Crenk » yahoo

Yahoo’s $3.65 Billion Mistake: Yahoo Closes GeoCities

Steven Finch — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:29:08 +0000

Back in 1999 Yahoo purchased GeoCities for $3.65 billion, but today it has sent out a “final notice” warning GeoCities users that they are pulling the plug on the 26th October.

Yahoo currently is shutting down a lot of services which it seems as though previous CEO’s purchased for no real reason. Current Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz seems to have her head switch on and is focusing on Yahoo’s key business areas:

Homepage
Mail
Messenger
Everything “mobile”
Search
Media experiences across sports, news, finance, entertainment

“Yahoo’s goal is to be at the center of people’s online lives, and these efforts all support that,” says a source.

What is Yahoo wanting to sell:

Yahoo Games!
Yahoo Hot Jobs
Yahoo Small Business
Zimbra
Yahoo Shopping
Delicious

Here’s the farewell letter:

Yahoo Twitter Clone: Yahoo Meme Is Now Open To The Public

Steven Finch — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:19:23 +0000

Previously here on Crenk we wrote about Yahoo Meme and we were even offering invites to our readers. It has been announced on the site only that Yahoo Meme is now open to the public. There is still no official word from Yahoo about the launch, but make sure you head over to Yahoo Meme and check it out.

Additionally, make sure you follow Crenk on Yahoo Meme.

Yahoo Meme: Twitter Meets Viral

Steven Finch — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:09:40 +0000

I was lucky enough to receive an invite to Yahoo’s new product Meme. Meme is a micro-blogging service from Yahoo that works in a very similar way to Twitter. You may now ask, whats the difference?

Yahoo Meme is very fast and stable
Yahoo Meme makes it very easy to post Video, Music and Photos straight into your stream
Yahoo Meme has really focused on making it easy to re-post items you like, with just 1 click (Viral focused)

We have joined just to test out the service and even after testing im pretty sure im going to keep using the account, because it is just so simple and easy to use. If you want to follow Crenk on Yahoo Meme our url is: http://meme.yahoo.com/crenk/

So you may be wondering why doesnt everyone just move over to this service from Twitter, well basically its because of the amount of users using Twitter. Additionally its the community of developers who have helped Twitter grow at the rate they have.

What Yahoo Meme really needs to develop:

Yahoo Meme needs its own URL and identity away from the Yahoo.com domain. It would be good to see this as a standalone service
Ability to resize pictures and videos down so that a lot more streams can be seen in the same window (problem with media in the stream)

Yahoo Meme is currently in private beta, so to mark its launch we can offer a lucky 5 people into the system. All you have to do is comment on this post and let us know why you want to use the service so badly!

Yahoo! and Bing Still Rivals

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:07:28 +0000

When Bing and Yahoo! decided recently that they would work together in an effort to stage an offensive against the internet giant that is Google, I though competition between the two had come to an untimely end. I was wrong.

As it happens, although the two search engines will work together to defeat Google they will still compete for glory. Perhaps we will see a kind of WW2 cooperation just like the bitter Allies united to defeat the Nazis…not that Google is a Nazi.

A senior vice president of Yahoo! said “We are Yahoo and that will continue…We collaborate on the back-end but we are competitors on the front-end,”

I guess this makes sense. I mean, what were we all expecting? Yahoo! and Bing to come together like two lost lovers? Nonsense. This is a recession and both companies will by going full steam ahead to stay afloat. They will share advertising revenue with both search engines using the Bing ad model. The deal is due to come into affect next year and will last for ten years. By the end of that time will Google have been defeated? And will Yahoo! be left needing Bing more than Bing needs Yahoo?

Meme will Challage Twitter in a World War

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:36:23 +0000

It appears as though Yahoo! may be the first real competitor to Twitter. Other companies such as Facebook have tried to draw people away from micro-blogging back to social networking. But there has been no real competition on the actual micro-blogging front.

