"Happy Birthday to me! One year! Happy birthday to Jerry and David -- 15!"
Yahoo! is turning 15 years old, with a big party -- well, balloons and candy everywhere -- at the company HQ. Chief executive Carol Bartz is speaking at a commemorative luncheon with reporters (and you thought you knew how to have fun.) Here are some highlights:
About the possible sale of Yahoo: "I was on (CNBC's) 'Power Lunch earlier today -- they kept asking me if the company was for sale -- come on, the company is not for sale," she said. "Then, they asked me at what price the company would be for sale." She shrugged.
About Google's closer scrutiny by various governments -- "For the most part, markets work. I don't wish antitrust on anybody...I am not going to go on record with any Google antitrust."
Mobile: "We're neck and neck with Google as far as mobile users. Our strategic difference, it's about running on the major platforms and having a good experience on feature phones so we can go into emerging countries....most of the advertisers really want to experiment with mobile...mobile revenues for everybody are still nascent."
What Yahoo is: "Think of us as a company that wants to deliver great content, and -- this is a difference -- I want our ads to be as great as our content....I want the page to know what kind of content I want...are we marching towards that? Sure. We have some optimization around that, but I want to get it down to what I call 'The Internet of One.' Why don't you know me?"
Changing content: "The thing we were behind in...was people being able to customize content...during the State of the Union we had so many comments that the site crashed -- I thought that was great. It shows people want interaction."
"We're going to be more immersed in content, just as we're more immersed in ads...the most important thing in content is parsing through it and delivering it to you you you and you...We now have taken content optimization to smaller segments...at first, it was male and female, could we tell one from another?....for Wal Mart we can now find seven out of 10 online moms for them every month...They want to be the center for mom's lives...
"That is still a rough cut...you'll see more personalization, more social...our (revenue per search) rps was up 8% because of better paid search systems....
On judging her success: "How long was Steve Jobs at Apple when he came back before it was a success? Four years -- and he knew the company better than anyone else...I'm not trying to make excuses, but I'm proud of what we've done."
"We had let ourselves get defined as a search company...if Yahoo hadn't let it get defined as a search company --it let itself get pigeonholed."
Advertisers "are definitely behaving differently, A year ago they didn't know what to think. Now, if they don't want to plan six months out they want to plan three months out. As much as you have said there's no display business anymore, they are hot to trot.
"A lot of the conversations are about special programs...they used to have these blunt force things, Oct 25 is when Christmas starts...then Valenitnes' Day come out. They were wasting January, selling Easter way too fast...when you see people start to search for prom dresses -- bingo!"
The Economy: "For those people who are laid off, it's terrible. The rest of us would just like the bad news to stop. Don't have another press conference talking about how bad things are. The consumer just wants to feel more confidence, and just keeps getting jolted."
Talent acquisition at Yahoo: "We have lost some people, and got some kick-ass people from Google -- a great engineer in Israel, some sales people. Recruiting to Yahoo is relatively easy. People are coming back, thinking things are changing. There is a very good Yahoo alumni group out there." Hiring in product management, direct sales, and engineers (for content and data centers). "We always try to be leaner and meaner in overhead people, like me."
What Yahoo wants to build: "Facebook is a phenomenally interesting product, it is not particularly heavy engineering...Google has a $4 billion engineering budget, we have $1 billion. ..we have to work around optimization. We're not going to have that shiny new object."
She added that Yahoo is still working to standardize reporting among vertical content areas, like sports and shopping. When the project is done, Yahoo scientists will be able to get a common batch, enabling more custom marketing campaigns.
Yahoo's big marketing campaign, which debuted last October: "didn't work in the US, it worked well overseas. We've seen great stats in India and the UK, France...The ads rolling out in March will be very product specific
"The fight to get relevant ad dollars is what I want to win. The additional dollar of trying to find the next unique user in the us -- there's other ways I want to spend money -- oh, now you're all going to say I don't want to grow."
Social Media "used to have a big definition, now social is Facebook.
...there's a lot we can do with our sites to make them more social for people -- interacting with their friends, bringing in content."
Whether Yahoo was hacked by China - "You can take this however you want. We are always hacked here, and we don't comment...What about Russia?
There's all kinds of hacking out of there."
On Google's threat to leave China: "China if they were really heartfelt, they should have done it...it was more a statement than an action. Nobody said 'Please, please stay.'"
"If something is illegal it's illegal. But it's illegal in different lands...The EU actually concerns me, because every country is starting to have at it....kind of weaving their own stories on some of this stuff."
"I don't think they should have pulled out. I just don't know what's happened in the seven weeks' since. I'm just not following that closely. We just don't operate inside that country. We have an investment in a company
(Alibaba) that does."
"We're kind of gliding through all this, and everyone is pissing on everyone: Apple is taking on Google, is taking on Adobe, the phone companies...we're Switzerland."
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