Whatever you want to call him or her — a silver bullet, the cure or, as I like to say, the last unicorn — Yahoo’s ever-seeking and never-deciding board has now renewed its focus on finding a new CEO.

Also on the docket: Working on a deal to sell back at least some of its stake in its twin Asian assets — Yahoo Japan and the Alibaba Group — back to the companies. A partial sale of stock back could placate the often tense situation among the partners.

What is clear is that the two bids from private equity firms are now in an undetermined circling pattern — due to a variety of concerns around shareholder unrest (Occupy Yahoo looms for 2012).

Therefore, the idea of bringing in said fantasy leader to perhaps finally be the one to revive the long-troubled company has returned to the forefront of action, according to numerous sources both inside and outside the company.

The concept in short, said people familiar with the situation: Hire some compelling and entrepreneurial CEO to get the company moving again from a product point of view, do a massive organizational overhaul and help settle Yahoo’s thorny Asian issues.

While a number of names have been rumored in reports — such as Google business lead Nikesh Arora, who is actually not likely to leave his top post at the search giant — sources said the board has been targeting a number of candidates, including Hulu CEO Jason Kilar.

Others on Yahoo’s wish list include Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson and online advertising entrepreneur Brian McAndrews, who sold aQuantive to Microsoft. There are several others also being considered.

Sources said Kilar has met with Yahoo board members about the offer, but his hiring would be a long shot.

It’s an interesting — if complex — gambit to bring in Kilar, who has had his own wrangles with the multi-owner structure of the premium video service over the years.

Kilar’s status at Hulu has been in question ever since it was put on the block, then removed and then — well — who knows.

Hulu’s owners — News Corp., Disney and Providence Equity Partners, along with Comcast (which is a now a passive investor) — did not like the offers it got from various bidders, including Yahoo.

While the media giants have made noises about wanting to keep a stake in distribution, their commitment to that remains unclear.

The situation has put Kilar — who already had tense relations with the service’s shareholders — in limbo until a valuation is determined next year. Without going into the complex details, Kilar has a large equity stake that could be liquid in April, related to certain rights held by Providence.

It is well known that Kilar has been concerned the team that built Hulu gets some sort of payout for their work. In fact, many years ago, Hulu was seen as a possible IPO candidate.

What’s not in question is Kilar’s talent at creating a cohesive team and a compelling product — especially with an advertising and media focus — and the need at Yahoo for a vibrant leader to encourage innovation and discourage its rapidly increasing attrition issues.

The search for a new Yahoo CEO — which is being led by director Patti Hart, and is being conducted by Heidrick & Struggles — had been mostly sidelined until recently, as the board solicited bids for a partial investment from PE firms.

Two emerged, from Silver Lake and TPG Capital, which had wanted to pay from $16.50 to $18 a share for a stake of just under 20 percent in what is called a PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity) arrangement.

But the low price, and worries about lawsuits and even a proxy fight related to such a deal, have slowed down the momentum significantly, said sources.

Instead, Yahoo has told bidders it will get back to them in the coming weeks about the direction it will take. Thus, the focus on lining up CEO candidates and plans related to reviving Yahoo.

Some of those possible execs have put their hand up, while others — like Kilar — are being solicited. In addition, some still think that Yahoo board member David Kenny remains an internal option, especially if the board of Yahoo gets a refresh, despite his recent announcement that he has no intention of seeking the job.

In general, this shift should not come has a surprise for the hurry-up-and-wait board of Yahoo, which has struggled over the years to make good choices for the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

That drift has resulted in a downturn in its prospects, even as other companies have surged.

Those troubles were brought into sharp focus in a recent report by new Goldman Sachs Internet analyst Heath Terry, who strafed Yahoo in his “sell” recommendation.

Among the gems by an analyst whose investment bank is currently an advisor to Yahoo on its strategic options:

Yahoo simply faces too many competitive and structural headwinds to believe any kind of meaningful turnaround is possible. While there is significant asset value on the balance sheet and in the company’s large, though increasingly less engaged user base, we continue to believe, as we have since before the first Microsoft offer, that the segment of management driving the company is intent on trying to revive Yahoo as a company, regardless of the cost to shareholders.

And, noting the need for a new CEO:

We would become more positive if we felt there was a likely event in the near term that might unlock the value of the balance sheet assets at Yahoo. While we believe the aggregate value of those assets is above the value reflected in YHOO, in order to be more positive on the stock we would need some proof that management is willing and able to take the steps necessary to unlock that value either through a sale or distribution to shareholders. Meanwhile, the declining profitability of the core display advertising business is masked by a search business that continues to lose share and relies on artificial support from Microsoft. We would become more positive on the core Yahoo business if the company is able to find a new CEO capable of focusing the business on its core advertising and communications opportunities, rationalizing costs, and driving growth. This would require user growth and especially engagement improvements in both online and mobile, improving monetization of advertising inventory, and stabilizing its search business.

In other words: Wanted, one unicorn to work magic against increasingly troublesome dragons. Ability to sparkle a plus.

What an amazing coincidence.

On the very day Yahoo’s board is considering actual bids from two private equity firms interested in deals to buy close to 20 percent of the company for between $16.50 and $17.50 a share, comes a spate of eerily similar breathless media postings that there’s another bid in the making for $20!

That’s totes better, right? I mean, how can Yahoo’s directors accept a real live lesser-priced bid now when there’s a prettier one in the fog just ahead?

No, really, it’s there — if you squint really, really hard.

Except it’s not even close, when you actually check with two of the key members of the group of alleged buyers, which would apparently be Blackstone, Bain Capital and Yahoo’s Asian partners, Alibaba Group and SoftBank.

Sources close to Blackstone and Alibaba said while there have been talks, which have been previously reported weeks ago here and elsewhere, there is no bid in the offing that is close to fruition and at that price.

In an unusual public statement, in fact, Alibaba’s John Spelich said flatly: “Alibaba Group has not made a decision to be part of a whole-company bid for Yahoo.”

This from a company whose voluble CEO Jack Ma is prone to making giant and noisy speeches to signal his interest in finding a way — any way — to get back shares of the Chinese Internet giant from Yahoo.

Not this time, and several sources close to Alibaba reiterated that it was nowhere near close to any bid as yet and that a price is still up in the air. In addition, sources added, Alibaba might decide to work with another PE group, such as Providence Equity.

In addition, sources noted that if Alibaba could strike an adequate deal with private equity bidders to get a large chunk of the stake back, it would be highly preferable to a hostile takeover of Yahoo that could end in tears and little else.

“The threat of a takeover is more useful than the damage an actual takeover would cause for everyone,” said one person close to the situation. “No one wants this to be unfriendly.”

So why the rumors — doubtlessly being spread around by hopelessly cynical Wall Street types interested only in stock manipulation — surfacing today?

Simple: To get some easy-to-play media outlet to bite, report it as speculative fact and cause the stock of Yahoo to take flight tomorrow.

Hey, it could happen!

Sadly, this junior-league trick has already worked — Yahoo shares were up a dollar to $16.72 in after-hours trading tonight.

It is likely to go even higher tomorrow, which could cause the board of Yahoo to delay accepting either of the partial bids from Silver Lake or TPG Capital, even if they were the best thing for the company and its employees.

