc doubled its mobile advertising revenue in the fourth quarter, a sign that the No.1 social network is seeing early success in expanding onto handheld devices as more of its users migrate to smartphones and tablets.

Investors want to see evidence that CEO Mark Zuckerberg‘s 8-year-old company is delivering on promises to develop a full-fledged mobile advertising business, a challenge facing many of today’s technology leaders including Google Inc.

But the growth trailed some of Wall Street‘s most aggressive estimates. Shares of Facebook were down roughly 3 percent at $ 30.21 in after-hours trading on Wednesday, regaining ground after falling more than 8 percent immediately after the numbers were released.

Mobile revenue estimates among some analysts and investors were unreasonably high, said Sterne, Agee & Leach analyst Arvind Bhatia.

“As a result the stock was set up for disappointment,” he said. Overall, he said, Facebook’s results were encouraging.

The company’s overall advertising business grew at its fastest clip since before its May initial public offering, helping the company’s revenue expand 40 percent and surpass Wall Street targets.

Facebook has rolled out a wide variety of new services in recent months as the company seeks to stay ahead in the fast-moving Web market and to convince Wall Street that it can turn its audience of more than 1 billion users into a sustainable business.

Zuckerberg said the company plans to spend heavily to recruit talent in 2013 as the company pushes forward with new product development, particularly “mobile-first” services.

“We aren’t operating to maximize our profit this year but we’re doing what we think will build the best service and business over the long term,” Zuckerberg said during a conference call with analysts on Wednesday.

The strategy makes sense for an Internet company, said Stifel Nicolaus Jordan Rohan. But it will force Wall Street analysts to “ratchet down” their profit expectations.

“The conference call was a bit of a sobering event,” said Rohan. “The company advised analysts and investors to expect lower margins, and downplayed the near-term opportunity for revenues from Gifts,” Facebook’s recently-launched online commerce service.

FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES

Facebook shares, which lost more than half their value following a rocky IPO, have regained ground in recent months as concerns about its mobile ad business and insider selling have eased. Shares have surged roughly 60 percent since mid-November.

Zuckerberg said that recently introduced products such as Gifts, which allows Facebook users to purchase retail goods for their friends, as well as its new social search tool could become important businesses in the future. But in the near term he said that Facebook’s advertising efforts will be the core of its business.

The number of monthly active users on the social network reached 1.06 billion at the end of last year, with 618 million daily active users, Facebook said. But much of that growth again came from emerging markets like Asia, rather than the United States or Europe, where revenue per user is several times higher. For instance, average revenue per user is $ 13.58 for the United States and Canada, but just $ 2.35 in Asia.

Overall fourth-quarter revenue came to $ 1.585 billion, up 40 percent versus $ 1.131 billion a year earlier. Analysts were looking for revenue of $ 1.53 billion.

Executives said some revenue from its payments business dating back to September 2012 had been booked in the October-December quarter, inflating the number somewhat. Excluding those deferred sales, overall revenue would have been up just 34 percent in the quarter.

But it was the fledgling mobile business that dominated Wednesday’s discussion on the call. Finance Chief David Ebersman said Facebook had “basically doubled” mobile ad revenue from the third quarter to the fourth quarter.

“Two quarters ago we really had no mobile revenue,” Ebersman told Reuters in an interview. “In the course of a pretty short period of time, we’ve dramatically ramped up our ability to monetize mobile.”

Facebook said net income in the fourth quarter was $ 64 million, or 3 cents a share, compared to $ 302 million, or 14 cents a share a year earlier.

Excluding certain items, Facebook said it earned 17 cents a share, compared to the 15 cents a share expected by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Facebook expects expenses — excluding stock-based compensation for employees — to jump 50 percent in 2013, likely outpacing revenue growth. Capital investments may climb to $ 1.8 billion, up 14 percent from last year’s $ 1.575 billion.