A while back, Yahoo! stealthily rolled out Yahoo! Meme in the Portuguese language only. Nobody was all too sure why they did this because as business goes, you’re supposed to promote, promote, promote! Now their reasoning is clear.

It was a test. To see if it stood a chance without causing the company any embarrassment if it failed. They are now tackling Twitter on the global front by launching the micro-blogging platform in the second biggest language in the world; Spanish.

While people all over the world do use Twitter, studies have shown that services are received better by the public when they are tailored specifically to their needs – in this case their language.

While I can’t see Meme over running Twitter on the English servers I can see the new Yahoo! service picking up steam in South America, Mexico, West Africa and of course Spain.

Yahoo! Has Clause to Back Out From Microsoft Deal

Dean — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:26:51 +0000

Last week, here at Crenk we reported that Microsoft and Yahoo! are entering into a deal to combine search technology and the revenue from their engines in a bid to strike Google who has a share of around 65% of the global market. Yahoo! and Microsoft barely have 28% – combined.

It has emerged that the companies’ lack of market holding has led to Yahoo! putting a clause in the agreement which states that Yahoo! can back out of the deal at any time before the scheduled five year renewal if their revenue share falls too low.

Yahoo! and Microsoft failed to specify what exactly the number was that would entitle Yahoo! to pull out should revenue fall below it however it is expected that the danger zone will be in the first eighteen months.

This is because any new service, whether continuing on from an old one or starting from scratch will experience growing pains. A few other details have emerged since the deal was officially filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

For example, Microsoft must hire 400 Yahoo! engineers and pay them “market-competitive” wages. Furthermore, a full deal must be struck by October 27th otherwise the debates will be brought to a arbitration panel. Time is money.

I guess now we all have to play the waiting game. I wonder in two years time will be caught saying “I Binged myself and I’m 5^th in the search results!”.

Yahoo and Microsoft Search – Possible Collaboration

Dean — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:13:41 +0000

A whopping 67% of us ‘Google’ things. If we want to know something we simply ’Google it’, as it has become known. Like any good online company, their name is also a verb. Just like Twitter with Tweet. They have a hug share of the market – undoubtedly. Now however, they may have their first real competitor in years.

Anyone remember last year when Microsoft was trying to buy Yahoo! for almost 50 Billion dollars? It went down in flames. But the inter-company relationship didn’t end. Now, they’re discussing a possible collaboration between the two search engines –Bing (Microsoft) and Yahoo!.

If this were to go ahead then it would offer a chunk of healthy competition to the dominant Google. The news storyalone would send thousands flocking, to give it a whirl – but Yahoo and Microsoft better be careful.

People like their search engine. For me, its been Yahoo! imply because I like a bit of news before I search and also because it was the first search engine I ever used so I just kind of stuck with it. People don’t like change – and when they do change they don’t want to be insulted by too many sponsored results like over at Ask.com or search results that make them want to ‘Google’ .

It’s impossible to tell what the end result would be from this mutation of search engines. Would it be Yahoo!, powered by Bing or the other way around? They do have a plan to split the revenue between them but what about the work load such as PR, development and staffing the site. Now might not be a good time to invest in any search engine as there’s going to be a war, with casualties. I’ll wait until the final few blows before I put my money on one of them.

Yahoo Engineers Speak About New Yahoo.com Home Page

Steven Finch — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:36:21 +0000

Yahoo has been getting a lot bad press lately, but with their recent new home page launch they seem to be slowly getting on the right track. Other positive news coming out of Yahoo is their Microsoft search marketing deal, acquisition of Xoopit, and more. Today we wanted to show you a quick video about what Yahoo! engineers think about their new home page.

Geek speak for what went into our new homepage @ Yahoo! Video

Yahoo! Buys a Start-Up Site

Dean — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:05:40 +0000

Yahoo has confirmed that is has purchased a small start-up located in San Francisco in order to add better photo functionality to their Web Mail. The company which has been bought out is called Xoopit and is an emerging contender in the photo sharing world. The service allows users to share photos easily on a host of different sites such as Flickr and Facebook by taking them from their e-mail inboxes.

