After gaining a lot of press initially, Yahoo's experimental live streaming site, Yahoo Live, will be shut down on December 3rd. While it does not appear that the closure of this Yahoo Brickhouse project is directly related to the current economic downturn, belt tightening at Yahoo may have played a role. The leading factor in Yahoo Live's closure was, most likely, its inability to gain a lot of mainstream traction. For example, the top stream on Yahoo Live, at the time of writing, has 58 viewers, while the top stream at Live's competitor, Ustream, has over 8,000. Surely with this sort of stagnant growth, Yahoo was forced to axe the project.
The site will be holding a town hall on Wednesday to, "toast Yahoo! Live."
In the middle of May, Yahoo sent out a call to developers to develop customized search results using their SearchMonkey platform. Today, Yahoo announced the availability of Yahoo! Search Gallery. Search Gallery serves as a showcase for custom search add-ons that have been developed, such as Yelp, Last.fm, and LinkedIn.
Yahoo has a great concept here and one that could greatly improve the search experience for users. I was genuinely excited that customized results from sites that I frequent would magically find their way into my regular searches. While I still think that this is a good idea, the actual implementation needs some work.
Searching for restaurants, names, and other things that you would expect to throw back customized search results often does not. In the case of a search for my name, the LinkedIn entry was thrown in at the bottom of the page. Since I had explicitly told Yahoo Search that I want information from LinkedIn to show up in my searches, I would expect them to be given "above the fold" priority.
The current implementation requires you to manipulate your searches to get any customized results, in many cases.
I had to fool around with it for awhile before it would throw back a customized result for one of my favorite local restaurants, which is absolutely listed on Yelp, and even then it would not give me anything. It was not until I added the word "yelp" to the search that I saw a customized listing and it was a local.yahoo.com one instead of one from Yelp. There are obviously restaurants that custom results work for, but there is no reason why it shouldn't work on any Yelp listed restaurant that comes to mind.
All complaints aside, this technology is definitely something to get excited about, but the implementation (whether on Yahoo's end or the 3rd party developer's end) is just not there quite yet. Look for this to make a big impact when they finally get it right.
Following earlier news that Microsoft was recalculating its $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, it has become clear what the company has decided to do. Microsoft has thrown down the gauntlet, as evidenced by a letter Saturday from CEO Steve Ballmer to Yahoo's board of directors. Here's the quote that sums up the entire letter:
"If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board."
Microsoft's big bid for Yahoo
This certainly is sending a strong message to Yahoo that almost nothing can be done to derail Microsoft's acquisition of the company. Rubbing salt into the wound, Microsoft adds, "It is unfortunate that by choosing not to enter into substantive negotiations with us, you have failed to give due consideration to a transaction that has tremendous benefits for Yahoo!'s shareholders and employees," in an attempt to stir up a response from Yahoo's board.
Since everything has been laid out and is now on the table, we are in for a very interesting three weeks. A hostile takeover of Yahoo would be really ugly and you can bet that Microsoft does not want to take that route, but it appears that they will if they have to.
Just about everyone else on the Internet has written on the potential acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft for $44.6 billion, but I thought that I would weigh in on what I think this might mean for search and Web services.
According to ComScore's search share numbers for December 2007, Google has 58.4 percent of the market share, with Yahoo and Microsoft trailing at 22.9 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively. If Microsoft and Yahoo combine forces and change nothing, that will put them at 32.7 percent to Google's 58.4 percent. While those numbers are certainly not enough to overthrow Google, maybe the combined minds at the two tech giants can come up with something. Somebody has to try to make a stand, so that Google doesn't run away with the industry completely. That said, I think that Google is here to stay, even though this may be its biggest challenge yet.
On the Web services side of the issue, this acquisition is looking really good for Microsoft and Yahoo. Long Zheng has a great rundown of the services that Microsoft and Yahoo provide and where they overlap. The combined user bases of Microsoft and Yahoo's Web mail services far outpace that of Gmail (they actually both beat Gmail individually), so we will put one in the win column there. If Google Talk wasn't dead enough before, it sure will be now. Google has not even come close to touching either Microsoft or Yahoo in the instant-messaging market. One more thing on IM, if this acquisition goes through, a little service called AIM is going to finally be in their sights.
