Yahoo and The GEANCO Foundation Present Global Podcast Series “STOR14S”

Yahoo, part of Verizon Media, and The GEANCO Foundation has announced the launch of “STOR14S,” a new global podcast featuring children’s short stories narrated by a renowned cast of leading actors and influencers. The podcast aims to take families on an adventure that transports them out of their homes to exciting, new places. The 14-part series will premiere on Thursday June 18th, with new episodes airing every Monday and Thursday. Global audiences can listen in on all podcast platforms and visit the official series pages on Yahoo Life and Yahoo Style UK.

“STOR14S” will feature GEANCO ambassadors Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), Jeff Daniels (The Newsroom), Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave), Thandie Newton (Westworld), and David Oyelowo (Selma), and more, as they narrate short stories and help raise money for the foundation’s coronavirus relief and emergency aid. The stories were selected through a Yahoo writing competition for the public that was held throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The winning entries will take listeners on journeys through secret tunnels, mysterious bookshops and fictional African empires, providing light relief and entertainment during a very challenging time for families.

“Focusing on our mental health has never been more urgent, and we hope ‘STOR14S’ will inspire families during this very difficult time,” said Guru Gowrappan, CEO at Verizon Media. “We are committed to continue to use our platform to drive change, bring stories that should be told to life and amplify awareness for voices and organizations like GEANCO, and their efforts that are making a true difference in people's lives."   

GEANCO is donating gloves, face masks, soap, sanitizer and disinfectant to hospitals and maternity centers in Nigeria, and training maternity nurses and traditional birth attendants to prevent the spread of the virus in maternity clinics. The foundation is also donating tablets preloaded with hundreds of books to children quarantined in their villages. All talent fees for the series were donated to GEANCO, with Verizon Media donating commercial inventory for direct display ads to the foundation to raise awareness for the vital work it’s doing across Nigeria along with providing listeners with links to donate to their prevention efforts.

“I am really happy to be lending my voice to this creative effort to support GEANCO’s critically important coronavirus initiatives in Nigeria, through the power of storytelling,” said David Oyelowo. “I'm also delighted that my friends from the entertainment industry have joined me in bringing attention to a continent that is especially vulnerable to the effects of this pandemic.”

“We are honored to partner with Yahoo and our celebrity supporters on such a fun and compelling podcast series,” said Afam Onyema, CEO of GEANCO. “STOR14S will empower us to save more lives and educate more vulnerable children in Nigeria.”

The podcast will be available globally on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all other podcasters, and distributed by Acast.

The story writing competition for “STOR14S” derives from a wider commitment from Verizon Media’s focus on mental health and wellness.  Last month, Verizon Media announced a $10 million donation in advertising inventory to support mental and public health response efforts to address the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The inventory is being used to raise awareness and mobilize resources, deepening Verizon Media’s longstanding commitment to supporting the health of the global community at large. Verizon Media will also provide campaign support including creative services and management.  Additionally, Verizon Media launched a two part series “Yahoo’s Reset Your Mindset” a virtual event discussing mental health and wellness which brought together newsmakers, athletes, celebrities, medical experts and industry thought leaders including Serena Williams, Shailene Woodley, Hilaria Baldwinm, Emily Baldoni, Kevin Love, Deepak Chopra and more.

Watch TV anywhere with new Nokia mobile TV phones

Nokia has announced the launch of Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition, which will allow users to watch television anywhere. The phone is an entertainment hub that combines mobile broadcast TV (DVB-H), social networking, music and gaming in one compact 3G device. Nokia says that broadcast TV consumption is on the rise and by 2012 there will be over 300 million people worldwide watching TV on their mobile phones.

"The introduction of the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition responds to the arrival of DVB-H broadcast mobile TV networks in new markets and offers an affordable device for new and existing customers alike. Customers are increasingly watching a variety of programmes on their mobiles, such as drama programs, news and sport, for a longer period of time. The Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition has the sound and image quality to hold audiences captive," said Mark Selby, Vice President, Nokia.

Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition's DVB-H technology allows programs to burst through the QVGA 2.4" screen in full-colour, crystal clear, sharp images. A user can set reminders for favorite shows and create personal channel lists with Nokia's Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for a good mobile broadcast TV experience.

The Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition provides broadcast picture quality while the headset acts as an antenna for outstanding reception. Long battery life gives up to six hours of DVB-H usage. "It is essential for DVB-H service providers to have a variety of devices capable of serving the mass market. Having a complete portfolio of handsets is pivotal for the commercial success of mobile TV. The new Nokia DVB-H enabled mobile phone, the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition, is a great addition to the current portfolio of broadcast TV-capable handsets," said Franklin Selgert, Chairman, Broadcast Mobile Convergence Forum.

The Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition comes with all the latest social networking software, making it simple to stay in touch with friends via Ovi Contacts, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Post status updates for friends and family to follow or instant message (IM) them via Windows Live(TM) Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, AOL and many others.

Users can capture photos and video clips, day or night, using the 3.2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom and LED flash before uploading and sharing favourite shots via sites such as OviShare and Flickr.

Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks work with more than 30 operators worldwide on Mobile TV implementations. Commercial launches with Mobile TV services based on DVB-H and OMA BCAST standards include Austria, Finland, Ghana, Kenya, India, Italy, Namibia, Nigeria, Netherland, Philippines and Switzerland. Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition costs around Rs. 11,000 excluding taxes.