“They’re going to have to continue to develop new products, which will cost them,” said Bhatia of Sterne, Agee & Leach.

But he said, “the market would be less happy if they were not finding enough opportunities.”

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Ryan Woo)

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“Sin City 2″ casts Eva Green and Julia Garner

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” has cast Eva Green as a femme fatale and Julia Garner to portray yet another stripper struggling to make a dime in the gritty comic-book metropolis.

Green (“Casino Royale”) will appear in the sequel to the 2005 hit, “Sin City,” as a deadly muse named Ava Lord. Garner (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”) plays a stripper who appears in scenes with Johnny, a cocky young gambler played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Like the first film, “A Dame to Kill For” is adapted from Frank Miller‘s graphic novels.

Miller, who is co-directing with Robert Rodriguez, says Green’s character is “every man’s most glorious dreams come true, she’s also every man’s darkest nightmares.”

“Ava Lord is one of the most deadly and fascinating residents of ‘Sin City.’ From the start, we knew that the actor would need to be able to embody the multifaceted characteristics of this femme fatale and we found that in Eva Green,” Miller and Rodriguez added in a statement. “We are ecstatic that Eva is joining us.”

Green and Garner are newcomers to the sequel, along with Gordon-Levitt, Jaime King, Josh Brolin, Dennis Haysbert, Michael Madsen, Christopher Meloni, Jeremy Piven, Ray Liotta, Juno Temple and Jamie Chung.

Returning from the first “Sin City” are Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis and Rosario Dawson.

The sequel is currently filming at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas and is scheduled for an October 4 theatrical release.

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Well: Waiting for Alzheimer's to Begin

My gray matter might be waning. Then again, it might not be. But I swear that I can feel memories — as I’m making them — slide off a neuron and into a tangle of plaque. I steel myself for those moments to come when I won’t remember what just went into my head.

I’m not losing track of my car keys, which is pretty standard in aging minds. Nor have I ever forgotten to turn off the oven after use, common in menopausal women. I can always find my car in the parking lot, although lots of “normal” folk can’t.

Rather, I suddenly can’t remember the name of someone with whom I’ve worked for years. I cover by saying “sir” or “madam” like the Southerner I am, even though I live in Vermont and grown people here don’t use such terms. Better to think I’m quirky than losing my faculties. Sometimes I’ll send myself an e-mail to-do reminder and then, seconds later, find myself thrilled to see a new entry pop into my inbox. Oops, it’s from me. Worse yet, a massage therapist kicked me out of her practice for missing three appointments. I didn’t recall making any of them. There must another Nancy.

Am I losing track of me?

Equally worrisome are the memories increasingly coming to the fore. Magically, these random recollections manage to circumnavigate my imagined build-up of beta-amyloid en route to delivering vivid images of my father’s first steps down his path of forgetting. He was the same age I am now, which is 46.

“How old are you?” I recall him asking me back then. Some years later, he began calling me every Dec. 28 to say, “Happy birthday,” instead of on the correct date, Dec. 27. The 28th had been his grandmother’s birthday.

The chasms were small at first. Explainable. Dismissible. When he crossed the street without looking both ways, we chalked it up to his well-cultivated, absent-minded professor persona. But the chasms grew into sinkholes, and eventually quicksand. When we took him to get new pants one day, he kept trying on the same ones he wore to the store.

“I like these slacks,” he’d say, over and over again, as he repeatedly pulled his pair up and down.

My dad died of Alzheimer’s last April at age 73 — the same age at which his father succumbed to the same disease. My dad ended up choosing neurology as his profession after witnessing the very beginning of his own dad’s forgetting.

Decades later, grandfather’s atrophied brain found its way into a jar on my father’s office desk. Was it meant to be an ever-present reminder of Alzheimer’s effect? Or was it a crystal ball sent to warn of genetic fate? My father the doctor never said, nor did he ever mention, that it was his father’s gray matter floating in that pool of formaldehyde.