On the company blog, Bryan Lamkin, the senior vice-president said:

“ Why is this such a big deal? Yahoo! Mail is actually home to one of the largest online photo repositories in the world. And every day, millions of you use Yahoo! Mail as your primary way to share the photos of important moments in your lives. While social networks and community sites are great for sharing photos with everyone you know, we realize it’s not for everyone or every occasion. For many, email is still best for sharing photos among a more select group of friends or family. And now we’re making it all that much easier for you.”

Xoopit seems over the moon with the new deal. They have updated their homepage screaming Yahoo! everywhere. On their company blog they said that “the Xoopit team today sees this acquisition as an exceptional path for us in achieving our vision. Over the last few months, we have left every conversation with the Yahoo! team thinking that together we can wow the world”

The specific financial deal has not been revealed but it is estimated to be in the region of $20 million. That amount of money is no chump change for a new group of start-up creators who will hopefully go on to create even better websites and services in the future.

Yahoo Search Ad Deal With Microsoft Imminent

Steven Finch — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:18:54 +0000

It has been reported that sources at a major client of investment house ThinkEquity say that the firm considers a Microsoft (MSFT) link-up with Yahoo! (YHOO) in the search business to be “imminent”. The comments were made by analyst William Morrison. ThinkEquity did not have an immediate comment.

Sources beyond ThinkEquity speculate that under the terms of the arrangement, Yahoo! will be paid $3 billion upfront and will get 11o% of the revenue that its searches provide after traffic acquisition costs in each of the first two years. In the third year, that figure would go to 90%.

Microsoft will then have control of 30% of the US search market if they can close the deal with Yahoo. Given that Microsoft’s own Bing is on the rise also, it will then only be about taking share away from Google. However, I can see how this deal with allow Microsoft to take marketshare from Google, Google has much better technology and a huge amount of brand loyalty. comScore put Google’s US June search share flat at 65%, Yahoo! at 19.5%, down .5%, and Microsoft at 8.4%, up .4%.

For Yahoo!, the transaction would give it the opportunity to lock in a substantial revenue stream from search and potentially save several hundred million dollars over the next three years by cutting development personnel and costs. If the transaction materializes, Yahoo!’s share could jump $4 or $5.

Yahoo!’s GeoCities to Close Forever

Dean — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:39:14 +0000

Geocities was created fifteen years ago when the internet was barely getting onto its feet. People went mad using basic HTML creating what are now viewed as utterly horrific websites such as this one. Now, after fifteen years of offering free hosting services Yahoo! have finally decided that it is time to close it down once and for all.

October 26^th will be the day all geocities websites will be deleted from the servers. Yahoo! sent out an e-mail advising all geocities members to back up all geocities files onto their computer or move their website to another hosting facility.

“We know your files are important to you, and we want to make moving to Web Hosting as easy and affordable as we can. For a limited time, you can move your files automatically, take advantage of terrific features like a personalized domain name and email, even redirect your GeoCities web address to your new site — all for only $4.99 a month for a full year.” Read an e-mail sent out to all GeoCities subscribers today.

In true business fashion, Yahoo! are using this closure to pedal their own hosting services from $4.99 per month for small businesses and personal users.

It seems like the last remaining bits of the old internet are dying away. Personally, I see it as a good and bad thing. Bad because I’ll have to recover my website and transfer it elsewhere but good because the internet is prevailing even during a recession.

Monitoring your Search Engines Positions

Augusto Alvarez — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:39:14 +0000

If you are a geek blogger like me, you would know that the having a good ranking within the most important search engines it is a big deal if you are trying to promote your blog. KPMRS (Keyword Position Monitoring Report Service) can help you with that by monitoring constantly the page rank you have with Google, Yahoo and Bing.

