Yahoo’s embattled CEO Scott Thompson (pictured here) is set to step down from his job at the Silicon Valley Internet giant, in what will be dramatic end to a controversy over a fake computer science degree that he had on his bio, according to multiple sources close to the situation.

The pair will apparently say he is departing for “personal reasons.” Sources said that Thompson will be claiming to be leaving due to a serious illness that he recently discovered he had.

But the evolving crisis — which is just over a week old — centered on his botched resume and how he handled the thorny issue is the key reason for the abrupt end to his tenure as a CEO.

Thompson’s likely replacement on an interim basis will be Yahoo’s global media head Ross Levinsohn, who most recently also ran its Americas unit, including its advertising sales.

In addition to the management upheaval, Yahoo’s board is closing in on a settlement with the man who discovered Thompson’s misstep, activist shareholder Daniel Loeb of Third Point, said sources.

The situation could change, since Yahoo’s full board still has to meet this morning to officially approve the sweeping changes at the long-troubled company.

But, if it is, this development goes a long way toward fixing some of what has been ailing Yahoo recently.

And it’ll also be a stunning victory for Loeb (pictured here), since the pugnacious hedge fund investor is set to get three board seats from a slate proposed by him as part of a proxy fight aimed at Yahoo. The new Yahoo directors will be media exec Michael Wolf and turnaround specialist Harry Wilson. Loeb’s fourth selection — former NBC head Jeff Zucker — will withdraw.

The five current Yahoo directors — who were to step down at the company’s annual meeting this summer — will leave the board effective immediately, sources said, to make way for the Third Point selections.

Finally, Yahoo’s recently added director Fred Amoroso will be named chairman of the board.

Amoroso is the director who has been conducting the investigation into the issues raised by Loeb about how the fake academic credentials got in Thompson’s public bios, as well as in Yahoo’s regulatory filings, and also the hurried circumstances around his hiring in January.

Those mysteries — read, screw-ups — might never be solved now, although Thompson made a convoluted attempt to explain it all in two awkward employee meetings at the end of last week. In those gatherings, according to numerous sources, he blamed a headhunting firm for introducing the mistake when he was being hired for a job at eBay in the mid-2000 timeframe.

That company, Heidrick and Struggles, slapped back last week with an internal memo, noting that Thompson’s claim was “verifiably not true.” Sources said that Heidrick told Yahoo’s board that it was in possession of a resume that Thompson had apparently submitted showing the inaccurate CS degree on it.

That memo, impugning Thompson’s credibility, was one of many that piled on to create an impossible situation for the Yahoo board, related to his leadership ability going forward.

Thompson had also previously issued a Yahoo statement, in which he apologized for the “distraction” caused by the problematic resume, but not for the mistake itself.

And, initially, Yahoo — under his direction — had called the borked resume an “inadvertent error.”

Such fumbling to fix the situation was among the many other issues that the board has been considering relating the ability of Thompson to remain in his job. Also of importance was the sinking morale of Yahoo employees, who had largely rejected Thompson’s excuses in the ResuMess scandal.

Internal message boards at Yahoo lit up all last week, with staffers largely rejecting his explanations. In addition, a number of top execs and engineers approached the board calling for Thompson’s firing.

While that’s not precisely what happened here, it’s close enough to describe Thompson’s departure as inevitable.

All this change comes in the wake of a massive restructuring he was in the midst of at Yahoo, after 2,000 employee layoffs.

Thompson was pushing forward a vision of adding a much more significant data and commerce element to Yahoo’s largely ad-based business.

That is likely to be less stressed under media-focused Levinsohn, who will be essentially trying out to be the permanent CEO.

Well known in the media and advertising communities, he has worked at a number of big online efforts over many years.

According to his bio at Yahoo, where he arrived in 2010:

He previously served as the President of News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media, where he was responsible for the day-to-day operations, strategy and acquisitions that helped transformed the company into a leader in digital media. He also held senior management positions with AltaVista, an early pioneer and leader in search, CBS Sportsline where he oversaw all content and development for the top rated sports site, and HBO where he launched and oversaw a unit developing new programming and revenue streams. Levinsohn also was the co-founder and managing director of Fuse Capital, an investment and strategic equity management firm focused on investing in and building digital media and communications companies.

Levinsohn sits on the board of Freedom Communications and the Bogart Pediatric Cancer Research Program. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from The American University.

So far in my checking, Levinsohn’s resume is accurate.

More to come, obviously.

I have emails and texts and calls into everyone for comment, but apparently they are all out at a Mother’s Day brunch (except me).

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• They Shoot Yahoo CEOs, Don’t They? But Not Without a Really Smoking Gun and a Much Stronger Board.
• Yahoo’s Thompson Asks Employees to “Stay Focused” — Except Not on Him
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Zander Lurie — CBS’s SVP of strategic development, who worked on a number of its key digital initiatives — is leaving the media giant.

Lurie has been involved in everything from the company’s acquisition of Clicker to its recent spate of licensing deals for digital distribution of its premium content to the integration of its CNET tech news unit.

He does not have another job lined up, but is looking for an operational role, he said in an interview.

Lurie was CFO of CBS Interactive, before moving to his corporate role. Previously, he worked on M&A at CNET.

“CBS is now at a place where everything is really integrated and working between all the digital platforms and our sports, news and entertainment products,” said Lurie. “So, I want to get out and build something new and from the ground up.”

But over the last several years, the Internet has upheaved the aphorism.

It used to be that media was linear. And in that world, content and distribution were married. The HBO channel had HBO content. A New York Times subscription bought you New York Times content. And Vogue and Cosmopolitan each month delivered exclusive and proprietary content from … Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

Until the Internet came along. In every single one of the varied businesses the Internet has touched — from commerce to media to communications to payments — there has been one common impact: disaggregation.

Content and distribution have parted

In the case of the hundreds-of-years-old media business, the Internet has fundamentally separated content from distribution.

Today I can watch hundreds of South Park and Jon Stewart clips, all without a cable box — on my Apple TV, my Android phone, or YouTube on my desktop.

But wait, South Park and Jon Stewart? Content is king, you say. It’s now even more free to reign, unfettered by distribution channels!

