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June 28, 2008 Yahoo has announced changes to its organization aimed at improving its products, technologies and execution. Key elements Yahoo announced are the centralization of consumer product development to enhance the company's ability to release products worldwide; the creation of a U.S. region focused on bringing products to market for users, advertisers and publishers; formation of an insights strategy team; and enhancements to the technology infrastructure to optimize the use of data and improve coordination between product and engineering teams. The company is creating three new teams that will report to President Sue Decker. An Audience Products Division will assume responsibility for companywide product strategy and product management. It will be led by Ash Patel who previously managed the company's Platforms & Infrastructure group. A U.S. region with accountability for all go-to-market activity in the U.S. will be led by Hilary Schneider, who previously headed the company's Global Partner Solutions group. Finally, an Insights Strategy team will assume responsibility for centralizing and executing a common strategy for the use of data and analysis across Yahoo!. The company plans to name this group's leader within the next few weeks. "These moves accelerate the ability of our deep and talented team to build great products, grow our audiences and improve monetization globally," said Jerry Yang, CEO. "They are designed to put us in an even better position to leverage our leading global audience and capture the opportunity we see in the convergence of search and display advertising." Yahoo has seen a mass exodus of executives from the company following the end of Microsoft discussions to acquire it. June 18, 2008 Yahoo announced the global availability of two new e-mail domains that will give users the chance to register for the e-mail address or Yahoo ID they have always wanted. People can get a new e-mail address at ymail.com and rocketmail.com. Yahoo Mail is the number one Web mail service in the world according to Comscore with more than 260 million users worldwide. As a result of its global popularity, many desirable e-mail addresses have already been taken for the yahoo.com domain, as well as for localized versions of the namespace in countries around the world. With the two new e-mail domain choices, Yahoo! will make millions of new e-mail addresses available to the online community. E-mail addresses at the new domains will have the same great Yahoo Mail features as addresses at the yahoo.com domain, including: -- Unlimited storage - Yahoo Mail provides all users with free unlimited e-mail storage -- Integrated Instant Messaging and Text Messaging - Users can connect in real-time to their contacts with Yahoo! Messenger or Windows Live Messenger and send text messages to friends on the go, right from their Yahoo! Mail inbox -- Protection from spam and viruses - All of the same great protection that is built into Yahoo Mail will apply to these new domains. Yahoo uses advanced technologies and data from numerous sources to dramatically reduce the delivery of spam and phishing e-mails -- Country-specific e-mail account - When signing up for an e-mail account, users have the option of choosing localized country versions from each of the Yahoo! domains: yahoo.com, ymail.com and rocketmail.com The Yahoo ID will work for everything across the Yahoo Network, from checking e-mail to using Yahoo Messenger, Flickr, Groups, Sports, Finance and more. June 13, 2008 Yahoo has announced that discussions with Microsoft regarding a potential deal -- either for an acquisition of all of Yahoo or a partial acquisition -- have ended. The conclusion of discussions follows numerous meetings and conversations with Microsoft regarding a number of transaction alternatives, including a meeting between Yahoo and Microsoft on June 8th in which Chairman Roy Bostock and other independent Board members from Yahoo participated. At that meeting, Microsoft representatives stated unequivocally that Microsoft is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo, even at the price range it had previously suggested. Microsoft had bid $45 billion in February to buy Yahoo but the company held out for a higher price, which Microsoft has refused to pay. Instead, Yahoo has signed a partnership with Google to run advertising on search pages in the U.S. and Canada which could generate $800 million a year. Yahoo also expects the agreement to generate an estimated $250 million to $450 million in incremental operating cash flow. June 3, 2008 Users of Yahoo's popular finance section can now get real-time stock quotes instead of a 20-minute delay. BATS Trading said its real-time U.S. stock quotes are now available free of charge on Yahoo Finance, providing unlimited access to the site's 19 million users. "From the time BATS was created we have pushed for free market data for market participants and this relationship with Yahoo Finance, the most visited finance site on the weba, embodies this philosophy," BATS Chief Executive Joe Ratterman said. "Over time, with continued pressure from competitive market centers such as BATS, we believe that market data fees will decrease or be eliminated altogether." Mr. Ratterman also added: "True to our roots, BATS has never charged participants for the receipt of our market data, a practice we will continue as we approach Exchange status." BATS real-time quotes will first appear on Yahoo Finance's quote summary pages which began last week. In coming weeks, Yahoo! plans