Blake Irving Joins Yahoo! as Chief Product Officer

Blake Irving Joins Yahoo! as Chief Product Officer
Chief Scientist Position, Held by Prabhakar Raghavan, Elevated to Report to CEO Bartz


SUNNYVALE, Calif., Apr 19, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) today announced the appointment of Blake Irving as Chief Product Officer. In related news, Prabhakar Raghavan will continue to lead innovation efforts at Yahoo! Labs as Chief Scientist. Both Irving and Raghavan will report directly to Carol Bartz, CEO. This new leadership will focus on speeding key inputs and decision making into product strategy and direction.

Ari Balogh, current head of products and technology, will be leaving the company on June 3 for personal reasons and will work closely with Irving to ensure a smooth transition. Irving will assume the position on May 17.

"Blake brings to Yahoo! genuine large scale Internet expertise from a mature company known for world-class technology. In addition, Prabhakar has invaluable technological insights and expertise that I look forward to having my executive team hear more directly," said Bartz. "With leaders like Blake and Prabhakar, I am confident that we will increase technological innovation and deliver against our vision to be the center of people's online lives."

"Yahoo! has an impressive product and technology portfolio that has provided unparalleled value to its customers at scale," said Irving. "I look forward to working with the team to bring forward more unique and highly personal experiences to Yahoo! consumers, deliver on the company's promise of Science, Art and Scale to Yahoo! advertisers, and develop the amazing talent at the company so we may continue to deliver more and faster innovations to the market."

As Chief Product Officer, Irving will lead the company's products organization, which is responsible for the vision, strategy, design and development of Yahoo!'s global consumer and advertiser product portfolio.

Irving was most recently a professor at Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management in Malibu, California. In his prior role as corporate vice president of the Windows Live Platform group, Irving led a team of 4,000 to build and operate Microsoft's Internet-scale services platform, advertiser and developer ecosystem. Irving also held a variety of development and general management positions at Microsoft.

Before joining Microsoft, Irving held development and product marketing management positions at Xerox Corp., Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. and Compaq Computer Corp. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Diego State University and a Master's degree in business administration from Pepperdine University.

Raghavan joined Yahoo! in 2005, and serves as Chief Scientist and head of Yahoo! Labs. Raghavan's research priorities include text and web mining, and algorithm design. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Raghavan was the chief technology officer at Verity and held a number of technical and managerial positions at IBM Research. He is a consulting professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and former editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Association of Computing Machinery. He has co-authored textbooks on algorithms and information retrieval, more than 100 papers and holds a dozen patents. Raghavan received his PhD from Berkeley and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, as well as a fellow of the ACM and of the IEEE.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! attracts hundreds of millions of users every month through its innovative technology and engaging content and services, making it one of the most visited Internet destinations and a world-class online media company. Yahoo!'s vision is to be the center of people's online lives by delivering personally relevant, meaningful Internet experiences. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com).

Yahoo! is the trademark and/or registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc.

All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE: Yahoo! Inc.

Yahoo! Inc.Mojgan Khalili, 408-349-7482
mojgan@yahoo-inc.com
Meagan Busath,
408-349-364
8meaganb@yahoo-inc.com

Yahoo Strikes Content Deal With Reveille, Debuts Toyota-Backed Show

Yahoo Monday announced a new content production deal with Reveille -- the studio behind TV hits including "The Office" and Showtime's "The Tudors" -- and the launch of its first original daily news show, "Who Knew?" with Reveille and sponsor Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.

The new series will focus on little-known and out-of-the-ordinary facts and information behind high-profile news stories and will feature a new 90-second episode each weekday based on the most-clicked story of the day. As sponsor, Toyota will promote the launch of its redesigned Avalon sedan. The effort, geared to young baby boomers, will include branding elements such as "one comforting fact" each week about the car as part of Toyota's campaign featuring the tag line "Comfort Is Back. Travel Avalon Class."

The debut "Who Knew?" episode uses the news peg of the Shroud of Turin going on public display this weekend to provide a breezy, fast-paced video looking at quirky facts surrounding the famous relic. (Who knew formal study of the Shroud was called sindonology?)

