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clips
Microsoft's Bing Puts Google and Yahoo on the Defensive
In the tech world, dominance can be lost with mere clicks, which in turn spring from mere thoughts. Perhaps that's why Google and Yahoo's CEOs are so quickly dismissing Microsoft's new search site, Bing. More » -
clips
Google's Marissa Mayer Pities Yahoo
Why is Marissa Mayer, Google's athletically inept cupcake princess, going on such a publicity tour of late? She was in the Times Sunday. Last night, she hit Charlie Rose to make excuses for not innovating. More » -
trendwatch
How Facebook, Google, and Yahoo Are Making Ads Part of Your Life
The Valley's biggest players are all racing to be the center of your online life, collecting your photos, blog posts, Twitter messages, and comments into one stream — and then dosing it with real-time ads. More » -
sue decker
Yahoo's Depressing Backup Plan
No one wants to buy Yahoo. And the only person who wants to run Yahoo is an insider who helped sink it. Is there any hope left for the beleaguered Web giant? More » -
search
Why Pamela Anderson can't beat Google
Remember AltaVista? The search engine, long swallowed up by Yahoo, once hired professional trashy babe Pamela Anderson to win our affections. What that terrible TV ad tells us: TV ads don't build Web brands. -
spamhaus
Microsoft now 5th worst ISP for spam
"Spammers and scam artists are abusing Microsoft's live.com and livefilestore.com properties to redirect visitors to sites that peddle fake pharmacy products, porn and Nigerian 419 scams." That's how WaPo security blogger Brian Krebs explains Microsoft's appearance on the list of Top 10 Worst Spam Service ISPs maintained by the non-profit Spamhaus Project. Krebs got a non-denial denial from Microsoft that overlooks the fact that many of the scams have been high-profile examples for months. As Krebs points out, even the directionless dweebs at Yahoo (I'm paraphrasing) fixed this problem on their own sites. -
antitrust
A taste of their own medicine
Microsoft, harried by regulators in the 1990s, once lobbied Congress to cut spending on antitrust enforcement. Now, it's profiting from their efforts. The software giant's lobbying budget nearly doubled from 2006 to 2008, helping it sink Yahoo's deal to have Google sell ads for its search pages. The failure of that deal helped speed Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang out the door, and could set Microsoft up to win Yahoo's search business. CNET News] -
steve ballmer
Microsoft: "We are done with Yahoo"
Microsoft's chair-hurling 800-pound gorilla slammed the door on talk of a renewed Yahoo acquisition deal at today's shareholder meeting in Bellevue, Washington. "We are done with all acquisition deals with Yahoo ... We did our best. We've moved on." In business, this often means: We'll be back. For now, though, Ballmer said he'd rather cut a deal to serve Live Search results to Yahoo users — as a vendor, not an owner. Why can he speak with such confidence? Because he's already snapped up Yahoo's key search engineers. -
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exits
Is Yahoo done with search?
Among the many windmills Jerry Yang tilted at in his brief career as Yahoo's CEO was his devotion to Web search. It veered on an obsession for him. It played into his decision to resist Microsoft's offers to shower him with cash, first for his whole company, then for just its search business. Is it a coincidence, then, that Yahoo's top search engineer has left a day after Yang stepped down? A tipster tells us Sean Suchter resigned yesterday, and speculates that he may be joining Microsoft. More » -
stocks
Why founders win
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like to talk about their hopes of "changing the world." Yes, of course: Changing the world from one in which they are poor to one in which they are fabulously wealthy. The question in the air is whether the founders of companies do a better job at creating wealth, for themselves and their investors, than professional managers. With Yahoo announcing Jerry Yang's plans to step down as CEO, it would seem like a losing time for founders. But Yang is an exceptional case; he took his hands off the steering wheel when Yahoo had a mere five employees, and never really ran anything until he stepped in as CEO last June. Most founders of successful startups eagerly seize power, and have to be forcibly dislodged from the driver's seat. The best never let go. Just take a long-term look at the stock market, and you'll see why. More » -
commenter of the day
longtailwagsthevalley
Microsofties who want to make money on the Web without the hassle of actually working at Microsoft have been jumping on board Yahoo's sinking ship. Today's best commenter, longtailwagsthevalley, talks about the game of musical chairs: More » -
hires
Microsoft takes over Yahoo
