Posted at 2:05 PM PT 
In BoomTown’s bold quest to annoyingly stick a Flip digital video camera in the face of every Yahoo senior exec, this week I worked the last nerve of its CTO and EVP of Products, Aristotle “Ari” Balogh.
Actually, the 45-year-old Balogh is a very calm and pleasant man, especially considering the huge responsibility that has been foisted on him by CEO Carol Bartz to rejigger how Yahoo makes its products and services and deploy its technology in a more efficient, centralized and, most of all, innovative manner.
To explain all this, Balogh sat down with me twice–he is clearly a glutton for punishment–to talk about where Yahoo stood as it sought to dig itself out of its long slump and reemerge as the potent Internet force it once was.
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Posted at 12:37 PM PT
Jeff Zucker runs one of the world’s leading media and entertainment content companies, which is also being caught in the throes of a major shift, due to the impact of the Internet over the last decade.
In this onstage interview with me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, Zucker talks about the state of the television business; the changing advertising market; the impact of Hulu, an online premium video joint venture NBC launched with News Corp.; and precisely what he meant when he said that the Web was turning “analog dollars into digital pennies.”
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Posted at 3:06 PM PT
Microsoft just announced in a blog post that it was “integrating more real time data into our search results, starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres.”
Microsoft said it is not indexing all of Twitter in its new Bing search service–not yet, that is–nor has it made any kind of exclusive deal with Twitter to add this real-time feed.
The software giant is the first major search service to do this on a regular basis, using public APIs from Twitter–and it is an aggressive move, which seems to be part of its major push by Bing.
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Posted at 6:28 AM PT
Back in April, Tim Armstrong sent a memo to the long-battered troops of AOL about a 100-day vision quest the new CEO and chairman was going on to find out “how to bring back the magic of AOL.”
It is now Day 86, and Armstrong is closing in on the end of a Where’s-Waldo commitment that he made then to visit all of the far-flung offices of the Time Warner online unit globally to find out what’s what and what he should do to turn AOL around.
BoomTown is eager to see what Armstrong has found out on his trip and what path it will ultimately put AOL on.
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Posted at 3:20 AM PT
Last week, BoomTown posted a detailed piece on Yahoo’s plans for a massive rebranding and marketing push, which included the hiring of outside consultant Penny Baldwin, who was a former top exec at Young & Rubicam.
Yesterday, Baldwin became an official Yahoo exec, as SVP of global integrated marketing and brand management.
She has been described by many sources as much more colorful and bold in her style, advocating more aggressive ideas about reinvigorating the Yahoo brand.
“Well, Penny is definitely not Yahoo,” said one Yahoo source, joking about the company’s quainter, yodel-focused and purple-toned image. “Which is probably a good thing.”
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Posted at 12:05 AM PT
As most know by now, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer introduced the software giant’s relaunch of its search offering, dubbed Bing, onstage at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference.
You can see that here, as well as Ballmer demoing the product, which is Microsoft’s biggest and priciest attempt yet to catch archrival Google and Yahoo in the search business.
It is a market where the typically dominant Microsoft is a mouse in comparison. But, no surprise, that did not stop Ballmer from doing some roaring about Bing.
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Posted at 9:57 AM PT
Here at All Things Digital, we are always fussing away on our site, making a variety of improvements regularly to make the experience better for our readers.
In that vein, we have recently added two new features over the last weeks, which deserve a look-see: Topic pages and job listings.
Check them out.
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Posted at 1:19 AM PT
What can one say about Mark Cuban that he can’t say himself?
Not much, as you will see from this sassy onstage interview he did with Walt Mossberg and me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, where he talked about everything from the idiots of the Internet to the subsidization of Web video by Google.
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Posted at 1:04 PM PT
Last week, after much delay, longtime Internet exec Julius Genachowski was confirmed by the Senate as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
It is an important role for the future development of the Web, of course, although it took a dog’s age into the new Democratic administration to approve him.
Hopefully, he and the other commissioners can soon get to work on a wide range of major digital issues, such as a national broadband plan that does not cost Americans a fortune.
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Posted at 11:19 AM PT
Facebook picked a new CFO quietly, after its cloddish public parting with longtime top financial exec Gideon Yu earlier this year.
The fast-growing social-networking site said in late March it was looking for a CFO with “public company experience,” and it seems to have gotten one in former Genentech CFO David Ebersman.
And, indeed, with the addition of Ebersman, Facebook inches ever closer to an IPO.
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Posted at 4:46 AM PT
Where is Microsoft spending its $100 million in marketing for its new Bing search service?
Here’s a photo that was forwarded to me showing an advertisement on top of a taxi in Manhattan of a goodbye message from Bing, as well as NBC, to the late pop legend, Michael Jackson.
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Posted at 3:53 AM PT
Over the last weeks, News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller and MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta have had their hands full directing massive layoffs at the flagship social-networking site, as well as throughout the Fox Interactive Media division.
The pair discussed the many challenges faced by the giant media company in its digital enterprises in an onstage interview at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference last month.
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Posted at 1:22 AM PT
While she had almost nothing to do with the Internet, the Web still has a lot to do with Farrah Fawcett, especially today after the iconic Hollywood actress and model died after a long and well-documented battle with cancer.
Still, the massive online reaction to a more sudden and unexpected celebrity death yesterday–pop legend Michael Jackson, who was 50–pretty much drowned out Fawcett’s passing at 62 years old.
That’s too bad, since she was a genuine cultural phenom–and here is an online video to remind us of that.
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Posted at 2:19 PM PT
The layoffs at Fox Interactive Media moved on to Photobucket today, as one-third of its staff of about 120 were let go, sources close to the situation said.
The photo- and video-hosting service was bought for $250 million in mid-2007 by News Corp.
A FIM spokesperson confirmed the layoffs after being contacted by BoomTown, but declined to give specific numbers. But sources told me a total of about 75 people were fired.
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Posted at 10:18 AM PT
BoomTown is at the lovely Santa Clara Marriott in Silicon Valley at the 2009 Yahoo annual meeting, liveblogging the event, which should be spectacularly dull.
Here is a rundown of what went on.
10:05 am: The meeting kicks off with a little video presentation with various and sundry television talking heads saying “Yahoo” in quick succession.
Actually, this was the year during which all of those hype-magnets repeated “Twitter” so many times that it has began to make my ears bleed.
But I like the spirit of trying to make Yahoo seem relevant and innovative again.
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