SoftBank Capital and Yahoo Japan said they had created an unusual $20 million fund to help U.S. startups break into the Japanese market, while also upping a presence in the U.S.

The partnership between Japan’s largest Internet company — which is also a joint venture with Yahoo — and the venture arm of the giant SoftBank Corp. will invest in companies from early-stage funding to later-stage expansion and focus on mobile applications, social media, e-commerce, online advertising, gaming and cloud computing.

The new funds for that are being put into SoftBank Capital’s $100 million Technology Fund ’10. As part of the deal, Toshiaki Chiku will become head of U.S. operations in Manhattan. SoftBank Capital also recently announced a $250 million PrinceVille Fund, aimed at growth-stage startups in Asia.

Among the firm’s recent exits: Bluefin Labs went to Twitter, Buddy Media to Salesforce.com, Huffington Post to AOL, Hyperpublic to Groupon and OMGPOP to Zynga.

Now, it will be focusing even more on helping U.S. startups in Asia.

“Japan can be challenging for many U.S. companies, and given our scale and affiliation with SoftBank Corp., we’re in a great position to help them grow and succeed,” said Chiku in a statement.

SoftBank Capital and Yahoo Japan used performance display advertising company Criteo as an example of a successful investment, in which it also helped the company enter the Asian market (although, technically, Criteo is HQed in France).

Marco Arment

Asked during Apple’s second-quarter earnings call if his views on the five-inch phone market had changed since the company last reported financials, CEO Tim Cook said that they really haven’t. The reason? The five-inch smartphones Apple’s rivals are currently peddling are compromised by poor displays.

“We always strive to create the very best display for our customers,” Cook said. “Some customers value large screen size. But others value factors like resolution, color quality, white balance, brightness, reflectivity, screen longevity, power consumption, portability, compatibility, apps and many things. Our competitors have made some significant trade-offs in many of these areas in order to ship a larger display. We would not ship a larger display iPhone while these trade-offs exist.”

An almost Jobsian reply, opening as it does with a nod to Apple’s “we just want to make great products” doctrine, and ending with a deft sucker punch to the competition. But there’s quite a bit more at work here, as well.

Note that, for Apple, creating a bigger iPhone is not simply a matter of slapping a bigger display on a bigger chassis. It’s about building an entirely new device. And that requires a lot more nuance and a holistic approach that encompasses not just a flashy new display but accounts for the effects that display will have on everything from battery life to the App Store ecosystem. So when Cook slags Apple’s rivals for making trade-offs, he’s not just saying the displays on their devices aren’t what they could be. He’s saying that because they’re not what they could be, they compromise the entire device. He’s also saying that Apple won’t sacrifice quality for time to market.

Earnings-call rhetoric? Absolutely. But if you’re looking for the reason why Apple hasn’t yet shipped a larger iPhone, there it is. And it’s a familiar one. As company co-founder Steve Jobs said back in 2007: “We just can’t ship junk.” (See video below.)

Of course, the great thing about Apple’s “no junk” doctrine is that it doesn’t preclude the company from later shipping its own unjunked version of whatever device it’s currently disparaging. And you’ll note that, in his remarks, Cook doesn’t explicitly rule out the idea of an iPhone with a larger screen. He left the door wide open.

So maybe we will see a new, larger iPhone form factor. Cook’s remarks certainly suggest that the company has considered it. And Apple is hardly immune to market trends. The iPhone’s display was unassailably perfect in size until its sixth generation, when it adopted the four-inch screen that its Android rivals had popularized. Tablets with displays smaller than 10 inches were nonstarters until Amazon and Google proved they weren’t. Then Apple rolled out the 7.9-inch iPad mini.

Will that same we-won’t-until-we-will narrative play out with a larger iPhone? Certainly possible, if the market opportunity becomes large enough. Better to give large-form-factor smartphone buyers an iPhone option than to forfeit them to rivals, along with the additional addressable market they create.

Yahoo turned in a first-quarter report that showed continued flat revenue, although earnings were up.

Here’s the liveblog of the conference call following the report, which starred Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who tried to explain how she planned to remake the Silicon Valley Internet giant to increase that weak revenue in its key display advertising and search units:

2:00 pm: I like that Mayer started on time, which many a Yahoo CEO did not in the past.

Still, there is no way she could easily explain away the revenue miss at the company in the quarter, which is due in large part to its ever-declining display advertising sales.

Thus, she used the metaphor of running to clarify the situation.

“Getting the company going at the rate we would like will take several years,” she said, describing turning Yahoo around as a “series of sprints,” including making it a great place to work.

The next sprint will be to create “beautiful products.” After that, the next one will be to improve user engagement. And then, presumably, “ultimately growth.”

2:08 pm: Mayer touted better employee collaboration, which she said has made Yahoo a more attractive place to work than ever before.

She also noted that Yahoo has gotten a lot of ex-Yahoos — which she called “boomerangs” — to return to the fold.

Mayer deftly did not mention the better earnings — largely due to cost and tax savings, as well as other financial manipulations and not sales efforts — since managing the business well is not the same as growing it.

But, let it be said: She and CFO Ken Goldman seem to be managing Yahoo very well, although Wall Street and others are expecting them to goose revenues.

2:13 pm: It is on to Goldman, who goes through the numbers, which Yahoo has already released.

Here’s a quick synopsis: Yahoo’s display advertising business is down 11 percent in the first quarter to $455 million, with the number of ads sold declining seven percent and the price per ad falling two percent.

As it did last quarter, search revenue did not save the day. It also declined 10 percent to $425 million, although it was up six percent when traffic acquisition costs were not counted in. While paid clicks were up 16 percent, price per click was down seven percent.

Employee count was down 19 percent, another expense savings.

Goldman is clearly a smart cookie, but there is a long road here from this to true revenue growth.

2:26 pm: Mayer underscored that immediately, noting that Yahoo has to meet the growth rates of competitors, such as Google and Facebook, behind which Yahoo badly lags.

“Make no mistake,” she said about that need, noting that improvements in its core properties, as well as mobile products, are key focuses for her to improve sales.

She said there was a respectable mobile growth in users in the quarter, although she declined to say just how much revenue Yahoo makes in mobile. (It’s not much yet, so that explains that.)

Partnering is also important to her, she said, working with companies all over the Internet space.

All will lead to better user engagement, and “with user engagement comes monetization,” she added.

We are on course, she concluded — presumably on what will likely be an exhausting sprint.

2:30 pm: Then, it was onto questions from analysts.

The first was about why there were declines in ad sales — via a plan to de-load pages of them or just not selling enough and declining page views.

It is a complex issue, due to various elements, from the move to mobile to waiting for product improvements to kick in with users.

There was then a question about partnering — which Yahoo has indeed been good at. That said, I sometimes wonder if the company were a bit less cooperative and more selfish, as its rivals always are, that it might be more successful.

Mayer still said she thinks partnering is a good thing.

The next question was whether Microsoft will continue to pay its revenue per search guarantees to Yahoo, as it has in the past when their search deal did not meet expectations.

From a “conservative point of view, there will be no renewal,” said Goldman, although he notes that Yahoo talks to Microsoft daily.

I’d like to hear that conversation!

2:38 pm: An obvious question then came about when the heck Yahoo will get its display business moving.

“It’s a sprint and it’s a chain reaction,” said Mayer, not precisely answering the question and using comparative metaphorical terms that were perhaps more awkward to hear today given the tragedy in Boston.

The next question was about adding more of a Google advertising relationship, a deal which would certainly up Yahoo’s revenue, although there have always been potential regulatory issues related to it.

Mayer pointed to a recent smaller ad partnership with the search giant, and “we occasionally explore new opportunities.”

What ho? (Hey, Nikesh, that’ll be me calling, so pick up!)

2:42 pm: Another question came about whether Yahoo could improve its search share, which has been declining.

Mayer, who is an expert in this area, said that search interface improvements will matter, although there are other ways of adding share too, such as closer relationships with browsers.

She was animated here, which was probably a good idea, given her COO Henrique De Castro seems to be swinging and missing in the display advertising arena.

Thus, the follow-up question was perfect, about the sales realignment that De Castro initiated that has caused a lot of internal distress at Yahoo.

Mayer said she thought that “this is the right thing to do,” although it’s not as clear if she really knows how jarring the change has been for the sales troops. Display ad sales are not her area of expertise, so she probably needs to get more up to speed on this critical issue.

2:48 pm: The usually tepid analysts kept pounding away on that issue, which Mayer answered by saying the decline is less of a decline than is had been previously. It’s faint praise, of course, but it’s a fair point.

Also of interest is whether Yahoo could create a mobile layer on top of Google’s Android as Facebook just did with its innovative Home software.

If you have been around as long as I have, you know that Yahoo once had an immersive app called Yahoo Go that came too soon and was ultimately executed badly, despite being a great concept.

Mayer did compliment Facebook on the good idea of Home, though, which was classy, since it is.

2:51 pm: There was then a question about Yahoo’s golden ticket of an asset — its large share of China’s Alibaba, which is kicking it in all aspects, especially related to revenue.

Would that Yahoo could inject some of that energy into its own core business.