Agencies

Why Yahoo! want to chip in for unique ID cards project?

I was raised as a pretty poor farm girl in Wisconsin and always thought of upgrading myself. So I over-achieved! I was lucky...” A characteristically short bio from Carol Ann Bartz, the feisty chief executive of the $7.2 billion internet company Yahoo! and editor of ET’s Emerging Business and IT page today. But there's more to the lady than her reputedly colourful language and distinct management style that has roused the veteran internet company from its supposed stupor.

She battled cancer to take her previous company Autodesk from a mere vertical applications company into a diversified yet focussed $1.4 billion software giant. When she stepped into the top job at Yahoo! this January she had knee surgery. "So, I've decided that I won't start another new job — that knee replacement hurt much more than cancer!” she laughs, but the gritty spirit shows.

Considering she took her time to agree to Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang's repeated pleas to come out of retirement, it was obviously more than glasses of her favourite cheap white wine that made her say yes. The tedium of her golf handicap improving only from 40 to 28 and days filled with gardening, photography and reading were only partly responsible. It was obviously the Autodesk-like challenge of clearing up and focusing while steering the Sunnyvale, California-based company out of a financial slump.

And the first big decision she took reflected it: a decade-long alliance with Microsoft in the search space. “Yahoo currently has a market share of about 20%; Microsoft has about 8% in search. Combined, we will have over 28%,” says Bartz. “But the two will exist as separate brands, maintain their identities. Yet, users will have more data to go after when they search — it’ll make a Yahoo! search deeper and better, and we expect regulatory approvals on the alliance by Q1, 2010.”

An India fan who has been to this country five times before, on her first visit as Yahoo! CEO she is predictably clear about her plans here too. And it has nothing to do with her interest in Mughal history and elephants... She wants in on the government’s Unique Identity Project, and more. She met the PM about it and her friend Nandan Nilekani, stressing Yahoo’s strength. “It involves a huge database and we at Yahoo! have expertise in handling huge amounts of data,” she reveals.

Education and training, what internet can do and how mobile phones can transform the internet experience, are obviously also target areas - and since India is Yahoo's biggest R&D centre after Sunnyvale, more than a supporting role is on the cards. "Entire products are already developed here, not parts of products. Our cloud computing initiative, video search ability and the total search monetization project are being done by Yahoo! in India," she emphasises, seeing Yahoo developing even more tools out of the India centre.

But the main trend this "over-achieving" tech pioneer (she got her computer science degree in 1971) sees is the web getting more collaborative and yet personalised. "It's not just about gathering information but also sharing, and about getting each others opinion," she says as she decides on 'collaborative internet' as the theme for her EBIT page today.

Economic Times

Acquisitions are 'back on' says Google CEO

Google, facing slowing growth amid a slump in advertising spending, is again considering acquisitions, CEO Eric Schmidt said.

"Acquisitions are back on," Schmidt, 54, said in an interview at an event in Pittsburgh this week. His company had more than $19 billion in cash and short-term investments at the end of its most recent quarter.

Schmidt's comments suggest Google's business is improving, giving the company confidence to spend on purchases, said Jeff Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in New York.

Google, the world's most popular Internet search engine, has relied on smaller acquisitions since buying DoubleClick for $3.2 billion in 2008 and YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.

"It's definitely a sign that Google is seeing stronger cash flow," said Lindsay, who recommends buying the stock and doesn't own it. "In the down economy all of the Internet players, including Google, cut back on capital expenditures to preserve cash flow."

Google typically buys 10 to 12 companies a year, Lindsay said. The company acquires smaller rivals, including startups, to boost its technology development, he said.

This month, Google bought ReCaptcha, a company that helps prevent fraud and spam at Web sites such as Ticketmaster.com, for an undisclosed sum. In August, it agreed to buy video-technology company On2 Technologies for $106.5 million.

Google reported a sales gain of 2.9 percent last quarter — down from 39 percent a year earlier — as ads fetched lower prices and the recession crimped marketing budgets.

The company is also facing increasing competition from main rivals Yahoo and Microsoft, which agreed to combine their search businesses in July.

Google may buy wireless-technology providers and so-called cloud-computing companies to supplement its product lines, said Jim Friedland, an analyst at Cowen in New York.

The purchases might range from $10 million to $75 million, said Friedland, who rates the stock "buy" and doesn't own it.

Cloud-computing services let customers store and access data over the Internet.

Agencies

Atlast! Facebook finally becomes profitable

Facebook is making enough money to cover its costs and now has 300 million users, the world’s largest social networking site, said on Tuesday, proving the Internet’s newest star industry can be a viable business.

Facebook is now generating enough cash to cover its operating expenses, as well as the capital spending needed to maintain its fast-growing service.

Analysts said this shows the financial viability of Facebook, which has faced questions about its underlying business model, despite its popularity, and was a good sign for a potential initial public offering.

“It’s certainly meaningful to show that this is absolutely the real deal,” said Broadpoint Amtech analyst Ben Schachter. “They are executing. People are spending money on the site.”

Since its creation in a Harvard dorm room five years ago, Facebook has emerged as one of the Internet’s most popular destinations and is increasingly challenging the Web’s established powerhouses like Yahoo and Google.

Facebook unveiled a revamped search engine last month and is currently testing an online payment system. Facebook users have tripled from about 100 million a year ago.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post on the company site on Tuesday that Facebook reached its goal of being free cash flow positive in its most recently ended quarter. The company had previously projected reaching the target sometime in 2010.

