The fourth quarter of 2010 could have gone much worse for Yahoo, judging from
the earnings report the company released this afternoon. Yahoo's numbers were
generally higher than what analysts expected, perhaps earning Carol Bartz a few
points in unhappy shareholders' eyes. A low Q1 forecast threw a long shadow,
however.
To first cover the fourth quarter: experts believed Yahoo would report $1.50
billion in gross revenue and $1.19 billion in net revenue. Instead, the company
managed to report $1.53 billion and $1.21 billion, respectively. And Yahoo
reported $0.24 in terms of earnings per share, as well, rather than the $0.22
that was expected.
Bartz stated as a result, "We just completed a very encouraging quarter and year
for Yahoo!, where we saw our plans to turn around the company gain momentum.
For the year, operating income, margins, EPS, and return on invested capital
doubled. Display advertising grew 17%. We completed the important North
America Search transition to Microsoft on schedule and with high quality. We
introduced new and updated products at a faster pace. And our content
properties - like Yahoo! Sports and Yahoo! Finance - continued to innovate and
extend their massive lead."
Unfortunately, 2011 isn't looking so bright at the moment. Yahoo thinks it'll
earn between $1.02 billion and $1.08 billion in revenue during the first
quarter, while analysts would prefer to see $1.13 billion. Also, the company's
cash, cash equivalents, and investments in marketable debt securities fell by
almost 20 percent between December 31st of 2009 and December 31st of 2010.
This has caused some shareholders to back away from Yahoo's stock. It's down
2.12 percent in after-hours trading right now, following a loss of 0.44 percent
during the normal trading day.
In a few minutes, Yahoo will release an earnings report concerning the fourth
quarter of 2010, but prior to that, the company's admitted that yet another
round of layoffs is taking place. The number of affected individuals is
probably in the neighborhood of 140.
Obviously, that's not great news for those people, and it may not be a good sign
for Yahoo, either. Many companies are expanding, not contracting, as the
economy recovers.
A related, key fact: Google in particular hasn't shown any signs of slowing
down. Remember that the search giant announced
two
acquisitions today and also indicated it would be
hiring thousands of employees
all over the world.
Yahoo does have an explanation for this move, however. The company said in a
statement, "The personnel changes we are making are part of our ongoing strategy
to best position Yahoo for revenue growth and margin expansion and to support
our strategy to deliver differentiated products and experiences to the
marketplace. We'll continue to hire on a global basis to support our key
priorities."
Also, to clarify (a little) about how many employees are losing their jobs,
Yahoo said, "Today's action impacts approximately 1 percent of the global
employee base."
Check back at WebProNews later to see how Yahoo performed in the fourth quarter
of last year.
U.S. paid search made solid gains in 2010 with 18.5 percent growth
year-over-year, according to a new report from SearchIgnite.
The fourth quarter (Q4) showed strong growth, increasing 35.5 percent YoY with
December leading the quarter at 44.8 percent YoY growth. The Q4 holiday season
indicated improved consumer sentiment, with the average order value (AOV) up
31.3 percent YoY compared to a 13 percent decrease in 2009.
“2010 proved to be a great year for search advertising as the search market
recovered from the downturn,” said Roger Barnette, CEO of
SearchIgnite.
“Even more promising is the revival of consumer spend throughout the year and
the strength of Average Order Values in Q4. We expect 2011 to be a strong year
for search and online advertising overall.”
Other findings in the report include:
*Retail saw significant increases in search spend in Q4 (up 36.6% YoY)
*All other underlying metrics in Q4 show positive results with 20.6% YoY
increase in clicks, 2.3% YoY increase in impressions and 17.9% YoY increase in
click-through rates.
*Google's share of advertising spend in Q4 increased to 82.6%, up from 80.2% in
Q3. Yahoo/Bing accounted for 17.4% of Q4 spend.
· Bing-Yahoo Transition Moves Forward In Australia, Brazil, Mexico
Australia, Brazil, and
Mexico
have populations of 22.5 million, 190.7 million, and 112.3 million people,
respectively. Which adds up to 325.5 million potential users, all in all. It's
a big deal, then, that the Bing-Yahoo search transition progressed in these
three countries today.
Kartik Ramakrishnan, who holds the very relevant title "Vice President, Yahoo
Search Transition," wrote on the
Yahoo Search Blog, "As planned, we are moving forward with the global
transition of certain Yahoo! Search back-end functions to Microsoft's search
platform, and have just completed this process for organic search in Australia,
Brazil and
Mexico."
Then Ramakrishnan added, "This news is another step forward for the Yahoo! and
Microsoft Search Alliance as we continue our efforts for a quality transition
with our worldwide advertisers and partners."
So it sounds like everything is on schedule and going according to plan. That's
good news for both companies, and for their users and investors. (Remember,
Yahoo in particular thinks this deal will save it money, meaning the sooner the
transition process is completed, the better.)