No; because content is no longer enough. Content has always been a means to an end. And the end has always been audience.

Content isn’t the goal. Audience is.

When it comes to the business of media, there’s no question: advertisers don’t pay to reach content. They pay to reach an audience.

What’s the first item in every brief from every advertiser? It’s not Target Content, it’s Target Audience.

Media has been slow to adjust to this new dynamic. Companies have sunk billions into content management systems — using CMS as the cornerstone of their modernization — under the impression that they traffic in content.

But they don’t. They traffic in audience. And how much have they spent on audience development systems? Not much, if any at all.

Now that distribution of content to audience is no longer linear, distribution decisions are suddenly more complicated. And, at the same time, they are immensely more important — and more dynamic — to create the impact media companies are looking for: drawing an audience! Social distribution can outperform search, if you use it wisely. Day-parting your postings can boost post performance by 100 percent or more. Packaging can triple the effectiveness of content in reaching an audience.

And yet, few in media have even begun to optimize these decisions.

Who’s your Chief Audience Officer?

Distribution decisions are just as important as content decisions in building and serving an audience, and yet they are being largely ignored. Everyone has an Editor-In-Chief or a Chief Creative Officer. But how many have a Distributor-In-Chief? Or a Chief Audience Officer? A Head of Digital Programming?

The myopic focus on content over distribution is widespread, and it’s a bad business decision. It ignores a critical access of leverage, and one of competitive advantage.

The smartest media companies will do three things to take control of their digital opportunity:

• Put someone in charge of audience development.
  Give them latitude to think about the interplay between distribution and content, so that they can marry the two. Like a head of programming for a cable network, they should be tasked to realize the full potential of your digital channels. They should support the delivery of your content, and they should also provide back pressure to your content creators. Don’t merge it into your editorial jobs — that’s too precarious. Make it its own discipline.
• Adopt an audience development strategy.
  There are three basic components you have to master: insights (know your audience segments, and what each one will like); channel selection (identify the highest value distribution outlets for your brand, whether it’s search, social, YouTube, Hulu, or your own channels); and optimization (use data to create a feedback loop and tune your content, packaging, and timing to what works for your audience).
• Systematize it.
  You have sunk millions into content management systems. But how much have you spent on your most monetizable asset, your audience? You should be as systematic in audience development as you are in content creation, if not more so. Whether it’s with established processes or dedicated algorithms, make audience development a competitive advantage. Get so good at it that you truly know how to maximize every piece of content you create — and multiply your ROI. Use technology for what it does best: Systematize your advantages over your competitors.

With the rise of new distribution platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Hulu, there’s no question that the next generation of digital media is as much about distribution as it is about content. Media companies that orient their organizations to prize audience development above all (with distribution as a key component) will catch the upside of these tectonic shifts. And they will be the ones that survive and thrive in the digital age. After all, audience is the ruler of media companies’ fortunes.

This article by Ben Elowitz (@elowitz) is an exclusive selection from his Media Success newsletter for digital media leaders. Elowitz is the co-founder and CEO of next-generation media company Wetpaint and the author of the Digital Quarters blog about the future of digital media. Prior to Wetpaint, Elowitz co-founded Blue Nile (NILE).

Jessica Jensen, the Yahoo exec in charge of its flagship Shine women’s site, as well as its lifestyles and health content businesses, has left the Silicon Valley Internet giant, the company confirmed.

Sources said Jensen is taking a job at Apple, working for former Yahoo and Adobe advertising exec Todd Teresi, who was recently tapped to head the mobile iAd division.

At Yahoo, Jensen was the point person on its critical women’s initiatives, including Shine, which is among the top such sites in the U.S., so her departure is a blow to new CEO Scott Thompson’s efforts to push forward its media businesses.

Previously, Jensen worked on strategy for Yahoo’s Americas unit, arriving there three years ago from LowImpactLiving.com, a green-housing-sector site that she founded and led.

Here she is in a Yahoo “Expert Q&A” video on its advertising solutions site:

According to sources close to the situation, Demand Media was deep into discussions with a private equity firm to complete a deal that would have taken the online content company private, nearing a price that was double its current value.

But Demand abandoned the effort this past week — which was born from an aggressive attempt by Boston-based Thomas H. Lee Partners to purchase the company for a price of up to $1.2 billion. That was due to a number of challenges, including complications related to its financing and the ability to retain executives in its aftermath.

The move on Demand by private investors is perhaps no surprise, and is part of a wider trend related to some Internet companies whose stocks have a depressed value relative to the worth of their assets.

Among companies having been and also being evaluated by private equity firms, whose business it is to turned the undervalued into a goldmine: Yahoo and AOL.

And also Demand, which is now worth only $605 million, a market cap that is off 65 percent since it went public in February 2011. Shares now trade at $7.25 each.

That depressed share price has been due to a number of issues, most especially changes to Google’s search algorithm to improve results. Called Panda, the changes at the search giant — a critical partner of Demand’s — has cut traffic to its major content sites and also called into question its ability to monetize its scaled editorial efforts.

Such a situation is nearly irresistible to PE firms — in this case, Lee, which approached Demand.

Several sources said that the board threw out a hefty number that it assumed would shut down any interest and the pair began talking with an initial offer to take the company private at $11.28 a share.

That equals close to $1 billion for Demand, which also has more than $100 million in cash. But sources said Lee and Demand also discussed the addition of a large loan as part of the ongoing discussions, for possible acquisitions related to a content roll-up strategy it had, which would bring the total up to $1.2 billion.

One source underscored that the board of the Santa Monica, Calif., company had no interest or intention to sell the business, but that the premium was large enough that it engaged.

The deal from Lee, which also included a strategy of splitting up the content arm from Demand’s lucrative domain-registar business.

There were also large cash-out provisions for major shareholders, as well as for CEO and co-founder Richard Rosenblatt.

Thus, the two sides engaged intensely in the last several weeks in crafting an agreement, although the devil would prove to be in the details.

One big issue is that taking Demand private was still a big financial commitment for Lee — which tried to engage some of its limited partners in the transaction — as well as other investors, including Silicon Valley’s Marc Andreessen.

