Yahoo juices up its news search with Twitter
Yahoo is using Twitter to surface timely and relevant news stories, images and videos starting today.
As news organizations pile into the microblogging service and as shared links and retweets become a decent metric of what’s interesting, the web’s biggest search destinations are incorporating Twitter. (Microsoft and Google both signed data-sharing deals with Twitter last month.)
What’s unique about Yahoo’s approach is that they haven’t built a separate real-time search engine outside of their primary search as… Continue Reading
Snapfish prints your Flickr photos (but only your own)
Popular Yahoo-owned photo site Flickr announced today that through a deal with Snapfish (itself owned by HP), users around the world can now print the photos they’ve uploaded into the site, turning them into prints, books, calendars, and more.
Printing seems like it could be a big money-maker, and in fact Flickr previously had more limited partnerships with services like QOOP and TinyPrint. The company now says that Snapfish, with its locations in 22 countries, is… Continue Reading
Icahn haz Yahoo board resignation
Carl Icahn, the Yahoo investor who attempted a hostile takeover of the company last year, has resigned from the board of directors.
Icahn’s move against Yahoo’s board, especially then-chief executive Jerry Yang, was prompted by the failure of the struggling company to reach an acquisition deal with Microsoft. Last July, Icahn threatened to try to get Yahoo’s entire board replaced with members more open to a Microsoft deal, but instead negotiated to get a seat on… Continue Reading
Yahoo apologizes for lap dancers at Taiwan Hack Day
Yahoo apologized for bringing scantily clad dancers onstage at its most recent Hack Day in Taiwan over the weekend.
Chris Yeh, who is head of Yahoo’s Developer Network, wrote:
As many folks have rightly pointed out, the “Hack Girls” aspect of our Taiwan Hack Day is not reflective of that spirit or purpose. And it’s certainly not the message we want to send about our values here at Yahoo!. Hack Days are about making everyone feel welcome,… Continue Reading
Google poaching Yahoo engineers in public
Mountain View’s largest ad network with a search engine attached is looking to hire more software experts. Specifically, Google wants to hire one or more “excellent Yahoo engineer(s) with solid experience in search.”
Normally, Silicon Valley companies hire recruiters to identify and solicit senior technical people. Google uses them, too.
But Google engineer Matt Cutts has a high profile among Internet engineers because of his role at Google in cracking down on search engine spam. So the… Continue Reading
5 O’Clock Roundup: Bartz would’ve taken Microsoft buyout, Peter Kafka trumps Yoko Ono
New Yahoo CEO Bartz says she would have accepted Microsoft’s 2008 offer to buy the company – “Do you think I’m stupid?” Carol Bartz blurted out in that sassy way bored journalists love on CBNC’s Squawk Box Thursday. Now that Yahoo has rebuffed Microsoft and installed Bartz, her plan is to build out Yahoo’s content products rather than try to beat Google at search.
Nokia acquires obscure social network startup Plum Ventures — None of the usual… Continue Reading
Yahoo launches Flickr iPhone app, plus Yahoo Finance, Fantasy Football
Yahoo has announced three new mobile apps this morning for some of its most popular properties. Click the links below to find and install them.
Flickr for Mobile (iPhone / iPod Touch only) — This free iPhone app lets you upload, share, and tag photos and videos. Flickr already has a browser-based mobile app at m.flickr.com, but iPhone users can now hit the App Store and get the free iPhone app.
Yahoo! Finance for Mobile (iPhone / iPod Touch,… Continue Reading
5 O’Clock Roundup: UK’s new largest telco, Yahoo CEO dumps stock, ethics wonking over David Pogue
Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom will merge their UK operations, forming the Brits’ largest operator — O2 will soon be second to the merged carrier, which will have a combined market share of 38%. The Wall Street Journal reports what you’re already thinking: ”The deal is likely to be looked over by the U.K. Office of Fair Trade, which considers all deals that create an entity with a market share greater than 25%, and, depending… Continue Reading
Yahoo SearchMonkey keeps chugging as Bing looms
Since last month’s announcement that Microsoft’s Bing search engine will be powering Yahoo search, it’s unclear how exactly Yahoo’s search technology will transform, especially since the switch won’t happen until the technical details get worked out and federal regulatory agencies approve the deal. But despite the uncertainty, Yahoo’s search team soldiers on, announcing small improvements. Case in point: Yahoo just launched new features for SearchMonkey, its program for websites to provide richer search results.
Previously, SearchMonkey… Continue Reading
Yahoo acquires Maktoob, jumps into fast-growing Arabic ad market
While Internet ad spending has fallen off in North America and Europe, the Arab online ad market is still growing between 25 and 50 percent per year. That’s the claim Yahoo’s senior vice president of emerging markets, Keith Nilsson (pictured) made at a press conference in Dubai earlier today announcing Yahoo’s purchase of Arabic portal site Maktoob. (This link goes to the English version of the site.)
Yahoo paid $75 to $80 million for Maktoob, according to… Continue Reading
The delusion of the perfect product
I’m going to tell you something you may already know: There is no such thing as a perfect product.
While it’s a pretty obvious fact, it’s still something that any manager can (and often does) forget – and the results can be like quicksand for the company, turning your lean start-up into a lumbering beast.
I’m as guilty as anyone of not noticing this. Back in late 2003 I managed Yahoo!’s messenger client. When we conceptualized version… Continue Reading
Roundup: Milken launches business advice site, Palm blowhard proves wrong, Microsoft goes on a “permanent diet”
Michael Milken-backed business advice site goes live — Bizmore is a new businessperson-to-businessperson advice site aimed at small business and small enterprise execs. The site, which I’ll disclose that I worked on for all of three days last year, aims to fill a perceived gap in sound business advice on the Internet at sites like BNET. In fact, Bizmore stole BNET editor Jeff Davis to be its editor in chief. The New York Times reports… Continue Reading
Blog millionaire Jason Calacanis offers best analysis of Yahoo / Microsoft deal
The baby-faced, fast-talking entrepreneur, who edited Silicon Alley Reporter during Web 1.0 and sold Engadget and some other blogs to AOL for more than $25 million in his Web 2.0 comeback, lacks only one thing to make him a star business pundit: An editor.
VentureBeat can help here. Jason, here’s my rewrite of your blog post today about why Yahoo’s search deal with Microsoft is a suicide move:
“Yahoo was once the No. 1 search site on… Continue Reading
Microsoft and Yahoo turn on the buzzword firehose
Microsoft and Yahoo are shaking up the web search landscape today with their just-announced partnership. But before returning you to our regularly scheduled business analysis, I’d like to take a moment to celebrate the way Microsoft and Yahoo shared the news. Normally, talking about PR stuff is a little too inside baseball for me, but honestly, the companies’ efforts set some kind of gold standard for the relentless, undiscriminating use of near-meaningless buzzwords.
Here’s Microsoft chief… Continue Reading
Questions not answered on Microsoft / Yahoo deal
Despite the large amount of text coming from Yahoo about its ten-year search deal with Microsoft, there are a few questions still nagging the VentureBeat staff. We don’t expect to get answers, but we need to get the questions out there anyway.
1. What happens to Yahoo BOSS? Yahoo’s press release states that “The agreement does not cover each company’s Web properties and products, email, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses…. Continue Reading
Twitterers mixed on Bing getting big through Microsoft / Yahoo deal
One reason Twitter is so fascinating is that conversations don’t stick to topics the mass media considers important. This morning, there’s not much tweeting about the business details of Microsoft’s deal with Yahoo to take over its search engine and search advertising sales. Far more Twitterers are tweeting because Microsoft’s Bing will now become the #2 search engine on the Internet, because of its placement on both Microsoft and Yahoo sites. Bing is near the… Continue Reading
Yahoo / Microsoft 110% rumor nixed
[Update: Last night, AllThingsD -- usually a reliable source on Yahoo stories -- reported that Microsoft would give Yahoo 110% of the ad revenue it collected by selling ads against its Bing search engine on Yahoo sites. Instead, the official press release on the deal says Microsoft will give Yahoo 88% for the first five years of the deal. Our original and wrong post is below.]
Yahoo’s ten-year search deal with Microsoft is pretty much a… Continue Reading
Traders reward Microsoft, punish Yahoo for deal
“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry,” Carol Bartz said in her prepared statement about Yahoo’s agreement to turn over the bulk of its search and advertising business to Microsoft. Day traders don’t seem to agree. YHOO shares have dropped more than 10 percent from yesterday’s closing price.
Yahoo’s drop is part of a larger trend: The entire Nasdaq composite index is down this morning, albeit by less than… Continue Reading
Roundup: Sprint / Virgin, Microsoft / Yahoo, VentureBeat on Techmeme
What does the Sprint-Virgin hookup actually mean for cellular customers? — “The answer is … probably nothing,” claims my fellow New York Times Gadgetwise blogger Roy Furchgott. As a guy who reports doggedly on the wireless industry, Roy’s immediate response to the deal is that it won’t close until the end of this year at the earliest. Until then, Sprint and Virgin Mobile will operate as two separate companies. After the deal closes, he reports, Sprint… Continue Reading
Yahoo confirms that it’s buying Xoopit
Yahoo just published a blog post confirming yesterday’s reports that it plans to buy Xoopit, the startup that adds social and media-sharing tools to email .
What’s the reasoning? Well, if Yahoo’s post is to be believed, this deal is all about photos:
With the integration of Xoopit’s platform technology and capabilities, the task of sending photos via email will be as easy as it should be and sharing photo albums with friends and family members will… Continue Reading