The video is bookended by a brief "brought to you by" message for the Avalon and a 15-second post-roll ad for the car. Toyota also has a pair of display units on the right side of the "Who Knew?" page within Yahoo News that lead to interactive landing pages with more information about the new car. One launches a slow-loading video of a slick-haired emcee introducing the Avalon on stage.

The automaker will also sponsor a takeover of the Yahoo home page on April 14 and what it calls a "first-of-its kind" ad execution on the Yahoo News home page in May. The arrangement with Reveille and Toyota is part of Yahoo's broader strategy to step up original branded entertainment across its content properties in collaboration with advertisers and Hollywood talent.

Yahoo and Reveille, for instance, also recently produced "Real Life Makeover" for Wal-Mart on Yahoo Shine, the Web portal's site for women. In January, Yahoo also struck a production deal with Electus, the digital studio started by Reveille founder and former NBC entertainment co-chair Ben Silverman and Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp. No new shows have debuted on Yahoo from that partnership yet.

Last fall, Yahoo struck a deal with WPP's GroupM Entertainment to develop short-form Web series that tightly integrate brand messaging into programming. Yahoo's existing lineup of sponsored programs including "This Week In Music," "The 411 on omg"; and "Daytime in No Time," the spinoff of Yahoo's popular "Primetime in No Time," offering a video recap of the prior evening's TV shows, and "Tech Ticker," which is focused on technology and finance.

Reveille itself is no stranger to digital programming, having entered into a similar partnership in 2006 with Microsoft on "MSN Originals," a branded content initiative that has led to shows including "It's Everybody's Business with Jack and Suzy Welch," sponsored by Microsoft; "The Guy's Manual," featuring ESPN personality Kenny Mayne, sponsored by Grape Nuts; and "Five Minute Office Workout," by Kraft and starring Bob Harper from "The Biggest Loser."

For its part Yahoo, has been pleased with the response to its sponsored Web series and plans to continue expanding its original video production with advertiser backing. Video was the fastest-growing segment of online display advertising last year -- increasing 39% to $1 billion, according to data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Ask, Yahoo, Microsoft Gain In Search Market Share As Google Slides

Analysts report search market performance gains from unexpected sources -- Ask and Yahoo -- this week. This represents the first time for Yahoo in more than a year.

Ask.com's market share in search rose from 3.7% in February to 3.8% in March, remaining stable for the past year, according to comScore. Core search volume rose by 8.5% from the prior year, up from 0.7% year-on-year growth in February. The network's U.S. search volume rose 8.0% year-on-year in 1Q versus 8.8% growth in the fourth quarter.

Market share varies slightly depending on the data firm. Experian Hitwise reports that Ask.com had the highest gains, rising 21% to 3.44% in March, sequentially. Yahoo Search and Bing received 15.04% and 9.62%, respectively. Yahoo rose 3% and Bing declined 1%, compared with the prior month.

Still, Ask isn't the only search engine to capture new growth. Although Barclays Capital's Douglas Anmuth says it's too early to confirm that Yahoo's share has "stabilized," the analyst remains "encouraged." Data firm comScore delivered the positive news that Yahoo inched up 0.08% in February to 16.89% of searches in March. Yahoo lost roughly 3.1% market share since last year.

Meanwhile, Yahoo did experience a setback. The Sunnyvale, Calif. company confirmed Thursday that Ari Balogh, chief technology officer and executive vice president of products, will leave the company for personal reasons. Broadpoint AmTech Analyst Ben Schachter believes Balogh, who drove product initiatives and restructuring Yahoo's infrastructure, remains instrumental in the potential turnaround for the company.

Although Balogh would not return from sabbatical in June for personal reasons, "the loss of his leadership is likely to be a blow as he was highly regarded both internally and externally," Schachter writes in a research note. "His loss is a negative for Yahoo."

Schachter has concerns about the recent loss of Yahoo employees, such as ad sales exec Joanne Bradford. He says high turnover throughout the organization makes Yahoo's turnaround more challenging.