That proved harder than Lee thought, said sources, with some balking at the firm’s ability to make a big enough score on the possible turnaround.

“It was hoped it would be a Skype situation, but there were worries,” said one source, referring to the blockbuster sale of the Internet telephony company by private investors to Microsoft for $8.5 billion last year. That deal was widely considered a PE home run, given the excessive premium paid for it.

Demand’s challenges increasingly worried the firm as it moved forward, sources said, causing it to reevaluate its earlier bid several times.

Also a worry: Retaining major talent, including Rosenblatt and others, after they sold large chunks of their equity.

After Lee asked for more time to complete the financing, Demand ended the talks last week.

Another source, as is typical in these endings, said it was the Lee that walked away (who knows and, really, who cares — both sides were engaged seriously).

One thing was true: “Demand was definitely at the altar, but it did not get to the vows,” said one source.

Another source noted that the board also determined that Demand’s situation was improving, and that new trends are showing that the bottom might be been reached. The company reports its first-quarter earnings on May 8, which is expected to show some traction related to its many challenges.

“There is nothing Lee could do that Demand could not do for itself,” said one person. “So throwing in the towel seemed premature for now.”

Lee declined to comment, as did Demand.

iStockphoto | A-Digit

You’re not that special. Turns out you might fall into a category of digital consumers just like yourself.

IBM’s new Digital Consumer report, which surveyed 3,800 adult consumers in China, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the U.S., showed a large increase in usage of digital devices and content services over the past few years, with 78 percent of consumers calling themselves digital device adopters this past year. It also identified four distinct personalities when it comes to digital consumption:

Efficiency Expert: This is the digital consumer who uses digital devices and services to simplify things. They use the fewest devices but still access the Internet via mobile phones, send emails rather than letters, use Facebook to communicate with people, watch video on demand at home and shop online. However, some surveyed still prefer in-store shopping to online.

Content King: There’s a reason why it’s “king” and not “queen.” This category is composed mostly of males, but represents just 9 percent of the global sample. According to Saul Berman, global strategy consulting leader of IBM’s Business Services division, these digital consumers are the gamers, the newshounds, the movie buffs. “They prefer everything to be connected to their console or TV, often watch TV shows online, they regularly download their media and play games with people online,” Berman said.

Social Butterfly: Some 15 percent of consumers surveyed reported that they frequently maintain and update social-networking sites. This group has a strong female skew, with a high frequency of digital consumption. They might own fewer devices, but they maintain more social-networking profiles, they visit these sites several times a day, they’re “tagging” others on sites, and they’re often viewing what friends are posting.

Connected Maestro: This group is indicative of where the future is headed, Berman believes. About 35 percent of those surveyed take a more advanced approach to media consumption by using mobile devices and smartphone applications to access games, music and video, or to check news, weather and sports. They use instant messaging. They own the greatest variety of digital devices, and they combine some of the behavior of a Content King and a Social Butterfly. This group also has a slightly male skew and, as Berman said, “the majority of this group say they now read digital books over printed ones.”

Interestingly, the study notes that age is no longer the most distinct segmentation when it comes to putting digital consumers into boxes. A full 82 percent of digital adopters are now between the ages of 10 and 64. “Contrary to popular belief, not all early adopters are college age; in actual fact 65 percent are aged between 55-64,” the study notes.

“Making tech simple for that audience is a key factor,” Berman said, “and they’ve seen the benefit in potential by watching people who were the initial early adopters.”

That still doesn’t necessarily mean you’re off the hook in terms of setting up printers and fixing the Internet when you’re visiting home for the holidays.

Readers: Which category do you fall into?

(Image: iStockphoto | A-Digit)

If you want a quick analysis of why Facebook would pay $1 billion for popular photo-sharing service Instagram, please ignore the obvious financials that just don’t add up at all and have most of the typically unshockable digerati shocked by the sheer amount of the price.

Actually, it’s pretty simple: Photos. Photos. And, oh yes, mobile photos — lots and lots and lots of them.

Astonishingly, Facebook users already upload an average of more than 250 million images daily, making it the most popular photo-sharing service on the Web.

But it’s not the best by far and not the most mobile, which is Facebook’s biggest weakness — that has been accomplished many others, especially Instagram, the favorite of power users who scoffed at Facebook’s weak tools. (The horror of no filters!)

Now — instead of all those billions of juicy digital photos snapped by an ever-growing legion of smartphone users loading up to the beautifully designed Instagram mobile app and living on the servers of the small San Francisco-based start-up — Facebook has now captured all these memories for its massive social networking site.

And while $1 billion seems an awful lot to pay for that privilege — Twitter is quaking with “OMG!” and “Wow!” and “WTF!” tweets about the acquisition — this is apparently priceless for Facebook in a deal that went down quickly and quietly in recent weeks.

That and the fact that the huge sum prevented Instagram from being scooped up by Google.

It’s a clear signal from CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg — who rules all product efforts at the company — of his intent to dominate all innovations that have to do with owning the social experience.

Because while many Instagram photos quickly made their way onto Facebook — sharing on the service, as well as on Twitter, was a big part of the app’s offering — the future of the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company is tied to having control over key elements of the user experience.

Of all of those — communications, status updates, content linking — it has been photos that have become perhaps the most important part of Facebook, almost since its beginnings.

Photos are what allowed Facebook to grow so quickly and what made it more than just a blue sea of text and links to consumers. Its new Timeline depends on big, pretty photos, and Facebook even recently announced that it would allow full-screen viewing of high-resolution photos on its Web site, a pricey endeavor.

So, perhaps it was inevitable that Zuckerberg would pay up for Instagram, too — he knows a good entrepreneurial success when he sees one and apparently has the power to convince start-ups that he can make their bigger dreams come true.

Whether or not Instagram ever makes money is perhaps beside the point at this moment in time, as Facebook is poised to go public at 100 times the amount it forked over for Instagram.

But that it considers such a purchase worth as much as one percent of its expected valuation says a thousands words. And most of those words are “mobile” and “photo.”

As Ben Jacobs noted on Twitter: “Kodak goes bankrupt and Instagram is worth a billion dollars. 2012, y’all.”

