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October 29, 2009

Yahoo, Microsoft Delay Search Deal Signing

Yahoo filed an extension last night to its self-imposed deadline for signing the pending search deal with Microsoft. When the deal was announced on July 29, the companies expected to complete the deal by October 27, but that didn't happen.

During its analyst day presentations yesterday, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz told financial analysts not to worry about the move, insisting it was just a matter of "running out of time."

"It's a 10-year agreement, so we'd like to get it right up-front," Bartz said. She said the delay should not impact the timelines Yahoo and Microsoft expect for regulatory approval.

According to the Form 8-K filing:

The Letter Agreement specified that the parties would execute Definitive Agreements by October 27, 2009, but given the complex nature of the transaction, there remain some details to be finalized. The parties are working diligently on finalizing the agreements, have made good progress to date, and have agreed to execute the agreements as expeditiously as possible.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

October 9, 2009

Yahoo Now Filters Ads in Search Results Too

Last month, Yahoo debuted its new search results pages, which among other things allow a user to filter organic search results by site. Today, Yahoo added the ability for a publisher's ads to be filtered as well.

It's being touted as a benefit to users, but not all advertisers will be happy about the move.

Beginning today, if a user elects to filter results by a site, and that site is also an advertiser on a relevant keyword, the user will see both organic search results from that site, and ads from that site -- without competitors' ads, Jeff Hecox, client communications manager, writes in a blog post to the Yahoo Search Marketing blog.

For example, if a user is searching for "U2 concert" on Yahoo, the results include several sponsored search ads along the right-hand side of the page. But if the user opts to filter the search results to only those from StubHub.com, for example, most of the ads will disappear, with the only ads remaining those that were bought by StubHub.

According to Hecox, the domains Yahoo uses to filter results are chosen "based on a number of factors, such as their listings' quality, popularity and user response."

"All advertisers will still get the same chances at clicks before any filtering takes place. But those advertisers whose sites show up as a filtering option will get further opportunities for clicks when their ad shows up in the narrowed results -- without any competing ads. And the ads may be more relevant to consumers, as our systems take the user's choice into account," writes Hecox.

That kind of exclusivity could rile some advertisers, who are not privileged to be among the sites included in Yahoo's filtered content lists.

"I think it limits competition and gives a huge preference to big-name brands like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Buy.com, and the like." Melissa Mackey, online marketing manager at Fluency Media, told ClickZ. As an agency representing smaller clients, Mackey said she has often been able to "level the playing field" and compete with bigger advertisers through savvy use of PPC ads. "This effectively cuts off the lesser-known advertisers who may have a great product and offer, but lack the household name," she said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

August 3, 2009

Google Billboard Campaign Touts Google Apps (links)

What ClickZ's editors are reading:

Google Billboard Campaign Touts Google Apps -- Billboards in four cities will display a different message every day for a month.

Out of Search Business, Yahoo Shifts Its Focus -- Among new tidbits here: Ballmer called Bartz on her first day, and why Bartz regrets her "boatloads of cash" remark.

Now on YouTube, Local News -- YouTube has invited 25,000-plus news sources listed on Google News to supply video news. (New York Times)

Webtrends Acquires Multivariate Testing Firm Widemile

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 28, 2009

Alternate Deal Reality: Yahoo, Microsoft Might Create a Joint Venture

Conventional wisdom says the imminent deal between Microsoft and Yahoo will be structured as a search syndication partnership. Yahoo will begin carrying Bing search technology, and Microsoft will sell the bulk of ads against those results. Yahoo would confine its ad sales efforts mainly to display, and would receive payments (and user data) from Microsoft for search activity on its domain.

However other scenarios are still being floated internally at Microsoft. According to one senior Microsoft source outside the negotiations, a joint venture has also been discussed and was rumored to be CEO Steve Ballmer's preferred outcome.

Under such a set-up, the source said, a new company owned by both Microsoft and Yahoo would be in charge of selling search and possibly some display ads for both companies. Bing technology would presumably replace Yahoo Search, since Microooft is so keen on extending its technology.

Interesting notion, but it's hard to imagine such a JV could serve the best interests of both Yahoo and Microsoft equally. It's much easier to imagine this working for search than for display ads, unless both companies migrated their entire sales forces to the joint venture -- almost unfathomable. On the other hand, a joint venture housing only search ad sales would go against the idea of integrated display and search ad planning.

Why would this appeal to Ballmer? According to the source, Ballmer has come to accept Microsoft just isn't very good at sales

"Microsoft doesn't directly sell," he said. "It sells software through its vendor relationships... A joint venture would essentially be just a sales force."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 24, 2009

Yahoo's Bartz: Apt Ad Platform Was 'Over-Promised'

When Yahoo unveiled a new local ad sales relationship with AT&T earlier this week, it made no mention of Apt, even though the display ad platform will be the backbone for the relationship. Why, when it was at the heart of Yahoo's plans for the future less than one year ago? Remember Yahoo's Advertising Week launch party featuring Mad Men star Jon Hamm?

During the company's Q2 earnings call, CEO Carol Bartz explained why Apt appeared to be playing a smaller role in Yahoo's external communications.

"Apt was over-promised," she said in response to an investor's question. "Both the advertisers and our own sales people have to do a lot of steps just to pass the information between...systems."

But she insisted Yahoo is not backing away from the product. "Apt is a large part of making buying easier," she said. "It's got great architecture. It's just got to get through some more releases."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 25, 2009

Joanne Bradford Chills on the Beach (Cannes Pics)

On Thursday Yahoo hosted a beach luncheon across from the Carlton Hotel. In attendance were R/GA's Bob Greenberg, former Martha Stewart co-CEO Wenda Harris Millard, Yahoo head of sales Joanne Bradford, Sapient's Alan Wexler and Freddie Laker, among others. Click above for photo descriptions and additional pics from around the Cannes festival, or view the slideshow below.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 9, 2009

Quote of the Day: Carol Bartz on AOL Deal

Just two weeks after she criticized Twitter's founders for apparently ruling out a sale ("Never is a long time," she said), you wouldn't expect Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to rule out any given deal for all eternity, would you? Well, you'd be wrong.

"Yahoo-AOL would not happen anytime in the forever future," she said in an interview with Fox Business News yesterday. "Yahoo is a much stronger property in a different direction and there's no sense confusing all of that."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 7, 2009

Yahoo to Take Over Microsoft Ad Sales? Not Likely

The latest reports about negotiations between Microsoft and Yahoo suggest the two have entered a period of "meaningful" talks and may strike a deal before too long. While details are obviously murky, Boomtown has heard that under the deal being discussed "Yahoo would take over both search and display advertising sales and Microsoft would run the tech for both behind the scenes."

That will never happen, according to one knowledgeable source at Microsoft. First, Microsoft is too focused on the long-term importance of digital advertising to sign away control of its sales operation. The company is heavily invested in that marketplace in terms of both people (well over 1,000 in U.S. sales alone) and products (40+). Can Microsoft trust Yahoo to sell MSN, Microsoft Media Network and its other products with the same vigor and knowledge it brings to the table when peddling its own properties? And would Microsoft's famous executive egos ever outsource something as crucial as ad sales?

According to the source, the answer to both questions is no. "There's no way in hell is Microsoft going to give Yahoo control on its properties," he said.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 5, 2009

Morning Reads: Craigslist Erotic Ads, Micro-hoo, Google Antitrust

Craigslist Erotic Services Ads on the Ropes. Less than two weeks after Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal called on the site to ban photos in its "erotic services" section, Blumenthal along with state AG's from Missouri and Illinois will meet with Craigslist officials today, CNET reports. In a statement, CEO Jim Buckmaster said the company "anticipates making further progress toward the common goal of eliminating illegal activity from Craigslist."

Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Progress? Deal talks between the two companies has become "meaningful," says BoomTown. Details of a partnership remain hazy, but Yahoo would likely sign over at least some of its search business to Microsoft.

More Anti-Trust Trouble for Google. This is not an advertising story, but it appears Google is, for the second time in just a few days, enduring the scrutiny of regulators. The concern this time, as reported in The New York Times: close ties between the boards of Apple and Google. The FTC wants to examine whether the presence of two execs -- Google's Eric Schmidt and Arthur Levinson of Genentech -- on both companies' boards violates the law.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

April 29, 2009

Morning Reads: Yahoo Layoffs Commence, Twitter Full of Quitters

Yahoo has begun layoffs of between 600 and 700 employees, according to tech and gossip blog lalawag. The cuts are on schedule, as Yahoo said during its Q1 earnings call eight days ago that it would notify staffers within two weeks.

More than half of Twitter joiners fail to return to the service a month after signing up. Nielsen Online reports retention rate for micro-blogging service is now about 40 percent, posing a challenge to its prospects. That's actually up from a retention rate below 30 percent over the past 12 months. Those bleak return-rate will make it hard for Twitter to achieve reach in the long term. According to Nielsen Online VP David Martin, "a retention rate of 40 percent will limit a site's growth to about a 10 percent reach figure. To be clear, a high retention rate doesn't guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 25, 2009

Yahoo's Head of Mobile Connected Life Exits

The latest executive to leave Yahoo is Marco Boerries, executive vice president of the Connective Life Division. He had global responsibility for the group, which largely is responsible for Yahoo Mobile, and most recently for Connected TV, which was introduced last month at the Consumer Electronics Show. The news was first posted on AllThingsD, including an e-mail Boerries sent to Yahoo staffers.

A Yahoo spokesperson confirmed the group leader's departure with ClickZ. "After four years at Yahoo, Marco Boerries is leaving the company for personal reasons. Under Marco's leadership, the Connected Life division developed a leadership position in Mobile, and most recently in the Connected TV space."

Boerries joined Yahoo four years ago as the result of the company's acquisition of VerdiSoft, which he founded in 2001. The initial vision of VerdiSoft was to enable digital mobility across mobile, broadband, and home networking markets, which was carried through in his years at Yahoo. Connected Life's mobile division launched many initiatives over the last six months or so under the leadership of David Katz, head of the mobile advertising and publishing division. Yahoo Mobile has signed mobile search distribution deals with over 70 operator partners worldwide; it added 11 European markets through a relationship with T-Mobile earlier this month.

Posted by Enid Burns at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

January 13, 2009

Yahoo Extends Reach in Germany With Sales Deal

Yahoo has penned a deal with German newspaper Suddeutschen Zeitung to sell its online display and mobile inventory.

The exclusive multi-year agreement will, according to last week's press release, grant advertisers access to 2.4 million monthly unique users, generating 140 million monthly page views.

As a result of the agreement, Yahoo now claims its network reaches almost half of Germany's online population.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

December 10, 2008

Yahoo Layoffs Commence, What's the Impact on Sales?

Layoffs of 1,400 Yahoo staffers are expected to begin this morning. As CEO Jerry Yang stated back in October, the reduction will affect about 10 percent of staff with the goal of reducing annual costs from $3.9 billion to less than $3.5 billion.

We at ClickZ are trying to learn as much as we can about who's being let go -- specifically in the company's sales operation. As you might imagine, standard PR operating procedure at times like this is to share no details directly with the press. That's where you come in, dear readers.

Are you a media broker at Yahoo, or do you have insight into the company's sales organization in your capacity as a buyer? We'd be eternally grateful for whatever information you can share. Please reach out to us through our News Tip contact form.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 4, 2008

DOJ Was Rarin' to Sue as Google Scuttled Yahoo Deal

Just how close did the Justice Department come to filing anti-trust charges against Google and Yahoo over their search advertising deal?