to expand its BATS data offerings to integrate order book, portfolio and multi-quote features into additional areas of Yahoo Finance. May 24, 2008 Yahoo has delayed its annual shareholders' meeting following the resignation of Arthur Kozel from its Board of Directors. Yahoo was supposed to have its meeting on July 3 but it is now postponed to sometime in late July. The company has not announced a specific date. Yahoo faces an attack on its Board following the end of Microsoft's announced acquisition of the company. Investor Carl Icahn has threatened removal of board members for opposing the Microsoft deal. While a merger is not likely to happen right away, Microsoft could still negotiate an alliance or advertising alliance with Yahoo instead. This is the second delay for Yahoo's annual meeting. May 18, 2008 Microsoft Corp. issued a statement today saying that it is resuming talks with Yahoo regarding some sort of deal between the two companies, but not necessarily an outright acquisition. The move follows actions by investor Carl Icahn last week urging Yahoo to renegotiate a deal with Microsoft. Below is the statement from Microsoft: "In light of developments since the withdrawal of the Microsoft proposal to acquire Yahoo Inc., Microsoft announced that it is continuing to explore and pursue its alternatives to improve and expand its online services and advertising business. Microsoft is considering and has raised with Yahoo! an alternative that would involve a transaction with Yahoo! but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo! Microsoft is not proposing to make a new bid to acquire all of Yahoo! at this time, but reserves the right to reconsider that alternative depending on future developments and discussions that may take place with Yahoo! or discussions with shareholders of Yahoo! or Microsoft or with other third parties. "There of course can be no assurance that any transaction will result from these discussions." May 3, 2008 Microsoft Corp. announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo after failing to agree on a price even after raising it by $5 billion. "We continue to believe that our proposed acquisition made sense for Microsoft, Yahoo! and the market as a whole. Our goal in pursuing a combination with Yahoo! was to provide greater choice and innovation in the marketplace and create real value for our respective stockholders and employees," said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. "Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal," said Ballmer. "We have a talented team in place and a compelling plan to grow our business through innovative new services and strategic transactions with other business partners. While Yahoo would have accelerated our strategy, I am confident that we can continue to move forward toward our goals," Ballmer said. "We are investing heavily in new tools and Web experiences, we have dramatically improved our search performance and advertiser satisfaction, and we will continue to build our scale through organic growth and partnerships," said Kevin Johnson, Microsoft president for platforms and services. April 22, 2008 Yahoo reported revenues of $1.818 billion for the first quarter of 2008, a 9 percent increase compared to $1.672 billion for the same period of 2007. Net income for the first quarter of 2008 was $542 million compared to $142 million for the same period of 2007. Net income for the first quarter of 2008 includes the company's net non-cash gain of $401 million related to Alibaba Group's initial public offering of Alibaba.com. "Yahoo's first quarter 2008 financial performance was on target and aligned with our strategy to generate substantial value for stockholders," said Blake Jorgensen, chief financial officer of Yahoo. "Our strong growth in free cash flow, excellent capital position, and ample scale give us the resources to execute our plans to grow operating cash flow substantially. Core revenue grew at an attractive, double-digit pace. The capital expenditures and substantial investments we made in people last year and early this year are now producing gains in our core, long term growth initiatives," Jorgensen added. April 14, 2008 Yahoo and MLB Advanced Media, LP (MLBAM), the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, announced a three-year video and advertising partnership that includes access to out-of-market MLB games on Yahoo Sports. The agreement will make MLB.TV available on Yahoo Sports, bringing Yahoo users more than 2,400 out-of-market Major League Baseball games each year, live and on-demand, through the 2010 season. Yahoo will also exclusively manage online advertising sales for MLB.TV in the 2009 and 2010 seasons. Fans will still have to pay to watch games and can only view live games outside of their local region due to TV restrictions. A full-season out-of-market subscription costs $89.95 per year or $14.95 per month for access at 400k speed. A premium subscription with high-quality video at 800-1,200k is priced at $119.95 for the year or $19.95 per month. April 10, 2008 Yahoo said it will begin a limited test of Google Inc.'s AdSense for Search service, which will deliver relevant Google ads alongside Yahoo!'s own search results. The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo!'s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3% of Yahoo search queries. The test is seen as a bid to thwart a possible takeover by Microsoft but is also raising anti-trust questions from government regulators. Yahoo has stated that it is exploring strategic alternatives to maximize stockholder value, including