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 world, and that’s valuable.

Q: Valuable, to the point of being scary?

A: Yes, creepy. I don’t care to find an old boyfriend. One time, just to see if they got fat and bald, but then leave me alone. But I’m old.

USA Today says the Q&A as it reads online is “edited for length and clarity,” so it’s uncertain if there’s any additional context to that part of the conversation. The wide-ranging discussion also hit on a number of other topics. Here are a few noteworthy quotes:

On Google TV:

“It is not a slam-dunk. There’s a lot of cable companies that want that business. There’s a lot of TV makers that want Internet applications. So it is pretty hard whenever there’s a new market forming to say, “Oh, that’s the leader.” It takes awhile to settle out.”

On Yahoo News vs. Google, AOL, and other news competitors:

“We not only license news feeds (for example from Reuters and the Associated Press), we also have our own editorial voice. We have human editors watching what seems to be interesting people, and feature that more prominently. So we are constantly tweaking what is delivered.

“For instance, on our front page we have a module called “Today,” which is what’s happening. Every five minutes we serve up 32,000 different variations depending on what you seem to be interested in. So it is very personal. It is engaging.

“Then we just bought a company called Associated Content: 380,000 writers, bloggers, in all the towns and cities who also contribute to this news feed. So it is a combination of what people can do and what machines can do.”

On Apple’s tight control over advertising:

“If you want to run an ad on the iPad, it has to be approved by Apple. I don’t think it is for us to say this ad isn’t pretty enough and to go through this whole back-end process of approval. I don’t think in the long run that’s going to work. Advertisers will have other options.”

Bartz later says that Yahoo serves up 10 billion ads per day across its properties.

On mobile:

“We are just neck and neck with Google for mobile installations in the U.S. We don’t have an operating system, but we have Yahoo Mail, Messenger, Finance — all those things. Mobile is huge for us, especially in emerging parts of the world where the only on-ramp to the Internet is going to be through a small screen. They are not going to have a desktop or laptop at home. But for the developed world, I don’t think you are going to let this (small) size screen be the only ramp on to the Internet.”

Bartz tap-danced around a question asking if Yahoo needs its own mobile device and/or operating system to compete against Google and Apple; she didn’t specifically say if that’s something Yahoo needs or has even considered.

On a related note, paidContent has published an infographic showing the executive-level changes at Yahoo since Bartz took over as CEO in January 2009.

The module is currently only being shown to a “fraction” of Yahoo News users, but the company says it’s working well already:

In its first week, our internal data indicates that user engagement with this related search information in Yahoo! News is nearly twice the amount we see with similar features. We will be rolling this out to all users as soon as it is ready.

What’s potentially interesting here is whether the module will impact Yahoo’s search query share in any measurable way. Any clicks on the related links could presumably count as a Yahoo search – certainly the ones at the bottom under the “From the web” heading. Just a couple months ago, both Yahoo and the services that track search market share came under some fire because the way Yahoo structured its news slideshows was counting each new view as a search and inflating Yahoo’s numbers. Danny Sullivan wrote about that in his article, Time To End The Bull Search Engine Share Figures?.

Yahoo is going to more systematically pay attention to search queries to help its editorial staff decide what to write about on a forthcoming news blog called “The Upshot.” According to the Times:

Yahoo software continuously tracks common words, phrases and topics that are popular among users across its vast online network. To help create content for the blog, called The Upshot, a team of people will analyze those patterns and pass along their findings to Yahoo’s news staff of two editors and six bloggers.

The news staff will then use that search data to create articles that — if the process works as intended — will allow them to focus more precisely on readers.

The Times’ article suggests controversy surrounding the approach:

“There’s obviously an embedded negative view toward using any type of outside information to influence coverage,” said Robertson Barrett, chief strategy officer of Perfect Market Inc., a company that helps news organizations make their content more detectable to search engine algorithms.

But there really shouldn’t be any. In the abstract the idea of using technology to influence editorial decision-making, especially in news, is troubling to many. But all Yahoo appears to be doing is trying to determine areas of audience interest and focusing some coverage on those areas.

Yahoo appears to be using search queries as a real-time focus group or to uncover specific topics of interest:

Yahoo had been monitoring search traffic patterns and noticed that its users kept trying to find out why divers would shower after they got out of the water. So Yahoo sports writers looked into the question and posted an item titled “The mystery of the showering divers.”

Search therefore is simply one factor in editorial decision-making in this new Yahoo news effort. I would argue this is smart and may lead to some interesting articles.