About three hours close, according to an Am Law Daily interview with Sanford Litvack, the bulldog litigator hired by the DOJ to investigate the outsourcing agreement.

"We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the day," Litvack told Am Law. "We told them we were going to file the complaint at that time of day. Three hours before, they told us they were abandoning the agreement."

After the deal was scuttled, an apparently disappointed Litvack went back to his firm, Hogan & Hartson. "We felt pretty good about it, we felt pretty confident. Yeah, I would have liked to have done it."

More from the Am Law story:

The never-filed government complaint would have charged that the agreement violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, Litvack tells the Am Law Daily in one of his first interviews since the companies canned the venture. Section 1 bans agreements that restrain trade unreasonably. Section 2 makes it unlawful for a company to monopolize or attempt to monopolize trade.

"It would have ended up also alleging that Google had a monopoly and that [the advertising pact] would have furthered their monopoly," Litvack says.

The complaint would have sought a preliminary injunction to stop the agreement from going forward. "The fact that we filed a lawsuit would not by itself have stopped them," he says. "We would have had to get an injunction from the court, and we would have sought that."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 3, 2008

New York Post: Miller Not on a Yahoo Hunt After All

The New York Post has called foul on a Wall Street Journal report claiming Jonathan Miller is scraping together funds for a possible Yahoo bid.

The former AOL chief exec is indeed raising cash, according to the story, but not to acquire Yahoo. Rather the moves are part of his capitalization efforts on behalf of his investment firm, Velocity Interactive. The story adds Miller has entertained a Yahoo investment in the past, but nothing is imminent.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 6, 2008

Quote of the Day: Yahoo's Yang Now Prefers a Microsoft Sale

“To this day, I have to say that the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo. I don’t think that is a bad idea at all…at the right price, whatever the price is, we are willing to sell the company."

-Jerry Yang, speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit.

Yang's comment during an on-stage interview with John Battelle was astonishing, for a number of reasons. First, Jerry Yang and his team fought Microsoft's early aggressive advance tooth and nail, and while they've since said they were open to a deal all along, no senior Yahoo executive has said such a marriage would be the best outcome for the company.

Also, to me at least the statement suggests a deal to buy AOL from Time Warner is not imminent. I wasn't there, so I don't have the full context, but I can't imagine why Yang would express enthusiasm for one massive merger while finalizing an unrelated one. Yang declined to comment on the AOL talks.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 4, 2008

Yahoo/Google Deal Revision Would Give Marketers More Control

To appease Justice Department concerns about their search ads tie-up, Yahoo and Google have offered to cap what Yahoo can make through the deal at 25 percent of its total search revenue, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Perhaps a bigger deal for search marketers: The revised deal would let advertisers opt out of having their ads distributed on Yahoo results pages.

That would partly address concerns of some marketers that they'll wind up bidding against themselves, but it may also reduce the available Yahoo inventory for those who choose to opt out.

As Kevin Lee put it back in September, "In order for [Yahoo] to even to consider serving an ad out of Google, that ad has to be 15 percent more expensive," to allow for Google's cut.

Yahoo's extra revenue from each ad served by Google comes at the expense of brands that bid on both platforms, and so letting those brands abstain from ad syndication between the parties. Yet having the option not to pay the higher price to appear on Yahoo SERPs doesn't mean they'll still get in at the lower price.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 28, 2008

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Sign Human Rights Ethics Code

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have signed an industry code of ethics designed to safeguard human rights and freedom of speech online. The Global Network Initiative guidelines, drawn up by Internet firms, academics and human rights groups, will aim to limit the data that is shared with authorities and governments around the world.

Under the guidelines, participating companies will attempt to reduce the scope of government requests that conflict with free speech and other human rights principles.

In a statement, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said the new guidelines "provide a valuable roadmap for companies like Yahoo operating in markets where freedom of expression and privacy are unfairly restricted."

Yahoo found itself in hot water last year when it handed over information to Chinese authorities which eventually lead to the imprisonment of two dissident journalists. Google has also encountered difficulties in China, and has agreed to censor local searches for terms such as "democracy" and "Tiananmen Square" in response to requests from Chinese authorities.

Ironically, these firms are constantly under fire from privacy advocates surrounding their use of consumer data in Europe and the U.S. Just last month, Google followed the lead of Yahoo and Microsoft and cut the amount of time it stores users' IP addresses from 18 months to nine in response to scrutiny from European regulatory bodies and privacy campaigners.

Outside of the EU and the U.S. however, it seems that internet firms are concerned about quite the opposite - the need to safeguard personal information from prying government eyes.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

October 23, 2008

More Layoffs: Experian Interactive/LowerMyBills, Permission TV, DMA

The last 48 hours has brought numerous reports of new job losses in the digital marketing/media sector, and so we've updated our layoff tracker. The biggest news was Yahoo's decision to cut at least 10 percent (roundabout 1,400) global positions this quarter. Others followed yesterday: Experian Interactive/LowerMyBills, Mania TV, Permission TV, and Imeem are all shedding employees. You can find more information on the layoff tracker page.

Additionally, the DMA is thinning its executive ranks, partly owing to the glut of conferences in the digital ad space, reports Direct.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 17, 2008

Google Takes Out Personal Ad for Yahoo Deal Advocates

"Desperately seeking marketers to support the Yahoo search ad tie-up."

Well, not exactly. But TechCrunch reports the company's attorneys have directly contacted at least one large AdWords advertiser. The lawyer told this person, the proprietor of ReverseMortgageGuides.com, that the company was "looking for large advertisers who use both Google and Yahoo (we do) who would be willing to provide public testimonials in support of outsourcing Yahoo’s search ads to Google."

Here's the full text of Google's voice mail:

“Hi Darren my name is Donald Burke. I’m calling on behalf of Google to talk with Adwords advertisers about the new proposed Google/Yahoo Advertising Agreement. If you have a couple of minutes to talk with me, my number is…Thanks very much. Take care.”

And Darren's response: "I told him I’m a free-market competition kind of guy so he tried to address my concerns for about 15 minutes and then called it quits."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 14, 2008

How Low Will They Go? Google/Yahoo Discuss Deal Limits with DOJ

With all the negative attention on their search ads deal, it would be a surprise to learn that Google and Yahoo are not in active talks with the Justice Department. They are of course, and the Wall Street Journal has delivered some additional details on those negotiations, courtesy of "lawyers close to the effort."

According to the Journal's sources, the DOJ is seeking a handful of general concessions such as a cap on the ads Yahoo can outsource to Google and a reporting system to monitor those caps. No details are provided on what the ceiling would be as a percentage of Yahoo's total ad volume, and frankly, we may never know if the negotiations are fruitful. The important question for Yahoo is whether it can still deliver the upside it promised investors back in June, when it called the deal an "$800 million annual revenue opportunity."

Prosecutors are also looking for assurances from Yahoo that it will keep innovating on search ad monetization. That's a little tough to measure, but should still be a slam-dunk for Yahoo, which really does still want to be a contender in this area. And it may advance that goal through the deal, by observing the ads Google matches to its queries.

A final point of interest: WSJ's sources say DOJ investigators continue to put together an anti-trust lawsuit to prevent the arrangement -- an expected measure that may be partly a negotiating tactic.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 30, 2008

Canada DOJ Retains Litigator to Eye Google/Yahoo on Eve of Marriage

The clock is ticking on the great Google-Yahoo search union of 2008, yet new hurdles keep rising up. The latest challenge: Canada's Department of Justice has retained a big name litigator, David Kent, to look into the deal's underpinnings.

Market Watch confirmed with Kent, an anti-trust attorney with Toronto's McMillan LLP, that he was retained by the DOJ but would say nothing else. As with the appointment of Sanford Litvack by the U.S. DOJ, his involvement doesn't imply the DOJ will sue over the deal, but it does complicate matters.

Below, an incomplete tally of objections and investigations to the deal on the eve of its scheduled implementation:

• Senators Question Deal's Benefit to Advertisers
• ANA Formally Objects
• Global Newspaper Group Pans Deal
• European Commission Inspecting Tie-Up
• World Federation of Advertisers Bashes Pact
• U.S. DOJ Hires Litigator to Look Into Deal

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 29, 2008

Everything You Wanted to Know About...

...the Yahoo-Google partnership -- according to Yahoo -- can be found at this new microsite.

Not to be outdone, Google has its own page, "Facts about the Yahoo-Google advertising agreement," that includes a slide show.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 22, 2008

Yahoo Hopes Council Can Quell Advertiser Concerns

Yahoo's taking it from all sides over its impending search ad partnership with Google. The latest group to complain is The World Federation of Advertisers, which has requested that the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition block the deal. The organization of organizations believes it will be a detriment to competition and increase ad prices worldwide.

In part to foster a dialogue with advertisers concerned about the deal, Yahoo has launched a Digital Advisory Council which "will work collaboratively to explore the continued evolution of digital media and online advertising," according to a press release.

"As questions emerge about how Yahoo will implement [the Google agreement], the Advisory Council will provide a forum for us to engage in a dialogue with key customers on those issues," stated Yahoo EVP Hilary Schneider in the release. The group will convene for the first time in Q4 of this year.

According to a Yahoo spokesperson, unnamed advertisers have already joined, including "large advertisers and agencies; small to medium-sized advertisers; and SEM-only agencies."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yet Another Association Bashes Google/Yahoo Pact

Another international group has come out against the Google/Yahoo search agreement, calling it a raw deal for global as well as U.S. advertisers.

The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) is asking the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition to block the deal on the grounds that it will have a "detrimental effect on competition, result in price increases and reduce the options available to advertisers worldwide."

The WFA is an international blanket organization made up of 55 national groups. Its membership includes the Association of National Advertisers in the U.S., which has already declared itself opposed to the search advertising pact.

It's also the second international organization to speak up, the first being the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). The difference here is the WFA's position essentially echoes that of its U.S. tentacle, whereas WAN's declaration ran counter to that of its U.S. member, which has taken no official stance.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 8, 2008

AT&T Mobile Portal to Carry Yahoo OneSearch Results and Ads

In its ongoing push to collaborate with carriers, Yahoo has signed a deal with AT&T that will put OneSearch on the carrier's portal. AT&T's on-deck MEdia Net portal will be powered by OneSearch, bringing media assets such as news, financial information, weather conditions, Flickr photos, and Web images to AT&T user handsets. OneSearch also provides users relevant results for ringtones, wallpapers, games, and other content in the same browsing experience.

Despite the variety of content, oneSearch ads consist solely of sponsored search text ads on results pages. Through a strategic alliance made in January, Yahoo has the ability to serve display ads but hasn't done so yet.

AT&T has about 70 million wireless customers, though not all of those use the mobile Web. The reach for oneSearch is in the tens of millions, and a portion of those are using the iPhone. However, iPhone users likely don't start on the MEdia Net portal, and may not use the service at all, narrowing the reach just a little bit more.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 29, 2008

Yahoo Set to Run First Google Search Ads in October

Eric Schmidt tells the Seattle Times that Google and Yahoo still plan to move ahead with their search advertising deal in October, despite recent questions from the Senate about whether the arrangement will raise prices for advertisers.

"We are going to move forward," Schmidt said Thursday. "We are in the process of talking to the government. They've not indicated one way or the other how they're dealing with us."