exploration of potential commercial business arrangements. The Company noted that the testing does not necessarily mean that Yahoo will join the AdSense for Search program or that any further commercial relationship with Google will result. April 7, 2008 Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a letter to Yahoo's Board of Directors on Saturday urging them to negotiate a deal or face a hostile takeover bid. Microsoft is giving the company three weeks to come to terms with its original proposal to buy Yahoo for $31 a share, a 62% premium on the closing price on January 31. Yahoo has responded with its own letter saying that it is interested in a deal, but only one that is in best interests for shareholders, meaning it is looking for a higher offer or another company to buy it. March 25, 2008 Yahoo and Computational Research Laboratories (CRL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Limited, announced an agreement to jointly support cloud computing research. As part of the agreement, CRL will make available to researchers one of the world's top five supercomputers that has substantially more processors than any supercomputer currently available for cloud computing research. This effort is the first of its kind in terms of the size and scale of the machine, and the first in making available a supercomputer to academic institutions in India. The Yahoo/CRL effort is intended to leverage CRL's expertise in high performance computing and Yahoo's technical leadership in Apache Hadoop, an open source distributed computing project of the Apache Software Foundation, to enable scientists to perform data-intensive computing research on a 14,400 processor supercomputer. Called the EKA, CRL's supercomputer is ranked the fourth fastest supercomputer in the world - it has 14,400 processors, 28 terabytes of memory, 140 terabytes of disks, a peak performance of 180 trillion calculations per second (180 teraflops), and sustained computation capacity of 120 teraflops for the LINPACK benchmark. Of the top ten supercomputers in the world, EKA is the only supercomputer funded by the private sector and is available for use on commercial terms. EKA is expected to run the latest version of Hadoop and other state-of-the-art, Yahoo!-supported, open-source distributed computing software such as the Pig parallel programming language developed by Yahoo Research. "The Tata group has always contributed to scientific research in India, and the EKA will strengthen this cause further in the field of cloud computing. This partnership brings together Yahoo!'s leadership role in the development of Hadoop and CRL's expertise in high performance computing, and will help bridge the gap between traditional supercomputing and cloud computing research in India," said S. Ramadorai, chairman of CRL. March 5, 2008 India's Yahoo research and development operations is expanding with the launch of Yahoo Labs - Bangalore, its first in India. Dr. Rajeev Rastogi has been appointed as vice president and head of the new lab. Yahoo Labs - Bangalore will be a research center for next generation search and advertising technologies, focused on making the Web more relevant and simple for users and advertisers. As a demonstration of Yahoo's commitment to recruiting world-class talent in India, Rastogi was appointed to assemble a top team of scientists and engineers to focus on new approaches to information extraction and machine learning, multimedia and query processing. "Yahoo Labs - Bangalore intends to build its world-class team, which is focused on delivering the most valuable insights and leading edge technologies to delight all of our customers worldwide," said Dr. Prabhakar Raghavan, SVP and Head of Yahoo! Research. "Rajeev's background and expertise in product development, as well as his deep experience in research will strengthen our leadership in international research and technology and leverage knowledge from across the region." February 28, 2008 Yahoo has introduced Buzz, an extension to Yahoo.com that uncovers interesting and relevant content from websites across the Internet. Currently in beta, Yahoo Buzz measures consumer votes and search patterns to identify interesting and timely stories and videos from large news sources as well as niche blogs around the Web. Top stories are then given primary editorial consideration for feature placement on Yahoo.com. Yahoo Buzz can highlight anything - a major news event, an intriguing video or image, or an interesting blog post - and instead of editors, real people vote and search for their favorite stories to determine the top rated content from across the Web. Yahoo! Buzz ranks the most popular content of the moment using a unique approach that combines consumer votes with search popularity to give a story a Buzz Score. This new initiative creates a lens on what people are most interested in to enhance relevance on the popular Yahoo.com, and help publishers deliver their best content to Yahoo's broad and diverse audience of more than 500 million users. "Yahoo Buzz is a good example of how we are continuing to innovate and open up our key starting points to third party publishers, making Yahoo! more social and personally relevant for our half a billion consumers," said Jeff Weiner, executive vice president, Yahoo Network Division. "In addition, we recently announced that we will be opening up our user interface for Yahoo Search, as well as creating a smarter inbox by opening up Yahoo Mail, two other key ways that consumers start with Yahoo." February 16, 2008 Yahoo has laid off 490 workers in California