Indeed. And, I have no doubt if Zuckerberg could figure out a way to shove all those Kodak moments from analog snapshots onto Facebook easily, he’d have paid up for that, too.

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving has turned in his resignation and it has been accepted by the company.

The process for Irving’s departure is a bit more formal since he is a top officer at the Silicon Valley Internet giant. But it is perhaps not that surprising, given that a brunt of the 2,000 employee layoffs at Yahoo yesterday were in his part of the organization.

Irving has not been at Yahoo this week during those wrenching cuts — that’s because the resignation has been in the works for some time.

In fact, in a restructuring to be announced next week, the central product organization at Yahoo he runs was essentially blown up, with the development moving back into media, sales and consumer products units being planned.

In addition, Yahoo’s new CEO Scott Thompson has been contemplating selling off large parts of the company’s advertising technology platforms, as well as its search business, also now under Irving.

Irving had largely opposed the strategy that Thompson has been aiming toward, said sources, and also strongly disagreed with laying off so many employees without a clear plan in place. Many inside and outside Yahoo agree.

He was also apparently concerned about the massive engineering and research talent exodus of late, especially in Yahoo’s vaunted Labs arm, which suffered major cuts in the layoffs.

The former Microsoft exec has no plans for another job, said sources, but has had a number of offers.

Yahoo confirmed the resignation when I called to ask about Irving’s goodbye. “Yahoo wishes him all the success in the future,” said the spokesperson.

Irving came to Yahoo in mid-2010 under former CEO Carol Bartz, who was fired last fall. Under his leadership, the product unit had focused a lot on creating a major publishing platform for Yahoo and other media companies. He debuted its Livestand content app earlier this year.

Here is a video interview I did with Irving in happier times, talking about Yahoo products, in which he sported a very handsome blue cashmere sweater:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120405/exclusive-yahoos-chief-product-officer-blake-irving-resigns/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120404/l-a-stories-mike-jones-and-peter-pham-talk-about-the-science-of-tech-studios/ http://allthingsd.com/20120404/l-a-stories-mike-jones-and-peter-pham-talk-about-the-science-of-tech-studios/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:27:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=193100

While swanning about Los Angeles last week, I paid a visit to a number of interesting techies, including Mike Jones and Peter Pham, who recently founded Science.

While there are a lot of incubators and accelerators out there fiddling with start-ups, the pair of well-known entrepreneurs are calling this venture a “technology studio.”

By that, they mean that Science will do a lot more, from coming up with in-house ideas to investing some of their $10 million in backing to advising on how Silicon Valley should look at investments in Southern California to even taking on restructuring of larger entities.

Science investors include Rustic Canyon, White Star Capital, the Social+Capital Partnership and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures, and it also has relationships with private equity firms for the bigger stuff.

The focus of Science, as the pair discusses below in a video interview, will be in three arenas: The intersection of content and commerce, social and mobile, and location.

As longtime entrepreneurs and Internet execs, Jones and Pham know those arenas, both the pluses and the minuses.

Jones tried his best (and, like others, failed) with the Myspace revival and also founded and sold Specific Media, Userplane and Tsavo Media.

Pham was recently helming the high-profile and controversial Color photo-sharing start-up in Silicon Valley and did stints at both BillShrink and Photobucket (a former News Corp. property, as was Myspace. News Corp. owns this Web site.).

Here’s my chat with them about their sun-dappled dreams of SoCal tech hegemony via their Santa Monica, Calif., HQ:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120404/l-a-stories-mike-jones-and-peter-pham-talk-about-the-science-of-tech-studios/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120403/breaking-facebook-smacks-at-yahoo-with-patent-claims-of-its-own/ http://allthingsd.com/20120403/breaking-facebook-smacks-at-yahoo-with-patent-claims-of-its-own/#comments Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:13:58 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=192686

Facebook has just taken strong aim back at Yahoo’s patent lawsuit with an answer and counter-claim filing of its own, alleging infringement over a number of issues.

“From the outset, we said we would defend ourselves vigorously against Yahoo’s lawsuit, and today we filed our answer as well as counter-claims against Yahoo for infringing ten of Facebook’s patents,” said Ted Ullyot, general counsel of Facebook. “While we are asserting patent claims of our own, we do so in response to Yahoo’s short-sighted decision to attack one of its partners and prioritize litigation over innovation.”

In its counter-claim filing involving 10 patents held by Facebook, the social networking giant said that Yahoo is infringing via a wide range of its offerings, including its homepage, content optimization, relevance engine, Flickr photo-sharing service and advertising throughout its huge site.

You know: The ads that make up most of Yahoo’s revenue.

In other words, Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg does not like being poked by new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson, especially on the eve of a $100 billion IPO.

You might have heard that Facebook is going public and it’s a big deal around Silicon Valley, which is why no one much liked Yahoo’s skunk-at-a-garden-party legal move two weeks ago.

Yahoo fired back at Facebook’s firing back, in a statement:

“We have only just received Facebook’s answer and counterclaims, but on their face we believe they are without merit and nothing more than a cynical attempt to distract from the weakness of its defense. As we have made clear from the outset, the unauthorized use of our patented technology is unacceptable and must be resolved appropriately. Other leading companies license these technologies, and Facebook must do the same or change the way it operates. We have proposed that Facebook join us in discussions to resolve the matter, but our overtures have been rejected. As a result, we are prepared to continue to seek redress through the courts.”

The new filing could not come at a worse time for Yahoo, which will announce thousands of layoffs of employees tomorrow morning, in a wrenching restructuring to revive its lackluster business.

In its legal filing, Facebook also pushed back on assertions in Yahoo’s initial patent lawsuit, noting that it denies that “[w]ithout Yahoo!’s achievements, websites such as Facebook would not enjoy repeat visitors or substantial advertising revenue.”

I think Facebook — which is sure to try to drag this thing out for a long, long time — just called Yahoo a tech loser.

Here is the full document:

FB_ANSWER_AND_COUNTERCLAIMS

More to come, obvi.