When the companies paired up in June, they said they'd delay implementation for up to three and a half months to allow a U.S. Justice Department review, though such a postponement isn't required by law. In a July 15 hearing, a Senate Judiciary Committee expressed concerns the pact would remove an important check on Google's dominance of the search advertising market.

Schmidt's conclusion: "We always worry a little bit, but we think our arguments are pretty strong."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 28, 2008

Yahoo's Mobile Division Loses Two Execs

Yahoo confirmed two executives who specialized in mobile left its Connected Life division.

Steve Boom, SVP of Connected Life, and Gary Roshak, according to news first reported by Tricia Duryee of mocoNews.

Boom has been with Yahoo for 10 years and is looking for other opportunities, according to a company spokesperson. "He has been a tremendous asset to the company. He helped build the mobile team to what it is today, and we're in a great position to continue to lead the market." Gary Roshak left Yahoo on August 1, and has already been replaced by David Katz, formerly VP of corporate strategy. He's now VP of advertisers and publishers.

Despite a string of exits and reports of a "brain drain" at Yahoo, which continued over the summer, it's probably not likely to be the case within the Connected Life team. "In the mobile space we're continuing to push forward, continuing to sell deals, to sign advertisers, moving forward with business as usual," said the Yahoo source.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 1, 2008

Decker on DoubleClick: Very Old

During today's Yahoo Shareholders meeting, Yahoo Prez Sue Decker called DoubleClick "a very old technology" – an obvious jab at Google's choice to buy the firm. Her aim was to differentiate the ad management platform Yahoo is developing from that of DoubleClick, an industry leader.

Rather than buying DoubleClick (she hinted Yahoo did consider that), she continued, "It was our conclusion that to build a Web-based open solution…was the best approach."

Decker also said something I've never heard actually verbalized regarding the newspaper consortium, though I've followed that particular project pretty closely. Noting many of its newspaper publisher partners use DoubleClick to manage ads, she said many of them "agreed to pull out" of their existing ad management platforms eventually and use Yahoo's, which is still in the early test stages.

It's been clear this is Yahoo's mission – to eventually manage ads for these partners and others publishers – but I think this is the first I've noticed it actually said straight out.

Let me know if I'm wrong….

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

July 21, 2008

Yahoo Compromises with Icahn, Repeats Must Buy Mantra

In anticipation of its upcoming annual meeting of stockholders, Yahoo settled with activist investor Carl Icahn after weeks of wrangling over a potential proxy battle. According to Yahoo, eight members of its current Board of Directors will stand for re-election, and Icahn agreed to withdraw his nominees for consideration at the meeting. He also said he will vote his Yahoo shares in support of the Board's nominees.

"Following the 2008 annual meeting, the Yahoo Board will be expanded to 11 members. Carl Icahn will be appointed to the Board and the remaining two seats will be filled by the Board upon the recommendation of the Board's Nominating and Governance Committee from a list of nine candidates recommended by Mr. Icahn," according to a company statement.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang couldn't pass up the opportunity to tout the firm's goal to be the Web's "starting point" and an advertiser "must buy."

"This agreement will not only allow Yahoo to put the distraction of the proxy contest behind us, it will allow the Company to continue pursuing its strategy of being the starting point for Internet users and a must buy for advertisers," he said in the statement.

Is anybody else getting tired of this mantra?

The thing is, Yahoo still has the Microsoft drama that started the Icahn subplot to deal with before it can truly focus on becoming the "starting point" and "must buy."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 20, 2008

As Seen On...

... a t-shirt for sale at a boardwalk shop in Wildwood, NJ.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 7, 2008

Micro-hoo Head Games: Next 24 Days are All-Important

The two most important dates in Yahoo's immediate future are July 22 and August 1.

On the first date Yahoo will announce its second quarter earnings, which should help clarify its (and the Web's) vulnerability to U.S. economic woes -- as well as to continued oversupply caused by a glut of social network ad inventory. Any pain would likely emanate from the financial, automotive & travel sectors, which have steadily reduced spending over the past year.

Poor results will put the company on weak footing with investors, who will meet on the second date above to decide on -- among other things -- Carl Icahn's proposal to oust its management and board of directors. Icahn intends to replace the company's CEO and board with a leadership team, including himself, that would be more open to a sale of part or all of Yahoo to Microsoft. Indeed, should Icahn succeed, whatever crew takes over would be explicitly appointed to orchestrate a deal with Microsoft.

No shocker: Microsoft supports that outcome. Microsoft stated this morning that it has "concluded it cannot" reach an agreement with the current leadership (very careful language that does not preclude new talks with Yang at some later date), but would reconsider a complete acquisition of Yahoo if Yang & company are yanked. Yahoo quickly retorted: "If Microsoft and Mr. Ballmer really want to purchase Yahoo, we again invite them to make a proposal immediately."

Meanwhile, Yahoo may be working furiously to consummate an agreement with Time Warner to purchase or otherwise combine its operations with those of AOL. The Times Online describes re-ignited talks between the Web company, Goldman Sachs and Time Warner's leadership in an effort to "re-heat" negotiations ahead of that all-important shareholder meeting.

A merger announcement within 24 days could overshadow weak earnings, and convince shareholders to give Yahoo's current leadership some more time to improve performance.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 2, 2008

Quote of the Day: Filling Ballmer's "Internet hole"

"Yahoo executives were unimpressed with Mr. Ballmer's vision. If anything, they regarded the Yahoo pursuit as a crude solution to quell his obsession with Google. They would later refer to Mr. Ballmer's plan as 'filling his Internet hole.'"

-From The Journal's detailed report on the ins and outs of Microsoft's negotiations with Yahoo. Most recently, Microsoft has approached media giants including News Corp and Time Warner to join it in a new offer that would likely result in the breakup of Yahoo. The story suggests those discussions have so far come to naught.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 20, 2008

Yahoo Reorg Coming as More Execs Fly Coop

It's been fully 10 months since the last reorg from Yahoo, a company that shakes up its executive ranks almost as often as chronic reshuffler Microsoft. Even setting aside its habitual restructuring, that's an eternity in Yahoo-time. Way back in August 2007 -- when it named Hilary Schneider to lead the new Global Partner Solutions unit -- the company was still basking in praise for Panama, new CEO Jerry Yang had yet to complete his 100-day evaluation, and the thought an imminent deal with either Microsoft or Google would have seemed outlandish to say the least.

Given all that's come to pass, it's probably appropriate that top brass has now decided to reassess Yahoo's reporting structure.

Yahoo is so far mum on the details of its impending realignment, reported today in The Journal. However it seems the new regime won't have a profound impact on the company's ad products or advertiser relationships. Rather it will consolidate numerous products, such as mail, search and homepage operations, into a global unit. President Sue Decker is apparently driving the changes in the interest of facilitating better communication between domestic and overseas product groups.

Decker reportedly stepped up the pace of planning for the new division after the departure last week of Network Division EVP Jeff Weiner. She'd better hurry, since the general impression right now is that executive staffers are storming the exits. At least eight mid- to senior-level execs either have left or are expected to leave in short order. They include Dr. Usama Fayyad, the company's EVP of research and strategic data solutions; Jeremy Zawodny, a long-time technology lead who bolted to join Craigslist as chief technology officer; Communities and Front Doors SVP Brad Garlinghouse (of peanut butter manifesto fame); Qi Lu, EVP of engineering for the search and advertising technology group; search group SVP Vish Makhijani; and Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 19, 2008

So Long, Yahoo: Garlinghouse, Qi Lu, Flickr Founders Exit

Yahoo's starting to resemble an anthill that's been bombed with firecrackers. The latest to walk, according to reports: Communities and Front Doors SVP Brad Garlinghouse (left, of peanut butter manifesto fame), plus Qi Lu, EVP of engineering for the search and advertising technology group, and search search group SVP Vish Makhijani, who's reportedly headed to Russian search firm Yandex Silicon Valley research facility Yandex Labs.

Additionally, Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield are leaving the company. Fake's last day was Friday the 13th, while Butterfield will leave July 12, according to reports.

The departures come just a week after two other senior execs made their exits: Jeff Weiner, EVP Network Division, left to become executive-in-residence with venture capital firms Accel Parnters and Greylock Partners. Dr. Usama Fayyad, EVP of research and strategic data solutions, is also heading for the hills.

Amid the latest brain drain, Yahoo is rumored to have put a chill on new hires. However in recent comments to investors North American Sales VP David Karnstedt said the company continues to hire aggressively.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 18, 2008

Yahoo Sales "Hiring Aggressively" Amidst Freeze Rumors

As rumors of a Yahoo hiring freeze soar , the company's SVP North American Sales David Karnstedt told the crowd at today's William Blair and Company's annual growth stock conference Yahoo "continue[s] to hire aggressively." At least, that's the case for the sales department, as indicated by Karnstedt during a Q&A at the Chicago get together.

The notion of hiring aggressively doesn't exactly jibe with the gossip that Yahoo is in the midst of a hiring freeze, or at least a very restrictive hiring environment.

"Attrition has been very low on the [sales] team," he said, adding, "Retaining people and bringing new people in has been the call of the day."

Asked whether the recent Microsoft hullabaloo or general negative talk about the company's status has affected the ability to hire salespeople, Karnstedt said, "It has not had any impact." In fact, he added, Yahoo exceeded its expectations when it comes to filling sales positions in the first half of '08.

Still, Yahoo seems to be falling prey to yet another exodus of top execs.

If indeed Yahoo is hiring salespeople "aggressively," even as other departments feel the pinch of a tighter budgetary belt, there's at least one explanation: You can't bring in big ad dollars from brands and agencies without salespeople.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 17, 2008

SignOn San Diego Could Join Yahoo

I had a great chat with Mark Davis, VP Strategy at San Diego Union Tribune this afternoon. Following some significant interactive exec departures, Davis is heading up strategy for the publisher's interactive operations (in addition to strategy for the overall business). He's got a lot of decision making ahead of him, but one of those decisions may involve Yahoo's newspaper consortium.

"We're also looking at the Yahoo consortium," Davis told me, stressing no deal has been signed. He wasn't involved when Yahoo originally made its offer a couple years ago, so he couldn't (or wouldn't) say exactly what's prevented the Union Tribune from joining the growing alliance in the past.

"I think that it's just one of those things where in the initial negotiations with that...didn't look right for us. It just sort of fell off the radar screen." Now, he continued, "We took another look at it and said this may work for us."

As newspapers struggle with plummeting print ad sales and slowing online ad growth, they need more online advertisers, pronto. Part of the attraction of partnering with Yahoo, Davis said, is the ability to increase local reach for advertisers through Yahoo inventory.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 16, 2008

Yahoo-Google Confounds Digerati, Marketers Universally Miserable

One hundred hours later, opinion makers still can't agree on whether Yahoo's search ads deal with Google was a brilliant move long overdue or the beginning of the end.

For those in the latter camp, perhaps the most stinging indictment came from Joe Nocera, who wrote in the Times that Yahoo has "chosen to become a pawn of the most dominant company on the Internet." That's a strong remark, given the deal allows Yang & Co. to retain a control lever they can use to ratchet up monetization when flagging earnings seem to call for it.

The more they use that lever, the less pleased marketers will be. Many fear price hikes as Google boosts its control of search ad spending to 90 percent or more. Increases are probably not around the corner however, except insofar as advertisers give up on Panama and spend more on Google, thus bidding keywords higher. Under that scenario, Google will encounter less pressure to create competitive value for advertisers. That could manifest in higher campaign costs down the road.

