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.

New York magazine just published what will doubtlessly be the first of many larger-scale profile pieces on new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer (Fortune’s at work on one, too).

Titled “Can Marissa Mayer Really Have It All?” New York’s version is a very solid and fair effort that raises a lot of pertinent questions about the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s latest leader.

That, of course, includes pondering the high-profile issues around her coping with a newborn (really new) and work; her carefully crafted public glamour-geek-girl persona that is at odds with her sometimes more tetchy private one; Mayer’s mostly-up-and-then-down-at-the-end career at Google as a key exec; and the myriad challenges she faces in turning around the long-troubled Yahoo.

Writes Lisa Miller quite astutely: “This newest version of Marissa, the mom-geek-CEO, will surely test Mayer’s iterative powers, for she’s playing to a tougher crowd, one that won’t be placated by tweets, Manolos, and rapturous praise for pineapple malts.”

Indeed not, which is why sources said Mayer is likely to begin to make postpartum appearances back at Yahoo as early as this week. She delivered her first child with husband Zach Bogue, whom she dubbed “Big Baby Boy Bogue,” on Sept. 30.

Among the initiatives she has been working on up to and after her son’s birth, said numerous sources, is the redo of Yahoo’s powerful home page, a reorganization of top management duties, and an announcement about whether it will buy back shares or give a dividend from its recent multibillion-dollar sale of part of its lucrative stake in China’s Alibaba Group.

In addition, said sources, Mayer is also putting into place her new methodology of keeping track of employee performance and rewards. There is an all-hands meeting scheduled today, in fact, apparently to go over the system, which Mayer spoke about in her last all-hands meeting.

The home page redo is also in the late-stage works for unveiling soon, said sources. Those who have seen it said it has a starker and simpler design ethos, and will stress user personalization, customization and more social elements. It will also have ample opportunity for third-party developers to offer a variety of services on it (maybe Mayer can save Zynga by copying a little bit from Facebook!).

The reorg will also be interesting. Mayer has made a number of top exec appointments, including adding a new CFO and head of HR. She will also be rejiggering other roles of existing management.

For example, expect tech and operations EVP David Dibble — who got a mess of new responsibilities right before Mayer was appointed — to have some of that dialed back.

The disposition of all $3.6 billion of Alibaba cash is perhaps the most immediate issue, especially for investors, who are largely hoping for a buyback of stock. Such a move will likely cause Yahoo shares to rise, as happened at AOL.

That would be nice, since Yahoo stock has stayed pretty flat since Mayer got to the company in July. (That compares, ironically, to a 31 percent rise at Google since she left.)

But Wall Street analysts and others have been making bullish calls on Yahoo recently, including CNBC’s screamy stock guru Jim Cramer of “Mad Money.”

Boosted by the growing value of its Asian assets — in China, as well as in Japan, which Yahoo is trying to sell — and also anticipating some kind of magic mojo from Mayer, price targets for Yahoo shares have been as high as $22.

That was from Goldman Sachs, which reinstated coverage of Yahoo with a “buy” rating recently. Analyst Heath Terry noted that “while user engagement continues to decline, the company lacks a mobile strategy and significant talent has left the company, Yahoo still has hundreds of millions of users, valuable Web properties, and the financial resources to fuel a potential turn around over time.”

Translated: Yahoo kinda stinks, but it still might be able to buy itself out of this mess with a $10.6 billion pile of dough from Asia.

All eyes will be on the actual business Yahoo operates itself in two weeks on Oct. 22, when the company announces third-quarter results. Sources said the quarter will come in as expected, but will still tell a story of lackluster growth in advertising, engagement and, well, every key part of its native offerings.

That said, Mayer is expected to be on the call — her first at Yahoo — to outline her grand vision in more detail, as a spokeswoman has noted.

That’s good, since shiny profiles of her can only do so much. It’ll be nice to finally hear her say something definitive in public about how she’s going to fix the company that has given the mediagenic exec even more press.

(And, let’s hope, without the tweets, Manolos and pineapple malts.)

As most readers know, I love a good internal memo from Yahoo — and now I have landed a really meaty one.

It’s the “Yahoo! Three-Year Product Strategy” plan, a 21-page report that was completed in mid-2011 by a team headed by former product head Blake Irving.

While it is a year old — and five CEOs ago (no, really) — it’s an important read since it tracks closely to the strategic vision that Yahoo’s latest CEO Marissa Mayer discussed earlier this week at an all-hands employee meeting and, according to sources, is very similar to one she seems to be pursuing.

That includes a focus on personalization, mobile, social, improving Yahoo’s advertising tech platforms and more.

And here’s the centerpiece of goals — called “Five Strategic Elements” — from the Irving memo:

1. Infuse deep personalization using science and data into every consumer and advertising experience we build.

2. Delight our customers with best-in-class products, iterating frequently for constant improvement.

3. Build for connected devices first with localized, in-context, multi-screen experiences in mind.

4. Power real social relationships with features that enable 1:few conversations around content.

5. Build a digital media ecosystem that creates a premium marketplace for advertising and content and distributes Yahoo! experiences across the Web.

Sound familiar?

In fact, at the event’s Q&A part yesterday, one staffer specifically pointed out that her broad presentation to employees sounded a lot like the one Irving had proposed the year before.

Since that was never truly implemented, due to never-ending management crises, the obvious question was asked: “Why would things be different this time?”

Mayer answered that the execution against that strategy wasn’t good and she would have a better model to pull it off.

The memo, embedded in its entirety below, is really instructive to use as a possible roadmap, outlining Yahoo’s challenges, as well as the competitive landscape.

Noted the report, quite clearly: “Yahoo! does not have an audience problem, as we are growing on pace with the Internet. Yahoo! does, however, have an engagement problem, as our share of time spent is flat, relative to our competitors.”

It’s aim is to fix that by building the “One Yahoo! experience, in which each of our current and future products fortifies the whole.”