How to use it is very simple, you don’t even have to be registered to receive any result, you can query and get some instant results about your site and a special keyword. The free registration can also give you: Email Alerts (when position changes or when a competitor has passed you); weekly reports; and monitor for Google’s Page Rank and Alexa.

Here’s a query about my blog with a keyword that I know I have a good ranking about it:

It is pretty cool to have these results and see the differences between the search engines; and of course will be very helpful to you if you are setting up your business to evaluate the status of popularity.

Yahoo! Release Google Chrome Add-On

Dean — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:48:58 +0000

Google and Yahoo! Are the two main search engines in the West. The two have been around long enough for everyone to use them instinctively without much regard to competitors. Seriously, if you want to know something you either Google it or…uh, ‘Yahoo!’ it.

Now, Yahoo! have released an ad-on of their Delicious affiliate site for Google’s Chrome Internet browser. This is one of the first updates to become available since Google first released Chrome. Up until recently the browser was considered by many developers and programmers to be unstable and unsuitable to develop add-ons for.

Google call these new ad-ons ‘extensions’ are now growing in popularity. However, many are still hopeful of Google releasing more powerful ad-blockers.

Yahoo!’s Delicious extensions allows the user to log in and post their bookmarks and comments. This is considered very basics in comparison as to what’s available in Mozilla and internet Explorer but it is a step in the right direction – it’s also a very ‘tongue-in-cheek’ move by Yahoo; beating Google at their own game.

My First Thoughts on Bing and The Results for Crenk

Steven Finch — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:42:17 +0000

There has been a lot of talk recently about Bing and what amounts of traffic and growth it has been seeing. Other blogs such as the Inquisitr have been talking about how Bing has been bringing in more traffic than Yahoo. I just wanted to run through my first impressions of Bing and the results they have sent to Crenk.

Bing is very much the same as Live.com and I really think this is a marketing ploy from Microsoft than any major changes. The search engine still delivers poor results in comparison to Google and Yahoo. However, they are now adding channel specific search engines. For example if im looking for flights Bing works this out and then delivers me to the flight specific search engine within Bing. Thus, doing search this way provides more specific advertising opportunities and deliverys more detailed results that Google just cant compete with.

With regards to results from Bing to Crenk it has been very minimal. Bing has sent Crenk 171 pageviews, while Yahoo sent 1,629 and Google 60,195 in the same period. Thus, Bing has a huge amount of work to do to bring itself up to where it needs to be.

Yahoo Music iPhone and iPod Touch App Launches

Steven Finch — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:42:57 +0000

Yahoo has announced that they have launch an iPhone and iPod Touch application for Yahoo Music. The free app is available now through the iTunes App store.

The amazing team at CBS RADIO crammed a lot of great features into the Yahoo! Music app so that you will never be without your favorite music when you’re on the go. Here are just a few of the great features included:

Browse through 20+ genres
Skip up to six songs an hour
Browse stations by genre or find local stations ‘near you’ utilizing GPS
Share stations with friends
Browse your listening history or recently played stations
Buy albums/songs via iTunes
Listen to 1010WINS, KROQ, WFAN and more than a hundred other CBS RADIO stations in addition to Yahoo! Music’s 150 music stations
Add presets for instant access to your favorite stations

Yahoo Products Finally Adopt Twitter

Steven Finch — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:20:05 +0000

Head over to http://twitter.com/yahoo to follow us for 140-character updates on a variety of things Yahoo!. Just five hours in the saddle and we have nearly 200 followers. Welcome!

That said, there are many other Yahoo! Twitter accounts that went live before us, including @yahoo_directory, @yahoosearchdata, @yahoomovies, @yahoo_sports, @YahooNews, @yahoonews_odd, @Yahoogames, @YahooBuzz, @ymailblog, @yahoogroups, @delicious, @OneConnect, @YahooGeo, @YahooResearch, @ydn (Yahoo! Developer Network), @YUILibrary, and @ysearchFE (Yahoo! Search). Check them out.

