Business

Yahoo could be saying goodbye to more than just search while it reinvents itself as a media company.

Boomtown reported Monday that Yahoo is willing to consider offers for Zimbra, the open-source e-mail company it acquired in 2007 for $350 million. Zimbra's technology has been incorporated into Yahoo's e-mail and calendar products but the hosted services it also offers haven't managed to get as much attention as Google Apps.

One of CEO Carol Bartz's priorities since she took over at Yahoo has been to simplify the company's broad array of businesses. Emerging along with that … Read more

Several colleagues of mine are in London this week to unveil the special TEDGlobal issue of our design mind magazine in a very special TED Salon on Monday, with the title "More Substance of Things Not Seen." The event will be co-hosted by frog design and TED, and moderated by Sam Martin, editor-in-chief of design mind, and Bruno Giussani, European director of TED.

It comes in handy for the frog delegation that this is also the first week of the magnanimous London Design Festival, an eclectic assembly of design-related programs, exhibitions, and parties all over town.… Read more

An important feature in Google Checkout has now been unavailable for almost a month, and some merchants are getting fed up with Google's automated approach to their concerns.

Google's ability to handle recurring payments, such as monthly subscriptions to a service that are automatically billed once a month, has been impaired since around the middle of August with little notice by the outside world. A customer first reported the issue in a Google Checkout forum in August, and others, such as Katie Braband, sales director at storage company Datto, are still unable to rely on Google to process … Read more

The Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) Conference, a landmark gathering of top business and government leaders creating market-based solutions for social impact, is taking place September 1-3, at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center.

SOCAP brings together a unique mix of the world’s leading social innovators--traditional investors, impact investors, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, new media, NGO’s and non-profits, wealth managers, development agencies, venture capitalists, MBA students, and other groups interested in the growing opportunities of social capital--who are catalysts of change across the globe.

Last year’s conference gathered more than 650 leading global investors and entrepreneurs from 26 countries. … Read more

Interesting article by Diane Mermigas at Seeking Alpha about the challenges Google is facing as it diversifies into more and more areas, and it rumbles over the line dividing plucky upstart to hated giant monopolist:

Like past monoliths of new growth industries, Google appears to be invincible. But Google is vulnerable just because it is thinly spread in a rapidly changing marketplace where rivals are eating away at the edges and fighting for turf. A major shift in technology or consumer behavior could alter the playing field, just as it once did for broadcast TV networks, music companies, telephone companies, … Read more

Is it a presentation tool? Or a visual storytelling tool? Visualization software? Or a zooming editor? Budapest-based Adam Somlei-Fischer, founder and lead designer of Prezi, and Peter Halacsy, founder and CTO of Prezi, were interested in soliciting feedback on their product’s category when they visited frog design’s San Francisco studio last week and demoed their tool. Having marketed mind-mapping software previously in my career, I felt sympathetic: At the time, we went through a similar exercise, and after endless discussions and focus groups we ended up with a label only a committee could come up with: “enterprise productivity … Read more

To help expand the global conversation about design to improve life, INDEX:, a global nonprofit network organization based in Copenhagen, is partnering with Facebook to promote the online voting for the INDEX: 2009 People's Choice Award and enable an online discussion during the live stream of the awards show on August 28.

Worldwide voting began online on August 20 through www.designtoimprovelife.dk, and on-site in the Danish capital on August 21. During the People's Choice competition, everyone can vote for their own personal INDEX: favorite to win the People’s Choice Award. On August 28 at 6 … Read more

The Socialnomics-Social Media Blog has compiled a comprehensive list of stats from all kinds of sources to prove that "Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think."

"Welcome to the Social Media Revolution."

This week's collection of remarkable marketing links, curated by the frog marketing team.

Super-Powerful: An energy-generating bike rental system.

Personal: Jeff Jarvis announces on his blog that he has prostate cancer. How public do we want our health to be?

Creepy: Meet your Facebook contacts in a movie trailer cum gaming environment.

Obama I: The message is the message: New York Magazine thinks that “Obama’s ubiquitous appearances as professor-in-chief, preacher-in-chief, father-in-chief, may turn out to be the most salient feature of his presidency.” 

Obama II: Funny How?: Matt Bai believes that Obama’s “improvisational asides are like … Read more