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Yahoo Debuts Axis, Their New (And Impressive) Desktop And Mobile Search Experience

A D M I N — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:38:11 +0000

Late last year, Yahoo filed for a trademark on the phrase “Yahoo Axis.” The filing raised more questions than answers at the time, but after six months Yahoo has finally spilled the proverbial beans — Axis is both a new search-oriented add-on for your web browser, and a new browser app for iOS. Before I talk about what it’s like to actually use Axis, let’s first discuss why the hell they’re doing this in the first place. TechCrunch spoke to Yahoo’s Director of Product Management Ethan Batraski, and he told us his his job has been to figure out what search looks like over the next few years. Yahoo Axis was one of his answers. “No one’s innovated on ‘How do I get rid of the search results page altogether’”, Batraski said. “That is what we want to do.” That’s exactly what they did. Once you download, install, and log into Axis with your Yahoo credentials (you do have Yahoo credentials, don’t you?), a small back bar will begin to live in the bottom left corner of your preferred web browser. Right now Axis plugs into Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer, though Batraski didn’t completely rule out the possibility of Yahoo eventually releasing their own browser should there be enough interest. That little black pill has a search bar nestled in it, and mousing over it causes it stretch across the bottom of your browser window. Actually clicking in the search box and plugging in a search query makes the bar expand to fill roughly the bottom third of your browser window, displaying easily-scannable thumbnails of Yahoo’s search results. Yahoo’s idea here is to give their (or perhaps more accurately, Microsoft’s) search engine its own flexible space to live in outside of the traditional browser paradigm. With Axis installed, users who need to find things online don’t need to tear themselves away from the page they’re currently looking at by navigating to a different page or opening a new tab. There’s no question that it takes a little getting used to — as a longtime Chrome user, it’s become second nature to open a new tab a bang a search query into the address bar — but it’s been very thoughtfully executed. When Axis works (which is most of the time) it works very well. Occasionally, the black search box will fail to close properly, leaving behind a partial remnant of the last search result thumbnail in its place. Perhaps one of the most annoying things about Axis (at least on a Mac) is scrolling horizontally through the thumbnails of search results. Users can click and drag through them with a mouse or hit buttons mounted to the left or right of the results panel, but scrolling side to side with a trackpad can be tricky. It causes the results to move over three results at a time, which sometimes means you miss seeing some results.It’s a relatively minor point of contention (and one that’s probably easy to fix), but still, there you have it. But Axis on the desktop is only one part of the equation — its other half lives on your iPhone (or your iPad). Yahoo has also whipped together a standalone browser app for iOS that seeks to bring that same revamped search experience to the mobile space. This is where Yahoo actually manages to make me swoon a little bit. The iOS app is surprisingly good — it’s more than handsome enough, it runs very smoothly (thanks mostly to its WebKit underpinnings), and your bookmarks sync between devices quickly once you make sure you’re logged in. I’ll also admit right here that I’m a bit of a sucker for their font choices, but let’s not dwell on that. If anything, the big thumbnails for search results play out even better on a small screen. There’s no angling to make sure your finger touches the link just right. That said, I’m not sure it’ll be replacing the stock Browser app for me — what’s great about Axis for the desktop is that it fits into whatever browser you’ve decided you like enough to use. On iOS though, there’s no way to set a default browser so it takes a conscientious effort to use Axis there. For now, the Axis browser app remains an iOS exclusive. It’s not entirely impossible that we’ll see a version make its way onto Android someday, though I imagine Google may not take too kindly to a another search company trying to set foot in their territory. Batraski referred to Axis as an “experiment,” but to my utter pleasure, it’s a pretty damned good one. Is it enough to make a dyed-in-the-wool Googler convert? Probably not, but with nearly 700 million users still using Yahoo, I reckon a solid chunk will find something to enjoy here.