Microsoft will benefit from taking control of the leading photo-sharing site, Flickr, since its only photo-sharing solution that currently exists is through its Windows Live Spaces product. Several services from the two companies will likely be merged down the road, such as Upcoming integration in Live Events, Yahoo Widgets being integrated into the Vista Sidebar, and a merger of Yahoo Answers and Live QnA. Services that are likely to get the axe include Yahoo Maps, since Microsoft's Virtual Earth technology far outperforms Yahoo's, Yahoo 360 (or whatever it ends up being once it is done "transitioning"), and most likely some of Yahoo's music services.
$44.6 billion is a lot of money to pay for an acquisition, but Microsoft has deep pockets. The deal initially makes me a little nervous, but after thinking about it for a little while, I am feeling better about it. I'm not convinced that Microsoft will take away Google's search crown as a result of this acquisition, but it will instantly become a larger player. This acquisition will lead to almost complete dominance by Microsoft over Google in the Web services arena, but not necessarily in search.
A post on the My Yahoo! Blog today informs us of the availability of a nice new Facebook module for your page. We all know that Facebook is the social network of choice right now, but what bugs me here is that the My Yahoo team chose provide first party support for Facebook prior to supporting their own social networks. If they are not willing to get behind their own offerings, how can consumers be expected to do so?
That said, the actual module fits in nicely on the page and is very informative. It's also nice to see Yahoo supporting the tech community's favorite social networking platform. However, I can't help but think that the Mash, 360, and Kickstart teams must feel a little bit snubbed.
Yahoo is looking to change the game with their new social job network, Kickstart. They are currently conducting research surveys among college students to find out what they think of this new service. Yahoo asks this question to the participants, "Wish you had an 'in' to find the job of your dreams?" Kickstart is all about finding that "in."
Yahoo Kickstart connects college students with alumni at the companies that they are interested in. As you can see in the screenshot above, this student's "in" at Nike is an alumni named Dave Bottoms. Dave has expressed an interest in helping out students and connecting with alumni. He also knows one of your friends, went to your school, and shares a common interest with you. That's a really powerful networking tool. Presenting specific connections like this adds a whole new value to this job network.
Aside from showing your "in," company pages also provide some useful information about the company as a whole, broken down into key points such as industry, size, location, contact, and description. Anyone who is connected in any way with that company is also displayed.
As you might also expect, everyone who signs up with Yahoo Kickstart gets their own profile page, where you can build a mini resume and add a quotation to give the profile a more personal feel. Everything here is pretty standard for a social network, but there is a definite professional focus, much like LinkedIn. The personal profile isn't anything revolutionary, but it certainly gets the job done in this situation.
The third and final main component to Kickstart is the university page. This is very similar to what Facebook does with their "network" pages. It displays some basic information about the school and provides space for discussions, bulletins, and events.
Yahoo Kickstart is currently a concept and is being researched, so the things that you see in these screenshots may or may not make it into the final product. When I asked Yahoo for a comment on the service, they responded by saying,
"...We're continually checking the pulse on customer response to potential concepts on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes our research leads to the development of new product offerings, but not all concepts we research are formally developed and rolled out to our larger audience."
I personally think that Kickstart is a really solid concept and that it's a possible game-changer in the professional networking space. Hopefully we'll see Yahoo kickstarting some careers in the near future.
Yahoo has really compiled a great resource for web developers and I think everyone should take advantage of it. So, give the list a read, grab the Firefox add-on and see how you can help those page load times out!
13 Rules for making web pages fast (Yahoo)
YSlow Firefox Add-on (requires Firebug)Over the last year, all of the big three tech companies (Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo) have created their own online mashup editors. Both Microsoft's and Yahoo's are publicly available, but Google's is in a small private beta. Today I'm taking a look at the pros and cons of all three.
Microsoft Popfly
Microsoft is taking a really visual approach to the mashup editor. Popfly lets you easily mash different services together through the use of what they call "blocks." There are a lot of blocks that are already designed by Microsoft to provide data from different services such as Digg and Facebook for your mashup, but developers using Popfly can also create their own blocks for anyone to use. Third party developers have already made blocks for things such as Wikipedia and Last.FM. The entire interface is based on Microsoft's new Silverlight web technology. It's very easy to jump in and design a simple application even if you don't have a lot or any coding experience, but if you are a more advanced developer, there is plenty of room for some more hardcore coding.