This is quite different from, say, the approach being taken by some of the content farms, and reportedly even AOL in some cases, where articles are almost entirely written to capture search traffic and are subordinate to advertising because their reason for being is to generate page views.

Yahoo has historically been the top news destination online. But the competition is intensifying.

Google News recently introduced a major redesign with more personalization and social features. And MSNBC recently redesigned its site with less emphasis on page views and greater emphasis on content. This approach flies in the face of many sites, including the wildly popular HuffingtonPost, which have been trying to generate page views with gimmicks, slide shows and even “NSFW” headlines and stories.

The study surveyed more than 2,200 online news consumers between December 28, 2009, and January 19, 2010, and found that more than half of online news readers use a major news portal on a typical day, and among younger news consumers (aged 18-29), more than two-thirds visit news portals like Yahoo News or Google News. The news portals beat out all other online news sources among all three age groups.

Also noteworthy is that the Facebook-related news sources scored dramatically higher than Twitter.

The study also cites Nielsen and Hitwise data that shows Yahoo News was the top online news site in 2009.

Some other interesting findings from the Pew study:

• About 71% of internet users, or 53% of all American adults, get their news online; that number has been relatively steady in recent years.
• Only 35% of online news consumers have a favorite site. Most news consumers rely on multiple sources to get their news.
• Of that 35%, only 19% said they’d be willing to pay for news online.

If you’re interested in news, and online news specifically, there’s a lot of thought-provoking material in the report. You can read it online or download the report via PewInternet.org or StateoftheMedia.org.

1. Yahoo News
2. Google News
3. New York Times sites
4. CNN
5. China’s QQ.com
6. BBC
7. MSN

In the US Yahoo still ranks as number one but Google News reportedly falls down the list below the traditional news domains, such as NY Times and CNN. However, over at Nielsen (via Editor & Publisher) the numbers appear to be quite different than the comScore data above — especially the ranking of Google News.

Here’s Nielsen’s list of the top global online news sites for November, 2009:

1. Yahoo! News
2. CNN Digital Network
3. MSNBC Digital Network
4. AOL News
5. NYTimes.com
6. Tribune Newspapers
7. Google News
8. Fox News Digital Network
9. ABCNEWS Digital Network
10. Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division
11. Washingtonpost.com
12. CBS News Digital Network
13. McClatchy Newspaper Network
14. Advance Internet
15. TheHuffingtonPost.com
16. USATODAY.com
17. MediaNews Group Newspapers
18. Hearst Newspapers Digital
19. BBC
20. Daily News (NY) Online Edition

Meanwhile here are Compete data showing, in the US, yet another slightly different ranking:

Below is how a US-only list of top news sites looked in 2004 (per Nielsen). Impressively the top four sites are the same then and now:

1. Yahoo News
2. CNN
3. MSNBC
4. AOL News
5. Gannett
6. IBS
7. Knight Ridder Digital
8. NY Times
9. Tribune Newspapers
10. USA Today

Separately Hitwise reports an interesting trend in Australia, which is probably consistent with user behavior in other markets: people spending more time with fewer sites. According to Hitwise:

We’re also seeing a greater concentration in visits to the top 10 websites . . . The top 10 websites accounted for 29% share of visits in November 2009, compared to 26.3% share of visits in November 2008. In other words, the ‘big’ players are getting bigger.

Despite the Internet being a vast universe of content activity is more and more concentrated at the top. How is this explained?

Is this a function of increasing visibility and activity around a small number of top sites? Is this a greater share of resources  concentrated among the big players? Is this culture? Certainly in the context of Google and news, it can refer traffic to its own site via search.

The trend is the same with ads: the top sites and networks capture the lion’s share of ad dollars according to the IAB.

Some have argued that news brands are fading (diluted by the way in which search “flattens” all news sources); however these lists above paint a somewhat different picture. There are a number of “aggregators” that people visit for convenience and breadth. Those include Yahoo, AOL, Google and, now, the HuffingtonPost. Otherwise these lists are dominated by traditional news media.

It would seem to me that brands do continue to matter very much in news; distribution in an online world dominated by search is their obvious challenge. But mobile publishing and distribution opens up new oppportunities for these traditional media sources. And they’re very aware of that, empahsizing smartphones (esp. the iPhone) and the emerging tablet/eReader universe.

