Digital Media

What's old is new again on the Internet.

As AOL spins out from under the historic but disastrous Time Warner deal, it will find itself up against an old foe: Yahoo. Both Yahoo and AOL are attempting to shed their legacies as old-school Internet companies snowed under by the rise of Google by turning themselves into Internet destinations. Long live the portal.

Although the companies have never really stopped competing, things are certainly different this time around. Yahoo is arguably in the better position, with more resources and traffic surrounding its media properties as well as healthy e-mail and instant messenger usage that drives traffic to those properties. AOL is fighting uphill, with an e-mail domain that evokes retirement communities and much of its content strategy revolving around a project that solicits writings and photos from freelancers.

But with traditional advertisers finally starting to show tepid interest in Internet display advertising, there is likely some room for AOL at the table. Expect the two companies to run to different ends of the market, with Yahoo pushing its sites as high-quality, professionally run havens for major advertisers, and AOL stressing its reach and ability to target niche audiences.

On Thursday morning, as AOL began trading on the New York Stock Exchange, its shares were down about 2 percent to the vicinity of $23.25. Yahoo's shares stayed essentially flat, at around $15.30.

AOL's content plan revolves around a combination of professional writers and editors and crowd-sourced content. It launched Seed.com as a Web clearinghouse for the freelancers of the world to submit content in hopes of seeing it featured on AOL's sites, and hired New York Times writer Saul Hansell to oversee the project.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong plans to direct that editorial operation with technological prowess, analyzing hot topics on the Internet and planning coverage around the zeitgeist. It's not as novel an approach as some may think: Internet news organizations of all shapes and sizes make coverage decisions based on how readers respond to certain topics.

But it does indicate that AOL plans to go after the same space as Yahoo. Both companies are attempting to turn themselves into sources of original content that is both compelling to both the masses and the critics, not to mention the advertisers.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong

(Credit: Google)

Yahoo is currently trying to increase the amount of content it produces in-house, which hovers around 20 percent at the moment, depending on which part--Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Entertainment, or Yahoo Finance--you're examining. The rest comes from content partners and wire services.

AOL, on the other hand, already produces around 80 percent of its own content. "I think when you own and are able to operate that content, the advertisers actually are very attracted to it," Armstrong told CNBC on Wednesday.

While that may be true, advertisers also like eyeballs. For the most part, Yahoo's properties are No. 1 or 2 in their respective fields, while AOL has a few winners in sites like Engadget and Moviefone but otherwise trails by a significant margin in those categories. Overall, Yahoo operates the second-largest group of Web sites in the U.S. with 158 million unique users, trailing only Google. AOL's network is the fourth-largest in the U.S. with 98 million unique users, according to ComScore.

AOL thinks it can offset that advantage by becoming the best content provider in a number of niche categories and then selling advertisers on the benefits of targeting that niche. "As the Internet becomes more fragmented, when--if--you can produce great content in niche areas and then really leverage the distribution on the Internet, you're looking at a very high scale, high ROI, return-on-capital business," Armstrong said in the same interview with CNBC.

It's not clear whether Armstrong has dialed up a winning strategy as he prepares to take one of the pioneering companies of the Internet back out on its own. He is, however, facing much more competition than the last time AOL was trying to make a content business on its own, and unlike that last time, he can not depend on a growing source of revenue from Internet access accounts.

Story updated at 7:00 a.m. PST with Thursday morning stock movement for AOL and Yahoo.

As many a famous person might or might not tell you privately, it's hard to know when to be honest.

Should you admit that you have at least 11 lovers? Should you tell the world that you might enjoy a prescription drug or two?

And then there was Carol Bartz's dilemma at the UBS Media Conference Monday--should you admit just how delighted you are that Tiger Woods might have at least 11 lovers and enjoy a prescription drug or two?

Bartz chose to open her feelings to the world. "God Bless Tiger," she was quoted by The Huffington Post as declaring.

The very public trials of the great golfer have forced untold millions of people to seek out untold stories and photos of Woods' personal life all over Yahoo's pages.

(Credit: CC Yodel Anecdotal/Flickr)

I know there may be some who found Bartz's admission rather callous. Didn't it sound like she was attempting to perform a Riverdance on someone's funeral casket? This view might have been supported by her reportedly mentioning that Tiger's woes had even conquered Michael Jackson's physical demise.

May I offer an alternative theory? You see, in the way that corporations sometimes behave with all the directional unity of Medusa's hair, perhaps Yahoo was, this week, behaving with uncommonly singular purpose.

On the same day that Bartz made her comments, her company launched something it calls its campaign to inspire the world.

