The point of this write up is that an azure chip consulting firm in the business of recruiting blue-chip or maybe azure chip executives defended itself and its professionalism. Here’s the passage in the “real” news story I noted:

[Scott] Thompson [the CEO with the flub on his bio] did not name the firm, but he was clearly referring to Heidrick & Struggles, which handled that placement. It was also working on the Yahoo CEO search, after the Silicon Valley Internet giant fired its former CEO Carol Bartz last fall. But, because it had originally placed Thompson at eBay, the firm did not work on his hiring at Yahoo.

Ah, the same firm—Heidrick & Struggles–was involved with eBay and Yahoo. Some questions:

1. What did the headhunting firm have in its files about Mr. Thompson? Perhaps an “old” version of Mr. Thomson’s curriculum vitae?
2. Did anyone request a transcript from Mr. Thompson’s college? If so, who and when? What did the transcript reveal?
3. Why did the azure chip consulting firm write a letter without some hard data. I have been in meetings in which highly paid consultants armed with stacks of “facts”, clippings, data, and interview notes. Why not present some of this information?

A mistake happened somewhere along the line. As a curious type of person, I was hoping for some more substance to what is a most interesting affair. Oh, I graduated from Bradley University with a major in poetry. Now I am an addled goose floating in a pond filled with mine run off. Iambic pentameter or perhaps something with a Catullus dactylic Hexameter. I should have applied for a job at eBay or Yahoo in my youth. Engineers, MBAs, accountants, and movie moguls have not fared particularly well. A spondee to you, gentle reader. A struggle one might say.

Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2012

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Yahoo has used similar timing to its advantage in the past. Google agreed to issue shares to Yahoo nine days before Google went public in 2004 in exchange for a license to Yahoo’s patents. Google later took a $201 million non-cash charge related to the transaction. In deciding to sue Facebook, Yahoo has retained the same law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, used by Google and other manufacturers in many Android-related smartphone patent cases. Google is a player in social media with its Google+ service.

I recall to run up to Google’s initial public offering. Yahoo sued the Google. My recollection is that the allegations were related to Google’s advertising system and method. Yahoo obtained some know how when it purchased Overture. I think the Google spit out more than $200 million make the legal matter go away.

Here’s how I interpreted the Yahoo action. Yahoo sued Google for alleged infringement of the systems and methods for online advertising. Facebook has lots of Xooglers. Facebook developed online advertising. Therefore, maybe some Xooglers may ispired Yahoo’s action. I call this “where there are Xooglers, there is the possibility of intellectual fire.”

Those friendly, halcyon days in plastic fantastic land are now forever gone. Sniff. I smell a fire in the valley.

Stephen E Arnold, March 13, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

Installed January 9, Scott Thompson is Yahoo’s newest captain. The article reports:

Thompson, who was previously president of eBay’s PayPal unit, might be Yahoo’s last hope for becoming relevant again as a player in online display advertising, a market which the media company once dominated. Private equity firms and others — such as Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.com — had recently been showing an interest in buying Yahoo, which had been evaluating a number of strategic options.

The company’s challenges revolve around an identity crisis, asserts the write up. Could the frequent leadership turnover has anything to do with that?

With his technical background, Thompson is a unique choice for the Yahoo CEO chair. Perhaps that will help him succeed where others have not. A priority for the new boss, he has said, is to balance customer and merchant needs, something he worked on at PayPal.

How does the new Yahoo CEO deal with sagging revenues? Navigate to “Flickr Lays Off Highest Level of Customer Support.” We learned:

Yahoo has laid off at least five employees at Flickr, including the highest level of customer support: the people who fix bugs like the mistake that obliterated power user Mirco Wilhelm’s 3,400-odd photos last year.

Thompson will have to take more substantive action if the company hopes to catch up with outfits like Facebook and Google. Investors and users are unhappy, so the great turn-around may have a narrow window.

Cynthia Murrell, February 4m 2912

Sponsored by Pandia.com

[The API’s] aim is to rank content by overall relevance, point to particular Wikipedia pages and annotate the results with extensive meta-data. The service is available as a Yahoo Query Language (YQL) table and more information can be found here. You can try out a sample query request and see the XML code that is returned in response, as well as documentation for the particular fields that are part of the interface.

Developed for internal use, the API is now fair game for any developer familiar with YQL. A couple of interesting points: key terms can be extracted from the content stream for ranking purposes. Also, content can be mapped to the Yahoo taxonomy. English and Chinese are currently supported, but more may become available.

Well, Yahoo, perhaps it is better late than never. We are not sure which company warrants close observation: Hewlett Packard, Research in Motion or Yahoo. Toss up maybe?

Cynthia Murrell, January 4, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

The private-equity firm Silver Lake in addition to China’s Alibaba Group and Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies are reportedly considering a joint bid for Yahoo.

We learned about the potential opposition to this deal from the article:

Regulators may oppose foreign ownership of a company such as Yahoo, which plays a crucial role in U.S. communications through the delivery of e-mail and instant messaging. The company also serves as the second-largest U.S. search engine, through a partnership with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) The deal would face tax implications as well because of Yahoo’s stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan Corp. (4689), one person said.

The whole deal is very much up in the air at this point. After the recent firing of CEO Carol Burtz last month, Yahoo plans on evaluating their current plan.