Except that the job of the Yahoo board is to evaluate what’s before them and not what is perhaps, someday, soon, wait-by-the-phone, really soon, I promise is going to be delivered.

In fact, several sources noted that it’s not clear if the Yahoo board has even asked for parties to submit whole-company bids yet.

When and if Yahoo’s board does that and if something better actually does come down the pike, with a much fatter price tag of $20 or more, then the directors can mull that over.

That would be the prudent thing to do for the company, its employees and its shareholders, even if Yahoo’s stock gets a temporary lift now.

Maybe I am just a hopeless Silicon Valley romantic and not a hardened Wall Street M&A type, but the survival of Yahoo is the real point here, rather than the lining of bankers’ already fee-stuffed pockets.

And anything other than that is just fog.

One of Yahoo’s biggest problems — brain drain — has turned out to be an asset for private equity firms and other players interested in figuring out their best moves related to the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

A plethora of ex-Yahoos, including many former top execs, are getting buttonholed by those who want to know more about the inner workings of the company that might not be obvious from its copious financial data available publicly.

That includes former Americas head Hilary Schneider, who has a longer-term consulting gig with TPG Capital, one of the several PE firms that has recently signed a non-disclosure agreement with Yahoo; former COO and President Sue Decker, who has had a longtime informal relationship with Blackstone, which has not signed the NDA and has been in talks with Yahoo’s Asian partners, China’s Alibaba Group and Japan’s SoftBank; and even former CEO Carol Bartz, who sources say has also been contacted to get her insights.

She is one of many in that regard, in a large pool of former Yahoos, such as: LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, who had run Yahoo’s media efforts; Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig, former Yahoo COO; SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg, who ran swathes of Yahoo’s entertainment properties; Criteo CEO Greg Coleman, former Yahoo sales head; former CEO Terry Semel, who is now an investor; former communications exec Brad Garlinghouse, who is now at AOL; and Demand Media Chief Revenue Officer Joanne Bradford, who also was a top Yahoo advertising exec.

Not all are cooperating with the requests for a chitchat about Yahoo, but there is much incoming interest in ex-Yahoos and what they might know.

There’s lots more where that came from, from all parts and all levels of Yahoo, given the breadth of the exes now doing very well — thank you very much — throughout the tech and media industries.

Thus, calls from PE firms, from Silver Lake to Bain Capital to Providence Equity Partners, as well as interest from major and majorly irritated shareholders, such as activist hedge fund investor Dan Loeb.

It’s a smart idea to tap this rich vein of information, as all contemplate possible multi-billion-dollar investments.

While some of these execs have not worked at Yahoo in many years, all have significant knowledge about the challenges and also the culture that cannot be gleaned from spreadsheets.

They also know a lot about the internal politics and personalities of the existing inside players, too. More importantly, several were involved in similar previous major business decisions at Yahoo.

Decker, for example, was a key exec in the Yahoo takeover attempt by Microsoft several years ago; Schneider and Bartz were deeply involved in striking the advertising and search partnership with Microsoft.

“Between everyone, it’s a good way to figure out where all the bodies are buried,” said one person close to the situation. “And there are a lot of bodies.”

Score one for Yahoo, it seems, getting some key private equity firms to sign its restrictive non-disclosure agreement to allow them a special peek at its business.

And now that includes Silver Lake, which has already had several discussions with Yahoo management and its board members, including co-founder Jerry Yang.

Silver Lake, which has perhaps been among the more aggressive of the possible bidders for Yahoo, had been a significant holdout over the NDA, because of provisions it felt were too onerous.

That included restricting “cross-talk” among the variety of suitors interested. Sources said Silver Lake had been discussing various scenarios related to Yahoo that might take a consortium of players to realize.

It seems it will agree to none of that, for now at least, joining several others who have also signed on the dotted line of secrecy. While Yahoo could have agreed to changes in the NDA, sources said the one Silver Lake agreed to was the same as others previously signed.

Those NDA-ready PE firms include TPG Capital and KKR. As of today, other bidders — such as Providence Equity Partners, Bain Capital, Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman — have not yet signed the document.

Yahoo had extended a deadline for doing to into this week, but firms can also get involved in later rounds of talks.

In addition, signing the NDA is not the end of the road for those who do not — Yahoo is a prominent public company and there are plenty of sources to talk to about its prospects.

But getting cooperation of Yahoo management could be critical, unless a bidder is contemplating making an unsolicited offer.

And that would be a tough road — just ask Microsoft.

Most of all, getting everyone to sign is important for Yahoo, which wants to control any sales or investment process and wants to avoid bidders taking control of its fate.

Thus, Silver Lake accepting the NDA is a big deal, since it had been considering hooking up with China’s Alibaba Group in a possible bid for all or part of Yahoo.

In addition, it has had success in a smaller but similar scenario around Internet telephony giant Skype, which it eventually sold to Microsoft for a lucrative upside.

As with Skype, Silver Lake is still working with Andreessen Horowitz, as I had previously reported. In fact, principal Marc Andreessen was present in a recent informational meeting Silver Lake had with Yahoo’s Yang.

I asked Silver Lake for comment about the NDA, bur it, um, deflected my swooping inquiry (inside joke alert!).

On the site, shoppers add — or “follow” — celebrities and experts who share similar interests, to receive recommendations on the latest food, fashion, design and style.

In that way, OpenSky pushes product ideas to shoppers, somewhat in the way Twitter lets people discover information versus having to search for an answer on Google.

Caplan told me OpenSky has raised $30 million in fresh capital to continue building out the business.

The New York-based company, with offices in Los Angeles and Nashville, is only six months old and previously raised $19 million in two prior rounds.

New investor Providence Equity Partners led the financing. Existing investors Highland Capital Partners, Canaan Partners and the Raine Group also participated.

Some of the company’s talent includes celebrity chefs such as Bobby Flay and Italian food expert Lidia Bastianich, and pop culture figures like actress and reality TV star Kristin Cavallari, who will advise customers on the latest fashions.

In a recent offering, Flay, who has 164,626 followers, advised shoppers to purchase a spice bundle for $23. Fitness guru and motivation speaker Gabrielle Bernstein recommended a collapsible Hula-Hoop that’s easy to travel with.

Caplan said it’s an approach that’s really resonating with shoppers, particularly women in their 30s.

He said the company will break $1 million in sales this month and is on track for a $10 million run rate. Both order volume and revenues are growing 50 percent month over month.

The company already has 600,000 members signed up; they are now connecting to millions of shopping “experts.” It took the first 14 weeks for OpenSky to hit one million connections, 10 weeks to get its second million and three weeks to reach its third million. Customers are spending $50 on the average transaction, which is more than double Amazon’s average order of $22, Caplan said.

“This feels like such a modern way to shop, compared to the search box,” Caplan said. “There’s not a lot of soul in online shopping. We are putting the soul back into shopping.”

He added that walking into actual stores is engaging and entertaining. “I think Amazon is a fantastic company, and they have a lot of things they do really brilliantly, but I don’t think it’s the best way to shop.”

Many companies right now are challenging the original e-commerce model, and for good reason. Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker noted in a report last week that e-commerce makes up 8 percent of overall commerce in the U.S. today, and continues to climb.

