What would this world be without wascally wabbits, stuttering pigs, or suffering succotash? A century ago today, the voice of Bugs Bunny (and Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe LePew, Wile E. Coyote…) let out its first utterance. Happy Birthday, Mel. Now check out what we drew up this week:

• Now, dammit: We’re all impatient, Blackberry-wielding, microwave-cooking, Tivo-recording fiends. Why should we wait a minute longer than we have to for our stock quotes? Yahoo! Finance gets that impulsive nature and found a way to get you real-time stock quotes, courtesy of BATS Trading. And it’s on the house. Free. Now. More here.
• Commons comments welcome: The Commons photo collection on Flickr just took the 2 train to Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Museum is the third institution (after the Library of Congress and Australia’s Powerhouse Museum) to add their hidden treasures to this public photography archive. You’ll find gorgeous photos from architectural research expeditions to Egypt and the Paris Exposition in 1900. But the best thing is that these images await your input and knowledge to make the collections even richer. So tag and comment away, for the good of humanity. More here.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

As we’ve said before, no one ever wins the Yahoo! Lottery. And that’s simply because there is no Yahoo! Lottery. To protect you from these scammers, we’re going after them ourselves.

We recently filed a lawsuit that ought to send an unmistakable message to spammers masquerading as Yahoo! lottery commissioners, sending emails to unsuspecting users about having won a mythical jackpot. And in order to claim that jackpot, these “lucky” users simply need to hand over personal data like passwords, credit card information, and social security numbers. Some “winners” are even duped into sending money for processing and mailing charges.

We won’t tolerate these hoax emails or having our brand used to deceive you, and we’re seeking maximum damages permissible by law. This lawsuit (one of nearly ten suits to date) is part of a multi-faceted approach we’ve been taking to combat spam by supporting anti-spam legislation, creating technologies like DomainKeys, collaborating with industry leaders, and increasing consumer awareness. Consider this: every day, we block more than one billion spam and phishing messages — that’s more that four times the number of first class letters the US Postal Service delivers each day.

Besides what we’re doing on our end, here are some of the things you can do to protect yourself:

• Protect your email address like your phone number: Give it out selectively and only to people you trust. Don’t post it in public places like message boards or chat rooms. And try disposable email addresses (like our AddressGuard) for things like shopping or selling things online.
• Just say no to junk mail: Report unsolicited email by clicking on the spam button in the toolbar at the top of your inbox or message. This reports the contents so that Yahoo! Mail or your service provider can take appropriate action and potentially block them from reaching your inbox in the future.
• If it’s too good to be true, it probably is: Don’t be fooled by cash prizes or that prince who needs your help smuggling millions of dollars out of his country. They’re scams. Don’t reply, don’t click, and don’t give away any personal information.
• That’s no warning: See a pop-up ad with a warning about your computer? Or have an email from a “computer expert” warning you of a virus? They’re usually hoaxes from unscrupulous folks. Ignore them and don’t follow any steps described unless you’re sure the threat is real.
• Create a sign-in seal: Sign-in seals are a new safeguard offered by Yahoo! and many financial institutions to help protect your login. A sign-in seal is a secret message or image that you create so you can be sure you’re logging into your account and not a phishing site. To create your seal, go to any sign-in page across Yahoo! and look for the box with keys above your login.

You can find more tips on our anti-spam resource site. It’s a jungle out there, but there are plenty of ways to defend your inbox. Plus we’ve got your back.

Mark Risher
Anti-Spam Czar, Yahoo! Mail

What do you do if you’re the CEO and president of a company that’s become the preoccupation of the business section and you’re about to go on stage in front of hundreds of tech moguls, investors, and journalists at “D: All Things Digital” for a chat with the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg? You cue the video!