As distasteful as Google's embrace is to Yahoo, it's nothing compared to what Microsoft's feeling -- especially given it lit the fuse on the bomb that just blew up in its face.

Indeed, if the six-month drama surrounding Yahoo's fate were a drawn-out Looney Tunes episode, the screen would now display a blackened Wile E. Coyote (Microsoft, a.k.a. Eatibus Anythingus) moments after an elaborately concealed explosive device detonates on top of him. The singed coyote can only look on in despair as Road Runner (Google, a.k.a. Hot-rodicus Supersonicus) casually polishes off the platter of bird seed laid as bait. The comparison breaks down a bit at this point, since Yahoo clearly has to be both the pile of Acme brand TNT and the bird seed.

Whatever. The big question now is, what's Wiley planning next? It was only a year ago that its loss of DoubleClick in a fierce bidding war with Google drove Microsoft to hotly pursue a purchase of much larger aQuantive. There is no acquisition target bigger than Yahoo, but many smaller snacks remain on the table -- for instance AOL, Facebook, ValueClick, AdBrite, Tribal Fusion, and Specific Media.

Finally, many believe an eventual acquisition of Yahoo is still very much in the company's plans, and that Yahoo's Google deal has merely bought it time. It's entirely possible regulators will block the relationship on anti-competitive grounds, in which case pressure will mount for Yahoo to return to the negotiating table.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 3, 2008

WSJ: Icahn Seeks Yang's Ouster

In the latest volley, Yahoo investor Carl Icahn is calling for the ouster of Yahoo's chief executive Jerry Yang, according to wsj.com.

Icahn has previously called for the replacement of Yahoo's board, which includes Yang.

The latest report comes a day after a Delaware judge unsealed a class action lawsuit against Yahoo's board and Yang. The suit alleges Yahoo's board set up "roadblocks" to Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Yahoo, especially an expensive employee severance package.

A copy of the unsealed lawsuit can be found at the Web site of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, the firm suing Yahoo on behalf of on behalf of Detroit's Police and Fire Retirement System, Detroit's General Retirement System, and other Yahoo shareholders. "Yang convinced the [Yahoo] board to adopt change-in-control employee severance plans that impose tremendous cost and risks for an acquirer, throwing sand in the gears of Microsoft's plans for a smooth integration," the lawsuit alleges.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 30, 2008

'Sex and the City' and Search

The opening today of "Sex and the City," the movie, got search engine marketers into action, using paid search on Google and Yahoo to promote everything from bling (GiltyCouture and Ziamond), to ringtones, to an online video site (MyHubTV).

What, no Manolo Blahniks?

Yahoo paid search results, below.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 18, 2008

Microsoft-Yahoo: A New Spin

Two weeks after withdrawing its bid for Yahoo, Microsoft has returned with another proposal: acquire only a portion of Yahoo.

Microsoft, in a statement, said it continues to "explore and pursue its alternatives to improve and expand its online services and advertising business."

The Wall Street Journal, quoting unnamed sources, reports Microsoft's proposal would involve Yahoo display ads sold by Microsoft next to Yahoo research results. That proposal appears to be in response to Yahoo's decision to test Google ads on its own search results pages.

Yahoo, in a carefully worded news release titled, "Yahoo! Remains Open to Value Maximizing Transactions," said it "confirmed with Microsoft that it is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo at this time." (Note the use of the word, "all" here.)

Yahoo said it intends to evaluate alternatives, including any proposal from Microsoft, that would be in the best interest of stockholders.

This latest development comes days after Yahoo investor Carl Icahn made noise to launch a battle and replace Yahoo board members with an alternate board unless talks are renewed with Microsoft.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 15, 2008

Yahoo Taking It From All Sides

Yahoo's having a rough go of it today, with the official emergence of a threat to its board led by investor Carl Icahn, and the usurpation (according to comScore) of its U.S. Web traffic leadership by Google.

In a letter to Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock, Icahn alleged the board "acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft," and proposed an alternate board that includes Marc Cuban, Adam Dell and himself. "It is unconscionable that you have not allowed your shareholders to choose to accept an offer that represented a 72 percent premium over Yahoo’s closing price of $19.18 on the day before the initial Microsoft offer." Wall Street Journal has more coverage. TechCrunch has the letter to Bostock.

The goal of a proxy fight would be to consummate a deal with Microsoft, but for that to happen Microsoft would have to go along. That it will is far from certain. Some of the post-collapse speculation and rumor has held that Ballmer & his cohorts had become unsure about the deal were secretly relieved to see it die. However many in the investment community continue to maintain a deal is still possible, if only because Icahn would not have undertaken this move without some indication Microsoft would still be receptive.

Update: Yahoo fired back late yesterday, accusing Icahn of misunderstanding the facts about Microsoft's proposal and how it imploded. Its letter restated Yahoo's position that its board was always open to negotiating a deal and that Microsoft has stated clearly it's "moving on."

Meanwhile the traffic report from comScore is largely symbolic but still painful to Yahoo, which for years has enjoyed the right to call itself the leader of the pack in terms of U.S. reach. According to the measurement firm, both companies possessed about 141 million visitors on their owned and operated sites during the month of April. However it claims Google has an edge, for the first time, of about 466,000 users. Of course comScore's numbers are notoriously shaky and for that reason the finding means very little. For all purposes the companies are locked in close combat for rights to say they have the biggest audience.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 13, 2008

Yahoo Political Ad Guy Moves to Westwood One

It's official: Richard Kosinski, former VP of political advertising for Yahoo, is moving to Westwood One. As SVP, Chief Digital Officer, Kosinski will head up Westwood's digital products such as news, sports and talk as well as all digital product and business development. While the Westwood name is synonymous with radio, the company is branching out to all platforms.

As I reported in April, Kosinski is replaced by Yahoo vet Diane Rinaldo, who apparently had done some work with political advertisers before taking the new role.

A source of mine -- a big name in the online political ad space who is responsible for planning online media buys for advocacy groups and candidate campaigns -- told me after Kosinski's departure was made public, "I miss him already."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 5, 2008

Is the Stage Set for an AOL Sale?

With the dust settling around Microsoft's abortive bid for Yahoo, one thing's quickly becoming clear: The self-destruction of this particular takeover attempt is not the end of Yahoo's odyssey but merely a mid-way point. Analyst and blogger speculation this morning has anticipated a variety of outcomes for Yahoo, including a deal with News Corp (though talks have reportedly "cooled"), an acquisition of ValueClick, and even a late third act consummation with Microsoft.

The next big Web company to sell may not be Yahoo, however. Last month we learned Yahoo was closing in on a deal to imbibe AOL. Presumably those talks are still underway, and word this morning is Microsoft has already entered the fray. Google may also be interested in AOL, which would give it the reach in display that has so far eluded it.

Microsoft seems the best bet to triumph in any competitive bidding process, given it's already flashed its money roll to investors and the business community. Plus it really does crave search market share. And while AOL's 5 percent wedge of the U.S. search pie is modest by comparison to Yahoo's 21 percent, Microsoft could nearly match Yahoo by buying both AOL and Ask. Sweetening the deal for Microsoft, buying those two entities would would end Google's ad distribution deals with them, cutting into its profits.

Additionally, any company to combine with AOL will command the display ad market. A combined AOL-Yahoo would be a true powerhouse, as the companies are #1 and #2 in display. A combined Google-AOL would create huge inroads into display for a company that's so far still just barely out of lip-service territory in the category.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 3, 2008

Microsoft Withdraws Bid for Yahoo

Microsoft on Saturday withdrew its bid to acquire Yahoo, opting against raising its offer $5 billion more or pursuing a hostile takeover.

Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer, in a letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, said he was concerned that Yahoo would take actions that would make the company undesirable to Microsoft. Of particular concern: Yahoo's decision to test Google's search ads on its own results pages, and the possibility that Yahoo would work more closely with Google on paid search going forward.

Such an arrangement, Ballmer wrote, "would fundamentally undermine Yahoo!’s own strategy and long-term viability by encouraging advertisers to use Google as opposed to your Panama paid search system."

He continued: "This would also effectively enable Google to set the prices for key search terms on both their and your search platforms and, in the process, raise prices charged to advertisers on Yahoo," Ballmer said.

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock fired back a statement, reiterating that Microsoft's bid undervalued Yahoo. "We remain focused on maximizing shareholder value and pursuing strategic opportunities that position Yahoo! for success and leadership in its markets," Bostock said in a news release.

On Feb. 1, Microsoft offered to pay $44.6 billion or $31 a share for Yahoo. Since then, Microsoft said it agreed to raise its bid by $2 per share, but Yahoo wanted another $4.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 9:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 2, 2008

More Micro-heuvering: WSJ Contracts Nasty Case of "Coulds"

Microsoft and Yahoo continue to negotiate heavily through the medium of the Wall Street Journal, forcing reporters Kevin Delaney, Matthew Karnitschnig, and Robert Guth into spastic repetition of the word "could."

Microsoft could announce it's backing out of the deal, we heard yesterday. The word this morning is it's leaning toward going hostile as early as today, but "could change tack." Meanwhile, Yahoo could announce an expansion of its Google search ad trial by next week. Such a deal "could go forward" even in the event of a hostile bid, WSJ promises.

What about Yahoo/AOL? Could happen. After all, it's been just three weeks since the firms were "closing in on a deal" to combine operations.

One thing's clear: All us losers that aren't the Wall Street Journal could have some real Microsoft/Yahoo news to report as early as any minute.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 25, 2008

Rinaldo to Replace Kosinski in Yahoo Political Sales Team

Richard Kosinski has been the guy selling Yahoo ads to political advertisers for awhile now. But no longer. According to a tip-off from Eric Frenchman, who handles a lot of online search and display buying for John McCain's campaign, Kosinski will take a senior position at WestwoodOne.

I checked in this morning with Kosinski, then heard back from Yahoo PR that, indeed, he'll be replaced by Diane Rinaldo, "a four year Y! veteran." She'll "assume the leadership of the political ad sales team," the e-mailed statement said. Evidently she's been working with the presidential candidate campaigns and party committees since joining the political sales team last year.

When I first met Kosinski in January 2007, we were perched high atop Manhattan for a sunlit lunchtime presentation about Yahoo's Personal Finance section redesign. At the time, he was Yahoo's business and finance category development officer. I have to say I was kind of surprised when I saw him on an online ad industry event panel representing Yahoo's political advertising.

Not that he isn't perfectly capable of selling Yahoo to political advertisers, it's just that it caught me off guard. As a good source in the online political ad world has suggested to me (not necessarily regarding Kosinski), media firms often pluck an ad salesperson from a standard vertical focus to handle political advertising when presidential primaries kick into gear.

It's worth noting, at least according to Nielsen Online data, Yahoo ran the most display ad impressions by presidential candidates in 2007, compared to any other individual Web site. Though networks like Google and Advertising.com also definitely raked in some dough from the three big online ad spenders -- Barack Obama, John McCain and Mitt Romney (remember him?) – Yahoo appears to have done well thus far.