Using the jarred brain as a teaching tool, my dad showed my 8-year-old self the difference between frontal and temporal lobes. He also pointed out how brains with Alzheimer’s disease become smaller, and how wide grooves develop in the cerebral cortex. But only after his death — and my mother’s confession about whose brain occupied that jar — did I figure out that my father was quite literally demonstrating how this disease runs through our heads.

Has my forgetting begun?

I called my dad’s neurologist. To find out if I was in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s, he would have to look for proteins in my blood or spinal fluid and employ expensive neuroimaging tests. If he found any indication of onset, the only option would be experimental trials.

But documented confirmation of a diseased brain would break my still hopeful heart. I’d walk around with the scarlet letter “A” etched on the inside of my forehead — obstructing how I view every situation instead of the intermittent clouding I currently experience.

“You’re still grieving your father,” the doctor said at the end of our call. “Sadness and depression affect the memory, too. Let’s wait and see.”

It certainly didn’t help matters that two people at my father’s funeral made some insensitive remarks.

“Nancy, you must be scared to death.”

“Is it hard knowing the same thing probably will happen to you?”

Maybe the real question is what to do when the forgetting begins. My dad started taking 70 supplements a day in hopes of saving his mind. He begged me to kill him if he wound up like his father. He retired from his practice and spent all day in a chair doing puzzles. He stopped making new memories in an all-out effort to preserve the ones he already had.

Maybe his approach wasn’t the answer.

Just before his death — his brain a fraction of its former self — my father managed to offer up a final lesson. I was visiting him in the memory-care center when he got a strange look on his face. I figured it was gas. But then his eyes lit up and a big grin overtook him, and he looked right at me and said, “Funny how things turn out.”

An unforgettable moment?

I can only hope.

---

Nancy Stearns Bercaw is a writer in Vermont. Her book, “Brain in a Jar: A Daughter’s Journey Through Her Father’s Memory,” will be published in April 2013 by Broadstone.

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Study: 40% of Ill. residents lack sufficient savings

A new study finds that 40 percent of Illinoisans don't have enough for a rain day. (Tribune file / January 30, 2013)

By Becky Yerak




Tribune reporter

5:04 p.m. CST, January 30, 2013

More than 40 percent of Illinois residents lack adequate savings to cover basic expenses for three months if they suffer a loss of income, according to a new report from the Corporation for Enterprise Development.

Data released Wednesday by the advocate for low- and moderate-income households shows that 42 percent of Illinois residents live in "liquid asset poverty," meaning they don't have enough cash or other such quickly accessible assets as bank, investment and retirement accounts.

Besides Illinois residents living below the official income poverty line of $23,050 for a family of four, many who would consider themselves middle class are included.

More than a quarter of households being paid $57,841 to $88,980 a year have less than three months of savings, or nearly $5,800 to subsist at the poverty level for three months.

The 2013 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard ranked Illinois 33rd overall in the ability of residents to achieve financial security. The lower the overall score, the better the state's overall performance.

The scorecard evaluates states across 53 measures. Illinois got a "D" in housing and home ownership, for example, partly because of a relatively high foreclosure rate, and a "C" in business and jobs.

It did better in average annual pay and in private loans to small businesses.

Its recommendations to Illinois included: offering programs to transition low-income renters to homeowners and enacting foreclosure prevention and protection policies.

byerak@tribune.com | Twitter: @beckyyerak

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Girl who performed at Obama inaugural slain on South Side

After taking their exams Tuesday, Hadiya Pendleton and a group of others decided to hang out at a park on Tuesday just blocks away from their high school on the South Side.

But the trip ended in tragedy when the 15-year-old King College Prep sophomore was fatally shot about a week after she attended President Barack Obama’s inauguration and performed at inaugural events with the King College Prep band and drill team.

