Marissa Mayer is tightening Yahoo's belt. Since taking over as Yahoo's CEO, she's spoken repeatedly on the need to zero in on being part of its users' "daily habits." Today, the company announced the shut down of seven products that don't fit that "daily habit" mantra. Included in the group are a couple search-related products, including one under-the-radar keyword research tool that we (and others) have written about fondly in the past. Yahoo Clues will be shut down on April 1st. It was poorly named and was primarily positioned as a search trends product, but for SEOs it was an inter [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Mobile & Go

[caption id="attachment_127578" align="alignright" width="192" caption="Is Ross Levinsohn's Yahoo's Future (Non-Interim) CEO?"][/caption] You can't blame Yahoo's board for being a little bit gun shy. After all, eight out of 11 directors are new this year -- three of them were appointed in the wake of the highly-public resume scandal that ousted CEO Scott Thompson. With the Thompson debacle, the departure of co-founder Jerry Yang, and the ill-fit of Carol Bartz, Yahoo is under pressure to get it right this time. That's seems to be why today's shareholder meeting in Santa Clara, [...]

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Kara Swisher at AllThingsD is reporting that embattled Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson is going to step down for "personal reasons." Swisher has one or more "moles" inside the company and consistently gets inside information -- which generally turns out to be correct. Thompson's "personal reasons," as we all know, are: misrepresenting that he had a computer science degree. Yahoo EVP Ross Levinsohn is reportedly set to become interim CEO, with the apparent hope that he could take the helm permanently. Swisher adds that the situation is still in flux and could change. The board is apparently meet [...]

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According to Reuters on Tuesday next week the already embattled new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson will lay out his vision for the company. The pressure will be on to deliver a coherent and convincing plan -- emphasis on convincing. Following the announcement of 2,000 layoffs earlier this week Thompson sought to reassure Yahoo employees in a company memo. A streamlined organizational structure will better enable Yahoo to compete in the future, he reportedly said. That new structure will apparently not include Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving, who has resigned. His organization took a d [...]

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Google has a pretty sophisticated logo, aka Google Doodle, today on their home page for Valentine's Day. Also celebrating with special logos and home pages are Bing, Yahoo and even Baidu. The logo features Tony Bennett's Cold Cold Heart and an animated YouTube video representing love and Valentine's Day. Here is a video demo of the logo: What a pretty and warm logo! Google is not the only search engine with logos, we have logos from Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com, Dogpile, Baidu and others. Here they are: Past Search Industry Valentine's Day Logos: Google’s Va [...]

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AllThingsD reported late yesterday that PayPal president Scott Thompson would likely be named CEO of Yahoo. It's now official; Yahoo just put out its formal press release announcing Thompson's appointment. In appointing Thompson, Yahoo is choosing a leader with a deeper technology and product background than prior CEO Carol Bartz who was abruptly terminated last September. In the interim Yahoo CFO Tim Morse has been serving as CEO. Not going to sell itself now There had been an expectation that Yahoo was going to sell itself or a significant minority stake to a private equity buyer or ano [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Employees | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo held its second now annual "Product Runway" event, mc'd by product chief Blake Irving. Irving was assisted by some younger executives from companies that Yahoo had acquired in the recent past. There were four announcements, lead by the formal unveiling of Livestand, Yahoo's long-promised tablet news reader application. It competes with Flipboard, CNN's Zite, AOL Editions, Taptu, Pulse and others. Here is a quick summary of the four announcements: Livestand: Described as a "personalized living magazine," it's a mix of Yahoo's own content and third party content. There will b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Mobile & Go

There is a special Google logo on Google for Halloween today, the logo is a video of Google's Doodle team carving the Google logo out of huge pumpkins. One of the pumpkins 1,298 pounds, and many of the others are over 1,000 pounds. Here is the video of the Google logo in action: Here is a video of the Google Doodle team making the logo: Google is not the only one with an animated logo for Halloween. Both Bing and Yahoo have animated logos or themes: Yahoo: Bing: Ask.com: Dogpile: For more logos from the search industry, see my other post over he [...]

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Now that it's for sale, there are several reports indicating multiple buyers are interested in some or all of Yahoo. Among the names mentioned are Silver Lake Partners, a private equity firm, Yahoo search partner and former suitor Microsoft, News Corp. and Jack Ma of China's Alibaba, in which Yahoo owns a multi-billion dollar stake. Reuters is reporting that Yahoo has hired the infamous Goldman Sachs and Allen & Co to help potential buyers through the due diligence process, which could take "months" according to the report. The New York Times tries to value the various pieces of Yaho [...]