Additionally, it has been reported that the group is not even certain if they will make a bid.

Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma sees it in his best interest to buy Yahoo because Yahoo currently has a 40% stake in Alibaba. It would be interesting to hear about the motivations from the other two companies.

Megan Feil, October 12, 2011

And image search? We’re confused about Flickr. And in a much-needed effort to stay in the game, Yahoo has increased its image search functions. Search Engine Watch profiles the newest upgrade to Yahoo in, “Yahoo Launches Enhanced Image Search.”

Yahoo has announced a new image search that matches recent enhancement to Google and Bing. Yahoo’s new image presentation also allows for easy searching of galleries, a connection to your friends’ Facebook images, and easy navigation of full-sized images.

It boils down to whether anyone cares, and we are not sure that they do. Innovative in the beginning, Yahoo’s indexing set them apart, encouraging use by the librarian set who appreciated a more structured layout. Now Yahoo is relegated to a position of keeping up, mainly with Bing and Google. While the image features might be highly innovative, we are not sure that Yahoo still has the clout the pull in users to explore those features, or even stumble upon them.

Emily Rae Aldridge, September 20, 2011

Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search

The moral of the story: how do you know a company is lying about something potentially damaging, even (and perhaps especially) in an official capacity? If their mouths are moving.

Too bad for Ms. Bartz, Yahoo stakeholders, and, I think, for AOL’s Xoogler boss. Here’s why:

1. AOL has Ms Huffington, who may look like a way to fix the wandering AOL
2. Yahoo had a female CEO, and AOL may think that it can emulate Yahoo with better results following its lead in management selection
3. With new brass at the top of these me-too companies, someone might think merging the outfits will make a winner, an idea which the Xoogler has not acted upon

My view. Time is running out for both Yahoo and AOL.

Stephen E Arnold, September 7, 2011

Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search

 How search engines determine ranking is a closely guarded secret, a series of algorithms that can make or break websites, depending on where they fall in the rankings. This is precisely what ShopCity is complaining about. According to the small company, Google is ‘manually monkeying’ with the rankings in order for ShopCity sites to appear lower than Google owned competing sites.

 Google asserts that ShopCity sites are low in the ranking because…well, they are basically bad sites. While ShopCity admits they are still working on building several of their sites (meaning they know their sites are rotten), many of the sites in the Bay Area, like ShopPaloAlto and ShopPleasanton, are alive and stuffed full of helpful and legitimate information. They believe those sites should be higher up in the rankings, as they are on Yahoo!

“Search industry expert Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, said such suspicions about a site as small as ShopPaloAlto.com are “ludicrous. If that was what (Google) was worried about, you would never find Yelp,” a formidable competitor for Google that offers restaurant reviews and business listings, Sullivan said. But Sullivan said Google should be able to differentiate between higher-quality ShopCity sites such as the Bay Area sites, and placeholder sites waiting until ShopCity makes partnerships with local groups for listings.”

 Is ShopCity going to be just another flea on Google’s back, or will something come from their claims? Coincidentally, after the FTC inquiry was announced, ShopCity’s Bay Area sites jumped in Google rankings, causing a 400% increase in traffic, but then plummeted back to page seven of search results after only three weeks. A Google imposed penalty for outside complaints if the official explanation.

 Catherine Lamsfuss, August 5, 2011

Sponsored by Quasar CA, your source for informed financial advisory services

“One of the most clear things is that the search alliance will become less costly once it’s complete. At that point, Yahoo will be able to drop its back-end support in countries where Microsoft hasn’t yet taken the reigns, and transition costs will no longer be deducted from the total company income. So it’s good news for Yahoo that the transition to Microsoft has completed in another six regions.”

Argentina, Chile, Colombia, New Zealand, Peru, and Venezuela are the new areas, while more in Europe and Asia are on their way. Yahoo search is being customized for each region. Full migration should be completed by the end of this year.

The company’s second quarter earnings report confirms that these transitions are crucial to the its bottom line. Bing has been in the news lately, but we think that Bing will persist for the foreseeable future. Microsoft cannot concede search advertising to the Google—at least not yet.

Cynthia Murrell, August 4, 2011

Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search

Top of the list is the ability for developers to specify their daily usage limits. You can now specify a daily dollar limit for your service consumption and you can modify that as needed. This is especially important in a paid service since developers might not be prepared for an increased bill in case of a sudden spike in usage.

The fee structure was detailed back in February 2011 by Juan Carlos Perez in “Yahoo Sets Fees for BOSS Search Developer Program” at PCWorld:

The top-tier option, called Full Web, includes result links to general Web pages, images and news articles, and will cost US$0.80 per 1,000 queries, Yahoo said on Tuesday. A less expensive tier, Limited Web, will draw its results from a smaller index that isn’t refreshed as often as the one Full Web uses and costs $0.40 per 1,000 queries. Yahoo will also offer developers options for an image-only index ($0.30 per 1,000 queries) and for a news article-only index ($0.10 per 1,000 queries).

So, if you have apps that rely on BOSS V1, be sure to transition right away. I did a quick check of my list of sites using BOSS. Cluuz.com was alive and ticking. The others. Flatlined.

Cynthia Murrell July 13, 2011

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