Entitled "You In?", it is Yahoo's attempt to let kindness be its (and, by extension, your) guiding light this holiday season.

The idea is that, bathing in the need to be nice to someone, you should go immediately to Kindness.yahoo.com and share what it is you have decided to do to express your altruism. This way others might be able to be inspired by the ripple effect of your goodness.

It could be to finally tell your husband that his nasal hair has reached beyond reason into a desperate forest. It could be to finally tell your boss that he is a primping goon who shouldn't be running a bath, never mind your IT department.

Or it could be, like Carol Bartz, subtly encouraging your fellow imperfect human, Tiger Woods, to partake of the soothing balm called honesty.

"Look," she was really saying. "Just tell them exactly how it is. They'll respect you for it in the morning. It works for me."

I wonder if Tiger Woods' first post-scandal sponsorship might come from Yahoo? I can just see him yodeling after hitting a five-iron to within two feet of the pin, can't you?

Yahoo announced on Monday a new consumer tool called "Ad Interest Manager."

BoomTown is going to ignore the could-it-be-duller name for the feature, which--Yahoo said in a press release you can see below--gives users a "central place where Yahoo visitors can see a concise summary of their online activity and make easy, constructive choices about their exposure to interest-based advertising served from the Yahoo Ad Network."

What fortuitous timing, since the first of three of the Federal Trade Commission's "Exploring Privacy: A Roundtable Series" begins Monday in Washington, D.C.

And, of course, the bigger backdrop is the pending regulatory approval of the massive search and advertising partnership between Yahoo and Microsoft. The two companies announced Friday that they had completed the definitive agreement for the deal.

(Credit: FTC)

One of the key issues for regulators, of course, is the privacy implications of combining the search and online ad technologies of the No. 2 and No. 3 players.

The FTC's day-long agenda (PDF) is chock-full of academics and privacy group folks, but there is an Microsoft lawyer on a panel. (The next roundtable takes place at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law on January 28.)

Said the FTC on its site:

The Federal Trade Commission will host a series of day-long public roundtable discussions to explore the privacy challenges posed by the vast array of 21st century technology and business practices that collect and use consumer data. Such practices include social networking, cloud computing, online behavioral advertising, mobile marketing, and the collection and use of information by retailers, data brokers, third-party applications, and other diverse businesses. The goal of the roundtables is to determine how best to protect consumer privacy while supporting beneficial uses of the information and technological innovation.

There will surely be lots to discuss, since privacy groups are wary of self-regulation by the very companies that link consumer data to advertising.

And, they have a point.

Visiting my Ad Interest Manager page is kind of freaky, to be honest. It shows I am interested in entertainment, technology and travel, checking in most on the finance and television pages. Correctomundo!

Also, it has detailed data about my computer, including its color depth, as well as my age and gender.

If I want, it is pretty easy to opt-out of the whole "interest-based" ad completely or by category, with on-off switches, which is a good thing.

If you want to know more, here is the Yahoo press release:

YAHOO! INTRODUCES AD INTEREST MANAGER

PROVIDES CONSUMERS WITH GREATER TRANSPARENCY AND CONTROL OVER THEIR ONLINE ADVERTISING EXPERIENCE

Today Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) released a beta version of a new consumer tool called Ad Interest Manager, which takes transparency in online advertising to a new level for building user trust. Ad Interest Manager http://privacy.yahoo.com/aim is a central place where Yahoo! visitors can see a concise summary of their online activity and make easy, constructive choices about their exposure to interest-based advertising served from the Yahoo! Ad Network.

"Ads tailored to users' interests make online experiences more compelling and user-focused, and the new tool Yahoo! is launching today will provide transparency into how Yahoo!'s interest-based advertising works," said Yahoo! Vice President of Policy and Head of Privacy, Anne Toth. "Yahoo! is committed to providing consumers with increased transparency and control when they are online. Ad Interest Manager will show users what interests we think they have, and also let them edit and change those interests to reflect the most up-to-date information." Anne Toth also pointed out: "Importantly, users who don't want interest-based ads can turn them off completely."

Yahoo!'s new Ad Interest Manager tool:

• Provides a central point where Yahoo! visitors can assert even greater control over their online experience.

• Gives visitors an unparalleled view into the information used to deliver interest-based advertising.

• Shows the visitor both Yahoo!'s educated guesses about their interests and a summary of observations, along with other information they have provided.

• Provides a list of specific interest categories that Yahoo! has placed a user into and lets people turn those categories off.

• Allows people who don't want to see interest-based ads to turn them off entirely.