Penldeton and a16-year-old boy wounded in the attack were shot in a park near the school about 2:20 p.m., in the 4500 block of South Oakenwald Avenue, police said.

Most of those who were in the park were gang members, and those in the group did not stay on scene to help after the shootings, according to police. The shooting occurred around 2:20 p.m. in the 4500 block of South Oakenwald Avenue.

They boy remained in serious condition Tuesday night. He was also a student at King, according to Pendleton’s friends, though her relatives weren’t sure what school the boy attended.

One of the teens was taken in serious to critical condition to Comer Children's Hospital, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Will Knight.

The other victim also was taken to Comer and police at first believed both victims' conditions had stabilized by a little after 3 p.m., said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Veejay Zala.

At Comer this evening, a group of young people sat and stood inside the entrance to the hospital's emergency room, along with the principal of King high school.

Many hugged as they brushed tears from their eyes and consoled each other and Pendleton's parents.

"She was awesome," one girl said of Pendleton outside the hospital's ER.

Friends of the slain girl said King was dismissed early today because of exams, and students went to the park on Oakenwald--something they don't usually do.

Friends said the girl was a majorette and a volleyball player, a friendly and sweet presence at King, one of the top 10 CPS selective enrollment schools. Pendleton performed with other King College students at President Barack Obama’s inaugural events.

Neighbors said students from King do hang out at Harsh Park, 4458-70 S. Oakenwald Ave., and that students were there this afternoon before the shooting took place. A group of 10 to 12 teens at the park had taken shelter under a canopy there during a rainstorm when a boy or man jumped a fence in the park, ran toward the group and opened fire, police said in a statement this evening.

The attacker then got into an auto and left the area, police said.

Neighbors reported hearing shots about 2:20 p.m.

Desiree Sanders said she heard six gunshots and called 911 after a neighbor told her that some teens had been shot. Neighbors told her as many as 10 young people had been hanging out at the small park, and most scattered after the shooting, though a few stayed behind with the victims.

Those in the group were not cooperating with police, however, and investigators had no detailed descriptions yet of either the attacker or the vehicle in which he left. Central Area detectives were investigating, and they had no one in custody as of about 8:20 p.m.

Police crime data show no serious crimes happened in the 4400 or 4500 blocks of South Oakenwald Avenue Dec. 19 to Jan. 20.

“It’s a great neighborhood. Nothing like this has happened since I’ve been here,” on the block, said Roxanne Hubbard, who has lived in the neighborhood for 19 years.

As a matter of policy, Chicago Board of Education officials refuse to confirm whether any child is a student at Chicago Public Schools because a policy on student identification passed by the board several years ago has never been implemented.

Tribune reporter Liam Ford contributed.

jmdelgado@tribune.com

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Critical, long-overdue BlackBerry makeover arrives

TORONTO (AP) — BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. will kick off a critical, long-overdue makeover when chief executive Thorsten Heins shows off the first phone with the new BlackBerry 10 system in New York on Wednesday.

Repeated delays have left the once-pioneering BlackBerry an afterthought in the shadow of Apple’s trend-setting iPhone and Google’s Android-driven devices. There has even been talk that the fate of the company that created the BlackBerry in 1999 is no longer certain.

Now, there’s some optimism. Previews of the BlackBerry 10 software have gotten favorable reviews on blogs. Financial analysts are starting to see some slight room for a comeback. RIM‘s stock has more than doubled to $ 15.66 from a nine-year low in September, though it’s still nearly 90 percent below its 2008 peak of $ 147.

RIM redesigned the system to embrace the multimedia, apps and touch-screen experience prevalent today. The company is promising a speedier device, a superb typing experience and the ability to keep work and personal identities separate on the same phone.

Most analysts consider a BlackBerry 10 success to be crucial for the company’s long-term viability. Doubts remain about the ability of BlackBerry 10 to rescue RIM.