One other important point: Ramakrishnan promised to provide additional updates
as Bing and Yahoo continue to integrate their search operations around the
world, so stay tuned.
Yahoo Sports has launched “ThePostGame,” an online magazine it says “covers the
world of sports from a lifestyle and entertainment perspective.”
ThePostGame features one-on-one interviews with athletes and coaches,
The High Five, a daily line up of the five most popular sports links and
original content from sports related blogs.
The Yahoo Yodel Anecdotal Blog offers more details. “Yahoo Sports remains the #1
sports destination on the Web because sports enthusiasts and casual fans know
they can depend on the site to deliver the stories they want to read.”
“ThePostGame now allows Yahoo Sports to enhance that content with long-form,
in-depth stories that go beyond regular analysis and commentary, and delve into
what happens off the field and behind the scenes.”
The
Internet Society, a nonprofit organization for Internet standards has
announced World
IPv6 Day to take place on June 8. This is a day in which major web
properties like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo (the three of which make up a
combined billion visits per day) join major content delivery networks like
Akamai and Limelight Networks for a 24-hour global trial of IPv6, the
next-generation Internet protocol.
The need for the new protocol arises as the older IPv4 runs out of room. "IPv4
has approximately four billion IP addresses (the sequence of numbers assigned to
each Internet-connected device)," the Internet Society
explains. "The explosion in the number of people, devices and web
services on the Internet means that IPv4 is running out of space. IPv6, the
next-generation Internet protocol, which provides over four billion times more
space, will connect the billions of people not connected today and will help
ensure the Internet can continue its current growth rate."
"In the short history of the Internet, the transition to IPv6 is one of the most
important steps we will take together to protect the Internet as we know it,"
says Vint Cerf, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist and co-inventor of the TCP/IP
protocol stack. "It's as if the Internet was originally designed with a limited
number of telephone numbers, and we're soon going to run out."
Google has actually offered a separate IPv6-only version of search since early
2008. On June 8, Google will try the protocol out on sites like Google.com and
YouTube.com.
"The good news is that Internet users don't need to do anything special to
prepare for World IPv6 Day. Our current measurements suggest that the vast
majority (99.95%) of users will be unaffected,"
says Google network engineer Lorenzo Colitti. "However, in rare
cases, users may experience connectivity problems, often due to misconfigured or
misbehaving home network devices. Over the coming months we will be working with
application developers, operating system vendors and network device
manufacturers to further minimize the impact and provide testing tools and
advice for users."
Adam Bechtel, VP of Yahoo's Infrastructure Group says, "Participating in World
IPv6 Day will allow us to obtain real-life data that we can use to ensure a
seamless user experience as we transition to IPv6. We welcome this opportunity
to collaborate with the technical community and provide leadership in addressing
the scaling challenges facing the Internet."
"As an industry, we're working together to ensure future generations continue to
have open and direct access to the Internet as we do today," adds Jonathan
Heiliger, VP of Technical Operations at Facebook. "The number of web-connected
devices is exploding, and World IPv6 Day is a crucial step in ensuring they can
all communicate."
The Internet Society is
calling for other website owners and network operators to take part
in the event as well. The organization also has
a test you can take to find our your IPv6 readiness.
Most stories covering personnel moves at Yahoo don't exactly count as wins for
the company, but it looks like Yahoo's set to attain a victory. Reports
indicate Mickie Rosen will soon assume the title "Senior Vice President of the
Yahoo Media Network."
Rosen has an impressive resume. Her career began at McKinsey & Company, a large
and well-known consulting firm, while she attended Harvard Business School. She
did stints at Disney, Quisic, Idealab, and Fandango afterward.
Next, Rosen moved on to Fox Interactive Media, where she served as senior vice
president and general manager of entertainment (and helped bring Fox and Hulu
together). Then she became a partner at Fuse Capital, and she acted as CEO of
Best Buy-backed Tecca, too.
That long list might hint that Rosen won't work at Yahoo for decades - or maybe
even for more than a year or three. Rosen should be an asset, though, and no
one else at Yahoo's getting kicked out in order to make room for her.
Kara Swisher explained, "Rosen's new job had actually been that of
former Audience head David Ko, as well as former Media VP Jimmy Pitaro. . . .
Ko left Yahoo and is now heading mobile games at Zynga, while Pitaro is a top
digital exec at Disney."
Rosen will report to Ross Levinsohn, the executive vice president of the
Americas region at Yahoo.
Yahoo Connected TV might soon get a serious bump in respectability in the eyes
of sports fans and families with kids. A potential deal with Disney could bring
content from ESPN and Disney (along with ABC) to the platform, according to a
new report.
Sam Schechner and Amir Efrati wrote this morning after speaking with
some sources, "For Yahoo, Disney is looking to create widgets for its ESPN, ABC,
and Disney networks that could pipe video content over the Internet to Yahoo
Connected TV sets, the people familiar with the matter said."