Here I am talking about the whole enchilada on WSJ Live’s News Hub.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120403/breaking-facebook-smacks-at-yahoo-with-patent-claims-of-its-own/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120402/exclusive-yahoo-loses-associated-contents-luke-beatty/ http://allthingsd.com/20120402/exclusive-yahoo-loses-associated-contents-luke-beatty/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:40:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=192357

In yet another high-level executive departure, top-level content exec Luke Beatty, the founder of the Associated Content unit that the Silicon Valley Internet giant bought several years ago for $90 million, is departing, according to sources.

Beatty’s move comes as Yahoo is preparing large-scale layoffs and a massive restructuring, which several sources said will begin mid-week.

It’s another blow for the company, given the entrepreneurial Beatty was the kind of exec that Yahoo desperately needs to keep if its media aspirations are to remain innovative.

While Associated Content — now called the Yahoo Contributor Network — has been integrated into the media offerings at Yahoo, other upcoming cuts in Beatty’s areas of management could be decimating.

The changes are due to a new initiative from new CEO Scott Thompson to turn Yahoo around after years of lackluster performance. The situation has been tense at the iconic company, made worse by an increasingly nasty proxy fight that is also looming.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120402/exclusive-yahoo-loses-associated-contents-luke-beatty/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120327/xbox-users-clocking-more-hours-gobbling-media-than-gaming-online/ http://allthingsd.com/20120327/xbox-users-clocking-more-hours-gobbling-media-than-gaming-online/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:33:14 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=190422 Microsoft’s Xbox is no longer just for hardcore gamers, but rather is beginning to attract a more general audience looking to consume movies, TV and music online.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company said today that for the first time, Xbox Live users are now watching more movies and TV and listening to music than gamers are using it to play online games.

The recent shift is worth noting given the mind-boggling number of hours gamers are willing to spend online destroying opponents on the battlefield or football field.

Microsoft declined to break down the number of hours spent, but as an example, 3.3 million players logged seven million hours on Xbox Live on the first day alone that Activision’s Call of Duty was available back in November.

What’s more, the growth of entertainment is not at the expense of gaming. Online gaming on the Xbox is up over the past year, too. In fact, Xbox Live usage — spanning gaming and entertainment — is up 30 percent year-over-year.

The shift toward entertainment is not completely unexpected, since Microsoft has been investing heavily in turning the console into a more general entertainment device for the living room. Sony’s PlayStation has a similar emphasis and Nintendo’s upcoming console, the Wii U, is expected to support entertainment applications.

In December, Microsoft rolled out a massive software update to the Xbox that allowed users to control the console using the Kinect. As part of the update, it also began to add more than 40 content providers to the console to increase the catalog of live and streamed TV, movies and music.

As previously announced, Xbox today launched voice-controlled TV apps from Comcast and HBO Go in the U.S., and MLB.TV throughout North America. To access these apps, you must be a subscriber, meaning it is not meant as a cable subscription substitute.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120327/xbox-users-clocking-more-hours-gobbling-media-than-gaming-online/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120321/viral-video-getty-images-mishmash-2012-competition-winner/ http://allthingsd.com/20120321/viral-video-getty-images-mishmash-2012-competition-winner/#comments Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:16:49 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=188665

And the winner is … Jason Harper for “In this Shop.”

The winner, that is, of Getty Images’ innovative Mishmash creative challenge, in which anyone can submit a film from one to three minutes long, as long as it was created using Getty Images’ video, music and imagery content.

Harper’s video, which depicts a classic city barbershop, won the Global Grand Prix title, out of 300 entries worldwide. Winners were also selected for three other global regions.

Here is Harper’s winning video, set to a poem by Mark Anthony Thomas, which he called “an ode to a place I grew up.”

Lovely:

And here’s the official press release listing the other winners:

Getty Images announces the winners of 2012 Mishmash challenge

London, UK — 21 March, 2012: Getty Images has today announced the winners of its annual Mishmash creative challenge. The competition, which launched in January, received 300 entries from around the world, with winners being divided between three regions: EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), the Americas and Asia Pacific, with one global overall winner also selected.

Jason Harper’s entry, In This Shop, which explores the place of a local business in modern day America, was awarded the Global Grand Prix title, which chairman of the jury and R/GA, Chief Creative Officer, Nick Law described as “beautifully modulated, intimate and simple.” Other winners include:

Global Grand Prix and Americas: Jason Harper from the US for In This Shop
APAC: Marcia Hawira from New Zealand for Natalia
EMEA: Blake Dixon from the United Kingdom for The Newton N. Minow Experience
Public vote prize: Bartolome Barrero from Spain for Mother Nature

Each of the winning entries cleverly blurred the lines between imagery and video to create works which both impressed and challenged the judges with their creativity, story-telling techniques, slick editing and innovative subject matter.

Andrew Saunders, Senior Vice President, Creative Content, Getty Images said: “Once again we have had an overwhelmingly positive response to Mishmash, which never fails to produce work that both inspires and surprises us. The high calibre of films really showcases our creative and engaging content and we feel that the shortlisted entries demonstrate the evolution of video and media as a growing and highly engaging communication platform. A huge congratulations to all of our winners.”

Getty Images received over 300 submissions from creatives in over 50 countries — an increase of 37 per cent compared with the 2010 competition.

New for 2012, Mishmash entrants could choose to enter one of three categories: short story, music video or video art. Each film, which needed to be between one and three minutes long, was created using Getty Images video, music and imagery content.

The competition, which ran for two months, was judged by 29 of the world’s leading music, technology and film production professionals and was chaired by R/GA’s, Global Chief Creative Officer, Nick Law. Other judges included:

· Ignacio Oreamuno, President, I have an idea
· Nate Lanxon, Online Editor, Wired
· Leading Bollywood film producer Aashish Singh from Yash Raj Films

For more information on the Mishmash competition, or to view the award-winning entries, visit www.gettyimages.com/mishmash

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120321/viral-video-getty-images-mishmash-2012-competition-winner/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120315/exclusive-bermanbraun-buys-most-of-shelby-bonnies-whiskey-media/ http://allthingsd.com/20120315/exclusive-bermanbraun-buys-most-of-shelby-bonnies-whiskey-media/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:30:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=186692

In a deal that was just signed, longtime Silicon Valley exec Shelby Bonnie has sold his social publishing start-up, Whiskey Media, to Santa Monica-based entertainment and interactive production company BermanBraun.

