Linky Goodness, July 19

Friday, July 18th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 1 Comment » |

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s Friday. Woot.

Yahoo Bares Its Teeth: Using Home Page, Legg Mason to Fight Icahn

Friday, July 18th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 1 Comment » |

Yahoo’s letter to shareholders yesterday was just the first step in their latest defense against Carl Icahn’s attempts to elect a proxy board at the shareholder meeting in two weeks. Today, Yahoo and its allies strike two more blows.

First, Yahoo has begun leveraging one of its biggest assests—one of (if not the) most popular home pages on the Internet. Yahoo has put a notice about the pending board election below the fold. TechCrunch spotted this earlier today, with a box on the Yahoo home page below-the-fold reading “Your Yahoo!. Your Vote.” An alternate form of the box, as seen by CNET, reads “We have a couple of exclamation points to make.” Finally, a third iteration quotes Carl Icahn:

Linky Goodness, July 17

Thursday, July 17th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 3 Comments » |

[Something snappy!]

Yahoo Calls Microsoft Actions Stupefying; Will Sell for $33

Thursday, July 17th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 2 Comments » |

I think I’ve made a terrible mistake. Somehow, by using every cliché in the book, I think I just guaranteed that I’ll always have get to be the one covering Microsoft/Yahoo/Google deal news. Well, today we’ll go with mixed sport metaphors. Mixing metaphors is even more fun than just using them!

Okay, so let’s hit one out of the park, shall we? There’s a new letter to Yahoo shareholders today—from Yahoo itself. It’s quite long, and since I’ve been working on synopses today, I’ll go ahead and boil this one down give you just the box score on this one, too. But just because I like you.

Linky Goodness, July 16

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 4 Comments » |

A very Googly goodness for today!

Yahoo Admits Google Monopoly; Deal with AOL?

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 8 Comments » |

Sigh. Andy, Andy, Andy. Always taking the good stories and leaving me to cover Yahoo/Google/Microsoft and their latest flings. Well, let’s get to it, shall we? Let’s spin the wheel of metaphors and see what we’ll use today . . . Mixed sports—no, sailing! Sailing it is!

(Apologies in advance if I go a little overboard. Oops, I think I already have.)

Back on the Eastern front (oops, sorry, yesterday’s metaphor)—in the capital, Microsoft has sailed into the pending Google and Yahoo search ad deal during Senate hearings on the topic—and as we mentioned in today’s Picks, they’re making quite a splash in claiming that the Y/G deal would monopolize 90% of the search market. But come on, are they wrong?

Linky Goodness, July 15

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 7 Comments » |

Oh, it’s the ides of July! How ominous. Do you think it’ll bode poorly for any of these headlines?

Microsoft, Yahoo, Google Gearing up to Battle

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 5 Comments » |

Yahoo is in the midst of a three-front war—and yet not one of these fights is for dominance in any field of operations business.

The Eastern Front
Dateline Washington, DC. Yahoo is facing a Senate hearing on the Yahoo/Google search ads deal today. paidContent reports:

Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond will point out . . . that the agreement does not expand Google’s share of the search market, and that the alternative outcome, Yahoo selling to Microsoft, would be much worse for competition.

Aside from facing the Senate now and other regulatory committees later, Yahoo and Google will face individual states, which are also subpoenaing them.

Hosts to Provide Google Webmaster Tools Access

Monday, July 14th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 21 Comments » |

Google announces a new program today to work with web hosts to integrate Google Webmaster Tools for their users.

The Google Webmaster Tools Access Provider program features APIs to enable web hosts to offer their subscribers access to Webmaster Tools. Subscribers will be able to create Webmaster Tools accounts and submit sitemaps without leaving hosts’ control panels.

In all, this is a boon to web hosts, since they’ll be able to add value for their subscribers. Subscribers wouldn’t be forced to participate in Webmaster Tools, but easy access to information to help new and inexperienced webmasters understand how their site is doing in Google would probably be pretty popular. Google gets sites that are better optimized and more relevant in its index.

Yahoo Still Fighting the Good Fight

Friday, July 11th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 24 Comments » |

I knew you were wondering, since none of us are sure these days, but Yahoo is still giving it the old college try. Here’s the latest from the Yahoo battlefront.

Although a few of our commentators insist that the Yahoo/Microsoft deal is all but inevitable, Rupert Murdoch disagrees. And I think he might know—after all, his properties, especially News Corp, have been courted by both sides almost since the beginning for support in brokering and/or funding a deal.

Murdoch said at the Allen & Co conference:

There won’t be a deal. There’s bad personal feelings. In six months, (Microsoft) will walk away.

Do We Need Online Privacy Laws for Advertising?

Thursday, July 10th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 22 Comments » |

The US Senate is holding a series of hearings on online advertising, behavioral targeting and privacy to determine whether they should consider legislation protecting consumers online in these areas.

The Senate has turned to Google, Microsoft, the FTC, Facebook, privacy watchdogs and others for their opinions in the matter. Some, like Google, welcomed a “comprehensive privacy law that would establish a uniform framework for privacy and procedures to punish bad actors.”

The FTC, on the other hand, believes that the industry could self-regulate: “The commission is cautiously optimistic that the privacy issues raised by online behavioral advertising can be effectively addressed through self-regulation.”

Linky Goodness, July 9

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008;
-- Jordan McCollum | 9 Comments » |

Oh my goodness, it’s Linky Goodness!