“This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term,” said Zuckerberg in the blog post.

Facebook spokesperson Larry Yu said the free cash flow metric does not include any cash from private investment.

In May, Facebook announced a $200 million investment from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies in a deal that valued the company’s preferred shares at $10 billion.

DST valued Facebook’s common shares at $6.5 billion in a subsequent deal to purchase shares from Facebook employees.

Facebook’s becoming cash flow positive ahead of schedule provides another nugget of data to back up the lofty valuations, and according to one analyst, makes Facebook a more attractive candidate for a potential public offering.

“They can command higher confidence from investors now,” said Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal, who noted that he believes Facebook could go public in the second half of 2010, or in 2011.

Zuckerberg said in May that any IPO is “a few years out.” Facebook did not provide any other financial details on Tuesday. The company has previously said its revenue was on track to grow 70 percent this year.

Facebook board member Mark Andreesen told Reuters earlier this year that the company will surpass $500 million n revenue this year.

Zuckerberg said in his post that the company is exploring ways to make the service perform faster and more efficiently as the number of Facebook users continues to grow.

Agencies

Motorola unveils Cliq smartphones

Motorola introduced its first smartphone based on Google's Android software, in a move that's key to the company's goal of regaining its place among the world's top cellphone manufacturers.

The device, dubbed the Cliq, will first be made available later this year in the US through T-Mobile. The touch-screen phone will run a new service from Motorola called MotoBlur, which synchronises all user messages and contacts, Motorola chief executive Sanjay Jha said at the Mobilize conference in San Francisco.

"MotoBlur makes text, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter feeds and photos from sources like MySpace, Gmail, Yahoo and corporate e-mail appear in a single stream and sync them together with no different logins," Jha said. "This means you can focus on what people have said instead of how and where they said it."

The Cliq will feature a full, slide-out keyboard, a 5-megapixel camera and access to all the Google programmes and applications available for the company's Android platform.

The phone will be called the Dext in markets outside the U.S. and will launch in France, Britain and Latin America later in the year, Jha said. No pricing was available for the device.

Analysts said the integration of social networking into phones could give Motorola and other manufacturers a foot in the door in their battle to challenge the iPhone as the world's dominant smartphone.

Motorola has been especially hard hit by the move to smartphones, selling just 18.8 million handsets in the most recent quarter, down from 28.1 million a year ago. Earlier this decade, the company's Razr was the world's most popular cellphone.

Jha said that Motorola was now refocused on producing cutting-edge mobile devices. He said the Cliq was crucial to the company's recovery.

"It's a very important starting point for us," Jha said. "I see smartphones as the future of computing. If it doesn't fit in your pocket, I don't think it's going to be a relevant device."

Agencies

Can Yahoo take on Twitter with its new Meme?

After closing the social network platform SpotM, Yahoo has launched Meme, in English, to take on microblogging site Twitter. The company had launched this service in Spanish and Portuguese languages earlier this month.

Meme is currently in an invite-only mode, similar to few microblogging services like Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce and others. After creating the account, users get a blank blog for micro-sharing text, images, music, videos or mash up of all these things.

It also offers the facility to add new friends by searching the internet, which is quite similar to Tumblr and Twitter.

The company's previous efforts to capitalize on the social networking domain kept failing in spite of repeated attempts. The recently launched 'Know Your Mojo' also failed along with the Indian social network, SpotM, which was closed down less than a year after its launch.

Meme does not allow much in terms of customization. The users cannot customize the themes with background images and custom CSS to style the text, as this facility is available with Twitter and Tumblr. Both these services have a rich faux-cabulary, which defines how a person uses the service. Meme does not lend on a particular vocabulary. The setting panel has minimal options like Meme title, 100 character description, avatar/photo and notifications. It also shows the comments posted by the users recently.

Yahoo Meme can have a big advantage over Twitter in terms of reliability. Twitter's image has suffered for frequent service outages, with its "Fail Whale" graphic appearing whenever the site is overloaded, emerging as the company's unofficial logo.

Several technology sites like TechCrunch and paidContent are not pleased with Yahoo's move, they said, "Meme seems to lack in its features and in potential to surpass its competitors." They also pointed out that the company has a spotty record with Mash and SpotM.

Agencies

Major slice of Web ads goes to social networking sites

About one of every five Internet display ads in the United States is viewed on a social networking Web site like MySpace and Facebook, according to a new report.

The report by analytics firm comScore underscores the increasing prominence of social media sites in the Internet landscape and broadening acceptance of the sites by brand advertisers.

It also illustrates the increasing competition between social media sites and established Internet companies like Yahoo Inc and Time Warner Inc's AOL which have long billed themselves as the top online destinations for brand advertisers.

The study by comScore, released on Tuesday, said social media sites represented 21.1 per cent of US Internet display ads in July, with MySpace and Facebook accounting for more than 80 per cent of those ads.

"Because the top social media sites can deliver high reach and frequency against target segments at a low cost, it appears that some advertisers are eager to use social networking sites as a new advertising delivery vehicle," said Jeff Hackett, senior vice president of comScore.

According to comScore, AT&T Inc, Experian Interactive and IAC/Interactive Corp's Ask Network were the top three advertisers on social networking sites in July.

While social media sites have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years -- Facebook is now the world's fourth-most visited Web site -- some observers have questioned whether the sites can be effectively monetized.

Because the content on social media sites is created by users, and could therefore prove racy or offensive, some have questioned the willingness of marketers to place their brands alongside that content.