Easier said than done, especially in building up its ad tech business, as the report adds, zeroing in on its most potent rival:

“To defend and grow our share of the premium advertising market, Yahoo! must continue investing to reach parity where necessary and achieve sustainable differentiation against Google with our premium marketplace and technology stack.”

There’s a lot more than that, so dig in to the document, which suggest a whole lot of spending to turn around Yahoo.

Since Mayer is well on her way in that department — including bouncing CFO Tim Morse, who was very bottom-line wary — more on that, next!

You must now download the full report here, which was removed from DocStoc here after a takedown request from Yahoo’s lawyers.

New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer took to the stage today at the Silicon Valley Internet company’s URL’s Café on its Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ campus to outline — in very broad strokes — her plans for the future.

Very broad, as it turned out, and full of corporate bromides that many in attendance said were very well delivered by the former Google exec.

What she did not show, although Mayer had promised “an act of radical transparency”: Highly specific plans for overhauling search and email, as well as an in-process and dramatic home page redesign. She also said little about what she is going to do with Yahoo’s recent cash haul from its sale of part of its stake in China’s Alibaba.

Instead, it was big picture all the way, with a lot of small details. (It also bears a strong resemblance to plans once pushed by former product chief Blake Irving.)

First and perhaps most importantly, Mayer tried to answer that age-old question of what Yahoo was/is/will be.

Apparently, to Mayer, Yahoo is a company that excels at personalization in its various arenas, from email to content to advertising.

Her goals: To grow users and usage, as well as advertisers and talent, using personalization.

How Mayer was going to do this was a lot more squishy, but her strategy bullets included:

• Yahoo becoming a part of users’ everyday routines.
• A focus on core competencies (whatever that is!).
• Being friendly to partners across a range of companies from mobile carriers to social networks to hardware makers.
• A focus on shifting Yahoo’s platform to mobile.
• An emphasis on thinking big and at scale, which Mayer called the “Rule of 100 Million.” It presumably means attract that much of an audience to various products going forward.
• And, of course, a new push to move faster and take ownership for your work.

Mayer spent a good amount of time talking about this, as well as getting away from what one person described as “consensus culture” and taking too much time to get products out the door.

Increasing feedback loops was also important to Mayer.

If it all sounds a little Tony Robbins, it is, especially Mayer’s focus on what she called the “4 C’s” for talent at Yahoo.

They are: Culture, company goals, calibration (I have no idea what that is, frankly) and compensation.

Yahoo, I am sure, liked that part, although to get more of that, Mayer needs to probably paint a much more specific plan for investors to get excited about.

There are seven billion people in this world and only 1.2 billion computers — but close to six billion cellphones. That makes the commercialization ability and growth potential for the mobile Internet massively greater than that of the PC-based Internet. China, the world’s biggest Internet market, recently surpassed the U.S. in smartphone activation, and the mobile browser is once again coming to the forefront. Here’s why.

In emerging markets such as China and India, the world’s two most populous countries, the mobile browser is a critical channel that connects people to the Internet in ways that the PC browser never did. For many people, it is their only connection point to the Internet — take Indonesia, for example, where linking its thousands of islands by a fixed nationwide network was prohibitively expensive, so they prioritized the build-out of a mobile network.

Since cellphones are much cheaper than computers, and the mobile Internet is much more accessible than fixed-line Internet in emerging markets, users purchase their first cellphones much earlier than their first computers, which sets user habits to surf the Web through cellphones.

In fact, Internet traffic flow on mobile devices surpassed that of the PC in India in May of this year, and the number of mobile Internet users overtook that of the PC in China just a month later.

The graph above is slide 18 from Mary Meeker’s 2012 Internet Trends presentation

In addition to user habit, technological advancement has contributed to the widespread use of the mobile Internet. For example, cloud computing has made mobile browsing work where bandwidth and mobile devices’ computing power are lacking. Before, in many parts of the world, browsing the Web through a cellphone with its native browser was extremely inconvenient and slow. Opening a Web page took almost a minute — intolerable to most users, particularly those accustomed to surfing on a PC. It was also ridiculously expensive. For example, opening a 2MB Web page in China (the typical size of a homepage for popular Chinese Internet portals), would cost 60 RMB, or almost $10. With cloud computing, data can be compressed by 80 percent or more, offering much faster and affordable Web surfing.

With the bandwidth issue easing and mobile devices becoming more capable, the cloud computing technology approach makes mobile browsing accessible to a much larger worldwide population, and gives users an overall improved mobile Internet experience.

Mobile Apps vs. the Browser

People in the industry have made sweeping generalizations like “The Web is dead.” Yes, apps are important, but they will never replace browsers. Internet surfing has gone has through three stages: the first was browser-centered (Netscape), the second was client app-centered (Apple). With Web surfing on cellphones, particularly in emerging countries, the third stage is back to being browser-centered. Here’s why:

• Security. This is a serious issue on cellphones. Installing an app means opening up a myriad of ports, which is like punching holes in a wall. Cellphones are closely connected to a user’s identity and financial information, which attracts thieves. The browser has been created with a high level of security; the browser sandboxes the Web apps running on it, hence providing an extra level of security over apps.
• Service. What users really want is the functionality that an app provides — not the app itself. With the Internet browser becoming more capable, Flash-based games can run on a browser, as can videos. For a long time, people used dedicated video software, but with YouTube, people have become accustomed to watching videos on a browser — and may not need a video player at all. The apps are still there, of course, but they’re morphing into Web apps.
• Standardization. Today we need to develop for different platforms like Android, iOS and Symbian. This takes a tremendous amount of resources from developers, and users are reluctant and annoyed with having to update their apps all the time. But for a Web app, it’s “develop once, run on multiple platforms.”

What’s Next for the Browser

By nature, the browser is a user’s access point to the Internet. Software companies such as Netscape and Microsoft went against nature by developing products as isolated pieces of software. Both Apple and Google are innovation leaders in the Internet industry, and serve as great examples for newcomers. The lesson learned from Netscape and Microsoft is that we should not view the browser simply as a single software tool; instead, it should be treated as an Internet service platform. Google knows this with its platform, and tries to fulfill the needs of vastly different users by enabling them to customize their browsers with plugins and Web apps.

