I swear, it’s like watching the Titanic having run into that iceberg, as Bing and Yahoo try to figure out what to do with their sinking ships of search. Except that the Titanic was big, and Bing and Yahoo are like small — and they haven’t run into an iceberg. They’re being run over by […]
In the wake of the firing of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and amid the growing speculation surrounding a possible sale of the company, work continues for the Yahoo rank and file. (The employees must have a kind of PTSD.) But in the spirit of “life goes on,” Yahoo search engineers announced that the company is […]
Twice this year, Google’s been fairly frank and vocal about something competitors have done that it feels is unfair. Twice, I’ve watched the technosphere largely react by beating the company over the head with a “You do whatever you want and copy everyone else” stick. Does that measure up, and more so than for Google […]
Dick Costolo will be interviewed today by Walt Mossberg at the D Conference. Having survived another drive across the nearby Portuguese Bend landslide here in Palos Verdes, I stand ready to live blog. Let’s do this thing. Walt: Asking about the Pew study today with new stats on Twitter usage (see Pew: Twitter Usage Grows […]
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt just finished being interviewed at the D Conference by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, and there were a number of interesting revelations that came out. I thought a list of highlights was in order. The highlights below are roughly listed in the order they came up during the interview, rather being […]
Despite what many believe to be an overheated market for tech start-ups, Google hasn’t been shy about spending. Last week it bought security company Zynamics; today it reportedly agreed to acquire BeatThatQuote.com; it’s still waiting for Justice Department approval on the $700 million purchase of ITA Software announced last year; and it reportedly offered $5 billion for […]
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 […]
This week’s rumors are true: Yahoo began laying off several hundred employees today. Reuters is reporting that most of the cuts affect about 600 employees, or 4% of Yahoo’s workforce. The layoffs, as expected, will come from Yahoo’s product division. This week’s rumor mill had suggested the layoffs would hit about 650 people, or 5% […]
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will be speaking today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. I’m here and will be live blogging her remarks, when the session begins. Bartz is set to speak at 2pm Pacific, and she’ll be interviewed on stage by John Battelle. Live blogging to start shortly. There’s also a live […]
Like a father disowning his own child IAC’s Barry Diller seems to have all but written off the search engine he paid almost two billion dollars for a few short years ago (update: see Barry Diller statement below). According to TechCrunch, Diller told a conference audience (partial paraphrase) that today Ask had “no value.” I […]
There are a number of critical articles, even complaints, coming out of yesterday’s Yahoo press event featuring new Chief Product Officer Blake Irving. The main portion of the event had Irving and CTO Raymie Strata discussing Yahoo strategy and reiterating that Yahoo wasn’t simply a media company but a company with deep technology as well. […]
The unconfirmed “Google Me” appears not to be a product per se rather a placeholder for a broader social strategy. According to reports coming out of Google Zeitgeist (Danny’s there so he can expand on this) Google is going to integrate a “social layer” into more and more of its products over time. According to […]
Google Steps Up Acquisitions as Some Internal Projects Falter from Bloomberg reports Google has doubled their anticipated acquisition levels in 2010 and plans on keeping that pace going. In early January 2009 Google halted acquisitions, but in September 2009 said they would begin shopping for businesses to acquire again. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt said he […]
Citing unnamed sources TechCrunch is reporting that Bing will take over the role of default search provider on the Safari browser in the new iPhone OS. These rumors aren’t exactly new and we’ve written and speculated about them before:
Last night the WSJ reported that Yahoo will spend an estimated $75 million to $85 million on a campaign to promote itself and its homepage. The initial TV spot (below) is critical of Google and sets itself up in opposition to the search engine as a more desirable homepage because it does more stuff. (see […]
One could argue that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz cut lots of fat at Yahoo and stabilized the organization after a period of takeover turbulence and uncertainty. To some degree she brought a kind of “vision” to the company (cut costs, focus on core strengths and content). However there’s also a sense that Yahoo is not […]
Yesterday Yahoo hosted a press event called SearchSpeak that sought to dispel the “misconception,” in the words of new Search Products SVP Shashi Seth, that Yahoo was no longer investing in search. As Seth took the stage to begin his presentation the power in the room went out. Not a very auspicious start to the […]
The HotJobs for sale rumor has been around for some time. Yesterday a deal with Monster was finally announced. It is being widely hailed as a smart move by Yahoo to gain cash and divest itself of another “non-core asset.” Except for payment and other terms the deal is conceptually analogous to what Yahoo is […]
Last week on Google’s Q4 earnings call Google CEO Eric Schmidt seemed to “walk back” some of Google’s prior strong statements about leaving China if it cannot operate in an unfiltered way there. In response to a financial analyst question he said the following: We have made a strong statement we wish to remain in […]
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz says the company’s recent search market share declines are due, in part, to the loss of toolbar deals with HP and Acer computers. She made the comments during a keynote presentation today at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York City. Late last year, Acer dropped Yahoo as […]