Yahoo Closes RSS Ads, But This Is Only Small Part of Big Change Coming

Steven Finch — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:08:46 +0000

It has been reported by the Silicon Alley Insider that Yahoo is closing their RSS Advertising solution.

Not much word on why — a Yahoo spokeswoman provided this statement to SAI:

Yahoo! is closing its Ads in RSS effective February 2, 2009. The beta program, which enabled publishers to place contextually relevant ads on their own site, was available to a targeted group of small online publishers. We have ended this beta program to focus on other more broadly used ad products for our publishing partners such as Sponsored Search and Content Match.

Silicon Alley isnt really sure why Yahoo is making this move. However, here at Crenk we know that this is just a smaller part of the big move coming from Yahoo. I have heard from inside the company that they are going to be closing a lot of departments within their contextual advertising network. Major changes will be coming with the next three months.

ReviewMyWeb: Free Competive SEO Analytics Tool

Steven Finch — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 04:32:47 +0000

Review My Web is a FREE web site review. We stack you up against your competitors on Google, Yahoo, Blogs, and other key channels like Web 2.0, SEO, PPC, Social News, Blogs and much more.

The process is very simple, head over to Review My Web and add in the website you want analytics for and then also type in two competitors and then your email address. It normally only take up to five minutes for the report to then be sent to your email address, and its that simple.

Review My Web is a great free seo analysis tool, but it would also be great to see previous results and compare if everything is moving in the right direction.

Xoopit Wins with Yahoo

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:35:06 +0000

When Xoopit was first released as an add-on to Gmail, I was one of the first adopters. I typically enjoy adopting newly released applications, and this was no different. I remember installing and enjoying the add-on initially, but over the next couple of days, after really delving into Xoopit, and utilizing it, my interest turned to frustration.

The application basically hijacked my email and it was difficult to move around the intrusive menu bars it installed, and finally I threw in the towel and deleted it. Now, it has become apparent that with Yahoo redesigning their mail platform, Xoopit is set to reach over 275 million Yahoo Mail users around the world. Opportunities like this don’t come around a lot, and Xoopit is bound to achieve new levels of interest with this amazing boon to their application.

This is an opportunity to reinvent itself, and possibly build a profitable application. While talks with Yahoo are open for monetizing ideas, it looks like the pairing will benefit from one another.

If you’re using Yahoo Mail, and when the Xoopit addition comes out, chime in below in the comments section and let us know your thoughts.

Yahoo’s LaunchCast To Crash and Burn?

Luis Sandoval — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:32:30 +0000

: Image by via CrunchBase

Yahoo’s woes have been smeared across every form of tradtional media as well as every news site on the net. Starting with their slump in stock value, their lack of management, their massive cuts due to the economy, and their on again/off again courtship with prospective buyers. Yahoo has gone through its fair share of hard times, much like any other company has been through this strained economy.

The services that Yahoo offers currently seem almost lackluster when compared the number of simliar Web 2.0 applications that exist that no only compete with Yahoo’s offering, but are better on many levels. Yahoo’s email service and search service had a revamp earlier this year, some services were let go, similar to what AOL was also doing earlier this year.

LaunchCast Re-Launching

Those services that Yahoo has not cut, more often than not, they have been outsourced to other companies. Currently their subscription music service was relayed to Rhapsody music service to continue it’s music playback offerings.

Now Yahoo is looking at relaunching its LaunchCast service through CBS Radio

: Image by via CrunchBase

. AOL made a similar deal earlier this year to ease the burden of cost on the company. According to TechCrunch, “CBS provides streaming fo

r 144 owned radio stations, as well as providing some Internet-only content.” With this kind of backing it would make good business sense to relay some of the burden on the company and offset it with this partnership that will at least help continue the brands music offerings.