"Yahoo! has long provided its users with products and services for free, thanks to a business model based almost entirely on advertising, and we've found that consumers are more likely to click on advertising that speaks directly to them and their interests," said Yahoo!Vice President and General Manager of Display Advertising, David Zinman. "With the introduction of Ad Interest Manager, users can not only get a better understanding of how the process works, but they can also communicate better with Yahoo! and our advertisers about what most interests them."

Yahoo!'s Ad Interest Manager is currently available in beta in the U.S. and will soon be made available to UK and European users. Planned future enhancements to the Ad Interest Manager will also let users add categories of interest that Yahoo! may have missed.

To see what the new Ad Interest Manager looks like and how it works, please visithttp://privacy.yahoo.com/aim.

Yahoo! was one of the first companies to implement a layered privacy center http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/details.htmlmodel more than eight years ago, which provides people with a central place to understand and control their privacy online, as well as their options when it comes to the use of personal data. This information is coupled with our industry-leading data-retention policy http://ycorpblog.com/2008/12/17/your-data-goes-incognito/, which anonymizes most Web log data within 90 days. The policy also strives to ensure that Yahoo! retains data only long enough to serve the business and create the highest-quality user experiences, while simultaneously maintaining the ability to fight fraud, secure systems, and meet legal obligations.

And here is the consumer privacy groups' press release on the FTC hearings:

Consumer and Privacy Groups at FTC Roundtable to Call for Decisive Agency Action

Washington, DC, December 6, 2009-On Monday December 7, 2009, consumer representatives and privacy experts speaking at the first of three Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Exploring Privacy Roundtable Series will call on the agency to adopt new policies to protect consumer privacy in today's digitized world. Consumer and privacy groups, as well as academics and policymakers, have increasingly looked to the FTC to ensure that Americans have control over how their information is collected and used.

The groups have asked the Commission to issue a comprehensive set of Fair Information Principles for the digital era, and to abandon its previous notice and choice model, which is not effective for consumer privacy protection.

Specifically, at the Roundtable on Monday, consumer panelists and privacy experts will call on the FTC to stop relying on industry privacy self-regulation, because of its long history of failure. Last September, a number of consumer groups provided Congressional leaders and the FTC a detailed blueprint of pro-active measures designed to protect privacy, available at: http://www.democraticmedia.org/release/privacy-release-20090901.

These measures include giving individuals the right to see, have a copy of, and delete any information about them; ensuring that the use of consumer data for any credit, employment, insurance, or governmental purpose or for redlining is prohibited; and ensuring that websites should only initially collect and use data from consumers for a 24-hour period, with the exception of information categorized as sensitive, which should not be collected at all. The groups have also requested that the FTC establish a Do Not Track registry.

Quotes from Monday's panelists:

Marc Rotenberg, EPIC: "There is an urgent need for the Federal Trade Commission to address the growing threat to consumer privacy. The Commission must hold accountable those companies that collect and use personal information. Self-regulation has clearly failed."

Jeff Chester, Center for Digital Democracy: "Consumers increasingly confront a sophisticated and pervasive data collection apparatus that can profile, track and target them online. The Obama FTC must quickly act to protect the privacy of Americans,including information related to their finances, health, and ethnicity."

Susan Grant, Consumer Federation of America: "It's time to recognize privacy as a fundamental human right and create a public policy framework that requires that right to be respected. Rather than stifling innovation, this will spur innovative ways to make the marketplace work better for consumers and businesses."

Pam Dixon, World Privacy Forum: "Self-regulation of commercial data brokers has been utterly ineffective to protect consumers. It's not just bad actors who sell personal information ranging from mental health information, medical status, income, religious and ethnic status, and the like. The sale of personal information is a routine business model for many in corporate America, and neither consumers nor policymakers are aware of the amount of trafficking in personal information. It's time to tame the wild west with laws that incorporate the principles of the Fair Credit Reporting Act to ensure transparency, accountability, and consumer control."

Story Copyright (c) 2009 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.

The death of Michael Jackson in June launched a frenzy of Web activity and propelled the late pop star to the top of the search charts for 2009.

That's the word from Google, Yahoo, and Bing, all of which have revealed their popular search terms for the past year.

It's not too shocking to see Jackson leading the searches for the year. Following the pop star's death in June, Akamai found that worldwide Web traffic had surged 11 percent over normal levels. Even Google--which in the initial going thought the Jackson-related traffic was an attack of some sort--was briefly sent staggering.

Searches for Michael Jackson songs spiked in late June when news broke about the pop star's death.