Caplan said the capital will be used to add more shopping verticals and experts to the site. Today, it has 75, with hundreds more coming.

As the former president of About.com, which relied on a distributed workforce to contribute answers to the site, Caplan believes he knows exactly how to get the business to click.

To make money, OpenSky is splitting the gross profit from the items sold with the experts on the site. It’s free to join as a member, and there’s a 90-day money-back guarantee. So far, it has experienced a 1 percent return rate.

“I personally love businesses where you partner with talent and create talent,” he said.

HULU EQUITY OWNERS ANNOUNCE DECISION TO TERMINATE THE HULU SALE PROCESS

Los Angeles, New York & Providence, RI – October 13, 2011 – The following is a joint statement from Hulu owners News Corporation, Providence Equity Partners, The Walt Disney Company and the Hulu senior management team:
“Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners, we have terminated the sale process and look forward to working together to continue mapping out its path to even greater success. Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu.”

So that ends one chapter of the odd Hulu story. Not a shocking end, because it has never been clear that Hulu’s owners — who include Comcast, Disney and News Corp., which also owns this site — actually did want to hand it off to someone else.

I can save myself some work by quoting from the piece I wrote back in June, when the sale process kicked off, sparked by an overture from Yahoo:

… while it’s natural to think about who might be interested in buying Hulu, it’s the wrong question. The right one: What are Hulu’s owners selling?

More specifically, what kind of content licenses are Hulu’s three broadcast owners — News Corp.’s Fox, Disney’s ABC, and Comcast’s NBC — willing to part with?

Because it’s the TV shows from those three companies that give Hulu almost all of its value. And while those shows have helped Hulu build a big Web business very quickly — Hulu has said it’s on track to generate $500 million in revenue this year — that’s not nearly as important to Hulu’s owners as their core TV business.

That fundamental tension is what led to Hulu CEO Jason Kilar’s Web outburst in February this year, and it’s what has underscored the networks’ recent renegotiations of their distribution deals with the site.

And all of that has been going on while the networks own big equity stakes. If they sell that, then those tensions only increase. Or, put another way: They’ve got even less incentive to make Hulu work. …

So once again we’ve got diverging interests at Hulu. But if push comes to shove, I’m betting on the guys who own the content. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t end up selling a thing.

Next up: Now that Hulu’s owners are keeping the site, what will they do with it — and who will run it? Jason Kilar is still CEO, but prior to this summer’s auction he’d spent months butting heads with his owners, who don’t see eye to eye with him on many things. My gut is they’ll offer him a significant incentive package to stay, but that it won’t be enough.

Is this investment-banker-hype week and nobody told me?

It certainly seems so from all the almost ridonkulous rumors about everyone and their mother being “imminently poised” to make a bid for Yahoo.

In fact, the process is only beginning to chug along with the Yahoo board, aided by Allen & Company and now Goldman Sachs.

At this point, it is lots of folks rubbernecking, books being prepared and all the other stuff bankers do to look like they are busy, busy, busy.

Among the most serious players: Silver Lake and a shifting group; and a consortium that includes former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin and Providence Equity Partners.

And, just slightly, News Corp. (which owns this Web site) is considering dipping a very small toe in as part of a larger group.

That has been copiously reported here and elsewhere a badillion times already.

But — and I have been clear on this, as have others — no one is near anything of substance, which has not stopped this really lame game of Clue being pumped up by bankers who should know better.

Yesterday, it was Silver Lake, DST Global and the Alibaba Group in the billiard room with foreign money. Nope, nope, nope. Silver Lake and DST are indeed looking hard and Alibaba is a player here, but there is no grand troika going at this moment.

In fact, Alibaba’s Jack Ma — after declaring he was “very interested” in buying Yahoo — has since backed off.

And today, it’s a thinly sourced and carefully worded report of Microsoft in the basement, interested in bidding with a pile of their own dough.

How can I put this delicately? How about: No.

According to my sources, throughout this entire process Microsoft execs have taken pains to make it clear that they are not going to be among the bidders in any significant manner.

In addition, the company has also been communicating with bidders that — while Microsoft is interested in a stable Yahoo, given their search and advertising partnership — it would not throw in with anyone in the process yet.

And, finally, if a winner eventually emerges, it might — and this is only might — consider making a token investment to help get the deal completed.

Certainly, Microsoft has been and is willing to talk to anyone interested, said sources, given their Yahoo business relationship. But this does not make it a bid of any shape or size. They are not even “considering” it, unless that means watching from a distance.

I suppose in some incredible shift Microsoft could change its mind, but most credible sources I spoke to said that is not happening now.

In fact, after its bruising and failed takeover attempt of Yahoo several years ago, said multiple sources, Microsoft now has the deal it wants with Yahoo.

“Why buy the cow when you can get the search and advertising deal for free,” joked one person close to the situation.

A range of major players interested in acquiring all or a large piece of Yahoo have been prepping possible bids and have been in touch with the Internet giant’s board over the last several days.

While Yahoo has publicly said it was not for sale, according to numerous sources both inside and outside the company, it has been receptive to the interest and its Chairman Roy Bostock and Co-founder Jerry Yang have spoken to several.

Among the possible players: Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, which is working with private equity firm Silver Lake, in a deal that also might include Russia’s DST Global and Yahoo’s Japanese partner Masa Son; former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin, who is partnered with Providence Equity Partners; and the possibility that Yahoo’s Chinese partner, Alibaba Group, might consider entering the fray in what could be a reverse merger of sorts.

Also being rung up by some of the parties: Microsoft — Yahoo’s advertising and search partner — which is being seen as a possibly moneybags in any deal.

The movement among these investors is against a backdrop of increasing pressure for Yahoo’s board, after it fired CEO Carol Bartz last week. In the wake of the dramatic move, shareholders have upped criticism of Bostock and the board and have been looking hard for alternatives.

Today, that included hedge fund investor Daniel Loeb of Third Point, which has a 5.1 percent stake in Yahoo. In a filing this morning, he said he might increase that amount, and described a testy hour-long phone call he had earlier this week with Bostock that ended abruptly with a hang-up from Yahoo.

Sources said Loeb called Bostock a “fool,” among other not-so-nice names, on the call and asked for Yang’s help in dumping him.

This comes as exactly no surprise, given his previously strong letter in which Loeb called for Bostock’s ouster.

Loeb has been calling out Bostock — who is also on the boards of Morgan Stanley and Delta Airlines — for a series of gaffes at Yahoo since he became chairman in 2008 (he’s been on the board since 2003).

Those have included: Yahoo’s bungled effort to stave off a takeover by Microsoft several years ago; the too-long enthusiasm for Bartz, who was hired in early 2009 and fired last week; sitting unusually still as competitors such as Facebook, Google and more have out-innovated and outgrown Yahoo; and, of course, the falling knife of a stock, which has dropped precipitously since Bostock has been in charge of the board.

As Loeb wrote in a letter he sent to the company last week:

“It is time that certain members of this Board were held accountable for its past failures and their individual roles. Accordingly, we insist that Mr. Bostock, who championed Ms. Bartz’s hiring and led the charge against the Microsoft deal, promptly resign from the Board.”

Loeb is likely to add to that later today at a high-profile investor conference in New York, where the colorful but tough-talking investor is sure to add more logs to the fire.

But it not only him. Other major shareholders of Yahoo are also in touch with possible outside buyers, seeking a change at the long-troubled company, after its shares have remained in the doldrums, its attrition rate of employees has spiked and its product pipeline has slowed to drip.

This has all been taking place — of course — during one of tech biggest and most innovative booms, in which Yahoo competitors have grown strongly.

Enter Marc Andreessen, the well-known entrepreneur who has transformed himself into one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful venture capitalists.

He and his partner Ben Horowitz recently pulled off another similar deal — with Silver Lake — to take control of a then-troubled Skype. They later flipped it to Microsoft for a large return.

Sources familiar with the situation said the pair have become increasingly intrigued by the situation at Yahoo and believe that its assets and brand are still strong, despite its management turmoil in recent years.

One problem is the huge cost of almost any kind of takeover and also the complexity, given much of Yahoo’s $18.5 billion valuation is due to its Asian assets.

The sale of those shares, as well as the selling off of some of Yahoo’s less core properties, makes for a very complicated situation for anyone.

Said one person looking at the company: “It is one of the more massive hairballs around.”

That is a common sentiment among many of those looking at Yahoo, which has hired Allen & Co. to manage the process.

Also of worry is a bid that would include too many players. Yahoo has long been plagued by indecisiveness on the part of its execs and, mostly, its board.

But one thing all the possible buyers of Yahoo, as well as an increasing number of its shareholders, agree on: The Yahoo board needs a major shake-up.

As Loeb wrote last week, which many I interviewed also echoed:

“This letter details our principled demands for sweeping changes in both the Board of Directors (the “Board”) and Company leadership, and outlines the hidden value of Yahoo, which has been severely damaged — but not irreparably — by poor management and governance.”

The Yahoo board will be meeting in Silicon Valley tomorrow to discuss a wide range of worrisome issues facing the troubled Internet giant.

Meanwhile, several sources said, even more private equity investors are weighing making major investments in the company, all pretty much aimed at ousting said directors.

So far, that has only been Third Point’s Daniel Loeb, whose massive hedge fund now owns 5.1 percent of Yahoo.

Loeb appears tomorrow at the high-profile Delivering Alpha investor conference in New York at 2 pm PT, where he is expected to take another swing at Yahoo’s board.

His next moves, sources said, could include buying up more shares to put the pressure on and also presenting his own alternate slate of directors, much as activist investor Carl Icahn did several years ago at Yahoo.

Translation: Forget AOL’s CrunchGate — this is big-boy corporate battling!

Add that to the pile on Yahoo’s board meeting agenda, along with some other critical issues that include: Outlining the criteria for any CEO candidate and a discussion of headhunting firms to hire; a review of strategic alternatives, including a presentation by its investment advisors, Allen & Co.; and how to stabilize the company and reassure its dusting-off-their-resumes employees.

Finding answers to these questions is going to be difficult enough, but the ever increasing pressure from outside investors is going to make it even harder.

Some definite tire-kickers reportedly looking at a bid include Providence Equity Partners, Silver Lake, Blackstone, Texas Pacific Group and even KKR.

While KKR has reportedly close ties with Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, he is now the main target for pretty much everyone else.

That includes Loeb, as well as other major Yahoo shareholders.

That’s no surprise: Bostock, who is also on the boards of Morgan Stanley and Delta Airlines, has presided over a series of gaffes at Yahoo since he became chairman in 2008 (he’s been on the board since 2003).

Those have included: Yahoo’s bungled effort to stave off a takeover by Microsoft several years ago; the too-long enthusiasm for CEO Carol Bartz, who was hired in early 2009 and fired last week; sitting unusually still as competitors such as Facebook, Google and more have out-innovated and outgrown Yahoo; and, of course, the falling knife of a stock, which has dropped precipitously since Bostock has been in charge of the board.

As Loeb wrote in a letter he sent to the company:

“It is time that certain members of this Board were held accountable for its past failures and their individual roles. Accordingly, we insist that Mr. Bostock, who championed Ms. Bartz’s hiring and led the charge against the Microsoft deal, promptly resign from the Board.”

Said another source with knowledge of the situation: “Under Roy’s leadership, this weak and bumbling board took too long to fire a clearly failing CEO and now has no plan, except throwing up their hands and hoping someone comes along.”

Here is one certainty: Someone is going to come along and it is not going to be pretty.

According to sources at the company, Yahoo’s Carol Bartz is no longer CEO of Yahoo. CFO Tim Morse has been named interim CEO.

The situation around what is clearly an ouster is uncertain, but Bartz has had a very rocky tenure in her 32 months at the company.

[UPDATE: Yahoo confirmed the departure of Bartz in a press release outlining a reorganization.]

Bartz also sent a stunning email to staff, saying she had been ousted:

To all,

I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.

Carol

Several sources said the board, specifically Chairman Roy Bostock and Co-founder, as well as director Jerry Yang, acted today, informing Bartz by phone of the need to make a change.

What the next steps will be are unclear, but Yahoo needs desperately to explore a range of strategic changes to bring it back to its former glory.

But Wall Street liked the move, with Yahoo stock up more than six percent already in after-hours trading.

Sources said Morse held a call with Yahoo’s senior staff this afternoon, telling them Bartz was out and that a search for a permanent CEO will be commencing.

Why Yahoo’s board did not name a new leader immediately is curious and might indicate a larger deal around Yahoo is in the offing.

As I wrote earlier today, when the Internet giant announced on January 13, 2009, that it had hired longtime Silicon Valley tech veteran — who was well-regarded for her tenure at running Autodesk — to replace outgoing CEO and co-founder Yang and turn around the company, there was much hope.

At the time, she presented a take-no-prisoners image and was touted as someone with a reputation as a professional manager who could clean up the place.

Not so, as it has turned out.

While Bartz has streamlined certain areas and made some strong management hires, her performance has been decidedly bumpy and mostly downhill.

The share price has settled in at about $12.50 (just about where it was when Bartz took over), Yahoo’s recent financial results have been weak, its key advertising business is struggling, its attrition rate among engineers and others is startlingly high and its product innovation cycle seems stopped up.

Add to that: Weak relationships with key Asian partners, a pricey but failed marketing effort and a proclivity for embarrassing verbal gaffes by Bartz.

Still, given that Yahoo’s Internet traffic, top media sites and brand remain huge, the going-sideways situation has again caused some investors — including powerful private equity firms and other monied investors — to pull out their spreadsheets about a variety of scenarios related to Yahoo.

The players who have sniffed around of late are powerful, sources said, including Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin and Providence Equity Partners, among others. Also in the Wall Street rumor mill recently are large companies: AT&T, News Corp. and Verizon.

All the schemes are different — ranging from taking it private to making a large investment to splitting it into parts — although they all seem to require cooperation with Yahoo to get done.

And while there is no serious effort afoot as yet, there have been increasing signs of late that Yahoo’s board is ready to listen to any serious offers, said multiple sources, especially as the company has continued to drift under the leadership of Bartz.