Pros:
Easy to use, slick interface, easy Microsoft Gadget creation, great community features, works with IE and Firefox.Cons:
Doesn't allow for as much advanced customization as the other services, still in alpha testing so it has some bugs.
Google Mashup Editor
Google's Mashup Editor takes a much more technical approach than Popfly. Google's product is for real coders only. You can write mashups in JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. Google also has created some special "GME" XML tags to help the development process along. The super technical nature of Google Mashup Editor is going to seriously reduce their user base, but it definitely appeals to those who like to get down and dirty with some code.
Pros:
Offers a lot of advanced customization, appeals to more to programmers.Cons:
Too complicated for users who don't have a strong knowledge of Web programming.
Yahoo! Pipes
Yahoo Pipes feels a lot more like Popfly than Google Mashup Editor. Yahoo Pipes features the same sort of drag and drop interface as Popfly and uses similar modules to help you build applications. Although it is like Popfly, it is also fairly technical and can be intimidating. It's very flexible if you know how to work with it. (Here's a quick lesson.)
Pros:
Allows for a lot of customization and flexibility.Cons:
Tough learning curve for the less experienced users.My pick is...
After looking at all three of these mashup editors, I have found that the easiest one to use, by far is Microsoft's Popfly. It provides a really easy entry point for those who want to get started in developing Web applications. Of course, just because something is the easiest to use does not mean that it is the best to use. Yahoo Pipes provides similar features to Popfly as well, but it seems to be harder to get the hang of. Google Mashup Editor is by far the hardest since a lot of people who might be interested in creating a mashup do not have the technical expertise necessary to code one completely by hand.
That said, my vote for overall best mashup editor is Microsoft Popfly. It lets beginners design their own mashups and get gratification fairly quickly, but there are also enough advanced features to satisfy most experienced coders. The community features that are built into Popfly also really help to enhance the experience and allow developers to build off of what others have contributed.
Only days after getting a new CEO, Yahoo has already made a great acquisition. Yahoo announced yesterday that they are acquiring college sports website, Rivals. The subscription based website has become the standard for college sports news over the past few years.
Rivals will be a great supplement to the already popular Yahoo Sports. There is no doubt that Rivals is excited about the deal. In their statement they said, "For all of our current readers and community members, we believe this agreement means that you can expect an even better experience in the future. We will have the best engineering team in the business and it will allow us to create more and more products and services that true sports fans want."
As for those who are calling for Yahoo's suitors to come forward, I think that Yahoo would be wise to ride out this wave of news and hype to see how it all will ultimately effect the company. Maybe we will even see Yahoo take a stab at acquiring Facebook again under their new CEO. Given this recent news, it's nice to see that Yahoo is on the move again or at least is trying to shake things up.
Yahoo's Terry Semel
From 2001 to 2004, Terry Semel seemed to be the cure to Yahoo's woes after the dot com bubble burst. In 2004, everyone was thoroughly impressed by the job that Semel had done at Yahoo. Call it great management, call it a lucky rebound, call it whatever you want, but Yahoo had never been doing better and it was all under the leadership of Terry Semel.
In 2003, Yahoo acquired Overture, looking poised to take another shot at the search market. Sure enough, in early 2004, Yahoo announced that they were dropping Google search results from their site and going with their own search engine. Some people are saying that not buying Google was one of Terry Semel's fatal mistakes. I think that it is really easy to say that right now. I mean, I wish that I had bought Google stock when they had their IPO. However, I bet that Semel is really regretting not going after Google.
Yahoo acquired Flickr in March of 2005.
It's hard to be an old media person at a Silicon Valley tech company and I think that is what really ended up hurting Terry Semel. Semel's adventure into working more closely with Hollywood proved to be the wrong choice for Yahoo. Based on the recent trends at Yahoo, I would say that they are in desperate need of a new media leader. Jerry Yang is clearly more new media than Semel, but is he really what Yahoo needs right now? I think that this move is a step in the right direction, but that Yahoo could definitely use some new and fresh minds filling their executive positions.
Having a new person in charge at Yahoo could definitely spark more talks of an acquisition by Microsoft or Comcast. In fact, MSNBC is already reporting on a rumored deal with News Corp.'s MySpace in exchange for a 25% share in Yahoo. I think that the rest of 2007 is going to be a crucial time for Yahoo. They are in a make or break position right now and we will see if Jerry Yang is the right man to make Yahoo again.
