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Yahoo's Board Will "Review" Resume Discrepancy of CEO

Kara Swisher — Fri, 04 May 2012 02:28:55 +0000

Yahoo just released a statement that its board will “review” today’s revelation that the bio of its CEO Scott Thompson contained an error related to his educational achievements and will make “appropriate disclosure” about what happened.

On both the Web site and in the regulatory filings of the Silicon Valley Internet giant, Thompson is described as having a degree in both computer science and accounting from Stonehill College.

He does not have a degree in computer science from the Boston-based school, but does have a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration (Accounting).

Yahoo said in full in its statement:

“In connection with the statement the company made earlier today about Scott Thompson, the Yahoo! board will be reviewing this matter, and upon completion of its review, will make an appropriate disclosure to shareholders.”

Earlier today, Yahoo first blamed the issue on an “inadvertent error” — but provided no further details — which sources said did not sit well with the board.

“Many members of the board are deeply concerned,” said one person with knowledge of its thinking. “This is a problem on a lot of levels, especially related to the trust of shareholders.”

Indeed, especially since the news came to light via activist shareholder Dan Loeb of Third Point, who is agitating for board seats via a proxy fight.

Loeb’s efforts to impugn Thompson appear to have caused some level of damage, at least in terms of perception about the level of vetting that was done when the former president of eBay’s PayPal unit was hired earlier this year.

In fact, the error has been around for a half-dozen years, which begs the question of why Thompson never noticed it.

While his bio on filings made by eBay to the Securities and Exchange Commission were accurate, the one on the online commerce site’s Web site incorrectly said he had a computer science degree.

It is not known who introduced the error there.

But the inaccuracy moved inexplicably to both Yahoo’s corporate Web site and also its SEC filings, and the company declined to provide any details earlier today as to how that happened.

It’s not clear what happens next, or if there are any legal implications, beyond a needed correction by Yahoo with the SEC — which already took the entire line about Thompson’s education off his Web bio today.

As I wrote earlier today:

Thompson himself is probably not at risk unless it can be definitely proved he was the one who misrepresented having the degree in the first place. He can simply say he had no idea who added it to the eBay Web site and that he did not notice it there on the Yahoo Web site and SEC filings.

While that makes him look careless, how big a deal it becomes with shareholders, as well as Yahoo employees, is also an unknown. While a computer science degree is not a requirement for a CEO of a tech company — both Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft’s Bill Gates dropped out of college and did pretty well in computer science anyway — tech resume padding, even inadvertent, is not a characteristic that is going endear Thompson to anyone.

The controversy could not have come at a worse time — Thompson was actually in meetings all day yesterday and today with senior staff, following recent layoffs of 2,000 and a massive restructuring, to discuss plans for moving the long-troubled company forward.

And besides the proxy fight, he is also dealing with selling off Yahoo’s Asian assets, renegotiating a new search deal with Microsoft, and also trying to figure out what parts of Yahoo to keep and what parts to jettison to improve its prospects.

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Investors Cut Another Slice out of Apple

John Paczkowski — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 20:56:28 +0000

Friday was another down day for Apple shares — a brutal one, too. Anxious investors took the company for a trip to the woodshed, dragging its share price down another 2.5 percent, or $14.46, to close at $572.98. Apple shares have declined about 11 percent since hitting their all-time high of $644 on April 10. In other words, it’s a correction.

At least until next Tuesday when Apple reports earnings … then it might be better classified as profit-taking.

Dow Tumbles 500 Points, Putting It in Red for Year

Brendan Conway and Jonathan Cheng — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 20:23:45 +0000

Stocks plunged, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average to close down more than 500 points, as investors appeared to lose faith in the ability of the world’s policy makers to revive the global economy and stave off a rolling debt crisis in Europe.

The Dow slid 512.61 points, or 4.3%, to 11383.83, erasing all its gains for 2011. The slump of the past few weeks has driven the Dow down more than 10% from its May intraday highs, putting the index officially in correction territory.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 60.26 points, or 4.8%, to 1200.08, putting it in correction territory, having fallen more than 10% since May. The Nasdaq Composite slumped 136.68 points, or 5.1%, to 2556.39, also in the red for the year.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

With David Eun Departure, "The AOL Way" Makes Way for the Arianna Way

Kara Swisher — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:00:46 +0000

[UPDATE: This post has been updated in brackets, including clarifications and one important correction, in several places below.]

Despite all the polite throat-clearing in the various internal memos coming out of AOL today, with a rejiggering of its content management–including the [elimination of the job] of Media and Studios President David Eun [from the original one he had been appointed to by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong earlier this year]–what is really happening is what sources said will likely be a [drastic rejiggering of] more recent strategies of how to run its media business.

That is likely to begin with the hip-checking of [a controversial, if miscontrued, internal document titled] “The AOL Way,” which many sources tell BoomTown was [sponsored by Armstrong and created to stress best new media practices, including to garner better traffic], once the $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post is completed.