The Yahoo Search Blog explains:

Starting today, you can see relevant photos, videos, and tweets about a breaking news story on the Yahoo! News Shortcut. Many of you are already familiar with the existing Yahoo! News Shortcut, which displays headlines on our Web search results page when you look for news stories. The enhanced shortcut with these new tabs will now display for many breaking or major news searches.

Images make the implementation self explanatory:

The enhanced shortcut seeks to make Yahoo Search the first place to go find the most current information on a range of news stories. Apparently there’s no comparable Yahoo News integration on the immediate horizon although it’s being considered. In terms of the “noise” that often shows up in Twitter, Yahoo is running a separate algorithm to filter the content and make sure that it’s free of irrelevant information.

When asked about whether users will take advantage of these content tabs, given that historically tabs are not widely utilized, Yahoo’s Larry Cornett told us that in user testing Yahoo was “very pleased” with the reaction to the new shortcut and its format.

News is a context in which “real-time” information makes perfect sense, unlike a range of other contexts where I may not need or want to know — right now.

Late last week I wrote about how each of the major search engines handled the extraordinary search activity that followed the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett on the same day. Yahoo is in a unique situation as an actual content provider with writers and editors, and some of those staffers were called in from home to help Yahoo cover the breaking news. The chart above suggests the effort was worth it.

But perhaps the big winner on the day was TMZ, the entertainment site that first broke the news of Jackson’s death. Hitwise says TMZ traffic hit a three-year high on Thursday, with 5x more visits than the day before.

Below, a look not only at the extreme traffic spikes that took place, but also an insider’s look at what happened as each search engine — and Wikipedia — grappled with the demands of a nearly unprecedented surge of interest in the day’s breaking news.

Google: “An all-hands-on-deck moment”

“Thursday was a pretty out-of-the-ordinary day.” That’s how spokesperson Gabriel Stricker describes the scene at Google’s headquarters while millions of people were online trying to find out what happened to Michael Jackson. Google has written about what it calls an “outpouring of searches” about Jackson. Stricker says Google saw a wide range of queries — like “michael jackson died” and “michael jackson hoax” — that peaked at about 3:00 pm PST.

The rush of traffic was so severe that Google initially thought it was under attack.

“That was an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Stricker says, “until we were able to determine that the original assessment was wrong, that it wasn’t an attack.” The massive spike in searches “tricked” Google News into showing an interstitial error page for about 25 minutes.

Google says the mistaken attack was its only hiccup yesterday, and that they saw no need to manually adjust results so that searchers got the right information. “The spike in traffic is an indication that we accomplished what we set out to do,” Stricker says. “People came to Google looking for an answer to a specific — and in this case, rather sad — question, and they got it quickly.”

Google hasn’t said yet how Thursday’s traffic compares to other important news events. Their blog post does say that Google “saw one of the largest mobile search spikes we’ve ever seen.” And Google Trends labeled Thursday’s searches for “michael jackson died” as “volcanic.”

Yahoo: “This demanded that we take our coverage to the next level”

Thursday was a record-breaking day for Yahoo. Their story, “Michael Jackson rushed to hospital,” received 800,000 clicks in 10 minutes, making it their highest-clicking story ever.

Yahoo also revealed that Yahoo News set an all-time record with 16.4 million visitors, beating the old record of 15.1 million set last election day. The four million visitors between 3-4 pm PDT set an hourly record.

Things were no less busy inside Yahoo headquarters. Richard Vega, Editor of Yahoo News, also described it as an all-hands-on-deck situation, going so far as to bring in staff on their days off. “After we saw initial reports that Michael Jackson had died, we immediately devoted all resources to the story and called staffers at home to help,” Vega says.

As a content destination and a news organization with writers and editorial staff, Yahoo took a more hands-on approach to packaging information for its users — even sending staff out to report live from Los Angeles. Says Vega: “We made sure to include the main stories and sidebars from AP and Time magazine. We had video clips from ABC News. We created slideshows. Since Michael Jackson had died in L.A., we sent out two editors to the UCLA Medical Center to interview and take photos of the fans who were gathering outside the hospital. In addition, one editor sent Twitter updates from the scene. This was a unique moment in history, which demanded that we take our coverage to the next level.”

Yahoo News recorded 175 million page views on Thursday, its fourth-highest total (after Inauguration Day, the day after the Inauguration, and Hurricane Ike). A blog post in Yahoo Music has received more than 21,500 comments as I write this. And Yahoo says Flickr has seen more than 4,000 Michael Jackson-related photo uploads in the past day. One poignant Flickr photo shows Times Square at a standstill as the offline world reacted the same way we did online.