The deal seems likely to occur for at least a couple reasons. One interesting
point: people within Yahoo and Disney might already be seeing eye to eye,
since
two Disney Interactive Media Group execs hail from Yahoo.
Also, Yahoo's sure to push hard for an agreement, since Disney's a huge name and
any partnership could cause a domino effect of sorts as other companies seek to
follow its lead.
Nothing's certain at this point, however. Schechner and Efrati noted, "The
widgets haven't been made yet, nor has a final decision been made to use the
widgets to transmit video, as opposed to other content, the people said."
Also, "Any video offering could be limited, in part because Disney is wary of
piracy and of upsetting cable distributors, the people said."
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, Yahoo announced that it's introducing
some new connected TV features, partnerships and apps.
For one, Yahoo announced "Broadcast Interactivity" to launch with select
national broadcast and cable TV providers and brand advertisers. The company is
collaborating with ABC, CBS, HSN, and Showtime on content for a pilot program in
the first half of 2011. Brand advertisers Ford, Mattel and Microsoft are also
planning to work with Yahoo on this.
"Our collaboration with leaders in television and brand advertising, combined
with the innovative technologies we're pioneering, signals the beginning of a
new era of highly personalized, Internet-enhanced television," said Ron Jacoby,
VP, Yahoo! Connected TV. "Imagine an immersive, real-time TV experience that
brings people even closer to the programs and brands they love by enabling them
to play along while they watch their favorite shows."
TV programmers will be able to create TV apps that let viewers vote for reality
TV participants, get more info about characters, and even make e-commerce
purchases while watching a show.
That last one is one of the most significant aspects of where this whole
connected TV thing is going (not just with Yahoo) that businesses should pay
close attention to. Getting to people in their living room can be huge for sales
and simply capturing attention. This is going to be a very important space to
keep an eye on - watching for opportunities in advertising and app experiences.
Yahoo! is working with distribution partners including Broadcom Corporation,
D-Link, Haier, MediaTek, Sony and Toshiba for pilot program this year.
Yahoo also demoed three-screen connected device interactivity - interactivity
amont tablets, mobile phones and tablets.
More info
here.
Tired of top ten of 2010 lists yet? Me too. We're 4 days into 2011 now. Enough
is enough. Yahoo got the memo, as now it is
looking back on the past decade
in search beginning with 2001, and looking at how much has changed (and
how much hasn't).
What is the biggest difference you see in search activity from 2001 to 2011?
Comment here.
"Some trends have continued over the years, for example pop-princess Britney
Spears made the list every year, while some trends changed drastically, largely
thanks to new technology like mobile devices," a spokesperson for Yahoo tells
WebProNews.
Back in 2001, the top ten list featured things like Napster, NASCAR, the IRS,
and of course the
World
Trade Center. In fact, there had not been another news event to reach a year's
top ten list of Yahoo searches until the infamous BP oil spill of this past
year.
The decade in search was largely dominated by entertainment and celebrity
queries like Spears, Kim Kardashian, Megan Fox, Miley Cyrus, Jessica Simpson,
Paris Hilton, Lady Gaga, Eminem, Justin Bieber, 50 Cent, etc.
Harry Potter came in on the top 10 three different years. It's actually
surprising that it it didn't come in more.
How people search should play a big role in dictating the top searches going
forward. "While some our most popular questions have stayed the same over the
years, the answers – and how we get them – have seen some big changes since
2001," says Yahoo. "Innovative features and Quick Apps now bring the information
you’re seeking within the search page, rather than just giving you a list of
links."
"You can even Sketch-a-Search!" the company says referring to its own mobile
app, in which you can use your finger to draw a circle around an area on a map
and bring up search results. "Today's Yahoo! searchers don't have to rely on
PCs; mobile devices now let you search on the go, delivering snack-sized bites
of information – like scores, stats, and song lyrics – perfect for the top 3
2010 searches on mobile: NFL, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna."
Of course, apps are obviously influencing search well beyond those using Yahoo.
APIs will continue to be a huge factor in the way people do their searches.
According to Programmable Web, which runs an API Directory and a
MashUp directory, API growth doubled in 2010 with social and mobile trending
upwards. Search was number 4 in the top 5 API types of the year, just ahead of
mobile.
Local, social, and realtime are bound to be three of the largest factors in
search in general moving forward. Of nearly a thousand apps added to
Programmable Web's MashUp directory, 270 of them tapped into the Google Maps
API, nearly 200 tapped into Twitter's, and nearly 100 tapped into Facebook's and
YouTube's each. Each of these is extremely valuable to search.
What do you think will be the
most significant factor in search activity in 2011?
Anyone who's looking to invest a little Christmas money might want to listen
up. While we're neither backing nor attacking this advice, Hudson Square
Research has initiated coverage on Google and Yahoo, labeling them both a "buy"
and setting price targets significantly above the stocks' current prices.