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Yahoo Debuts Axis, Their New (And Impressive) Desktop And Mobile Search Experience

Qwiki Launches A Publishing Platform For ABC News And Others

Achilles — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:05:44 +0000

Qwiki , the startup that won Disrupt in San Francisco two years ago , is announcing a new platform today for bloggers and other online publishers. The company’s initial product basically assembled a multimedia “story” around Wikipedia articles, with images, videos, maps, and more. But the vision was bigger — to present a new kind of information experience. Now Qwiki is pitching its platform as a way for publishers to quickly and easily create short, interactive stories, which can be embedded on the publisher site and also featured in a “channel” on Qwiki. Initial partners include ABC News, which is embedding Qwikis throughout its website, and fashion publisher Stylecaster . You can watch some of the sample ABC News Qwikis here . In some ways, they look like regular news broadcasts, but presumably assembled with much less time and effort thanks to Qwiki’s technology, and with a layer of light interactivity (allowing viewers to drill down on individual topics). “What interested us in being the first media organization to use Qwiki’s innovative new video format is the ease with which reporters and producers can create informative and creative video content in almost no time,” says Maya Baratz, senior product manager at ABC News. “We plan to use Qwikis regularly on ABCNews.com and Goodmorningamerica.com on Yahoo!” Qwiki seemed to have a bumpy 2011. It raised $9 million from big-name investors including Lightbank (the investment fund of Groupon co-founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky) and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, then released an impressive iPad app that took off quickly . However, it also lost its famous co-founder Louis Monier (who founded search engine AltaVista) and other technical executives . This might look like a new direction, but a Qwiki spokesperson tells me, “This isn’t a pivot.” He says the startup will continue working on its consumer products, while also making this platform available to consumers soon. Qwiki will be demonstrating the platform at Disrupt this afternoon.

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Qwiki Launches A Publishing Platform For ABC News And Others

comScore: 1 In 5 Videos Viewed Online Last Month Was An Ad

blogger — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:36:43 +0000

According to online analytics company comScore , Americans watched 37 billion online videos on sites like YouTube, Yahoo and Facebook in April. In total, 181 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 1,307 minutes of online videos last month. Those numbers are virtually unchanged from last month, but one area that has seen pretty spectacular growth over the last few month is online video advertising. According to comScore, U.S. Internet users watched almost 9.5 billion video ads last month. That’s about 60 ads per viewer. What makes this number even more astonishing is that it was only in March of this year that the number of video ads topped 8 billion for the first time. Overall, the number of overall video views and the number of minutes they watch online video has remained pretty stable. There are some small changes at the bottom of comScore’s top 10, with Amazon making a reappearance in seventh position with 30 million viewers and Turner Digital dropping out of the list. Google’s sites, of course, continue to dominate the charts with 158 billion viewers, followed by Yahoo (53 billion) and VEVO (49 billion). Facebook, which is obviously having its day in the sun today, saw the number of video viewers on its site drop a bit from 45 million to 44 million, but in return, those viewers stuck around for 27 minutes now instead of just 21.3 minutes last month and also watched more videos per viewer than the month before (264 million). As for video ads, Hulu leads the pack here with 1.6 billion ads streamed last month (though that’s down quite a bit from 1.75 billion the month before). Google is a close second with 1.3 billion ads delivered, followed by BrightRoll and video ad exchange Adap.tv. With 48.6 ads per viewer, Hulu, also delivered a higher frequency of ads than any other service. YouTube, for example, only showed its average viewer 17.7 ads. In total, video ads reached almost 52% of U.S. Internet users.

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comScore: 1 In 5 Videos Viewed Online Last Month Was An Ad

Factual Releases Three New Location And Mobile Ad Targeting Tools

A D M I N — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:40:13 +0000

Open data platform Factual.com is beefing up its Global Places offering today with three new APIs that will provide mobile developers with access to a ton of new data which can help them build better location-aware apps. But the company notes that the APIs’ launch will be of special interest to mobile ad providers, including mobile ad networks, demand-side platforms and agencies, who are looking for new data points around geography. This is particularly important on mobile where traditional methods of ad targeting – beacons and cookies – aren’t viable. The Geopluse API (beta) is the first of three, and works to reveal directionally where users intend to go, rather than signaling their arrival at a destination. The API provides everything Factual knows about the location. You provide it latitude and longitude, and Factual returns additional attributes which it calls “pulses.” These pulses use Factual’s network of signals, calculated metrics, and census data, which come from Factual itself, publicly-available data, or from third parties. The first few “pulses” to become available include: Factual Commercial Density: Relative density of businesses near a location Factual Commercial Profile: Types of businesses near a location Nearest: provides the nearest Factual Place (a business or landmark) Demographics: Age, gender, race, median household income for a given location (U.S. only) The more interesting ones here are the Factual Commercial Density and Factual Commercial Profile. The company has taken its Places data and provided overviews of the density and type of businesses in the area. A potential use case for this API could involve a brand like Starbucks, which wants to know when, where and to whom it should serve its ads to in order to get the highest yield and conversions. With the API, the company would know not only the exact location of the consumer (the latitude and longitude), but also all the contextual info about and around the location, too. More “pulses” will arrive in the next few months. Factual says that pricing will depend on use case and usage volume. The second API is the Reverse Geocoder API (beta) which converts longitude and latitude into an address (U.S. only) or region (49 other countries). There a a few of these out there already from Google, Yahoo and MapQuest, Factual notes. While the company says that it does not see itself getting into the mapping business, it does see a need to serve its own API to complement the other offerings in its Places product. Finally, there is the world World Geographies API (beta) which is primarily used to translate place names between languages, and determine what cities are found in what regions, what states in what countries, etc. This is another complementary service, as Factual has already published small businesses and landmarks. This adds 6 million more natural and administrative geographies. Factual admits that there are a few other players that have similar products to those it announced today, but wants to differentiate itself with data (especially in terms of the Commercial Density data, above), speed and scale. The company claims to provide near real-time access to these datasets well-under 100ms.

