Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

Yahoo’s Q4 Limps In Close To Wall Street’s Expectations

First look at Yahoo Q4 earnings: Earnings of $0.24 a share on revenues of $1.17 billion. Wall Street was looking for $0.23 and $1.19 billion.

For a look at what investors had been expecting, consult Kara Swisher’s preview from last night. Short version: Not a lot, which is why the CEO spot is now filled by Scott Thompson instead of Carol Bartz.

A few details:

Display revenue is down four percent, which isn’t a huge shock since Yahoo U.S. boss Ross Levinsohn is trying to rebuild the company’s sales force. Plus, he is making some structural changes along the way that might cost it a few sales dollars in the short term, at the very least. But still, it’s worth remembering that for just about everyone on the Web, with the possible exception of AOL, Web advertising is growth business.

Yahoo would also like you to know that its worldwide traffic was up 12 percent, and that page views for its media properties were up seven percent. That’s a good thing, because the core of Yahoo’s pitch to investors and advertisers is “we’re still really, really big, and that’s important.” So if it was shrinking that would be bad.

But unless Yahoo posted some very unusual numbers this afternoon, this report wouldn’t be crucial for Thompson — which is why shares are basically flat in after-hours trading.

Much more interesting will be his first earnings call, where he’ll have the chance to give people his first impressions of his new company: Just how bad are things? Or, if you want to be more positive: How long will it take to turn things around?

I’ll cover that call at 2 pm PT; head here for live coverage.

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Another gadget you don’t really need. Will not work once you get it home. New model out in 4 weeks. Battery life is too short to be of any use.

— From the fact sheet for a fake product entitled Useless Plasticbox 1.2 (an actual empty plastic box) placed in L.A.-area Best Buy stores by an artist called Plastic Jesus