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang publicly pines for another bid from Microsoft. On stage at the Web 2.0 Summit conference yesterday, he said, again, that he was open to talks. Microsoft has taken pains to say it's not interested. But really, besides corporate raider Carl Icahn, who cares? A new leadership team, all with lengthy Microsoft resumes, has taken over key parts of Yahoo. More » -
hires
Microsoft exec Jeff Dossett really joining Yahoo after all
Mountaineer, philanthropist, and longtime Microsoftie Jeff Dossett has a new claim to fame: He's brave enough to join Yahoo — but it took a while to convince him. Two months ago, Dossett, who joined Microsoft in 1991, went through a curious back-and-forth: BoomTown's Kara Swisher reported he was leaving Microsoft to join Yahoo. A Microsoft rep promptly denied the report, claiming Dossett was leaving a job at the software giant's MSN Web business, but looking at other opportunities within Microsoft. We could speculate about how Microsoft and Yahoo were bidding for Dossett's services, but the real lesson here is: Never, ever believe a Microsoft flack. Dossett replaces Scott Moore, who's leaving Yahoo as reported. -
quotable
What Steve Ballmer really said about Yahoo
Kara Swisher calls Steve Ballmer's tendency to run at the mouth "executive Tourette syndrome." Funny because it's true! Microsoft's CEO sent Yahoo's stock soaring yesterday with comments that were widely reported as suggesting renewed interest in buying the company. We'll skip Swisher's blah-blah-blah analysis and let you judge for yourself exactly what Ballmer said: More » -
microsoft
Oh, I dunno, maybe we might buy Yahoo after all, or not
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, after he and his underlings spent months saying they'd moved on from the notion of buying Yahoo, says that a deal still makes "economic sense." Yahoo's stock leapt 17 percent, though it wasn't clear from his remarks, made at a Gartner conference in Florida, whether he was talking about a search partnership or a full acquisition. Either way, Ballmer: Make up your frickin' mind. There are 3,500 Yahoos who are about to lose their jobs, not to mention that cushy post-Microsoft severance package Jerry Yang ginned up. Oh, wait, there's more! More » -
stocks
Microsoft to Congress: Please get it together, you're making us nervous
Turns out the tech industry is not immune from the Wall Street meltdown. Apple stock dropped 16 percent yesterday. RIM, Google, Nokia and Yahoo share prices also saw double-digit drops. Yahoo shares hit a five-year low, down 10.8 percent to $16.88. Microsoft shares stayed less than five percent below the markets open until Congress failed to pass a bailout plan. The closed at $25.01, down 8.7 percent. The drop seems to have panicked Microsoft a bit, which did the only thing it could do when there was nothing for it to do: issue a statement. "Microsoft strongly urges members of the U.S. House of Representatives to reconsider and to support legislation that will re-instill confidence and stability in the financial markets," said Brad Smith, Microsoft's top lawyer. "This legislation is vitally important to the health and preservation of jobs in all sectors of the economy of Washington State and the nation, and we urge Congress to act swiftly." If it would help, we're certain Mr. Smith is willing to promise a cherry on top. -
rumormonger
Microsoft-Yahoo-AOL threesome just a sad, sad fantasy
The fantasy that someone will buy AOL from Time Warner in a complicated deal is getting even AOL CEO Randy Falco hot and bothered. A tipster told Silicon Alley Insider that Falco recently fumed, "When is New York going to sell us?" And to whom? "Sources close to AOL" told VentureBeat's Matt Marshall that Microsoft plans to aquire both Yahoo and AOL after those companies merge. We planned to give you a 100-word version of Marshall's story, but seven paragraphs in, we realized it made no sense. More » -
stocks
Forget Yahoo, Microsoft buys more Microsoft
Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo for around $40 billion. That didn't work. Microsoft now plans to spend that much buying back stock, while it also increases its shareholder dividend by 18 percent. The company will take on as much as $6 billion in debt to pay for the buyback, which seems to rule out any major acquisition in the near term. Conveniently, the buyback also helps Microsoft founder Bill Gates with one of his biggest problems: selling his $20.3 billion stake in Microsoft in order to fund his nonprofit without killing the company's stock price. More » -
hires
You don't have to be crazy to join Yahoo right now — it just helps
Earlier this year, MSN exec Jeff Dossett climbed to the summit of Mount Everest in order to bring attention to the problem of AIDS and HIV in Africa. But now he's doing something really crazy. Dossett quit Microsoft last week and likely plans to join Yahoo, BoomTown reports. BoomTown's Kara Swisher notes that Dossett might be going because he's an old friend of fellow ex-Microsoft exec and new Yahoo exec Joanne Bradford. It's unclear what Dossett will do at Yahoo. At MSN, Dossett's job description labeled him as "the lead for audience, content and programming strategy and execution in the U.S," but apparently that was just his latest gig in a long line of online sales and strategy positions.Update: Dossett is not actually leaving Microsoft at all, Valleywag has now learned. That'd be crazy. -
