I’m not making this up — according to a variety of calendar-conscious websites, today is Yodel for Your Neighbors Day. So get out your lederhosen, head to the McMillan’s front porch, and let out your best yodelayeehoo. Unfortunately, there’s no guidance on what happens next, though I’d imagine it involves sprinting. Here’s what we belted out this week:

• Classic Mail gets chatty: If you’re a Yahoo! Mail Classic diehard but long for some of the less retro features of the new Yahoo! Mail, the product team has your compromise. They’ve just unveiled two chatty features that will be rolled out to mailboxes over the next few months. You’ll be able to send instant messages and SMS messages to your Yahoo! contacts right from the mail interface. Your contact list will highlight who’s online and who’s mobile so you can get to them faster than email (remember when we thought faxes were fast?). Read more on the Mail and Messenger blogs.
• Bye-bye Briefcase: We’ve decided to discontinue Yahoo! Briefcase, effective March 30th. When it was born nearly ten years ago, it saw great usage, but that’s been declining over the years as people turned to places like Yahoo! Mail (unlimited storage, yeah!) and Flickr, both of which make it easier to share things. We know that’s disappointing to those of you who still rely on it, but discontinuing Yahoo! Briefcase lets us focus on the products that are more broadly used. Please, please remove your files before March 30th as you won’t be able to access them thereafter — we wouldn’t want you to lose anything.
• Year of the ox: There’s nothing quite like the guilty pleasure of checking a horoscope. And this week, you need to make that a Chinese horoscope. In honor of the Lunar New Year, the team at Yahoo! Shine has pulled together this overview of what the year of the ox will bring to oxen (as well as goats, pigs, rats, monkeys, etc.). Gong hei fat choi!

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The Big Game is on Sunday. It’s the culmination of a season of well-researched drafts, strategic trades, painful injuries, trash talking, stats galore, victories and defeats… in your fantasy football league.

Every year, more than 12 million people reach for computer mice along with their remotes as they play fantasy football. Yahoo! Sports alone has more than four million players. That’s a lot of people demanding perfection when it comes to their league drafting process, how fast they can get their hands on data and stats, and how easily they can manage their rosters in that critical hour before the coin toss.

Though the leagues ended with the playoffs, we thought we’d give you a video look at the team of engineers that kept you on top of your game -– the people who toiled on Sunday afternoons and Monday nights to ensure that servers didn’t crash under the weight of all those stats. The team that brought you all the best new tools to help you make smarter calls. The guys (and gals) who, like you, live and breathe sports — nary a day goes by without at least one football jersey in the cube bullpen. In fact, quite a few of them have been working on Yahoo! Sports for more than ten years.

Whether you’re a Cardinals or a Steelers fan, may your guacamole be fresh, your beer plentiful, and your pizza hot. For once, Yahoo! Sports engineers will be watching the game right along with you.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Filmed and edited by Bart Bishoff, Yahoo! Broadcast Bureau

Today is International Data Privacy Day so it’s a good time to take a few minutes to think about how you protect your information online.

As a mother of three children and a Yahoo who works every day to help protect your privacy on our network, I’d like to offer some simple suggestions for exercising your privacy options:

• The Internet never forgets. Don’t put anything online that you wouldn’t want your kids/future boss/mom/teacher to see today, next week or next year. Online content is easily distributed, and once it is “out there,” it’s difficult to ever pull it back completely. So think twice before you post content online and make sure you protect your online reputation.
• Be aware of your privacy options – and take control. Many companies now offer a variety of online privacy options to put you in control. You can opt-out of receiving marketing email from Yahoo! or opt-out of receiving interest-based advertising. Also, many browsers have privacy features that let you control your cookies and privacy settings.
• Stay educated. Cyberbullies, viruses, inappropriate content – the Web is wonderful but it has its warts. Do your homework regularly and read up on how to keep yourself and your kids safe online. For example, check out our recently revamped Yahoo! Safely site, featuring tips and videos for teens and a parents’ guide with regular blogs from some of the top online safety experts in the country.
• Choose your friends wisely. Social networking is a great way to share updates about what you are doing, good deals, and interesting stories. But make sure that you’re connecting with people you know. And take a look around the site to make sure you have carefully selected the privacy options that work best for you. For example, on your Yahoo! profile, you can make your profile private, viewable to your connections, or viewable to everyone. And on Messenger, you choose to be “invisible” to some people on your Friends list and not others.
• Share information with sites you trust. Read privacy policies (there should be a link on the front page!) and look for trust marks from certifying organizations like the Council of Better Business Bureaus or TRUSTe before you hand over personal or financial information to sites you don’t know.

Earning your trust is something we think about every day at Yahoo!, and we build that priority into our products and our policies. Yahoo! recently announced a significant change in how we retain the information related to your use of Yahoo! sites, setting an industry-leading approach to user data privacy. The New York Times said that it was “…an encouraging development for the cause of Internet privacy.”

We’ll continue to work for your privacy and hope you’ll take a moment today to learn how to better protect yourself and your family online.