The exodus of Yahoo execs aside, Microsoft Bing's market share rose from 11.5% to 11.7%, but the pace of its share gains have slowed, according to Schachter, citing comScore numbers. Bing's March share gain represented its lowest basis point increase since Bing was launched in June, 2009, but the bottom line is that Microsoft continues to take share, pointing to its marketing and cashback programs as having a positive impact.

It appears that Ask, Bing and Yahoo gained in March at the expense of Google. Google domestic core search market share fell slightly to 65.1% in March from 65.5% in February, according to comScore. Google grew March core search volume by 10.1% year-on-year, slightly below 14.3% growth in February. Google domestic core search volume growth of 13.6% year-on-year in 1Q is below 4Q's 19.9% year-on-year increase.

Yahoo Considers Buying Foursquare For ~$100 Million

Yahoo's M&A deal-makers are deciding right now whether or not to buy super-hot location-based startup Foursquare for ~$100 million, says a source close to bankers involved in Foursquare's current fundraising efforts.

A source close to Yahoo told us a Foursquare-owned Yahoo "would be nice." This source told us "we've had discussions," but cautioned: "We talk to everybody."

For his part, Foursquare CEO and cofounder Dennis Crowley spent all last week meeting with all the big name companies in the Valley, including Apple, Facebook, and Twitter. Reached, Dennis declined to comment.

A Foursquare acquisition makes tons of sense for Yahoo, where product executives believe that paradigm of Web pages could soon go away, to be replaced by a universe of service built on Internet-connected devices in, around, and outside the home. It would be a relatively cheap way for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to show employees and Wall Street that she's serious about innovating.

Yahoo hasn't made many big bets on consumer products since its Web 2.0-era acquisitions Flickr and Delicious. At one point before 2007, Yahoo could have purchased Facebook for $1 billion, but then-CEO Terry Semel balked at the price and the amount of control Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg wanted to retain.

Thing is, we'd be surprised to see Foursquare sell so soon. During a recent interview with SAI, Dennis said he only sold Dodgeball, his first location-based startup, to Google because, "We couldn't get any funding."

That's not an issue for Dennis this time. Reports have it that brand name venture capitalists (Khosla, Accel, and Andreessen Horowitz) are competing to give Foursquare money at a valuation of $80 million more. Dennis could be using talks with Yahoo to milk higher valuations out of these investors.

Reached, a Yahoo spokesperson told us “We don’t comment on rumor or speculation."

Yahoo Readies Launch Of iPad Advertising Model

Inspired by video game development, Yahoo has been working on a new advertising model for tablets, such as Apple's iPad, to provide another option for brands to tap its ad network. The strategy for the new screen moves more toward product placement similar to tactics seen in videos, television and movies, and away from banner and display ads typically used in mobile phones and on PCs.

The strategy gives advertisers support for interactive product placement through Wi-Fi connections, as well as 3G cellular service offered by telecom carrier AT&T. The iPad also has local memory and can cache information. The possibilities for product placement range from animation to video clips to mini games.

Mobile advertising has struggled to gain momentum during the past few years, but Apple's tablet introduces more power on a bigger screen. "On mobile you have to oversimplify the advertising message," says Sandeep Gupta, senior director of Yahoo applications. "The tablet may be bigger, but because it's more entertaining, it's less intrusive."

Gupta calls the ad model a "user interface" that integrates into Yahoo's ad platform. The iPad ad offering will initially become available for the Yahoo Entertainment application introduced on April 3, the day Apple began selling the iPad. Consumers can download the free application from Apple's iPad apps store. Gupta says the ad platform didn't make the first release because of deadline crunches.

Engineers at Yahoo have begun to create a dynamic layout, so when the consumer reloads the home screen -- which resembles a living room with couch, magazines and television -- they will get a different experience. Perhaps the next time a consumer launches the application they see a can of Coca-Cola, cup filled with Starbuck's coffee, area rug from IKEA, and Bose speakers hooked up to the TV.

The HTML 5 content driven to the device from servers makes the advertising possibilities endless. Since the iPad supports Wi-Fi, and a later version cellular service, clicking on a can of Coca-Cola can take the consumer to a Web site, downloadable gift, coupons, and more.