Here’s a short video prelude we pulled together for Jerry Yang and Sue Decker to help pull the elephant squarely into the middle of the room this afternoon at the 6th annual D conference in Carlsbad, Calif. It’s a parody of the vast quantities of advice that both execs have been receiving about Yahoo! in recent months. And we got a little help from our friends — Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, Sequoia Capital’s Mike Moritz (our first investor), PBS’ Charlie Rose, Sony’s Howard Stringer, Intel’s Paul Otellini, Dell’s Michael Dell, Cisco’s John Chambers, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.

For Yodel Anecdotal readers, we’re posting a special version with an exclusive Buffett outtake at the end. It’s clear why Warren was invited to cameo on “All My Children.”

Yahoo! will be filing a definitive proxy statement and accompanying WHITE proxy card with the SEC in connection with the solicitation of proxies for its 2008 annual meeting of stockholders. Stockholders are strongly advised to read Yahoo!’s 2008 definitive proxy statement when it becomes available because it will contain important information. Stockholders will be able to obtain copies of Yahoo!’s 2008 definitive proxy statement and other documents filed by Yahoo! with the SEC in connection with its 2008 annual meeting of stockholders at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov or at the Investor Relations section of Yahoo!’s website at yhoo.client.shareholder.com. Yahoo!, its directors, and certain of its officers may be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies from stockholders in connection with Yahoo!’s 2008 annual meeting of stockholders. Information concerning Yahoo!’s directors and officers is available in its preliminary proxy statement filed with the SEC on May 22, 2008.

(Incidentally, this video is the dog that ate my homework and is the reason why you loyal readers found last week’s content a bit sparse. I’m a multi-hat operation.)

Photo by Asa Mathat/AllThingsD.com

Stock quotes have always been the core piece of the financial information we provide on Yahoo! Finance. In fact, Yahoo! Finance originally launched under the name “Yahoo! Quotes” back in 1996, offering what now seems like the most basic of all financial data. In the process, we helped change the way average investors make financial decisions, and even took some of the weight out of your daily newspaper.

Now, 12 years later, our name has changed and our site has expanded, but our focus on providing the most reliable and timely market information has stayed the same. Today, we’re pleased to bring free real-time quotes back to Yahoo! Finance. As of today, unlimited access to the most current U.S. stock quotes, as of the last trade, are available to all of our users.

It’s a concept we’ve offered before, and one we’ve been focused on bringing back to our users since free real-time quotes were removed from Yahoo! Finance in 2006 when marketplace consolidation made obtaining this information virtually impossible.

We know how important this data was to your financial decisions because you told us, we listened, and we found a solution. Today we begin a partnership with BATS Trading, the electronic communication network and industry leader in free real-time market data. BATS is providing real-time U.S. quotes to Yahoo! Finance at no cost, and we in turn, provide it to you.

What does this mean for you? Business as usual — only better. As you check your stocks on Yahoo! Finance, your free real-time quote will stream right onto your quote summary page.

Check it out for yourself in real time, and check back as we roll real-time data features into new areas of Yahoo! Finance.

Mark Interrante
VP and GM of Yahoo! Finance

Last Tuesday, I testified at a hearing on Internet Freedom before a U.S. Senate subcommittee chaired by Senator Richard Durbin (webcast is here). The hearing was tough but timely. With the Beijing Olympics approaching, companies like ours expanding into emerging markets, and a general sense that companies should push hard for a collective human rights code of conduct, the hearing gave us a chance to share the Yahoo! vision for a path forward.

I tried to convey this simple message: We believe in the power of information and in global engagement, we were an industry pioneer in international markets, we take responsibility for our actions, we’ve learned valuable lessons, and we’re taking concrete steps on our own and collectively to be leaders in the field of business and human rights. You can read my testimony here.

The following day, I presented at the U.S. Department of State on a panel on Business & Human Rights. Sitting next to three other global companies in entirely different industries, I emphasized our commitment at Yahoo! to the principles of free expression and privacy and to working collectively with technology companies and others to create industry standards to guide companies in the world’s most challenging markets. I also discussed our collaboration with the State Department through its Global Internet Freedom Taskforce and our other efforts, including Jerry’s letter earlier this year to Secretary Rice.