According to my calculations based on Nielsen Online data, nearly 90 million ad impressions from the candidates, or 32 percent, ran across Yahoo -- from its Movies and Sports sections to its highly-trafficked e-mail pages. MSN grabbed about 30 million or 11 percent of display ads run by presidential hopefuls, mainly Obama. Excite's e-mail section and homepage garnered over 16 million or 6 percent of impressions, while AOL scored about 4 percent or 11 million. Sites including FoxNews.com, The New York Times, MSNBC, Newsmax and HuffingtonPost.com also got some prez campaign dollars in '07, and continue to.

As for why Kosinski is leaving, I don't know, but no matter what reason he gives, observers are sure to speculate that it has something to do with Yahoo's ongoing upheaval and unsure future.

According to the Yahoo spokesperson who confirmed his departure, "First and foremost, politics and elections will continue to be a focus for the company, especially as the presidential election nears."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 24, 2008

DOJ Notified of Yahoo's Google Ad Test

The U.S. Justice Dept. evidently is looking into or at least has been notified about Yahoo's recent Google ad test. According to a New York Times report, the companies informed the DOJ about the test before it began, but the Dept. won't comment.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 9, 2008

Microsoft/Yahoo Maneuvers: Curiouser and Curiouser

There's seemingly no end to the improbable machinations swirling around Microsoft's unsolicited bid for Yahoo. A flurry of late breaking rumors and announcements today conjured up a series of outlandish scenarios, including the combination of Yahoo and AOL's Internet operations, a possible joint bid for Yahoo by Microsoft and News Corp, and the (confirmed) outsourcing of a portion of Yahoo's search ads to Google.

The very latest developments, reported by WSJ this evening, are that (1) Yahoo and Time Warner's AOL are busy "closing in on a deal" to combine their businesses, yet another desperate maneuver to escape Microsoft's embrace; and (2) Microsoft is in "serious talks" with News Corp. about a plan to combine forces in a bid for Yahoo. No additional details were mentioned about this previously undiscussed scenario.

According to the report, Time Warner would contribute AOL along with a cash investment in exchange for a 20 percent stake in the company. The deal would be contingent on the approval of Yahoo's shareholders.

The latest rumors come at the end of a frenetic day for Yahoo, which this morning announced the planned acquisition of analytics platform IndexTools and this afternoon reluctantly stated it would conduct a test of Google's search ads on its own results pages.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 4, 2008

Microsoft Gives Deadline to Yahoo Board

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has given Yahoo's board three weeks to approve Microsoft's $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo. If the board doesn't sign off on the bid, Ballmer said Microsoft will take its case to Yahoo's shareholders.

"The substantial premium reflected in our initial proposal anticipated a friendly transaction with you," Ballmer wrote to Yahoo's board members. "If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal."

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and chairman Roy Bostock, in a statement today, reiterated that Microsoft's bid undervalues Yahoo. They insisted they aren't opposed to Microsoft taking over Yahoo -- they just want the bid to reflect Yahoo's value.

Since Microsoft made the bid two months ago, Ballmer said the public equity markets and overall economic conditions have weakened. "At the same time, public indicators suggest that Yahoo!’s search and page view shares have declined. Finally, you have adopted new plans at the company that have made any change of control more costly," he wrote.

In response, Yahoo's executives replied that the company has continued to launch new products and to take actions "that leverage our scale, technology, people and platforms as we execute on the strategy we publicly articulated."

The Yang-Bostock letter takes a personal tone. "We regret to say that your letter mischaracterizes the nature of our discussions with you," they wrote. "Moreover, Steve, you personally attended two of these meetings and could have advanced discussions in any way you saw fit."

Plus, Yang and Bostock point out that Microsoft's stock price has declined since its bid, meaning that the value of Microsoft's proposal is lower than it was two months ago.

On Friday, Bloomberg.com reported that Microsoft may cut its $44.6 billion bid for the company, suggesting the economic slowdown could hurt Yahoo's business.

Earlier Friday, Reuters said Microsoft was "evaluating" its bid to purchase the company. Reuters, quoting unnamed sources, pointed out that Yahoo has lost key personnel since Microsoft made its Jan. 31 offer, plus other factors.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 1, 2008

Microsoft Unlikely to Raise Yahoo Bid: WSJ

Having evidently determined it has a better grip on Yahoo's shareholders than Yahoo itself does, Microsoft has decided not to raise its bid for the Internet giant as it had been rumored to do, Wall Street Journal reported this morning. Declines in Microsoft's market value since it made its $45 billion cash and stock offer two months ago have reduced the real value of the bid to around $42 billion. Many expected Microsoft would counter a little higher and seal the deal after Yahoo's rejection of the offer on the grounds it undervalues the company.

Of course, we have to take the Journal's sources on their word that this latest leak isn't planted. "Such pronouncements are standard in deal negotiations but people close to Microsoft insist the stance isn't posturing," the story notes.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 28, 2008

Could China Block Microsoft-Yahoo Deal?

Microsoft's proposed purchase of Yahoo could encounter a roadblock in China, "The New York Times" reports today.

An antimonopoly law, which takes effect August 1, strengthens Chinese oversight of acquisitions involving foreign businesses acquiring or investing in Chinese businesses.

Chinese regulators will have the authority to review the Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition's impact on Alibaba.com, an e-commerce company in China. That's because Yahoo invested $1 billion in Alibaba for a 40 percent stake three years ago.

Quoting legal specialists, the Times reports that China's new law could match the powers that regulators in the European Union and the United States now have to review foreign mergers for antitrust concerns.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Newspaper CEOs Totally Stoked about Yahoo

If an Editor & Publisher "Special Report" on Yahoo's newspaper consortium project is any indication, everything's going swimmingly with the project, despite worries of how an impending Microsoft takeover could affect the situation. Consortium CEOs got together at a two-day meeting at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale in which Yahoo EVP Hilary Schneider and President Sue Decker were in attendance. Apparently the leaders of this motley media crew were throwing around terms like "blown away" and "psyched" afterwards.

Does Yahoo have a rollercoaster in their office courtyard we haven't heard about?

Anyway, though the story acts as a re-cap and somewhat of a cheer-fest for the Yahoo project, there are some tidbits of interest. For one, MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton told E&P Yahoo has 572 staffers working on paper consortium efforts, and he's been told that will increase to 700 in the coming months. I've seen Yahoo job ads for HotJobs sales gigs, so don't doubt they're hiring, but these numbers do seem really high.

The story notes, "In the next few months, newspapers will begin beta testing of a platform that moves beyond the troubled recruitment advertising arena -- and from traditional mass aggregation of eyeballs into targeting by demographics, geography, and consumer behavior. None of the CEOs will describe in any detail what Yahoo has cooking, but they are uniformly impressed."

This testing is already happening. ClickZ reported this about a month ago, noting Yahoo has already begun testing behavioral and geo-targeting across the growing network of newspaper sites. At the time, Lem Lloyd, VP of Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium told me about 20 paper sites were testing sales of Yahoo inventory to their local advertisers, while Yahoo was testing sales of those paper sites to national advertisers. That test group was expected to expand to 50 in a month's time.

More recently, McClatchy's Chris Hendricks told me McClatchy has had two sites live in the Yahoo pilot test for display advertising for about three months.

E&P also made note of quadrantOne, the new newspaper network led by Gannett, Hearst, Tribune, and The New York Times Company. QuadOne recently added new sites from publishers already partnering with Yahoo, raising questions about the paper companies' attitude towards the Yahoo deal. The story notes, "QuadrantOne has a dedicated sales staff armed with committed inventory from each paper, though Williams could not say how many salespeople will be involved."

For the record, ClickZ reported when the network launched in mid-February that, 17 people are on board to sell CPM-based standard and rich media ads to national advertisers. Some handling ad sales out of New York, LA and Chicago are on the national sales teams at owner firms, including quadOne Interim CEO Dana Hayes and SVP Sales Donna Stokley, both top Tribune Interactive sales execs. They also planned to hire additional sales staff at the time.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 21, 2008

Yahoo Mail Says: Don't Act Like Spammers

While reporting on Yahoo Mail's deliverability issues I spoke to a lot of great sources, including Yahoo. Here's a few spammy tidbits I left out. "Whenever we deploy some tighter, stricter filters, spammers are sometimes the first to complain," said Mark Risher, group product manager for Yahoo Mail. "No one considers himself a spammer; they just consider themselves aggressive e-mail marketers."

Risher closed with a word of advice for e-mail marketers. "Do whatever is in their power to make themselves look like good guys by not using tricks that spammers use, which will in the long run hurt them."

Posted by Enid Burns at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 10, 2008

Murdoch: News Corp. Won't Fight Microsoft for Yahoo

Speaking at the Bear Stearns Media Conference in Florida today, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch put to bed rumors of a possible tie-up with Yahoo, stating, "We're not going to get into a fight with Microsoft, they have a lot more money than us."

He went on to say that Yahoo had "missed out" in the search arena by failing to invest in Overture quickly enough after acquiring it in 2003. He added "We're very happy to be in the Google camp; they sell our search advertising and pay us well for it."

Speaking further on social networks, Murdoch said that existing sites should attempt to introduce social aspects to their offerings. He suggested that News Corp. may attempt something along the social network lines with its Wall Street Journal site, and that users would be "interested to talk to each other about their investments."

When asked about future deals, Murdoch said he was not looking for big acquisitions, but may be tempted into some smaller ones. He added that he was cautious of the high price tags assigned to online properties at present, and that it would be "very easy to throw away a lot of money on Internet sites."

Regarding the current financial climate, News Corp. is apparently in "good shape" to face a weakened economy, having reduced its dependency on advertising from 41 percent to 23 percent of revenue.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 5, 2008

Could Time Warner Come to Yahoo's Rescue?

Yahoo, which rejected Microsoft's bid to acquire the firm, may be looking east for its future.

Quoting unnamed sources, WSJ.com reports today Yahoo is in talks with TIme Warner, based in New York City, over developing an alternative to Microsoft's unsolicited offer for Yahoo. Specifically, the report says, discussion is centered on folding Time Wartner's AOL into Yahoo and giving Time Warner a minority stake in the combined organization.

Yahoo rejected Microsoft's bid, complaining that it undervalued the Silicon Valley company.

Earlier speculation had focused on the possibility of News Corp. making an offer for Yahoo. WSJ.com, quoting unnamed sources, said these talks are continuing separately.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 21, 2008

B'lo News and Others Join Yahoo Newspaper Group

Finally I have a truly personal connection with the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium. The paper used to deliver, trudging through lake effect snow, fingers numb as I struggled to add inserts to already gigantic Sunday editions, has finally joined Yahoo's exponentially growing group of publisher partners: The Buffalo News. Well, the online edition, anyway.

Yahoo announced it’s added four new publisher partners including the B’lo News, Shaw Newspapers, Times Publishing Company and the Columbian Publishing Company. Shaw adds 25 dailies covering northern Illinois and Iowa, Times adds Pennsylvania’s The Erie Times News, and Columbian adds The Columbian of Vancouver, WA. That brings Yahoo’s total to 634 papers, including 425 dailies.

The deals aren’t all the same though. The Times and Columbian appear only to be doing the HotJobs co-branding thing. Meanwhile The Buffalo News and thirteen of the Shaw sites are going for the whole shebang, integrating HotJobs as well as adding what Yahoo’s calling “Core Services,” meaning they’ll add Yahoo Search to their sites, and sell Yahoo inventory to their local advertisers as Yahoo has access to their inventory for national advertisers.