As part of the deal, BermanBraun will get three key sites of San Francisco-based Whiskey, including video entertainment-focused Screened, tech-testing site Tested, and Anime Vice, which covers anime and manga comics. It will also acquire Whiskey’s content-publishing platform.

Two other sites owned by Whiskey — games-oriented Giant Bomb and comic-book database Comic Vine — will be sold to another media company, which is rumored to be CBS Interactive.

Heaped on top of the niche content, aimed at passionate fans, Whiskey mixes in a lot of social networking, as well as user-generated content, along with its professional fare.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

But the major reason for the acquisition is that BermanBraun — which also makes popular sites for large portals such as Microsoft’s MSN (the Wonderwall celebrity site and Glo, aimed at the women’s lifestyle arena) and AOL (upcoming sites on weather, men and pets) — needs to be able to scale its online content production. The Whiskey platform should be able to allow it to more easily grow and create new sites more quickly, as well as mine data across them.

“With the addition of Whiskey’s first rate team and powerful, state of the art publishing, data and social tools platform, we will be able to further enhance our user experience and engagement, and provide our advertising partners with unparalleled data insights,” said Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman, who run BermanBraun, in a statement. “One of the other great parts of this acquisition is that we will have Shelby Bonnie in our lives. We have enormous respect for Shelby personally and professionally, and his insights, relationships and acumen will be invaluable to us.”

Bonnie, who was once CEO of CNET, which he helped found, added: “I have had the pleasure of knowing both Lloyd and Gail for years and they are two incredibly high integrity people who bring passion and creativity to the interactive space. As we see a dramatic changes in the whole media landscape, success will demand new skills and talents. BermanBraun’s content skills and vision joined with the Whiskey platform will create a combination that I believe is without equal. I couldn’t be more excited for the combination.”

Here is a video interview I did with Bonnie in mid-2010 about Whiskey:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120315/exclusive-bermanbraun-buys-most-of-shelby-bonnies-whiskey-media/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120311/were-expanding-all-things-digital-would-like-you-to-meet-all-things-reviewed/ http://allthingsd.com/20120311/were-expanding-all-things-digital-would-like-you-to-meet-all-things-reviewed/#comments Sun, 11 Mar 2012 18:51:17 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=183300

Tomorrow, as part of the commitment that AllThingsD has to providing its readers with ever more high-quality content, this site will be launching a new reviews section, All Things Reviewed.

Simply put, we’re building on the consumer-tech reviews by Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret that we’ve always run, with a fresh team of ATD reviewers, the first of whom is the talented Lauren Goode.

Lauren will be joined in the coming months by additional strong reviewers, who we will be adding soon, and each of whom will likely do one meaty review a week.

Katie, who will continue as a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, will also take on the added task of editing the new All Things Reviewed section, which we designed to be bright and graphical and easy to navigate.

We’ll also have plenty of timely, interesting consumer product news in addition to the in-depth reviews. It will all be integrated into the main ATD site, too, because we consider it a key part of providing a range of news, information, analysis and context to those who come to us for trustworthy, fair and accurate journalism.

Make no mistake: We think it is critical that reviews adhere to the same strict tenets of reporting we have for everything we post here. The reviews of the products we will feature take time, rigorous testing and deep critical analysis.

And, like Walt’s and Katie’s current reviews, these new ATD reviews will be based on thorough testing and aimed at smart consumers — and not just techies and enthusiasts.

That’s why we will pick carefully which products are significant or might be interesting to a broader range of readers. In other words, we won’t be reviewing every single slightly changed phone or laptop, or every me-too location app, and we won’t bore you with chip speeds and technobabble.

Thus, as hard as it is to say to the geeks who follow us, we will shun the rigid spec lists and templates used elsewhere, and instead present you with holistic, experience-based reviews that tell the story of the product — hardware, software, apps, games, Web sites and services.

Most importantly, we won’t be afraid to point out negatives, even if the manufacturer is an advertiser. Our aim is to earn your trust and be on your side, even if you disagree at times with our conclusions.

Like all new endeavors, we hope to get the entire section up to cruising speed as soon as possible, but we’ll be doing it in the careful, considered and high-quality manner we strive for in everything we do. (And, like all new stuff, we also had a party introducing the section to a packed crowd at the SXSW Interactive festival last night.)

We hope you’ll like the result and welcome your feedback as we begin our latest expansion. And, as usual, there will be much more to come.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120311/were-expanding-all-things-digital-would-like-you-to-meet-all-things-reviewed/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120224/hey-yahoo-when-you-act-like-a-media-company-i-like-you-i-really-like-you/ http://allthingsd.com/20120224/hey-yahoo-when-you-act-like-a-media-company-i-like-you-i-really-like-you/#comments Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:15:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=177642

Last night, I did the unthinkable, and actually drove myself through rush hour traffic in Silicon Valley to go to an event in San Jose.

I did this for three good reasons.

First, it was to see Bill Maher’s “CrazyStupidPolitics: Live From Silicon Valley” show, which was being being broadcast live and exclusively on Yahoo Screen, the Internet giant’s video destination. The event launched the Yahoo Comedy Channel, which will offer premium original video from some top talent for free, underwritten by advertisers.

Second, Maher is really, really funny, and even better in stand-up than on his HBO cable show.

Third, some Yahoos always think I am too mean to the company and don’t focus on what it’s doing right.

To be fair, that’s because it has not been doing much right when it comes to stabilizing leadership, handling its longtime moribund board, and giving non-cat-wrangling direction to its talented pool of much-beleaguered employees.

Thus — with some sort of usually self-inflicted fire drill going on all the time — there is a lot for me to report on, from persistent attrition to declining metrics to the latest bickering with its Asian partners.

Which is why it was a pleasure to see the Maher event and then also watch it online, because it was done by Yahoo with the kind of beautiful ease that it used to roll out all the time from its media properties.

When I say pleasure, it is a major compliment, since making and presenting content on the Web has usually ended in pain. Google-owned YouTube, as successful as it is, still hurts my eyes when I watch it, and has not yet become the kind of environment that big brands would want to live in for a long time.