out of 1,000 total layoffs companywide. The SF Chronicle reports Yahoo has fired 236 at its Sunnyvale headquarters, 91 in Santa Clara, 52 in Santa Monica and 111 in Burbank, according to a notice that the company provided to the State Employment Development Department. The layoffs will cost the company $20-25 million in severance pay and expenses. February 14, 2008 Yahoo announced that it has acquired Maven Networks, Inc., a leading online video platform provider, to expand state-of-the-art consumer video and advertising experiences on Yahoo.com and Yahoo's network of premium video publishers across the web. Under the terms of the agreement, Yahoo acquired Maven Networks for approximately $160 million. The easy-to-use Maven video publishing platform enables publishers to deliver state-of-the-art consumer video experiences through simple media management, workflow and flexible media players. Maven also enables publishers to increase video ad inventory and revenue through a dynamic advertising insertion engine, sophisticated inventory management, reporting tools and advanced ad formats. Yahoo said it will invest in the growth of Maven's overall video business, continuing to provide premium publishers with both publishing and new advertising solutions. Yahoo intends to expand on the Maven offering with video monetization services allowing publishers to take advantage of Yahoo!'s industry leading display sales force and advanced technologies for delivering consumers more relevant advertising experiences, both of which help them maximize their video advertising dollars. February 11, 2008 Yahoo said its Board of Directors has carefully reviewed Microsoft's unsolicited proposal with Yahoo!'s management team and financial and legal advisors and has unanimously concluded that the proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo and its stockholders. After careful evaluation, the Board believes that Microsoft's proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo including its global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as substantial unconsolidated investments. The Board of Directors is continually evaluating all of its strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all stockholders. The rejection could lead Yahoo to seek other deals or force Microsoft to offer more than the $31 per share buyout offer. February 1, 2008 Microsoft Corp. said that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft's proposal would allow the Yahoo shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008. "We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. "We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners." "Our lives, our businesses, and even our society have been progressively transformed by the Web, and Yahoo! has played a pioneering role by building compelling, high-scale services and infrastructure," said Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft. "The combination of these two great teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to our customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own." See letter from Steve Ballmer to Yahoo. January 29, 2008 Yahoo announced its earnings and said it will cut 1,000 jobs or about 7% of its total workforce. The move was expected after rumors swirled for the past two weeks about the cutbacks. Yahoo reported revenues for 2007 of $6.9 billion, up 8% from the previous year. However, profits dropped to $660 million from $751 million the previous year. The company projected revenues for 2008 to be $7.2-$8.0 billion. Where the job cuts are coming from hasn't been announced but Yahoo is expected to refocus on its successful news, finance and sports sections. January 10, 2008 Belo Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. have announced an agreement that designates 13 of Belo's television stations as the exclusive provider of local news video to Yahoo News in their respective markets. Yahoo will host dozens of local news video clips each day, provided by Belo's television stations, which will run within the local news pages of Yahoo News. Local news video will also be available to all Yahoo users when major news breaks in local markets. "Video usage is one of the fastest growing areas in the online space and Belo's television stations and Web sites produce some of the most compelling video in their respective markets. Given Yahoo's leadership in online news, this partnership is yet another way for both companies to offer users a richer online experience while jointly creating business models which recognize that value," said Dunia A. Shive, president and Chief Operating Officer of Belo Corp. The video partnership between Yahoo News and Belo's television Web sites adds to the previously announced agreements between Yahoo and Belo's newspaper Web sites. The companies will share advertising revenue generated from the video clips under the new agreement, which encompasses all Belo television markets except Dallas and Boise, including: -- Austin -- Portland Yahoo has launched a new version of the company's mobile home page in early beta at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Yahoo's new mobile home page was designed to quickly become the essential starting point for the mobile Internet. Incorporating the best "home page" elements from pioneering PC portals such as My Yahoo and the Yahoo.com Front Page, it embraces a dynamic, open and highly personalized approach. The new mobile home page is available to consumers in the United States on numerous mobile devices including the Apple iPhone, several Nokia Series 60 