This partnership further extends to the marketing and advertising for LauchCast. CBS Radio will now take over all the ad sales, now being in control over offering placements for video and audio displays on the site. This transition looks to take place in early 2009, so fans of LaunchCast should have something to look forward to in the new year.

A Worthwhile Service?

I can’t reiterate enough how great of a move it was for Yahoo to offload the previously company maintained service onto CBS Radio. But I still can’t wrap my head around people who use the service and find it more valuable then the top services on the internet that offer the same if not better. I’m talking about Last.fm and Pandora.

Both of the above mentioned services offer users the ability to build their profiles and their listening preferences based on artists and genre of the user’s choice. The services will then continue to play the music that the algorithm believes you will like best. Sound simple enough, but when you add the social aspect to it by being able to share, connect, and see what others are listening to, the services are hard to beat.

I wish Yahoo luck with their re-launch, but I see services like this and AOL’s service quickly shrinking away into obscurity.

What’s your take on these services, and what do you see happening in the near future? Does anyone out there use LaunchCast? I’d especially like to hear your thoughts.

Journalistic Debacle, Get A Clue!

Luis Sandoval — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:01:19 +0000

: Image by Gnal via Flickr

I worked as a journalist through college, and some after I graduated, and even today I am still producing content for both online and offline projects. As such, nothing infuriates me more then bad journalism, and lack of fact checking. Now before I get blasted, yes I’ve made mistakes, but nothing on the scale of the U.S. economy.

Over the weekend, TechCrunch along with several other media sites, pointed out an incident with The Times reporting a story on Yahoo’s possible bedding of Microsoft with their search technology. For those of us with keen eyes in the industry, the story was missing something, something we just couldn’t put our finger on…perhaps facts. TechCrunch tore the article apart by negating the supposed “facts” of the story and left the article with no leg to stand on. The key to this was that the markets were not open, otherwise a reputable paper printing material like that would have surely made an impact.

Now today, another story comes out announcing another Yahoo buyout story, this time regarding two AOL mavericks, Johnathon Miller and Ross Levinsohn. The article was bogus, the story unconfirmed, later confirmed that while the two were indeed raising money, and while they were having chat with Microsoft and Yahoo, there was no intent to purchase. This time the Wall Street Journal took the brunt of the backlash, and this time people did lose money. Stock for Yahoo jumped 11.7% which resulted in a lot of unhappy people.

This reminds me of a Twitter statement @1938media made regarding those that relied on social media as the “source” for information. “Dopes!” I believe was the word he used. Personally, I don’t know where the story came from, but where was the fact checking? In the rush to be the first to be in-the-know, a lot of people were effected by this financially. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to check facts and sources, and not always rely on the quick and easy. People need to use their own heads and thinks things through, interpret the information and make sound judgement.

You can read the entire TechCrunch article HERE.

AOL Changes the Gameplan

Luis Sandoval — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:57:37 +0000

When I think of AOL, I think of other similar companies like Microsoft and AT&T. What do they all have in common? Basically all of them are large companies that think themselves at the top of their game and otherwise frown on smaller more open and approachable initiatives.

For the longest time AOL was an island unto itself. Until just recently AOL users were isolated from other users. The homepage was closed off to competitors, the ISP itself is not open to offering it’s users options, but rather forces them to believe that AOL is all there is.

Interestingly enough, as internet users wise up, and are introduced to various social media networks, connecting over the net with blogs and micro-blogging tools, the internet is a whole new world for users and professionals alike. AOL is finally facing this reality and has added a new feature right off their homepage. They are actually offering users the opportunity to select other email clients as opposed to forcing users to type in the desired destination.

As noted in the photo below you can see how Yahoo, Gmail, have all found a spot right on the AOL homepage (Hotmail access has also been added). This is a welcome addition for AOL users considering the response on the AOL blog post.