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Factual Releases Three New Location And Mobile Ad Targeting Tools

Quora Raises $50M At $400M From Peter Thiel, D’Angelo Puts In $20M Of His Own Money

Achilles — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:18:25 +0000

Q&A site Quora has raised $50 million at a $400 million pre-money valuation according to a report by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed to me by the founders themselves. We had reported that Quora was raising in this range back in April and it looks like Facebook board member Peter Thiel has beat out many other investors including a much-rumored KPCB to lead the round. Also investing is Matrix’s Josh Hannah and Northbridge’s Jonathan Heiliger . According to our own sources, Quora co-founder Adam D’Angelo put $20 million of his own money into the Series B financing. Thiel is leading personally and not through Founders Fund, breaking up the remaining $30 million between Matrix and Northbridge. “Thiel added a lot of value to Facebook,” D’Angelo said about the Thiel investment, “And he’s been very helpful to us in the past. He understands these kinds of companies.” The participation of Wikihow co-founder Hannah is also interesting to note, as he is painfully familiar with the Q&A space, through his WikiHow and eHow investments. “Quora is a phenomenal resource to capture and share all the information where there are multiple points of view,” Hannah told me over the phone, “The Yahoo Answers and Answers.coms of the world have all fallen down to the lowest common denominator because of pandering to search traffic. Quora’s long-term vision to take the high road and create a platform for high quality discourse completely differentiates it from competitors.” D’Angelo tells me that he’s going use the money to scale and grow the company even further, “It lets us focus on the long-term. And helps us build a really good team.” According to AppData , 20K daily active users and 180K monthly active users log into Quora through Facebook Connect — Bear in mind that this is a small fraction of its total number of users, which Cheever and D’Angelo famously never reveal. “[The site] grows every week,” D’Angelo said, “I don’t really think of mainstream as a binary thing. I think that as it grows bigger, more and more people will use it to tell their stories.”

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Quora Raises $50M At $400M From Peter Thiel, D’Angelo Puts In $20M Of His Own Money

Svpply’s “We Want This!” Is A Tasteful Way Retailers Can Target Well-Dressed Shoppers

Achilles — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:13:33 +0000

Svpply , the New York-based startup that replicates the feeling of window-shopping online, is nudging its well-heeled clientele to turn their “wants” into real purchases. The company, which was co-founded by Vimeo designer Zach Klein, is unveiling analytics and targeting features for retailers in a program called “We Want This!” Shops like Free People , CXXVI and All Saints can reach influential members of the Svpply community with targeted promotions based on their “Wants.” On Svpply, a “Want” is pretty much similar to the “Like” button on Facebook. Since the company was founded a few years ago, Svpply members have clicked “Want” more than 5 million times on the site and do it at a current rate of about 160,000 per week. The startup is one of a wave of companies that are trying to make online shopping for high-end fashion more comfortable for shoppers. Over the past decade, as consumers have gotten used to ordering books and electronics online, it’s natural that fashion would be another major industry to transition online. While they’re not really competitors, there are plenty of other startups like Bonobos, Trunk Club, Gilt Groupe, Index Ventures-backed Nasty Gal and Y Combinator-backed Shoptiques that are trying to make higher-end fashion work online. Even Amazon is getting into the fray after signing designers like Michael Kors and Vivienne Westwood. The new ‘We Want This!’ program should help close that last mile between when a user says they want to buy something and when they’ll actually pull out their credit card for it. Since launching a few years ago, Svpply’s CEO Ben Pieratt says the company has been super careful about making sure the site has a tight-knit community. “Our understanding is that high quality also means high quality community,” he said. “Our product is a microcosm of the retail industry where there is a small group of tastemakers that influences what the rest of the community wants.” They seeded it to a small group of New York-based designers who then populated Svpply with products they loved. They made sure that every single product was something you could immediately buy online. “These aren’t things to dream about,” he said. “Everything you see is purchase-able.” Since then the site has grown to have 620,000 product views a week with 140,000 registered members and 700,000 unique users who come by to browse every month. They’ve also seen about 37,000 downloads of their iPhone and iPad apps. To note: the iPad app launched just six days ago. The affiliate revenue they earn is enough to cover server and rent costs for their New York-based staff. A recent Facebook Timeline integration has also bumped registrations by 40 percent as Svpply uses the verb ‘Want’ in the ticker and news feed. Svpply has raised $550,000 from Spark Capital and Founder Collective.

