Yahoo! It's for sale.

Reports are coming in that Yahoo! is actively starting to try and sell its core business. These substantiate the rumours we've been hearing for a long time and on Friday last, it's become almost 'official'.

Likely interest will come from Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and buyout firms following pressure from investors (Goldmans, Morgans etc).

The entire company is valued at circa 28 Billion usd but that includes its now infamous stake in Alibaba of circa 26 Billion usd. 

So we're not sure what is and what's not included (likely Alibaba stake is not included) but we're sure that there's a sale going on.

Shares are falling on foot of it all (-10%) on top of -34% last year. Which means there's more uncertainty. 

That being the case, the answer here is to get it done and get it done, fast.

Yahoo Prime View. They're charging for Ads that are seen. Viewer guaranteed.

Nice advertising innovation from Yahoo! Ads.

They're going to charge a premium for Ads which viewers see. 

Sounds ridiculous? 

Well, it isn't because in some cases, Ads are buried on pages or just don't load. So they're not seen.

Hence Yahoo! Ads will come with a viewable-only guarantee if you book advertising directly with them in the US.

But...it's only on premium desktop at the minute and not mobile.

They've called it 'Prime View' and it overcomes the issue of Ads not being seen - 54% on average according to 'ComScore'.

This "viewability" guarantee as it's called, does however point to the amount of Ad inventory that's not being seen at all and hence the need for this type of innovation.

Advertisers will want this however and will pay a premium (Yahoo charge more for Prime) for viewed advertising stock with that guarantee. 

It's better than simply advertising blind or worse....advertising that no one sees. But somehow it's all a bit strange.......

Obama 'Prism' Spying now extends to UK Government.

It would seem that the US Government citizen spying programme called 'Prism', has been used by the British Government as a 'back door' to getting intelligence bypassing British law.

William Hague, the UK Foreign Secretary and former leader of The Conservative Party, will today make a Statement to The House of Commons. A forthright man (we've interviewed him in Streamabout) and generally decent, fair-minded man, gave a dodgy performance on The Andrew Marr show yesterday. Uncharacteristically dodgy, in so far that he was unusually trying to dodge questions, which is not his style.

Indeed, he could easily have asked Theresa May to deal with The House of Commons today but has chosen not to - probably in order to kill the controversy at birth - which he won't be able to.

GCHQ, the UK's listening post has been gathering information through co-operation with The US National Security Agency since 2010 and The Guardian says they've generated at least 197 reports from Prism last year alone. They're circumventing UK legislation. Their work, in their own words, should be carried out "in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework" and it looks like it's not. 

Meanwhile Obama, in accepting that Prism exists and goes on, said that his Government "had struck the right balance" in collecting this data in the fight against terrorism. There's nobody doubting that terrorism data needs to be collected however, under a Court order in order to protect the rights of citizens. 

It's ironic too given Obama's criticisms of the Bush administration doing something similar (although to a far lesser extent) and on the same day when he is meeting China's President to discuss their spying and their anti-democratic controls. 

Ironic too that Obama has called his administration, "the most transparent administration in history". 3 months ago, Senator Ron Wyden a member of The Senate Intelligence Committee no less, asked James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans?". "No sir" came Clappers reply which we now know to be a lie. 

Last night the same James Clapper said the Prism programme was "important and valuable". So if your Director of National Intelligence is prepared to lie to an Intelligence Committee Senator, what does that tell you?

Prism collects data on US citizen phone calls (time, length, location on every phone call made in America) and there still remains the controversy about access to internet servers. 

Facebook released a statement under Zuckerberg's name, to say "we do not provide any Government with direct access to Facebook servers". Indeed. The key word there is direct access.

But what seems to transpire, according to informed sources, is that they do provide the information through a "drop box" scenario. So the Facebook language revolves around "direct access" when it does seem they do supply it, but just in a different way.

A reported NSA slide show also shows that Microsoft were the first to comply in 2007 and Apple complied last year. It also noted the compliance of Google and Yahoo. We hear too of compliance by Skype, YouTube, PalTalk and AOL. 

Twitter does not feature and has come out clearly and strongly of its refusal to take part.

This story is only starting. The difficulty Obama has, is the deceit and furthermore, the manner in which a scheme like Prism has been set up to get around the law. There's never been any problem getting data, just the safeguard is that you do it with a court order.