But, from its very first day, without a lot of fuss and noise, Yahoo has created and distributed some of the very best online content experiences from its undersung media units, whether it was Yahoo Finance or Yahoo Sports or Yahoo News.

While there were some notable misses — there was a strange original news show produced in Web 1.0 that was so bad it was good — Yahoo has always had a strong talent for media distribution, and has the huge audience to aim it at.

What has been a shame is the lessening focus the media side has gotten, despite its success over the many years, and even though many of its channels have long been No. 1 across the Web.

The often short shrift has been largely due to the faux struggle between whether Yahoo was a media company or a technology one. It has been an exhausting and toxic debate within Yahoo over the years, with no clear conclusion.

But here’s the truth: The Maher event showed that what Yahoo can do well is be a high-level, high-quality, highly selective distributor of media of all kinds to millions upon millions of users.

This has been and can still be — if properly organized, staffed and sold — a very good business for Yahoo, which has always treated it like some sideshow, rather than the main one.

I get that, of course — why be in a media business, when the pickings are so good in search, commerce, social … whatever?

Why? Well, because a terrific guide of all sorts of media experiences online is what Yahoo was from its very start, and what it has since tried not to be as definitively.

Having covered Yahoo from its very beginnings, it has been a lot like watching someone you think looks good in one outfit change into one ill-fitting and inappropriate get-up after the next in search of the right image.

But if the company only cared to take a look at how well and seemingly effortlessly it pulled off the Maher event, it would know immediately what it has always done well is what it should always be doing.

The Maher live offering was not fancy and it was not flashy and it did not have all kinds of the latest trends hanging all over it.

It was just good, well done and well worth a watch, whether in person or at home. And it was very, very funny.

It would be nice, then, if Yahoo learned to laugh like this much more often.

Here are some of the clips from Maher’s patter to enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120224/hey-yahoo-when-you-act-like-a-media-company-i-like-you-i-really-like-you/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120224/proxy-ho-like-yahoo-aol-could-face-alternate-board-slate-from-irked-investor-as-early-as-today/ http://allthingsd.com/20120224/proxy-ho-like-yahoo-aol-could-face-alternate-board-slate-from-irked-investor-as-early-as-today/#comments Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:46:25 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=177627

Have you never heard of Starboard Value?

Me, either!

But the New York activist fund is readying to make a splash as soon as today, several sources said, if it follows through on the expected naming of an alternate board to challenge AOL.

Saturday is the official deadline to nominate directors to the board of AOL, also based in New York, which will have all eight up for reelection.

Sources said Starboard has talked to several Internet types, but that it has plans to put up a slate made up more of Wall Streeters to present at the company’s annual meeting later in the year.

In a filing last week, Starboard said it had been in discussions with AOL management about its concerns, so it is certainly possible the investor and the company could come to some agreement over board seats and strategic direction before it gets Yahoo-ugly.

That would make it a kind of an East Coast proxy battle version of what’s been going on over at Yahoo and its tussle with Third Point’s Daniel Loeb. He recently followed through on long-expressed unhappiness with the Silicon Valley Internet giant, and named a slate of directors — including well-known media exec Jeff Zucker — to replace current ones there.

The same kind of thing has been in the works at Starboard, which sent a letter in late December to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, saying his much-touted strategy around content was not a good one for investors.

Like Loeb at Yahoo, Starboard is one of AOL’s largest shareholders, with a stake of just over five percent.

The letter signaled an increasing impatience with the pace of Armstrong’s turnaround efforts, which are still in turnaround. Meanwhile, AOL’s stock has rebounded from last summer’s lows of near $10 a share.

The stock is up more than 22 percent this year, to $18.44. But that’s still down almost 20 percent from when AOL spun off from Time Warner and went public in late 2009.

The grumpy (and opportunistic) Starboard entered the picture late last year.

According to The Wall Street Journal:

“Starboard, which focuses mainly on small-cap companies, was spun off from Cowen Group Inc.’s Ramius Capital LLC in March. In October, the fund successfully waged a proxy fight against hair-salon chain owner Regis Corp. when three of its director nominees were elected to Regis’s board. AOL, which was spun off from Time Warner Inc. in 2009 after a failed merger, is its most high-profile target yet.”

One of the investment fund’s bugaboos is Patch, the local news network that AOL has sunk a lot of dough into. Also under fire is Armstrong’s content efforts and the pace of its display advertising sales, including the high-profile acquisition of the Huffington Post and TechCrunch.

I have emails into all the bigs at AOL and Starboard, so we’ll see who calls back first, if at all.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120224/proxy-ho-like-yahoo-aol-could-face-alternate-board-slate-from-irked-investor-as-early-as-today/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120221/huffpost-pr-guy-escapes-huffpost-for-new-gig-repping-the-huffpost/ http://allthingsd.com/20120221/huffpost-pr-guy-escapes-huffpost-for-new-gig-repping-the-huffpost/#comments Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:06:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=176307 Huffington Post communications head Mario Ruiz has certainly had one of the busiest jobs in online media over the last five years, as the news blog has grown into a global content powerhouse. Now he’s starting his own agency and his first big get is … the Huffington Post. Ruiz has been tireless in repping the AOL-owned site and its eponymous creator Arianna Huffington — and that is apparently not going to stop, even with a lovely new logo.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120221/huffpost-pr-guy-escapes-huffpost-for-new-gig-repping-the-huffpost/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120216/demand-media-beats-expectations-slightly-in-q4-report-buying-back-more-stock/ http://allthingsd.com/20120216/demand-media-beats-expectations-slightly-in-q4-report-buying-back-more-stock/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:32:25 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=175632

Demand Media, which has suffered from stock weakness and worries about its traffic and costs, beat Wall Street expectations in its fourth quarter earnings report, which was released after the market closed today.

The Santa Monica, Calif., online media company said it earned eight cents per share, up one cent on analysts’ estimates of seven cents. Revenue came in slightly higher too, at $84.4 million compared to an expected $81.95 million.

Still, Demand shares were down almost five percent in after-hours trading on the news, to $5.94.

Demand said that about $50 million of that came from its content businesses, while just over $31 million was due to its registrar business.

Free cash flow was up five-fold from $3.3 million to $18.3 million, which Demand said was due to cost controls and decreased spend on its flagship eHow site, which has seen changes in its content and distribution platform.