Users turn to the browser for three reasons: Information gathering, entertainment and daily life enhancement. The capabilities browser companies provide must match those service areas, like personalized navigation. Smart technologies can now adjust picture and text size, provide voice control, offer different reading modes or change delivery priorities based on the network environment.

Browser companies gain customers and market share with industry-leading performance, but that is far from enough to build a service platform. To build a global ecosystem of users, there also needs to be a strong business-building component, like account management and billing services, or platforms developed specifically for game use. Dedicated operations teams need to conduct research in market dynamics and actively monitor user feedback to drive timely updates that satisfy the ever-changing needs of users.

Only by focusing on the diverse needs of users wherever they reside can we fully realize the value of the Internet browser. The time is now for the tech industry to take more of a global view of what that means.

Yongfu Yu is the chairman and CEO of UCWeb, whose mission is to provide a better mobile Internet experience to billions of users around the world. Earlier in his career, he was a VP at Legend Capital. Yu graduated from Nankai University in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and minor in computer science.

Even though he is interim CEO, Ross Levinsohn just made a significant change in Yahoo’s tech organization, putting David Dibble in charge of both central technology and core platforms.

Previously, Dibble had been running technology and operations.

The move puts everything from Yahoo’s vast databases to its infrastructure that serves consumers to its advertising products under Dibble.

He is not, as some at Yahoo have perceived the new role, in charge of consumer product development itself. That role still remains with several execs, including Shashi Seth and Mickie Rosen. Yahoo is reportedly looking for a more senior product exec, as well as a new ad head.

But — since it’s Yahoo — the shift is not sitting well with some at the company, since it gives the man in charge of IT a much more expanded role in areas beyond his usual purview. One person likened it to “having an architectural firm run by a plumber.”

Ouch! Still, Dibble is well-regarded as an operator and a technologist and considered one of the more no-nonsense execs at the company.

As part of the move, another longtime Yahoo exec, Mark Morrissey, moves under Dibble as chief of operations for engineering. He used to report directly to the CEO and has held a number of jobs at Yahoo, including working on its search alliance with Microsoft.

Here’s the internal memo about the changes:

Yahoos:

Nothing will enable us to win as much as our ability to execute at the highest levels. We have incredible talent here. We have one of the largest audiences in the world, and we have a myriad of experiences that engage and delight users globally. It’s imperative that Yahoo! execute and operate in a world-class manner. When combined with a true focus on our priorities, growth and prosperity will be the natural outcome. Alignment of our organization and talent against a clear set of actions and goals is essential. To further enable our efforts, I’m pleased to announce the following organization alignment, effectively immediately.

We are bringing together our Central Technology and Core Platforms into one team that will be led by David Dibble. This provides the consumer business units with a single technology team responsible for platforms, technology infrastructure, engineering, science, and operations. It also unifies our key talent behind major projects including Rewire, Alpha, Agile, video technology, mobile technology, personalization and ad targeting, security, and sales tools.

Great technology relies fully on great execution. Great content cannot flourish without great technology. World-class experiences are fully wedded to flawless execution. David has proven to be a world-class operator with a team that operates at remarkable levels at massive scale. Thus, I’ve asked that David also take on broader operating responsibilities for Yahoo!

As executive vice president of technology and operations, David will lead diverse, dynamic, cross-functional program management initiatives and hold teams accountable for key deliverables, including uniting stakeholders in a cohesive product development lifecycle process. This ensures we have the right business case and strategic underpinnings to make our next generation products successful, and that teams are aligned on strategy, objectives, and goals from product conception through launch and subsequent iterations. Product-specific engineering teams for Connections and Media will continue to report into those business units and work closely with the combined group.

Additionally, I am thrilled to announce that Mark Morrissey becomes chief of operations for engineering, reporting into David. In this expanded and pivotal role for our company, Mark leads teams focused on product operations and lifecycle, service engineering, and priority program transitions. He is point for continuing the engineering Alpha initiative and Rewire, our effort to increase datacenter efficiencies. Critical to our future will be Mark’s role in driving our product operations and lifecycle. We must dramatically accelerate how we conceptualize, develop, and go to market with our products. We also must ensure that the company as a whole is fully aware and does their part to capture the potential opportunity. We need to assure the highest quality performance, maximize our marketing efforts and drive both user engagement and monetization. Mark will ensure that we have an agile, yet complete process.

John Kremer continues to lead business operations and the execution of the Alpha initiative, reporting into Mark. John is the executive lead for change management and ensuring the Alpha initiative is executed across the organization with quality and cohesion.

Please join me in congratulating David, Mark, and John. The leadership team and I are committed to making things easier, removing obstacles to our success and enabling Yahoo! to accelerate. I appreciate everything you contribute to the company daily; your passion, drive, and determination are inspiring. Together we are creating the future and defining what it means to be the world’s leading technology powered media company. Much like you, I’m playing to win. We’re in the midst of a revival!

Ross

Let’s begin by drawing the distinction between a tool and a robot. Tools enable us to work more efficiently. Robots do the work for us (in fact, the original word robata means “hard work” in Czech). The vast majority of the Web sites and apps we use today are tools that enable us to work, play and share more efficiently. Over the last few years, through advances in artificial intelligence and data science, Web sites and apps are evolving. There is a new breed of applications focused entirely on working on our behalf. As humans, we constantly seek means to reduce the amount of work needed to reap rewards from a system. While the tools of today allow us to work less, the robots of the future will eliminate much of the work in the first place.

This incredible transformation is happening right before our eyes.

Your Search Robot

A long time ago, we would search for information by painstakingly looking up sources in a card catalog and reading a book. As much of that knowledge moved online, the directory (like Yahoo!) enabled us to browse and find content of interest. In time, the amount of information flowing online overwhelmed the directory — it would simply require too much work to browse the entire Web. Fortunately, a revolutionary tool, search — Google, really — made it very easy to find the documents that contain the answers we’re looking for. But while search presents us with a huge set of choices, it still takes a lot of work to find the answers.

