You silently grieve every time you open your drawer — all those lonely socks whose mates went missing on their last trip to the laundry room. Well, today is Lost Sock Memorial Day. A time to mourn, eulogize… and then face the music and admit those tootsie warmers ain’t never coming back. After you’re done purging, here’s what we got out of our system this week:
Safe from harm: Like the real world, the Web can have some crummy neighborhoods. That’s why we launched SearchScan, a new safety feature built into Yahoo! Search, courtesy of the security experts at McAfee. No more unwittingly clicking on dangerous links that might download spyware, malware, or other nefarious wares. You’ll get a warning label next to questionable web sites, including those that might have dubious email practices that include spammy missives in your inbox. We just don’t want you going to the wrong side of the street. More here.
Your every move: Those cats at MyBlogLog are making it easier to keep tabs on what your community of contacts is up to. They’ve just added Yahoo! Answers, Google Reader, and the cool new video startup Seesmic to the nearly 50 popular services you can track in your “New With Me” lifestream. Make a move? MyBlogLog will post that event for all to see. More here. They also just cooked up an Add Services Shortcut (with a most unfortunate acronym) that assumes that you use the same screenname at multiple sites. Their script monkeys scan the services for your ID and let you add them with a single click.
Seeing is believing: You’re a visual person. You like pretty pictures. Then Glue Pages Beta is for you. Over across the Big Pond, the Yahoo! India Search team just launched a new concept for search that sticks text, images, and video content together into a single results page. Available for select terms across categories like health, sports, entertainment, travel, technology, and finance, it gives you various takes on a given topic. For example, “Barak Obama” brings back results on Wikipedia, Yahoo! News, Memeorandum.com, videos, images, blogs, and RSS feeds for the most active political news sources. More here.
Searchin’ Safari: This isn’t so much product news, as just good news… for Mac users. We just acquired Inquisitor, which created a Safari browser plug-in that auto-completes search queries and pops up results along with ideas to help refine. It’s not unlike our own Search Assist feature. Download it here and keep your eyes peeled for future innovations.
We’re acutely aware Yahoo!’s products, technology, and operating footprint increasingly have potential to intersect human rights issues — in particular freedom of expression and privacy — around the world.
Today we’re announcing the launch of our Business & Human Rights Program, and through it we hope to help define ourselves as an industry leader in this important field. It’s no secret that certain governments around the world don’t live up to widely recognized standards for protecting the free expression and privacy rights of their own citizens. While the root causes of these threats clearly lie with governments, we also know corporations have important obligations in the field of human rights.
The Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Program represents another step forward in our commitment to human rights, and a number of pillars support this program:
Executive Commitment.We’ve got it. For those of us who’ve been with Jerry in meetings on Capitol Hill, at the State Department, or with human rights activists, the long-term commitment is clear.
Dedicated and Cross-Functional Teams. The Program will expand our core team and continue centralized leadership on global strategy, industry initiatives, business decision-making, and internal and external stakeholder engagement.
Guiding Principles and Operational Guidelines. We’re committed to the international foundations of freedom of expression and privacy, and we’ll continue translating those principles into practical steps to be followed by our employees.
Human Rights Touch-Point Inventory + Clearinghouse. We’ll constantly review the intersection points of our business with potential human rights issues and ensure risks are routed to the right teams.
Human Rights Impact Assessments. We’re committed to exploring risks to freedom of expression and privacy in challenging markets, engaging with external stakeholders, and designing risk mitigation strategies.
Internal and External Stakeholder Engagement. The single most important stakeholders are our users. We also must stay closely connected to our employees and maintain our strong relationships with industry peers, human rights groups, academics, and governments, including our own State Department.
Accountability Framework. We also believe in designing an effective system to assess our own performance in meeting our overall goals and our operational steps relating to human rights issues.
We’re a company built on open access to information and user trust . We’ve encouraged scholarship on technology and human rights, funding two university fellowships so far. We’ve also teamed up with a noted human rights activist to create the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund. We’re deeply committed to the current collective initiative with industry peers, human rights groups, academics, and socially responsible investors to design standards to guide companies in challenging markets.
We believe companies can move forward today to integrate human rights decision-making into their business operations, and we intend to show our own leadership and commitment to freedom of expression and privacy through the creation of the Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Program.
