Blaglash.com

On Unsolicited Microsoft Acquisition Offer - Spin, spin, spin. Breakdown: Yahoo! is a leading global brand worth a whole shit load of money, and Microsoft is undervaluing our company and our brand.

Solid growth in Q1 - Continued revenue, new advertising platform and measures to leverage ways ads are bought/sold online.

• “Key elements” of long-term growth
  • Volume strategy: Continuing to develop the high-trafficked and often-visited portals
  • Advertising strategy: Adding video and mobile ads spanning search and disply. Hope to close the gap in search monetization. Search not high priority in comparison to display. $40bn projection for advertising strategy in ten years. Diverse ad base and continual ad budget increase. Building strategies and momentum.
  • Continued success after Microsoft’s offer
• Objectives:
  • Starting point for consumers
  • Prime target for advertisers
• Many new internet users start with Yahoo.
  • Narrow focus on key portals
  • Opening Yahoo to 3rd parties ads (tying into becoming a destination rather than platform)
  • Social connections between key Yahoo properties.
    • Better relevance in search ads (Answers, Flickr, web search)

• 10% search volume growth goal.
  • Strong #2 position in search
  • Hope to change their search objectives to differentiate Yahoo from Google (multimedia searches, new features, etc)
  • Major gains with customer satisfaction and brand impact
• Open Search (”Search Monkey”) - Open to developers
• Mobile Search - Improvements in mobile results - Voice activated search, SearchAssist

• 12% growth for 3 year target in non-search
  • Home page - Social interactions, Yahoo Buzz (some hyperbole here with openness to publishers) “We are not interested in becoming another social network”
  • Yahoo Buzz for Publisher / Reader retention - Repeat visits to HP, higher monetization value.
  • High volume/High traffic - Flickr Video
    • Flickr Video has tripled video uploads across the Yahoo network
  • Customization of Yahoo’s home page (strikes me as similar to iGoogle)
  • Higher ROI for advertisers