Earlier this year, Yahoo! opened its Buzz social news service, and its been very successful, surpassing Digg in terms of unique U.S. visitors. One noteworthy difference between Buzz and other sites is that only approved publishers were able to submit stories. However, on Monday Yahoo! opened Buzz up to all publishers.
Now we know: Microsoft and Yahoo! are perfect for each other. Despite watching Microsoft's recent debacle when it announced it was going to shut down the licensing servers for their defunct Music Store - a debacle which resulted in Microsoft reversing its decision - Yahoo! decided to try to do the same thing.
Has the drama finally ended? According to a press release issued today, it seems that Yahoo! and Carl Icahn, who was seeking to replace much if not all of Yahoo!'s Board of Directors (BoD) during the upcoming August 1st shareholders meeting, have come to an agreement.
While in February Legg-Mason recommended that Yahoo! take a Microsoft offer, it said it should only do so if Microsoft boosted their offer to $40+ a share. In the upcoming fight that will likely occur at the August 1st Yahoo! shareholders meeting, Bill Miller, chief investment officer of Legg-Mason - although not guaranteeing to vote in that direction - said that it was his firm's "intention" to vote its 4.4% stake in Yahoo! in favor of the company's existing board.
On Monday Carl Icahn, who we know is not er, happy, about the lack of a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo!, cited discussions with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in an open letter he published.
Despite numerous assertions from both companies that they've "moved on," and even a statement from Bill Gates indicating a Yahoo! deal is unlikely, it appears Microsoft continues to pursue Yahoo!, somewhat like a spurned suitor pursuing his ex-.
The latest in the continuing soap opera: a report that indicates that Microsoft is in talks with other companies, searching for partners for a new run at Yahoo!.
LifeLock, which I wrote about earlier, and not in a positive manner, has been sued again, this time by a competitor.
On Wednesday NAMESAFE sued LifeLock over search ads that it said were purchased by LifeLock, which used the NAMESAFE trademark yet directed users to LifeLock's web site.
On Thursday Carl Icahn launched his long-delayed blog, which was first announced in February. The Icahn Report, despite debuting on Thursday, already had seven entries, including one dated as early as June 12th.
It's obvious that if you wanted to get the email address john@yahoo.com, you couldn't. Saturation has meant that if you want to get an email address at Yahoo!, or for that matter, Gmail, you frequently have to resort to adding numbers or other such differentiating characters. What a pain, right?
With two new domains, you could possibly get john@ymail.com or john@rocketmail.com, if you're fast.
You can't trust anyone nowadays. No sooner did Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms and Services Division of Microsoft send an email to the "troops" explaining the Yahoo! situation, it was leaked.
Friday Yahoo! and Carl Icahn traded barbs back and forth. First Icahn responded to Yahoo! chairman Roy Bostock's response to a June 4 letter raising concerns about a Yahoo employee compensation plan. Yahoo responded to Icahn’s letter by saying that he “has no credible plan to operate Yahoo.”
Can't buy Yahoo! (at least for now)? Buy search users instead.
Microsoft has launched a service called "Live Search Cashback." The program is linked to Microsoft's acquisition of Jellyfish.com last year, a cashback site similar to eBates, where rebates of varying percentages are given for purchases clicked-through from the site. This probably explains why the cashback portion of Jellyfish has been down of late --- and is down again today.
As Carl Icahn continues to press Yahoo!, including looking to oust the Yahoo! board, Microsoft issued a statement on Sunday which indicated that it may still be looking a deal with Yahoo!, but a "different" one.
comScore's Ranking of the Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for April indicates that for the first time, Google has overtaken Yahoo as the most-visited website in the U.S.
Yahoo! launched its Buzz Social News site in beta form in February. Unlike most Social News sites, only pre-approved publishers are allowed. And, while it was unclear just how well it would do, it seems that Buzz has really taken off.
Many, perhaps most, Facebook users do not want Microsoft. They were a little upset when they purchased under 3% of the company. If that becomes 50+%, we will likely see a large-scale exodus. Sadly, it would happen right after Facebook passed MySpace on Alexa.
McAfee and Yahoo! announced on Tuesday a new feature for Yahoo! Search which will supposedly make searching safer: the flagging of potentially unsafe Web sites appearing in Yahoo search results.
No doubt the biggest story of last weekend was Microsoft abruptly walking away from their unsolicited deal with Yahoo!. And no doubt among the biggest stories of today are "what now?" and "what's happening to their stocks?"
Despite reports on Friday that Yahoo! had been brought to the bargaining table by a higher Microsoft offer, Microsoft issued a press release on Saturday indicating it was walking away from the deal.