Then came another important question: Does Yahoo have the assets to keep up in ad sales and technology?

“This will be an area of continued focus for us,” said Mayer.

The questions continued about mobile and pricing issues in search.

Mayer noted that although the company has no “direct monetization” from its weather and stock quote defaults on the Apple iPhone, it does provide leads to other parts of Yahoo’s offerings and is valuable for that.

As to increasing cost per clicks, she said that the gap has still not been closed with Microsoft on improving search monetization.

Which has to happen, obviously.

2:59 pm: Mayer was asked about the “next sprint,” which she said will be the fun part.

There will be version updates and more of a “cadence” that is presumably not glacial. She has certainly got to run faster, given how quickly Facebook, Google and many others are moving in comparison.

It would be fun if Yahoo could keep up the pace.

The last question was about Mayer’s strategy in search, including how to grow Web and mobile search.

Again, the search expert has a lot of good ideas.

Then, cleverly, Mayer summarized her Q1 earnings report in 140 words, via the engine it acquired from its recent $30 million purchase of Summly, versus her prepared script of 2,000 words.

I’m pleased with the continued execution I see every day — our teams have been working very hard, especially in Q1. As a result of these initiatives and many others, the talent is undeniable — today, more applicants want to work at Yahoo, and more employees are staying. These teams bring an incredible mix of engineering and technical talent, which will help us accelerate our efforts in mobile development and content personalization.

The teams are already moving quickly to amplify the entrepreneurial spirit that’s so prevalent at Yahoo right now. Designed to be more intuitive and personal, the new Yahoo experience is all about users’ interests and preferences. Yahoo is a consumer Internet company, and the consumer Internet is a growth industry. We’re on course to do what we said we would do — stabilize, and grow with the market.

But to summarize in even fewer words, using only my limited, non-$30 million, Twitter-schooled mental faculties: Yahoo is trying to race as fast as it can to keep up, but the results are still not in.

Fortunately, Retina displays are getting slightly more accessible: Apple said today that it was lowering the price and boosting the processors on its 13-inch and 15-inch Retina display MacBook Pro notebooks.

The 15-inch Retina display MacBook Pro, unfortunately, isn’t getting a price cut. Instead, it has two upgraded processor options, 2.4 gigahertz and 2.7 gigahertz, with the top-end version boasting 16 gigabytes of memory — which previously cost buyers an additional $200.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina now starts at $1499 for 128GB of flash, and $1699 for an upgraded 2.6ghz processor and 256GB of flash.

The Cupertino-based company also lowered the price on the 13-inch, 256GB flash drive MacBook Air to $1399 from $1499. The (non-Retina) Air has a 1.8ghz dual-core processor and 4GB of memory.

It’s not unusual for Apple to lower prices on its products mid-cycle. Earlier this week at the Goldman Sachs conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated the company’s strategy of looking at different ways to lower price points, and also said that the company “sweats every detail” when it comes to displays.

Earlier today Yahoo reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates, on still-flattish revenue.

Still, up is up, even if it is not really that much up, so Wall Steet bid up shares of the Silicon Valley Internet giant in after-hours trading.

Now it’s onto the conference call with investors for CEO Marissa Mayer:

2:02 pm: Before the call, you can hear Mayer complaining about the goofy music played during the pre-conference call waiting time.

“We have to get better music,” she says to some minion. “This is not good music.”

Music to my ears! I say we get Beyoncé, lipsyncing or not.

The call starts quickly after that, with the ever-eager Mayer leaping right in with the fourth-quarter news, which is not all that bad.

It’s the first full year of growth in a while — though not the first quarter-to-quarter increase — even if it is only a very modest two percent increase.

That compares to industry-wide gains in revenue of many, many, many times that, but for Yahoo this is cause for a parade. A small parade, with good music, but a parade nonetheless.

“It’s hard to believe this is only my first full quarter here at Yahoo,” says Mayer in an upbeat tone.

She notes that her focus on product excellence and user experience was continuing, with some “early positive trends” in both products and people.

Mayer then list a series of moves, from the free food and better smartphones for employees to the addition of well-regarded entrepreneur Max Levchin to the board to the refreshes of Yahoo Mail and Flickr to the acquisition of some sassy new mobile startups.

Mayer also notes that the company under her purview had removed “385 of highest priority obstacles,” although she did not name any specifics.

I imagine what No. 332 is: Switching out the iceberg lettuce at the URL cafeteria on Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif. HQ campus with some tasty organic mesclun as they have at Google, from whence Mayer came.

Better roughage means better returns!

2:14 pm: Mayer turns the call over to CFO Ken Goldman, also a newbie. As usual, he runs through the numbers that are already in all the releases already. But I am enjoying his New England accent, hoping he will say the slight increase in revenue was “wicked” good.

Goldman, in fact, calls the revenue increase “modest,” which is true, although it sounds like “mah-dist.”

What’s not mah-dist is how much stock Yahoo has bought back, using its windfall from the recent sale of assets in China. It’s $1.45 billion, with more that that left to use for more share buybacks. That should keep Yahoo’s stock up nicely.

Goldman also talks about increases in the company’s search business, although notes that the Microsoft relationship is still not the most fantastic.

He speaks more effusively of Yahoo’s Asian partners, including Yahoo! Japan and China’s Alibaba Group. It’s deserved, since they have been the company’s treasure trove against its meh core performance in recent years.

Not so tasty is the problem Yahoo has with a big-money contract dispute in Mexico, which Goldman reiterates is “without merit.”

2:28 pm: Goldman moves onto Yahoo’s cash position, which is strong and which he says is going to be used to make the company better.

Mayer is back on board, talking about key focuses over multiple years.

She says Yahoo needs a “chain reaction of growth,” which needs to be fueled by a dozen new products that become a daily habits for consumers to increase usage and other metrics.

A nuclear bomb explosion is not exactly the best metaphor for a company’s turnaround, but in Yahoo’s case it is probably a pretty good one, given how stubborn its decline has been.

Mayer then switches the metaphor to one she recently used about “returning to the roots” of Yahoo.

Actually, mixing the metaphors, Yahoo has to blast some significant roots that have gotten in the way of its innovation over the years.

“The best is yet to come,” promises Mayer, in what she says will be a multi-year effort.

Now onto questions from the analysts!

2:40 pm: The first question is about commercialization of its products. Mayer answers she is both pro-advertising and anti-ad — meaning they are good when they add to user experience and bad when they do not.

There will be slight margin declines due to this, which is the real point of the query, which Goldman says will not be too impacted.

The next question is on the weaker performance in display ads and whether mobile ads can ramp up quick enough or not.

Yahoo is not breaking out mobile revenue numbers as yet — it’s not impressive as yet, so that’s what’s going on there — although Mayer points to the number of mobile users increasing to 200 million now.

As to the declines in display, Mayer gives a non-answer, but it is likely due to big changes that new Yahoo COO Henrique De Castro has put into place in the way it sells ads and which AllThingsD.com previously reported on. Mayer earlier in the call had confirmed those changes.

The fact of the matter — which is just what the analyst was asking about — is that Mayer simply has to improve display revenue, which is Yahoo’s core business.

Mayer then addresses the issue of not providing usage metrics anymore. Yahoo has withheld a lot of them since she has taken over, and she says it is because they are not indicative of metrics that, well, she thinks you need to know.

Instead, Mayer points to other metrics that she feels are better, such as number of ads sold and price per click on search.

Speaking of search, the next question is about that. What can Mayer say — and she does — but that Yahoo must also improve in that area. Indeed, it is lucrative low-hanging fruit for the company.

Here comes an interesting observation she makes based on a question of mobile versus desktop, which Mayer says should not be separated as two areas as consumers don’t think that way.

Yahoo is tuning up a dozen products, she says, having started with Yahoo Mail and its Flickr photo-sharing app.

2:54 pm: Mayer is not saying which of this dirty dozen is next to get a makeover.

“We’re investing in small, nimble, excellent teams,” says Mayer, who then tries to reference a famous Margaret Mead quote, but ends up mangling it a bit.

It is, for the record: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

This is true, which might make some Yahoo staffers nervous, since Mayer’s recent stack ranking of them means she can start on employee layoffs anytime she likes to separate the wheat from the chaff.

3:01 pm: Whoo-whee, this is going long and I am getting weary. Mayer has to be some kind of digital Energizer Bunny — she just flew in from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and moved right into the prep for the Q4 earnings.

Tomorrow, she is presumably off to Las Vegas, where Yahoo’s global sales conference will start and she will doubtlessly be making an appearance.

I am exhausted simply by walking up and down the stairs at my house.

The next question is about third-party publishers and ad tech on mobile.

“Mobile monetization is new for everyone,” she says correctly, making the point that no one knows what is going to shake out.

She uses — as she has used — the example of when people thought search was not a moneymaker until Google proved otherwise.

The problem is, of course, that Google is Yahoo’s biggest rival in this new mobile ad arena, along with Facebook and many others. And Google, as its recent results showed, does know how to make money compared to Yahoo.

The next question is about mobile monetization eating into desktop revenue.

Mayer notes that Yahoo has hired 120 people with computer science degrees in the quarter to work on that area.