“We’ll see if they can reclaim their glory. My sense is that it will be a phone that everyone says good things about but not as many people buy,” BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek called it a “great device” and said RIM does have some momentum just months after the Canadian company was written off for dead.

“Six months ago we talked to developers and carriers, and everybody was just basically saying ‘We’re just waiting for this to go bust,’” Misek said. “It was bad.”

The BlackBerry has been the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people and crossed over to consumers. But when the iPhone came out in 2007, it showed that phones can do much more than email and phone calls. Suddenly, the BlackBerry looked ancient. In the U.S., according to research firm IDC, shipments of BlackBerry phones plummeted from 46 percent of the market in 2008 to 2 percent in 2012.

RIM promised a new system to catch up, using technology it got through its 2010 purchase of QNX Software Systems. RIM initially said BlackBerry 10 would come by early 2012, but then the company changed that to late 2012. A few months later, that date was pushed further, to early 2013, missing the lucrative holiday season. The holdup helped wipe out more than $ 70 billion in shareholder wealth and 5,000 jobs.

Although executives have been providing a glimpse at some of BlackBerry 10′s new features for months, Heins will finally showcase a complete system at Wednesday’s event. Devices will go on sale soon after that. The exact date and prices are expected Wednesday.

Regardless of BlackBerry 10′s advances, though, the new system will face a key shortcoming: It won’t have as many apps written by outside companies and individuals as the iPhone and Android. RIM has said it plans to launch BlackBerry 10 with more than 70,000 apps, including those developed for RIM’s PlayBook tablet, first released in 2011. Even so, that’s just a tenth of what the iPhone and Android offer. Popular service such as Instagram and Netflix won’t have apps on BlackBerry 10.

Gillis said he’ll be looking to see when RIM releases a keyboard version of the new phone. The first BlackBerry 10 phone will have only a touch screen. RIM has said a physical keyboard version will be released soon after. He said a delay could alienate RIM’s 79 million subscribers.

“The No. 1 feature that they like is the physical keyboard,” Gillis said.

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Actor Jason London arrested after Ariz. bar fight

PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities say actor Jason London has been arrested on suspicion of assault and disorderly conduct after an Arizona bar fight.

Scottsdale police say London allegedly sneezed on a man who then asked him to apologize, but London refused and instead hit the man in the face.

The Arizona Republic (http://bit.ly/VoULau ) says the two men were escorted out of the bar, but London began pushing and cursing at firefighters trying to treat him and appeared extremely drunk. He was arrested early Monday.

London’s Twitter account says “some guy thought I was hitting on his girl” and that several large bouncers beat him, breaking bones in his face. London added, “the truth will win” and “I hate Arizona.”

London is best known for the 1993 movie “Dazed and Confused.”

___

Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com

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Well: Helmets for Ski and Snowboard Safety

Recently, researchers from the department of sport science at the University of Innsbruck in Austria stood on the slopes at a local ski resort and trained a radar gun on a group of about 500 skiers and snowboarders, each of whom had completed a lengthy personality questionnaire about whether he or she tended to be cautious or a risk taker.

The researchers had asked their volunteers to wear their normal ski gear and schuss or ride down the slopes at their preferred speed. Although they hadn’t informed the volunteers, their primary aim was to determine whether wearing a helmet increased people’s willingness to take risks, in which case helmets could actually decrease safety on the slopes.

What they found was reassuring.

To many of us who hit the slopes with, in my case, literal regularity — I’m an ungainly novice snowboarder — the value of wearing a helmet can seem self-evident. They protect your head from severe injury. During the Big Air finals at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo., this past weekend, for instance, 23-year-old Icelandic snowboarder Halldor Helgason over-rotated on a triple back flip, landed head-first on the snow, and was briefly knocked unconscious. But like the other competitors he was wearing a helmet, and didn’t fracture his skull.

Indeed, studies have concluded that helmets reduce the risk of a serious head injury by as much as 60 percent. But a surprising number of safety experts and snowsport enthusiasts remain unconvinced that helmets reduce overall injury risk.