(Credit: Google)

According to Google's Zeitgeist findings, "Michael Jackson" was the "fastest rising" worldwide search term of 2009. In the U.S., "Michael Jackson" placed second behind "Twitter." Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, in a blog post also pointed to an up-and-coming music sensation:

As millions of fans said goodbye to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson led the list of our top 10 fastest rising queries across the globe. And a new star was born, too--quirky pop singer Lady Gaga became a search sensation the world over. In addition to appearing on many regional fastest-rising search term lists, from the Czech Republic to Switzerland and Kenya to the United Kingdom, Lady Gaga also landed in the #9 spot on the global fastest rising list.

On the social side, Google monitored whose Twitter accounts were the most searched for. According to the company, Miley Cyrus' Twitter account was the most sought after, followed by those of Lance Armstrong and Taylor Swift. Khloe Kardashian's marriage to basketball player Lamar Odom was the most-Googled wedding of the year.

"Michael Jackson" was the top Yahoo search term for the year. He was followed by a who's who (and a what's what) of the U.S. entertainment scene. "Twilight" was the second most-popular search term, followed by wrestling organization "WWE," starlet "Megan Fox," singer "Britney Spears," and manga series "Naruto." Filling out the top 10 were "American Idol," "Kim Kardashian," "Nascar," and "Runescape."

Microsoft's Bing, which debuted in late May, had similar results. Once again, "Michael Jackson" was the top "trending topic," followed by "Twitter" and "swine flu." "Stock market" and "Farrah Fawcett" rounded out Bing's top five.

Of course, 2009 was also marked by continued concern over the state of the economy. According to Yahoo, "coupons," "unemployment," and "stimulus plan" were the most-numerous queries related to the economy. By contrast, Google's most-searched economy-related terms were "crisis," "cash for clunkers," and "Iceland."

Google also followed queries related to celebrity deaths in 2009. Users searched for "Michael Jackson" the most, followed by "Billy Mays" and "Steve McNair." Yahoo's data revealed that Michael Jackson's death was the most-searched term, but unlike Google's data, the pop star was followed by "Farrah Fawcett" and "Patrick Swayze."

See also:
• Google Zeitgeist 2009
• Yahoo Year in Review 2009
• Top Bing searches in 2009

SAN FRANCISCO--He wasn't on the program, but nobody was disappointed that Google co-founder Sergey Brin showed up at the Web 2.0 Summit on Thursday afternoon and agreed to sit down for an onstage chat with conference organizer John Battelle.

Sergey Brin, Google co-founder

(Credit: Google)

Battelle said Brin had been extended an invitation to speak but turned it down, to which Brin joked, "I didn't say no, I just never responded."

But it was an appropriate time to hear from one of the minds behind Google because one of the most evident trends at the conference is that the search market is heating back up. On Wednesday alone, Microsoft announced a partnership with Twitter and Facebook for real-time search results, Google announced a similar deal with Twitter, and Google executive Marissa Mayer previewed a new "social search" feature in Google Labs.

Brin talked about the new competition with a "bring it on" attitude. "I think what Bing has reminded us is that search is a very competitive market," he said. "There are many interesting companies out there." He said he's disappointed that Yahoo is retreating from the fight and planning to strike a deal with Microsoft instead.

"I think Yahoo had a number of innovations there, and I wish they would continue to innovate in search," Brin said. He didn't go into specifics.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz had been slated to speak at the conference on Wednesday but canceled at the last minute, citing a bad case of the flu.

Yahoo's deal with GroupM should produce more content designed specifically for advertisers, such as celebrity mom blog Spotlight to Nightlight, hosted by Ali Landry (right), shown interviewing Mayim Bialik.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Yahoo's bid to expand the amount of original content it produces is about to get some help from an advertising agency.

CNBC reported Wednesday that Yahoo has signed an agreement with WPP's GroupM digital entertainment studio to co-produce original content that will likely highlight WPP's advertising clients in a significant way. Yahoo confirmed the deal has been signed, and it hopes to have the new shows ready to go by the end of this year or the beginning of 2010.

One of Yahoo's main priorities this year is building out its Media group, which is slated to receive the windfalls generated by Yahoo's ongoing plan to exit businesses it no longer considers to be at its core. The group already does a ton of traffic, but executives want to increase the amount of originally produced content on the site in hopes of luring advertisers with deep pockets.

One way to make that happen is to get the advertiser on board even before the content is created. Like any online media company, Yahoo tracks the activity of its readers and viewers to get a sense of what people are reading and watching, and can pitch advertisers with ideas for shows that target the people they want to reach. An early implementation of this strategy resulted in the development of a blog about celebrity moms called "Spotlight to Nightlight" hosted by Ali Landry and sponsored by State Farm, after Yahoo noticed a surge in searches for content related to celebrity parents.