devices and select Windows Mobile devices. Over the coming months, the new interface is expected to become available across additional devices and mobile browsers and also available internationally. December 13, 2007 Yahoo has announced an agreement to distribute content from CNBC, CNBC Europe, CNBC Asia, and CNBC.com to Yahoo Finance users in the United States and worldwide. The announcement represents CNBC's first global online alliance, and Yahoo's first global finance video agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, CNBC will provide video clips from its global networks and articles from CNBC.com. The content will be available to Yahoo Finance users in the U.S., and will also be available to Yahoo!'s 21 international financial news sites. The video clips will encompass commentary and analysis of the day's top business stories, pre-market opening buzz, interviews, investing and stock-picking segments from CNBC programs including "Mad Money w/Jim Cramer" and "Fast Money" and international market news and analysis from CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia. "This agreement brings together two global market leaders to meet the growing demand for online business and financial information," said Mark Hoffman, CNBC President. "This alliance draws on the strength of CNBC's global assets and expands the reach of our unparalleled content to Yahoo Finance's worldwide user base. It reaffirms our commitment to providing fast, accurate, actionable and unbiased information to our audience." Yahoo Finance currently features clips from Fox Business News, a new competitor to CNBC. Yahoo Finance will debut a new online program called Tech Ticker in January. The streaming video program will have about 10-20 financial stories per day and will be hosted by Sarah Lacy, a columnist for Business Week and Henry Blodget, a former technology analyst for Merrill Lynch. The online show sounds very similar to Yahoo FinanceVision, an online streaming network that Yahoo launched in 2000 but closed in 2002 following the dot-com demise. November 29, 2007 Adobe Systems and Yahoo have launched Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo, an opt-in service that enables online commercial publishers to drive new revenue by including timely, contextual ads next to Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)-based content. The service has the potential to offer readers access to more free content, enhanced with ads that match their interests. Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo! is available initially as a beta program. The new service allows publishers to generate revenue by including contextual, text-based ads next to Adobe PDF content, with Yahoo! providing access to its extensive network of advertisers to match a broad range of subject matter. For advertisers, Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo! extends reach by delivering advertising across a new channel of content, while also providing the ability to track advertising performance, just as they can today with ads placed on Web sites. "By partnering with Yahoo! on this innovative advertising service we are creating opportunities for publishers to build new businesses around unique content that previously was just given away or not available to a mass online audience," said Rob Tarkoff, senior vice president, Corporate Development at Adobe. "As advertisers look to touch new audiences, readers can look forward to some exciting Adobe PDF content coming their way." To join the program, publishers must register online, and then simply upload their Adobe PDF content so that it can be ad-enabled before distributing PDFs as they do today. Ads can only be displayed within Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat, in a panel adjacent to the content so that they do not disrupt the viewing experience. Every time the PDF content is viewed, contextual ads are dynamically matched to the content of the document. The publisher can then monitor performance through detailed reports. Publishers already committed to participating in the Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo! beta program include: IDG InfoWorld, Wired, Pearson's Education, Meredith Corporation, Reed Elsevier and many more. November 26, 2007 Yahoo said it has signed an agreement with Sony BMG to extend its video-on-demand license. In addition to expanding the existing relationship into additional territories around the world, the new worldwide deal adds a broad array of additional Sony BMG music videos to the Yahoo Music catalog. As part of the agreement, Sony BMG music videos will be available for distribution across Yahoo and off-network through a Yahoo-branded video player. The deal also enables Yahoo users to utilize various Sony BMG audio recordings in user generated audiovisual content. "Yahoo is a leading force in Internet entertainment, and they are an important part of our overall strategy to make our artists' music videos widely available, while at the same time building a strong future for our online businesses," said Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business & U.S. Sales, SONY BMG Music Entertainment "We are happy to extend our agreement with Yahoo, and look forward to continuing our relationship." November 14, 2007 Yahoo announced nine new partnerships with some of the leading mobile operators across the Asia Pacific region, in its continuing effort to partner with mobile operators globally to reach hundreds of millions of consumers. Through Yahoo!'s partnerships with mobile operators, Yahoo! oneSearch, Yahoo!'s leading