In other words, get ready for a symphony of geeks to return Yahoo to relevance.

Would they can pull it off, as that would be a tune worth listening to.

Speaking of something worth listening to, here is a video of Diana Ross’ song, “Chain Reaction,” to enjoy:

Yahoo reported its fourth-quarter earnings today, with earnings higher than expected, but with a continued flattish revenue.

The Silicon Valley Internet giant aid its non-GAAP net profits were 32 cents a share, compared to 25 cents in the same period a year ago. But GAAP net earnings per diluted share were 23 cents in the fourth quarter of 2012, compared to 24 cents last year.

Shares jumped just above four percent in after-hours trading to above $21 a share, given Wall Street analysts were estimating a profit of 27 cents per share in Q4.

Net revenue, without traffic acquisition costs, was expected to be $1.21 billion. It was $1.22 billion and which is essentially flat from a year ago’s $1.17 billion. Search revenue was up nicely, while display sales declined.

Overall the results showed a non-sinking but none-too-powerful ship and not very impressive given almost every other Internet company grew revenue significantly in comparison. For example, Google reported last week that core revenue was up 21 percent in the quarter.

Still, up is up, even if it is not up that much. “I’m proud of Yahoo!’s 2012 and fourth quarter results. In 2012, Yahoo! exhibited revenue growth for the first time in 4 years, with revenue up 2 percent year-over-year,” said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer in a statement.

In other words, she’ll take two percent, given the nearly persistent revenue declines of recent years. It is progress, of course, even if investors are looking for more robust increases ahead.

Also of note: Yahoo said it repurchased 79.6 million shares at an average price of $18.24 for $1.45 billion in the fourth quarter, which most definitely was one of the reasons for its recent stock run-up.

Yahoo did not release information on consumer engagement and traffic in the Q4 report, which it had done until Mayer took over. As AllThingsD.com had previously reported, most metrics in the quarter were down significantly over last year.

The fourth quarter was the first that was entirely under the new regime of Mayer, who arrive at Yahoo in July from Google.

She’s gotten a big break from Wall Street, which has sent Yahoo’s stock up in recent months on the hopes of her turnaround plans.

Last week, Mayer said the long-suffering Silicon Valley giant would be returning “back to its roots,” as part of an effort to finally turn it around. It’s actually part of a bigger plan which AllThingsD.com had reported on previously, to focus Yahoo on being a center of content discovery on the Web, across multiple devices, with wide-ranging and “very friendly” partnerships with other companies.

More to come at the 2 pm PT, conference call with Mayer, which I will be liveblogging as usual.

Until then, here’s the official press release and deck from Yahoo:

YHOO_News_2013_1_28_General

Q4’12_Earnings_Presentation.vsFINAL

As I had previously reported, Yahoo’s key business unit — its advertising sales force — is now getting details of a reorganization by its new leader, COO Henrique De Castro.

In making the changes, just weeks ahead of Yahoo’s annual sales conference in Las Vegas on Jan. 21, De Castro is borrowing rather heavily from the set-up of the powerful ad business at Google, from whence he came.

By shifting the sales organization to a “category” model, sales reps at the Silicon Valley Internet giant will sell all of Yahoo’s ad products, as well as its search offerings, across channels in a vertical process organized around advertiser segments, such as automotive, entertainment and packaged goods.

Yahoo has long sold its advertising in a regional and tiered organization against premium and performance inventory in display and search, designed to avoid vertical conflict. Thus, the sales staff have built up advertiser relationships across many areas, which will not work in the new system.

Sources inside the company said regional leaders will now be shifted to running various verticals. There will be support specialists for those areas, too.

Mark Ellis, who was most recently VP of North American sales and global partnerships, will pay a key role in the new org, said sources. It is not clear, though, what role Peter Foster, who has headed audience advertising, will play. Another high-ranking exec, Keith Kaplan, has apparently been shifted to focus on agency relationships.

As I had previously written, there are many different ways to organize sales, but making such major change has potentially large ramifications on Yahoo’s financial performance, at least in the short term, since advertising makes up the bulk of its revenue.

According to numerous sources inside Yahoo, the changes are causing some measure of worry and confusion across the salesforce at the company, since it comes after a lot of wrenching changes over the last year.

That includes the departure of well-regarded Chief Revenue Officer Michael Barrett in mid-October, after De Castro got the COO job. He has left a large gap in sales leadership and in maintaining strong relationships with big advertisers and agencies. De Castro himself is not as well known in the ad marketplace, despite many years at Google in its sales organization.

He will likely have a more high-profile next week at the International CES, the huge annual consumer electronics show taking place in Las Vegas, along with new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who was a top product exec at Google. The pair is planning on meeting with major ad clients while there, which is their first significant outreach to marketers since taking their new roles at Yahoo.

De Castro had outlined the new ad reorg plan immediately after a multiday offsite with top sales leaders several weeks ago, and said the changes would come at the very beginning of 2013.

The ad staff at Yahoo begin to hear of the changes on Friday, so it looks like De Castro has met his deadline.

So far in the six-month reign of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, there has been a pile of attention paid to the flashy cultural changes (free food!), much-needed rehauls of key mainstays (Flickr, Yahoo! Mail, homepage), a focus on attracting entrepreneurial talent (Hey, we got Max Levchin to join the board!) and, of course, the frequent mention of mobilemobilemobile by the former Google product exec.

But on the topic of where the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s search and display advertising business is headed — which is, of course, its key revenue and profit generator — it’s pretty much been crickets.

No longer, it seems, according to multiple sources inside and outside Yahoo. Mayer is planning a series of appearances at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show — which is taking place in Las Vegas in less than two weeks.

That includes sitting for a high-profile fireside chat with Starcom MediaVest Group Global CEO Laura Desmond in front of several hundred ad clients on Wednesday, January 9; organizing a plethora of one-on-one meetings; and throwing a Yahoo dinner party, as well as angling for invites to key parties thrown by others, such as MediaLink’s power player dinner on Tuesday, January 8.

As I previously reported, the company is planning on having this much more prominent presence there in order to reset its sometime rocky relationship with advertisers.

And, not surprisingly, its big weapon at the giant annual confab will apparently be Mayer, who has not yet interfaced significantly with the company’s big ad clients since taking the top job in July. At CES, sources said, Yahoo is hoping the “Marissa Halo” — i.e. the excitement around the decidedly telegenic exec — will help boost its business.

It’s important, since big agencies and advertisers have privately been grumbling about the lack of outreach by Yahoo and also how much more active execs at rivals such as Facebook, Google and AOL have been.

More than one source close to Yahoo said the dissatisfaction was being heard loud and clear at the company. “[Everyone will] take it as an opportunity to vent (again), while Yahoo promises a new beginning,” said one exec.

New beginnings will again be the case, though, with new COO Henrique De Castro also in place. He’s been making a series of moves to rejigger the ad business at Yahoo since he got there earlier in the fall, also from Google, including shifting its sales process to a category model.

In addition, Yahoo execs have continued their noodling on whether or not to make significant ad tech purchases — with no major deals in place yet — along with improving the creaky performance of the company’s own owned-and-operated offerings.

It’s all in the hope that advertisers and agencies will reconnect with Yahoo after the nearly consistent CEO changes over the last year. For those keeping score, after Carol Bartz was fired in the fall of 2011, CEO Scott Thompson made his debut at CES in early 2012, touting Yahoo’s data prowess before being ousted only months later. He was followed by renewed efforts toward marketers by interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.

And now there’s Mayer.

Interestingly, while many major ad players are looking for more specifics about how Yahoo will improve its mobile, search and data products to give better insights to advertisers, they also are simply wanting to hear Mayer’s plans for Yahoo.

“What I don’t see yet is what the vision for Yahoo is, articulating the bigger ideas than just presenting an assemblage of products,” said Rob Norman, chief digital officer of GroupM Global. “And what everyone would still like to see is what is the escape route from being a portal or even reemerging from what that means, so I am really interested in what she has to say.”

Added another top ad exec: “She really has not said anything yet about how she plans to capitalize on Yahoo’s strengths over the next year in the ad space. People are genuinely excited about Mayer, but the stakes are still high for her since everyone feels as if they have already given Yahoo a lot of extra chances.”

High stakes, indeed. But, then again, it is Vegas.

In what will be a major shift in how the Silicon Valley Internet giant sells online advertising, Yahoo’s new COO Henrique De Castro has briefed employees on a plan to move its sales organization to a “category” model, according to numerous sources close to the situation.

Simply put, that means its sales reps will sell all of Yahoo’s ad products, as well as its search offerings, in a vertical process organized around advertiser segments, such as automotive, entertainment and packaged goods.

This is how Google, where both De Castro and CEO Marissa Mayer recently worked, conducts its ad sales efforts. (After copying free food and smartphones, staff evaluation efforts and more, What Would Google Do seems to be strategery at Yahoo these days.)

In contrast, Yahoo has long sold its advertising in a regional and tiered organization against premium and performance inventory in display and search.

The move from regional to vertical is a “seismic shift,” said one source quite accurately. That’s because Yahoo’s go-to-market efforts have been designed to avoid vertical conflict and its sales staff have built up advertiser relations across many areas. In a vertical organization, those reps will be forced to give up these long-term relationships with marketers, some of which have been built over years.

There are, of course, many different ways to organize sales — and each has its fans and detractors. But one thing is clear: Making such a major change has potentially large ramifications on Yahoo’s financial performance, at least in the short term, since advertising makes up the bulk of its revenue.

The change might also result in some attrition among the sales staff, said sources, although many at Yahoo are expecting that De Castro will bring in his own execs from outside to help with the transition. (One interesting name I heard floated was former Googler Penry Price, who was close to De Castro when they both worked there. He is currently president of Media6Degrees, an ad targeting start-up.)

De Castro (pictured here) will need all the help he can get as he overhauls Yahoo’s sales efforts. Well-regarded Chief Revenue Officer Michael Barrett left Yahoo in mid-October after De Castro got the COO job.

His departure has left a large gap in sales leadership and in maintaining strong relationships with big advertisers and agencies. De Castro himself is not as well known in the ad marketplace, despite many years at Google in sales (more on that to come).

Currently, the key ad execs at Yahoo under De Castro are Peter Foster, who heads audience advertising, and Mark Ellis, VP of North American sales and global partnerships.

De Castro outlined the new ad org plan to staff immediately after a multi-day offsite with top sales leaders last week, at which Yahoo’s acquisition options in the ad tech market were also discussed.

Sources said De Castro noted that the changes could take place as early as January 1.

De Castro is also planning to have Yahoo’s annual global sales meeting for the end of January in Las Vegas. Last March, the gathering — then set for about 1,300 advertising staffers in Florida — was cancelled due to a restructuring under ousted CEO Scott Thompson.

In addition, sources said, Yahoo is planning on having a much more prominent presence at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show — also taking place in Las Vegas in January — in order to solidify its relationships with advertisers.

Its big weapon at the giant annual confab will apparently be Mayer, who has not yet interfaced significantly with the company’s big ad clients since taking the top job in July. At CES, sources said, Yahoo is hoping the “Marissa Halo” — i.e. excitement around the telegenic exec — will help boost its business.

They like her, they really like her.

Wall Street, that is, in regards to new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, assigning the former Google exec a clear premium.

And whether it is deserved or not yet from a pure performance perspective — we actually won’t know for several quarters ahead — the shares of the Silicon Valley Internet giant over the past three months have gone up 22 percent. The rise has taken place pretty much on the promise that she will finally be the one to deliver what no other Yahoo leader has done.

And that is, besides making the company relevant and innovative again: Getting Yahoo’s stock past $20 a share again.

That’s within striking distance now. Shares are at $18.40 today, close to an all-time high for the year. The recent rise certainly isn’t taking into account the results of the recent lackluster third quarter, which continued to show the worrisome downward trends — even though partial asset sales of the company’s Chinese Alibaba stake successfully masked the problems — in growth, engagement and overall profitability.

But Mayer’s confident I’ve-got-this tones on the earnings call itself — especially in pushing a mobile strategy that has not been put in place as yet in any substantive way — won over Wall Street investors, who apparently like how she sounds and, thus, are intrigued with what she might do.

While this kind of perceptual game will only get Yahoo so far, moving out of the teens in share price would be an important benchmark for the company.

The stock was last at that level in August of 2008. At the time, in fact, $20 a share was considered very disappointing, taking place after Microsoft dropped its $44.6 billion hostile bid for Yahoo a few months earlier. Indeed, $20 was a big comedown from when Yahoo shares were above $43 in 2006.

The lowest price Yahoo shares got in recent years were $9.39 in November of 2008, just before then CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down.

Now the stock is close to double that sad trough, fueled in part by some cosmetic moves to improve culture by Mayer — including free food, smartphones and a promise to end the slow-moving decision-making at Yahoo.

There has also been a start of the promised multi-billion-dollar stock buybacks by the company, although Yahoo has been cagey about how and when it is purchasing. Also helping, more recently, is that several big hedge funds are buying into the story of hope.

Following in the footsteps of successful activist shareholder Dan Loeb of Third Point, who is now on the board and is a major Yahoo investor, others like him have now joined in the party in a bigger way. That includes David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital and Chase Coleman of Tiger Global Management.

The thoughtful Einhorn, who is a friend of Loeb’s, has been in and out of the stock before, buying it on hopes that now ousted CEO Carol Bartz would be Yahoo’s savior and selling it soon after it was clear she might not be. He came back in February with three million shares, sold them in May, but now has upped his stake to just over five million more under Mayer’s regime.

More substantively, Tiger’s Coleman has grabbed 25 million shares (interestingly, he’s also upped his stakes in Groupon and Facebook).

Obviously, they must believe Yahoo is set to move upward, which all depends on Mayer. She’s made one critical stock misstep early in her tenure, by announcing that she was considering keeping the huge cash windfall from its sale of Alibaba stock and not giving it back to shareholders in some form.

That dropped Yahoo’s shares to under $15, but Mayer walked back that mistake and the stock has been climbing since.

For the year to date, it’s up almost 14 percent — a nice rise — although that pales in comparison to Apple’s 39 percent rise, Amazon’s 37 percent rise and, most of all, AOL’s 136 percent leap.

The comparison to the massive stock run that AOL has had, after CEO Tim Armstrong — also a former Googler — cut costs, focused units, sold patents and bought back stock, is often made. It’s perhaps apt, but arguably Yahoo has much better and fixable assets than AOL.

More to the point, Yahoo’s price-to-earnings ratio remains unusually low — it’s 5.6, compared to the S&P’s 14.2 average — which means that the entire business is severely undervalued by Wall Street.

It is if Mayer can create real value by actually staging the comeback she is already getting credit for accomplishing. She certainly has a lot of levers to improve results, from the stock buyback to finally making a deal to sell its multi-billion-dollar stake in Yahoo! Japan to making expense cuts to buying some innovative small start-ups to creating products that aren’t, well, lame.

Most importantly, Mayer has to stop the decimation of Yahoo’s once mighty advertising business, which makes up the bulk of its revenue, as well as improve its search monetization by rejiggering its heretofore dysfunctional partnership with Microsoft. (But, as I wrote earlier this week, she will not be making new search engines with Facebook.)

A gander at this chart of Yahoo’s declining quarterly revenue should give you a good visual of the problem with the core business:

YHOO Revenue Quarterly data by YCharts

And, indeed, Yahoo’s sales have dropped 29 percent since 2007, with typically flat display revenue and declining search revenue, which was once Yahoo’s crown jewel. While operating margins have risen over the years, very few point to the company as an exciting growth story.

And it still isn’t, although investors are starting to consider it a possibility. We’ll see as Mayer makes more significant changes in 2013, hopefully underpinning the stock’s recent rise with a true story of financial strides.

But, for now, giddy shareholders probably should not get too far ahead of themselves. Not that you can stop them: Mayer fan Eric Jackson is calling for Yahoo’s stock to be over $40 again by end of 2013.

Whether the Mayer premium can do pull off that particular investor miracle or not remains to be seen.

Yahoo turned in a meh third quarter, which came as no surprise to anyone. But none of it matters, since all eyes were on what new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer would say on the investor call today.

Here we go! It is Mayer’s first outing as a public company CEO. She’s been an exec at Google her whole career and, while she has been a prominent public figure in Silicon Valley, she has never run the whole show herself.

Until today, that is!

2:01 pm: Finally, we are hearing from Mayer, who arrived from Google in July.

She is “thrilled to be at Yahoo” and the first 100 days at the company have been a lot of fun.

She’s apparently been a fan since her undergraduate days at Stanford University.

Finally, she tries to answer the big question: “Why did I in particular come to Yahoo?”

Why, indeed, given she and others at Google have spent those years since college putting Yahoo directly into the ground. (Did you know Yahoo gave Google its first big search break, a deal engineered by Mayer and others?)

But, says Mayer, Yahoo is “tailor-made for me,” ticking off arenas such as “search, mail, advertising, home page.”

It’s what she built her career on, apparently — yes, in kicking Yahoo’s behind — but now she wants to help the troubled Silicon Valley Internet giant “grow and help redefine” itself.

Still, she stresses, trying to buy as much time as possible from investors: “It will take multiple years to get to where I want the company to be.”

2:08 pm: Mayer, of course, touts her Apple iPhone-and-free-food spending to make the life of Yahoos better (and on parity with the rest of the digital sector).

To be fair, given the past two CEOs, anyone who did not come in and kick the employees where it counts was going to get some claps.

Mayer’s goals are “simple,” she says, “to execute fast, attract the best talent and make Yahoo the best place to work.”

She says she has assembled a stellar world class exec team to accomplish that.

2:11 pm: Now we get to meet one of that team and a Yahoo newbie — CFO Ken Goldman (pictured here). It’s his first day.

He repeats the results that Yahoo has already put in its press release, which is why I usually zone out here and focus on superficial stuff.

Like how much he sounds like former and ousted Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson. Eek!

Goldman touts Yahoo’s recent Alibaba Group deal in China (done not by Goldman, but by outgoing — jacked by Mayer, really — CFO Tim Morse) and notes a $765 million credit facility that Yahoo apparently got this month.

That’s more dough to add to Mayer’s ever-growing pile to spend on fixing Yahoo.

2:23 pm: Mayer is back — Goldman is nice enough, but everyone wants to hear from the former Google wunderkind.

She makes an obvious statement: Yahoo has to “grow at the same pace as the market we are in.” Yep. Yahoo’s growth has been practically non-existent, while the industry has seen robust increases for years.

Mayer is now hitting all the high points on what needs to be fixed.

Search, communications, a desperate need to invest in mobile. “Our top priority is a focused, coherent” mobile strategy, she says. It’s everybody and their mother’s top priority in the Internet space, but it’s gotta be said.

So Mayer says it again: “Yahoo will have to be a predominantly mobile company.”

She also name-checks “delighting users,” improving advertising and personalization.

2:27 pm: She also underscores that Yahoo will now hold onto its ad tech business.

“No one wants Yahoo to grow more than the people who work here,” says Mayer, who says she is going back to Yahoo’s roots. “We believe Yahoo’s best days lie ahead … and we intend to win.”

It sounds very good, but Mayer has been relatively unspecific overall.

Now to Q&A to see if she will drill down more.

2:30 pm: The first question is about Mayer’s vision as compared to others.

Apparently, it does not mean a “pivot” into different and new businesses. It does mean improving what Yahoo has done well.

“I don’t think this is a situation where there’s a giant pivot and we go into a completely different business,” Mayer says flatly. In other words, no string of Yahoo diners in the offing.

In addition, Mayer says that Yahoo occupies a unique spot that does not put it into “channel conflict” with other rivals and, presumably, can be a better partners.

Also asked about search versus display, she’ll take both, but found display “more compelling.”

The next question is about international markets and the local ones.

Growth, says Mayer, although Yahoo will be narrowing the offerings to be more compelling.

She refers to the recent closing of Yahoo operations in Korea. “We had a very hard time finding a growth story moving forward,” says Mayer.

As to local, which Mayer worked on at Google right before she left, Yahoo’s efforts are merely “good” and it’s not slated for investment going forward.

The next question is about metrics to judge progress. Yahoo left out user numbers it has usually provided in the past and Mayer is not giving up any data now either.

Instead, she is going to rely on internal data and not use third-party data any longer. (It makes some sense since the numbers have been not so pretty over time.)

2:37 pm: Mayer did not want to go into acquisition strategy, which came in a question about its giant pile of dough.

No billion-dollar buys for her, she claims, so cancel that Tesla order for Foursquare, Dennis Crowley!

Mayer noted that most acquisitions will be smaller scale and under $100 million. She noted she had done about 20 of those in her career at Google.

A question about Microsoft.

While there has been “disappointment,” Mayer says the goal is to work with the software giant. In other words, she’s not calling her old pals at Google quite yet (she hasn’t yet, in fact).

The next question is about mobile, with Mayer noting once again that the company has to be primarily mobile-focused going forward.

She’s going to hire as many mobile peeps as possible, especially via smaller-scale acquisitions.

2:44 pm: Goldman gets a little awkward in noting that his young-adult kids think Yahoo is all happening. Hmm, I suppose since he comes from the deservedly defunct Excite@Home and the successful but security-dull Fortinet, that makes sense.

In fact, getting back the young folks is one of Mayer’s top challenges.

A very good question — these are all good ones on the call — is how Yahoo can compete without a mobile operating system, such as Google Android and Amazon Kindle and Apple iOS.

Mayer notes that Yahoo has compelling content that others do not.

Another question on search and, specifically, on mobile search.

Mayer is unspecific, except to note that Yahoo has the ability to be pertinent and competitive.

She is a little more clear on the issues with the Microsoft Bing search relationship. Mayer does know this stuff well, and it is clear there is some serious low-hanging fruit to be plucked by someone who knows what they are doing.

Mayer knows search, to be sure, so I am thinking she will make some bank here.

A question about “overmonetizing” the Yahoo site — i.e. cluttering it up with icky ad units that drive consumers nuts.

Mayer notes that cutbacks in ads to improve user experience will only be done to increase traffic, which is a dicey proposition as it can also kill revenue.

A question about content and where that us going.

Mayer touts the Olympics programming — hat tip to former interim CEO Ross Levinsohn — as something unique to Yahoo. Interestingly, the media folks at Yahoo are still wary of pro-engineering Mayer.

2:55 pm: Another question about her interest in content and investment focus in ad tech.

“I am very product focused,” says Mayer, who uses the term “low latency,” a term that no media person ever would use as a hallmark of success.

She is much more comfy talking tech and that’s an area she knows better. Still, she says little about possible investments.

Mayer is then asked about goals for growth at Yahoo. She does not just want to grow at industry rate, but beyond that! But she’ll take industry rate for now (actually, that would be a huge accomplishment).

Goldman says little on the stock buyback, using the Alibaba dough, except they are buying.

3:01 pm: There are a lot of questions today for Mayer — which is no surprise — but now they are beginning to repeat.

(Plus, I have LOLcat’s Ben Huh waiting for me in the ATD Global HQ lobby — and you all know how I feel about them cats!)

Ah, the last question: It’s about data and personalization and what’s been lacking at Yahoo in not taking advantage about the pile of data it has about .

Yes, that should happen and it will under the regime of Marissa Mayer.

Mayer ends by noting, “It’s time for Yahoo to execute and bring our results back to growth.”

So it is written, so it shall be done.

Yahoo is nothing if not consistent, turning in yet another weak quarter that met weak expectations from investors.

The 98-pound weakling is still weak!

In the third quarter, the Silicon Valley Internet giant had $1.089 billion in revenue, a hair above expectations and just two percent higher than a year ago. (Please note that competitors, such as Google and even Facebook, are growing revenue like gangbusters.)

Profits were also weak, despite an apparent pop from a gain from its sale of some of the shares it holds in China’s Alibaba Group. But let’s focus on operations, people, which are the real numbers to gauge. As Yahoo noted: “On a GAAP basis, income from operations decreased 14 percent to $152 million in the third quarter of 2012, compared to $177 million in the third quarter of 2011.”

Minus traffic acquisition costs, display revenue was down to $451.6 million, compared to consensus estimates of $484 million; search revenue was up only a tiny bit to $414.1 million (consensus was $411 million).

Interestingly, Yahoo left out detailed information it has usually provides about engagement and other user metrics. Let me take a big guess: The numbers are simply not impressive, or else they would have been touted.

Also left out was any guidance going forward — new CFO Ken Goldman just came on today, so that’s no surprise. Guess it’s time to throw out the trash, as they say in politics!

But here’s an interesting factoid in the press release: “In October 2012, Yahoo! entered into a 364-day, $750 million unsecured revolving credit facility. The facility is currently undrawn and is expected to be used for general corporate purposes.”

More available cash to go with the pile of cash that Yahoo has already piled up for purposes unclear right now.

To be clear, this meh quarter does not matter at all — with Yahoo getting a financial equivalent of a hall pass for these results — as investors look to hear from new CEO Marissa Mayer about her plans to make all the bad go away. Until she charts a course and sets out on it, it is likely that no one is going to blame her for Yahoo’s past woes.

As Mayer said in a statement today: “Yahoo! had a solid third quarter, and we are encouraged by the stabilization in search and display revenue. We’re taking important steps to position Yahoo! for long-term success, and we’re confident that our focus on quality and improving the user experience will drive increased value for our advertisers, partners and shareholders.”

Everyone is looking forward to hearing how, which the former Google exec will presumably explain in more detail on a conference call with Wall Street analysts — her first as a public company CEO — at 2 pm PT. Tune in for my live blog.

Until then, here are Yahoo’s Q3 slides to peruse:

YHOO_Q312EarningsPresentation_FINAL

Image by Joy of Tech

Samsung Display was once Apple’s top panel supplier, but over the course of the past year, its LCD panel shipments to Apple have fallen to three million in the third quarter from 15 million in the first. By the fourth quarter, they’re expected to move lower still — to 1.5 million — as Apple shifts production to other suppliers.

The reason? According to the Korea Times, Samsung just isn’t making enough money from Apple’s display purchases. “We are unable to supply our flat-screens to Apple with huge price discounts,” a company source told the publication. “Samsung has already cut our portion of shipments to Apple and next year we will stop shipping displays.”

An interesting move, if true. And it certainly does seem plausible; Apple is known for its aggressive supply chain management and fondness for high margins. That said, it’s hard to look at the sprawling legal battles between Samsung and Apple and not conclude that they, too, play a role here. In late August, a jury awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages after finding that Samsung infringed on the company’s patents. Clearly, there’s no love lost between the two companies, and it wouldn’t be at all surprising to hear that Apple is sourcing components from other suppliers as it seeks to wean itself from Samsung, or that Samsung is encouraging it to do so.

Apple and Samsung have not yet responded to requests for comment.

UPDATE: Samsung denies that it’s had any role in ramping down panel production for Apple. “Samsung Display has never tried to cut the supply for LCD panels to Apple,” the company said in a statement given to AllThingsD.

Later today, new Yahoo CEO and latest savior Marissa Mayer is expected to debut in her first major turn as a public company CEO, as the company reports its third-quarter earnings.

Unfortunately, her initial script recounting the last three months is likely to be rather lackluster, with Wall Street anticipating yet another nothing-to-write-home-about financial performance from the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Investors are expecting $1.08 billion in revenue and 25 cents in net income per share in a report that is likely to show more of the same kind of weakness Yahoo has had for far too long. The main reasons this time: Worrisome growth in search and display advertising, especially compared to robust worldwide trends.

Such concerns have kept Yahoo’s stock pretty much flatlined at about $16 a share since she arrived in July.

And that is not likely to change until Wall Street hears more specifics about Mayer’s future plans. Yahoo has previously said she would outline more about her direction on the call with investors later today, after the financial results are released.

Thus, it’s basically a wait-and-see attitude, until Mayer does that, and perhaps until after there is some actual traction.

As noted by Cantor Fitzgerald’s Youssef Squali:

“1) We’ve seen this movie before (this new CEO is the fifth in as many years) and 2) it will take some time before any of the yet-to-be-announced changes yield any meaningful P&L results. Until then, we see Yahoo! shares remain cheap with limited downside, but no clear catalyst to drive them higher short/medium-term.”

Among the highlights that investors hope will be covered by Mayer and also by new CFO Ken Goldman:

A cogent strategy to turbocharge the business, which — as ATD has reported many times — will focus on tech and product solutions; what acquisition arenas are in the pipeline; plans for new talent recruitment and perhaps layoffs of less-than-stellar employees at the bottom 20 percent of Yahoo; the status of talks to sell off its stake in Yahoo Japan; and, perhaps most of all, what are the plans to return cash to shareholders from its recent sale of its partial stake in China’s Alibaba Group.

That might already be in the works via stock buybacks that Yahoo has been engaged in, but it will be interesting to see if Mayer will provide more specifics.

Investors will also look for some details around mobile growth, and perhaps an update of how Yahoo is fixing its search monetization problems with its partner, Microsoft.

One development that some expect is that Mayer will drop future expectations, in a classic take-out-the-trash move.

As J.P. Morgan’s Doug Anmuth noted:

“Similar to what AOL CEO Tim Armstrong did when he stepped in a few years ago, we believe Mayer is likely to remove low quality ad units and over-monetization throughout the site. Despite the near-term monetization impact, we think this would be a good thing, as it would improve the user experience and de-clutter the site. Additionally, we think it’s likely new management would simply want to start off with a low bar.”

And, if she makes it low enough, anything Mayer will do going forward is likely to look pretty good.

In a timely move, Wavii is bringing its crawling power to Election 2012 with Wavii Politics, a new section of the site that essentially acts as a landing page for the many disparate political articles circulating around the Web.

Just as before, it’s all about looks. Wavii drills down across different categories appropriate to the election — topics like ads, debates, speeches from candidates and fundraising events — and splays them across the page in snippets anchored by photos. Click on a quote cribbed from the article, and the site serves a page filled with articles on the subject, with the most relevant pieces given top billing.

Wavii has taken this topic-based approach to news since its launch. But the company came up with the idea of this curated landing-page approach after one engineer’s idea proved popular. Amid the myriad complaints of NBC tape delays and broadcast confusion during the Summer Olympics, a Wavii employee began an internal project tying together a page keeping tabs on all the big winners of the games by country, medal, event, and so on.

The neatness of the presentation made sense of a muddled situation; one where confused viewers just wanted accurate, instant information amid the mess of press coming out of the events. Naturally, CEO Adrian Aoun tells me, that scenario logically extends to the political arena.

And after the brutal boxing match that was Tuesday evening’s presidential debate, I’m guessing we’ll have a lot of writing to sift through. At the very least, Wavii’s new page will make it prettier to look at.

Yahoo said today in a regulatory filing that it had hired one of Google’s top sales execs, Henrique De Castro, as its COO.

Earlier today, I had reported that CEO Marissa Mayer had been close to nabbing the advertising exec, who has most recently been Google’s president of partners business solutions.

De Castro is getting a pile of money for taking the job, including a $600,000 yearly base salary and an annual bonus that could double that figure. In addition, the Silicon Valley Internet giant will give him $36 million in stock grants, including a one-time retention equity award of $18 million and $18 million in the form of performance-based stock options.

He is also getting $1 million in “make-whole” cash for forgoing compensation from Google and $20 million in stock to replace his shares at the search giant that will vest over four years.

That is a very big check, although Mayer garnered an even bigger one when she joined the company in July.

Yahoo’s regulatory statement on the De Castro hiring is embedded below in its entirety, so you can read about his new riches for yourself (unless Yahoo’s persnickety legal head tries to block it).

Said a Google spokesperson about the departure: “We’re grateful to Henrique for all of his contributions at Google and wish him all the best in his new role at Yahoo!”

Both Mayer and also former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson have made previous overtures to nab De Castro, who has held a number of high-level jobs for Google across the globe, including at DoubleClick, in display ads and with major partners.

While he had previously rebuffed those efforts, this time De Castro bit.

There were signs he might this past week, after De Castro canceled a major offsite for his employees, and several attendees who know him well said he was not present at the company’s first night of its annual Zeitgeist event for advertising and publishing clients. The suave De Castro is usually a more noticeable fixture at such gatherings.

This is Mayer’s first big hire at Yahoo, having added only lower-level or less well-known execs to her stable of talent since she was appointed.

She touted the hire in a tweet, although the news was long out the door, while also noting on Twitter it was her first full day at the office since having her first baby two weeks ago.

My first full day back in the office, and I’m excited to kick it off by announcing my new COO, Henrique de Castro: businesswire.com/news/home/2012…

— marissamayer (@marissamayer) October 15, 2012

The hiring does create a potential issue in the sales arena, especially with current head of revenue Michael Barrett. De Castro and Barrett worked together at Google and multiple sources said the pair did not get along there.

It might not matter. While Barrett has publicly said he planned to stay at Yahoo under Mayer — he was hired by interim CEO Ross Levinson this summer before she arrived — many sources said he does not want to be at the company for the long term.

De Castro has a lot of work to do for the big payout he is getting and it will be a big challenge for him to turn around the troubled organization.

Along with declining growth, search market share, engagement and more, Yahoo also has had a management turnover issue of epic proportions.

De Castro will presumably be in charge of making it all better at Yahoo when he arrives sometime before the beginning of the year and is likely to focus on operations while Mayer zeroes in on products.

One area of trouble: While she has lavished attention on cultural issues and on the company’s tech troops, sources said most of the advertising and media leadership at Yahoo have had little interaction with Mayer since she arrived this summer.

Advertising, of course, is Yahoo’s biggest money maker.

The Portugal-born De Castro has a lot of experience here and is decidedly more of a charmer than Mayer.

More importantly, he is a very high-profile hire, as well as a colorful one. He speaks a menu of languages, dresses with a lot of style and is a worldwide traveler. I know him a little bit and find him to be smooth and confident, even if a little cagey.

Before Google, De Castro worked at Dell and also McKinsey.

All this makes him a perfect choice for Mayer, who is also a former Googler, since she has been considering purchasing a range of companies in the advertising tech space. The most likely candidate of late is PubMatic, which has been in early talks with Yahoo about being acquired.

The Silicon Valley start-up would be a solid add to Yahoo’s ad platform offerings, especially if it wants to stay competitive with Google. PubMatic helps publishers effectively manage their display ad inventory, and competes with Google’s AdMeld.

(Ironically, Barrett ran that start-up, which he sold to Google for $400 million about a year ago.)

Here is the De Castro hiring document from Yahoo:

YHOO-20121015-8K-20121015

And here is the official press release from Yahoo:

Henrique de Castro Named Chief Operating Officer of Yahoo!

October 15, 2012

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced today that Henrique de Castro has been hired as chief operating officer (COO). Reporting directly to Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, de Castro will be responsible for strategic and operational management of Yahoo!’s sales, operations, media and business development worldwide.

“Henrique is an incredibly accomplished and rigorous business leader, and I’m personally excited to have him join Yahoo!’s strong leadership team,” said Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!. “His operational experience in Internet advertising and his proven success in structuring and scaling global organizations make him the perfect fit for Yahoo! as we propel the business to its next phase of growth.”

“The combination of Yahoo!’s unique properties with high quality content, its renewed focus on outstanding user experience and its massive reach bring tremendous value to users, advertisers and partners,” said de Castro. “This is a pivotal point in Yahoo!’s history, and I believe strongly in the opportunity ahead. I can’t wait to join Marissa and the team and get started.”

De Castro brings more than 20 years experience leading operations, strategy, partner management and revenue generation for some of the world’s leading brands. Most recently, he was vice president of Google’s worldwide Partner Business Solutions group, where he was responsible for advertising platforms and services for Google’s publisher and commerce partners. Prior to that, he led Google’s media, mobile and platforms organization, where he helped to grow the business significantly. Prior to Google, de Castro spent two years at Dell Corporation, where he managed sales and business development operations across Western Europe. He has consulted for McKinsey & Company, where he advised numerous clients across many different industries. His career also includes senior positions in private equity and advertising businesses.

De Castro will join the company on or before January 22, 2013, or as soon as he has satisfied his obligations to his current employer.

Today, the company is showing off the products it hopes you’ll be watching that video on: New Nook tablets, called the Nook HD and Nook HD+.

The Nook HD is a seven-inch tablet, while the Nook HD+ is a larger, nine-inch device. Both are lightweight, have high-resolution displays and are running on “forked,” or modified, versions of Google Android’s 4.0 operating system.

The tablets are available for preorder today, and are expected to hit stores in early November. They’ll range in price from $199 to $299, depending on size and storage.

If you’re getting a sense of deja vu reading this, it might be because you followed the Amazon event in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, at which the company unveiled its own new seven- and nine-inch tablets with HD displays.

What do you mean, you can’t keep all these HD tablets straight?

In truth, as the tablet market gets increasingly crowded, it gets more difficult to set some of these devices apart, aside from the obvious branding. So AllThingsD went ahead and made a couple of charts that show how these two compare with the Kindle Fire HD, Google’s Nexus 7 tablet and the new iPad.

(More after the charts …)

A few things worth noting: These comparison charts leave out some other features, like microSD, HDMI and USB ports, NFC capabilities, and speaker and camera specs. Also, as manufacturers boast better and brighter displays, you might see more references to PPI (pixel density) and IPS (In-Plane Switching display technology), said to support better viewing angles and richer colors.

And, these are battery life claims from the companies, not the results of our own tests. Battery life tests can vary quite a bit, and in Walt Mossberg’s reviews of the iPad 3 and seven-inch Kindle Fire HD, he wrote that the Kindle Fire lasted for nine hours and 28 minutes, about half an hour less than the iPad, and more than an hour less than the Nexus. The battery claims for the new Nooks are based on tests in which the display brightness is dimmed to around 50 percent, for what it’s worth.

The biggest differentiating factor between these devices has nothing to do with hardware, though; it’s the app ecosystem.

Barnes & Noble, which has seen growth in its digital content business despite disappointing device sales, says there are currently 10,000 Nook-specific apps available. This is a fraction of the apps available in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store, though Barnes & Noble points out that the key apps you’d expect to see — popular social, media, music, productivity and gaming apps — are all there.

The Kindle Fire HD, as Walt noted in his column, also offers only a fraction of the third-party apps available on either the iPad, the Nexus 7 and other standard Android tablets.

Is the Nook app store on a new, attractive, competitively-priced tablet enough to lure consumers? Barnes & Noble Nook sure hopes so.

Update: A previous version of the charts contained an error, which showed the seven-inch Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7 displays with a 1280 by 1800 resolution, instead of the correct 1280 by 800.

Criteo, the performance display advertising company, just nabbed about $40 million in additional venture funding.

The Series D round, led by SoftBank Capital, gives the Paris-based company an $800 million valuation, according to sources, although Criteo declined to comment on the figure.

Previously, Criteo had raised just over $23 million from investors that include Bessemer Venture Partners and Index Ventures.

In an interview, CEO J.B. Rudelle said the money would be used for growing its footprint in the U.S., as well as Japan and Asia, more quickly.

The company has seen quick growth here and the market has already become profitable. But Rudelle said, “This funding is obviously a big step. We are going to use it to accelerate our efforts in key markets.”

Criteo now operates in 32 countries, he said, and it hopes to extend its global footprint as more companies are looking for better performance from online advertising.

“The need for performance to drive display advertising is enormous,” said Criteo president Greg Coleman, referring to “personalized retargeting,” which delivers highly targeted ads to consumers.

Ad tech such as Criteo has become a hot arena of late with larger companies such as Yahoo and Facebook interested in acquiring assets in the space.

For now, at least, it looks like Criteo filled its kitty to stay independent.

Here’s the official press release from Criteo:

Criteo completes €30 million Series D led by SoftBank Capital
Syndicate of investors includes Yahoo! JAPAN, SAP Ventures, Adams Street and Bessemer

NEW YORK — 26 SEPTEMBER 2012 – Criteo, the global leader in performance display advertising, today announced a €30 million round of financing led by SoftBank Capital to support the company’s hyper-growth trajectory.

Profitable since 2009, Criteo has continuously delivered growth, exceeding all forecasts since the company’s founding. The company now serves more than 3,000 advertisers worldwide, with the US being the number one revenue generating market. This new investment will help Criteo to continue reinventing the online display advertising market, with a goal of making it as efficient as search marketing.

JB Rudelle, CEO and Co-Founder of Criteo said: “In a period of high-growth for Criteo, this new financing enables us to invest substantially in innovation, technology and people. In addition, we are very excited to leverage the knowhow and footprint of SoftBank and Yahoo! JAPAN for our expansion in Asia, a very strategic region for us. Overall, the fact that such a sophisticated syndicate of investors has decided to join us is a powerful validation of our unique model.”

Matt Krna, Principal at SoftBank Capital added: “We are delighted to partner with Criteo and help the company extend its leadership in the cost-per-click performance display advertising sector, particularly in Japan and throughout Asia. In speaking with Criteo’s clients and partners, it became clear to us that the company’s analytical, performance-based model offers clear advantages to the entire online ad ecosystem, including consumers.” Mr. Krna will join Criteo’s board as an observer.

Recently Criteo announced an exclusive partnership with Yahoo! JAPAN — in terms of cost-per-click personalized display advertising, it is the first time that a third party technology company has had access to its inventory. To support its growth, Criteo has also recently invested in a state-of-the-art 100,000 square foot R&D centre in Paris, France.

It’s been nice to see all the euphoria at Yahoo about free food and Apple iPhones kicking it up a notch.

But, purple people, guess what? Them’s just your basic table stakes in Silicon Valley these days and pretty much everyone else has had such perks for a long while now.

Thus, as nice as it is to drink your coconut water gratis, after two months in charge, it’s long past time to focus on what new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is up to besides making much-needed but obvious cultural changes at the troubled Internet giant.

She’s been busy with the expected listening tour of employees and also outside tech players — such as former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel — which is a textbook stop in the turnaround playbook.

Now comes the hard part: Actually beginning to make the significant decisions about how she’s going to turn around Yahoo and what the key issues of strategic focus need to be.

In a series of recent meetings, according to numerous sources inside the company, Mayer has begun to outline what those are to top staff.

Not surprisingly, they are many of the same thorny issues that Yahoo has been facing for a long time and which center primarily on making the company relevant again in a wide number of ways.

I’ll get to many of them over the next week in a series of What Will Marissa Do? posts — including looking closely at her new hires, when and how Mayer will deal with inevitable layoff decisions facing the company, where the sale of Yahoo! Japan stands and, finally, what she’s cooking up for key Yahoo products.

But the focus has to fall first of all on search and advertising, the two arenas that Mayer has been studying most closely, according to numerous sources close to the situation.

That has included a recent meeting and numerous discussions with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about improving Yahoo’s search advertising partnership, said sources at both companies.

That deal has been largely disappointing since it was struck under the regime of ousted CEO Carol Bartz several years ago.

Many reasons are given for the poor performance of the entire arrangement, including lack of improvement of cost per click and share growth for both parties. That means bid density and numbers of advertisers remain too low, especially compared to Google’s offering of access to a larger, more active and lucrative market.

Simply put, despite massive spending by Microsoft on search, users and advertisers get significantly better results overall with the search leader Google.

(You can read a great piece by Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan from last year, which exhaustively looked at the issues until then.)

The irony abounds that it’s up to Mayer to fix this problem of improving revenue per search with Ballmer, since she has been among the executives who have made Google the search behemoth it has become.

Her particular expertise has been on search experience for consumers, which is just the area that Yahoo desperately needs to improve after handing over technology duties to Microsoft.

That move was controversial at the time and some feel it was a big mistake. But, most also think there is no going back at this point, given the enormous cost of running a serious search enterprise.

Such an idea is still being raised inside Yahoo, although it seems more nostalgic than a realistic possibility, given the enormous price and, more importantly, the departure of the company’s core search engineers in recent years.

That doesn’t mean Yahoo under Mayer can’t be key to helping solve Microsoft’s search tech problems. She certainly knows the entire arena, which has already given Yahoo increased credibility among Microsoft’s search engineers.

“None of Yahoo’s many CEOs knew anything about search technology and that’s certainly not the case here with Mayer,” said one person close to the situation at Microsoft. “When she walks in, she instantly has status among the geeks as someone who knows what she’s talking about.”

It still may be a losing battle, due to Google’s overwhelming dominance, but if anyone at Yahoo can spot areas of even small improvement — which can yield big returns — it could be Mayer.

In addition, she can spearhead Yahoo’s own efforts to reverse — or perhaps simply stop — search market share declines via delivering a better consumer offering.

That’s still heavy lifting, no matter the exec, since both Microsoft’s Bing and Google are better equipped to win here, too.

“It hard to imagine we are going to slow down in any way,” said one former colleague of Mayer’s at Google to me recently in a rather ominous tone. “We’re only going to get more competitive.”

Pressure much?

And more: Mayer is under a time limit, since guaranteed payments Microsoft agreed to pay Yahoo for the shortfalls on what was promised will be running out next year. The pair has renegotiated that deal before, and it will likely have to do so again.

Of course, Mayer could try to walk and threaten to take Yahoo’s search business elsewhere, a move that former CEO Scott Thompson was mulling before his ouster.

That’s not a surprising ploy, except it is probably impossible to pull off, a fact acknowledged by top Yahoo execs.

“It might feel good to say we have options in search,” said one person close to the situation. “But that ship sailed years ago.”

Indeed, especially since Google is the only choice of possible alternate partners and such a move is rife with major obstacles.

There is the issue of the contract with Microsoft, which could lead to a potentially explosive legal struggle Yahoo can ill afford.

“They can try to get out of the deal,” said one high-ranking person at the software giant. “But that’s a lot easier threatened than done.”

And, there is the clear regulatory hairball any search hook-up between Google and Yahoo would lead to.

That’s happened before, which Mayer knows well since she was a top exec in Google’s business when it tried to partner with Yahoo as a way to prevent Microsoft’s hostile takeover bid for the company.

While times might have changed, Google is currently facing a likely battle with the Federal Trade Commission over its powerful search business, and trying to get Yahoo’s business now is a non-starter.

Thus, finally fixing the Microsoft partnership is key to Mayer’s success since it represents a little over one-third of revenue of Yahoo (see the chart below).

The bigger part of Yahoo’s business, as you can also see from the chart, has been display revenues. And that, too, has been a sorry tale of declines and ever more disappointing results.

A report by eMarketer on display market share had this depressing chart for Yahoo:

As is clear, the march downward for one-time leader Yahoo has been swift, and the prospects for the future are worse as Google and Facebook vie for leadership.

The reasons for this have been myriad, but Mayer has apparently decided that it’s been due in large part to the broken Yahoo ad tech platforms and their ever weaker performance.

As we have previously reported, she has determined that it’s now time to invest in improving them, both by funding internally and external acquisitions.

For that, she has formed a tight group of execs to scan the landscape for tasty and innovative treats for Yahoo to gobble up.

That includes: Scott Burke, SVP of Yahoo’s advertising and data platforms; Brian Silver, who runs the company’s Right Media Exchange; Xuhui Shao, a key engineering VP under Burke; and Mark Morrissey, the longtime tech exec who previously ran the company’s search business and was key to integrating the Microsoft search deal into place.

The cerebral Burke especially has been pushing ad platform improvement for a while and finally seems to have won the battle against detractors of the big and possibly grandiose plan by appealing to Mayer’s interest in not giving up.

Thus, the tabling of plans by Thompson, as well as interim CEO Ross Levinsohn, to outsource some of the automated parts of the display business to Google.

Those talks were very serious, as well as others to sell off Right Media, but they are done for now.

One major issue — the people in charge of the ad platform turnaround could also be seen (and most definitely are) as mired in Yahoo’s legacy of lackluster results and poor performance.

“It is kind of funny that the guys responsible for the decline now have the responsibility for fixing it,” said one source at Yahoo.

It’s a fair point to be made.

But that’s water under the bridge, apparently, since the group has been making the rounds, helped by Yahoo’s M&A execs, with a wide range of companies in many different ad tech area being considered (and some dismissed), including: Mediaocean, Turn, Criteo, PubMatic and Millennial Media.

Millennial is the most interesting, because it is a mobile ad play, where Yahoo is exactly nowhere (to be fair, less than nowhere) after years of botched efforts.

As with other companies, this is a critical arena for Yahoo, and yet one more that Mayer needs to focus on.

Lastly, Mayer has to make sure Yahoo’s premium display business remains strong. This is much more based on relationships with large advertisers than on major sponsorship and branding offerings, as well as creating consumer products and content that is appealing to marketers.

This area is now headed up by former Google exec Michael Barrett, who has publicly said he was staying put for now at Yahoo as its chief of revenue.

In fact, because he is in charge of all sales, he occupies the second slot under Mayer on Yahoo’s now strangely configured, punctuation-impaired and information-free management page.

But numerous sources inside and outside Yahoo said Barrett has also told many people that he is still not fully committed to staying in the role for the long haul.

If he eventually gets a lucrative exit package — something the new boss is not being very generous with overall, said sources — that will mean Mayer will need a high-profile and well-regarded ad exec to replace him; sources said Mayer has already begun reaching out to some candidates.

The pickings are slim, with only a few names on the list of those capable of taking on such a job. That includes: Demand Media’s Joanne Bradford, who was also a former top Yahoo exec; Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi; OWN’s Kathleen Kayse; MLB.com’s Bob Bowman; and any number of Google execs.

In that regard, as with all the other search and advertising overhaul efforts at Yahoo, it is a matter of attracting serious talent into the company going forward.

More on that — and more — to come.

As expected, the electronics company showed off its latest Android-powered smartphone at a press event in New York today, a day after LG unveiled the phone in Korea.

It might not be the new iPhone, but this is far from a budget phone. As my AllThingsD colleague Bonnie Cha writes, the 4G LTE, NFC-equipped phone is powered by Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, which promises speed, power and longer battery life. It has a 4.7-inch, 1,280 by 768-pixel HD touchscreen, a 13-megapixel camera on the back, and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera. It’s running Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich operating system — not the latest flavor of Android — and a feature called the QSlide lets users work in two screens at the same time. It’s unclear whether the phone will be upgradable to Android Jelly Bean 4.1, Google’s newest OS.

The LG Optimus G goes on sale in Korea next week, and will launch in other “key global markets” in October. It will come to the U.S. in the fourth quarter of this year, LG said today. LG didn’t announce which carriers will offer the Optimus G or how it will be priced, but it’s safe to say, since this is a flagship phone, it won’t be priced in line with budget phones. It definitely won’t be free, as confirmed by an LG spokesperson.

The model LG showcased today has 32 gigabytes of storage and is supposed to toggle between 3G and LTE or HSPA+ high-speed networks with minimal impact on battery life, due to its quad-core processor.

But the question for LG isn’t necessarily whether this is a good phone; it’s how LG plans to market this phone in an increasingly crowded Android market, with a handful of formidable smartphone competitors hitting stores this fall, including Nokia’s new Lumia phones, the Samsung Galaxy S III and — oh, yes — the iPhone 5.

LG has tried to strike at both the low end and the high end of the smartphone market in recent months; at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, the electronics maker showed off three phones, the L3, L5 and L7, which run on varying flavors of Android, as well as a range of high-end models, including a 3-D phone and the large-screened LG Optimus Vu. (The Optimus Vu came to the U.S. market this month as the LG Intuition, offered through Verizon Wireless.)

In April, the company launched the Sprint-offered, family-friendly, $99 LTE Viper phone, first announced at CES this past January.

In a recent comScore report on the U.S. mobile market, Samsung led the handset manufacturing market with a 25.6 percent share. LG followed with an 18.8 percent share, down half a point, and Apple came in third with a 15.4 percent share, edging up 1.4 points from a previous report.

When the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is used to read an ordinary eBook, does the book page look like the new Kindle Paperwhite, or ordinary Kindle gray?

A:

Neither. Standard Kindle e-readers, even the improved new ones, use a technology called E Ink, that’s entirely different from the screen technology on the Kindle Fire series. The latter is an LCD screen, similar to what’s on an iPad or a laptop. I found reading a book on the Fire HD to be a good experience, but it’s different from that on a standard Kindle. For instance, like other LCD screens, the one on the Fire has much more glare than an E Ink screen, especially outdoors, even though Amazon claims the new HD has 25 percent less glare than its predecessor.

Q:

Does the iPad have a USB port? Can you attach a memory card reader to the iPad?

A:

It has neither a built-in USB port nor a built-in memory card reader. But Apple sells a $29 accessory called the Camera Connection Kit that includes two adapters, one with a memory card reader and one with a USB port for connecting a camera via a cable. The catch is that these adapters only work with photos, not other types of files.

Q:

Is it possible to run disk defragmentation in Mac OSX (Mountain Lion) and if so, what is the best way to go about doing this?

A:

Apple says its operating system does disk defragmentation—tidying up the arrangement of files for faster access—automatically, so doing so manually is unnecessary. I haven’t done it on my Macs for years. Still, some experts say it’s useful to do so, especially if your hard disk is almost full, or you’re noticing significant slowdowns. There are third-party defragmentation apps for the Mac. One, called iDefrag, can be found at http://bit.ly/M1ODBw. I haven’t tested it, so I don’t know how well it works.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

So, in an effort to stand out from the pack, Toshiba has introduced an eye-catching, ultra-widescreen Ultrabook. Its display is much wider than it is tall, with a 21 by 9 aspect ratio — wider than even the rectangular, 16 by 9 aspect ratio that has become standard for most HD TVs. Called the Toshiba Satellite U845W, this laptop, with its extra screen real estate, is aimed at heavy media consumers and multitaskers.

It measures 14.5 inches by 7.9 inches, and is .83 of an inch thick. At four pounds, it’s substantially heavier than the 2.96-pound MacBook Air, but in line with some other Ultrabooks. It felt surprisingly lightweight when it was open and resting on my lap.