Concepts that are being considered by GroupM and Yahoo include "Rock 'n Roll Jet Plane," a reality show billed as a "real-life 'Almost Famous,'" and "50 Jobs," a show patterned after The Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs" that follows unemployed job seekers. The shows could also include the types of scripted longer-form show that Yahoo is developing, if there's a match between concept and advertiser.

Whether or not any of this content will actually be watchable is another matter, of course. But the strategy is low-risk for Yahoo, in that the company can only develop programs that already have a sponsor and outsource much of the production work to GroupM.

There comes a time in the life of every yodel when it's time to try something different.

As you might have heard or seen if you've opened a computer, switched on a television, or walked down a city street over the last week, Yahoo has a new ad campaign.

As part of the $100 million effort, Yahoo sought out musicians to record the famous Yahoo yodel in just about every corporate-sanctioned niche musical category, and it released the results of the effort on Monday.

Like your yodel to sound like Coldplay? We recommend Modern Rock 2. Looking for more of a Slayer vibe? Metal 2 has you covered. And hip-hop fans can't go wrong with Old Skool 1 and the soon-to-be immortal line: "Some PC I prefer the Mac/But if you Yahoo then I got your back." Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between intentional and unintentional comedy.

If you can't find the yodel of your dreams among the 58 choices that Yahoo provided, you can also upload your own in the Yodel Studio. Results posted thus far are, um, mixed.

The original yodel dates back to 1996, when singer Wylie Gustafson was paid $590 to sing it in a television commercial. Hopefully, Yahoo did its due diligence this time around: Gustafson later sued the company for continuing to use the yodel--easily Yahoo's best-known trademark--for years without his permission. The parties later settled.

Updated September 18 at 10:40 a.m. PDT with Yahoo comment.

Having conquered the Web's text-based ad market, Google is setting its sights on graphical display ads--a market dominated by rival Yahoo.

The search giant on Thursday took the wraps off a revamped DoubleClick Ad Exchange, a public exchange that allows publishers to offer excess ad inventory they can't sell to advertisers looking for a bargain. Google said the exchange will meld DoubleClick's ad exchange with Google's own technology.

"Better technology can help make display advertising work better for all involved," Neal Mohan, Google's vice president of product management, said in a statement. "We're focused on growing the display advertising pie for everyone. The DoubleClick Ad Exchange is a major part of that goal."

The revamped exchange will incorporate Google's AdWords and AdSense programs, as well as feature real-time bidding and a new API (application programming interface) designed for ad networks.

Yahoo, which runs the largest online ad exchange through RightMedia, an exchange it purchased in 2007 for $680 million, said it expected the display market to have other exchanges.

"We welcome these exchanges, and look forward to working with them and integrating with them for our partners," Yahoo Marketplace chief Frank Weishaupt said in a statement. "The industry will be well served if all exchanges embrace the values we cherish, and will help promote rather than restrict the spirit of openness and the resulting transparency and liquidity of supply, demand and data in the industry."

Google's dominance of the search engine advertising market has been fueled by text ads. In 2008, it completed its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick in hopes of expanding its presence in display ads. Display ads--banners or image-based advertisements--haven't produced the same return that search text ads have to this point but are still an important part of most Web sites.

Internet display advertising accounted for $7.6 billion in 2008, roughly a third of the $23.4 billion in revenue generated by all Internet ads for the year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Microsoft's new Bing search service is the fastest-growing U.S. search engine among the top 10, according to a Nielsen report released Monday.

The total amount of searches on Bing rang in at 1.1 billion for the month of August, a leap of 22.1 percent over July, winning Microsoft a 10.7 percent share of the search engine market.

Google remained in the top spot with a commanding 64.6 percent share, accounting for 7 billion searches in August, a gain of 2.6 percent over July. Yahoo saw its search results drop 4.2 percent for the month to 1.7 billion, earning it 16 percent of the market.

(Credit: Nielsen)

Other players in the top 10 included AOL Search in fourth place with 333 million searches and Ask.com Search in fifth with 186 million searches.

Similar studies have also seen a boost in Microsoft's search business. An August report from ComScore discovered that Microsoft's share of the global search engine market lept 41 percent from July 2008 to July 2009. Bing was introduced in May, taking the place of Microsoft's Live Search.

Earlier this week, Microsoft showed off a "visual search" feature for Bing that returns thumbnail images for at least some search results. Microsoft reportedly will be debuting a Bing 2.0 sometime soon sporting a variety of new features.