Today, a new technology is eliminating that work by acting on our behalf to find the answers and even solve our problems. Siri is an artificial intelligence client that turns our devices into a virtual assistant. It removes the steps between searching for answers and finding them. Have a question about converting metric units? Ask Siri. Need to order your mother flowers? Let Siri handle that. Need to make dinner reservations for your date Friday? Let Siri do the work for you. And we’re just scratching the surface. We possess the vastness of all human knowledge in our pockets, yet much of our usage is limited to Angry Birds. This transformation to intelligent machines means we no longer have to work as hard to apply the knowledge locked in our devices; they’ll do the work for us.

Your Location Robot

In the 20th century, an enormous yellow book was delivered to our doorstep every year. We would heft this behemoth and flip through hundreds of pages to find a local business or restaurant of interest. Eventually, that process gave way to more efficient tools as local information moved online through apps like CitySearch and Yelp. Recently, via the mobile check-in, we can be presented places of interest and people near our current location. This new layer of geographical context is great, but checking in is still work.

Today, ambient location apps like Foursquare, Radar and Highlight are beginning to do that work for us. By passively monitoring our locations, they alert us to interesting people and places around us. Over time, as they learn our preferences, they’ll be able to filter these places and help us discover the best restaurants and people wherever we are. At last, we are within reach of the “Danger, your ex-girlfriend is in the area!” robot.

Your Personal Robot

Not that long ago, the primary way we would discover new media was through browsing a printed newspaper, magazine rack or record store. As this content moved online, it became much more accessible and real-time. As the option pool grows, we have to put in more and more work to find the content that’s interesting to each of us. There are more and better options than we could ever imagine. But it would take an incredible human effort to find all the needles in the growing haystack.

To address this, many Web sites have offered customization tools for users to focus their experience. But manual customization also requires a lot of work, and it usually fails to paint the rich, dynamic picture of who we are and what we like. Fortunately, a solution is emerging from companies like Pandora (and, full disclosure, my own company, Gravity). Using machine learning, these platforms get to know you based on the things you read about, listen to, or share. They can then move way beyond customization by generating adaptive, personalized experiences that bring the best content on any website or app right to the top. It completely shifts the paradigm from you having to search for information to information searching for you. It’s like having a personal robot who thinks just like you do reach across the Web and return the best music, stories, videos, even daily deals everywhere you go. “Welcome back to ESPN, Amit. The surf report in Venice tomorrow is 3-4 feet, and the Lakers are leading by 10 points at the half.”

All of this paints just a small picture of what’s to come. Imagine the applications in fields like education, health care, or personal finance (wouldn’t you love a robot that does your taxes?). As the Internet starts to work for us, it will enrich our lives in ways we can’t even imagine. I, for one, am very excited that my childhood dream of owning my own robot is finally coming true.

Amit Kapur is the CEO and co-founder of Gravity, a company that makes the Internet adaptive and personalized. He was formerly the COO of Myspace. As an early Myspace employee, he led the development and growth of Myspace Music and Myspace Mobile.

E-commerce site Amazon is taking the first step in bringing the recommendation technology that it is known for to the daily-deals space.

To be sure, no one has yet solved targeting in the space — men are still being offered Brazilian bikini waxes and women get pitched discounts to the barbershop.

But today, AmazonLocal is helping customers build a profile that lets them say what they like, dislike or are neutral about, based on a number of categories, ranging from entertainment and travel to health, beauty and shopping.

“We are reasonably new to to the deals space, but we aren’t new to the personalization experience,” said Mike George, Amazon’s VP of local. “This is a logical extension of a competency.”

For now, Amazon’s first steps are fairly tame.

Users will be able to log in to their profile to specify what they like and don’t like. They will also be able to update their preferences from a specific deal page. The capabilities are nearly identical to ones being offered by both Groupon and Google.

For instance, George said he is not interested in eyelash extensions, or for that matter, any hair-care services, since he shaves his head. “Our engine and algorithms will ensure they don’t end up in my inbox,” he said.

However, the holy grail of recommendations is clearly when consumers get relevant offers without spending any time at all on updating their profiles. To do that, the deals provider would have to know the consumer’s interests and spending habits. Clearly, Amazon is one of those merchants that has that data.

George said that level of integration is not happening today, and declined to provide a road map for when that might be coming.

But you could imagine sometime in the future getting an offer to see Justin Bieber in concert if you’ve purchased his album on Amazon.com, and other parallels between purchases made online and local experiences.

“It’s an interesting thing to think about — the intersection of consumer products and services that are fulfilled by local merchants,” George said. “There are some things that are logical that I believe we will discover that we would never have really thought about. This part is very new to us.”

Yahoo turned in better-than-expected earnings today in its first quarter, and — as usual — I will be liveblogging the call with CEO Scott Thompson.

Yahoo beat Wall Street estimates in its first-quarter earnings report earlier today, with revenues of $1.08 billion and earnings of 23 cents. That’s a gain of 28 percent from a year ago in net earnings and 38 percent per diluted shares.

Earlier:
2:03 pm: We begin with a new investor relations dude, who has replaced Marta Nichols. She is now CEO Scott Thompson’s new chief of staff.

His name is Joon and he seems much more festive than Marta, who was very, very serious.

I could not be more thrilled.

Thompson comes on quickly enough and he is also pretty jaunty.

Yahoo has been “moving very fast” on a range of things. And how — this guy seems to eat Ritalin for breakfast.

But there is still a long way to go, he notes.

“I am not satisfied with the pace of top-line growth,” said Thompson, who added he would not be until Yahoo was keeping up with others like Google, which turned in a much stronger report last week.

He can’t get no satisfaction — but he will!

Thompson said one problem was still its ongoing search and advertising partnership with Microsoft. It’s still rocky in terms of monetization and more.

