Monster.com aquires Yahoo! HotJobs for $225M
As the national unemployment rate continues to linger around 10%, there is no shortage of people looking for jobs. Popular employment website, Monster.com might be looking to snatch up some market share as today it announced the acquisition of Yahoo HotJobs for $225 million.
The two companies also signed a traffic agreement stating that Monster will supply all career and job content to the Yahoo homepage in the United States and Canada for a period of three years. Monster... Continue Reading
Yahoo’s over-the-top revenue leads to $119M profit
Way to friggin’ go, Carol! Yahoo’s fourth quarter revenues were lower than a year ago, but they beat the high bound of the company’s outlook forecast range, leading to a $119 million profit as opposed to last year’s $278 million loss. Chalk that up as another victory for CEO Carol Bartz.
Display ads were up 26%, the biggest gain since 2006. Search ads went up 8%, primarily because of improved targeting algorithms, the company claimed.... Continue Reading
Roundup: China fires back at US, Q4 venture numbers
Here’s the latest action:
China fires back against Clinton — In response to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call for China to investigate Google’s claims that human rights activist email accounts were hacked, the country’s Foreign Ministry posted a messaging saying the Obama administration was making “groundless charges.”
Dow Jones VentureSource shows uptick in venture investing – VentureSource found that after a crummy year for startups raising money, VC funding actually went up during the... Continue Reading
VMware acquires Zimbra: Why virtualization and email might be a good fit
VMware announced today that it’s acquiring email and collaboration service Zimbra from Yahoo.
The deal might seem like an odd match, since VMware is known for virtualization and business infrastructure, while Zimbra offers a collaboration application. Plus, Zimbra’s deals with Internet providers like Comcast and universities like Stanford mean many of its users are probably consumers and students, not corporate users.
So for starters, the acquisition suggests that VMware wants to expand into apps and... Continue Reading
Google threatens to pull out of China after activist accounts hacked
Google said today it might pull out of China because it found that the email accounts of human rights activists using Google’s Gmail service had been breached.
The company detected a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” on its corporate infrastructure, with the probes coming from China starting in mid-December, Google said in a blog post. The investigation found that the attackers were accessing the Gmail accounts of activists. The company said it is no longer... Continue Reading
Yahoo CEO Bartz gives herself a B-minus grade for first year
Rough-talking Yahoo chief Carol Bartz revisited her first year on the job in an interview with Bloomberg yesterday at Yahoo headquarters. “It was a little tougher internally than I think I had anticipated,” she admitted. Instead of an A, she gave herself a B-minus for taking too long to reorganize the company and close a search deal with Microsoft.
“I did move fast, but this is a big job,” Bartz told reporter Brian Womack.
Bartz,... Continue Reading
Yahoo Widget Engine gets more traction with MIPS deal
Yahoo is trying to become the de facto leader in putting web pages on the TV. That’s why it has cut a deal with MIPS Technologies, the chip design company, which will make it easy to run the Yahoo Widget Engine on TVs and other digital home devices.
At the Consumer Electronics Show, MIPS announced that it is developing a reference design with built-in Yahoo Widget Engine software for chips that are used in digital... Continue Reading
5 o’clock roundup: VMWare to buy Zimbra from Yahoo, A123Systems owned 2009’s IPO market and more
Here’s the latest action:
VMware looks to buy Zimbra from Yahoo — Several anonymous sources have said that Yahoo is shopping around for a buyer for its open source email unit, Zimbra, and that VMware looks like the best bet — even though its bid is lower than the $350 million Yahoo bought it for in 2007.
148apps opens voting for best apps ever — The San Francisco company is calling for votes for its... Continue Reading
Yahoo becomes more real-time, adds tweets to general search
Yahoo doesn’t want to be left out of the real-time show.
After integrating Twitter into news search last month, Yahoo was only a hop, skip and a jump away from pulling in tweets to general search. Today tweets will show up in results at the bottom of the page if users are searching for topics that merit recently published results. Yahoo can tell if users want tweets or news-related content if there is a sudden... Continue Reading
Update: Yahoo lets users know how advertisers are targeting them
[Updated to include Google's ad preferences manager, which shows you some basic information on how ads are targeted at you based on your interests.]
Yahoo is launching a pre-emptive move against the federal scrutiny it may face for its search and advertising partnership with Microsoft. It’s releasing an ad manager that will let users see a history of their online activity and decide how they want to be exposed to interest-based advertising.
“Ad Interest Manager... Continue Reading
Yahoo hands social features to Facebook in new deal
Yahoo announced that it is integrating Facebook Connect across its properties today, giving the world’s biggest social network a prominent stage for showing how its social graph can interact with content. Yahoo is putting Connect on mail, news, sports and finance, letting users show how their friends are using Yahoo’s content and allowing them to share that activity back on Facebook.
Yahoo’s Vice President of Communities Jim Stoneham wrote today:
“…we will open the... Continue Reading
Yahoo’s 2009 searches topped by Michael Jackson and Twilight, not Twitter
Barely more than a few hours after Microsoft revealed the year’s top queries on its new search engine Bing, Yahoo followed suit with its own top 10. Unsurprisingly, Michael Jackson topped both lists, but Twitter fans will be disappointed to learn the microblogging service not only failed to capture the number two spot (where it placed on Bing’s list), it didn’t even make the top 10.
Perhaps that’s not surprising — Bing is a much... Continue Reading
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... 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,... 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... 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... 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.... 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... 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... 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