Prabhakar Raghavan

Yahoo Confirms Hiring of Former Microsoft Exec Blake Irving as Chief Product Officer

Kara Swisher in News on April 19, 2010 at 6:15 am PT

Yahoo said it has hired former Microsoft exec Blake Irving as its chief product officer. Reporting directly to CEO Carol Bartz, Yahoo said in a statement, Irving will “lead the company’s products organization, which is responsible for the vision, strategy, design and development of Yahoo!’s global consumer and advertiser product portfolio.” The move confirms a post BoomTown wrote last week about Yahoo’s efforts to hire the longtime Microsoft exec, whose last job there was corporate VP of its Windows Live Platform group.

Yahoo Demos Cool Etch-a-Sketch Mobile Search App and New Search Dude Shashi

Kara Swisher in News on February 10, 2010 at 10:30 am PT

BoomTown will be hoofing it elsewhere today, so I am missing Yahoo’s search event at its Sunnyvale campus this morning. Thankfully, I was at the Silicon Valley Internet giant earlier this week, getting a grilling from CEO Carol Bartz, and was able to talk to both Prabhakar Raghavan, SVP of Yahoo Labs and Search Strategy, and new hire Shashi Seth, the company’s SVP of Search Products. Both talked about what the items on today’s agenda–a six-months’ look back at Yahoo search innovations, its upcoming Olympics shortcut on the search page and a new mobile search app that uses a kind of Etch-A-Sketch drawing technology–using fingers, not keywords–to help users find stuff.

Weekend Update, 05.23.09

Oliver J. Chiang in News on May 23, 2009 at 5:17 pm PT

This Weekend Update is particularly exciting because of all the things happening here at All Things Digital. There is, of course, the upcoming D7 Conference, which promises to be more tech-extravaganza fun than a tweet from @sockington (if only half as cute), but this past week has also seen the launch of our very own iPhone app, meaning that ATD has gone mobile–smart news for your smartphone (we’re still working out potential taglines).

Yahoo Search Guy Raghavan Speaks! (Actually, He WOOs!)

Kara Swisher in News on May 20, 2009 at 2:58 am PT

Yesterday, Yahoo’s top search execs had a little sit-down with reporters and bloggers, including BoomTown, about some of the search innovations it has been working on. After the presentation, which focused on open, mobile, consumer intent and the “Web of objects, not pages,” which Yahoo is calling WOO (no, really, WOO), I got a chance to chat with Yahoo’s Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs and Yahoo Search Strategy, about all that, as well as competition with Microsoft and search leader Google.

Liveblogging the Yahoo Search "Chalk Talk": Kill the 10 Blue Links!

Kara Swisher in News on May 19, 2009 at 12:05 pm PT

BoomTown liveblogged Yahoo’s “chalk talk” about search earlier today, which was an update of what the Internet giant is up to in the competitive space that includes Google and Microsoft. Presenting at the event were Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs and Yahoo Search Strategy; Larry Cornett, VP of Consumer Products; and Marc Davis, chief scientist of Yahoo Mobile. In summary: Kill the blue links! Intent! Objects! Open! Mobile! And, most of all, WOO!

Get Ready for a Liveblog of the Yahoo Search "Chalk Talk": No Word Yet on Erasing Google's Market Share

Kara Swisher in News on May 19, 2009 at 10:33 am PT

Later today, as BoomTown reported last week, Yahoo is putting on a search party. Well, not a “party” party–although there will apparently be some lunch noshing at the “Search chalk talk,” during which top techies at the Internet giant will talk up the strategy for its more innovative products. At its HQ in Silicon Valley last week, Google put on a similar show-off about its latest search innovations, as both it and Yahoo brace for the launch a major overhaul of the search offering of Microsoft, which is expected soon. I’ll be liveblogging the Yahoo event, which begins at 11:30 a.m. PDT.

This Week, Google Talked Search; Next Week, Yahoo Does–a.k.a. Kumo-FUD

Kara Swisher in News on May 14, 2009 at 3:47 pm PT

Suddenly, search! Earlier this week, Google put on a show called “Searchology” about its latest search innovations at its Mountain View HQ. And next Tuesday, Yahoo will trot out its search extravaganza, called “Search chalk talk,” during which top search techies will talk up its more innovative products, such as Build Your Own Search (BOSS) and Search Monkey. Could all this search blabbing have anything to do with a certain upcoming launch of a new search offering by a very rich and even more determined giant tech company? As in: Microsoft and whatever it ends up calling its redone search product, code-named Kumo.

Yahoo Search Gone Wild?

Kara Swisher in News on July 10, 2008 at 8:47 am PT

Did Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang have an extra bowl of Wheaties recently? If so, it could be a very good thing. In what is most definitely much more than a glimmer of innovative spark for Yahoo, the company has opened up its search technology to allow anyone to build their own search engine in a project dubbed BOSS.