The British government are starting to get into trouble too for using Prism secretly and again, bypassing law. 

But perhaps more pointedly is the use of the data. Whilst the cries of anti-terrorism might have some bearing now, if that data was used politically, it will cause problems. In others words, to identify leaks to media or activities of politicians who are not pro-Obama. It's just the same as breaking into a Watergate building.

It will also cause huge problems to the Internet companies who provide data on you and me, globally and yet feigned privacy. 

This is the sort of story that brings down Governments. And rightly so. The whole thing is rotten. 

US Government Data Spying 'Prism'. This is worse than Watergate.

 

There is something very unnerving about the discovery this week of 'Prism', the US Government's ongoing secret collection of big data.

It's particularly surprising from an administration under Obama. And worrying.

The National Security Agency has been collecting personal data on US citizens notably from Verizon (a big telco) getting personal call details. Furthermore, reports also exist that data has been got from Internet platforms Google, Facebook, Apple, Dropbox, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft. This was reported by The Washington Post.

Although this morning, those companies are denying it quietly, but formal statements are awaited. Never a good sign when you see delays in formal statements because it usually means they need time to craft the language. For example, they may say they're not "participating" in Prism but perhaps comply when asked etc.

And sources in the know, say they are involved. We will see. 

And it could spell danger when in the past, these companies have gone to lengths in formal statements about their systems/structures/processes when dealing with Government information requests case-by-case. They've always tried to convey a sense of the enormous lengths they go to in order to protect their customers privacy. If they're involved in Prism, it flies in the face of those statements and could cause SEC problems.

Apple sources today, have said "they've never heard of Prism". 

The real issue here through the collection of data, is its use. No doubt the Government will put up arguments about defence needs and home security. They need the data to combat terrorism.

However, in that data will be phone/internet records for example, on Republican politicians and journalists. So if a journalist got a tip-off call on some White House issue, Obama's advisers will now know when and from whom, to whom.

There's never ever been an issue on giving data by ISPs on Terrorism, Crime, Sex offences - never.... and I know because I started one - but only on foot of a Court Order. Go to court, give your reasons and a judge will give you access. No problem.

But the hoovering up ('scuse the pun) of data on everyone is serious, appalling and outrageous in a democracy. It smacks of Nixon and if it's true (which it is in substance) then Obama is going to have real problems a la Watergate. Breaking into offices to get data is one thing, Prism is worse.

However, learn one thing - the US Government is spying on its own citizens.  

Citizens should not be afraid of their Government. Government should be afraid of their citizens. 

Search market share results in from ComScore. Marissa Mayer's Yahoo! continues to fall......

Search Engine market share numbers have just been released by the reliable ComScore and they're not good for Yahoo! Again.

Yahoo! has about 12% of the market but the once world dominant brand, is losing market share month-on-month. I'm personally not surprised because it's a pretty awful search engine giving poor, non-relevant results.

The much heralded Marissa Mayer appointed as multi-million CEO (third in a year!), has yet to announce any strategic plans for Yahoo!. She came over from Google and was their employee number 20 and her appointment caused a drop in share price same day (!). 

But one would think she should start with the product for as long as it remains so poor, it will continue to be used less.

Google is gaining from Yahoo's loses and now has a share of nearly 67% with 'Ask', a little known search player continuing to gain at about 3.5%. Bing (owned by Microsoft) is staying put at around 16%. So even Bing has overtaken Yahho's 12%.

Searches are also decreasing in a small way with over 16 billion in September, down about 4% on August. 

But there's no doubt the focus continues on Marissa Mayer's Yahoo given such a large shout and dance was made on her appointment earlier this year. Their continuing decline in the face of Google growth is enhancing a view that Yahoo is just not rescueable.

Equally too, users constantly find the interface annoying and the product annoyingly bad. If this continues, Yahoo will cease, plain and simple, because they have already lost confidence of the market. 

The hope was that Mayer would restore it. 
Not with numbers like this.

Yahoo! gets nearly 8 billion for its 40% share in Alibaba. Open Sesame?

Yahoo! has sold it's 40% stake in Alibaba for 7.6 billion USD. You may never of heard of them, but Alibaba is huge. Yahoo! on the other hand, is a one-time world dominant search engine that lost its way, post-google.