Yahoo said it’s launched co-branded HotJobs sites “serving more than 425 U.S. newspapers,” and features Yahoo Search on 126 newspapers. It also said it’s begun the initial phase of ad cross-sales, “with the sales staffs of several newspapers integrating Yahoo inventory into sales packages for their local advertisers.” I take this to mean the planned display ad partnership has begun. The company said it will expand on that in the coming months, to allow paper partners to target specific audience segments.

Note the guy quoted in the press release is Jay Smith, President of Cox Newspapers, stating, "We're in the infancy of a relationship between Yahoo and our newspaper consortium that already exceeds our expectations.”

The reason I call this to attention is Cox was among the names floated when reports of the now official quadrantOne newspaper ad network, launched a week ago by Gannett , Hearst, Tribune, and The New York Times, prematurely surfaced. Cox, however, isn’t a member of this new network – yet anyway. The company apparently has been in discussion with the quadOne people, along with several other publishers, according to a talk I had last week with Tribune Interactive’s Dana Hayes, also quadrantOne Interim CEO.

If anything, this shows Yahoo is, at least on the surface, committed to the consortium project. Whether things remain intact after what seems to be a highly likely Microsoft grab, is anybody's guess.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 15, 2008

Yahoo Body Count: 490 Axed in CA

Of 1,000 employees laid off this week from Yahoo, nearly one half came from the Golden State.

In addition to those laid off, others are voluntarily fleeing the company that's a target of a Microsoft takeover. The layoffs were announced Jan. 29, a few days before Microsoft's $44.6 billion bid.

In California, Yahoo canned 236 workers from its Sunnyvale headquarters, 111 in Burbank, 91 from Santa Clara, 52 in Santa Monica, according to a report in the SF Chronicle. The company's search advertising business is reportedly based in Burbank, while Santa Monica is home to its media properties.

Yahoo hasn't disclosed where other layoffs took place.

A New York labor department spokesman told ClickZ that Yahoo hasn't filed a notice of layoffs in New York. He said a company that lays off more than 50 workers is required to file a notice 60 days in advance. One exception: if the company lays off the workers and gives them 60-day severance.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 14, 2008

Yahoo Angers Shareholders, Attempts to Pacify

That $31 per Yahoo share offer from Microsoft doesn't look so bad to the folks managing The Wayne County Employee's Retirement System of Michigan's investments. Now they're
suing Yahoo in the hopes of getting Yahoo to reconsider the takeover bid. Of course, it could only be a matter of time before Yahoo agrees to a higher Microsoft offer, which would probably please the county system, which apparently owns 13,600 shares of Yahoo.

Then again, Yahoo might sell off a stake to News Corp, or do a search ad deal with Google, or any number of things to fend against an impending Microsoft grab.

In an effort to pacify frustrated shareholders, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang sent a letter to them, rattling off what's become the standard laundry list of reasons why Yahoo still matters, and what the company plans to do to make sure it regains market share. But talk is cheap. Yang repeating the same "starting point, must-buy, open-platform" mantra seems empty without real improvement backing it up. To observers and shareholders, Yahoo could start to look like the lazy brother-in-law who keeps saying he's going to get a job, but somehow is always there on the couch watching ESPN when you get home from yours.

OK, maybe not that bad. The reality is the layoffs are all about (one assumes) belt-tightening, removing redundancy, creating efficiencies and just plain reducing overhead, which could be a good step if the still necessary people don't bail in the process.

But if anything, the people behind the Wayne County suit just might have given a few other governments and shareholders an idea.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 13, 2008

Yahoo Speculation Doesn't Stop

Yahoo was never at that party talking with Google about HGH....

OK, maybe I've got my stories a little confused today, but either way, the Yahoo rumors keep flying. First the scuttlebutt was all about Yahoo and Google revisiting the possibility of Google handling Yahoo's search ad business. Today the Wall Street Journal has a piece about how Google might be souring on that idea, which some believe could make Yahoo look weaker in the eyes of Microsoft or another potential buyer.

Next off, TechCrunch has reported its got confirmation that News Corp is back in talks with Yahoo about a possible deal that would spin off Fox Interactive Media into Yahoo. A News Corp spokesperson told me, "We’re not commenting on this."

During NewsCorp's earnings call last week, chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said, "We're definitely not going to make a bid for Yahoo. We're not really interested at this stage," when asked about the possibility of a News Corp bid for Yahoo. As for whether News Corp is considering an AOL purchase, Murdoch response was curt: "That's an even easier question. No," he said.

Still, Murdoch's response doesn't rule out discussions between the companies or a possible deal or spin off or whatever else they can come up with.

As observers of this tantalizing tale know, Yahoo rejected Microsoft's original bid for the firm, saying it "undervalues" Yahoo's brand, audience and investments. Then Microsoft came back essentially reiterating its initial argument, and implying it'll git git git Yahoo one way or another.

The potential Google search deal would be a crushing blow to Yahoo's ego, but many think it could help the firm survive a Microsoft takeover. An FIM deal could do the same. According to the TechCrunch report, "it is widely believed that, even with a News Corp. deal, Yahoo would need to outsource search marketing to Google to make the numbers work." And that would only add to the regulatory hurdles that could hamper a Google/Yahoo search deal in the first place.

What's more riveting, watching Yahoo twist in the wind, or watching Clemens and McNamee squirm before a House committee?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 12, 2008

Microsoft, Yahoo Anuncian Mobile Deals in Barcelona

At the Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft and Yahoo both made separate announcements touting their mobile offerings.

Yahoo used the show to demonstrate its forthcoming Yahoo oneConnect service for mobile devices using Yahoo Go 3.0 and Yahoo’s new mobile home page, expected to be available in Q2 2008. The oneConnect service will aggregate social network connections from sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, along with news, weather and other alerts. The service will also provide e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging connections.

Separately, Microsoft announced it had signed European mobile publishers L'Equipe, Boursier.com and Autonews in France to its mobile ad platform. The company also said mobile operator Orange picked Microsoft as its ad serving partner for mobile display advertising in Spain. What wasn't clear from the news out of Spain was whether this is a mobile ad management or serving deal only, or whether it will involve ad sales representation.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 11, 2008

Microsoft Still Wants to Get it on with Yahoo...Er...Consummate

It looks like Microsoft doesn't know the meaning of the phrase, "No means no." The firm just responded to Yahoo's snub of its acquisition offer, announced this morning.

"It is unfortunate that Yahoo! has not embraced our full and fair proposal to combine our companies" said the Microsoft statement. "Based on conversations with stakeholders of both companies, we are confident that moving forward promptly to consummate a transaction is in the best interests of all parties."

For some reason, that Meatloaf tune just popped into my head...you know the one with the backseat negotiation scenario? I guess Yahoo needs to know Microsoft will really, truly love it forever.

Microsoft went on to reiterate the case it made when first publicly wooing Yahoo's Board February 1.

But don't expect Microsoft to "sleep on it." In thinly-veiled language, the firm has suggested it won't take no for an answer. "As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal," continued the statement.

It's practically Valentine's Day. You'd think Microsoft would at least try to be a bit more romantic, ya know?

Let's just hope neither of them end up praying for the end of time....

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's Official: Yahoo Rejects Microsoft Bid

Yahoo's board officially rejected Microsoft's $44.6 billion bid, according to a Yahoo statement released today.
"After careful evaluation, the Board believes that Microsoft's proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! including our global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments," the statement reads. The company's board says it's evaluating strategic options, and has retained Goldman, Sachs Co., Lehman Brothers, and Moelis Co. to act as financial advisors.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 4, 2008

Mobile in a Combined Microsoft, Yahoo

In Microsoft's conference call last week discussing its offer to purchase Yahoo for $44.6 billion, mobile was cited as a key asset. Mobile assets combined make a significant footprint in the mobile ecosystem. That's because currently, "there really is no one-thousand pound gorilla in mobile," said Boris Fridman, CEO of Crisp Wireless, in the context of the mobile presence both companies can merge into.

Here's the rundown on Microsoft's mobile universe: Windows Mobile, an operating system with a full suite of productivity software such as Outlook, Word, and Excel, sits at the core of Microsoft's mobile footprint. MSN began advertising on its mobile portal in December, and in the U.K. in January. Its Live Mobile offering, which Sprint uses in a deal with Microsoft, runs pay-per-call ads.

A string of acquisitions including ScreenTonic, Tellme, and MotionBridge bolstered existing properties as well as filled out lacking areas. In a surprising move, Microsoft incubated and then spun off ZenZui, a graphical user interface browsing package, now called Zumobi.

Yahoo has spent time building out its own mobile offering with a multi-platform presence. The search engine began offering keyword-based mobile search ads in fall of 2006. Then it brought out OneSearch the following spring. It also developed a content-driven portal Yahoo Go, which just released a 2.0 version. Sources say Yahoo Go has been perceived as a failure inside the company. Yahoo also brings to the table several relationships with international carriers. In January it signed a deal with T-Mobile U.K., which adds to its existing relationship with competing carrier Vodafone. A separate deal includes relationships with Six carriers in Asia.

If Microsoft and Yahoo's combined mobile presence becomes the 1,000 pound gorilla in mobile, will it be a game-changer? Probably not, according to some industry sources. It will offer a great deal of inventory in multiple formats and in one place. Microsoft can streamline media buying through its global sales force and ad-buying dashboard through its Digital Advertising Solutions Group. It may become the best way to do multi-channel buys, and Microsoft can build mobile network beyond its core sites. It won't take over all of mobile, and pure-play solutions providers in the space may still be the best options for content owners, media buyers, and advertisers looking to build a presence.

Posted by Enid Burns at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 3, 2008

Google Weighs In On Microhoo: It May Be Evil

David Drummond, Google SVP corporate development and chief legal officer, issued the company's official response to Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Yahoo this afternoon. Essentially, Google's position is combining its two main competitors could be bad for the Internet...even border on evil.

Drummond says in the official Google statement:

"It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.

"Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.

"Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft -- despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses -- to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet? In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services? Policymakers around the world need to ask these questions -- and consumers deserve satisfying answers.

"This hostile bid was announced on Friday so there is plenty of time for these questions to be thoroughly addressed. We take Internet openness, choice and innovation seriously. They are the core of our culture. We believe that the interests of Internet users come first -- and should come first -- as the merits of this proposed acquisition are examined and alternatives explored."

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 1, 2008

Ad Network Integration: Can Microsoft Hack It?

The audience consolidation under a combined Yahoo/Microsoft would be extraordinary, and the integration job extraordinarily complex. The merged entity would combine portals MSN and Yahoo, plus BlueLithium, Right Media, aQuantive's DrivePM, adECN, mobile network Screen Tonic, game network Massive, and both parties' expanding network relationships with the likes of Viacom, Facebook, Digg, CNBC and Wall Street Journal Digital. Crazy right?

I just got off the phone with a few agency execs, trying to gauge their reaction to the deal from a media buying/planning perspective. More on that later, but on the topic of integration the consensus is that Yahoo's done a much better job absorbing recent acquisitions (BlueLithium, Right Media) into its existing ad sales operations than Microsoft has (AdECN, aQuantive's DrivePM).

Much of Yahoo's success with ad integrations has to do with its ingrained understanding of what advertisers want. It'll take humility for Microsoft, which still doesn't really speak the language of Madison Avenue, to let that sales savvy rub off on it -- to say to Yahoo, "You're the ad expert. You tell us what to do."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft Wants to Buy Yahoo: Convergence, Continued

There have been rumors of late about some sort of Microsoft/Yahoo hookup -- and here it is. Microsoft just tendered a $31/share bid for Yahoo. All of Yahoo.

