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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Liveblogging Yahoo’s Third-Quarter Conference Call: Bartz “Came Down With Something,” and CFO Carries On (and On and On and On)

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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.

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As Traffic Booms, Is HuffPo Ready to Make Some Real Dough?

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For the past few months, the Huffington Post has been on a bit of a tear–both in terms of traffic gains and in its hiring of some big talent for key positions.

Now, those execs are focusing on using that consumer momentum to achieve what has eluded the Huffington Post thus far: Making some serious bank from the privately held news and media site.

Here’s a chat I had with new President and Chief Revenue Officer Greg Coleman about how he is aiming to do just that.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Liveblogging the Yahoo Second Quarter 2009 Earnings Call: We Are the Kingmaker!

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If there’s an earnings call at Yahoo, you know BoomTown is going to liveblog it!

Will Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz say something naughty? (Nope!) What is new CFO Tim Morse like? (Nice!) Will they say anything about the talks with Microsoft about a search and online advertising partnership? (No!)

Oh, it might be a corker!

The earnings results for the second quarter certainly were not.

Here’s the conference call, updated as it happened.

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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Best Monetization Idea From Twitter Yet: “Follow This” Fashion!

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BoomTown always enjoys trying to come up with monetization ideas for Twitter, especially since the boys over at the hot San Francisco-based microblogging service seem so charmingly uninterested in it.

I have obviously inspired Dustin Diaz, a Twitter user interface engineer, who tweeted a very Juicy idea yesterday.

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Thursday, July 2, 2009

Yahoo Product Head and CTO Ari Balogh Speaks!

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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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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Facebook CFO Gideon Yu Out; Fast-Growing Social Network Says It’s Doing Fine Financially

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Facebook CFO Gideon Yu is leaving Facebook, as the company announced internally today that it was replacing him and searching for a new CFO on the path to an eventual IPO.

The Wall Street Journal also reported the news, noting that the huge social-networking start-up was looking for a CFO with “public company experience.”

But several sources within the company said the departure was more due to an increasingly strained relationship between Yu and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg over strategic disagreements about a wide range of issues, from increasing ad revenue to fund-raising discussions with investors.

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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Yahoo Media Unit to Get a Reorg Too!

Besides the more massive management reorganization that new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz could announce this week, as BoomTown reported on Friday, the Internet company’s powerful media arm might also see a drastic shift in management structure even sooner.

According to several sources inside the company, U.S. Audience SVP Jeff Dossett has been working on the changes for a while, part of an overall change in how Yahoo makes and delivers content.

Under a plan being considered, the media unit will be split into three parts: vertical programming, network programming and search monetization.

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Thursday, August 14, 2008

Ben Ling Lands (Back) at Google–This Time, at YouTube

Ben Ling–the high-profile Facebook platform exec who came from Google less than a year ago and then up and left the social-networking site earlier this week–is heading back to Google, this time taking a job leading monetization efforts at YouTube, according to sources.

On Tuesday, it was reported here that Ling was leaving his job at Facebook, where he has been director of platform product marketing.

It is a move that will surely spur many to rev up the Facebook-versus-Google stories, given that several Google execs have been recruited by Facebook over the last year.

Apparently, the Empire does strike back.

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Friday, July 11, 2008

Yahoo’s Scott Moore Speaks!

Scott Moore, who runs the Yahoo Media Group, sat down with BoomTown at the company’s Santa Monica headquarters last week to talk about the future direction of content at the company.

While the Media unit has had its ups and downs over the years about exactly what it should be–such as the controversial Hollywood-esque Lloyd Braun strategy–one thing that Yahoo has consistently done well is to aggregate and distribute its own and others’ content.

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About Kara

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 »

Ethics Statement

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.

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