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Microsoft, Yahoo Talks Continue

Last month, Yahoo’s on-again-off-again talks with Microsoft over a search and advertising partnership were said to be back on. After months of finger pointing and recriminations over who was to blame for the deal cratering, the two sides were again on speaking terms. The stripped-down deal that the two have been discussing involves Yahoo outsourcing its search engine to Microsoft. The two companies would also collaborate on advertising. But now we’re told that the same “social issues” that bedeviled Microsoft’s ham-handed pursuit of Yahoo from the start have resurfaced. The Yahoos are steamed that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer keeps returning to areas they thought the two camps had already agreed on. Maybe it’s time for Mr. Ballmer to pick up his search engine and go home. – from WSJ


Yahoo closing GeoCities

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo Inc. said Thursday it plans to close GeoCities, a Web site publishing and hosting service it bought in May 1999 at the height of the dot-com boom for around $3 billion in stock. The service will be shut down later this year. Visitors to the site now see a message that says new GeoCities accounts will not be available and gives them the option to sign up for Yahoo’s Web hosting service for $5.98 a month.

It is not clear when Yahoo made the move, but a spokesman said in an e-mailed statement that the decision was recent.

GeoCities is not the only Yahoo service to get the ax – Yahoo Briefcase, Farechase, My Web, RSS ads, Yahoo Pets, Yahoo Live, Kickstart and Yahoo For Teachers all are being eliminated as well. The search giant also recently outsourced Launchcast radio to CBS Corp.

“As part of Yahoo’s ongoing effort to build products and services that deliver the best possible experiences for consumers and results for advertisers, we are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others,” the statement said.

The trimming is part of a process that started in 2007 while Jerry Yang was still chief executive, to close down services that aren’t profitable or don’t fit into company’s long-term vision.

The revamp has accelerated under new CEO Carol Bartz, who was hired in January.

In a sign of its ongoing troubles, Yahoo said Tuesday that it will lay off nearly 700 workers, the company’s third round of job cuts during the past 14 months.

Yahoo earned $118 million, or 8 cents per share, during the first three months of the year. That represents a 78 percent drop from net income of $537 million, or 37 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue fell 13 percent to $1.58 billion.

Yahoo shares rose 7 cents Thursday to close at $14.55.

Responses from the interwebs:

Believe it or not, the webpage service Geocities is still alive—but not for long. Fifteen years after its original creation, Yahoo has announced that it will shut down the service later this year. An exact date is not specified, but Yahoo is warning current users to consider moving to other options, such as Yahoo’s own Web Hosting service. Started in 1994, Geocities was like the Facebook to Angelfire’s MySpace—competing webpage services that allowed over-enthused HTML newbies to create artfully horrific webpages to represent themselves in the early days of the Internet. (I was a diehard Angelfire fan, myself.) Geocities was acquired by Yahoo in 1999 with the intent of extending Yahoo’s reach with its Internet advertising and services. – from Ars

I don’t think this is a good idea, partly because now, some people who built a space on Geocities for whatever purpose will now be forced to move elsewhere. But I can tell why this came around: they gave very low bandwidth for loading the sites, which often caused many that I tried to access to go offline and become unavailable for at least a few hours at a time. Free Web Hosting, a directory of services, no longer has them listed, but when they did, there were reader comments that complained about this. Yet Yahoo did nothing to make people feel better about using their sitebuilding services. And they wonder why they must’ve lost so many users? – from here

I’ll know that 2009 is the year GeoCities ended. But I’ll also remember that 10 years ago, it all started for me in GeoCities. – from here

GeoCities’ traffic has been falling over the past year. According to ComScore, GeoCities unique visitors in the U.S. fell 24 percent in March to 11.5 million unique visitors from 15.1 million in March of 2008. Back in October, 2006, it had 18.9 million uniques. – from Techcrunch

With GeoCities, a little piece of me is dying. This is the blurb I wrote for Chorus, Isolate, Confirm about everyone’s favorite free web host’s passage into eternity. Fellow alumni of the GeoCities School of Hard Knocks (And Bad Web Design) are encouraged to contribute their own anecdotes. – from here


Another Try for a Microsoft and Yahoo Deal

In early discussions that began in the last several weeks that apparently included a face-to-face meeting last week, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer are finally talking about search and also advertising partnerships the companies could possibly strike, said several sources with knowledge of the situation. According to a variety of sources, the talks between the pair and other execs at both companies are preliminary and wide-ranging, focused on what kind of commercial relationship Yahoo and Microsoft could have in the future. – via all things d


Yahoo to announce restructuring this week

yahoo_logo
No shock. Yahoo has been floundering for too long. Watch for Microsoft talks to get reignited.

Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Carol Bartz could announce a major management reorganization as early as next week, according to the blog AllThingsD. The Wall Street Journal-affiliated blog, citing several sources inside and outside the Internet company, said the revamp would likely come on Wednesday, although it could be pushed out a week or two or rolled out in pieces. – From Reuters

Yahoo Inc.’s new chief executive, Carol Bartz, may announce a management restructuring as early as Wednesday, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal, citing unidentified people, said in a report published on its Web site Saturday that a memo from Bartz suggested there would be a reorganization and that many top executives knew few details about it. Bartz is likely to undo or scale back prior reorganizations by former CEO Jerry Yang, the paper said, citing the expectations of many. – From Business Week

Yahoo management is likely to undergo a major restructure next week, according to industry sources. The firm’s new chief executive, Corol Bartz, would make the sweeping changes in order to better position the firm following her predecessor Jerry Yang’s difficult period of tenure. Under Yang’s leadership and the management structure he put in place, Yahoo experienced a continuing decline against Google in search market share, swinging share prices caused by a failed Microsoft acquisition attempt and collapse of a Google search deal that would have brought the company a significant increase in revenue. – From vnunet.com


TV Buzz: Scrubs, BSG, Tina Fey ‘roofies’ Jon Hamm, Lauren Graham

scrubs

Scrubs is done. The show moguls decided that without Zach Braff the show couldn’t continue – as some fans and cast members had suggested. Remember ‘After MASH’. ‘Nuff said.

BSG stars Edward James Olmos and Mary McConnell dish on their characters growing relationship.

Yahoo is looking to extend its brand to television by developing a half-hour news mag thingee – Yahoo Buzz – with Twentieth Television.

Tina Fey says “I Might Accidentally Roofie Jon Hamm” with regard to the appearance of the Mad Man hunk on 30 Rock. It’s all good fun!

Former Gilmore Girl Lauren Graham has a new show set- Let it Go. Graham will play a self-help talk show host whose advice to woman winds up falling on her own deaf ears when her “perfect” beau gives her the boot. Hmmm…. not particularly orginal. Alex Herschlag of Will & Grace fame will write the pilot.


Yahoo joins wave of tech layoffs

Analysts fear hi-tech job cuts could slash not just payrolls, but innovation as well.
While there was enthusiasm among Yahoo shareholders about possible renewed talks with Microsoft, some workers there were facing layoffs. The cost of technology jobs like those at Yahoo could be high for the economy.


Ex-AOL CEO Wants to Ruin Yahoo Too!

Ah, the man with the magic touch.

Former AOL Chief Executive Jonathan Miller is trying to raise money to purchase a portion or all of Yahoo Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Miller has been talking to private equity investors and sovereign wealth funds for months in hopes of raising money for a Yahoo deal, and it is unclear whether the talks have progressed or are just continuing, these people say.

Mr. Miller believes he can do a deal that would be worth around $20 to $22 a share to Yahoo shareholders, these people say, which would involve raising about $28 billion to $30 billion to purchase the entire company.

Sources close to Yahoo expressed deep skepticism that Mr. Miller would succeed in lining up investors. Indeed, given banks’ reluctance to lend money right now, financing a deal of this size would be extremely difficult, even from deep-pocketed sovereign wealth funds.

- from WSJ

According to the Journal’s story, Miller has talked to private equity investors and sovereign wealth funds for months with an aim to raising money for a deal.

He believes he can assemble a deal worth $20 to $22 a share, which would involve him raising about $28 billion to $30 billion to buy the whole company, the Journal reported.

Miller discussed the idea with some Yahoo board members but that it has not come up for an official board discussion yet, the Journal reported.

- from Reuters

Meanwhile, Yahoo rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic:

Yahoo is not waiting around for 2008 to pack it in, and has released the top stories (and top searches) for the year that still has 30 days to go. I just spent 20 minutes on the site, and I love it. The presentation is simple, elegant and inviting. It is definitely better than most of the lists magazines are going to churn out. I wonder why Yahoo doesn’t do more of these technology-enabled media properties.

- from GigaOm


Tech Stocks to Watch: Yahoo!, Research in Motion

Icahn Boosts Stake in Yahoo! as Company Denies Plans to Sell Search Business to Microsoft; Research in Motion Shares Rising After Friday Declines Due to Inventory Concerns.


Microsoft in $20 Billion Yahoo deal?

SOFTWARE giant Microsoft is in talks to acquire Yahoo’s online search business for $20 billion (£13 billion).