It's about the advertising. From the press release: "The online advertising market is growing at a very fast pace, from over $40 billion in 2007 to nearly $80 billion by 2010. The resulting benefits of scale along with the associated capital costs for advertising platform providers make this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today this market is increasingly dominated by one player. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a competitive choice while better fulfilling the needs of customers and partners."

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO said in a statement: "We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market."

After the jump, Ballmer's letter to Yahoo board members. We'll be following developments closely, promise.

Board of Directors
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Attention: Roy Bostock, Chairman
Attention: Jerry Yang, Chief Executive Officer

Dear Members of the Board:

I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft's closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.

Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008. The implied premium for the operating assets of the company clearly is considerably greater when adjusted for the minority, non-controlled assets and cash. By whatever financial measure you use - EBITDA, free cash flow, operating cash flow, net income, or analyst target prices - this proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.

We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!'s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years. Microsoft's share price has generated shareholder returns of 8% during the last one year period and 28% during the last three year period, significantly outperforming the S&P 500. It is our view that Microsoft has significant potential upside given the continued solid growth in our core businesses, the recent launch of Windows Vista, and other strategic initiatives.

Microsoft's consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.

In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that "now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction." According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board's confidence in the "potential upside" if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.

While online advertising growth continues, there are significant benefits of scale in advertising platform economics, in capital costs for search index build-out, and in research and development, making this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Synergies of this combination fall into four areas:

-- Scale economics: This combination enables synergies related to scale
economics of the advertising platform where today there is only one
competitor at scale. This includes synergies across both search and
non-search related advertising that will strengthen the value
proposition to both advertisers and publishers. Additionally, the
combination allows us to consolidate capital spending.
-- Expanded R&D capacity: The combined talent of our engineering
resources can be focused on R&D priorities such as a single search
index and single advertising platform. Together we can unleash new
levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences,
breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities.
Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that
today neither of our companies has on its own.
-- Operational efficiencies: Eliminating redundant infrastructure and
duplicative operating costs will improve the financial performance of
the combined entity.
-- Emerging user experiences: Our combined ability to focus engineering
resources that drive innovation in emerging scenarios such as video,
mobile services, online commerce, social media, and social platforms is
greatly enhanced.

We would value the opportunity to further discuss with you how to optimize the integration of our respective businesses to create a leading global technology company with exceptional display and search advertising capabilities. You should also be aware that we intend to offer significant retention packages to your engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.

We have dedicated considerable time and resources to an analysis of a potential transaction and are confident that the combination will receive all necessary regulatory approvals. We look forward to discussing this with you, and both our internal legal team and outside counsel are available to meet with your counsel at their earliest convenience.

Our proposal is subject to the negotiation of a definitive merger agreement and our having the opportunity to conduct certain limited and confirmatory due diligence. In addition, because a portion of the aggregate merger consideration would consist of Microsoft common stock, we would provide Yahoo! the opportunity to conduct appropriate limited due diligence with respect to Microsoft. We are prepared to deliver a draft merger agreement to you and begin discussions immediately.

In light of the significance of this proposal to your shareholders and ours, as well as the potential for selective disclosures, our intention is to publicly release the text of this letter tomorrow morning.

Due to the importance of these discussions and the value represented by our proposal, we expect the Yahoo! Board to engage in a full review of our proposal. My leadership team and I would be happy to make ourselves available to meet with you and your Board at your earliest convenience. Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!'s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.

We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity to create significant value for Yahoo!'s shareholders and employees, and the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers. We hope that you and your Board share our enthusiasm, and we look forward to a prompt and favorable reply.

Sincerely yours,

Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 6:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 24, 2008

Last.fm and Yahoo Ad-Funded Music Could Signal Things to Come

Yesterday, Last.fm revealed a new direction for its online music service – a free, ad-funded on-demand streaming platform. The new site will enable users to simply enter artist or track details, and stream full-length, high-quality music of their choice directly to their computers.

What's the catch? Well, at present you can only listen to each track three times, although this could be extended according to Last.fm execs.

The platform will be funded solely through advertising, which will appear alongside every song. Apparently even without a user login, ads will be targeted using data that the site has accumulated in the years it has already been live.

Labels and artists will receive royalties per listen, so the more popular a track, the more revenue it will generate. The system is also open to unsigned artists that can upload their music to the site, potentially removing the labels from the loop entirely.

News reports today suggest that Yahoo is also in early discussions with labels, perhaps with a view to offering MP3s for download as part of an ad-supported model. Meanwhile various other companies are experimenting with similar formats. For example, British company We7 currently offers full length MP3 downloads with "pre-roll' audio ads before each track.

Perhaps the most interesting side of all this is the acceptance of the model from the music industry. All four major record labels have signed up to the Last.fm service, as well as 150,000 independents.

As labels dig desperately to find new revenue models, therefore, it appears that ad-funded digital downloads could represent the future of the industry. The biggest worry for the labels however, is that they may eventually find themselves out in the cold entirely, as the opportunities grow for artists to generate profit directly from ad-funded sites.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 22, 2008

Ad Sales and Ops Jobs Could Figure Into Yahoo Layoffs

Reports that Yahoo will shortly lay off several hundred staffers should come as no surprise to those of us who have tracked the company over the past year (See ClickZ's recent coverage linked below). CEO Jerry Yang foreshadowed this moment during his very first earnings call in July when he promised change at the company. And he more recently reinforced that promise with his October declaration that Yahoo would narrow its focus to become a "starting point" for consumers and a powerful Web-wide inventory source for advertisers.

Reading between the lines, one spin on those comments goes like this: Content operations jobs are going away, and by the way, we'll be eliminating the walls (and redundancies) between our ad network holdings.

If that interpretation has any merit, many ad sales and operations folks at BlueLithium, Right Media and its in-house network sales group might be getting pink slips for Valentine's Day. If I were a betting man I'd put money on it. After all, back in September Jupiter analyst Emily Riley told ClickZ Yahoo was "considering merging and retraining sales teams" and "centralizing sales efforts" across all its acquired properties.

Related:

Yahoo Shows Signs of Display Ad Growth in Q3, Builds Publisher Network
Yahoo's Exec Departures: Brain Drain or Natural Exodus?
Yahoo Buys BlueLithium, Dreaming of Network Dominance
Yahoo's Yang Promises Changes Following Q2 Earnings Talk

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 10, 2007

Stumbling Upon Gaptidings in Action

Last week walking around Soho during lunch someone on a street corner asked, "Do you want to send a video holiday greeting?" I had a loose agenda of holiday shopping, so my immediate reaction: "No." But then I turned around to see a truck skinned in the Gap's "crazy stripe" pattern and realized it was a Gap promotion with work from yahoo for the Gaptidings campaign we published today.

Click the present to see my greeting to ClickZ readers. Of course the truck's generator competed with me and won, I think.

Posted by Enid Burns at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 9, 2007

NYDailyNews Latest to Join Yahoo Newspaper Partnership

If anything can save the foundering newspaper industry, it's bound to be digital advertising, but publishers continue to struggle with the big questions: who will work with whom and how?

Well, if its success in partnering with paper publishers is any indication, the winds are swaying in Yahoo's direction. The company just signed the New York Daily News to its roster of paper site partners. It's the largest newspaper to join the growing consortium, now up to 21 publishers. While Yahoo first is integrating its HotJobs recruitment listings with the local listings seen on its partners' sites, the eventual goal is for Yahoo to sell and manage the national ads running on their sites.

Even some of Yahoo's current partners are keeping options open. Gannett and Tribune reportedly have been in talks with some newspaper publishers already in bed with Yahoo -- Hearst Corp., Media News Group and Cox Newspapers -- in the hopes of getting an ad network, which seems to be stuck in neutral, off and running.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 25, 2007

Cammie Dunaway Wants You...

...to play video games, if you don't already, that is.

Oh, and they have to be on a Nintendo device. After announcing her departure from Yahoo last week, Dunaway told the New York Times she'll be the new EVP for sales and marketing at Nintendo of America, starting Nov. 5.

Anybody recall about a year ago Yahoo launched the first of its "brand universes" for none other than Nintendo Wii? I'm not sure how much connection with the client Dunaway has had as Yahoo CMO, but you can't help but wonder.

Dunaway's been accused of "bleeding purple," the jab often used to describe brainwashed Yahoo execs. But it looks as though she's already become a Nintendo loyalist, or at least a video game evangelist.

She told the NY Times she aims to "make gaming relevant whether you’re 5 or 95," and noted, "there are still a lot of people to be converted."

Yikes.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 1, 2007

Telefonica's Global Search Partners

Madrid-based Telefonica's been busy. Today it said it will partner with Yahoo to bring the search engine's OneSearch, which was launched earlier this year to its users in Ireland, Latin America, and the U.K. Those users will also have access to news, financial information, weather conditions, Flickr photos, Web images, and Web and mobile Web sites. They'll also have access to Yahoo Mail.

Just last week Telefonica and JumpTap announced a deal to enable JumpTap's search capabilities for music, images, and games channels. This service is available to users in Spain, the mobile phone company's home country. JumpTap said it makes Telefonica the first operator in Spain to bring a complete search and advertising solution to the mobile screen.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 27, 2007

Yahoo Scoring More Political Cash than Ever

Yahoo says it's already collected more ad dollars from presidential campaigns this early on in the '08 election than altogether in any other election season. That's according to Richard Kosinski, Yahoo VP of Political Advertising, who told this week's "Presidential Campaigning" panel at IAB's MIXX conference, "We've seen more revenue now than we have in any election."

Still, he lamented the fact that, by his estimates, political campaigns are putting just 1 percent of their ad budgets on the Web. Indeed, they're using all the free social media platforms out there -- from Facebook to YouTube to Flickr -- to get messages out online.

"If you look at it from a paid side we have a lot of work to do," he added.

Readers following ClickZ's unique data-driven coverage of the presidential campaigns may note the fact that Nielsen/NetRatings AdRelevance hasn't picked up on any ads for presidential campaigns running on Yahoo. Stay tuned to this site for evidence that the candidates are buying on Yahoo.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 30, 2007

Hey Yahoo: Who's on First?

Following several recent departures from the Web publishing giant, Yahoo Media Group CFO Mike Weetman has left the firm to serve as COO for small production outfit BermanBraun, a company founded by ex-Yahoo Media Group head Lloyd Braun. Also this month Media Group exec Geraldine Martin-Coppola ditched Yahoo for a gig as head of interactive for BermanBraun.

According to AdWeek, Weetman will also serve as CFO and head of business development at his new digs.

Of course, all this comes as Yahoo, yet again, announced another deck shuffle. The latest one involves the introduction of a Global Partner Solutions division to handle ad formats and sizes, marketing and other ad related stuff, along with the departure of senior exec Greg Coleman. Yahoo Publisher Network head Hilary Schneider will lead the new division. She, too, has seen a change or two to her title since she started with the firm.

The fact that the company continues to switch up its lineup as senior staffers exit indicates it's focused on change. Of course, to observers -- and I'm sure people working within all these morphing departments -- it's becoming a little too reminiscent of that old Abbott and Costello bit.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 21, 2007

Yahoo Search Maketing Adds Quality Score Alerts, PayPal Billing

At SES yesterday, Yahoo introduced some new features for Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers. They include adding PayPal as a payment option, the introduction of a quality score alert system that notifies individual advertisers when their score drops, and enhancing the ad creation process. The latter group of changes includes these items, taken verbatim from the company's announcement:

* Advertisers will be able to create, edit, copy, delete and view all saved ads (up to 20) for an ad group and in one place. And view the performance of their ads against one another with one click.