The firm's expectations are somewhat lower for Yahoo, as you might have
guessed. Hudson Square Research established a price target of $19.00, which
isn't spectacular compared to today's closing price of $16.61. Still, an
increase is an increase, and a gain of 14.4 percent would definitely beat
current interest rates.
Hudson Square Research analyst Rory Maher explained according to Eric Savitz,
"We believe ad buys on traditional media will continue to move online. Yahoo
benefits from this increased spend even if growth rates lag some of its
faster-growing online competitors. In particular, we believe more TV ad dollars
should move online over the next 3-5 years as it becomes easier to implement and
track large online buys."
Google's stock, meanwhile, is supposed to reach $750.00, which would make for an
impressive leap of 24.8 percent over its closing price, $601.00.
Maher reasoned, "Continued product improvements, accelerated shift of local
advertising dollars online, and growth from emerging countries should drive
double-digit search growth over the medium term," while "mobile searches are
quickly becoming material," as well.
Then here's a bit of not-entirely-unrelated good news for everybody: the Dow
established a new two-year high today.
The deadline for Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers to transition their
campaigns to Microsoft's adCenter is approaching. You've had ample time to do,
but there are no doubt some procrastinators out there.
"Given what a busy time of year this is for everyone, both personally and
professionally, you may have the feeling that there’s something you’re supposed
to do, but haven’t yet. Did you forget something?"
asks Microsoft's Ricky Poole.
"With all of the holiday hustle and bustle, I wanted to take a minute to remind
any of you in the US and
Canada
who may still have campaigns in Yahoo! Search Marketing that the transition tool
will be closing on January 5, 2011,"
he adds. "If you have not yet transitioned your PPC accounts from Yahoo! to
adCenter, after January 5th you will need to do so manually through exporting
and importing your campaigns."
Yahoo and Microsoft
completed the search transition in the U.S. and
Canada
in October. Microsoft even
extended its adCenter support hours during the transition.
If you still have questions about the transition, you should be able to find
your answers
here.
Facebook defines itself as something that "helps you connect and share with the
people in your life," and now more than ever, it looks like folks are sharing
videos. Brightcove and TubeMogul determined yesterday that Facebook passed
Yahoo in terms of video streams referred during the third quarter.
To be clear: the difference wasn't large, and Google's still in the lead by a
huge margin. Bing and Twitter aren't entirely out of the running, either.
But a post on the
TubeMogul Blog stated, "Facebook now refers more video streams than
Yahoo! for the aggregate media sample. This marks the first time the social
platform has surpassed the search engine and content portal. Facebook accounted
for 9.6% of all referrals, making it second only to Google."
What's more, Facebook referrals seem to be worth more in terms of keeping an
audience's attention. Brightcove and TubeMogul's quarterly research
report explained, "Facebook was the most engaging referral source for
entertainment categories, including broadcasters (1:57
minutes) and magazines (1:34
minutes)."
These stats may help Facebook attract more advertisers and therefore pull in
more revenue. They could also cause marketers to become more active on the site
(which could be either good or bad depending on one's point of view).
Shareholders may grumble, but there's perhaps a bit of good news regarding the
four percent of Yahoo's employees who were laid off last week. Yahoo's
calculated the pre-tax cost of the layoffs at somewhere in the neighborhood of
$35 million.
A
form the company filed with the SEC explained, "In connection with
the worldwide workforce reduction, the Company expects to incur pre-tax cash
charges of $33 million to $38 million for severance pay expenses and related
cash expenditures." That should add up to some very nice exit packages.
Then Yahoo also shared something to help take the bite out of things for
investors. The form continued, "The estimated pre-tax cash charges are expected
to be offset by a $4 million to $6 million credit related to stock-based
compensation expense reversals."
Anyway, most of the severance charges should show up on paper during the fourth
quarter of this year, and Yahoo will finish officially recognizing them before
the end of the first quarter of 2011.
A quick note regarding the company's short-term performance: Yahoo's stock is
down 0.98 percent this morning, which puts it in significantly worse shape than
the Dow (down 0.36 percent) and Nasdaq (down 0.20 percent).
By now, you’ve probably heard the unfortunate news.
Yahoo is sunsetting Delicious (and a few other platforms).
Folks are upset (or maybe disappointed is a better word). I’m one of
them. I’ve come to rely on
Delicious as my primary bookmarking system (not so much on the social
side). And now I’m left looking for alternatives.
I’ve heard the chatter online yesterday and this morning, done a little digging
and wanted to share some of the posts I thought highlighted the best options (as
well as the process of downloading and migrating your existing Delicious
bookmarks). Not sure what direction I’m going to go yet, but I’ll be weighing my
options over the weekend.