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Svpply’s “We Want This!” Is A Tasteful Way Retailers Can Target Well-Dressed Shoppers

No More Beating Around The Bush At Yahoo: Thompson Is Out, Levinsohn In As CEO, Effective Immediately

kram412 — Mon, 14 May 2012 00:46:35 +0000

Well, after days and days of nothing, suddenly things are moving at a fast clip. After news came out just hours ago that Thompson might be leaving the company tomorrow, moments ago Yahoo officially confirmed the news, as we reported earlier : Ross Levinsohn is now interim Chief Executive Officer, replacing Scott Thompson, and Fred Amoroso is chairman of the board. Scott Thompson’s departure and the reasons for it are not mentioned at all in the statement, which simply says he has left the company. (Earlier a report in AllThingsD had said he would resign for personal reasons, although at least in this statement nothing at all is mentioned for why he has left.) The announcement from Yahoo also underscores how activist shareholder Third Point is very much the key player in all of this. Third Point, led by Daniel Loeb, had been behind some of the strongest statements against Scott Thompson and his continuing tenure even after it emerged that Thompson had not been entirely honest in stating his past experience, and for the board’s responsibility in putting him there in the first place and then not taking decisive enough steps to remove him and put the company back in working order. All of that looks like water under the bridge… for now at least. Yahoo’s statement says that with the changes being announced today Third Point has agreed to settle its pending proxy contest related to the company’s 2012 annual meeting of shareholders. Amoroso replaces Roy Bostock, who was one of the key people who had appointed Scott Thompson as CEO earlier this year. Yahoo gives the reason for his departure as being done to “accelerate the leadership transition for the new Board.” Release below. More to come. SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today announced that the Board of Directors has named Fred Amoroso as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Ross Levinsohn as interim Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. The Company also announced that its Board has reached an agreement with Third Point LLC (“Third Point”) to settle its pending proxy contest related to the Company’s 2012 annual meeting of shareholders. Mr. Amoroso replaces Roy Bostock, who has stepped down from his role as Non-Executive Chairman in order to accelerate the leadership transition for the new Board. Mr. Levinsohn replaces Scott Thompson, former Chief Executive Officer, who has left the Company. Under the Board’s settlement agreement with Third Point, three Third Point nominees — Daniel S. Loeb, Harry J. Wilson, and Michael J. Wolf — will join the Yahoo! Board, effective May 16, 2012. Mr. Bostock, along with Patti Hart, VJ Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson, all of whom previously disclosed their intentions not to stand for re-election, as well as Mr. Thompson, have decided to step down from the Board immediately. As a part of the settlement agreement, Third Point, which owns an aggregate of 70,545,400 shares, or 5.8% of Yahoo! common stock, has agreed to withdraw its previous Board nominations for consideration at the annual meeting and vote its shares in support of Yahoo!’s nominees. Yahoo!’s slate of director nominees for election or re-election at the 2012 annual meeting of stockholders will now include Fred Amoroso, John Hayes, Peter Liguori, Thomas McInerney, Maynard Webb, Sue James, David Kenny, Brad Smith, Daniel S. Loeb, Harry J. Wilson and Michael J. Wolf. As interim CEO, Mr. Levinsohn will manage the Company’s day-to-day operations with assistance from Yahoo!’s existing senior leadership team. “The Board is pleased to announce these changes and the settlement with Third Point, and is confident that they will serve the best interests of our shareholders and further accelerate the substantial advances the Company has made operationally and organizationally since last August. The Board believes in the strength of the Company’s business and assets, and in the opportunities before us, and I am honored to work closely with my fellow directors and Ross to continue to drive Yahoo! forward,” said Fred Amoroso, Chairman of the Yahoo! Board of Directors. Mr. Amoroso continued, “On behalf of the entire Board, I would also like to thank Patti, VJ, Arthur, Gary and, in particular, Roy, for their dedicated long-term service and contributions to the Board and Yahoo!.” Third Point Chief Executive Officer Daniel S. Loeb stated: “Harry, Michael and I are delighted to join the Yahoo! Board and work collaboratively with our fellow directors to foster a culture of leadership dedicated to innovation, excellence in corporate governance, and responsiveness to users, advertisers and partners. We are confident this Board will benefit from shareholder representation, and we are committed to working with new leadership to unlock Yahoo!’s significant potential and value.” Third Point Director Nominee Jeff Zucker stated: “I have been supportive of Third Point’s efforts since Daniel asked me to join the slate. When I became aware of Yahoo!’s offer of three board seats to Third Point, I approached Daniel and let him know that I would be happy to step aside to quickly facilitate a settlement. I believe that it is in Yahoo!’s best interests to avoid a prolonged proxy fight and have new board members immediately to help move the company forward. While there is clearly much work to be done, this is the right combination of talented executives to do just that.” About Yahoo! Yahoo! is the premier digital media company, creating deeply personal digital experiences that keep more than half a billion people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the globe. And Yahoo!’s unique combination of Science + Art + Scale connects advertisers to the consumers who build their businesses. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit the pressroom ( pressroom.yahoo.net ) or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal ( yodel.yahoo.com ). About Third Point LLC About Third Point LLC : Third Point is an investment firm headquartered in New York, managing $9.0 billion in assets, including a London Stock Exchange listed closed-end fund. Founded in 1995, Third Point follows an event-driven approach to investing globally. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning such matters as Yahoo!’s new directors and strategic activities and plans. Risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from the results predicted. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the impact of management and organizational changes; the implementation and results of any strategic plans as well as Yahoo!’s ongoing strategic and cost initiatives; Yahoo!’s ability to compete with new or existing competitors; reduction in spending by, or loss of, advertising customers; risks related to Yahoo!’s regulatory environment; interruptions or delays in the provision of Yahoo!’s services; security breaches; acceptance by users of new products and services; risks related to joint ventures and the integration of acquisitions; risks related to Yahoo!’s international operations; failure to manage growth and diversification; adverse results in litigation, including intellectual property infringement claims and recent derivative and class actions; Yahoo!’s ability to protect its intellectual property and the value of its brands; dependence on key personnel; dependence on third parties for technology, services, content, and distribution; general economic conditions and changes in economic conditions; transition and implementation risks associated with the Search Agreement with Microsoft Corporation; and risks that the benefits of the Framework Agreement Yahoo! entered into with Alibaba Group, Softbank Corporation and certain other parties regarding Alipay may not be realized. All information set forth in this press release is as of May 13, 2012. Yahoo! does not intend, and undertakes no duty, to update this information to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. More information about potential factors that could affect Yahoo!’s business and financial results is included under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Yahoo!’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2011, as amended, and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2012, which are on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov . Important Additional Information Yahoo! has filed a preliminary proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and will be filing a definitive proxy statement with the SEC in connection with the solicitation of proxies for its 2012 annual meeting of shareholders. Shareholders are strongly advised to read Yahoo!’s 2012 definitive proxy statement (including any amendments or supplements thereto) when it becomes available because it will contain important information. Shareholders will be able to obtain copies of Yahoo!’s 2012 proxy statement, any amendments or supplements to the proxy statement, and other documents filed by Yahoo! with the SEC in connection with its 2012 annual meeting of shareholders for no charge at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov . Copies of the proxy materials may also be requested from Yahoo!’s proxy solicitor, Innisfree M&A Incorporated, by telephone at (877) 750-9499 (toll-free) or by email at info@innisfreema.com . Yahoo!, its directors, executive officers and certain employees are deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies from shareholders in connection with Yahoo!’s 2012 annual meeting of shareholders. Information regarding Yahoo!’s directors, executive officers and other persons who, under rules of the SEC, are considered participants in the solicitation of proxies for the 2012 annual meeting of shareholders, including their respective interests by security holdings or otherwise, is set forth in the preliminary proxy statement Yahoo! filed with the SEC on April 27, 2012 and will be set forth in the definitive proxy statement for Yahoo!’s 2012 annual meeting of shareholders when it is filed with the SEC.