[Whatever the original intent of "The AOL Way," it was badly received both inside and outside the New York-based company, thought of as too focused on SEO and not as much on creating the kind of high-quality journalism loudly touted by Armstrong.]

And that could mean a new and [perceptually journalistically friendly] direction forged by its the Web site’s Co-founder and new AOL editorial chief Arianna Huffington will take place.

In fact, much of what has [been put into place since Armstrong took over, from an editorial perspective at least,] is being questioned and reevaluated.

While what exactly that means is still being formulated by Huffington and others at AOL, it will likely not be using most of the mostly by-the-numbers recommendations of the infamous “AOL Way” deck.

Subtitled “Content, Product, Media Engineering and Revenue Management” and leaked to the media, it was all about how the struggling Internet portal thinks about its content properties.

Pretty much like cows to be milked, which has caused endless hand-wringing among the editorial troops at AOL. [While it might have been intended as a "best practices" memo for new media], this should come as no surprise, given damn-the-journalists-full-speed-ahead tone and SEO-overboard themes.

As reported by Silicon Alley Insider on February 1:

* AOL tells its editors to decide what topics to cover based on four considerations: Traffic potential, revenue potential, edit quality and turn-around time.

* AOL asks its editors to decide whether to produce content based on “the profitability consideration.”

* The documents reveal that AOL is, when the story calls for it, willing to boost traffic by 5% to 10% with search ads and other “paid media.”

* AOL site leaders are expected to have eight ideas for packages that could generate at least $1 million in revenue on hand at all times.

* In-house AOL staffers are expected to write five to 10 stories per day.

* AOL knows its sites are too dependent on traffic from AOL.com, and it wants its editors to fix the problem by posting more frequently, with more emphasis on getting pageviews.

[It was Eun's job to push the themes in "The AOL Way,' of course, along with upgrading the content business at AOL, which has become its main focus under Armstrong's turnaround effort.

While Eun has added several measures to stress quality journalism at AOL, since he was brought in from Google with much hype a year ago, having the colorful and influential Huffington as the flagship editorial personality at AOL--paired with trusted Armstrong lieutenant Jon Brod as COO--proved irresistible to the AOL CEO.

Of course, that left Eun without the job he had been hired for, which has now essentially been split among Huffington, Brod and also AOL exec Ned Brody.

And while Armstrong offered him different opportunities within AOL, sources said, with his original position gone in the new regime, Eun declined and decided to depart.]

In his parting email to staff, in fact, Eun continued to stress the numbers achieved under his tenure.

But, at the start, he was clear:

“With the historic acquisition of The Huffington Post, my role and responsibilities as President, AOL Media are changing. Tim and I have discussed at length how I might continue within the new organizational structure, but ultimately there isn’t a role that matches what I am seeking to do.”

Nor, it seems, for “The AOL Way.”

For your enjoyment, here’s Eun in happier days–late January–in a jiggy video he did for the troops:

[ See post to watch video ]

Gawker Settles a Libel Suit With a Correction, but Not a Check

Peter Kafka — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:09:59 +0000

Sometimes Nick Denton likes to boast about Gawker Media’s legal battles. Other times, he keeps quiet.

Like earlier this month, when Denton settled a libel suit filed by motorcycle-maker Confederate Motors. His blog network’s only comment about the case is an oblique “correction” on his Jalopnik car blog, noting that Confederate does not appear to be “unable to do business” in New York.

MediaPost and media law blogger Ben Sheffner seem to be the only two outlets keeping tabs on the case, and you can get the full download at their sites.

But the very short story is that Confederate sued Gawker over an April 9, 2009, post (now deleted, though Google shows traces) about some of its vehicles.

Things Confederate (Really! I know!) didn’t like included an assertion that its bikes are “so unreliable you’ll have to push them” and that “we heard the Alabama-based company was being sued so heavily in state courts by disgruntled owners that they were unable to do business here.”

The Jalopnik post seems to be the sum total of Gawker’s concessions to Confederate. Gawker COO Gaby Darbyshire tells MediaPost her company didn’t pay Confederate a penny and that it settled only “because it was too trivial an issue to take to court….One must pick one’s battles.”

Sounds reasonable! Especially when there are much bigger battles looming on the horizon.

Amazon: A Patch for Your Novel Is Ready to Download

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:10:17 +0000

As e-books go mainstream, authors are gaining an opportunity to literally rewrite history.

Eagle-eyed owners of the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle e-reader, like Paul Biba of the site TeleRead, have taken note of messages from Amazon letting them know that an e-book they had purchased “contained some errors that have been corrected.” The notes come with an offer from Amazon to wirelessly download an updated version of the book–with the owners’ permission.

An Amazon spokesman confirms that the company does, from time to time, contact customers with updates, and they occur with both fiction and non-fiction titles.

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Palm: On a Road to Recovery or a Highway to Hell?

John Paczkowski — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:15:15 +0000

With Palm’s shares up more than 900 percent since January, they were destined to suffer a correction someday. And now it seems that day has finally come.