While board chairman Bostock has publicly backed Bartz — after all, he was her biggest champion at the time of her hiring — multiple sources said he had started to become more involved at looking at the management issues at the company and its challenges.

Yang — still a key figure at Yahoo — has also become more active, said sources, and tensions between him and Bartz have increased over the last few months.

The increasing pressure on the directors of the company from its major shareholders to act has gained in recent months, said sources.

Thus, Bartz is gone and the next chapter in Yahoo’s corporate drama begins.

[Photo credit: Asa Mathat for All Things Digital]

Related posts

• As Yahoo Continues to Wobble, Investors (And Board) Eye Options
• Exclusive: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Tim Morse Named Interim CEO
• Carol Bartz’s Last F%*& You — Now Aimed at Yahoo Board
• Yahoo’s Statement on Bartz Ouster
• Wall Street Likes Bartz’s Firing — Yahoo Stock Spikes on News
• My Picks for Yahoo’s Next CEO — Maybe Snoop Dogg, Ya Digg?

When Yahoo announced on January 13, 2009, that it had hired longtime Silicon Valley tech veteran Carol Bartz to replace outgoing CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang and turn around the company, there was a sigh of relief.

At the time, she presented a take-no-prisoners image and was touted as someone with a reputation as a professional manager who could clean up the place.

Not so, as it has turned out.

While Bartz has streamlined certain areas and made some strong management hires, her performance has been decidedly bumpy and mostly downhill. (Update: And this afternoon that ride took her straight out the door.)

Consider: The share price has settled in at about $12.50 (just about where it was when Bartz took over), Yahoo’s recent financial results have been weak, its key advertising business is struggling, its attrition rate among engineers and others is startlingly high and its product innovation cycle seems stopped up. Add to that: Weak relationships with key Asian partners, a pricey but failed marketing effort and a proclivity for verbal gaffes by Bartz.

Still, given that Yahoo’s Internet traffic, top media sites and brand remain huge, the going-sideways situation has again caused some investors — including powerful private equity firms and other monied investors — to pull out their spreadsheets about a variety of scenarios related to Yahoo.

The players who have sniffed around of late are powerful, sources said, including Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin and Providence Equity Partners, among others. Also in the Wall Street rumor mill recently are large companies: AT&T, News Corp. and Verizon.

“It’s hard to ignore all that value sitting there and not being managed properly,” said one person who is considering a variety of investing options related to Yahoo. “And it’s not like AOL, whose assets are so weak, so it seems like an opportunity.”

All the schemes are different — ranging from taking it private to making a large investment to splitting it into parts — although they all seem to require cooperation with Yahoo to get done.

And while there is no serious effort afoot as yet, there are increasing signs that Yahoo’s board is ready to listen to any serious offers, said multiple sources, especially as the company has continued to drift under the leadership of Bartz.

While board chairman Roy Bostock has publicly backed Bartz — after all, he was her biggest champion at the time of her hiring — multiple sources said he has started to become more involved at looking at the management issues at the company and its challenges.

Yang — still a key figure at Yahoo — has also become more active, said sources, and tensions between him and Bartz have increased over the last few months.

While this might, as often happens at Yahoo, lead nowhere, what’s clear is the increasing pressure on the directors of the company from its major shareholders to act.

“You watch an asset like that degrade and it makes you furious,” said one investor. “After a while, you hope it makes the board at Yahoo feel the same.”

Yahoo declined to comment (but so would I).

Related posts

• As Yahoo Continues to Wobble, Investors (And Board) Eye Options
• Exclusive: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Tim Morse Named Interim CEO
• Carol Bartz’s Last F%*& You — Now Aimed at Yahoo Board
• Yahoo’s Statement on Bartz Ouster
• Wall Street Likes Bartz’s Firing — Yahoo Stock Spikes on News
• My Picks for Yahoo’s Next CEO — Maybe Snoop Dogg, Ya Digg?

That will end the first step of a sales process that began in late June, when the video site hired bankers and started chatting up other media companies. Next up: A more complicated discussion about what, exactly, buyers would be buying.

People familiar with the process think Hulu’s owners — Disney, News Corp., Comcast and Providence Equity — are expecting bids of at least $1.5 billion for the site and its licenses. (News Corp. also owns this Web site).

Hulu’s original investors valued the company at $1 billion back in 2007; bankers floated a $2 billion number when they floated an IPO last year. But the final purchase price could move around, depending on what Hulu ends up selling.

It’s possible, for instance, that some of Hulu’s owners could hang on to their stakes, which could push the purchase price down. Alternately, a buyer could ask the company’s network owners to increase the length of Hulu’s exclusive online license, and end up paying even more for those rights.

News Corp. COO Chase Carey alluded to some of the uncertainty during his company’s earnings call yesterday, when asked about the sale (emphasis added; transcript via Seeking Alpha):

I’m not going to speak too much of the way Hulu’s running the process. We’re obviously partners, so I think probably they are the right ones to speak to. It is obviously ongoing, and I think, progressing largely according to plan, but for us, I think we’ll see where it ultimately ends up. And I think for us, it’s still a decision to see where — what it looks like at the end. Does it make sense to pursue that path or does it make sense for us to stay in an ownership position and continue to have it driven by content owners. But I think it’s on course and on schedule, but I’ll let Hulu speak to it in more detail.

Assuming there is a sale, my hunch is that Yahoo is still the most logical buyer. The list of potential buyers, of course, is a very big one, with everyone from Google to Apple to Amazon taking a look-see. Here’s a rundown of the players from last month.

You would think the settlement of a major dispute would goose the stock of a company, but Yahoo’s deal with its Chinese partner Alibaba Group on Friday did exactly the opposite.

Despite the clearing of an obvious overhang to its shares, the stock of the Silicon Valley Internet giant dropped almost three percent Friday to close at $13.10. While the ongoing federal budget wrangling was partly to blame, it was only a very small part with an overall market decline of under one percent.

A tepid reaction to the deal — in which Yahoo, Alibaba and Japan’s SoftBank came to terms over the spinoff of Alibaba’s Alipay payments unit after much wrangling over the move — came quickly from Wall Street analysts.

A report titled “Yahoo Inc: Alipay Agreement: Better than Nothing, But Not That Great,” by J.P. Morgan’s Doug Anmuth, was typical. Pointing to no clarity on an IPO of the Chinese assets of Alibaba and that “prior to the divestiture, Alibaba Group owned 100% of Alipay and all of its income, which is now reduced to 37.5% ownership of Alipay and 49.9% share of the pre-tax income,” he noted that Wall Street “has recently assigned no value to Yahoo!’s share of the asset.”

Well, less than zero, if the stock decline is taken into account, which means Yahoo’s market cap is now just over $17 billion.

According to sources close to the situation, especially since Yahoo’s Asian assets make up more than $9 billion of that valuation, private equity investors and others are pulling out their spreadsheets once again about a possible takeover or privatizing of Yahoo.

Several months ago, for example, former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin had been contemplating a friendly bid with partners such as Providence Equity Partners and others. While there have been rumors recently that he has reengaged in that effort, that is unclear.

Sources also note that Yahoo’s top execs, especially CEO Carol Bartz, and also members of its board, are perplexed that the settlement in China — a positive development — had the opposite effect on the stock.