Why? A telling 2009 survey of ski patrollers from across the country found that 77 percent did not wear helmets because they worried that the headgear could reduce their peripheral vision, hearing and response times, making them slower and clumsier. In addition, many worried that if they wore helmets, less-adept skiers and snowboarders might do likewise, feel invulnerable and engage in riskier behavior on the slopes.

In the past several years, a number of researchers have attempted to resolve these concerns, for or against helmets. And in almost all instances, helmets have proved their value.

In the Innsbruck speed experiment, the researchers found that people whom the questionnaires showed to be risk takers skied and rode faster than those who were by nature cautious. No surprise.

But wearing a helmet did not increase people’s speed, as would be expected if the headgear encouraged risk taking. Cautious people were slower than risk-takers, whether they wore helmets or not; and risk-takers were fast, whether their heads were helmeted or bare.

Interestingly, the skiers and riders who were the most likely, in general, to don a helmet were the most expert, the men and women with the most talent and hours on the slopes. Experience seemed to have taught them the value of a helmet.

Off of the slopes, other new studies have brought skiers and snowboarders into the lab to test their reaction times and vision with and without helmets. Peripheral vision and response times are a serious safety concern in a sport where skiers and riders rapidly converge from multiple directions.

But when researchers asked snowboarders and skiers to wear caps, helmets, goggles or various combinations of each for a 2011 study and then had them sit before a computer screen and press a button when certain images popped up, they found that volunteers’ peripheral vision and reaction times were virtually unchanged when they wore a helmet, compared with wearing a hat. Goggles slightly reduced peripheral vision and increased response times. But helmets had no significant effect.

Even when researchers added music, testing snowboarders and skiers wearing Bluetooth-audio equipped helmets, response times did not increase significantly from when they wore wool caps.

So why do up to 40 percent of skiers and snowboarders still avoid helmets?

“The biggest reason, I think, is that many people never expect to fall,” says Dr. Adil H. Haider, a trauma surgeon and associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and co-author of a major new review of studies related to winter helmet use. “That attitude is especially common in people, like me, who are comfortable on blue runs but maybe not on blacks, and even more so in beginners.”

But a study published last spring detailing snowboarding injuries over the course of 18 seasons at a Vermont ski resort found that the riders at greatest risk of hurting themselves were female beginners. I sympathize.

The takeaway from the growing body of science about ski helmets is in fact unequivocal, Dr. Haider said. “Helmets are safe. They don’t seem to increase risk taking. And they protect against serious, even fatal head injuries.”

The Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, of which Dr. Haider is a member, has issued a recommendation that “all recreational skiers and snowboarders should wear safety helmets,” making them the first medical group to go on record advocating universal helmet use.

Perhaps even more persuasive, Dr. Haider has given helmets to all of his family members and colleagues who ski or ride. “As a trauma surgeon, I know how difficult it is to fix a brain,” he said. “So everyone I care about wears a helmet.”

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Chicago Booth social enterprise program gets $5M gift

Retired CDW Chairman and Chief Executive John Edwardson has donated $5 million to the social enterprise initiative at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.

The gift is the first directed to the social enterprise effort, which launched last March. It will pay for research and larger cash awards to the winners of the school's annual social new venture competition.

Social enterprises try to achieve philanthropic goals, such as pollution and poverty reduction, through business tactics and discipline. They are often for-profit operations that put tackling complex social problems ahead of rewarding shareholder.

"One of the things I've been concerned about, and I think that kids are different today, is that when I was at Booth, we were focused on one thing and that was getting out of Booth and making a lot of money," said Edwardson, who graduated from the school in 1972. "Over the years, one thing that has become important to me is helping students learn to share what they have when they have a little, so that when they have a lot, they would be willing to share a lot."

Social entrepreneurship programs have brought a softer edge to business schools. Examples include a company trying to develop cheap, solar-powered batteries for sub-Saharan Africa, or a home retrofitting company or a restaurant that mostly employs ex-convicts.

The school's competition for social ventures business plans is being renamed the John Edwardson Social New Venture Challenge. Last year, 19 teams of three to five students competed for $55,000 in prize money, split among the top four finishers, said Booth spokesman Allan Friedman.

In comparison, the school's more traditional startup competition had 33 teams vying for $75,000 in prize money, split among the top 10 teams, Friedman said.

"I had agreed to endow a professorship, but it just wasn't exciting me very much," Edwardson said. "And then when I went to the social new venture challenge, and it really excited me. And I thought this is where I want my gift to go, to help do more of this."

From 2001 to 2011, Edwardson was CEO and chairman of Vernon Hills-based CDW, a computer equipment reseller. He stayed on as chairman for one more year to ensure a smooth transition.

He also is the chairman of Booth's alumni advisory board, known as the Council on Chicago Booth, and will be the lead volunteer fundraiser for the school's upcoming capital campaign. Edwardson said no fundraising goal has been set.

mmharris@tribune.com | Twitter @chiconfidential

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Butler's 19 points lead Bulls over Bobcats

To Jimmy Butler, it's simple.

Whether he's averaging 45.2 minutes in the five games he started for Luol Deng or playing 31 minutes, 14 seconds in reserve of Deng and others, as he did during Monday's 93-85 victory over the Bobcats, his role remains the same.

"Rebound, guard and make some open shots," Butler said. "Starting gave me a lot more confidence. But I'm still able to do those things (off the bench)."

Indeed, Butler stole the show, backing up his promise with a career-high 19 points and six rebounds, playing at shooting guard alongside Deng for a long second-quarter stretch and most of the final 5:28.

"Jimmy's a big part of the team," coach Tom Thibodeau said. "Lu has been huge for us. We know we have flexibility. You do what's best for the team."

Deng returned after missing five games with an injured right hamstring and finished with 12 points in just over 31 minutes as the Bulls avenged their New Year's Eve home loss to the Bobcats.

"I felt great," Deng said. "I hadn't gone full speed like that, so I was a little worried about the change of speed and direction. So I'm happy I was able not to have any setbacks. It felt a little tight, but it didn't feel like how it felt when I first did it."

Thibodeau admitted he didn't want to overextend Deng's minutes in his first game while casually plugging him for defensive player of the year.

"There may not be a better defender in the league," Thibodeau said.

At least against the speedy, perimeter-driven Bobcats, minutes dropped for Marco Belinelli and Richard Hamilton. Thibodeau even used the combination of Kirk Hinrich and Nate Robinson for a brief third-quarter stretch.

"They went real small," Thibodeau said. "I liked (Butler's) quickness out there defensively."

The Bulls pulled away late in the third after the Bobcats tied it at 55-55 with 3:36 remaining. Joakim Noah, huge again with a double-double, seven assists and five blocks in nearly 45 minutes, scored on a three-point play. Robinson, who contributed 15 points off the bench, fueled a 13-0 run with two 3-pointers as the Bobcats failed to score for 4:24.

With 13 points and 18 rebounds, Noah became the first Bull to grab 15 or more rebounds in four straight games since Dennis Rodman in March 1998.

Robinson poured it on in the fourth, scoring eight points as the Bulls pushed their lead to 14. But old friend Ben Gordon found his range in the final period as well, scoring 10 of his 18 points as the Bobcats trimmed the lead to six late.

That's when Carlos Boozer powered home a left-handed dunk over Bismack Biyombo off a feed from Robinson with 1:24 left to jazz the sellout crowd of 21,308.

"As long as we play the type of basketball we know we're capable of, we can beat any team," Butler said. "We can also lose to any team if we don't."

kcjohnson@tribune.com

Twitter @kcjhoop

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