email
Yahoo dominates Sarah Palin's email contact list
Sometimes I hear people ask: "Who uses Yahoo Mail anymore?" The answer, of course, is just about everybody. ComScore puts the number at around 260 million people — far more than Google's 90 million. But statistics can feel abstract. Now that a 4chan reprobate has hacked into Alaska governor and "average hockey mom" Sarah Palin's private Yahoo email account and discovered, among other things, her contact list, we have a more concrete demonstration of Yahoo's dominance of Palin's decidedly down-home demographic. Here is a list contains six Yahoo addresses, an AOL address, a Hotmail address and exactly zero Gmail addresses. More » -
rumormonger
Top Yahoo brain snubs Facebook for Microsoft
Qi Lu, Yahoo's top search scientist, has been rumored to be leaving the company since June. But he's only just recently disappeared from Yahoo's list of top executives. We hear he's taking a job at Microsoft. Microsoft, the land where Web talent goes to die? More » -
search
The search engine wars in rhythm and rhyme
Pantless Knights Productions, the folks who brought you last year's sketch rap hit "Mac or PC," have released a new project — the Search Engine Rap Battle. Think Eminem's 8 Mile but with MC avatars for Microsoft, Yahoo and Google. Some of the rhymes, like MSN's takedown of Google at the end of the clip after the jump, are actually hilarious: "You might have users, but they'll soon be leavin ya / Cuz your search results say search Wikipedia." Even better are the costumes: Live Search in a skintight butterfly unitard, the Google propellerhead on a Segway and a rootin', tootin' cowboy from Yahoo. Instead of bribing people to use and promote Live Search or spending $300 million on meaningless television ads to "start a new kind of conversation," Microsoft should just hire these kids. More » -
acquisitions
Electronic Arts gives Take-Two shareholders the Yahoo flu
Take-Two Interactive, the marketer of Grand Theft Auto and various sports videogames, has watched its stock price plummet to $16.99 on the news that Electronic Arts has decided to quit trying to buy the company for $26 a share. Much like Yahoo's drop after Microsoft took an offer off the table, Take-Two's shares are headed south of where they were when EA initially made an offer. I'm counting the days until a third company meets the same fate and I get to write the obligatory trend piece. -
stocks
10 tech stocks to watch as Lehman disappears and AIG totters
When it became obvious over the weekend that investment bank Lehman Brothers would finally fail and that no one was going to rescue it, Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain realized the market's reaction today would tank his company as well. So Thain met with Kenneth Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, and the pair reached a deal to sell Merrill Lynch to Bank of America for $44 billion. Which is, you might recall, around the price Microsoft wanted to pay for Yahoo. Of course, that kind of offer won't be coming for Yahoo again any time soon. While not so severely or directly, Lehman Brothers' collapse and insurance giant AIG's tottering on the brink will affect your tech portfolio today. Before this morning's open the company's stock was already down 3.83 percent on premarket trading. Watch Yahoo and nine other tech stock's continuing destruction or — dare you hope? — miraculous resilience on live stock charts below. More » -
antitrust
Microsoft is pushing reporters, ad agencies, and lawmakers on Google-Yahoo deal
The U.S. Justice Department has agreed to share documents with California attorney general Jerry Brown's office regarding a possible antitrust suit against Google. Both federal and state lawyers are targeting Google over its deal to sell some of Yahoo's search ads. California's investigation comes at the behest of state assemblyman Joel Anderson, who wrote in a letter to Brown's office: "We're talking about giving (Google and Yahoo) over 90 percent market share — nobody else on the Web has a database like that. Who can compete?" If Anderson's concern sounds familiar, its because in recent days big advertisers, small advertisers and federal lawyers have expressed similar concerns with similar wording. That's because it's all coming from the same source: Microsoft and its CEO Steve Ballmer, who's still bitter about Google blocking its Yahoo acquisition. Says one trade reporter also subject to the Seattle company's lobbying efforts: More » -
online advertising
Big advertisers tell Justice Department to block Google-Yahoo deal