"They are sensitive to some extent, but nowhere near to the extent you might think," Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeff Lindsay said of advertisers.

The price of placing ads on social networking sites is significantly less than on a Web portal like Yahoo or AOL, said Lindsay. The vast amount of Web pages available on social networks means that advertisers can purchase a massive volume of ad impressions at bargain prices.

The strategy may not be ideally suited to smaller marketers, or advertisers seeking a direct response from their ads, said Lindsay.

"For big, national brands it works just fine, just like TV," said Lindsay. "It's a huge, huge volume game."

Agencies

Google continues to lead against Bing

Microsoft's Bing search market share in the US grew by just 0.23 percent in August to 9.64 percent, the slowest monthly growth rate since its launch, according to analysis conducted by web analytics firm StatCounter.

The firm's research arm StatCounter Global Stats also finds that Bing and Yahoo! combined declined slightly in August to 20.14 percent from 20.36 percent in July.

"Perhaps a little worrying for Microsoft is that when you analyse the weekly data, Bing peaked for the week 10th - 16th August at 10.98 percent and has declined since then," commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. Google increased its search market share slightly in the US in August from 77.54 percent to 77.83 percent.

Globally Microsoft and Yahoo! combined took 8.42 percent of the search market in August, a decline of 0.35 percent on July's figure (8.77 percent). Google remains the dominant force in the global search market with 89.57 percent in August (89.23 percent in July).

Data is based on an analysis of 1.073 billion search engine referring clicks (272 million from the US) which were collected in July and August from the StatCounter network of over three million websites.

StatCounter, which provides free website traffic analysis, is one of the largest web analytics companies in the world monitoring in excess of ten billion pageloads per month.

Agencies

Why Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo! oppose Google book project?

Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo! are planning to join a coalition of library associations and non-profit groups in opposing Google's ambitious book scanning project, US newspapers reported on Friday.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal said the technology heavyweights have agreed to form what is tentatively being called the Open Book Alliance to challenge Google's class action settlement with authors and publishers.

The settlement, which gives the Internet search and advertising giant the rights to commercialize digital copies of millions of books, is already facing anti-trust scrutiny from the Justice Department and awaiting court approval.

Gary Reback, an anti-trust lawyer in Silicon Valley who is acting as counsel to the Alliance, told the Times the book deal "has enormous, far-reaching anticompetitive consequences that people are just beginning to wake up to."

Reback, who helped persuade the Justice Department to file its anti-trust case against Microsoft in the 1990s, said the group includes the Internet Archive, a San Francisco non-profit which maintains a digital library of websites.

The Times said the group plans to make a case to the Justice Department that the arrangement is anticompetitive.

It said that members of the Alliance were likely to file objections independently with the US District Court in New York which is set to hold a "fairness hearing" on the deal on October 7.

Microsoft and Yahoo! confirmed to the Times that they were participants while Amazon refused to comment.

Peter Brantley, a director of the Internet Archive, said the Special Libraries Association, the New York Library Association and the American Society of Journalists and Authors were planning to join the group.
He told the Journal its membership would be formally disclosed in the next couple
of weeks.

Brantley said members of the coalition all see problems with the settlement and are pushing for revisions, but not all necessarily want to see it blocked.

The Google Book Search project has come under fire from a number of quarters, including from groups worried about privacy.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic of the University of California at Berkeley recently wrote to Google chief executive Eric Schmidt expressing concerns about privacy aspects of the deal.

"Given the long and troubling history of government and third party efforts to compel libraries and booksellers to turn over records about readers, it is essential that Google Books incorporate strong privacy protections in both the architecture and policies of Google Book Search," they said.

Google reached a settlement last year with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers on a copyright infringement lawsuit they filed in 2005 over Google's plan to scan millions of books and put them online.

Under the settlement, Google agreed to establish an independent "Book Rights Registry," which will provide revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitize their books.

Microsoft shut down its own book scanning project in May of last year.

Agencies

Microsoft to hire Yahoo staff for the online search business

Microsoft Corp will hire at least 400 workers from Yahoo Inc if government regulators approve the companies' proposed Internet search partnership, and Yahoo will receive $150 million to cover any unexpected costs during the switch to new technology.

The details emerged in a regulatory filing that elaborated on an agreement announced last week. Sunnyvale-based Yahoo said then that an unspecified number of its 13,000 employees would be offered jobs at Microsoft after the Redmond, Washington-based software maker assumes control of the search results and search advertising on Yahoo's Web site.

The transition is supposed to begin early next year, assuming the alliance is approved by antitrust regulators in the United States and Europe.

Microsoft will pay $50 million annually during the first three years of the 10-year contract to supplement the revenue that Yahoo will receive from the ads appearing alongside its search results. The $150 million in guaranteed payments weren't mentioned last week.

The filing said Yahoo can use the $150 million to pay for unforeseen transition costs. Yahoo's stock has fallen by about 15 per cent since it unveiled the Microsoft deal, largely because announced terms didn't include a large upfront payment.

The disclosure probably won't ease the disappointment much, given analysts had anticipated Microsoft paying $1 billion to $2 billion for access to Yahoo's search engine.

Most of the revenue from the Microsoft deal will flow from ad commissions. Yahoo will receive 88 percent of the search ad revenue during the first five years of the contract. After that, Yahoo's commission will range from 83 percent to 93 percent, depending on whether it still handles some of the ad sales in the partnership.

