Yahoo CEO and co-Founder Jerry Yang stepped down as top dog on November 17. The move does not come as a surpise to anyone, amid plummeting Yahoo! stock prices, a failed acquisition by Microsoft, and the demise of a possible advertising deal with Google.
A Yahoo! insider says that while they didn't find out about Yang's departure until about 5:00pm this afternoon, the mood around the Sunnyvale office was "pretty damn good." He admits that "[w]e're all pretty used to bad news by now, so we're all just saying 'what now?'" However, he does say that he likes the open direction that Yahoo! has been taking, arguing that because of som
e repeated setbacks for the company, it has been willing to try new things.
"As an employee, I feel as though this is one of the best times to be working for Yahoo! When you're in second place, you're more willing to try new things and experiment. It's a great time for young people with good ideas to be recognized and excel. Yahoo! is full of opportunity and resources just waiting to be tapped.
"A little fear goes a long way," he grins.
Yang will remaion on the Board, and will return to his old role of Chief Yahoo! Shares are expected to rally a little bit tomorrow on the news - shareholder value has dipped by almost $31 billion since the failure of a huge acquisition offer from Microsoft in the spring.
"Over the past year and a half, despite extraordinary challenges and distractions, Jerry Yang has led the repositioning of Yahoo! on an open platform model as well as the improved alignment of costs and revenues," says Chairman Roy Bostock. "Jerry and the Board have had an ongoing dialogue about succession timing, and we all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level. We are deeply grateful to Jerry for his many contributions as CEO over the past 18 months, and we are pleased that he plans to stay actively involved at Yahoo! as a key executive and member of the Board."
Founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students David Filo and Jerry Yang, Yahoo! began as a hobby and has evolved into a leading global brand that has... [more]
TechCrunch managed to post another incorrect story over the weekend. Serkan Toto made it to the last paragraph before he misspoke, calling Cambrian House “now-defunct”. Let me tidy up some facts: VenCorps, for those who follow these things, is a site built by the not-defunct Cambrian House.
Luckily, the “not-defunct at all” Cambrian House team was on top of the situation and released this blog post to combat the misinformation. This post contains an official letter from their counsel, a detailed FAQ, and the wit and humor we have come to expect from the Calgary company.
Thanks for clearing things up... again!
Launched in 2006, Cambrian House began as a crowdsourcing community using a wisdom of crowds based approach to discover new business and technology... [more]
Partnering up with Amazon.com and Apple's iTunes Music Store, Google has announced their YouTube video sharing property will soon provide online shopping opportunities tied into the video content they display. Located just below the video clips, the purchasing options will link to a variety of products related to the video displayed from movies and music to concert tickets or clothing and accessories. Outside of adwords this will be one of Google's first attempts to monetize the site they paid $1.65 billiion for in 2006, a site that boasts 330,000,000 monthly visitors and almost 13 hours of uploaded video every minute.
The move comes amidst calls from investors to begin raising revenues earned from the popular site after Piper Jaffrey Research predicted only $200 million of Google's estimated $27 billion 2009 revenue would come from the site. YouTube further indicated that more options were forthcoming. "There'll be lots of different solutions for lots of different problems," Shishir Mehrotra, YouTube director of product management, said in an interview. "We've tested a lot of things already, and we're going to be testing more in the future. Some will work, some won't. Some of the options mentioned in the Reuters article included ads along the bottom of the streaming videos, advertiser contests, sponsored homepage videos, and short ads before and/or after uploaded videos.
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. As a first step to fulfilling that mission,... [more]
Marketing virally is a slippery slope, and invariably it's those that have no inclination towards creating something viral that experience the success that the "professionals" so strive for. When Microsoft announced they were spending $300,000,000 to create a campaign with a centrepoint series of ads with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld it was obvious there was hope the bloggers would blog, the Twitters would tweet, and perhaps, YouTube would help Microsoft become the next 'Dramatic Chipmunk'. But, somewhere along the way to untold riches, something happened.