Did you know that every year Internet scams and traps cost Americans over 7 billion dollars? Searching on the Web can present a minefield of spyware, malware and other malicious sites that can cause serious harm to your PC and cost you valuable time and money.
We are taking steps to make you feel safe when searching the Web — warning you about dangerous sites before you click on them. Today we’ve launched SearchScan (in beta), a new safety feature tucked into Yahoo! Search, courtesy of our friends, the dedicated security experts over at McAfee.
It provides alerts that appear within your search results, flagging “risky” sites with dangerous downloads that can include spyware and viruses. SearchScan will even warn you about sites that have dubious email practices to help you keep your email box free of spam.
No other search engine today offers you this level of warning before visiting sites. Period.
Yahoo! Search with the SearchScan feature is like your Internet security guard, warning you of danger so you can search with confidence… another reason to make Yahoo.com your starting point
The last 13 weeks have been a remarkable time here at Yahoo!. We’ve been living under the microscope in a way we never have before. There has been greater attention than ever on our strategy and our ability to execute against it. Some even questioned whether Microsoft’s unsolicited proposal would distract us from our mission, just as we were beginning to really push the pedal on our strategy.
Those people underestimated the determination of Yahoo!’s incredible people, spirit and culture.
All of this reinforced our board’s position that Microsoft’s offer undervalued our unique global franchise.
So, what’s next? With Microsoft’s withdrawal, we’ll be better able to focus our energy on growing our industry leadership and maximizing value for stockholders. We’ll continue to execute on our plan — making your Internet experience as personal, relevant, open and social as possible, serving advertisers so well they insist on working with us, and opening up Yahoo! in a way that developers dream of. And, we’ll also continue to pursue strategic opportunities that position us for long-term success.
Has this experience changed us? Of course, it has. We’ve emerged a stronger, more focused company with an even greater sense of purpose. I’m so proud of how this company has come together, put the noise aside, and showed the world that we have the resolve and determination to thrive in challenging times.
We know the spotlight will probably stay on us for a while. That’s fine — we have a clear path ahead and momentum to build on. And thousands of dedicated Yahoos around the world who have held up well to scrutiny. It’s now up to us to show what we Yahoos can really do.
By the way, I’m sure you’ve all read or watched the news about this. Frankly, there’s a lot of nonsense and misinformation in what’s being reported. Just so we are all clear, here’s what happened. The board took its mission very seriously. We clearly indicated to Microsoft that we were open to a transaction but only if it were on terms that fully recognized the value of Yahoo! and was in the best interests of our stockholders.
No one is celebrating about the outcome of these past three months… and no one should. We live and work in a competitive world and the Web is only going to get more competitive. Executing on our strategic plan is what matters most.
Finally, I’d like to thank the many of you who so passionately shared your support for Yahoo!. That’s what brings it all home for us.
In case you haven’t already seen the news, Microsoft today withdrew its proposal to acquire Yahoo!. Here’s our press release, with comments from Yahoo! board chairman Roy Bostock and CEO Jerry Yang.
I hope you did your laundry, because today is No Pants Day. A tradition started in Austin, Texas (no doubt a part of the “Keep Austin Weird” conspiracy), its goal is simply to “revel in the absence of pants.” (And, no, kilts don’t count.) Before you hit the town in your bloomers, have a look at how we did it one leg at a time this week:
del.icio.us gets foxy: Firefox users just got a del.icio.us treat — a new Firefox extension that fully supports Firefox 3 (while working just fine with Firefox 2, thank you). Its handy features include keyboard shortcuts for accessing bookmarks (just hit F2) and a new bookmark-saving layout. It’s a beta release, so the team is eager to hear if you have feedback before the official launch. More here.
YT? Can you hear this?: Got Vista? Check. Got Yahoo! Messenger? Check. Now you can make PC-to-PC calls to your Yahoo! Messenger pals, or even dial landlines and mobile phones. Just for fun, you can even animate your voices as you talk. The all-new voice-enabled beta version of Yahoo! Messenger for Vista also lets you SMS your friends’ mobile phones for free. The team’s been busy adding features you’ve been requesting, and now they’re setting their sights on webcam video, archiving, photo sharing, and more. Hang in there with them. Download the new version here.