Shares in the handset maker fell some 23 percent last week amid concerns about increased competition from Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system, which is being rolled out on a number of devices at a variety of carriers, including Palm partner Sprint (S).

This morning, analysts at Citigroup (C) cut their recommendations to sell from hold on Palm (PALM) while simultaneously raising their rating on Motorola (MOT) because of its “compelling” new Android handset, Droid.

“Motorola is launching of one of the most compelling offerings at [a] time when many investors have given up on the company’s handsets,” Citigroup analyst Jim Suva wrote in a research note.

“The revolution of product and application service offerings,” Suva added, “is going to start to crack open the enterprise door and could pose a risk for BlackBerry. Major shifts in promotion support creating a promotion commotion in the months ahead favor Motorola and post a challenge for RIMM and PALM.”

Over at CL King, analyst Lawrence Harris is similarly dubious of Palm’s prospects in the months ahead. Noting that Sprint executive David Owens said last week that the carrier plans to peddle a number of new Android devices from HTC next year, Harris sees unfavorable implications for Palm.

“Historically, Sprint has been Palm’s largest customer. Indeed, in the August quarter Sprint accounted for 85 percent of Palm’s revenues,” Harris wrote in a note to investors. “In FY09 (May) Sprint represented 43 percent of total Palm sales. Sprint has a U.S. exclusive on both the Pre and the Pixi through calendar year end. The Pixi will be launched at Sprint on November 15 for $99.99. The Pixi is fairly similar to the $149.99 Pre. Verizon has stated that it will begin offering the Pre in early CY10.”

Expounding on his analysis, Harris notes that “According to a report on Mobile Today, a U.K.-based publication, initial sales of the Pre through Telefonica’s O2 unit in the U.K. have been slow. If this report is correct, than the bulk of Palm’s sales over the next few months will probably continue to be generated through Sprint.”

That Sprint will soon add some slick new Android handsets to its lineup is worrisome, then, indeed. For Palm, it seems, driving conditions on the road to recovery are looking increasingly hazardous.

Meet Maureen Dowd's Favorite Writer: Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall

Peter Kafka — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:05:56 +0000

Today’s life lesson: Procrastination does pay off!

A few weeks ago I sat down with Josh Marshall, the journalist/entrepreneur behind Talking Points Memo, and had a great chat about news, new media and the business of running a self-funded Web site. But my notes and video have sat on my hard drive since then, for no other reason than I never got around to publishing them.

Thank you, Maureen Dowd, for the kick in the pants I needed: Over the weekend, the New York Times (NYT) columnist has given Marshall a huge, if unintended, endorsement by borrowing his work and then getting caught.

After an initial attempt by Dowd to explain away the similarity between her work and his, the Times is now running a correction on Dowd’s Sunday column, noting that she “failed to attribute a paragraph” to Marshall.

You’ll read plenty more about this on the Web over the next few days, if you’re inclined. But it would be a shame if that’s the only thing you know about Marshall’s site, which is an interesting hybrid of politically focused reporting, commentary, and aggregation/blogging.

And I do mean a mix: If you just glimpse quickly at his site, you might think it’s the same grouping of links and headlines that you can find anywhere else on the Web. But Marshall was a real reporter prior to starting the site and his 12-person staff does real reporting. Its best work, to date, was uncovering the Bush administration’s U.S. Attorneys scandal in 2007, which led to prestigious Polk Award in 2008.

Just as interesting: It’s a profitable business that has never taken outside investment and until recently, has made almost all of its money by relying on ad networks. The most effective ad network, says Marshall: Google’s AdSense. See! Google (GOOG) really does support content!

More recently, Marshall has hired Yahoo (YHOO) vet Diane Rinaldo to serve as the company’s first real ad rep, trying to translate the site’s one million (give or take) monthly unique readers into more significant revenue. That’s alleged to be a real challenge since advertisers are supposedly loath to touch political content. But then again, start-up blogs aren’t supposed to do real journalism–or act as unattributed contributors to the country’s most prestigious newspaper.

[ See post to watch video ]

Google's New Corporate Philosophy: "You Can Lose Money Without Doing Evil"

John Paczkowski — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:59:35 +0000

Looks like Google’s share price is finally getting that “good old-fashioned correction” that’s been predicted for so long. Another day of widespread losses for technology stocks dragged the company’s once high-flying share price below $350 for the first time in two-and-a-half years. Google (GOOG) shares hit a low of $345.37 Tuesday. Seems those “freakishly high growth rates” associated with the company aren’t much good in this ugly economic climate. Google’s shares have now lost more than half their value since peaking near the $750 mark in November of last year. Most other tech bellwethers are in agony today as well. Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Cisco (CSCO) and Apple (AAPL) are all trading close to their 52-week lows.

Google's New Corporate Philosophy: "You Can Lose Money Without Doing Evil"

John Paczkowski — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:59:35 +0000