It’s part of a continuing decline. Yahoo shares are down almost 26 percent in the past three months. Most Web stocks — such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft — are strongly up in that period. The only other obvious laggard is AOL, which is down almost 16 percent in the past three months.

Here’s a handy helper for those following the fate of the Hulu premium online video service, whose noisy efforts to sell itself have gotten a lot of attention of late:

“In preliminary talks” = “hawking itself to one of a half dozen big moneybag tech companies who will visit with Hulu’s bankers and management to see its presentation at Morgan Stanley’s office in Century City in Los Angeles.”

Last Friday, for example, that meant a look-see for Microsoft execs, to show the software giant the story of how paying top dollar for the popular Hulu would be a great investment.

This week, sources said, Yahoo will get the expected gander at the books too, among the other companies targeted by Hulu as part of a sales process in its very early stages.

Among those companies on the short list, sources said, along with Microsoft and Yahoo are: Google, Verizon, AT&T and Amazon.

None of these should come as a surprise, since they all have a big interest in the digital distribution of content business.

Google is perhaps the most interesting and difficult of the group, due to both its massive YouTube unit and the even more massive interest by government regulators about its disturbing massiveness.

Amazon is the company that seems most suited as a Hulu buyer, since it already makes its business selling and distributing content. In addition, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar was a former exec — bringing a certain level of familiarity and presumably much less of the grumpy disgruntlement that he experienced with Hulu’s current media giant owners.

Microsoft seems like the longest shot and least enthusiastic, although it certainly could afford it.

As for Yahoo: Good lord, it needs something sexy to tell weary investors.

Not in the initial round, but other possible acquirers Hulu is targeting: Facebook, Netflix, Samsung and Liberty Media.

And definitely not among those kicking the tires: Disney, News Corp. and Comcast, the trio of partners who own Hulu, along with Providence Equity Partners.

The big question, of course, is whether media-focused Apple — a notorious buyer of almost nothing — would be interested in Hulu.

These blind dates with the best possible buyers will presumably give each insight into Hulu’s business and give Hulu information on what they are looking for.

Sources who have heard the pitch said Hulu is positioning itself as an inevitable competitor to cable, which seems an odd position to take, unless it can get regular access to the kind of top-drawer content that consumers want.

And that will be the most important issue for anyone buying Hulu: The time and terms of rights to the television and movie content on the site, which has been a critical part of its success.

Buyers I have interviewed said Hulu has to offer at least an 18-month license for its content and a pile of rights to hit shows to differentiate itself from competitors.

As Peter Kafka wrote, Hulu buyers would indeed get exclusive content, but with strings attached.

He also noted that the latest content licenses for Hulu’s owner/partners — Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox — have recently been completed, deals that will stay intact if Hulu is sold.

Unlike Netflix, which has had to pay top dollar for a small pile of premium content while deftly using a large archive of older content to attract subscribers, Hulu’s success has had a lot to do with more access to popular current shows offered by its media giant owners.

Those shows include TV hits such as “The Office” and “Glee.”

That access has become a point of contention with those owners, who have differed with Hulu management about what comes next for the mostly advertising-supported site, even though its slick product has been a clear hit with consumers.

Of course, some speculate that Hulu might not sell at all, just as it never went public as it had said it might do previously. In that case, it will be interesting to see what will become of Hulu once the music stops.

(And, if anyone would like to email me the Hulu presentation or notes on it, please do, so I can formulate a bid myself!)

But, until this deal churns slowly, leakily and loudly forward — let’s enjoy some apt Hulu content. As usual, the fun version of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” by the kids from “Glee” was not available on the site.

Thus, I selected frequent “Glee” guest star Gwyneth Paltrow belting out Joan Jett’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me” on the show, as a good alternate metaphor for the sales process:

While no one inside or outside Myspace owner News Corp. expects fireworks and giant piles of money, the tire-kicking for the long-troubled social-networking-turned-entertainment site actually starts Wednesday.

That’s when about a dozen interested parties will finally get a walk-through of the books and more by management and the serious talks begin.

But, said several sources, despite a variety of reports of various interested buyers, no deal for the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Myspace is imminent with any one of them.

Instead, most expect some kind of outcome within two weeks at the earliest.

Among the possibilities is anything from an outright sale to partnership that continues to involve News Corp., which has engaged Allen & Co. to conduct the sad proceedings.

Among those in the fray are, as has been reported, music video network Vevo, owned by several media giants. It is the most prominent strategic suitor for Myspace.

But talks with Vevo are preliminary, as are all others.

In fact, most of the others interested are as expected: moneybag private equity players, such as Providence Equity Partners and Silver Lake Partners. Both have been in discussions with News Corp. in earlier efforts to offload Myspace.

Interestingly, Criterion Capital Partners, which bought AOL’s Bebo social networking site for less than $10 million last June, is not in the bidding as yet.

Neither is Zynga, the San Francisco casual gaming start-up. Various stories had rumored of its interest in Myspace, but they are inaccurate. In addition, neither AOL nor Yahoo seem likely bidders either.

And it goes without saying that the Silicon Valley social networking site that did Myspace in–Facebook–is also not a buyer. So too Google, which–back in the headier days–handed Myspace a fortune as part of an ill-advised advertising deal.

In any case, whoever buys Myspace needs a lot of patience, which seems to have run out at News Corp., where top execs take turns bashing it to shareholders.

That’s no surprise. After a laudable though glacial redesign as a music and entertainment hub last fall, traffic has declined 44 percent in a recent month from a year ago, to 37.7 million unique visitors in the U.S.

Worse still, the News Corp. unit that houses Myspace showed an operating loss of $156 million in the recent quarter, mostly related to a severe drop-off of advertising revenue at the site.

That plunge in fortunes will surely have an impact on the price buyers are willing to pay for the once iconic brand.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

As part of the shift, Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger and News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey may give up their board seats, the people said, potentially distancing the two men from day-to-day decision-making at the Web-video joint venture.

The move to a smaller board is an attempt to streamline operational decision-making within the venture, one of the people familiar with the plans said. Hulu’s board until recently has included 12 members, according to a list on its website, including three each from three media companies that have at times differed on strategic direction. It remains unclear how many people would remain on the board under the plan being discussed.

Hulu declined to comment. A spokesman for Disney and a spokeswoman for News Corp. also declined to comment.
Hulu is jointly owned by News Corp., NBCUniversal, Disney, Providence Equity Partners and Hulu employees. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal (and All Things Digital).

Read the rest of this post on the original site

If you’re in a select group, that is. One person familiar with the site, owned by a joint venture of broadcasters and Providence Equity Partners, says the initial test could be limited to 10,000 people.

The Hulu Plus pitch, as I’ve previously reported: $9.95 a month for access to a deeper catalog of shows than the free service currently offers, plus the ability to watch it on devices other than a laptop or PC, including Apple’s (AAPL) iPad. Other reports this month indicate that the service may also be available on Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox and Sony’s (SNE) PS3 game consoles.

I’m also told that Hulu’s network owners–GE’s (GE) NBC, Disney’s (DIS) ABC and News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox–are still hammering out rights deals for particular shows. So it’s possible that the launch could be pushed back or that the service will have weird gaps in its catalog when it does launch.