Demand also said it is going to buy back more of its stock, upping a $25 million plan to $50 million.

Said the company:

“During the fourth quarter of 2011, Demand Media repurchased 1.9 million shares of common stock for $13.3 million under its Board-authorized $25.0 million share repurchase program. To date, the Company has repurchased 2.8 million shares of common stock for $20.1 million. On February 8, 2012, Demand Media’s Board authorized an increase of $25.0 million to the program, taking its total authorized repurchases to $50.0 million.”

In a conference call with analysts after the reports, CEO Richard Rosenblatt acknowledged it was a “turbulent year,” but noted that Demand would be enhancing its properties for higher page views and more direct traffic.

He also addressed the departure of some of Demand’s founders. “All three were very important members of our team,” he said. “But it’s the natural evolution of a young company.”

If you want more deets, read all about it here in the company’s official press release:

4Q11 Results Release FINAL02.16.12

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120216/demand-media-beats-expectations-slightly-in-q4-report-buying-back-more-stock/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120216/after-stock-got-whacked-last-week-demand-media-readies-its-q4-story-for-wall-street/ http://allthingsd.com/20120216/after-stock-got-whacked-last-week-demand-media-readies-its-q4-story-for-wall-street/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:27:10 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=175234

A little more than a week ago, Morgan Stanley kneecapped Demand Media’s stock by downgrading the Santa Monica, Calif., online content company’s prospects.

Some worries: Pressure from algorithm-tweaking Google, upon which Demand relies heavily for traffic; worrisome drops in said traffic due to said tweaking; and not enough uptake on higher-quality, premium stories the company had promised in the fall.

Demand shares fell 6.5 percent that day, to close at $5.93.

It has recovered a bit to $6.13 today, but is still off almost 8 percent since the beginning of the year, and 71 percent from a year ago.

One irony to the tough call by Scott Devitt, of course, was that Morgan Stanley was the investment bank that had taken Demand public in January of 2011, at $17 a share.

In addition, the recent departure of three of the company’s six founders has also worried investors.

All this will presumably be on display today when Demand reports its fourth-quarter earnings. Wall Street analysts are expecting Demand to earn seven cents a share on an adjusted basis on an expected $81.95 million in revenue.

We’ll see after the market closes, as well as what its execs have to say about the key metrics of costs and traffic.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120216/after-stock-got-whacked-last-week-demand-media-readies-its-q4-story-for-wall-street/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120207/viral-video-hulus-original-paul-the-male-matchmaker-set-to-debut/ http://allthingsd.com/20120207/viral-video-hulus-original-paul-the-male-matchmaker-set-to-debut/#comments Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:57:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=172045

Here’s the trailer for Hulu’s latest original content offering about a very unusual matchmaker.

That’s irksome “Paul, the Male Matchmaker,” a 10-episode spoof series from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Studio 2.0, which will debut on the premium video service on Feb. 13.

Get it? The day before Valentine’s Day.

It’s got the same tone as Lisa Kudrow’s successful (and now on cable television’s Showtime) “Web Therapy,” with lots of well-known guest stars.

I kind of like it from the teaser here, but we’ll see:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120207/viral-video-hulus-original-paul-the-male-matchmaker-set-to-debut/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120119/atlantic-media-officially-announces-unnamed-global-business-brand-site/ http://allthingsd.com/20120119/atlantic-media-officially-announces-unnamed-global-business-brand-site/#comments Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:20:42 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=165272 As AllThingsD previously reported, Atlantic Media will be launching a new “digital global business brand,” which will be helmed by former WSJ.com managing editor Kevin Delaney. There is no name for the site as yet, but the media company said it “will provide high-quality content and services to business executives navigating the increasingly complex global economy.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120119/atlantic-media-officially-announces-unnamed-global-business-brand-site/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120116/crying-nonsense-google-does-not-1-murdoch-tweets/ http://allthingsd.com/20120116/crying-nonsense-google-does-not-1-murdoch-tweets/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:57:23 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=163956 If you thought the Twitter war started by News Corp.’s majordomo Rupert Murdoch versus Google would be the gift that keeps on giving, you would be right. After the tweet-happy media mogul — who owns this Web site — accused the search giant of being a content “piracy leader,” Google told CNET that Murdoch’s 140-character observations were “nonsense.” More to come (hopefully).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120116/crying-nonsense-google-does-not-1-murdoch-tweets/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120108/like-yahoo-founder-like-new-yahoo-ceo-data-is-king/ http://allthingsd.com/20120108/like-yahoo-founder-like-new-yahoo-ceo-data-is-king/#comments Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:39:02 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=160826

I love talking points as much as the next person, but there’s a striking similarity between recent statements by Yahoo’s co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang and its new CEO Scott Thompson, who was just hired after a stint running eBay’s PayPal unit.

It seems from the pair that the exploitation of Yahoo’s troves of data might take center stage from the “premier digital media company” moniker that the Silicon Valley Internet giant has been using of late.

Premier consumer data mining and usage company just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? (And it’s also usually called Google!)

Here’s Yang from an interview with Walt Mossberg at our AsiaD conference in Hong Kong this past October (this is a liveblog with quotes and paraphrasing of quotes).

Q: As you look at what Yahoo could be, what are the one or two key areas that it could go after to truly transform itself?

Jerry: We’re really focused on trying to “turn Yahoo inside out.” We do a huge amount of services internally: Data, content, personalization. Lots of other people on the Web around the world could use that.

And, from my liveblogging, here’s Thompson last week on his aspirations, which were much less focused on Yahoo’s longtime — and, ahem, bill-paying — advertising business (which the new leader keeps saying he knows nothing about) than on exploiting its consumer data businesses (which he certainly does know about from running the online payments giant).

The data these Internet businesses create, the ability to use analytical technology to build a better businesses for your customers. … I feel certain that wealth of data is going to be exploitable for next generation products, next generation experiences. … My instinct says down in that data we’re going to be able to find ways to compete and innovate that the world hasn’t seen yet.

Data it is, then!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120108/like-yahoo-founder-like-new-yahoo-ceo-data-is-king/feed/ 0