The Association of National Advertisers, which reps big ad spenders like Procter & Gamble and General Motors, wrote a letter to the Justice Departice asking it to block Yahoo's deal to outsource some of its search advertising to Google. Ad execs told the WSJ the letter comes after much lobbying of Madison Avenue by Microsoft and its contracted consultant Michael Kassan. "We don't want to have anyone think that Microsoft was the instigator or influencer," says a Microsoft flack. It beggars belief to think Microsoft didn't push for the letter. But it also beggars belief to think it had to push very hard. More » -
online advertising
A billion-dollar advertiser backs Yahoo's Google deal
Why did Yahoo choose Google over Microsoft for a search deal? The chief reason Yahoo executives cited was that the Google partnership let Yahoo continue to sell both search and display ads in package deals. Kellogg, a breakfast-cereal maker with a $1 billion marketing budget, just gave Yahoo's strategy a big vote of confidence. More » -
stocks
Yahoo share price below where it was when Microsoft made its offer
The markets closed yesterday with Yahoo shares worth $19.11. It was the second day in a row Yahoo shares closed below the $19.18 they were worth on January 31, the day before Microsoft made its $31 per share offer public. "Your proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo," wrote Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on April 7. Yang must feel the same way about his current shareholders. -
online advertising
Yahoo deal lets Google sell ads all over the Web
Google and Yahoo have published a highly redacted version of their search-advertising deal. Even most of the definitions have been censored, making it hard to follow. But this much is clear: This is far more than the modest search-advertising deal Yahoo and Google executives have talked about. Buried in the legalese are frequent references to "AdSense for Content." AFC is Google's service for matching ads to the content of a webpage, rather than the keyword queries of a search. As I read it, this means the deal covers Google selling ads all over Yahoo — and beyond. More » -
acquisitions
Yahoo holds lead over Microsoft in bidding for hot '90s dotcom startup AOL
When it releases its second-quarter numbers Wednesday, Time Warner will also announce it's ready to dump AOL's dialup business. A combination of modem banks, CD-ROM mailers, and ruthless telemarketers which introduced America to the information superhighway in the 1990s, AOL's ISP business still has more than 8 million subscribers who pay through the nose for a quaintly overpriced service. What will be left: A collection of websites and an online-advertising business that has yet to get advertisers to pay anything even vaguely overpriced. Time Warner has flirted with Yahoo and Microsoft for years, but hasn't yet sealed a deal to get rid of AOL, the business which, on paper, acquired Time Warner at the turn of the millennium. More » -
great moments in pr
Microsoft's comment on Yahoo, the 17-word version
We didn't even have to condense the latest statement Waggener Edstrom uberflack Frank Shaw sent on Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock's comments at today's shareholder meeting about Microsoft's botched negotiations to buy Yahoo: "Yahoo is attempting to rewrite history yet again with statements that are not supported by the facts.” The three-word version: "So's your mom." -
Mancrush
Downright adorable Flickr founder wishes Microsoft had bought Yahoo
In an interview with ZDNet, Flickr cofounder Stewart Butterfield says that he wished Microsoft's bid for Yahoo had gone through — and that the now-scuppered deal wasn't the reason he resigned from Yahoo earlier this month. "Once the ball was rolling I would have rather seen the acquisition happen, he said. "I think a lot of damage was done to Yahoo." The admission will likely shock the Yahoo-owned photo-sharing site's faithful core of hardcore fans, who created satirical Microsoft Flickr logos in response to the software giant's bid. Butterfield also implies that Flickr would have been better off under Google's ownership, since that company was more willing to spend on speculative ventures. It's not a purely hypothetical question: Google was very interested in buying Flickr, but the search engine hesitated, and Yahoo ended up buying Flickr instead. I could go on analyzing Butterfield's comments, but I've become too distracted by a Flickr search of photos which demonstrate how fricking cute he is. The results: More » -
chris liddell
Microsoft CFO: "Yahoo is essentially a declining asset"
Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell told analysts that the "chances of us buying Yahoo on a full acquisition basis are so small that they are essentially negligible." He said that Yahoo isn't worth what is was in February and will be worth less with every passing day. "We took the view and we still take the view that Yahoo is essentially a declining asset. We made a credibly generous bid with a very high premium because we were looking for speed." Maybe Microsoft-Yahoo never worked out because "negging" — the practice of insulting a prospective lover to make them "fall from the clouds and be interested in talking to you," as UrbanDictionary explains it — doesn't work in corporate courtship, either. -