Yahoo EVP Hilary Schneider told the Reuters Global Media Summit in New York that Yahoo was seeing “incredible . . . extraordinary” growth in mobile (she means usage primarily). The company, by several metrics, is one of the largest in mobile. It operates one of the top three mobile ad networks in the US and […]
It’s Yahoo Investor Day, where Yahoo is briefing institutional investors and financial analysts on the company. I’m here for the morning portion, and I’ll be live blogging out of it. You can also watch the live web cast here. Bartz Welcomes Carol Bartz, CEO, on stage. Saying thing they have great opportunity. Lots to fix. […]
Google CEO sees one small acquisition a month from Reuters reports Google’s CEO as saying they are back in the business of acquiring businesses. He told Reuters, “acquisitions are turned on again at Google and we are doing our normal maneuvers, which is small companies.” “My estimate would be one-a-month acquisitions and these are largely […]
Along with a new search format, Yahoo has rolled out a new “It’s You” marketing push with clever slogans like “The Internet Is Under New Management, Yours.” The company is holding a press conference shortly, and I’m here liveblogging it. Let’s do this. We’re waiting. So are you. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz up, welcoming people. […]
The Microsoft-Yahoo search deal isn’t a forgone conclusion. In fact, news out yesterday suggests the companies may face serious regulatory hurdles. Potentially, it won’t be allowed. That leaves me wondering. What’s Yahoo’s Plan B? Does it even have a backup plan, especially when CEO Carol Bartz has suggested Yahoo can no longer run search on […]
Brad Garlinghouse, who was previously an SVP at Yahoo, and the author of the now famous “Peanut Butter Manifesto,” is joining AOL as president of Internet and Mobile communications. What this means is that he’ll be responsibile for email, IM and other communications tools, which implicates a range of properties including Bebo. According to the […]
And then there were two. Make no mistake, Yahoo’s out of the search game. I know the spin. Better user interface, new ways to innovate, a winning play. Let’s not kid ourselves. They’re done. Not today, not necessarily in a year, but down the line at some point. Done. And it’s sad, because they were […]
Microsoft and Yahoo are making it official: a deal about search. And to share the news, they’re gathering thousands of their closest friends to a press conference at 5:30am Pacific time today. Having been awake now for nearly 30 minutes, I’m just itching to get in and live blog this puppy. So come along for […]
It’s been roughly 100 days since Tim Armstrong was named CEO of AOL in anticipation of a spin-off/IPO of the company from corporate parent TimeWarner later this year. There are a slew of interviews out this morning in which Armstrong assesses his first 100 days, the state of the business and gives some indications of […]
A series of private documents reveals Twitter to be a company that’s very careful and detailed about the course it’s plotting, while simultaneously being very nervous and very ambitious about what the future holds. It also reveals previously unknown details of discussions with Google and Microsoft (and possibly Yahoo) that show Twitter considering formal relationships […]
These days it’s hard to remember that at one time Yahoo was the pioneer in dynamic mapping. It introduced enhanced local search features and capabilities into the map before Google, Microsoft and MapQuest. At a certain point, however, Yahoo opted out of the map feature wars that erupted between Google and Microsoft (StreetView, 3D, aerial, […]
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has been talking a lot over the past two weeks about Yahoo and how it competes against Google and Microsoft. Each time she does, I feel like she’s digging the hole even deeper for Yahoo’s prospects in search. Rather than communicate a clear search strategy — which you’d better have if […]
Mike Arrington thinks that Google engaged in “a little stealth black ops mission” and blunted the full impact of the Ballmer Bing announcement yesterday by announcing Wave. Whether Wave represents a huge new development in digital communications remains to be seen, but almost every major news outlet had to cover it and divide its attention […]
Next month Microsoft will relaunch its search engine or launch its new search engine (currently dubbed Kumo/Kiev) together with a new marketing campaign to promote it. The question on everyone’s minds is: will it change anything? Despite a range of efforts so far Redmond has not been able to boost its market share in search. […]
Yahoo watchers have heard this before: The company is planning to “create community from isolated sites,” according to the headline of a Reuters feature Tuesday that includes comments from co-founder David Filo and VP of Social Platforms Neal Sample. It’s the idea of “social search” — creating value in the connections between users and relying […]
Google’s a split-personality company. On the one hand, it wants people to believe that it could lose its customers at any time, lest it get viewed as a monopoly. But question its ability on the technical front, and the Big G will go off on you like nobody’s business. That’s what happened this week to […]
Three intertwined stories appeared today about Yahoo. The first from Dow Jones Newswires picks up on a Thomas Weisel report about the company, following a meeting between analysts and CEO Carol Bartz. Ironically the report (as described) is highly positive but it sent shares down because it suggests that a Microsoft-Yahoo deal is not going […]
Back when Terry Semel ran Yahoo, the web portal embarked on a grand Hollywood-style video strategy that was abandoned after Semel stepped down. Now, with another change in CEOs, Yahoo is again reversing course and rolling out a new approach to web video. Carol Bartz is taking over from co-founder Jerry Yang, and among her first […]
FaberNovel created a slide show titled, “Everything you always wanted to know about Google…But were afraid to ask.” The questions include:
As Google turns 10 years old, that important birthday sees the company more powerful than ever before. With its competitors in disarray, the Big G seems likely to grow even further. The secret to its success? For me, it’s what I’ve been calling the “Google Hive Mind. ” Rather than follow a rigid top-down master […]