Earlier today, BoomTown reported that Yahoo was poised to name a few new top execs at its Silicon Valley HQ.
But the company has also hired a new director of public affairs in the nation’s capital–Amber Allman of 463 Communications.
With a spate of regulatory issues coming up around its pending search and online advertising deal with Microsoft, Yahoo will need all the help it can get.
Yahoo reported its third-quarter earnings earlier today, a pretty good performance in which it soundly beat Wall Street expectations with a stronger net income than expected.
While advertising revenue was down at the Silicon Valley Internet giant, also as expected, cost-cutting by CEO Carol Bartz and the sale of its stake in China’s Alibaba seem to have more than made up for it.
Here are Yahoo’s financial presentations, full of more numbers than you will ever want to crunch.
Uh-oh, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was expected to appear on the Internet giant’s third-quarter earnings call, but she apparently “came down with something,” according to CFO Tim Morse.
BoomTown is sending over chicken soup right now, but let’s hope she gets her vaccinations tout de suite!
Thus, no sassy quotes or cursing, but a very earnest Morse, who sounded like he was once a Boy Scout.
Yahoo bested Wall Street expectations today, announcing stronger net income for its third quarter, despite an also expected decline in revenue.
In addition, Yahoo’s expectations for the fourth quarter are more positive than expected by investors.
But, there were some issues to worry about: Search advertising revenue was off 19 percent and display was off eight percent at “Owned and Operated” sites on Yahoo.
So, while investors can finally relax, how Yahoo can grow going forward is sure to be their next focus.
Since the beginning of the year, Apple shares have more than doubled from $90.75 on Jan. 2 to almost $186 today.
Google has done about half that performance, while Microsoft has done one-third.
But that’s apparently not enough, according to Thomas Weisel analyst Doug Reid, who has raised his price target on Apple to $210 from $180.
BoomTown is getting dizzy.
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.
In what is quite possibly the most spot-on comment about Twitter that BoomTown has heard thus far, Harvard University Professor Jonathan Zittrain said about its use by Iranians protesting the election results there:
“It is easy for Twitter feeds to be echoed everywhere else in the world. The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what make it so powerful.”
In other words, Twitter is so simplistic and silly that it is a perfect digital tool to overthrow a government–which kind of makes the trendy microblogging service the Forrest Gump of international relations.
At the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, besides interviewing a lot of tech and media muckety-mucks, the All Things Digital staff and friends also got a terrific screening of a new documentary–“Autumn Gem”–by our Webmaster, Adam Tow, and his wife, Rae Chang.
The pair co-produced the project, which explores the extraordinary life of the Chinese revolutionary heroine and women’s rights activist, Qiu Jin.
Even more interesting is what it is like to get an indie film made and distributed in the digital age, which I talked about with Tow and Chang last week.
Under cover of darkness last night, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on the social-networking site’s blog that it would “return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”
Oh, this is just too good to resist. Therefore, BoomTown shall not tarry in our ongoing job of busting the chops of the young Facebook leader, whose minions have actually–and I am not joking here–given him the nickname: The Wizard.
Well, the Wizard obviously had to pull back the curtain last night and show some serious mea culpa to the people, before they got out the pitchforks.
Here’s a translation of Zuckerberg’s message.
Former Yahoo tech star Qi Lu is poised to take on the big job of being Microsoft’s top digital executive, according to several sources inside and outside the company.
The appointment could be announced as early as next Monday.
A variety of details is still being ironed out, including whether the well-regarded techie Lu will be “paired” with another executive at Microsoft with more general business experience.
Yesterday, BoomTown opined that Microsoft was nearing a decision on who would become the head of its digital efforts.
And, according to several sources and some puzzling by me–if the deal can be sealed–I think that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s top choice is former Yahoo tech star Qi Lu.
If Ballmer manages to pull off the hire of Lu–on the heels of already grabbing another top Yahoo search exec, Sean Suchter, which I posted on yesterday–the aggressive exec could almost be bypassing a Yahoo search partnership he has long sought by sucking the talent right out of the place instead.
Once burnt, twice shy?
I suppose that’s the reason Microsoft is not loaded for bear and headed back down to Sunnyvale to make another play for Yahoo right now.
Not even after Jerry Yang orchestrated activist Carl Icahn’s defenestration by inviting him on the board at Yahoo, where he will be 100 percent silenced.
Not even after the stranger-than-fiction shareholder miscount (oops–we thought no meant yes!).
Not even after Yahoo stock’s consistent flirting-with-the-teens price.
All Yahoo needs now is for former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to show up and start recounting votes.
It could happen, given all the crazy characters who have been drawn to the much-beleaguered Internet company like a magnet, in 2008.
It’s almost as if there is a voodoo curse on Yahoo and, so, you didn’t think the digital gods would let it have more than one weekend of good news, did you?
No, they will not, it seems.
OK, now we’re cooking with gas at Yahoo’s annual meeting in San Jose, as various shareholders–mostly small ones–come to the microphones and give Yahoo a piece of their mind.
First up, longtime Yahoo activist shareholder Eric Jackson asked Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock to step down, noted that Yahoo had overplayed its hand on the Microsoft bid, wondered about Yahoo President Sue Decker’s time problems (too many outside boards) and questioned the worth of Yahoo’s deal to sell an asset in Japan.
Sorry for the delay, but we’ll finally start posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May in their entirety.
Kicking off the proceedings will be what most of the attendees at the conference told us they considered their favorite interview, which Walt Mossberg and I did with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.
Here’s Part 6 of 6 of the Murdoch interview.
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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