The proposal forms the centrepiece of a complex transaction that would see Microsoft support a new management team to take control of Yahoo. But there is no intention of Microsoft tabling another takeover bid for the web giant, after its aborted $47.5 billion offer this summer.

It is thought that Jonathan Miller, ex-chairman and chief executive of AOL, and Ross Levinsohn, a former president of Fox Interactive Media, have been lined up to lead the new management team. Senior directors at Microsoft and Yahoo are understood to have agreed the broad terms of a deal, but there is no guarantee that it will succeed.

- from Times Online

It’s time to finally end the Microsoft-Yahoo stalemate, and I’ve got a few suggestions.

I know Steve Ballmer said last week that acquisition talks are “over.”

Of course, he doesn’t want to buy the whole train wreck.

But Ballmer also reminded everyone at Microsoft’s annual shareholder meeting in Bellevue that he’s still interested in Yahoo’s search business.

He’ll get it eventually, but it’s like watching a bad mystery or Seattle building light rail: exciting at first, but once you figure out the ending, it starts putting you to sleep.

What’s the holdup, now that regulators pushed Google out of the picture?

One take is that Microsoft hasn’t been able to figure out whom to negotiate with in Sunnyvale. It went nowhere with the wishy-washy board of directors or the flip-flopping Chief Yahoo, Jerry Yang.

- from Seattle

Eric Schmidt is fond of saying it would take Google 300 years to achieve its goals. I always thought he must have been at least partly joking. The shelf life of Internet companies is short; it’s taken Yahoo and eBay little more than a decade to reach what appears to be their respective “best-if-used-by” dates.

And judging from the way investors have been treating Google’s stock, you’d think it was also on track to face an early downgrade from Internet giant to also-ran. After hitting an all-time high of $747.24 a share in November 2007, Google’s stock slid to as low as $247.30 a week ago — a 67-percent drop (the shares closed at $292.96 in a shortened trading day Friday). True, most stocks have suffered from widespread selling, but consider that rival Microsoft is down about 50 percent from its 2007 peak.

- from GigaOm

Meanwhile, Techcrunch says this is BS:

Let’s just compare this to the deal Microsoft previously offered to buy Yahoo’s search business outright.

That involved an $8 billion direct investment in Yahoo in exchange for 16% of the company, plus $1 billion in cash for the search business. And that was expected to generate an extra $1 billion in operating income.

So how does the new deal generate twice as much income going into an economic downturn? And why would Microsoft agree to anything other than complete ownership of Yahoo’s search business? And how does the search business go from being worth $1 billion earlier this year to $20 billion in two years?

Like I said, it doesn’t make much sense.

- from Techcrunch


Icahn Raises Stake In Yahoo

Yahoo Inc. board member Carl Icahn this week purchased 6.8 million shares of Yahoo stock, boosting his stake in the troubled Internet giant to nearly 5.5% as the company’s search for a new chief executive continues. – from WSJ

In a move likely to fuel speculation over Yahoo Inc.’s search for a new chief executive, activist investor Carl Icahn has bought up close to 7 million additional shares of the Internet company, according to regulatory filings.

Icahn, a billionaire hedge-fund manager who threatened to oust Yahoo’s board this summer after it rejected a deal with Microsoft Inc., snapped up about $67 million worth of shares over three days this week, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. – from Huffpo

Shares of Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) surged on Friday, after billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn disclosed that he has increased his stake in the Internet company.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Icahn bought roughly 6.8 million Yahoo shares over three days this week, paying around $67 million.

Icahn, who sits on Yahoo’s board, now owns 75.6 million of the company’s shares, or a 5.4 percent stake valued at around $870 million based on Yahoo’s closing share price on Friday. – from Reuters

Yahoo! Inc., whose shares fell 60 percent since spurning Microsoft Corp.’s $44.5 billion takeover bid, may find hiring a replacement chief executive officer more difficult while “Chief Yahoo” Jerry Yang works down the hall.

Yang, 40, agreed to step down as CEO and resume his former advisory role on Nov. 17 after rejecting Microsoft’s bid. The prospect of succeeding the Yahoo co-founder may not appeal to candidates fearful of second-guessing, said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a Chicago executive- placement firm.

“There’s certainly the potential for trouble,” said Heath Terry, an analyst at Arlington, Virginia-based FBR Capital Markets Corp. who has an “underperform” rating on the shares. “In the minds of Jerry, most of the board and employees, this is still Jerry’s company.”

Taiwan-born Yang will serve as CEO until a new one is hired, said Kim Rubey, a company spokeswoman. He wasn’t available for comment, she said. – from Bloomberg