What does this mean for AOL? How will this impact their users and will they turn away from AOL Mail? No likely, many of us have multiple accounts for various uses; junkmail, newsletters, subscriptions, purchases, contact with friends and family. AOL is quoted as saying, “We realize that AOL.com is not the only web site that you use and that you may, like many of us, have multiple email accounts with different providers.” So AOL looks to become the official “launchpad” for all their users online experience. This will prevent them from having to type in the address of their preferred email providers and instead provide instant access with a simple click.

AOL confesses that not all of their users will appreciate the change, but for those that don’t, they have made it easy for users to change out the panels in the menu with other popular selections such as Music, Radio, and eBay options to name a few.

With the emergence of a fully customizable homepage, AOL is taking a step in the right direction with their new approach. It is even hinted, according to Techcrunch, that come October AOL could add access to “bookmark[ing], social networks and a RSS reader.” At this rate AOL users will now have a one stop shop for all their online needs, and this is what AOL is banking on.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this new approach by AOL. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been an AOL homepage user, and even longer since I was a subscriber to their ISP, but I find this approach innovative for them, if not a little late. I think this will keep AOL in the game, and I look forward to see what other ideas they plan to roll out.

Digg, Why The Hell Can’t They Sell Their Company!

Steven Finch — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:50:50 +0000

Digg has to be one of the biggest web properties currently on the internet, with one of the most loyal communities. However, they seem to be able to grow the community, add on new features, turnover good revenue figures and get millions of pageviews, but they simply can’t sell their company to anyone!

Digg has been trying to sell for the last 6 months and yet no one is actually biting. They currently have a Microsoft as an investor and running their ad campaigns, plus they have been in talks with Google for an acquisition, but how come they cant finalise anything?

Is it because the $300 million price tag they are after, it just too out of reach? Is it because the big conglomerates aren’t too sure how they are going to fit the Digg technology into their search engines or portals? Is it because Digg has such a strong community base, any acquisition will just kill the site?

Im hoping to find out why the average person think Digg cant sell.

Yahoo Site Explorer Gets a Makeover

Steven Finch — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:00:06 +0000

It has been reported that Yahoo has been playing around with the look and feel of their Site Explorer. Most of the time Yahoo Site Explorer is only used by webmasters because it shows backlinks to any URL and also shows them in authority order (unlike google).

Today, we launched a new look and feel for Site Explorer (http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/new) that provides a more dynamic interface to accommodate future feature roll-outs. The new interface also includes a new Site Summary page to provide statistics for authenticated sites. On top of this, we’re also increasing the number of rules for Dynamic URL Rewriting that you can enter from 3 to 10.

I really wish Yahoo Site Explorer had a lot more features, kinda similar to Google Webmaster Tools. However, any really new and exciting features still havent arrived on Site Explorer. Do you have any suggestions on what they might want to add?

Microsoft Withdraw Proposal for Yahoo!

Steven Finch — Sun, 04 May 2008 11:18:48 +0000

Well im sure that everyone has already heard, but if not Microsoft has today withdrawn their proposal to acquire Yahoo! Yahoo have issued a press release and Roy Bostock, Chairman of Yahoo! Inc., issued the following statement today in response to Microsoft Corporation’s announcement that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo!:

“We remain focused on maximizing shareholder value and pursuing strategic opportunities that position Yahoo! for success and leadership in its markets. From the beginning of this process, our independent board and our management have been steadfast in our belief that Microsoft’s offer undervalued the company and we are pleased that so many of our shareholders joined us in expressing that view. Yahoo! is profitable, growing, and executing well on its strategic plan to capture the large opportunities in the relatively young online advertising market. Our solid results for the first quarter of 2008 and increased full year 2008 operating cash flow outlook reflect the progress the company is making. Today, Yahoo! has:

– a refined strategic focus to drive enhanced volume and yield;

– reorganized to focus its efforts on its most promising products and services;

– invested in innovations designed to revolutionize display advertising and facilitate closing the competitive gap in search; and

– enhanced expense and resource management to support improved profitability.”

Here are also some of the thoughts from around the web: