We're heading into the end of the heavy period of earnings season: Next week just over a quarter of the S&P 500 is set to report. But we'll only hear from two Dow components—Pfizer and Merck, which report before the bell Tuesday and Wednesday. Merck's EPS are projected to drop 20 percent to 79 cents, on 5 percent lower revenue of $11.1 billion, while Pfizer is also projected to suffer, EPS looking at a 4 percent decline to 56 cents while revenue drops 6 percent to $13.99 billion.

Media companies are out in force mid-week, starting after the bell Tuesday. DreamWorks Animation reports Tuesday afternoon, as does Barry Diller's IAC, though the Internet conglomerate conference call isn't until Wednesday morning. It'll be a rough quarter for Dreamworks Animation—the studio is expected to show a 27 percent decline in revenue while earnings are projected to swing to a loss of 3 cents per share. IAC looks stronger: Wall Street analysts expecting Earnings per share to grow 35 percent to 69 cents while they see revenue growing 18 percent to $757 million, according to Thomson Analytics.

Once the darling of the online gaming world, "FarmVille" creator Zynga is acknowledging that its daily active users were down to 52 million, the lowest number since the company went public in late 2011.

And the forecast for the company is even gloomier. CEO Mark Pincus warned on an earnings call after market close Wednesday that its second quarter bookings would decline significantly. Bookings are revenues from advertising and the virtual goods the company sells. Pincus said the decline reflects the company's shift to shut down underperforming games and to stop production on games that don't have potential to become franchises. He also cited the "challenging environment" for his whole industry.

The company warned that bookings would be in the range of $180 million to $190 million, with earnings per share loss ranging between 3 and 5 cents. Zynga shares were sharply lower Thursday morning. (For latest stock price, click here.)

The first quarter results were down from a year ago, though better than expected. Revenue came in at $230 million, $20 million more than Wall Street analysts anticipated, but still down from $329 million in the year-ago quarter. Earnings per share for the first quarter came in at a penny, 4 cents better than the loss anticipated, but down from last year's 6-cent gain.

(Read More: Zynga Earnings Beat but Outlook Disappoints)

The New York Times Company's CEO Mark Thompson took to the earnings call to outline his strategy to turn the struggling publisher into a multi-platform, international content giant. The CEO's first full quarter since he took the helm of the storied publisher in November was not pretty: the top and bottom line were dragged down by an 11 percent decline in advertising revenue.

It's no surprise that print advertising continues to decline by double digits—it was down 13 percent in the quarter. But it doesn't look good that digital ads also suffered—down 4 percent.

What happened? The company blames "ongoing secular trends and an increasingly complex and fragmented digital advertising marketplace."

In the latest sign that Twitter's advertising business is coming of age, it inked its first multi-year upfront ad commitment with ad giant Publicis' Starcom Media Vest.

Twitter wouldn't reveal the financial details of the deal, which was first reported by the Financial Times, other than confirming it was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Twitter's head of revenue, Adam Bain, said the agreement, which is for two or three years, is a big deal, both for how it'll bolster the company's bottom line, and for how it strengthens the company's relationship with Madison Avenue.

Netflix doesn't need to be all things to all people, it just needs to deliver high quality content, to the right target audience, for the right price. And it's working. Netflix earnings blew past expectations. The company reported 31 cents per share in the second quarter, swinging into the black from a loss in the year-earlier quarter. Netflix's new push for original content is part of a bigger strategy—understanding exactly what its user base wants, and delivering it to them. It's the shift from being a distributor to truly being a programmer.

And with that shift from distributor to programmer, comes a new focus on exclusive content. With the rollout of more original shows, CEO Reed Hastings said on the post-earnings call, that users and investors will see a "redefinition and rebroadening of what Netflix is to its customers." And what that means, is "focusing on moving more and more towards exclusive content."

The digital content wars are heating up, with Netflix reporting better-than-expected earnings on Monday. Netflix, along with other distributors, are changing the way they do business by becoming programmers. Original content is their ammunition in a war for consumers.

The first quarter was a turning point in the original content battle: Netflix introduced its first original show, "House of Cards," as its stock moved more than 80 percent higher. And its first-quarter earnings report stressed that the original content strategy is paying off.

(Read More: Netflix Shares Soar After Earnings Beat)

As Netflix reported earnings and revenue—along with net subscriber additions—that beat expectations, it added some color on the success of "House of Cards." The company didn't reveal any metrics on the return on investment on the $100 million investment in the series, but all the commentary was upbeat, and bodes well for other original shows.

When the FBI asked for help from the media and the public on Thursday in its manhunt for suspects in the Boston bombing, the Twitterverse immediately got to work – spreading photos, videos and phone numbers to call. But by Friday, all that activity had given way to another concern: Could social-media threaten investigators' ability to capture the main suspect still at large?

The public has never had such an up-close, play-by-play account of a manhunt, with instant updates from people – both professional journalists and citizens – on the scene. Indeed, the story has dominated social media: Up to 8 of the top ten world-wide Twitter trends on Friday have been directly related to the Boston investigation.

Apple is one of many big names in the spotlight next week as earnings season heats up. Ten of the Dow firms and more than a third of the S&P 500 are also set to report.

Apple, which releases its quarterly results after the bell on Tuesday, has seen its shares tumble from an all-time high of $700 last September to under $400. With its stock down over 25 percent since the beginning of the year, the tech giant faces major questions about whether it can keep on innovating and selling more electronics.

Analysts are projecting revenue to grow 8 percent to $42.49 billion, while earnings per share are expected to drop 18 percent, according to Thomson Reuters.

After months of reports and speculation, Twitter finally launched its music discovery app, Twitter Music, on Thursday.

The app allows Twitter users to discover music that their friends are listening to, to see what artists they follow are listening to, and to tweet songs from the app. It will be available Thursday for download from Apple's App store, or as a web service in the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, and then it will roll out to Android devices and other countries.

This app is built on the fact that music is a huge topic of discussion on Twitter and music artists are the most-followed Twitter users.

"It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement (retweets, comments), to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists," Twitter said in a blog Thursday written by Stephen Philips, the founder of We Are Hunted, the music discovery service Twitter recently purchased.

Advertisers on Twitter can now target tweets based on keywords in them, the social media company announced on Wednesday. They can also target keywords in tweets users have retweeted or replied to.

"This is an important new capability—especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent—because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context," Nipoon Malhotra, Twitter's product manager for revenue, wrote in a blog.

(Read More: Twitter Ad Revenue May Soar to $1 Billion Next Year)

As Twitter works on new tools to make its ads more effective and boost advertisers return on investment, as well as its own bottom line, its latest move makes perfect sense.