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The not-so-shocking news came yesterday afternoon that embattled Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was fired. When Bartz came to power in January 2009 I compared her to then newly elected Barak Obama. Both confronted crises and high expectations. Both have seen goodwill erode and give way to disappointment. Low Employee Approval The task of both chief executives was to turn around a their respective enterprises. Obama has not been able to do it and may face an electoral ouster next year. And after a number of flat or down quarters Bartz was removed over the phone yesterday. That followed several months [...]

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Today is Mother's Day in the United States and many many other countries and for the special day, Google and the other search engines have special logos and themes up. The logos and themes are to honor our Mothers for all they have done for us. Below is a listing of the logos from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com and other search engines that have special logos up for Mother's Day. More Fun Google Logos: Google’s Royal Wedding Logo Your Guide To The Royal Wedding 2011, Social Media Style What Time Is The Royal Wedding? Google Tells You With Special [...]

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How badly does Yahoo want to skip ahead to the forefront of media and social check-ins? Badly enough to spend a reported $20 to $30 million to buy TV check-in service IntoNow, which launched its iPhone-based service just 12 weeks ago. IntoNow's main "secret sauce" is the proprietary "Soundprint" technology that recognizes television shows by their audio -- it says it has more than five years of 130 channels of U.S. based programming in its databases. The idea is to make it simpler for people to share their viewing habits with friends on Facebook or Twitter. Users running the app press a gre [...]

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Today on Google's home page is a special interactive Google logo for Earth Day. Earth Day this year falls out on Good Friday and for the special day, Google made a fun, animated and interactive Google logo. Ironically, it seems as if you have Pandas playing (see the Google Panda update), the logo also has birds flying, fish swimming, lions sleeping, penguins sledding and much more. Here is a video me interacting with the Google logo. Google was not the only search company celebrating Earth Day with a special logo, so is Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com, AOL and others. Here they are: [...]

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This is the first time in years that Google does not have a St. Patrick's Day logo on the Google.com home page. Google does have a special logo on Google Ireland but not on Google.com. Here is the Google St. Patrick's Day logo on Google Ireland: I have a feeling Google did not post it globally because of the Japanse crisis but I do not have that confirmed as of yet. Interestingly enough, Yahoo.com is also missing the St. Patrick's Day logo. Only those in the Ireland region will see an animated logo. Here it is: Bing, Ask.com, Dogpile, DuckDuckGo and some others have logo [...]

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Today Google has a special logo on Google.com for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Today would be his 82nd birthday celebration. Technically, Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15th, but the United States celebrates the first Monday after his birthday as a national holiday for his leadership during the African American civil rights movement. In 1964 he received the Nobel Peace Prize, at that time, he was the youngest person to ever receive the prize. Mr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. Here is a larger version of the logo on Google's home page: [...]

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Happy New Year's Eve everyone, except for you in the Australian region, where it is New Year's Day! On behalf of the Search Engine Land team, we wanted to wish you all a happy and healthy 2011! As like in the past years, the search engines have special logos up for the New Years. Below are images of those logos from the 2011 search celebration. Google's Logo: Yahoo's Logo: Bing's Logo: Ask.com's Logo: Baidu's Logo: Sogou's Logo: Crea8site Forums Logo (a SEO forum): Search Engine Roundtable's Logo: Related Entries: Happy New Yea [...]

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We wanted to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! This year, like other years, we have a nice array of special logos and backgrounds from the search engines. Google has continued on its theme for the past two days, showing an animated Ina Garen recipe Google logo. Yahoo, Bing, Ask and others all have special logos or backgrounds for the day. Google's Animated Thanksgiving Logo Video: As you can see, clicking on various parts of the logo take you to Thanksgiving recipes from Ina Garten. Google's Static Thanksgiving Logo: Yahoo's animated logo: Yahoo's static logo: [...]

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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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Yahoo to Offer Media Links from the Wall Street Journal reports Yahoo will create a similar tool to Facebook connect for their media publishers, web developers and other websites to integrate with. Yahoo would not comment on the new system, but the purpose behind it is to help Yahoo better track users around the web, so they can offer more tailored ads and offer advertisers better ad targeting options. Y Connect allows users to register and log into web sites by clicking on a Yahoo button. After the user logs in, their activity on the web site can be shared with Yahoo. This shared data [...]

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Right now, Yahoo.com, one of the most visited sites on the Internet, is down. No one can reach it. Currently there is no explanation on Yahoo's official Twitter account, @yahoo, but we see tons of complaints that it is down on Twitter. Some are reporting that Yahoo is not down but extremely slow. Update: About 30 minutes later, it seems to be back up. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Yahoo: General