* Additionally, advertisers will be able to view examples of ads using selected keywords. A best practices tip sheet will be available to view directly in the interface.

* Lastly, once a new ad is created, advertisers will be prompted to create another one. Creating a second ad activates ad testing, which allows advertisers to compare how ads in a specific ad group are performing against one another in order to help improve quality index score.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 16, 2007

UPDATE: Philly.com Addition to Yahoo Newspaper Group No Surprise

When ClickZ News asked newly-hired Philly.com president Eric Grilly in March whether the site's parent company Philadelphia Media Holdings would be the next to join the Yahoo newspaper consortium, he answered, "Stay tuned."

Well, now it's official, and not especially surprising to close observers of the growing paper partnership, which now includes 19 paper publishers of almost 400 newspapers, according to Yahoo. While most other publisher partners have started out pushing Yahoo's HotJobs recruitment classifieds across the newspaper sites, and including their own job ads in the HotJobs database, Philly.com will not be integrating HotJobs listings.

Indeed, Philly's already tied to Monster. The two firms launched a co-branded job search and recruitment site last summer. Until then, Philly.com's job classifieds were powered by Monster rival CareerBuilder.

A Yahoo spokesperson told me the Yahoo/Philly.com deal was just signed, and Philly has agreed to use Yahoo's "core services." That means the publisher will integrate Yahoo's display ad platform on its site and sell inventory through Yahoo's national advertising sales force. It will also enable Yahoo paid search on Philly.com, and push its own local content out on Yahoo.

Other recent additions are New York's GateHouse Media, Paxton Media Group covering the South and Midwest, The Tribune Review Publishing Company, publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Connecticut's The Day Publishing Company.

Former president and CEO of MediaNews Group Interactive, Grilly played an instrumental role in developing the ad distribution deal between Yahoo and an initial set of newspaper publishers. When we spoke in March, Grilly said he planned on helping finalize contractual negotiations for the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium before departing MediaNews Group.

Because the paper group was a pet project of Grilly's I'll bet Philly.com will be among the early adopters of future Yahoo integration.

Please note this post was updated to reflect the fact that Philly.com will not integrate Yahoo's HotJobs listings on its site.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 13, 2007

Speculation on Yahoo's Search Plans Abounds

A Web rumor of late has Yahoo selling off its search business, possibly even to its adversary Google.

It's not surprising that Yahoo would consider giving up on search, considering Google has the most market share in that ever-important category. Plus, over the years Yahoo has focused more and more on its media offerings, and has put much emphasis on developing its Panama ad management technology. Indeed, the company seems to be aiming to manage display ads for other publishers, and selling their inventory to national advertisers.

If Yahoo were to sell off its search technology and related contracts, surely other firms besides Google would be interested. However, if Google ever does agree to buy that business, one would expect the Federal Trade Commission, consumer advocates and firms like IAC's Ask.com and Microsoft to raise eyebrows. After all, if Yahoo's search contracts were to go to Google, the firm would have much even more defined control of the search market.

There's been so much speculation about Yahoo over the past year or so, I guess we can add this one to the pool of what-ifs.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 25, 2007

Jerry Shereshewsky Exits Yahoo, Takes Reins at Grandparents.com

Another executive from Yahoo's old guard has walked.

Jerry Shereshewsky held the exalted title of Ambassador Plenipotentiary to Madison Ave in the company's ad sales group under recently departed CSO Wenda Harris Millard. He's joining boomer social networking and media play Grandparents.com as CEO, with the goal of turning the twice-weekly newsletter into a robust destination for tech-savvy codgers. Here's what he wrote in an e-mail to colleagues announcing the move:

Why would I leave Yahoo after almost 9 years and what has been described as “the best job in the business”? It’s quite simple, actually. I could not resist the challenge to help build the premier (not to mention first and only) web business designed to help grandparents do their jobs better... If your brand or business or client could benefit from a relationship with this audience, you should immediately pick up the phone and call me (or email me, or send a carrier pigeon or owl).

Shereshewsky is also CMO of venture capital firm Laser Partners, an investor in Grandparents.com. He said the site will launch in beta shortly.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 3, 2007

Talkin' Yahoo on NPR Today

National Public Radio's All Things Considered asked me to discuss Yahoo on this evening's program.

Topics Laura Sydell raised include the company's ability to compete with Google, its ability to overhaul its ad sales operations, and the overall online advertising climate in terms of search, display advertising and audience.

Check your local listing and give it a listen if you're near a radio or Web steam, or download the podcast later on.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 5, 2007

Kinder Replaces Finnegan at HotJobs, New Title for Schneider?

Less than three weeks after SVP and GM of Yahoo HotJobs Dan Finnegan announced he'd part ways with the firm, Yahoo has hired on former SVP for Cendant's Travelport unit Jeff Kinder for the same role. Kinder will report directly to Hilary Schneider, EVP of Yahoo's Local Markets and Commerce and Publisher Network divisions. Travelport owns Orbitz and CheapTickets.

According to a Yahoo press release, "Kinder will lead all aspects of the Yahoo! HotJobs business, including sales, product, marketing and engineering and will interact with executive level management to drive long-term growth plans and strategies."

While Finnegan had a newspaper background like Schneider, having been replaced by her at Knight Ridder, Kinder hails from one with more connections to the travel world, in addition to real estate -- which ties in a bit more snugly with the classifieds space.

Finnegan evidently was the main man at Yahoo behind the newspaper consortium. An interesting thing to note here is it looks as though Schneider's title has changed from SVP of its Marketplaces unit (i.e. classifieds) to EVP of Yahoo's Local Markets and Commerce and Publisher Network divisions. So, I guess we can assume she'll be closely involved with the newspaper partners, as was also evinced by her appearance at the annual Newspaper Association of America Conference last month.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 9, 2007

Yahoo Shuts Down Points Program

Online loyalty and rewards programs are dying a slow death. The latest fruit to shrivel on this once-thriving vine is Yahoo Points, a program that lets people earn points by completing surveys, buying crap with a Yahoo Visa credit card, and performing other Yahoo-related activities I admit to being a little foggy on. These could be cashed in with various online vendors or donated to charity.

Last week Visa cardholders were told their accounts would no longer be hitched to Yahoo's rewards programs, and late last night Yahoo sent an e-mail out to all Points members letting them know the program would be discontinued this summer. When I reached out to ask why the company was shutting it down, Yahoo issued the following terse statement: "We made a decision to close the Yahoo! Points program as it was no longer aligned with our key business focus and corporate mission."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 26, 2007

Panama Projects Up

Since the release of Yahoo's advertising system, Panama Project, there's been a nice lift in click-through rates. The first week saw a 5 percent increase, and 9 percent the following week. That's according to data released by comScore. Search Engine Watch has a few more details.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 23, 2007

Oscar Time: Yahoo Adds Rich Shortcuts to Movie Search Results

To capitalize on Oscar-related searches, Yahoo has rolled out enhanced movie listings in its results pages. New shortcuts for movie queries appear at the top of organic listings and offer nuggets like reviewer ratings, showtimes and direct links to trailers. Google launched a similar enhanced movie listings two years ago, to the day actually.

Also appropriate to the movie awards season, Yahoo! Answers has posted questions from Sid Ganis, president of the Academy, and Bruce Vilanch, writer for this year’s awards ceremony.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 8, 2007

Yahoo Prepares "Infront" Event to Upstage TV Upfront

This post has been updated.

Wenda Harris Millard sees her organization as warring with the media brokers at traditional companies like CBS, News Corp. and Viacom -- and with the simplistic models they're porting over to the Web.

"My concern is, as traditional companies continue to bundle their digital assets with the traditional assets and sell those to their [traditional TV advertisers], that the dialog is not substantial and is therefore reduced to price," she said yesterday during a session at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit yesterday. "And our precious industry is commoditized before it ever got born."

To prevent that outcome, Millard is planning an "Infront" event in New York to educate traditional media buyers and others on the complexities and possibilities of digital campaign planning.

"What I decided to do was get in front of the upfront. As long as people who have experience in other media are going to begin to buy digital, [they need] to understand what it is that they can buy and what it is that they do buy."

I'm still waiting on an invite to this thing, and will try to post more details when I get them.

Wenda promises the "very large" event will eschew Yahoo boosterism, and she's not necessarily trying to trash the TV upfront.

"The economic model that defines the television upfront is all about a scarcity of inventory that's desire d by 200 to 250 advertisers," she said. "For all its faults, there's a co-dependency that makes a certain amount of sense."

A Yahoo upfront, she said, wouldn't make sense because the same dynamics of scarcity aren't present. "We have hundreds of thousands of advertisers. There's no economic model that would justify it. What we're doing is not an upfront. It's not a Yahoo sales message. I mean, of course it is, because I'm sponsoring it, [but] education is a huge part of what we still need to do in digital."

Update: So this turns out to be the same event as Yahoo's Broadband on Broadway showcase next Tuesday, which I've already registered for. Nothing new to see here folks. In fact, the discussion of a new event being staged in response to the TV upfront seems a cynical attempt to drive news coverage of something that's not really new at all. In that case it was quite successful.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 19, 2007

Vertical Search Auctions on Portals Coming Soon?

Will keyword bidding on Yahoo and MSN -- the search players with portals -- soon be carved into optional, more expensive vertical niches? It appears so.

At a lunch Yahoo threw this week to announce its new personal finance section , I asked a number of Yahoo executives if they'd considered a marketplace in which, say, a financial advertiser could bid for two tiers of keywords: one on Yahoo Search, and another higher bid for contextual search ads appearing only on search results within the personal finance section.

"It's certainly something we looked at," said Tanya Singer, director of product development, who spearheaded the project.

That amounts almost to a confession. With the recent introduction of Panama on the Yahoo side, and upgrades scheduled for MSN's auctionplace interface, the content portals would have to be nuts not to consider enabling more vertical SEM buys.

Google's not a portal, but it could certainly play along with buys aimed at specific sections such as Book Search or local, though that's a mushier landscape given the precision to which a local buy can already be targeted.

The end effect would be more targeted advertising, to be sure. But also more complicated search advertising, which only the more sophisticated clients are ready for. SEMs would also have to rush to tweak their proprietary bid management and metrics applications.

Still, it seems the move is inevitable. The only question is, when? Yahoo's promised to get back to me on this.

I'll keep you posted.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 4, 2007

Paid Clicks: What's in the Sausage?

The season of Web marketing food analogies continues.

If you're following the click fraud debate, you should have a look at The Sausage Manifesto, a minor treatise on click fraud addressed to the big PPC networks. Written by Jeffrey Rohrs, president and chief strategist for Optiem, the piece is constructed as an open letter from Web advertisers to Google, Yahoo and others, whom it contends are not vested in eliminating the problem and therefore choose not to acknowledge its scope. Rohr makes several requests to the PPC networks, including "Talk, Don't Lecture" and "Light a Fire Under the IAB."

Following the sausage trail, Search Engine Watch yesterday reached out to Shuman Ghosemajumder, who heads click quality at Google, to get his response to the manifesto. That post is also worth a read.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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