On March 1st, Yahoo turned 16 years old - celebrating their sweet 16, as they put it. Yahoo was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 but was incorporated on March 1, 1995 in Santa Clara, California. Since then Yahoo has been through CEOs, including Terry Semel who was replaced by founder, Jerry Yang, who stepped down and was eventually replaced by current Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz. It has been a tough few years for Yahoo, seeing their stock slide, a failed attempt at building their own search engine to compete against Google, losing lots of high profile employees, and poor [...]

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Why was he there? Who wasn't invited and why? What did they talk about? Why was he really there? These are the questions being debated this morning about Obama's visit last night to the home (dare I say "lavish Woodside estate") of tech investor and Google board member John Doerr. Stanford University President John Hennessy (also a Google board member) was present and so was Google CEO Eric Schmidt, but not incoming Google CEO Larry Page. Who Was There? Here's the full list of attendees according to the NY Times, LA Times and SF Chronicle: John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield [...]

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Yahoo reported Q4 2010 earnings this afternoon. Revenues were slightly up vs. the previous quarter but down compared to the same period a year ago. CEO Carol Bartz called them "encouraging." Gross revenues were $1.53 billion, down 12 percent from 2009. Search revenues were down; though in a surprise bright spot for Yahoo display ad revenue was up 17 percent and so were operating margins and income. CEO Carol Bartz is doing a good job of managing costs but there's not really a growth story (save display). Outlook for 2011 is weaker than expected. Right now Yahoo shares are down in after [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Display Ads

Google announced they are hiring. Last year they hired about 4,500 new Googlers. This year they are expected to hire over 6,000 new employees, according to the Mercury News. Eric Schmidt, Google's current CEO, said 1,000 will be hired in Europe. Google's latest earnings report had Google's headcount at 24,400 full-time employees as of December 31, 2010. Adding an additional 6,000 employees will put Google at over 30,000 employees. Alan Eustace, Google's SVP Engineering and Research, said "I am excited about 2011—because it will be our biggest hiring year in company history. We� [...]

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Yahoo Product Chief Blake Irving just tweeted a ringing endorsement of Flickr, the company's photo sharing site/community. Q. Is Yahoo! committed to Flickr? A. Hell yes we are! We love this product and team; on strategy and profitable. The tweet is no doubt a response to questions earlier this week about Flickr's profitability and the possibility that Yahoo might shutter it (as other Yahoo properties apparently will be shuttered). Long-time Flickr user Thomas Hawk took a stab yesterday at estimating how much money Flickr brings in for Yahoo, and after using what I'd call some question [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Search Engines: Photo & Image Search | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Flickr

The would be AOL-Yahoo merger is apparently off, according to Crain's New York Business. The site is reporting that "AOL tried to either get enough backing to make a run at Yahoo, or get Yahoo interested in buying it . . . Yahoo didn't bite, and AOL didn't have its ducks lined up to be a buyer." Yahoo reportedly didn't receive any formal offer or proposal, however, so it's hard to know how serious any of this is or was. The article goes on to document some of AOL's ongoing challenges in the market, though it has had some successes under new CEO Tim Armstrong. Meanwhile the Wall Street Jo [...]

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This morning brings another report of AOL M&A machinations involving ways to merge with or be acquired by Yahoo, now that both sites have very similar missions and strategies. They're in a way like the Ford and Chevy of the internet these days: workmanlike but not very glamorous. Maybe that's unfair to Ford. Both Yahoo and AOL are focused primarily on display advertising with content creation driving page views. There's a lot of similarity and a lot of overlap. Reuters is saying that AOL is exploring how the company might break itself up, through a "complicated series of transactions [...]

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There are many rumors that Yahoo is going to be doing a mass layoff soon. TechCrunch believes there will be a 20% layoff across the board, although Yahoo denied it. Kara Swisher said it is more like 10% and only impacting the product group at Yahoo. The product group has about 6,500 people, so a 10% layoff would mean about 650 people out of a job. This is as opposed to laying off 20% of 14,000 people, or 2,800 people. Yahoo told TechCrunch: Yahoo! is always evaluating expenses to align with the company’s financial goals. However, a 20% reduction in Yahoo’s workforce acros [...]

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A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma: according to the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, based on the Journal's report yesterday, financial advisers have been hired by AOL to "explore various strategic options for the company, one of which includes a possible tie-up" with Yahoo. This is just the latest installment of the long-running speculation about a Yahoo-AOL merger, which started when Microsoft was trying to take over Yahoo. AOL is trying reinvent itself under former Googler Tim Armstrong. The company, however, saw a steep ad revenue decline in Q3, though earnings were pos [...]

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AllThingsD, which has been reporting nearly every executive-level departure at Yahoo for the past two years, now says that CIO Michael Kirwan is leaving. Was he forced out or did he voluntarily leave? How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know. The Yahoo executive changes since the original, unsuccessful takeover attempt by Microsoft more than two years ago have been nothing short of a soap opera and provided hours of fun for the snarkmeisters of Techmeme who love to comment sarcastically about Yahoo and its "inability to [fill i [...]