Anne Toth
VP for Policy and Head of Privacy

As citizens swarmed the Capitol Mall in record numbers to be within earshot of Tuesday’s historic presidential inauguration, they stormed the Internet in equal measure.

In fact, people with Obama fever broke records across Yahoo! News on Tuesday, seeking as much news and information as possible. Let’s take a look at why:

• Historic milestone – That’s the no-brainer. It seemed that whether or not Americans voted for President Obama, they appreciated the significance of inaugurating our first African-American president. Global interest in this American tradition was never higher.
• Net news rules – As the Pew Research Center reported in December, the Internet has surpassed newspapers and all other mediums except television for national and international news. And even that is destined to change, considering 6 in 10 people under age 30 prefer the Web to TV for news. As more people turned to the Web on Tuesday, we saw our highest traffic day ever on Yahoo! News, with 12.3 million unique visitors (the equivalent of the populations of New York City and Los Angeles combined) logging 329 million page views. These eye-popping figures beat our previous records around Hurricanes Katrina and Ike.
• Web video has arrived – Online video is no longer seen as a spotty, unreliable medium fraught with outages and buffering, as it might have been in 2000 and 2004. While hiccups can still happen, it seems people now confidently log on to live news coverage online knowing they won’t miss a thing. That was paramount on Tuesday because the inauguration and ensuing festivities fell during the workday for Americans. Yahoo! News upped our video server capacity as we logged record video streams, surpassing even Election Day coverage.
• Photos attract – People like news stories, but they can’t seem to get enough of photos – both news agency and user generated. On average, people viewed more than 70 images per person among our 56 inauguration-related slideshows (vs. our normal 40 photos per person). Not surprisingly, the most viewed set was of First Daughters Malia and Sasha. Over at Flickr, people tagged more than 150,000 photos and videos with terms related to the inauguration, along with those newly submitted to the Commons by partners like the Smithsonian that show historic images of past inaugurations.

As demand for online news continues to grow, our team will look for new ways to help you sort through the volume of news information and formats available. Who knows what the next record-breaking event will be?

But one thing’s for sure. It’s nice to see Internet news come of age.

Neeraj Khemlani
VP & GM, Yahoo! News

More than 40 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a movement centered on hope for a better tomorrow. In classrooms around the country each year, students are asked to reflect on this man’s inspirational journey in fighting for freedom, justice and equality. But while the young people we serve at the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula (BGCP) in East Palo Alto, Calif., are reminded of this day’s significance in school, MLK Day is often celebrated as a day off rather than a tribute to one of the greatest civil rights heroes of our time.

So when Yahoo! offered to buy tickets for our families to ride the 24th annual Freedom Train as part of their Purple Acts of Kindness program, we were absolutely thrilled. Surprises like these are definitely a warm welcome. This San Francisco Bay Area tradition is an amazing opportunity to take part in celebrations honoring Dr. King’s legacy. And what better way to bring these lessons to life for our members?

Over 200 members from BGCP (kids ages 6-18 and their families) traveled on the Freedom Train for a ride from San Jose to San Francisco to join the Freedom March and Rally Celebration. This year’s theme, “The Realization of Hope,” was very appropriate as we mark Barack Obama’s inauguration as our first African-American president. This all-day march and rally was an incredible time of joyous celebration, quiet reflection and hopeful preparation for what lies ahead. When we boarded the train to head home, many of our young people left with a twinkle of excitement in their eyes, awed and inspired by the powerful messages from the day.

Dae’Von Bishop, a 13-year-old Club member, summed up his feelings when he wrote, “I think that Obama’s inauguration will open many doors for young black males like me because people will have higher expectations for us. I hope that as I move forward with my life I will be able to inspire the next generation the way he has inspired me.”

Thanks to Yahoo! for a remarkable day of inspiration!

Amy Liebert
Development Associate
Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula

A team of editors in Yahoo! Search is in the very enviable position of being able to peer deeply into the minds of the collective Yahoo! populace at any given moment — watching anonymized keywords that spike as people search for news and information related to current events.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what our users were most curious about today as they watched the swearing in of our 44th president:

• Oath of office – people were keen to read about “john roberts flub” as the Chief Justice stumbled slightly on the oath
• Aretha Franklin – that hat was on everyone’s mind; there were also questions about how old she is, along with confusion about her name (“anita franklin”)
• Joseph Lowery – people were buzzing about the Reverend and his funky benediction
• Dick Cheney wheelchair – why exactly was he in a wheelchair?
• Obama speech – because hearing it once was evidently not enough
• Inaugural lunch menu – great curiosity about what was being served to the President on this historic day
• Abraham Lincoln – searches about his bible as well as quotes that might have been invoked today
• How old is Obama - shouldn’t it be how “young” is Obama?
• Readings/music - there were spikes on particular pieces and lyrics, including misheard phrases (“air and simple gifts” and the misheard “heir and simple gifts”)
• Bush daughters’ letter to Obama daughters – interest in the advice between First Daughters
• Activities/lesson plans – parents and teachers searched for all sorts of things for kids, like coloring pages, lesson plans, activities, word searches
• Live coverage – an unprecedented global audience sought the experience live online
• Obama’s limo – there was great interest in this James Bondian machine.
• Tuskegee Airmen – people sought background on this group of World War II pilots who broke the color barrier in military aviation
• Michelle Obama dress – as usual, fashionistas wanted all the skinny on who designed Michelle’s dress (it was Isabel Toledo)

And if you get a chance, check out the Flickr Inauguration 2009 pool, which now boasts more than 4,000 images from the inaugural festivities.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Photo from erin m

As the country swears in its 44th president, we also inaugurate our most wired commander in chief.