2:09 pm: But first, it is CFO Tim Morse’s turn to re-read the results that were just released.

I am not actually listening until he gets to the part about Thompson giving more deets soon.

Morse is teeing this up by noting that Yahoo is adding more to its bag of tricks beyond search and display, such as commerce.

This will take investments, which are core to success.

Thompson is back: “This business can and will grow going forward.”

I am holding him to that one!

He starts first by talking about Yahoo’s content business, which remains strong, but he points out the obvious: Engagement is off.

In other words, the kids love Facebook. Also Instagram. Also Tumblr.

That’s why Thompson says he told the staff of Yahoo to rethink it all when he arrived in January.

The conclusion:

“Yahoo has been doing way too much for too long and has only been doing a few thing well.”

As in, jack of all trades, master of none.

“We have to be clearer going forward about what we won’t do,” said Thompson.

2:22 pm: He goes over some specifics.

Shutting down 50 properties — Thompson does not say which, though.

Consolidating platforms.

Dedicating key teams to innovation.

Something else about being nimbler.

Data. Also data. Did I say data?

Research and development only for Yahoo-owned and -operated properties.

That is six points, which will be underscored by better execution.

Thompson has been talking about the “complex processes” that was once called peanut butter by one former exec.

Peanut butter is sticky and that’s the point.

2:26 pm: Oops, when talking about layoffs, Thompson says “PayPal” and not “people.” He used to run the eBay payments unit.

Thompson moves to the board changes — five new members and the jacking of five from previous year.

He then defends his decision to sue Facebook over patent infringement. “Facebook must do the same or change its practices,” he sad.

Thompson adds the company is in “active” talks with its Asian partners, Softbank of Japan and Alibaba of China.

And some news! Talks related to its Japanese assets have a gap in valuation, so Yahoo is focusing on the Chinese ones.

And in summation:

“We don’t have to reinvent who we are, but we do need to reinvent our experiences … We have to move and think like a growth company.”

That would be nice.

2:32 pm: Time for Q&A, in which I like to see exactly how wimpy Wall Street analysts can be in asking tough questions.

The first is asking about some strategery specifics, including whether it can get the cool $1 billion AOL just got from Microsoft.

Thompson talks about the new commerce unit, which will be co-led by someone who worked with him at PayPal. It’s not really new, since Yahoo is in that arena already.

Morse answers on intellectual property issues, noting Yahoo is happy to license its family jewels. Most tech companies use these patents as a defense, but no longer.

The next question is on morale of sales force. I can answer that! Not good!

But Morse says there is progress.

Bygones.

Morse also notes that Yahoo still has search revenue per share guarantee from Microsoft, but that he hopes it will get better before that deal runs out.

Back to Thompson. He wants better results to advertising customers.

He keeps saying “at or above the market rate.” Yahoo’s growth has been lackluster, so this would be a key victory if Thompson could pull it off.

2:39 pm: A question about mobile, which has been one of Yahoo’s most embarrassing holes of all.

Besides Facebook, the kids love those smartphones. You would not know it from Yahoo’s shoddy products.

“We need to get good real fast in mobile … and we’re not there today,” said Thompson. Actually, Yahoo was not there yesterday, either.

Note to Scott: Real fast is a good idea.

There is a question about its advertising platforms, a back-handed way of asking if it is for sale. It is.

Thompson notes that there has been a lot of evaluating, but that “we have not come to a conclusion.”

2:42 pm: A question about its revenues from its Asian assets. China’s Alibaba — which is not run by Yahoo — is doing great.

It’s kind of like being the dude who bought Apple some years ago and is now rich through no effort of his own.

Thompson addresses a question about dividends, which Apple just gave out. Yahoo will be sticking with stock buybacks, so everyone can put away those Porsche catalogs.

I am briefly distracted during some accounting questions by the new Apple ads with Zooey Deschanel. She is so adorkable, it makes me slightly queasy.

Back to Thompson, who is non-answering a question about possible acquisitions. He’s not talking, but I am sure he will be buying if he gets a transaction with Alibaba done finally.

Given the long and convoluted and always aborted deals over the years, this would be cause for much celebration if Thompson pulls it off.

(And, if he does, I pledge to buy him dinner in Boston at the restaurant of his choice!)

2:52 pm: A question of what the heck Thompson actually means when is he talking about using Yahoo’s data.

There are apparently three main places.

Personalization, which is uniquely related content, which gives him a chance to egregiously tout Boston sports teams.

Contextual advertising, which means ads you want.

And data and analysis to advertisers that will help them do a better targeting job. Oh, joy.

A search question, which I have decided to ignore, since I feel search is simply not Yahoo’s business any longer and should be sold off.

But what do I know?

Morse keeps yammering away on “better experiences for our users” by its search team.

Hey, it’s called Google. Then, Bing. And only then, Yahoo.

2:58 pm: Last question, which I missed while I was focusing on search ranting.

And with that, it’s back to the future for Yahoo. Hopefully.

One of Yahoo’s most respected researchers, Raghu Ramakrishnan, who is the author of one of the most famous database textbooks, “Database Management Systems,” has left the Silicon Valley company to join Microsoft. He was also critical to the development of much of Yahoo’s personalization technology.

Sources said the chief scientist for search and cloud platforms at its Yahoo Labs unit will be a fellow on the software giant’s SQL team.

Ramakrishnan, who has been at Yahoo since 2006, is one of many key researchers to depart before what is expected to be a gutting of the company’s research division in upcoming layoffs and other cuts by new CEO Scott Thompson.

None of this exodus of high-level research talent comes as a surprise. Prabhakar Raghavan, the well-respected head of the Yahoo Labs unit and also recently its head of strategy, has recently left the company to take a job at Google.

Ramakrishnan came to Yahoo from a professorship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. According to his bio from Yahoo, he was the “founder and CTO of QUIQ, a company that pioneered crowd-sourcing, specifically question-answering communities, powering Ask Jeeves’ AnswerPoint as well as customer-support for companies such as Compaq.”

A Yahoo spokesperson declined comment (but, trust me, it is true).

I say: Bring on the personalization, as long as we can have some control over our settings and can see what else is out there that we’re missing.

To that end, Yahoo has built a visualization of its “CORE” content optimization and relevance engine technology, which helps power story selection on its home page and other verticals.

CORE calculates a personalized mix of stories for Yahoo Today users 13 million times per day. It has increased Yahoo’s home page click-through rate by 300 percent since being implemented in 2008.

Yahoo brags that CORE is a stunning example of “deep science and great engineering,” but the visualization itself is fairly simple. Visitors to the CORE site can see what content is shown to people of different genders, ages and major American cities. They can also scan through the past 24 hours.

Plus, there’s a real-time counter of the number of views of Yahoo’s home page on a particular day — which continues, of course, to be a whole freaking lot.

Of course, you knew at least a little bit would slip through.

In response to an analyst who asked about the company’s ability to tailor deals to a person’s interests, Mason hinted at new products coming in the first or second quarter.

In addition to being able to get deals based on multiple locations, gender and past buying behaviors, he said, users will be able to vote down deals if they don’t want to receive similar ones again.

So, if you are male, you won’t have to see offers for bikini waxes, or if you are bald, you won’t have to see offers for barber shops.

Mason said, “It allows us to say, ‘Please stop sending me pole-dancing lessons.’ … That’s been a much requested feature.”

Otherwise, Mason quickly and confidently answered inquiries throughout the call.

But he didn’t talk much about future financial expectations, instead emphasizing the company’s merchant services, new investments (such as its mobile products) and new categories (like products and travel).

So far, few details have been shared on the impact of those offerings, including Groupon Now, which is available in 31 U.S. markets and allows customers to purchase deals that can be redeemed in a short time window. Groupon’s travel site has also gotten quite big through the help of its partner Expedia.

Groupon CFO Jason Child explained that all of the investments are really at an early stage, and it’s uncertain how they will be impacted by seasonality or other economic factors.

The strategy remains to invest in the future, Mason said. “The Groupon of five years from now will require investments in technology and innovations. Despite rapid growth, we estimate that we participate in less than 1 percent of all local transactions.”

Still, the forward-looking statements weren’t enough to satisfy investors who were looking for the company to show a small profit.

For the fourth quarter, Groupon reported a net loss of $42.7 million, or 8 cents a share, compared to a net loss of $378.6 million, or $1.08 a share for the same period in 2010.

Mason concluded his first earnings call by saying: “Thanks, guys, this was a lot of fun, and I look forward to many more of these.”

And then the stock was clobbered in after-hours trading, falling nearly 15 percent, or $3.68 a share, to $20.90.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Data it is, then!

Today, if you are trying to find the coolest gift from the hottest gift Web site, the experience can be, well, I’ll let iOS developer Ben Jackson, describe it:

Jesus. @Fab is like a river teeming with starving, design-savvy piranhas. It’s like playing Counter Strike to get anything in limited stock.

— Ben Jackson (@benjaminjackson) December 14, 2011

Enter oBaz, which is either just another online curated boutique, or the next stepping stone on the path to wherever online shopping is headed.

What separates oBaz, which stands for “online bazaar,” from competitors like Fab.com is a major attempt at personalization.

Where Fab offers the same aesthete-targeted deals to every visitor, oBaz attempts to offer visitors a mix of products catered to their tastes. In a sense, shoppers don’t look for a store they like, the store fits around whoever “walks in.”

Or, at least, that’s the idea.

“We’ve organized the deals into ‘aisles’ that users can choose to become part of,” said co-founder Brian Ficho. “Once you choose a few aisles, we can start to target deals to you specifically.”

Personalized recommendations in online shopping certainly aren’t new — Amazon has been offering them for years.

But the online retail giant and others are still fundamentally search-and-destroy-style shopping experiences, targeted at shoppers in search of a particular item.

Eight-week-young oBaz is the brainchild of Ficho and Greg Caplan. The company took seed-stage investment from the founders’ former employer, Lightbank, which invested before this recent pivot.

Lightbank is the Chicago-based venture firm founded by Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, the well-known pair who also co-founded Groupon.

Like most very early-stage companies, oBaz still has lots to shake out before it could hit its stride.

The oBaz team, which now numbers six, is experimenting with different ways to build up a “product interest graph,” which will power its product recommendation engine — much like Facebook and LinkedIn are built on graphs of associations between people.

Its current beta product entices users to help build up their graph by playing a “hot or not” game.

In the game, the site shows a picture of a product to which the user can assign a thumbs up or thumbs down. Those preferences are then used to curate the products offered.

But both co-founders acknowledged their current “game” plan is an incomplete solution to the graph-building problem.

Clever customization aside, oBaz will be faced with the same costs of scaling that weigh on Groupon and every other daily deals site that depend on an ever-increasing flow of offers.

But oBaz’s unique model does give them an advantage. Deal sites like Groupon must constantly seek out new companies to source deals from, because many companies can only afford to use Groupon sparingly.

“At oBaz, we aren’t offering that kind of deal. We can maintain a constant relationship with a merchant, who is really using us to sell extra stock of some item,” said Ficho. “We can see how fast a certain deal takes off, then dial it back so that we only sell as many of something as the merchant has in stock — which means we can sell from that merchant all the time.”

If the future of e-commerce is personalization, then oBaz might be among the first to take a very important step for the retail space: Moving past recommendations in a expansive store and instead rebuilding the store for each customer, while filling it with merchandise that really exists.

Caplan and Ficho stopped by the AllThingsD office for a video interview about the infant company:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111217/obaz-wants-to-rebuild-the-online-deal-site-with-help-from-groupons-founders/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111109/heres-the-video-groupon-wants-you-to-watch-about-its-important-new-feature/ http://allthingsd.com/20111109/heres-the-video-groupon-wants-you-to-watch-about-its-important-new-feature/#comments Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:05:13 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=142603 Groupon just launched a new way for its customers to see the offers they want the most.

And while the Chicago company is notoriously quirky, the video that describes the new feature is neither quirky-funny nor quirky-smart. It’s just kind of … boring.

I don’t suppose they could’ve allocated a bigger budget, or even supplied a costume change or a second venue. That would be ridiculous.

But two Groupon product team members in front of a whiteboard captured by a shaky video camera? That’s just a tad unimaginative for a company that has a CEO who doesn’t mind having a cat on his head.

And, since Groupon just padded its wallet by $700 million in last week’s IPO, it clearly has the dough to do better.

If you can get past the video — and I eventually will — the product is actually important because it could reduce what critics are calling “deal fatigue.”

Deal Types and Places tries to match the right deals up to the right people. Like fewer bikini waxes for men and more restaurant offers for foodies.

On Groupon’s homepage for your local town, you’ll now be able to mark as favorite specific categories, like “Adrenaline,” “Healthy Living,” “Pampered,” or “Good for gifting,” to get more offers that you might actually want. Deal Types and Places allows you to add your work and home addresses as well as cities you travel to often, so you get relevant offers near home and abroad.

If that’s not clear enough, Groupon Product Team members Jeff Long and Suneel Gupta describe it on the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111109/heres-the-video-groupon-wants-you-to-watch-about-its-important-new-feature/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111102/liveblogging-yahoos-product-runway-are-you-in-or-out/ http://allthingsd.com/20111102/liveblogging-yahoos-product-runway-are-you-in-or-out/#comments Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:41:24 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=139502

I am here at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale, Calif., to check out “Product Runway,” which is the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s attempt to show that it can still innovate.

First and foremost is the launch of Livestand, a personalized news reader that is similar to Flipboard and a variety of other rivals, including — soon — Google.

It’s Yahoo’s attempt to present a business-as-usual feel — amidst a long and agonizing and very public strategic overview that might also include the sale of the company (or not!), in the wake of the recent firing of its last CEO, Carol Bartz.

It has caused a lot of trauma inside Yahoo, which can’t help with innovation.

But we press on!

In other words, despite the three-ring circus going on outside, Yahoo wants you to know it is still hard at work.

We begin:

10:35 am: As the strains of U2 die out, Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving takes the stage, which is actually set up in the company’s cafeteria. I can smell lunch being made nearby and I am hungry.

Apt — Yahoo certainly needs to show off a lot of cool stuff or its fate will be cooked.

No pressure, Blake!

“Personally, I am more bullish on Yahoo today,” he said. “What is Yahoo? Simple. It’s the premier digital media company. Period. Stop.”

Oh, if it were only that easy.

10:46 am: Irving pulls out his favorite slide, which looks like a chemistry test. It lists the various elements of the product strategy, with things like personalization, mobile, premium.

Now to Livestand, which is available on the Apple iTunes app store right now.

Don’t all rush at once!

Irving notes that Livestand is more than just an app — it is a platform.

In other words, Yahoo wants to help publishers publish online. Kind of a Facebook of content.

If Yahoo can pull it off, that is. (And, of course, unless Facebook decides to do the same.)

10:50 am: Livestand is an HTML5 “personalized living magazine.”

“This is the way Web pages are going to look,” declares Irving. Which is to say, heavy on photos, swoopy navigation, a television screen-like interface.

Irving uses the example of Surfer magazine, which is a good idea since waves always look pretty. Especially in a video-in-frame with Kelly Slater in Hawaii.

But, in essence, for anyone who has used Flipboard for years now, none of this is entirely different.

10:54 am: The look of what would be the Yahoo News page is actually much more interesting, since it is clearly a whole lot better than the Web page.

Irving also shows off a “living ad” — in this case, an unusually snuggly couple on a couch. It is cool, but creepy.

When launched, the ad has tap points. Irving — naughtily declaring about what is an ad, “I’ll tap that” — taps the lady’s butt, which would also have been my move. We learn about the jeans, of course.

10:58 am: Irving then shows off the ability to add feeds.

Next, something called “Cocktails.” First up, a developer tool called Yahoo Mojito and Yahoo Manhattan, which is a hosting service. The company will open-source both the technologies in 2012.

Irving brings up Mike Kerns, VP of Personalization & Social, who came to Yahoo when it bought the innovative sports fan site called Citizen Sports.

“We like to ship sh#t,” he notes. I like Mike Kerns immediately.

Kerns intros C.O.R.E. No, it is not a secret government organization that takes out fussy bloggers, who might be more critical than Yahoo execs would like.

In fact, it stands for “content optimization relevance engine.” Of course it does.

Simply put, C.O.R.E. is trying to link the right content or whatever to the right consumers and who likes what. Ladies like this, dudes like this. Apparently, “men of multiple ages” enjoy stories about golden chicken.

11:11 am: Kerns is moving on to social, especially its integration with Facebook. While much touted, sources tell me it has gone slower than expected in terms of use, but that it is improving.

Kerns talks about the idea of matching content to conversations to interests and, well, you know — the now exhausting world of modern media consumption.

The world in which you can no longer simply read an article and enjoy it — you must comment, share, discuss, parse, tweet.

Does anyone remember when you read something cool and just kept it to yourself?

Forget it, pal! It is a full-information society now and you better get on board and start poking your friends about every little thing.

(Personally, I plan on becoming a hermit in 3 … 2 … 1.)

11:18 am: Now Tim Parsey, who is Yahoo’s design head. He is hands down the most delightful exec the company has had in a while, mostly because he loves to smirk adorkably.

He shows off Yahoo’s first original design, which was a dull list. And then another really bad logo. But Parsey loves it! It’s kitschy!

Smirk attack!

Parsey moves into what has to happen now, which is to deliver a much more emotional experience and a much better designed one. He uses words like “humanism.”

Say what? He is right — Yahoo has for too long completely ignored design as an important part of the experience.

That’s why Flipboard was so quickly touted — it was pretty and fun. And it is why everyone is simply forced to love Apple products.

11:22 am: Parsey even has a code for it, called REM — for rational, emotional and meaningful.

He shows off a weather app. People take photos and they can be used in the app. Then Yahoo Mail for the iPad, whic is also handsome with photos and video. Livestand, also pretty.

“Great way to differentiate,” says Parsey. He calls it “one Yahoo!” Indeed.

11:35 am: I’ll admit it. After Parsey-fest, I zoned out for a sec when IntoNow dude, Adam Cahan, comes up.

Donut emergency!

Back to IntoNow, it’s the television indexing service that Yahoo bought in April.

Essentially, more ways to watch the media — in this case, video — and do 53 other things at the very same time. Memo to humanity: We will all be paying continuous partial attention for the rest of eternity.

Like I said: Hermitage!

11:41 am: Product dude Irving is back, making a point that, despite all the public mishegas, Yahoo has been busy at innovating.

A redo of email, better search, social “Facebar” with Facebook, Flickr for Google Android.

Irving is correct — Yahoo’s engineers have been hard at work and deserve kudos for doing so, even with attrition issues, stock declines and questions about the company’s very future being debated daily.

The problem is that too many of these improvements are mostly incremental and essentially table stakes for tech companies, most of whom have introed many more significant innovations in the same time frame as Yahoo has.

Google did Android, Google+ (as well as some notable failures). Microsoft did Kinect, Windows Phone, Windows 8. Amazon did Kindle Fire. Facebook did a range of major updates, as it has grown like a weed.

And there’s Apple. You might have heard of the iPhone and the iPad.

You get my point. Yahoo’s Product Runway today is well done, but what it really needs to be is just the beginning of a take-off.

11:48 am: Now Q&A time.

The first question is what took so long to get Livestand out, the second is why should people use Livestand since Flipboard and others have already been around for a dog’s age.

I ask about design — mostly because I want Parsey to use the word “delicious” a lot — and also about all the turmoil around the company and its impact on product creation. (I decide not to mention that Yahoo blew its acquisition of the bookmarking site, Delicious, and then sold it.)

Parsey delivers on the delicious scale, noting that Yahoo must have one design experience and yet has a lot of different interfaces. In other words, it cannot be Apple, but it can feel a lot more cohesive.

Irving talks a little bit around the obvious elephant in the room — the future of Yahoo — noting that the product staff was trying to focus and forget the storm going on outside.

“We have dreams about what this company can be,” says Irving.

You and me both, brother.

12:04 pm: More questions that are too detailed for my tastes, since they have delivered lunch and I can see it and I am ravenous.

As Parsey might say: It looks deliiiiiccccious.

Now, let’s hope Yahoo can do even more tasty stuff.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111102/liveblogging-yahoos-product-runway-are-you-in-or-out/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111027/google-pumps-up-its-groupon-killer-by-adding-more-than-a-dozen-partners/ http://allthingsd.com/20111027/google-pumps-up-its-groupon-killer-by-adding-more-than-a-dozen-partners/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:00:25 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=137050 Google is aggressively expanding into the daily deals space by partnering with 14 daily deals providers. And — no surprise here — Groupon isn’t one of them.

Eric Rosenblum, Google’s director of product management for Google Offers, said the deals business is all about getting relevant offers. “In order to do that, you need a lot of good deals. Even if you have one good one every day, it won’t satisfy everyone,” he said.

Google Offers launched its first city in June, having to start from scratch after Groupon rejected its $6 billion buyout offer. Today, it is already in 17 U.S. markets, including four launched this week.

In those markets, the goal to date has been to offer one deal a day, sold by its own sales force. Now, through partnerships, it will be able to offer consumers more than a dozen deals daily.

The participating deal providers: Dealfind, DoodleDeals, HomeRun, Juice in the City, PopSugar Shop, ReachDeals, Tippr, Kgbdeals, Gilt City, Active.com, GolfNow, Mamapedia, Zozi and Plum District.

The additional offers will first be offered in San Francisco, and will be rolled out more widely in the coming weeks.

Aggregation is not new; however, no one has cracked the code yet on personalization and targeting — not even Amazon. Men still are being offered Brazilian bikini waxes; women get pitched discounts to the barbershop.

Rosenblum believes that by having a wider selection of offers, and by asking people what their preferences are, Google Offers will be able to offer a more tailored experience.

When consumers sign up, a quiz asks them about the types of deals they want, and where they work, live and hang out. That information, which is optional to share, will be used to deliver multiple offers that match the shopper’s interests, all in one email.

In a blog post, Google says, “If you’re not the outdoorsy type and you don’t love spa treatments, then we won’t send you deals for zipline adventures or hot stone massages.”

“People do feel overwhelmed by information,” Rosenblum said. “They want to have the best deals for them and most relevant deals for them — it’s very user-centric.”

Google will also handle the payments and redemption process, so users don’t have to remember which provider they purchased a deal from. Some of the technology being used was acquired through its purchase of the DealMap. Rosenblum would not disclose the terms of the partnerships.

Despite its late entrance, Google has done fairly well so far. Over the past two weeks, the search provider has launched in eight cities. “Google is feeling quite bullish about this, and we are expanding quickly,” Rosenblum said. “We are now doubling down and picking our partners. Our deal density goes up by 10x in all of the cities.”

More recently, Groupon has been asking people for personal information so that it, too, can provide tailored offers. In some of its bigger markets, it’s typical for Groupon to have a handful of offers every day.

In a pop-up bubble on deals, Groupon sarcastically says, “This Time It’s Personal: To see exciting sequels to today’s deal, start adding your Deal Types and Places near you!”

The Groupon pop-up inquires about how far the deal is from the shopper’s home, and asks the user to answer a simple question. On an offer for auto detailing, it asks, “Want deals like this one? If so, click that you love that new-car smell.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111027/google-pumps-up-its-groupon-killer-by-adding-more-than-a-dozen-partners/feed/ 0