The main reason Yahoo decided to turn over its search engine to Microsoft was to save money. If Yahoo wants to save even more on technology, it
has the option of adopting Microsoft's online mapping service replace of its own, according to the filing.

Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz has already made it known she isn't impressed with Yahoo's online maps. As it is, transferring 400 workers to Microsoft would prune Yahoo's current payroll by about 3 per cent.

Yahoo will lay off some workers if the Microsoft deal goes through, Bartz said last week. Tuesday's filing didn't provide any layoff projections. Although it also has been jettisoning workers because of the recession, Microsoft finished its latest fiscal year end in June with 93,000 employees -- an increase of about 2,000 people from the previous year.

Microsoft is counting on the Yahoo partnership to help it reverse years of losses in its online operations and siphon some traffic -- and ad sales -- from Internet search leader Google Inc.

Yahoo's search engine is the second largest, making it the quickest way for Microsoft to gain ground on Google. Even so, Microsoft and Yahoo combined have less than 30 percent of the US search market compared to 65 percent for Google, according to comScore Inc.

To keep Yahoo happy, Microsoft will have to produce ad revenue per search that is within a certain percentage of Google's industry-leading rate. If Microsoft doesn't hit the target, Yahoo can abandon the partnership before the contract expires.

The filing didn't specify how close Microsoft has to come to Google's revenue per search. Microsoft estimates that Google gets 7 cents in ad revenue for every search, while Yahoo gets 4.3 cents and Microsoft gets 3.9 cents, according to a PowerPoint slide Microsoft mistakenly posted online.

Agencies

Has Microsoft's Bing gained marketshare from Google?

Microsoft Corp's Bing search engine won more market share from rivals last week, according to new industry data, but still trails Google Inc and Yahoo Inc considerably.

Challenging market leader Google -- which in turn is looking to break into Microsoft's core software market -- is a long-term project, said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

"We have had some very good initial response," Ballmer said at a conference in Detroit. "I don't want to over-set expectations. We are going to have to be tenacious and keep up the pace of innovation over a long period of time."

Microsoft grabbed 12.1 percent of U.S. Internet searches for the work week June 8-12, according to data released by industry tracker comScore earlier on Wednesday.

That is up from 11.3 percent in the June 1-5 period -- the week in which Bing was launched -- and up from 9.1 percent the week before that.

For comparison, Google got 65 percent of U.S. searches in May, the last full month for which figures are available, followed by Yahoo with 20.1 percent and Microsoft with 8 percent.

Analysts and investors are keenly awaiting data for all of June to see if Microsoft can hold onto early gains.

Ballmer acknowledged the tough task of beating Google, which he referred to as "a big dog competitor".

The world's largest software company has long been determined to play a major role in the lucrative Web search market after watching upstart Google take a stranglehold.

At the same time, Google is looking to take advantage of its popularity to launch software that competes with Microsoft's, which has created a new source of tension between the two companies.

Microsoft ratcheted up that tension on Wednesday by claiming that Google's new Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook software -- which allows users to share data between their Outlook e-mail and Google's online offerings -- disables a key function in Outlook.

"The installation of the Google Apps Sync plugin disables Outlook's ability to search any and all of your Outlook data," Outlook product manager Dev Balasubramanian wrote on a Microsoft blog. "It is also important to note that uninstalling the plugin may not fix the issue."

The problem, though relatively unimportant to users, represents a crucial struggle between Microsoft and Google for e-mail customers.

Google's new product allows business users to continue using Outlook for email and other tasks, but the back-end functionality and data storage moves to Google, instead of residing on a company's internal servers running Microsoft software.

Google did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Microsoft shares closed up just less than 1 percent at $23.68, while Google's fell 0.2 percent to $415.16, both on Nasdaq.

Agencies

Is India among top 2 emerging markets for Yahoo!

Internet search giant Yahoo! on Sunday said India is one of the 'top emerging markets' and it would release a slew of products over next few months for further consolidating its position in the country.

"India is one of the top two countries in the emerging markets segment and holds a lot of promise for us ... Products developed in the Indian lab and centres abroad are part of the pipeline of innovative products that will help us in the Indian market," Yahoo! Head of Audience (Emerging Markets) Gopal Krishna told media.

He, however, declined to comment on the details of the products. "Innovations around mail, instant messenger and front page (landing page) would be prime focus areas. We would also look at news properties like News, Bollywood and Buzz," he said.

Emerging markets contributes up to 65 per cent to the total users for some of the key global Yahoo! properties and is the fastest growing region from business perspective as well, he added.

One of the leading properties/products is Yahoo! Cricket, which attracted 2.4 million unique users per month emerging as the top cricket site in India, according to Comscore April 2009 data.

In February this year, Yahoo! India had entered into a three-year partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC), becoming the exclusive online partner for all ICC events, including ICC World Twenty20, ICC Champions Trophy and ICC Cricket World Cup.

It has also partnered with companies like LG, Pepsi, Maruti, Tata Xenon, Honda, ICICI, Citibank and Cisco for advertising on the microsite. Yahoo! India also has a two-year partnership with Reliance, Krishna said.

Yahoo! India is also focusing on building its mobile business in the country. It is working on developing products, apart from the ones available on web to build its presence on mobile websites.

"We are looking at presenting users with a experience that is different from using Internet on PCs. Apart from the usual things, we are looking at developing applications specific to mobile handsets as well," Krishna said, adding that the mobile segment also presents a good opportunity in terms of advertising.