After tax that's 4.3 billion usd net, of which 3.6 billion will be returned to Yahoo shareholders who, after all, have had to endure a lot of pain.

Not bad, given they bought their shareholding in 2005 for 1 billion usd.

It's the first big news following the appointment of Marissa Mayer as Yahoo CEO. And people are watching to see what she'll do with the money.

Alibaba is basically the Chinese version of Ebay with a valuation of circa 40 billion usd and a claimed, 79 million registered users. China is limited with physical internet access but as more bandwith becomes available, the site will show natural growth.

The deal has been on and been off over the last 2 years and now makes Alibaba a totally private company. It has been flagged that Alibaba will float on the stock market (IPO) within 3 years. It also allows Yahoo now to have an influx of cash and allows Mayer the freedom to purchase start-ups, part of her vision for the company. Pinterest and Foursquare are the hot rumours, but then, they always are.

It's a fairly amazing amount of money, although the deal is more complex that I've shown, in this day and age. Pointing again, to high values for online businesses. Simple ideas can bring high results.

Of course it wasn't a core business for Yahoo, which is basically in Search and under more threat now from Facebook who will be entering that market. Yahoo needs to reshape itself and venture more into Social Media to rebuild the once-great brand it was.

If this is a sign of clever thinking on behalf of Marissa Mayer, then that's a good signal for Yahoo. But it's what she does next that will really make Yahoo sink or swim.

Open sesame.
Too cheesy?

Olympics, The Social Media Games starts Today. Where to look online.

These Olympics,will be the Social Media and online games, if ever there was one, because Social Media has exploded since the last games in 2008. 

Facebook alone has gone from 100 million users to 900 million. Tweeting had really only started too, Pinterest didn't exist and Mashable was a proper blog, back then.

Already Twitter has claimed its first victim and they don't even start until today.

Greek triple jumper, Voula Papachristou, (above) has been exited from The Olympic Games.....because of a tweet.

She tweeted "With so many Africans in Greece…at least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat homemade food!!!” yep, hilarious. But she wasn't notified before or after, the committee just issued a press release and that was that. If your life revolved around training and preparation for the games, it's a pretty big deal to be banned.


It also had the knock-on affect of her fellow team members being told that they were not to use Social Media except to talk about the games, not themselves.

But if you're looking out online for the games, here's some places that you might like to start with.

The IOC Olympic Athletes Hub (http://hub.olympic.org/) is a good place to start. Good search features, great updates and an easy list of tweeters to follow.


Broadcaster NBC has its own Olympic Channel (http://www.nbcolympics.com/) which looks really good including live streaming. So you'll see lots of video here but the real focus is on the USA team obviously. 


I actually liked Yahoo's version - very Social and seems to have lots of stuff going on (http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/) plus a nice piece on Beach volleyball, "its popularity explained". Which somehow they've managed to make a story out of rather than just posting a pic.


The Storify site is a little more upbrow and less Social, but possibly quite cool (http://storify.com/topics/olympics). Lots of video so it makes it worth a browse but not at the same content level as say NBC or the IOC Hub.


Sports Illustrated, the real insider here, is terrific (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2012/) but will lack the events coverage. Still, if you want the inside track, go here. Nice pics too....


The Telegraph, probably the greatest newspaper on the planet, has really good local insights because the games are in its home town (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/). Also has a nice blog and twitter feed so this is where I'll be going for sure.


Facebook have a hub of course (https://www.facebook.com/pages/olympics) but frankly, I find it boring. Still if you're on Facebook no harm in liking it I suppose. But it just looks a bit dull and dreary...so far.


And the ESPN site, not to be forgotten (http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/) is pretty good as you'd expect offering lots of interactivity.

Mashable also have suggestions regarding the top 25 competitors you should follow on Twitter ( http://mashable.com/2012/07/24/olympic-athletes-twitter/).


And an interesting one from left of centre is Zoomph (https://www.zoomph.com/Events/london2012/default.aspx) with geolocation. Actually it's pretty smart.

Athletics was never my thing but it's clear these games are going to offer brands lots of opportunities online. Social Media will be really ramping it up and perhaps bring in a new audience whom previously, mightn't have been bothered.

As they say at the start of most Agency creative meetings and it's not funny anymore - Let the games begin.