hires
There's a bubble in the market for Jon Miller
Everyone wants a piece of beloved former AOL CEO Jon MIller, who was oh so unfairly fired, loyalists say, by Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes. First gossips suggested Miller as a fit to replace ineffectual Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. Then, on Monday, Yang himself said Miller would fill one of Carl Icahn's new seats on the Yahoo board. Now, a source tells Kara Swisher that Miller is "one of the top outside candidates on the list" to head Microsoft's new Online Services division. Maybe everyone can stop moaning about the way Bewkes handled Miller's dismissal now? -
kevin johnson
Microsoft's Windows dilemma
Here are all the talking points you'll hear about Kevin Johnson's departure as the chief of Microsoft's sprawling Platform and Services Division — and what to say about them. The failed Yahoo bid killed his prospects of becoming Microsoft's CEO. Perhaps, but Steve Ballmer, who is more to blame for the Yahoo debacle, wasn't going anywhere, and Johnson may not have been prepared to wait. Johnson was charged with competing with Google in search and advertising, and he failed. And you would have done any better? Facebook took Microsoft for everything it's worth in striking its deal for Microsoft to invest and sell ads on the social network — and that's Johnson's fault. True enough, but Microsoft's $240 million investment is pocket change for the software giant. Enough with the cocktail-party chatter. Here's why I think Johnson really left. More » -
kevin johnson
Microsoft exec who led Facebook investment, Yahoo bid departs for Juniper
"The departure of Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division, will be combined with a reorganization of the business unit, which houses both the online services business and Windows software for personal computers," reports the Wall Street Journal. Johnson was a rarity in Microsoft's top ranks — a business guy who rose up through Microsoft's sales organization, not a technical whiz kid who served as a special assistant to Bill Gates. He was seen as a possible successor to CEO Steve Ballmer. Instead, he's joining Juniper Networks, a telecom equipment maker. (Photo by AP/Elaine Thompson) -
yahoo
Jerry Yang's Olympic dreams
With the Icahn business settled, Jerry Yang can move on to more important questions: For example, is he going to the Beijing Olympics? A week ago, he hadn't quite made up his mind.The dithering was utterly characteristic for the perennially indecisive Yahoo cofounder. But you'd think he could commit to a no-brainer like attending the Games. Yang is a Taiwanese native, and no fan of the Communist regime — China's jailing of a blogger, aided by Yahoo China's handover of email records, led to a humiliating session where he was called to the carpet in front of Congress. But the Beijing Olympics is a seminal event in the rise of Asia, where Yahoo has significant investments — one of the few areas where it has an edge on Google. More » -
the chart
Google loses search market share to Yahoo, Microsoft
Reversing a long trend, one research firm says Yahoo and Microsoft have posted gains in search market share — at the expense of industry leader Google. ComScore reports that 61.5 percent of all U.S. searches went through Google in June 2008, 0.3 percent less than in May 2008. Yahoo saw 20.9 percent of the searches in June, up from 20.6 percent in May. Microsoft went from 8.5 percent to 9.2 percent. Does this argue for a Microsoft-Yahoo merger? Not especially, since those small, hard-won gains would likely evaporate while the combined entity fumbles for years in post-deal internal politicking. -
yahoo raid
Proxy fight over: Yahoo gives Icahn three boards seats for his trouble
There will be no proxy fight at Yahoo's annual shareholder meeting this August 1. Today, Yahoo and corporate raider Carl Icahn agreed to end the fight by awarding Icahn three seats on an expanded, 11-member board. Icahn, who owns 5 percent of Yahoo, told the Wall Street Journal he still wants Yahoo to sell — either the whole company or just its search business at the right price — but that "I share the view that Yahoo's valuable collection of assets positions it well to continue expanding its online leadership and enhancing returns to stockholders." More » -
yahoo
Chipper Yang's latest memo: "Hi guys!"
Legg Mason portfolio manager saved Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's job this morning, and far be it from the always-exclamatory Yang to hide his relief. Yang recorded a companywide video address, and reading a transcript filed with the SEC, we can't help but wonder if Yahoo's lawyers missed a few exclamation marks. "Hi guys," the transcript begins — but we're betting it sounded more like "Hi guys!!!!11!!!!" More »








