At the Senate hearing, Senator Tom Coburn used an expression we’ve often heard and used at Yahoo!: Information is power. We continue to believe in that simple axiom. Information is empowering to ordinary citizens across the globe. Yahoo! is built on the power of information, and we’ll continue to harness that power for good.

Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel

Today is Penny Day, when we pay homage to the most wee of our coinage. It might not buy you much today, but how else could you give someone your two cents or compensate them for their thoughts? What would the frugal among you pinch instead? But for Pete’s sake, if you don’t see Honest Abe staring up at you from the pavement, just keep right on walking. Here’s what we picked up this week:

• Photo Mailer: Ever downloaded photos from someone’s email and wish you hadn’t? The new image preview feature in Yahoo! Mail will help you avoid future said hassles. It helps make it easier for you to preview photo attachments, right within your email. Receive multiple images? You can preview them as a slideshow or as a full-sized image before you download, which you can do in one fell swoop or just selected images. And, as always, you’ll have the comfort of Norton AntiVirus scans to make sure they’re A-OK. Watch the screencast here.
• My Flickr: If you’re as addicted to Flickr as I am, you get moving right over to My Yahoo! to add the new Flickr module. Not only can you view your latest snaps, you can check out the “activity” tab to see when you have comments or responses to your comments. All this without ever having to leave your My Yahoo! page. What’s more, you’ll have access to your sets, your groups, your favorites, your contacts’ photos, and even Flickr’s “Interestingness” feature. BTW: While you’re dolling up your My Yahoo! page, you might want to show that your colors don’t run by trying on the Memorial Day theme this weekend.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

There’s a lot of debate lately about cell phones in the air. Do we want to be connected and productive with carryons securely stashed in overhead bins? Or do we like the excuse of being fully disconnected at 30,000 feet? Would we welcome the ability to make calls on our mobiles, or would we rather send a lynch mob to seat 19D?

Turns out 74% of consumers don’t want to hear you yacking with your office cohorts, but they wouldn’t mind a bit if you sent them a text message. A new survey commissioned by Yahoo! and conducted by Harris Interactive revealed that nearly three out of four consumers agree that mobile phone usage on planes should be restricted to silent features. The majority of us want to stay connected to our life on the ground. Email, text, IM, games — all good. But if we have to sit next to you making goo-goo with your girlfriend in Gilroy, game over.

What’s more, more than two-thirds think there should be a designated talking section. Hey, it worked so well with smoking. Why not?

So how about you? Want to participate in our entirely statistically-invalid random sampling?

Will Yodel Anecdotal readers agree that silence is golden?

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

This day in history marks groundbreaking milestones that cemented America’s stature as a consumerist force to be reckoned with. Charles Hires invented root beer 142 years ago (how now, brown cow) and SpaghettiO’s (Uh-oh!) made their debut 99 years later. What’s more, it’s National Sea Monkey Day — so give a treat and a hug to those peculiar just-add-water creatures. After you give it up for marvels we can’t live without, read up on what we invented this week:

• Traffic is a good thing: That’s right, there are more traffic pileups than ever on Yahoo! Maps to help make you the wiliest driver on the road. They’ve added a panoply of new markets from Bakersfield, Calif., to Rochester, Maine, and improved markets like New York, which previously only gave you incident data. And why should freeways have all the fun, when you can find out about traffic jams on major thoroughfares. No more getting stuck on Manhattan’s Canal Street or San Francisco’s Van Ness Avenue. Add in our drag-and-drop routing and your clutch will be buying you pizza. More here.
• Exploring bookmarks: Swiftly on the heels of the popular del.icio.us Firefox 3 beta extension comes an early beta release of an Internet Explorer version. Now IE users can revel in plugin features like nearly instantaneous searching with huge accounts (yeah, you, with more than 10,000 bookmarks), full sidebar and toolbar integration with bookmark synch and typedown search, and a handy indicator of new network activity and links. Download it here or discuss it here.
• Mybloglog gets friendlier: Kevin Bacon, eat your heart out. Mybloglog has just launched Friender, a quick way to grow your network of friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends… The next time you go to manage your friends and contacts, you’ll notice a “Friender” tab. It’s essentially a rank-ordered list of friends (and others they know) that you’re connected to elsewhere. Chances are, if someone knows five of your friends, you probably know them, too. You quickly fly through the list and grow your network. And the best part is it all happens in real-time. Shazam! More here.
• Monkey on the loose: It’s official. The doors to Yahoo! Search no longer have locks. SearchMonkey is open for business, inviting developers (from pros to tinkerers) to start building customized Yahoo! Search results that are even more useful and relevant. If structured data makes you quiver (think CitySearch, StumbleUpon, eBay, Epicurious, Yelp, Netflix), you’ll waste no time mashing it up to add links, reviews, contact information, reservations, etc. to your site’s search listing. And if that’s not enough motivation for you, how does winning up to 10,000 clams sound? We’re looking for search heroes in the categories of Best Enhanced Result, Best Infobar, Most Innovative Use of Structured Data, Best Data Service, and Grand Prize (best over all categories). More on the SearchMonkey Challenge here.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

As you no doubt saw earlier today, financier Carl Icahn has announced that he intends to nominate a slate of ten directors to our board of directors at our annual stockholder meeting. Here’s the letter he sent to our chairman, Roy Bostock, and here’s a response we just issued.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

It’s been a big week for us at Yahoo! News.

You might have heard — we interviewed the President. George W. Bush, in the flesh, at the White House.

And, the best part? We made history. Believe it or not, this was the first on-camera interview the President has done for an online-only entity in his entire tenure in office. As we say in the news biz — what a “get”!

The White House was kind enough to let us conduct the interview in the Roosevelt Room — the President has only done one other on-camera interview there. It’s feet from the Oval Office and is usually used as a conference room (think cabinet meetings).

The White House says “President Richard Nixon named the room in 1969 to honor Theodore Roosevelt for building the West Wing and Franklin Roosevelt for expanding it.” Teddy’s Medal of Honor and Nobel Peace Prize hang on walls a few feet away from the large picture of him at the end of the room. All fine reminders that this was an historic event.

The interview was conducted by Mike Allen, the chief political correspondent for Politico (our Election 2008 partners). Our first-class production team shot the interview. Our exec producer and vice president of original programming, Neeraj Khemlani, came with us to oversee the whole production. (He used to work at 60 Minutes. Take a look at the interview — you can tell he had a hand in it. It looked sharp!)

The idea of interviewing Mr. Bush started when our friends and partners at Politico joined forces with us to cover the 2008 campaign. Eventually, we were interviewing presidential candidates (see interviews here) with Mike Allen. Then we were writing stories on the primaries. And ultimately, we’re hosting their first-class content on our site. We wondered what big “get” we could do next — all signs pointed to the White House.

We took a good look at our audience when we decided just what we’d ask President Bush when we sat down with him. Of our 40 million users, we were pretty sure not all of them are watching Meet the Press every week. So we posed a broad range of questions, touching on everything from the war in Iraq (and why it spurred him to quit golf) to his daughter’s wedding to which Saturday Night Live comedian pulled off the best impression. (It goes without saying that as Yahoo!, we can get away with questions that are outside Tim Russert’s domain.) We even got a Dr. Evil impression out of him. We also asked questions submitted by users, like whether he felt personally misled by pre-war Iraq intelligence and what he could do about the rising price of gas.

No matter which aspect of this President people were interested in, we’re proud to have brought it to you from a special place in a special format.

Erin Green
Producer, Yahoo! News