Bing: “We rolled out a ‘news go big’ experience”

Like its competitors, the Bing search team was paying close attention to Thursday’s news as it unfolded, and doing its best to make sure searchers got the information they wanted. Jamil Valliani, a senior program manager for Bing, and Todd Schwartz, group product manager for Bing, said their effort included “the extended search team, including engineering, product management and marketing.”

They say Bing “definitely saw a spike” in traffic on Thursday, but they don’t have any data to share at the moment. “We get more feedback and see more engagement from consumers for bigger news stories, so we do have to spend more time than average reviewing this feedback and taking it into consideration.”

Some of the feedback for Bing’s Jackson-related search results wasn’t good. On Search Engine Journal, for example, Loren Baker pointed out that Bing’s search results led off with Michael Jackson photos, while news links were at the bottom of the search results page:

Valliani and Schwartz describe what happened: “In general, our rule is not to interfere with the normal algorithmic operation and to note any interesting or unexpected behaviors to be addressed in future upgrades of the product. The only exception to this is for major news events where we see unusual volume, and the results are clearly not being ranked in a relevant way. In these cases we can respond more quickly to how we perform the ranking. This was the case yesterday with Michael Jackson in particular, where we quickly rolled out what we call a ‘news go big’ experience to make sure we were providing appropriate coverage for this significant and sad event.”

Search experiences on other sites

The extraordinary online search for information about Thursday’s news wasn’t limited just to the major search engines. The Wikipedia page about Michael Jackson saw an enormous jump in pageviews on Thursday, and even more on Friday according to Grok.se, an unofficial Wikipedia traffic stats site.

Since Wikipedia pages are open to community editing, Wikipedia took unusual steps to deal with the situation as rumors spread Thursday afternoon.

“The Jackson page was temporarily ‘protected’ to prevent any editing as soon as the rumors started,’ according to Wikipedia administrator Jonathan Hochman. “There was a community discussion about how to handle that. The idea was to prevent the article from going back and forth, or being the subject of a hoax, until the story was verified.”

Twitter was a hotbed of Jackson-related searching and conversation. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told the Los Angeles Times that there were nearly 5,000 Jackson-related tweets per minute on Thursday afternoon. “We saw an instant doubling of tweets per second the moment the story broke. This particular news about the passing of such a global icon is the biggest jump in tweets per second since the U.S. presidential election.”

Likewise, Facebook reported a tripling of the number of status updates in the aftermath of Jackson’s death.

The final word about this extraordinary day belongs to AOL, whose AIM messaging service was knocked offline for 40 minutes Thursday. Their statement begins like this: “Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We’ve never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth.”

Postscript: See Google Thinks Michael Jackson Died At Age 65 In 2007 for how Google’s currently listing the “wrong” Michael Jackson in response to searches for “michael jackson died.”

Amidst all the claims and accusations, Danny took the AP and newspapers out to the woodshed and pointed out what you’d think should be obvious: Newspapers ought to appreciate search engines for sending them so much traffic.

But how much do they send?

Hitwise takes a stab at answering that question with new data that shows search engine traffic (Google, Yahoo, etc.) and other News & Media sites (including Yahoo News and Google News) are easily the top two traffic sources for news and media web sites.

Hitwise indicates that Google News and Yahoo News are Nos. 2 and 4, respectively, in the list of referring sites inside the News & Media category (blue line above). That, combined with Search Engine traffic at an essentially equal level (orange line above), indicates that newspapers are biting the hands that feed them.

In fact, the Hitwise report makes an interesting point:

“Branded searches for news properties represent a large share of the top search terms driving traffic to the category.”

This flies in the face of the AP/newspaper contention that Google and other search engines and news aggregators (like Yahoo News and Google News) are diverting traffic away from news web sites. Not the case. As Hitwise’s Heather Dougherty writes, “Although several of the online aggregators are at the heart of the content distribution argument, they do successfully send visits to news properties rather than keeping them upon their own websites.”

There’s more discussion on Techmeme.

I received a heads up from Gary Price that Yahoo is now showing image ads on Yahoo News. For example, try a search on ipod at Yahoo News and you should see these ads:

These image ads come up for many searches at Yahoo News now. Gary tells me he uses Yahoo News daily and he has not seen this before.

This looks very similar to how Yahoo displayed image ads on the Yahoo Directory, which started over a year ago.