Yahoo will expect brands and their agency partners to create the interactive art that marketing reps at Yahoo can drop into its ad platform. Gupta says the ability to dynamically change the content on the Yahoo Entertainment home page also provides options for ad targeting.

"We know interactive ads work because last year we ran fun fantasy football ads that had a much higher click-through rate than straight banner ads," Gupta says.

The tablet ad model will need to easily scale as more hardware manufacturers bring devices online. Hewlett-Packard also leaked news this week of a tablet on the horizon. Analysts believe about 50 competitors will bring versions to market. The iPad sold 300,000 units on the first day.

Yahoo Mail Gets Unrestricted API Access with OAuth

Last week, we were very excited about all the possiblities offered by adding OAuth with IMAP/SMTP to Gmail, but as we noted then, don't let those acronyms cause your eyes to glaze over. What sounds like
complicated, techie stuff really means simply useful additions to your email experience and this time, we're talking about Yahoo Mail, still the leading webmail provider.

As Programmable Web pointed out this morning, it looks like Yahoo actually implemented OAuth several days before Gmail got around to it.

OAuth access to your email means that you can give simple, one-click authorization to external applications to have full access to your emails. This also means you can have seemless access to the information in your email account, from the contents of the emails themselves to your contact list, on other websites.

If you think of going to a website and finding all the people you know on there by using Twitter, you're most likely already familiar with OAuth - it's that window that pops up that you click "Allow" on.

From the Yahoo! Mail Developer Community group on March 25:

Today we're super exited to announce our OAuth API for Yahoo Mail! Not only have we moved to a much cleaner authentication technology, but we have removed all the restrictions limiting message access of "free" accounts. That means that you can now use the full API for all Yahoo Mail users regardless of their free/premium status, accessing full message contents if your application needs it. Cool, eh?

For those of you out there using Yahoo Mail, which is still a majority, expect to see some cool new add-ons for the age old email service to be released soon. At least, that's what we're hoping for.

Yahoo Hacked in China (Still Waiting for Other Shoe)

In January, Google reported a coordinated hack attack targeting Chinese human rights activists’ Gmail accounts. In response, Google (eventually) pulled their search engine from China.

And now the hackers are at it again. The Yahoo “e-mail accounts of more than a dozen rights activists, academics and journalists who cover China have been compromised by unknown intruders” last month, according to the New York Times. NYT reporter Andrew Jacobs, one of the targeted journalists, said the “hackers altered e-mail settings so that all correspondence was surreptitiously forwarded to another e-mail address.”

Several of the affected users received messages from Yahoo after problems accessing their accounts, according to the AP.

Yahoo hasn’t yet decided to respond, as Agence France Presse reports. Yesterday, the side stepped the news agency’s questions on the matter, only stating

Yahoo Kills Small-Publisher Ad Network That No One Used

Update: Yahoo is shutting down its Publisher Network beta program effective April 30. This is Yahoo's equivalent of Google's AdSense ad network, directed at small publishers, and has not been very popular. Yahoo is NOT shutting down its big ad network, directed at large publishers.

UMore: Why Yahoo Just Killed Its AdSense Clone

Here's a memo Yahoo just sent to publishers. In it, Yahoo suggests its customers might consider Chitika if they need an ad network.

Dear Publisher,

Yahoo! continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and services, in alignment with business goals and our continued commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences. After conducting an extensive review of the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program, we have decided to close the program effective April 30, 2010. We expect to deliver final publisher payments for the month ending April 30, 2010 to publishers no later than May 31, 2010. All publishers eligible for 1099s for the 2010 tax year will have those mailed by January 31, 2011.

Because our content will no longer be delivered to your ad unit spaces after April 30, 2010, we recommend removing all YPN ad code from your pages by that date.

For the opportunity to continue earning revenue, we suggest using Chitika, a leading advertising network that syndicates Yahoo! Content Match and Sponsored Search ads. Chitika has set up a special process for YPNO beta publishers to participate in its platform. Click here for more information.

We thank you for your participation in the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta. If you have any questions regarding this announcement, please contact our Support Team at (866) 785-2636, Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PDT.
Sincerely,

Your Partners at Yahoo!