The options
* The
best services for migrating your Delicious bookmarks (Lifehacker)
*
The 5 best alternatives to Delicious (The Next Web)
*
10 alternatives to Delicious social bookmarking (Search Engine Land)
* Think about migrating to Evernote? Great
post here from the Evernote blog about how to go about making that
transition (Evernote Noteworthy Blog)
Pros/Cons of each tool
*
FANTASTIC Google Doc with a list of Delicious alternatives as well as pros
and cons of each
How to download/migrate your
Delicious bookmarks
*
How to save your Delicious bookmarks (Tech Cocktail)
*
How to export and move your Delicious bookmarks to Google Bookmarks (Tableters)
Fans of AltaVista, Delicious, Fire Eagle, and Yahoo Buzz - along with many other
Yahoo properties - may want to devise a backup plan. A leaked corporate
document indicates that a number of sites are due to be shut down, and more than
a few others will in some way be merged.
A note regarding the authenticity of the Yahoo document: this does indeed seem
to be the real thing. A product called myM that it mentions fell off the map a
long time ago, and the scope of the "sunset" list is a little hard to swallow,
but Chief Product Officer
Blake Irving has threatened to fire whoever leaked it, which lends a
distinct air of authenticity.
So to move on to the
document itself . . . . AlltheWeb, AltaVista, Delicious, MyBlogLog,
myM, Yahoo Bookmarks, Yahoo Buzz, and Yahoo Picks are all supposed to be cut.
Then Fire Eagle, FoxyTunes, Sideline, Upcoming, Yahoo Events, and Yahoo People
Search are supposed to be merged.
This signals a significant change in Yahoo's strategy. Streamlining on this
scale may save the company lots of money, but could also harm its visibility and
reputation while resulting in an unfortunate number of layoffs.
One other, completely speculative, thought: we may be witnessing Carol Bartz's
last stand as she tries to convince critics that she's turning the company
around and should be allowed to remain in charge.
Hat tip goes to
Liz Gannes, who noted that MyBlogLog founder (and former Yahoo
employee)
Eric Marcoullier was the first person to link to the leaked document
on Twitter.
It can be a bit of a balancing act when reports concerning the search market
come out; if comScore, Experian Hitwise, and Nielsen all say different things,
it's embarrassing to have three contradictory headlines. New numbers from
Experian Hitwise tend to agree with yesterday's comScore stats in asserting that
November was a good month for Bing, however.
comScore said Google's market share went down, Yahoo's went down, and Bing's
went up. Experian Hitwise found that Google's share went down, Yahoo's went up,
and Bing's also increased a bit.
More specifically, Google's share decreased from 70.68 percent to 70.10 percent
between October and November, according to the newer report. Yahoo's share rose
from 14.72 percent to 15.17 percent, and Bing eked out enough of a gain to
expand its market share from 10.04 percent to 10.10 percent.
That puts the Bing-Yahoo alliance up in comparison to Google, which is an
important achievement for the two organizations.
Experian Hitwise also observed in a statement, "Yahoo! Search and Bing achieved
the highest success rates in November 2010, meaning that for both search
engines, 81 percent of searches executed resulted in a visit to a Website.
Google achieved a success rate of 65 percent, up 5 percent over the previous
month. The share of unsuccessful searches highlights the opportunity for both
the search engines and marketers to evaluate the search engine result pages to
ensure that searchers are finding the information they are seeking."
For simplicity's sake, let's hope the Nielsen report more or less agrees with
these findings.
I can't remember the last time we've seen so many hacking (and related) stories
in the news, particularly in which so many big name brands were affected in such
a short amount of time. Last week, of course the big stories were about
"Anonymous"
taking down MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, etc.
Now stories about brands like about Gawker, Yahoo, Twitter, McDonalds, and
Walgreens are dominating the headlines. Last weekend, in case you haven't heard
Gawker was hacked, and passwords were taken. One of the biggest problems with
this is that these passwords are often used at other sites around the web, and
depending on which sites the perpetrators get access to with these passwords,
the ramifications could potentially be disastrous for those whose passwords were
stolen.
For example, if abusers were able to get into email accounts, there is no
telling what kind of personal information they would gain access to - passwords
to other sites, credit card info, etc.
According to the BBC, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Yahoo have all asked
users to change their passwords to be safe. If you had a Gakwer account, you may
want to consider changing all of your passwords, at least at any critical sites
(banks, e-commerce sites, social networks, email accounts, etc.).
Arik Hesseldahl at NewEnterprise
shares the following statement from Yahoo: "As part of our ongoing
security measures we issued a password reset to some users. Yahoo! does this
periodically to ensure the security of users." Hesseldahl speculates that this
was directly related to the Gawker attack, however, as he had a Gawker account.
He also reports that Blizzard Entertainment, which makes the enormously popular
World of Warcraft, sent an email to users, which said: "We've recently been
informed that several Gawker Media websites have been compromised…To help
minimize the effects of this compromise and help keep your Battle.net account
safe and secure, we’ve reset your account password."
McDonald's was recently hit. Hackers reportedly broke into a database containing
email addresses and birthday dates for consumers who signed up for the company's
promotions.
Mark Darvill of security firm
AEP Networks tells WebProNews, "High profile hacks such as the breach
of the McDonalds database highlight the need for greater data protection. This
breach follows a long strike of attacks on websites in light of the release of
the WikiLeaks cables and companies across the world will be wondering what
website will be next on the hackers' list."
"In this instance, McDonalds has lost nuggets of customer data rather than reams
of sensitive personal information," adds Darvill. "The sad fact is, hackers will
always have their eye on how they can steal sensitive personal data. Personal
data is valuable as it aids identity theft and can prove a valuable source of
income for hackers. This breach highlights the need for organisations to double
check what security measures third parties have in place to protect their
sensitive data. Data protection is no longer just about protecting data when it
is on your premise."
Walgreens also sent an email to users recently saying:
We recently became aware of
unauthorized access to an email list of customers who receive special offers and
newsletters from us. As a result, it is possible you may have received some spam
email messages asking you to go to another site and enter personal data. We are
sorry this has taken place and for any inconvenience to you.
We want to assure you that the only
information that was obtained was your email address. Your prescription
information, account and any other personally identifiable information were not
at risk because such data is not contained in the email system, and no access
was gained to Walgreens consumer data systems...
Incidents like these are bound to make consumer uneasy about online shopping at
the worst possible time of the year. Still, online holiday spending in the U.S.
alone reached nearly $22 billion during the first 40 days of the season
according to comScore.Update:
now that spending has
reportedly hit $23 billion.
The FBI is
reportedly investigating the Gawker attack.
Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft can't agree on much, and you might imagine that
tossing some politicians into the situation wouldn't help, but a common goal's
come to light. These companies, along with many others and the Obama
administration, intend to stop illegal online pharmacies from doing business.
William McQuillen reported today that a group including American
Express, GoDaddy, Google, MasterCard, Microsoft, PayPal, Visa, and Yahoo is
"helping to establish a nonprofit organization targeting illegal Internet
pharmacies in support of Obama administration efforts, according to the White
House Office of Management and Budget."
Victoria Espinel, the White House intellectual property coordinator, explained,
"It's important that we act aggressively now before it snowballs into a bigger
problem."
And indeed, "aggressive" is a good way to describe the group of corporations
that's been assembled. The resources at their disposal are just about
limitless, and the vast majority of Internet users must encounter at least one
of their properties on a daily basis.
It might not take much convincing to get the companies to cooperate, either. A
dead user can't click on ads, after all, and even setting aside Darwin Award
nominees who buy toxic "V!@gr@," Google and the other companies should
appreciate being safer from litigious drugmakers' lawsuits.
We'll be sure to keep an eye on this coalition's actions over time.
Yahoo has launched the new Yahoo Local for
Mobile
experience in beta.
"At Yahoo!, we're all about harnessing the massive power of the web and the
ever-expanding capabilities of connected devices to create engaging and
personally relevant mobile experiences for our users,"
says Irv Henderson, VP of Product Management for Yahoo Mobile and
Connected Devices. "But we also know that sometimes, even when you have the
world at your fingertips, it’s what’s right outside your door that matters to
you most."
"With rich, hyper-local content, Yahoo! Local offers a uniquely personalized
experience via the mobile web on iPhone and Android, enabling you to discover
the best local news, deals, and events in your neck of the woods, all in one
place," adds Henderson.
Content includes local news and information created by the community, local
publishers, and Yahoo editors, as well as local blogs and newspapers.
"Our geo-informatics and content enrichment platforms identify and geo-tag
every news story that appears on every page down to the neighborhood level,"
says
Henderson.
Yahoo has also integrated the Local Offers program it
recently announced, which the company is partnering with local offer
providers on to build what the company hopes is "one of the largest and most
comprehensive repositories of local offers on the Internet."
The new Yahoo Local for
Mobile
is being tested in 30+ neighborhoods and cities around the U.S. These include:
San Francisco,
Palo Alto,
Mountain View,
Sunnyvale, Brooklyn, NY as well as
Birmingham,
Ferndale, and
Royal Oak
in
Michigan.
WebProNews received some interesting findings from
YouGov BrandIndex, indicating that it has not been a good year for
public perception of social media brands (which in this case includes Google,
Yahoo, Bing, and AOL, in addition to more obvious brands like Facebook and
MySpace).
"2010 was a tough year for public perception of the top social media companies
-- Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and MySpace all suffered lower positive perception
by the end of the year," a spokesperson for YouGov BrandIndex tells us. "AOL was
the only major brand to actually have a better 'buzz' score by the end of the
year than in January, but the company is still seen more negatively than
positively."
"Bing lost just a little ground over the course of the year, making them an even
proposition," he adds.
The scores are compiled simply by subtracting negative feedback from positive,
with a zero meaning equal positive and negative feedback. The scores are
measured based on the firm's "buzz score" which asks respondents the question:
"If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, was it positive
or negative?"