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The Yahoo to Microsoft adCenter search ad transition in the U.S. and Canada is now complete. Both Microsoft and Yahoo confirmed the transition is now complete. Yahoo said: Today is a momentous day for us, as Yahoo! has completed the process of moving search ad serving for Yahoo! to the Microsoft Advertising adCenter platform in the U.S. and Canada. Additionally, this marks the completion of the transition of advertisers’ Yahoo! Search Marketing accounts to adCenter. From now on, to manage the ads displayed on Yahoo US or Canada, you need to manage them on Microsoft adCenter. Yahoo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Partnerships | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search Ads

A couple weeks ago, there were some rumors that AOL may buy Yahoo. This past week's Saturday Night Live's news brief skit with John Mulaney started off talking about that news bit. John Mulaney said, and here is the transcript: First up in the world of technology. I heard this week that AOL might be buying Yahoo. I love it! That is so sweet. It is like when two people in a nursing home start dating. They may not have much time left, but at least they have each other. I love it! You can watch the skit on Hulu, if Hulu allows you to. It is the introductory part of the sn [...]

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The Wall Street Journal reports the largest online retailer in Japan, Rakuten has asked the Japan Fair Trade Commission to review the Yahoo-Google deal from a few months back. A Rakuten spokesperson said: The tie-up between the two firms would result in Google monopolizing information, which could hinder the development and growth of not only search engines but many Internet-related services in Japan. As we know, Microsoft said they will also challenge the deal where they said: We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially [...]

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Yesterday afternoon Yahoo released Q3 earnings. The company reported higher-than-expected income on basically flat revenues (2 percent growth YoY). The following two charts from the earnings slides show that revenues are not growing (except in Asia) but CEO Carol Bartz & Co have done a good job of helping the company generate more income from existing revenues. Like the slides above there's a "half empty" and "half full" version of the Yahoo results and accompanying narrative. The half full version argues that Bartz and her team are executing on their plan, increasing efficie [...]

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There are rumors flying that AOL and private equity firms may be trying to buy Yahoo in a complex transaction that would involve a likely sale of Yahoo's stake in Alibaba. Matt wrote up the item last night. Bloomberg has more this morning suggesting that, as with Microsoft a couple of years ago, Yahoo is positioning to fight a takeover. One of the very hypothetical scenarios involves taking Yahoo private to "avoid the scrutiny of the public markets," allowing the company to make some of the "tough choices" necessary to really turn it around. Such a scenario would not involve AOL obviousl [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Channel: Industry | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Search

Rumors are circulating tonight that Yahoo might be a candidate to be bought, possibly by some combination of AOL and various private-equity firms. The Wall Street Journal report is citing "people familiar with the matter" who describe this as one possible scenario: Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group LP are among the firms that have expressed interest in teaming up with AOL to buy Yahoo or trying to take it private on their own, these people said. They added that at least two or three other firms could be interested in participating if a formal buyout proposal is drawn up. The [...]

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Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz says Facebook has a "creepy" amount of personal information about its users, and could become Yahoo's number one competitor because of the value of that data. Her comments came about 10 days ago at the USA Today CEO Forum in Atlanta, and have just been published today on the paper's website. When the conversation focused on social media, Bartz had this exchange with USA Today's David Lieberman: Q: Who's your biggest single competitor? A: Facebook — not today, but they could be. If they keep going, they will have the vault of information on everybody in the worl [...]

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Yahoo has seen a long list of talented people leave the company during the organizational turmoil of the past few years. However it appeared the company was stabilizing and potentially even back on track toward growth and forward momentum. However AllThingsD earlier reported and today confirmed (before official confirmation from CEO Carol Bartz) that three top Yahoo executives are leaving: Hilary Schneider EVP, Americas Region David Ko SVP, Audience, Mobile and Local, North America Jimmy Pitaro, Yahoo Media VP Yahoo issued an official statement in response to the announced depart [...]

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AllThingsD is reporting that Yahoo is negotiating with mom-oriented social network CafeMom for a potential $100 million acquisition -- the price Yahoo recently paid for Associated Content. Yahoo has of course tried to buy other companies unsuccessfully in the past (most recently Foursquare, according to rumor) so it's not clear it will happen. But this deal strikes me as a particularly good fit for Yahoo and could represent the company's way in to a bona fide social network play that has long eluded it. Google has been getting all the attention for the rumored Google Me and its bid to br [...]

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AllThingsD reports Yahoo has decided to restructure their sales team without appointing a new head of sales to replace Joanne Bradford. Instead, Yahoo will have several people report directly to Hilary Schneider, Yahoo's EVP of Americas Region. "This elevates the strong talent and brings a broader set of voices one step higher in the organization," said Schneider in an interview today. "The marketplace is changing rapidly and bringing complete solutions is really the mantra of where the market is going." Here are the changes as documented by AllThingsD: Mitch Spolan, the 11-year Yaho [...]

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