You’re busy. You read fast. You have a lot more blogs to go today. But before you move on, wanna take two seconds to give us a little feedback? We’ve just added an insta-ratings system to every post, which will help us get a sense for what you dug and what outright bombed (it’s ok, thick skin). In each post footer, you’ll find five dots. Click, boom, done.
To aid you in your rating decision-making, here are some suggested criteria for selecting from one to five dots:
5 — Epic. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. 4 — That rocked. Though it could’ve used a little more je ne sais quoi. 3 — That hit the spot. Thanks. 2 — Meh. 1 — Wow. That sucked. No more of that, please.
Note that you can only rate a post once. So don’t get trigger happy. Thank you kindly.
This afternoon, a diverse group of more than 150 journalists, technologists, and entrepreneurs will descend on our campus for this year’s Silicon Valley meeting of Journalism That Matters: NewsTools2008. Although one might question the wisdom of having media on our campus during a week like this, we’re excited to host this 3-day gathering of kindred spirits, to foster discussion and collaboration between content creators (writers, editors, publishers, bloggers) and content enablers (developers, tool makers, entrepreneurs).
The focus of this event is to explore how new technologies and business models can support journalism and participatory democracy through a “concept/design mash-up.” This is a natural fit for us at Yahoo! — providing the platform for others to convene, share ideas and insights, and discover new ways to make a difference. Discussion topics will include how the concept and practice of journalism may adapt to search and social networks, crowdsourcing, diverse, fragmented audiences and digital, participatory politics. It’s all about best practices and new technologies that can facilitate fact/data-rich, citizen-supported, machine-using, inclusive journalism that promotes accountable government and open institutions.
I’ve been at Yahoo! since we were just a handful of people building a searchable directory of websites. From the beginning, we’ve been driven by sheer passion and enthusiasm for the transformative possibilities of the Web — we couldn’t wait to make it accessible to everyone, because we knew amazing things would happen when others applied their creativity, resourcefulness, and ingenuity. We’ve never had all the answers — the website directory was just a bunch of links to other people’s stuff — but we brought those links together to invite and inspire others to realize the possibilities of this medium.
Promoting freedom of expression and the open exchange of diverse ideas and information — that’s been at the core of everything we do. We believe information is power, and access to information is a democratizing force. And even though we started out merely linking to “other people’s stuff,” we thought a lot about how the mere act of aggregation is creation, and with that comes great responsibility. These very beliefs are at the heart of “journalism that matters.”
It’s these same beliefs, together with our passion for helping others apply their expertise to unlock the power of the Web, that drives our focus on making Yahoo! more open and social. We are creating flexible tools and platforms for others to build on, and look forward to working with like-minded collaborators in an evolving community.
To that end, several members of our news, front page, and central editorial teams will be in attendance this week. As always, we don’t have all the answers. But we can’t wait to see what emerges when we come together with those who do.
Srinija Srinivasan
VP and Editor-in-Chief
Yahoo! Editorial
Anyone who knows me knows that I love sneakers. Ok, you might even say I am sneaker obsessed. From the walk-in closet with 160+ pairs of shoes, to my blog SneakerBlogger, to the custom Nike’s in Yahoo! colors I created for CES earlier this year, I try to find any way I can to incorporate them into my personal and professional life. So when I saw that Yahoo! was going to be hosting a Freecycle-inspired “Free is Good Fair” for employees on campus today (a belated Earth Day swap meet) and that one of the items being donated would be Chief Yahoo David Filo’s signature Adidas sneakers, I started cleaning out my closet.
Much to my wife’s delight, among other things I contributed were five pairs of sneakers and athletic shoes and I was able to actually watch people pick them up and give them a new home. (Yes, people WILL wear other people’s shoes…) Hopefully they will get some great use and their new owners will think hard about what THEY could give up to turn their personal trash into someone else’s treasure.
