Tech Business Recap: Google’s New TRIUMPH, Facebook’s New MISERIES

Here are Thursday’s top stories:

The United States Federal Reserve, along with other central banks worldwide, are employing Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) search statistics to aid them in evaluating their economies and to forecast consumer and other trends. According to MIT Professor Erik Brynjolfsson, the Fed would have had attained a clearer perspective of housing market problems during the 2007-2009 recession had it had the relevant information available.

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Shares of Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNCR) gain more than 20 percent following second quarter estimates. The firm did issue a soft guidance on its earnings call, and it projects a 2012 revenue of between $270 million and $277 million, well under consensus of $284.7 million. All of this seems to already be embedded in the shares, given worries over the impact of AT&T’s (NYSE:T) slumping smartphone sales on demand for Synchronoss’ mobile provisioning software. The latter also predicts a significant 2013 lift from sales of its cloud content management solutions.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) shares went under $20 Thursday, and one observer says that the selloff might even affect the State of California’s budget assumptions. Adding to FB’s travails, developer Dalton Caldwell accuses executives of the former of threatening to crush an application he was building that allegedly impacted Facebook’s ad sales if he didn’t agree to sell his company.

Sprint (NYSE:S) reports in its second quarter 10-Q that the Securities and Exchange Commission recently “issued a formal order of investigation” concerning its sales tax collections. The inquiry emerges subsequent to the New York Attorney General bringing a $300 million PLUS lawsuit in April over Sprint’s alleged failure to collect more than $100 million in state sales taxes over 7 years.

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