One example of a possible programming stumbling block: Viacom’s (VIA) “Comedy Central” has rights to older episodes of NBC’s “30 Rock.”

Hulu says it is already turning a profit from ad sales and is on track to generate more than $200 million in revenue this year. A successful subscription service would beef up those numbers.

It would also accomplish an equally important goal for CEO Jason Kilar: Mollifying his network owners, who worry that Hulu is cutting into their existing businesses, including licensing fees, DVD sales and conventional TV advertising. Hulu and its network partners would split the $10-per-head fee, I’m told, though I don’t know the formula the JV will use to split up the dollars.

No comment from Hulu. The Wall Street Journal is also reporting on Hulu’s plans.

It’s not going away. In response to questioning from the Federal Communications Commission, NBC has described its version of the incident.

But the GE (GE) unit doesn’t want everyone to see what it has to say. At NBC’s request, a large chunk of its statement has been redacted.

See for yourself, courtesy of MediaBistro’s Alex Weprin, who has been going through NBC’s filing (click image to enlarge):

The text that NBC hasn’t blacked out is relatively straightforward, and it’s consistent with NBCU boss Jeff Zucker’s comments in February: Hulu blocked Boxee because it streamed Hulu’s content without using Hulu’s wrapper.

And those comments still appear to contradict Hulu CEO Jason Kilar’s original position, which is that he blocked Boxee because his “content providers requested” that he do it.

So what about the rest of NBC’s statement, which we can’t see? Got me.

The bigger picture here is that both Comcast (CMCSA) and NBCU need to convince Washington that their proposed merger won’t consolidate enormous power in the hands on one company. Which is of course exactly what the merger is supposed to do.

But one way to appease lawmakers may be some sort of “hands off Hulu” pledge, whereby Comcast promises to leave access to the site unfettered. Question: Is that what NBC’s partners–News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, Disney’s (DIS) ABC and Providence Equity Partners–have in mind, too?

UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times’ excellent Joe Flint notes that NBC has also revealed Hulu’s plans to launch a subscription service. And not surprisingly, it has blacked out that stuff, too. (Luckily, you can read about the broad strokes here).

The deal reportedly will be announced Monday.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

With over 200 individual communities, it’s a mix of professional and user-generated content aimed at engaging passionate fans.

A former AOL (AOL) exec, Bankoff (pictured here) has worked on such products as TMZ.com, Moviefone, MapQuest and Netscape, as well as its AIM and ICQ messaging offerings.

After that, he became a senior adviser to Providence Equity Partners.

SB Nation has raised about $13 million in total venture funding from Accel Partners, Allen & Company, Comcast Interactive Capital, as well as angel investors such as Ted Leonsis and others in Silicon Valley.

People familiar with the situation said SB Nation’s post-investment valuation, after its most recent round last summer, is about $30 million.

SB Nation has used its funding to grow like gangbusters, especially since Bankoff arrived in late 2008 as chairman and CEO.

While it has been around since 2003, founded by DailyKos’s Markos Moulitsas and others, the start-up has been aiming more at the sweet spot of local sports pages, especially as newspapers have become weaker.

Here’s the video of my interview with Bankoff, as well as a tour of its D.C. HQ:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100504/lets-go-to-the-videotape-sb-nations-jim-bankoff-speaks/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20100331/hulu-were-profitable-booming/ http://allthingsd.com/20100331/hulu-were-profitable-booming/#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:26:39 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=17953 Hulu turned two years old a few weeks ago. And now it wants to throw itself a party, in the form of positive PR.

The joint-venture video site–owned by News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, GE’s (GE) NBC, Disney’s (DIS) ABC and Providence Equity Partners–hasn’t uttered a peep about its finances until this week. But now Hulu wants the world to know it is making a profit and that ad sales are booming.

Hulu says it generated “over” $100 million in revenue last year and turned a profit in the last quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010. The company says it will pass the $100 million figure by the middle of this year.

That revenue total is a gross number, so you can subtract more than half the amount from the top. That’s because Hulu gives anywhere from 50 percent to 70 percent of all ad sales to its content partners, who supply its programming. And bear in mind that the company is footing the bill for at least a billion video streams a month.

But I double-checked with the company, and when it says “profitable,” it means “profitable,” as in net income after all expenses, taxes, depreciation, etc.

So even if the number isn’t huge, a profit is well worth bragging about, because I can’t think of another Web video company that has claimed one so far. And that includes Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, for the time being.

What put Hulu over the hump? Getting CEO Jason Kilar to say anything of interest about his company is pretty much a futile exercise, but I tried anyway, and got this response: “We’re a distribution business. And a lot of that is a function of how you manage your business, and getting scale, and we’ve been very fortunate to achieve both.”

And that’s about as candid as Kilar gets in public.

The downside for Kilar is that his network owners are still not entirely comfortable with the company’s model, and are worried that all the free programming Hulu offers cuts into existing businesses. Hence, the push for a subscription plan, which, as I reported in February, will include an app for Apple’s (AAPL) iPad. More on that later.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100331/hulu-were-profitable-booming/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090916/former-time-warner-boss-dick-parsons-gets-back-in-the-media-business/ http://allthingsd.com/20090916/former-time-warner-boss-dick-parsons-gets-back-in-the-media-business/#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:25:11 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11019 There are very good odds that there are going to be some very big deals happening in the media world in the next year or so. So this move makes sense: Former Time Warner (TWX) CEO Dick Parsons is joining up with Providence Equity Partners, the private equity firm with a hankering for media investments.

Parsons will be a part-time adviser says the New York Times and will keep his current job as Citigroup (C) chairman as well. Providence’s media bets include MGM and Univision, which haven’t worked out, and Hulu, which has.

Providence and Parsons have worked together at least once before: In 2004, Parsons sold Warner Music Group (WMG) to a consortium that included Providence, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Edgar Bronfman Jr.

Perhaps Providence will tap Parsons’s knowledge of his former employer for another deal: Time Warner executives keep murmuring about the need for magazine publisher Time Inc. to shed some of the 115 titles it operates.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090916/former-time-warner-boss-dick-parsons-gets-back-in-the-media-business/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090716/former-aoler-jim-bankoff-scores-7-million-for-local-sports-start-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20090716/former-aoler-jim-bankoff-scores-7-million-for-local-sports-start-up/#comments Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:51:37 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=15897

Jim Bankoff–the well-regarded former AOL exec who runs an online sports news network called SB Nation–has nabbed $7 million in funding from investors to grow the company, including Comcast Interactive Capital, said sources.

There was also a Securities and Exchange Commission document filed on the transaction today, under the name Sportsblogs Inc., which you can see here.

The SEC filing noted that the money invested was $7.95 million. But sources said that the nearly million-dollar difference is for giving cash to early employees and founders and will not be used to fund SB Nation.

People familiar with the situation said SB Nation’s post-investment valuation, after this second round, will be $30 million and also include previous investors, such as Accel Partners and Allen & Co.

Its first round–which also included several prominent angel investors, such as former AOL exec Ted Leonsis and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner–was $5 million.

SB Nation has used that investment to grow like gangbusters over the last year, especially since Bankoff arrived last fall as its chairman and CEO.