I’m told Yahoos brought in more than 2,000 items from closets and basements throughout the Bay Area that might otherwise have been destined for landfills. The more interesting things I saw included a vintage map of Silicon Valley businesses from 2000, a red lacy bra (which seemed to disappear quickly), last-generation Tivos, Rockem Sockem Robots, vacuum cleaners, a complete set of Star Trek: Next Generation VHS tapes, bunny slippers, fleeces galore, Yahoo! schwag (Yahoo! Chicago stickers, anyone?), and gently used sporting equipment. Items that had not seen the light of day for years were suddenly adopted by new guardians, who promised to put them into immediate use. Although I think the snow skis might have to wait until next season…
We duplicated this fair in six California, New York, and Oregon offices. And whatever wasn’t claimed was carted away by local charities like the Salvation Army.
So if you see me around campus with size 10.5 Adidas shell-toes, know that they will be well cared for and infused with the spirit of giving.
Back in March, I wrote about Seeds for Success, a Yahoo! grant program for women entrepreneurs. Today, I’ve got three finalists for you.
But first, let me explain why this program is so near and dear to me. One word: Mentoring. My own career, including the opportunity to judge on The Apprentice and the upcoming launch of FindingWhatMatters.com (what should be the single largest network of career/life experts and resources anywhere), was built on the advice of wise mentors. They helped steer and cheer me. And now it’s my turn to pay it forward.
The three winners will have access to a host of business experts, including myself; Bobbi Brown, founder and CEO of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics; Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazines and author of the bestselling book “Basic Black: The Essential Guide to Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life);” and a dozen others who have walked the entrepreneur’s road. We’ll take them under our wings and show them the proverbial ropes.
Each finalist will also receive a grant package that includes $20,000 in cash, $5,000 in website consulting from three Yahoo! Small Business partners, and website hosting from Yahoo!.
Without further ado, I present the three finalists:
Dana Rubinstein (New York, NY): Dana is co-founder of Dapple, a company which produces baby-safe and earth-friendly detergents, cleaners and sanitizers. She and her business partner created these products based on their own experiences of wanting safer, eco-friendly choices for their children. Dapple is ready to launch its first product in NYC test markets this spring.
Abby Port(Woodstock, GA): Abby is founder and CEO of Red Koala, an online purveyor of customizable canvas-based art for everything from home décor to other canvas products, such as shoes, totes and luggage. A veteran of the corporate world, Abby decided to start her own business after the birth of her third child. Work on Red Koala’s website has already begun and the site should be ready to launch in a couple of months.
Karla Duncan (Birmingham, AL): A pediatric speech pathologist, Karla is founder and president of Head2Toe Publications, a company that designs and develops toys and educational materials specifically for special needs children. Karla founded Head2Toe out of a desire to have the products she truly needs in order to care for the children with whom she works. Head2Toe products currently are in development.
These women, painstakingly (truly the roughest part of this assignment!) selected from among 5,500 entrants with compelling ideas, will spend the next six months using the mentoring, hosting and financial resources they’ve won to grow their businesses. The one who achieves the most growth in that time will win a $10,000 bonus grant.
Want to keep up with their progress? Check in regularly to track the finalists and their businesses, and tap into blog entries from them, as well as from Bobbi, Cathie, and me.
Success. It’s all in knowing where to go with what you’ve got. And finding the right someone to point you there.
A look inside the big purple house of Yahoo!, where we'll provide insights into our company, our people, our culture, and the things we think about in the shower. Learn more.
Write to Us
Have a great story to tell about how you've used Yahoo!? Or have a story you'd like us to tell? Drop us a line.
Comment Policy
Give us your $.02. We encourage your comments, quibbles, questions, and suggestions. But please mind your manners. You know the drill... stay on topic, be respectful, and avoid spam, profanity, or anything that violates our Terms of Service. Learn more about our comment policy.
No Comments » / Filed in: Product Pulse
(Average: 4.17 out of 5)
Loading ...
Post a Comment 
Bookmark This 
Digg This
You’re busy. You read fast. You have a lot more blogs to go today. But before you move on, wanna take two seconds to give us a little feedback? We’ve just added an insta-ratings system to every post, which will help us get a sense for what you dug and what outright bombed (it’s ok, thick skin). In each post footer, you’ll find five dots. Click, boom, done. 
Anyone who knows me knows that I love sneakers. Ok, you might even say I am sneaker obsessed. From the walk-in closet with 160+ pairs of shoes, to my blog 
RSS
E-mail
