Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor that has long been associated with Yahoo, has decided to step down from his position at Yahoo’s board, stating that the Internet search giant no longer has any need for an activist investor. Icahn’s legacy with Yahoo involves his ardent efforts to get Jerry Yang removed as the CEO of the company.
According to Icahn, Yang acted in such a way that was against the best interests of shareholders, opting to replace Yang with Carol Bartz. Following the replacement, Icahn and the rest of the board guided Yahoo toward a search and advertising deal with Microsoft.
Icahn …read more

Following a $100 million investment in a global advertising campaign, Internet search giant Yahoo has recently unveiled a new and improved web portal in an attempt to attract more traffic and revenue. Yahoo’s upgraded web portal incorporates many new features that will hopefully increase interest in Yahoo’s website as a homepage.
One of the new features of Yahoo’s web portal allows users to embed third-party web services into their individual portals, letting users access their Facebook and Hotmail accounts directly from their Yahoo homepage. The move comes as Yahoo continues to struggle with profitability despite the fact that Yahoo.com is the …read more

Google and Yahoo both dominate their respective niches of online advertisement: while Google is the undisputed leader in search advertising, Yahoo has had a significant lead as far as display ads go, which are banners and other colorful ads. However, Google, has unveiled its proposed counterpart to Yahoo’s display ad dominance, the Doubleclick Ad Exchange.
 
This new technology would change the way that advertisers put display ads on websites for the better, making it easier to buy and sell ad space and to control who sees their ads. Advertisers would also have greater control over where and when their ads are …read more

Following the near quadrupling in value of Alibaba.com Ltd., the operator of China’s largest trading website, Yahoo! Inc. has decided to sell its shares in the company for an estimated $151 million. However, Yahoo remains the biggest stakeholder in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the parent of the Hong Kong-based website.
 
Yahoo has a relatively long history with Alibaba, investing $1 billion and swapping around its Chinese operations for a 40 percent stake in Alibaba Group. In 2007, Yahoo was one of eight investors to provide $1.7 billion as part of Alibaba’s initial public offering, the largest first-time share sale by an …read more

For internet marketers in Canada, IMC Vancouver 2009 is an event that you should circle on your calendar. Taking place from September 16th through September 18th, IMC Vancouver 2009 has speakers from Facebook, Google, Yahoo and LinkedIn.
The speaker for Facebook is Louise Clements — the newly appointed Facebook representative for Canada. Avinash Kaushik, the analytics expert and author, is speaking for Google. In total there will be 50 speakers from companies that also include Bell Canada, Aircell, Vancity and Overstock.
IMC, which stands for Internet Marketing Conference, has the goal of helping businesses, vendors, practitioners and consultants to meet each other …read more

For those who use desktop software to manage their mail, many use Microsoft Outlook. If you have been looking for an alternative to Outlook, you might want to try Zimbra. Zimbra is a cross between desktop and web-enabled email/document/calendare management tool that was created by Yahoo. I recently tested Zimbra to see how I would like it versus Outlook and found the following things:

It’s web-like interface was easy to use
Setting up different email accounts was seamless
Importing Gmail email and calendar was intuitive to the program
Able to import many email account and keep them organized (don’t laugh but I tested it …read more

After it was announced that Microsoft and Yahoo came to an agreement on a deal that will challenge Google’s supremacy in the search engine advertising industry, many thought it would easily become a reality. Not so fast. Both American and European regulators will take a very close look at this partnership.
In fact, the investigating by regulators is expected to drag into 2010. It could be as long as a year before the Microsoft and Yahoo partnership becomes a realiy.
If the partnership does become a reality, Google would have a competitor in the search engine advertising industry for the first time …read more

While there hasn’t been a massive shift in the search habits of Americans, the latest comScore numbers indicate that Bing may be slowly catching on. The numbers suggest that Bing is taking searchers away from both Google and Yahoo.
According to the comScore stats, the Google search engine saw a 3.53% drop in search traffic from June to July, while the Yahoo search engine saw a drop of 4.83%. Bing, on the other hand, saw their searches grow from June to July by 5.39%.
Microsoft has to be happy with these numbers. Even though Google and Yahoo have 64.7% and 19.3% of …read more

As you’ve likely heard, Yahoo and Microsoft have created a partnership that will likely have a huge impact on the search engine industry. According to reports, Microsoft’s Bing search engine will handle the technological aspect of the partnership, while Yahoo will handle the sales.
The big news for search marketers is the fact that Yahoo’s current technology will end up being a thing of the past. If Yahoo’s search engine is going to use Bing’s technology, current high placements in Yahoo will soon become irrelevant.
Even though there will still be some time under the current system, search marketing experts should begin …read more

For a long while now, Microsoft has tried to acquire Yahoo’s help in an attempt to take on Google in the search engine market. After rebuffing numerous times, Yahoo apparently is about to join a search engine related agreement with Microsoft. This news comes courtesy of an Associated Press report which cites an inside source.
Reportedly, Microsoft and Yahoo would split ad revenue generated by searches. Microsoft will be in charge of technology and Yahoo will be in charge of sales. The percentage split each company will receive hasn’t been released.
According to the Associated Press, Yahoo could make the announcement of …read more