YouGov BrandIndex interviews 5,000 people each weekday from what it calls "a
representative US population sample," with more than 1.2 million interviews per
year.
Clearly there are other significant players in the social media space that are
absent from this list. Twitter, is obviously missing. It would be interesting to
see how it has been perceived throughout the year compared to the other brands.
"One interesting tale in the chart: on
January 1, 2010,
AOL and MySpace were pretty much at the same spot in negative perception
territory," the spokesperson points out. "After March, the two companies took
different paths -- AOL modestly rose and hung in there, while MySpace stumbled,
went back up briefly during their fall relaunch, and then plummeted down worse
than ever. MySpace began the year at -9.5 and they're now at -15.2. The best
score MySpace has had since September 2007 was
November 5, 2008,
when it reached -3.1."
That's about the time when TechCrunch
reported that MySpace's month-old MyAds product was a $50 million
business.
Other highlights YouGov BrandIndex points to are as follows:
- Google was rocking at 44 in early
January and stayed around there until the end of April, when it began a long
slide that brought it down to 32.9 at the end of September. It regained ground
up to 36, where it stays today, not returning near its January 1st high. That
32.9 score at the end of September was Google's lowest buzz score in three
years.
- Yahoo started at 30, drifted down a
few points over the course of several months until around Labor Day, and then
really accelerated, losing several points until early December, where it is now
21.6.
- Facebook took the most dramatic
journey with its privacy and usability controversies. Virtually tied with Yahoo
on January 1st at 30, it hovered in the high 20's until the end of April, and
then the bottom just dropped out, hitting a low of 10.3 on July 7th. Facebook
crawled back up to 17.7 on August 12th, went a couple of more points to 19.6 at
the end of September, and is now back at 15.7. The Facebook low of 10.3 on July
7th was its lowest score since Christmas of 2008.
- Bing remained steady all year at
around 12, and then began shaving through October, where it is now 9.6. Really a
small drop in the scheme of things.
- AOL is the only company here that
ended up with a higher score now than where it began, albeit in negative
perception territory (but not deep). On January 1st, they were -7.5 and they're
now -4.3. Worth noting that along the way, they took a stumble that began at the
end of June that brought them down on August 17th to -10.5 and then recovered to
its present -4.3 range in mid-October. AOL is currently at its best buzz score
since September 2007.
Studies like these must be taken with a grain of salt, but it's not hard to
believe that public perception of some of these brand suffered given all the
privacy stories in the news over the course of the year.
Yahoo is asking its users to come together this holiday season and make a
difference through simple acts of kindness.
The campaign, called “How Good Grows,” encourages people to do random acts of
kindness and update their online status to get others to join in.
The
kindness.yahoo.com website allows people to post status messages that
can be shared across their social networks (Yahoo Updates, Facebook, Twitter).
People can watch their ripple of kindness grow on the site as they inspire
others to also do kind acts. The ripples will grow bigger as more people click
on the status messages and do kind acts of their own.
“We are inspiring millions of people within the global Yahoo community to change
the world together through random acts of kindness. One small act of kindness
can create a ripple of generosity -- that’s how good grows on Yahoo,” said Erin
Carlson, senior director, Yahoo for Good.
“It’s simple — do something nice for someone like pay for a stranger’s cab fare,
volunteer at your local soup kitchen, or make cookies for a neighbor. Update
your online status, get others to join in, and watch your ripple of kindness
grow.”
AOL and Yahoo both have new focuses on churning out content. This is one reason
why some industry analysts have
suggested that the two companies would be a good fit for a merger. It's
made for
interesting conversation, but there has never been any substantial
evidence that the two companies would ever pursue such an endeavor.
There's an
interesting report out from Reuters this morning, which says AOL is
"actively exploring a breakup involving a complicated series of transactions
that may lead to a merger with Yahoo," according to sources that "declined to be
named because they were not authorized to speak to the media."
The piece from Reuters reporter Nadia Damouni says that such plans are in an
"exploratory stage and that Yahoo hasn't been contacted. It also says that AOL
has been exploring a break up since its spin-off from Time Warner in 2009. "You
can drive the pieces into people's hands that could pay top dollar for them and
create value, or spin them off," the piece quotes one of the unnamed source as
saying.
The "pieces" being referred to would be AOL's dial-up business, as Yahoo would
have no use for it, unlike AOL's advertising and content businesses.
Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider
notes that reports last month suggested AOL CEO Tim Armstrong
had talked to Yahoo CEO Carol
Bartz.
As with any rumors coming from unnamed sources, you'll obviously have to take
this with a grain of salt until further developments arise. In fact, industry
insider Kara Swisher tweets:
Last month AOL
reported $563.5 million in total revenue for the third-quarter,
higher than expectations. The company reported $171.6 million in profit - a 132
percent year-over-year increase. In October the company
sold four office buildings and land for $144.5 million.