Worldwide spending on mobile advertising is expected to reach USD 19 billion in 2012, while the APAC market is forecast to touch USD 6.9 billion, according to eMarketer (March 2008).

Agencies

Two Web startups interest AOL

Internet pioneer AOL, which Time Warner plans to spin off into an independent company later this year, announced on Thursday that it had bought two small Web startups focused on local content.

AOL, in a statement, said it had purchased Patch Media Corp., a local news and information platform for local communities, and Going Inc., a platform for sharing information about events in major cities.

Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.

"Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today -- there's a lot of information out there but simply no way for consumers to find it quickly and easily," said Tim Armstrong, who was hired away from Google this year to become AOL chairman and chief executive.

"It's a space that's prime for innovation and an area where AOL has a significant audience and a valuable mapping service in MapQuest," he said.

"Going forward, local will be a core area of focus and investment for AOL," Armstrong said. "The acquisitions of Patch and Going will help us build out our local network further."

Patch.com is currently available in five local communities in the United States and expects to be available in a dozen by the end of the year.

Going.com provides information for young people about what is going on in major US cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Boston.

"By joining with AOL, we have the opportunity to greatly expand the reach of our platform to more cities both in the US and around the world," said Going chief executive Evan Schumacher.

AOL is currently the number four gateway to the Web after Google, Microsoft sites and Yahoo! and has been trying to refashion itself recently as a popular one-stop portal.

Agencies

Microsoft's Bing to take on Google

Microsoft has unveiled a new search engine named Bing, renewing its efforts to challenge the dominance of Google in the Internet search market.

The company said the new service will begin to roll out over the coming days and will be fully deployed worldwide June 3.

"Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the web and find information, but they don't do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find," Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive officer, said in a statement.

"Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they've found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions," he added.

Microsoft said the Bing service, billed by the company as a Decision Engine, will initially focus on shopping, travel, local business and information, and health-related research - areas in which people want more assistance in making key decisions.

The software giant still has a long way to go to increase its share in the search market.

According to latest analysis by market research firm comScore, in April this year, Google led the US search market with 64.2 per cent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo with 20.4 per cent, with Microsoft a distant third with 8.2 per cent.

CXOtoday

Is Yahoo on a hiring spree in India?

Internet major Yahoo is hiring for hundreds of job openings including nearly 150 vacancies in India, even as the company is set to bring down its global workforce by about 675 employees. "We are currently hiring for key positions and will continue to invest in strategically important areas," a Yahoo spokesperson based in the U.S. said.

Last week, while announcing its first quarter results on April 21, Yahoo had said that it would slash five percent of its global workforce of 13,500 employees. While the spokesperson did not elaborate on country-specific hiring plans, the career section of the internet major's website shows that Yahoo is looking for about 150 positions in India alone.

The openings are for its operations in Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi, while most of them are for Bangalore. The India openings are for various departments including engineering, customer care, research and product management, among others. Further, the internet major has over 120 job vacancies for different offices in the US, the website shows.

The firm is resorting to job cuts in the wake of slackening advertisement revenues and a 78 percent drop in first quarter profit at $118 million. However, it is not clear whether India operations comprising of about 1,500 employees would be affected by the job cuts. The spokesperson noted that the majority of impacted employees are expected to be notified within the next two weeks.

Last October, Yahoo had announced that it would reduce its headcount by as much as 10 percent. "The goal is to reduce its current annualized cost run rate of approximately $3.9 billion by more than $400 million before the end of 2008," the Internet major had said in October.

Agencies

Will Yahoo layoff 700 more jobs?

Yahoo Inc said it would cut 5 per cent of its global workforce (nearly 700 jobs) and reported quarterly results that showed progress towards controlling costs, sending shares higher in an after-hours relief rally.

The Internet company said economic conditions remained challenging, as revenue on Yahoo Websites from both display ads and search ads fell during the first quarter.

But the decline in revenue was offset by better cost controls, as new Chief Executive Carol Bartz seeks to revive Yahoo's fortunes. "People were really looking at the profit structure of the business and for things not to be falling apart," said Kaufman Brothers analyst Jason Avilio.

Yahoo said last October it would cut about one-tenth of its workforce, or about 1,600 jobs. The company finished 2008 with roughly 13,600 employees and said it would take severance charges from the new round of layoffs during the second quarter.

The company also announced in an internal memo to employees on Tuesday that it planned to implement a mandatory shutdown of operations during the holiday week of December 25, 2009 through January 1, 2010.

Yahoo said its operating cash flow, excluding certain items, was $409 million in the first quarter, at the high end of the $365 million to $415 million range it forecast in January.

Yahoo shares were up 54 cents at $14.92 in after-hours trading on Tuesday. The company's stock is up roughly 9 per cent from its Monday close of $13.66.

Yahoo's financial report comes as speculation has mounted that the firm has restarted discussions with software giant Microsoft Corp about an Internet search partnership, following last year's failed merger negotiations.

Bartz, who replaced Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang in the top job in January, declined to comment on anything related to Microsoft during the conference call on Tuesday.

But she reiterated her belief that search is a very valuable part of Yahoo's business.

"I'm well-versed enough in the search business at Yahoo to say it's absolutely critical to Yahoo," Bartz said in response to a question regarding whether she is now familiar enough with the business to respond to an offer for search.