mobile search technology, will power the search experience for consumers on partner mobile internet sites and provide additional revenue opportunities for these partners. The new partnership agreements include leading mobile operators such as Aircel Limited (India), BPL Mobile (India), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL; India), DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd (DiGi; Malaysia), PT EXCELCOMINDO PRATAMA Tbk. (Excelcom; Indonesia), PT Hutchison CP Telecom (Hutch 3; Indonesia), PT Indosat, Tbk (Indosat; Indonesia), PCCW Mobile HK Limited (Hong Kong) and Starhub Ltd (Singapore). These strategic partnerships demonstrate Yahoo!'s continued momentum, building on seven previous partnerships with Asian mobile operators and reinforce Yahoo!'s strong leadership position in mobile audience reach, mobile search services and mobile advertising. Additional mobile search partnerships announced earlier this year in the Asia Pacific region include Globe Telecom Inc. (Philippines), Idea Cellular Limited (India), LG Telecom (Korea), Maxis Communications Berhad (Malaysia), PT Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel; Indonesia), SmarTone-Vodafone (Hong Kong) and Taiwan Mobile Co (Taiwan). "Fostering and developing high quality partnerships is a cornerstone of our mobile strategy and, together with our partners, we are delivering a premier mobile Internet experience to our respective consumers," said David Ko, vice president and general manager, Connected Life Asia, Yahoo!. "Today's partnerships with leading operators across Asia add to Yahoo!'s incredible momentum in mobile and underscore our leadership in this important and growing market." November 11, 2007 Yahoo announced that the New York Daily News, the fifth largest newspaper in the United States, has become the largest newspaper to join its Newspaper Consortium. The Daily News will gain access to Yahoo's Web technologies for targeting display advertising, distributing content and connecting employers with job candidates on Yahoo HotJobs. Additionally, the Daily News will be able to offer its advertisers extended reach and frequency benefits on the Yahoo network. "The Daily News is excited to be the latest and largest newspaper to join the Newspaper Consortium. Our partnership with Yahoo! will allow us to provide additional opportunities to our advertisers, to job seekers and to all of our users," said Marc Kramer, CEO of the Daily News. "We are by far the biggest-selling newspaper in New York, thanks to a great product and a very strong and loyal readership. Being part of the Newspaper Consortium's continued success story will give NYDailyNews.com a superior online presence and deliver innovative technologies to our advertisers and our audience." Yahoo's partnership with the Newspaper Consortium was launched just over a year ago and has since tripled in size to now include 21 newspaper companies, representing close to 400 daily newspapers. Oct. 19, 2007 Yahoo reported revenues for the third quarter of $1.768 billion for the third quarter of 2007, a 12 percent increase compared to $1,580 million for the same period of 2006. Net income for the quarter was $151 million compared to $159 million in 2006. "Over the past three months, we conducted a thorough review of our business and the marketplace. We've made key strategic decisions to invest in and grow our large communities of users, advertisers, and publishers. We've also made progress in sharpening our focus and improving our execution," said Jerry Yang, co-founder and chief executive officer, Yahoo! Inc. "Moving forward, we are focused on three big, multi-year objectives: to become the starting point for the most consumers on the Internet; to be the 'must buy' for the most advertisers; and to deliver open, industry-leading platforms that attract the most developers. We are executing against our transformation and are excited about playing a leadership role in the large and growing Internet market." This was Yang's first full quarter as CEO after taking over for Terry Semel. Oct. 6, 2007 Yahoo announced the debut of Search Assist, what it bills as the most advanced assistance technology available on the Web, integrating audio, video and photos directly into the search results to help make Web search effortless for consumers. The new Yahoo Search was designed to better understand user intent and get consumers to the results they are looking for in one search. Recent research conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Yahoo! on the state of the Web shows that consumers are suffering from "Web search fatigue." The study revealed that while 99 percent of online adults use a search engine to find information on the Internet, a mere 15 percent of them find what they're looking for with their first search, with most needing to conduct three to four searches. "The new Yahoo Search is focused on getting consumers the most relevant information as well as providing the best user experience. We know that consumers want a complete answer, not a bunch of links, and the changes we've made are focused on getting people to the best answer -- whether it be a Web link, photo, video or music clip -- in one search," said Vish Makhijani, general manager and senior vice president of Yahoo! Search. Only available from Yahoo, Search Assist goes beyond basic search "suggestions" and gives consumers real-time query suggestions as well as related topics and concepts, which is especially valuable when a person is searching on an unfamiliar topic.
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