The end of the year is almost here, and with it, so are the looks back at
everything important that transpired in 2010. Yahoo's more than done its part,
too, as today the company released well over a dozen lists covering popular
searches in different categories.
Out of respect for your time, we'll stick to the basics here - the official "Top
Searches on Yahoo in 2010." But know that lots of other stuff, from the top ten
"Survivor Stories" to "Inspiring Acts," is available on a
Year in Review site Yahoo put together. Plus there's a second,
UK-specific version of the site.
As for those top searches, it turns out that more Yahoo users searched for
information about the BP oil spill than anything else in 2010. Then the
second-most researched topic was the World Cup.
A few celebrities - Miley Cyrus, Kim Kardashian, and Lady Gaga - got third,
fourth, and fifth places. Next, the iPhone came in sixth, and Megan Fox got
seventh.
Finally, rounding out the top ten were Justin Bieber, American Idol, and Britney
Spears.
Vera Chan, senior editor and Web trend analyst for Yahoo, explained in a
statement, "In 2010 consumers watched the BP disaster unfold like a slow-motion
horror film and discovered a love for the 'other' football. There was no
stopping the meteoric rise of artists like Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber. And a
favored Disney star, Miley Cyrus, made the up-and-down transition to adulthood,
while Britney Spears seemed to get her life back on track and dropped on the Top
10 list again this year."
9 out of 10 mobile Internet users have accessed the mobile web while at a store,
according to a new study from
Yahoo and
Nielsen. Furthermore, 51% of those users indicate that they make a
purchase after doing research on their mobile device.
"As consumers increasingly turn to their mobile device throughout the day,
particularly when making purchasing decisions or even while watching television,
marketers have a tremendous opportunity to reach a captive, commerce-oriented
audience," a representative for Yahoo tells WebProNews.
The study found that 50% of in-store mobile web activity is related to shopping.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised this number isn't higher, but the fact remains,
people are researching products on their phones even while in-store. This
represents a need to research your own competition online and look for ways to
make sure customers make the purchase while they're in your store. They're
already there, so you already have a tremendous advantage.
On average, 16% of consumers use their mobile phones for shopping research,
while 57% among mobile internet users and 41% among non-mobile Internet users
expressed interest in using mobile phones for shopping research in the next 12
months, the study found.
One significant finding is that 1 in 5 mobile shoppers who have seen advertising
during the shopping process say they always look at it. With that in mind,
consider that the things consumers want mobile ads to include are price, product
features, and benefits.
One other random, but interesting finding related to in-store mobile use is that
48% of in-store mobile users take and/or send a picture of a product to a friend
or family member. This represents opportunities for customers to attract new
customers to your store, particularly if you're selling unique products.
Similarly, with so many people using their mobile devices in-store, check-in
apps should command at least some of your attention. While usage of these apps
is relatively small so far, you can expect them to grow, and they present
tremendous opportunities for businesses to not only attract the attention of
users of these apps (with special offers), but for friends of those users.
See Yelp's new check-in offers feature. Users can sync their
check-ins to their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
If you do any television advertising, you may want to look at integrating your campaign with some mobile elements as well. The study also found that 86% of mobile Internet users (and 92% of 13-24 year olds) are using their mobile devices simultaneously with TV.
· · Make Yahoo Your Homepage To Help Schools
Yahoo has launched Yahoo Homepages for Homerooms, a program aimed at helping teachers and classrooms get funding for projects.
Users can help teachers receive funding for projects by making Yahoo their
homepage. The
Yodel Anecdotal blog offers more details. “Through
Yahoo Homepages for Homerooms, public school teachers are eligible to
receive funding from Yahoo if they have a project posted on DonorsChoose.org, a
renowned education nonprofit through which public school teachers can request
funds for needed classroom items – books, art supplies, a projector, you name
it!."
“Yahoo will provide full project funding (up to $600 per project) to the
projects that receive the most Yahoo.com homepages. We’ll fund up to $350,000 by
the end of the year.”
Yahoo Homepages for Homerooms runs from November 19 through Dec 23.
Daily deal shopping website Groupon has reached a distribution partnership with
Yahoo to bring local deals to users.
“Yahoo
is delivering technology at scale that connects people to the things that matter
most to them with fresh and engaging experiences,” said Blake Irving, Executive
Vice President and Chief Product Officer,
Yahoo.
“As content and advertising intersect online, our partnership with Groupon is
one more great way that we’re making the digital world more personal for our
more than 600 million users—connecting them with the local offers that help them
better enjoy the world around them.”
Starting today,
Groupon deals will be integrated with Yahoo's new Local Offers
program. Groupon deals will first have a presence in the U.S., and soon be
introduced internationally. The program will take advantage of Groupon's depth
of daily deals and Yahoo's size and targeting capabilities.
“This partnership highlights Groupon’s success in building a deep, global
platform around local deals as we currently serve over 29 million subscribers in
31 countries,” said Rob Solomon, President and Chief Operating Officer of
Groupon.