The Gates/Seinfeld ads were almost universally panned by experts and amateurs alike. Did you miss them? There were only two, and they didn't last long: The first ad was titled Shoe Circus, the second New Family. Faced with this seemingly universal dislike Microsoft quickly yanked the ads - claiming they were only teasers all along - and launched into a new set of ads titled "I'm a PC", obviously a direct salvo towards the famous Mac ads. However, this AdAge article points out a very interesting statistic regarding the campaign's viral views:
Visible Measures points out that while the Seinfeld/Gates clips came out two weeks earlier than the "I'm a PC" ads, Seinfeld/Gates drew twice as many viewers their first week in market than the PC ads did. After two weeks in market, Visible Measures says, "Seinfeld/Gates was still collecting more than 700,000 views per day, while the 'I'm a PC' clips had tapered off to less than 50,000 views per day."
What are your thoughts on the link between online buzz and viral success? Is it enough for your brand to be talked about, regardless of the good/bad nature of that conversation? Is 'Gates/Seinfeld' a success, against everything we've read and been led to believe? Tell us your thoughts in comments.
At Microsoft, we're motivated and inspired every day by how our customers use our software to find creative solutions to business problems, develop... [more]
Heather Green at BusinessWeek has posted an article detailing what might be Google's next attempt at effectively monetizing social media traffic as they have web search traffic. Making Social Networks Profitable analyzes Google's pending patent on technology that will rank the most the influential factor of social media participants in much the same way their PageRank technology is able to effectively rank page content. Once the level by which a person is influential to their peers was established the new tech would allow targeted ads to reach people who may be able to push that message out further, going beyond simple adwords and into predictive behaviour paired with possibility of that ad delivery being relayed. Click through for more details and interviews pertaining to the patent filing.
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. As a first step to fulfilling that mission,... [more]
With further returns from Search Engine Strategies, Linda of the Get Elastic blog shares this video with Bryan Eisenberg of marketing optimization firm FutureNow. They discuss the importance of site testing for e-commerce sites, and no blindly following the strategies of the big players.
Tomorrow morning, September 11, 2008 at 9am PDT, Elastic Path is running a free webinar with Bryan on site testing and Google Website Optimizer. You can visit their site to sign up.
In the video, Bryan references an interesting history of Amazon's shopping cart buttons with analysis of their reasoning behind changes over the years.
For better or for worse, something as simple as an “Add to Cart” button can have a huge impact on the business. Amazon knows this, and they’ve built a culture of website optimization. It’s this foundation that’s made them one of the top-converting websites, month after month.
For Amazon, success comes from a continuous cycle of optimization (measure, refine, test). Compare this rigorous approach to the fact that over 75% of online retailers don’t do any optimization testing, and you’ll begin to see why Amazon remains the envy of e-commerce marketers.
The key takeaway message: "Don’t copy what other people do if you aren’t fully aware of the business issues involved."
Microsoft recently announced that they were hiring comic Jerry Seinfeld to do a series of ads for $10 millon. Yesterday they posted the first spot, amusingly, to YouTube. In this spot, Seinfeld helps Gates buy shoes, then they enjoy churros together. Then you upgrade to Vista.
Funny? Or the opposite of what is funny? Somewhere in between perhaps. Seinfeldian humour alone can't save you from absurdity. Microsoft, I've seen you try to market effectively for years, and it keeps hurting to watch. Please end the hurt. Yes, the blogs will be hard on you, even calling it "the worst ad ever". I wouldn't go that far, but these reactions happen because Microsoft doesn't give the tech world many reasons to like it in the first place.
Neat in-joke: at 0:56, the picture on Gates "platinum card" is a famous Albuquerque police mugshot taken of Gates in 1977 for running a stop sign, in his Porsche 911, without a license.
For a comparison of sorts, watch this recent Apple ad where the PC tries to catch college students.
I found the following blog text from Fred Yee at Active Conversion and FoundPages, both firms from Calgary... thought I'd share it with you:
The website is up and running for this event, and early bird registrations are being accepted. It promises to be an excellent event, with speakers and panels that you would normally expect to see in San Jose, New York and London.
You can bet I'll be there as FoundPages is thrilled to participate in a conference that is geared toward something it has been evangelizing for the past 5 years. It will be great to invite our clients to something that has become important enough to warrant it's own conference in Calgary.
Visit the website and registration info. As things firm up, and the date gets closer, you can expect we'll update you more.
Fred Yee, CEO and Founder
The conference is taking place on September 4th and 5th, 2008. There's both beginner and intermediate sessions with lots of interaction between panel members and the audience. I think it's great that Calgary is hosting this event... I'll be there!