Depending on which survey service you reference, the site has between four and seven million unique visitors a month.

It has done distribution deals with Internet giants like Yahoo (YHOO) to goose that growth.

While it has been around since 2003, founded by DailyKos’s Markos Moulitsas and others, the Washington, D.C.-based start-up has been aiming more at the sweet spot of local sports pages, especially as newspapers have become weaker.

SB Nation also covers national sports, using a community network of blogs, analysis and news.

Comcast Interactive Capital, which is the venture arm of Comcast (CMCSA), will also get a board seat for David Zilberman.

Bankoff (pictured here) was a longtime AOL exec, ultimately in charge of programming and products there. He worked on such products as TMZ.com, Moviefone, MapQuest and Netscape, as well as its AIM and ICQ messaging offerings.

After he left the Time Warner (TWX) online unit, he became a senior adviser to Providence Equity Partners. Bankoff still has that role, but has been working full-time at SB Nation for a year.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090716/former-aoler-jim-bankoff-scores-7-million-for-local-sports-start-up/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090716/do-that-thing-you-do-after-cuts-both-yahoo-and-myspace-need-a-little-something/ http://allthingsd.com/20090716/do-that-thing-you-do-after-cuts-both-yahoo-and-myspace-need-a-little-something/#comments Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:02:42 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14849

A few weeks ago, when I was having breakfast with legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur Marc Andreessen about his new venture fund, he talked about what he thought was critical to being successful as an Internet company.

Ticking off names, from Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Andreessen said he always favored technical entrepreneurs for one key reason: “You need someone who lives and breathes product.”

It’s a refrain I have heard a lot recently from a wide range of people in the sector, most especially when talking about two of the more challenging renovations of key Internet brands going on of late.

That would be: Yahoo and MySpace.

In recent days, the focus at both Yahoo (YHOO) and MySpace, a division of News Corp. (NWS), has been on cost cuts, management rejiggering and, of course, layoffs, as new leaders at each Web giant are trying mightily to push the reset button. (News Corp owns Dow Jones, which owns this Web site.)

No surprise, their efforts have gotten a lot of attention and have been the subject of a lot of coverage (here for Yahoo and here for MySpace).

But, as those clean-up efforts wrap up, both have to show a whole lot more than that if either is to truly succeed at their tasks–which is to make both services much more relevant and exciting in the fast-changing Web arena.

While Yahoo and MySpace remain huge Web properties–and Yahoo, in particular, is very profitable in comparison to most Internet outfits–the widespread perception across the digital sector for too long now is that they are both tired in some significant ways and in desperate need of innovation.

Their big tasks include an overhaul of product offerings and features, a refreshing of brand and, most importantly, a strategic rethink that will set them on a new course for the next several years.

This is not a new thing in the Internet space, which has seen once-popular companies fall by the wayside as their products have gotten dull and consumers weary.

AOL–the Time Warner (TWX) unit whose new CEO, Tim Armstrong, is trying to reinvigorate that iconic but deeply tarnished brand too–is the classic example of this problem. But there have been too many that either hobble along, get subsumed into a larger company or just wither and die.

Sudden death is not likely to be the case for either Yahoo or MySpace, but time is most definitely running out for the pair to show some true product pizzazz and a strategic road map.

At Yahoo, most of the glitter thus far has come from the personality and charms of CEO Carol Bartz (pictured here), who has been hard at work projecting an image of moxie and decisiveness in her efforts to get some momentum at the turmoil-plagued company.

Replacing former CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang, Bartz has largely been busy cutting staff, pruning products that she recently dubbed “space debris” and rounding out her executive staff.

She’s also been prepping a new branding campaign to accompany Yahoo’s overhauled front page, which is set for the fall.

But, as the famous Peggy Lee song (see video below) goes: “Is that all there is, is that all there is?/If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing/Let’s break out the booze and have a ball/If that’s all there is.”

But breaking out the booze and having a ball is actually not such a bad idea. To my mind, instead of tweaking what is there and emphasizing what it has been, Yahoo now has the chance to just go for broke and boldly make some dramatic choices.

That is especially true if it forgoes a search and online advertising partnership with Microsoft (MSFT), since Yahoo is going to have to do more than just what it already does better.

Interestingly, it is Microsoft, with its well-reviewed new Bing search service, that seems the most aggressively innovative these days.

So, why not, for example, make a shocking move, say, into the premium online video space? Yahoo certainly could pick up some damaged goods, like Veoh and Joost, on the cheap.

But what about buying the early winner: Hulu?

While the three studios that are its joint owners (the fourth owner is Providence Equity Partners)–News Corp., Disney (DIS) and GE (GE) unit NBC Universal–don’t seem inclined to sell, many sources close to the company said they most certainly would for the right price and perhaps a stake in Yahoo too.

Yahoo has been one of Hulu’s many distribution partners, but that effort has been lackluster. As owner, it would surely point its vast traffic and tech resources at Hulu to good effect.

In this kind of scenario, Google (GOOG) and Comcast (CMCSA) are also contenders for Hulu, but it is only Yahoo that has the truly better record of being able to create, manage and distribute Web content.

Plus, you could call it: HuHoo or YaLu or, better still, HooLu.

There are lots of ideas along these lines for Yahoo, but the overarching idea is to dominate in areas its rivals do not.

For MySpace, which was the dominator until rival Facebook cleaned its clock and then some, it is both a crisis of identity, a broken consumer experience and technology that needs a major overhaul.

It is hard to say what MySpace is, except really noisy. While the music part of that is good, the idea of making it hip again seems well-nigh impossible.

But it could be useful as an entertainment hub where it is fun to be. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch raised this concept recently, in fact, and it is a good one.

That’s because Facebook is aggressively un-fun, with a fascist design sensibility and a thick ethos of utility and enforced busy-ness. Whenever I use it, I always start to feel like I am 23 minutes late.

There really is no good overall and unified entertainment hub on the Web in a massive way–one that aggregates all kinds of interests. I would, for example, love a place where I could easily live in a “Gossip Girl” universe.

Best of all, such a direction moves MySpace well away from Facebook, where is needs to get pronto.

MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta (pictured here) said as much in a memo to employees yesterday:

“As I’ve said before, simplifying and unifying our site is fundamental to our success going forward. MySpace should feel like one platform–not 15 sites loosely stitched together. We consider our diverse content offering a strength but too many logos and disorganized verticals makes the site difficult to navigate and creates confusion about our brand identity. Our users don’t know if we’re a social portal, a music site, or an entertainment hub.”

In her own memo last week, Bartz also talked about the need for speed and definition of Yahoo:

“I’ve noticed that since the reorg, people seem like they’re waiting for something. I’m not sure if it’s a sugar-low or what, but we need to stop waiting and get moving. Good things do not come to those who wait, they come to those who make things happen.”

Actually, per Marc Andreessen, good things come to those who make things. Wonderful things, fun things, memorable things and, if you are Steve Jobs, just one more thing.

Let’s just hope in the case of Yahoo and MySpace, they don’t settle for just any thing.

Until they do that thing they do, here is a catchy video from the movie, “That Thing You Do”:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090716/do-that-thing-you-do-after-cuts-both-yahoo-and-myspace-need-a-little-something/feed/ 3