Hitwise: Bing Now Powers Over 30% Of U.S. Searches

vertical8 — Sat, 12 May 2012 00:14:33 +0000

Just a day after it announced its well-received updates to its search result pages, here is some more good news for Bing: according to the latest data from Experian Hitwise, Bing-powered searches — that is searches on Bing.com and search.yahoo.com — now account for 30.01% of all U.S. searches . By itself, Bing grew 16% year-over-year and 5% month-over-month and now accounted for 14.32% of all U.S. searches in April 2012. Yahoo grew somewhat slower, but still at a respectable 5% month-over-month and 7% year-over-year. Things didn’t quite look so rosy for Google, though. Searches on Google.com, according to Hitwise, declined 3% in April 2011 compared to the previous month and were down 5% year-over-year. Google, of course, still remains far ahead of its competition. In April, almost 64.5% of all U.S. searches were powered by Google. The 65 smaller search engines Hitwise also tracks only accounted for 6.51% of U.S. searches, by the way. While Bing is still losing money – and while there have been some rumors about Microsoft trying to sell its search engine to Facebook – there can be little doubt that Microsoft’s persistence is slowly paying off and eating into Google’s still sizable lead. Leaving out the searches it powers on Yahoo, Bing itself, of course, still remains a niche player at under 15%, but crossing the 30% barrier is quite an achievement for Bing.

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Hitwise: Bing Now Powers Over 30% Of U.S. Searches

Louis CK Secretly Releases Another Online-Only Special

bestcbstore — Fri, 11 May 2012 23:25:37 +0000

Comedian Louis CK has just released a new comedy special, WORD: Live At Carnegie Hall as another download/streaming offering. The special costs $5 and follows on the heels of his previous special, Live At The Beacon Theatre . CK did no preliminary press for the release and this special contains content that fans might recognize from other live shows as well as his TV program, Louie. Comedian Jim Gaffigan also recently released a download-only comedy special as did Aziz Ansari . The specials aim to avoid the potential censorship and, more important, the cost of working with broadcast and cable networks. The special is audio-only this time and is currently available. via Huffington Post

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Louis CK Secretly Releases Another Online-Only Special

Really, Yahoo. What Is Taking So Long?

Administrator — Wed, 09 May 2012 00:28:12 +0000

When Yahoo hired Scott Thompson as CEO back in January , many at the company were surely hoping that they’d finally found the game-changing leader they’d so sorely needed for years. Now just four months later, Thompson is only serving to highlight the exact deep-rooted corporate sluggishness that he was meant to upend. There have been lots of rumors about the internal progress of Scott Thompson’s resume-gate (Kara Swisher at AllThingsD has an especially good handle on these inside scoops.) But in a way, the outwardly confirmed facts of the matter — or really, the lack thereof — increasingly speak for themselves. Each hour that passes without an official decision from Yahoo seems to show that the company is in even worse shape than anyone thought. Today Yahoo issued a press release announcing it has “formed a special committee to conduct a thorough review of CEO Scott Thompson’s academic credentials.” This is probably supposed to be a sign of progress, but it comes across as just the opposite. The release says that the “special committee and the entire Board appreciate the urgency of the situation,” but do they really? This issue came to light on May 3. Today is May 8. We all know that Yahoo hasn’t been known for lighting-fast innovation for a long time. An 18-year-old publicly traded global corporation will tend to slow down a bit. But it’s still pretty shocking that the board can’t show some hustle for a situation like this. As Mike Arrington has very artfully written, Yahoo’s rank-and-file employees deserve better . True story: This year, I received my tax refund check from the state of California exactly four days after I filed my taxes. My tax refund , through snail mail , from California , which is a very large and notoriously mismanaged state that everyone keeps saying is basically going bankrupt . Just for reference, here is a short list of some other pretty complicated things that have lasted (or will last) fewer than five days: The Papal conclave for the selection of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 The Papal conclave for the selection of Pope John Paul II in 1978 The U.S. Senate’s closed door deliberations on the final verdict of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1999 The average birth of a human baby The life span of a gastrotrich The TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2012 Hackathon and Conference (May 19-23, shameless plug ) Anyway, we’re considering doing a special TechCrunch logo with Scott Thompson’s face as our own smoke signal sort of vigil to mark the time until the board figures it all out. Any over/under on how long it would be there? Feature image of Scott Thompson courtesy of Flickr user YodalAnecdotal via Creative Commons license

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Really, Yahoo. What Is Taking So Long?