In the first full quarter under Bartz's leadership, Yahoo generated revenue of $1.58 billion, down 13 per cent from the year-ago period. Exclud
ing traffic acquisition costs (TAC), Yahoo's revenue was $1.16 billion, compared with the average analyst expectation of $1.2 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company reported a net profit in the first quarter of $118 million, or 8 cents a share -- down from $537 million, or 37 cents a share, a year earlier. Wall Street analysts, on average, had forecast earnings at 8 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.

While revenues were "a bit light," Jefferies & Co analyst Youssef Squali said in an email that Yahoo's overall results, particularly on the bottom line, were not bad given the environment.

Yahoo said that revenue from display ads on its owned and operated websites slid 13 per cent year-over-year in the first quarter, with revenue from automotive advertisers down "substantially" and spending by retail advertisers "softened" compared to the year ago period.

Revenue from search-based ads on Yahoo sites were down 3 per cent. And Yahoo said that advertisers were spending less money to bid for the individual keywords that their ads appear alongside, echoing a theme present in results last week from Google Inc, the No.1 US Internet search company.

Yahoo, like Google, stressed the importance of keeping costs in line amid the difficult economy. The new round of job cuts come about two months after Bartz announced a reorganization of Yahoo's internal management structure.

The layoffs, said Bartz, are a "natural outgrowth" of the reorganization, which will allow Yahoo to streamline its operations and eliminate duplication of efforts.

The Internet company said it would also continue to implement unspecified "non-headcount cost reductions," so it can increase its ability to make strategic investments and target hiring in its core operations

"It's crucial that management adjusts the cost structure to the new growth (or lack thereof) realities; so margin protection is paramount to Yahoo right now," said Jefferies analyst Squali. "We think there is potential outperformance on margins."

Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen told Reuters there were "still very dark clouds on the horizon" for the economy.

"I'll try to resist calling the bottom in any way," he said in a telephone interview.

Yahoo projected that sales in the current quarter would range between $1.425 billion and $1.625 billion.

Agencies

Will Yahoo layoff hundreds of employees?

Yahoo Inc is gearing up for its third round of mass layoffs in 14 months, signaling the long-slumping Internet company is still struggling to snap out of its financial malaise under a new leadership team.

The cuts will likely affect several hundred employees, a person familiar with the plan said, confirming a report first published on The New York Times' Web site.

The person asked to remain anonymous because Yahoo isn't publicly discussing anything that might affect its stock price until the April 21 release of the Sunnyvale, California-based company's first-quarter earnings report.

Most analysts expect those results to be lackluster, extending a pattern of disappointing profits that began in 2006.

Yahoo hired technology veteran Carol Bartz as its chief executive in January to steer a turnaround. The blunt-talking Bartz has spent much of her tenure trying to understand Yahoo's strengths and weaknesses while promising to throw out the dead wood. She already has reorganized Yahoo's management team.

Bartz's predecessor, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, also tried to shake things up by laying off about 1,000 workers in February 2008 only to expand the payroll again in the next few months. Just before Bartz's hiring, Yahoo eliminated more than 1,500 jobs to enter 2009 with 13,600 workers.

When they made the last cuts, Yahoo executives warned more layoffs could be coming if the recession worsened — an unwelcome turn that occurred during the first three months of the year.

The deepening downturn has caused more advertisers to trim their spending, a trend that has hurt all companies like Yahoo that depend on advertising for most of their revenue. The retrenchment has been a bigger problem for more traditional media, particularly newspapers, but it's also forcing Internet companies to tighten their belts.

Even Internet search leader Google Inc, which generates three times more revenue than Yahoo, decided to lay off about 340 workers and curb other expenses during the first quarter to bolster its profits during the tough times.

Agencies

Is Google showing signs of vulnerability?

With three rounds of layoffs announced since the year began, Google Inc is showing rare signs of vulnerability. As it prepares to deliver first-quarter results on Thursday, investors are anxious to see if the Google machine has any visible cracks, or if the No 1 US Internet search company continues to sidestep the worst of the storm.

"Whenever Internet companies cut costs, people take any cost cutting as a really negative signal," said Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeff Lindsay. But he said Web searches on Google continue to increase, while revenue from paid clicks, people clicking on Google's text-based search ads, appears to be holding up.

"We think they've been cutting costs prudently and sensibly, and it's probably a good indication that they're going to have good margin performance," said Lindsay, who rates Google's stock "outperform." With global economies sputtering, and one recent report forecasting a 5 percent decline in US online advertising spending this year, business conditions for Google and other Internet companies are as bad as they have ever been.

Analysts expect a sequential drop in revenue for the first time in Google's history as a public company. The average forecast, according to Reuters Estimates, is for first-quarter revenue of $5.53 billion, a 3 percent fall quarter over quarter, or a 6.6 percent gain year on year. Still, that is better than Google's rivals.

Yahoo Inc has projected sales falling as much as 16 percent year-over-year in the first quarter. And some analysts expect revenue at Time Warner Inc's AOL unit to slide 19 percent or more in the first quarter from a year ago. Thus Google's stock, which was trading at around $378 on Monday, has risen 23 percent since the eve of its last quarterly earnings report, outperforming the broader market. Google shares trade at 18 times forward earnings versus the 38 times multiple for rival Yahoo.

Shares outperform

Analysts, on average, expect Google to earn $4.20 a share in the first quarter, up about 2 percent from $4.12 in the year-earlier period, according to Reuters Estimates. Roughly 97 percent of Google's revenue comes from advertising. Of that, the vast majority is tied to Google's search-based advertising system.

Because advertisers only pay when a Web surfer clicks on one of Google's search ads, analysts say the ads provide customers with a better return than other forms of advertising such as broadcast radio ads or Internet banner ads. But JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan said in a recent note to investors that the tight credit market could force small businesses, which he reckons accounts for 20 percent of Google's revenue, to cut back on ad spending.

Google does not give financial guidance but Wall Street will be paying close attention to the comments executives make about the economy on Thursday's conference call. Google said in March that it was laying off 200 workers in its sales and marketing groups, following job cuts in its recruiting group and its shuttered broadcast radio advertising business in January and February.

"It is not news that Google is being impacted by the economy. The real question is how much will the economy impact Google from here on out and how long will this recession last," said Cowen & Co analyst James Friedland. "If the ad pie keeps shrinking, eventually Google's ad pie will shrink," said Friedland, who has an outperform rating on Google. While the company ended 2008 with $15.8 billion in cash and short-term securities on its books, investors and analysts are also eager for any updates about how Google plans to use the money.

Agencies

Yahoo CEO ushers out CFO in executive shake-up

After spending six weeks diagnosing Yahoo Inc.'s troubles, new Chief Executive Carol Bartz started to prescribe a cure on Thursday with a management shake-up that will usher out the Internet company's chief financial officer.

Besides pushing CFO Blake Jorgensen out the door, the overhaul will expand the responsibilities of Yahoo's chief technology officer, Ari Balogh, and the company's top advertising executive in the United States, Hilary Schneider.

Bartz also created two jobs: a chief marketing officer and her own chief of staff.

Elisa Steele, who has been working at NetApp Inc., will join Yahoo as chief marketing officer on March 23, while Joel Jones, a former McKinsey consultant who has been Yahoo's corporate strategist, becomes Bartz's chief of staff as of Thursday.

With the new pecking order, Bartz hopes to speed up Yahoo's decision-making and have a senior team that supports her strategy for turning around a company struggling with three years of declining profits _ a downturn that had battered its stock price well before the market's overall decline.

Although Bartz still hasn't specified how she intends to get Yahoo back on track, she has left no doubt about her resolve to recapture the Internet pioneer's glory days.

``I'm singularly focused on providing you with awesome products. Period,'' Bartz wrote in a blog posting Thursday addressed to Yahoo's 500 million worldwide users.

Yahoo's previous two CEOs, co-founder Jerry Yang and former movie studio mogul Terry Semel, also attempted to revive Yahoo in recent years by reshuffling executives, but those moves never paid off. Bartz's reorganization is meant to last two to four years.

Investors appear to be betting that Bartz will deliver on her promises. Yahoo shares gained 50 cents, or 4 percent, to close Thursday at $12.98.

Yahoo hired Bartz, 60, last month to replace Yang, who exasperated many investors and employees with his wishy-washy management style. Yang also infuriated stockholders last year by turning down an opportunity to sell Yahoo to rival Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, well above the price of $19.18 just before the software maker announced its initial bid.

Although Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has repeatedly said he no longer wants to buy Yahoo in its entirety, he has indicated he still wants to explore a possible partnership that would involve Yahoo's online search engine, the second most popular behind that of Google Inc.

Bartz so far has been lukewarm to the idea in her public remarks, but Jorgensen expressed an interest in working with Microsoft in a Wednesday presentation at an investor conference.

In a Thursday research note, Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuth said he didn't consider Jorgensen's departure a sign Yahoo is any less interested in working with Microsoft.

But Anmuth wondered about the wisdom of letting Jorgensen go, given that Bartz came to Yahoo without any previous Internet experience. Jorgensen also was somewhat of a novice, having joined Yahoo in June 2007, but Anmuth thought he would at least provide Yahoo some stability.

Jorgensen will remain CFO until Bartz can find replacement. His departure isn't a total shock because he was an ally of former Yahoo President Susan Decker, who resigned last month after Bartz beat her out for the CEO job.

But Jorgensen provided no inkling he might be headed out the door when he met with USB analyst Benjamin Schachter earlier this week, Schachter wrote in a Thursday note.

``While we were fans of Blake, Bartz is clearly going to be leading the charge here,'' Schachter wrote.

Jorgensen is paid a salary of $500,000, according to Yahoo's most recent disclosures about executive compensation. The terms of his severance package weren't disclosed Thursday.

Besides changing CFOs, Yahoo also appointed a new leader to expand its service on to mobile devices. David Ko, already part of the mobile team, was promoted to the top job in the division to replace Marco Boerries, who is leaving the company after a four-year stint.

Bartz mainly wants to root out bureaucracy with her new chain of command.

``People here have impressed the hell out of me,'' Bartz wrote Thursday. ``They're smart, dedicated, passionate, driven, and really nice. There's so much great energy and frankly lots of optimism. But there's also plenty that has bogged this company down. For starters, you'd be amazed at how complicated some things are here.''

In hopes of simplifying things, Bartz is placing all of Yahoo's products under Balogh, who joined the company a year ago. The shift appears to lessen the authority of Ash Patel, who had been overseeing most of Yahoo's products.

Schneider's job is being expanded to include oversight of advertisers and partners in Canada, not just the United States. Bartz intends to hire another executive to steer Yahoo's advertising relationships in Mexico and overseas.

Finally, Yahoo is creating a new division to handle complaints from frustrated users and advertising customers.

Agencies