Barack Obama’s campaign was historic on many levels, but certainly no other candidate had ever harnessed the tools of the Web as effectively. He embraced technologies to not only rally his supporters, but also gave Americans what felt like a personal connection to him. He started to feel like a friend, a neighbor, a social contact. From Flickr to Facebook, Twitter to text messaging, he kept Americans in the loop with every movement of his campaign, helping them take a personal stake in it all. And there’s no question he’ll continue to use these tools to mobilize a nation as he takes the helm.
 
Here’s a video report on the phenomenon, how it helped win Obama the White House, and what role technology will play in Washington.
 

Heather Cabot
Yahoo! Web Life Editor

Editor’s Note: Heather Cabot is Yahoo!’s Web Life Editor and makes frequent appearances on television and radio, offering insights on consumer interests as they relate to life in the digital age. This is the first of many appearances she will make on Yodel Anecdotal, observing tips, tricks and trends about uses of the Web. Heather is a former ABC News anchor and correspondent. She writes a weekly blog for The Huffington Post and is the founder and publisher of The Well Mom, a weekly e-zine that empowers and inspires moms to care for themselves as well as they care for everyone else in their lives. 

Twenty-three years ago today, the Internet Engineering Task Force first met with the mission of developing Internet standards. You know, seeking agreement on minor things like TCP/IP and Internet protocols, so that routers and packets and switches would all cooperate with one another in order to bring you cool things like what we’ve cooked up this week:

• Status on steroids: If you’ve set up your Yahoo! Profiles page, you’ve been reaping the benefits of Yahoo!’s new social capabilities. Today, Yahoo! Profiles ventures beyond these purple walls to include updates from more than 20 sites. That means that you can now see when a contact posts a new review on Yelp, uploads to SmugMug, uploads a video to YouTube, blogs on Blogger, rates a song on Pandora, or tweets on Twitter. The world’s getting smaller as we speak. More here.
• Piping hot news: What do you get when you combine Yahoo! News with Twitter? A breaking news search engine. Yahoo! engineer Vik Singh took his brainchild, Yahoo! BOSS (or Build Your Own Search Service), and put it to use to create what he calls TweetNews. It’s a clever mashup that takes stories on Yahoo! News and combines them with topics that are spiking on Twitter — a new way to find news that is both timely and important. And another great marriage of traditional and social media. Give it a whirl. More here and here.

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What do you do when one of your teams hits a milestone anniversary? Host a reality TV show!

The Food Network’s “Dinner: Impossible” crew descended on our campus this week to pull off an episode that honored the anniversary of Yahoo! Search (specifically, the fifth year of our proprietary Yahoo! Search Technology). Celeb chef Robert Irvine arrived at our headquarters early in the morning to be given a seemingly impossible culinary challenge by Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang.

Since the show isn’t slated to air until April, we can’t tell you what we asked him to do, how many people he cooked for, and in how many hours, but let’s just say those of you who searched for food items on Yahoo! last year played a big hand in it. And I can tell you that some serious innovation was definitely required!

And we didn’t let Chef Robert do it alone. We lent him Yahoo! Search SVP Tuoc Luong and VP of Marketing Raj Gossain to help out in the kitchen. Two gourmands with a killer history with hot dogs. The best I can describe it as is sheer and utter mayhem — frenetic chopping, mixing, grilling, slicing, flouring, deep-frying, shouting, accusing, burning… as the hours and minutes ticked away.

Did Chef Robert achieve his mission? Wild horses can’t drag it out of us, but we do hope you’ll tune in to the Food Network to find out. In the meantime, a hearty happy anniversary to the Yahoo! Search Team.

Photos from the production and ensuing party can be found here.

UPDATE: The “Yahoo! Search Scramble” episode will premiere on the Food Network on April 15th at 10pm ET/PT.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Photo from CeciliaC

It’s been a busy day around here, so apologies for the radio silence on today’s big news. As you’ve probably read, Carol Bartz has been named Yahoo!’s new CEO. Carol is the 14-year veteran CEO of Autodesk, becoming the company’s executive chairman in 2006. To quote Jerry Yang’s email to the troops today, she’s known for her “straight talk, decisiveness, operational excellence… leadership skills, hands-on technology management expertise, energy.” In fact, she hit the ground running, with today being her official first day.

Also announced today is that Sue Decker will resign as president after staying on for a transitional period. She will leave Yahoo! after nearly nine years of contributing to Yahoo!’s growth. Jerry, who announced he would step down as CEO in mid-November, will remain at Yahoo!, returning to his role as Chief Yahoo.

Check out Techmeme for the buzz about the news.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor