Tonight marks the end of an era. After 17 years, Jay Leno will give his last “Tonight Show” monologue, joining Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Johnny Carson in the ranks of former hosts. From taking Hugh Grant to the woodshed for using a prostitute to hosting the first sitting American president on a late-night show, Leno gave you plenty of reasons to delay your bedtime. Here’s what we pulled on stage this week:

• Photos without the jail time: If you’ve ever hesitated before throwing that copyrighted photo into a presentation or web page, you’ll celebrate this news. Yahoo! Search has added a Creative Commons license filter to Yahoo! Image Search to help you quickly identify photos that are OK to reuse or modify. No other search engine saves your bacon that way. Not only do we keep you out of trouble, you’ll never even the see the photos you don’t have permission to use — it’s like Eve didn’t even know the apple existed. More here.
• Search that sport: That little search box just made you a better sports fan. Yahoo! Search has added a sports team shortcut that helps you keep track of your favorite teams, leagues, and events simply by typing in a keyword or two. When’s the next Lakers game? Who’s winning the French Open? Just go to Yahoo! Search. The sports team shortcut covers the NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA, and college sports leagues including the NCAAF and NCAAB. More here.
• 360 comes full circle: Yes, it’s official — Yahoo! 360 is coming to an end. We know, we know — it took us a while to pull the plug. But rather than rush the process and risk losing your precious photos and prose, we wanted to make sure we had a solution in place — Yahoo! Profiles. You can move your content over to your profile, where your connections can keep tabs on you, or take it to go. You can export your entries to blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, and MoveableType. More here.
• Comments with a click: And in the hilarious third-party app category… Feeling too lazy, bored, tired, or uninspired to write a comment for that Flickr photo? Good thing some clever souls from Virginia have developed the Flickr comment generatr. You can choose between simple (“this is super :-p”) or verbose (“i eat up the framing and foto ;-) good job my friend”). Now you can be meaningless without even trying.

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Carol Bartz made her first big appearance today at the seventh annual D: All Things Digital conference. As could’ve been predicted, this CEO famed for salty one-liners made quite an impression. Carol was asked about why she came to Yahoo!, what is Yahoo!, what’s most important to us, the economy, whether she plans to hire a #2, her management style, what’s going on with Microsoft, Google, whether she agrees with the Peanut Butter manifesto, and plenty more. The responses were candid, direct, and often quite quotable (for example, “Nine women cannot make a baby in one month. You need time and process.”).

The AllThingsD.com site has a liveblog recap of Carol’s interview. You might also head to the Twitterverse for a taste of how she was received. Some of our favorite tweets:

• Chris Anderson (@TEDchris): Yahoo’s new CEO Carol Bartz knocking ‘em dead at D7. Smart, focused, engaging, funny, persuasive. Memo to self: buy YHOO?
• Peter Kafka (@pkafka): I think this may be Carol Bartz’ first big public appearance since coming to Yahoo. IMHO she’s crushing it.
• Larry Magid (@LarryMagid): Yahoo’s Carol Bartz is one of the funniest speakers ever at D.
• Katie Boehret (@kabster728): Our stage manager says: I wanna see the sitcom w/these two (referring to @karaswisher and Carol Bartz, Yahoo CEO).

(UPDATE: The folks at D have taken down Carol’s video to replace it “with one that contains 100 percent more profanity. It’ll be up soon–we apologize for the inconvenience.” We’ll get it up when the link is available.)
UPDATE #2: And it’s back!

Here’s the video — uncensored:

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Photos by Asa Mathat, AllThingsD.com

As I hit publish, Carol Bartz, our CEO, is taking the stage at the seventh annual D: All Things Digital conference for a conversation with Kara Swisher. Since she’ll also be taking questions from the audience, we thought we’d do our own version of an audience Q&A. We had a chance to quickly sit down with Carol to ask some of the questions submitted by Yodel Anecdotal readers. Big thanks to contributors and apologies to those whose thoughtful questions remain on the cutting room floor — her calendar is like a NY subway at rush hour.

If you want a recap of Carol’s D discussion, check out our Twitter stream — we’re attempting live updates. And check back here later today for photos and video highlights.

1. BrandonWIFI: Now that you have been on board long enough what was your biggest surprise in terms of what Yahoo! is good at and what was your biggest disappointment?

I’m most surprised by how good Yahoo! is at connecting people to their worlds. I hadn’t realized that half of the Net users in the world come to Yahoo! every month, and that more people spend time on our site every month than any other site in the US. That’s huge. And my biggest disappointment is that although we have all these wonderful sites – like being #1 in eleven categories – we really didn’t focus enough on what we were good at. The company was easily distracted – it’s really about focus.

2. Joe Lazarus (San Francisco): My Question: If you had to choose, what is the one specific thing that Yahoo! can and will do better than any other company in the world… the one thing that you would like consumers to instantly associate with the Yahoo! brand and the products you create… not something broad and all encompassing like “the starting point” or “excellence”, but rather one specific core competency. Some examples from other companies might include: Google = Search, eBay = Auctions, Facebook = Friend Connections, Amazon = Customer Service. All of these companies do many things well, but they each have clear strengths in one clearly defined area. What do you see as Yahoo!’s one thing either today or in the future?

I’m so glad you asked this question because it’s something we’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Yahoo! means a lot of things to a lot of people – whether you’re a student, a working mom, a business owner, what have you. We’ve essentially got something for everyone. And that’s made it tough to really define Yahoo! and what makes us unique. But as we see it, Yahoo! is the place where millions of people come every day to see what is happening with the people and the things that matter most to them. That could mean what’s happening in the world — like breaking news, sports scores, stock quotes, last night’s TV highlights — and your world — like your email, photos, groups, fantasy leagues. Based on what we know about you, we’re unique in how well we can bring you both those worlds. So I think our clear strength is “relevance” – whether that means knowing what weather to give you or serving up headlines you’ll be interested in. It’s all about really getting you and we have more work to do in that area.

3. AMS (United Kingdom): What job is Jerry Yang now doing within the company?

Jerry still has his sleeves rolled up. He spends a ton of time with our product teams and is fantastic with our advertising customers. In fact, he’s been spending a lot of time on the road in the last few months, meeting with clients and discussing how we can work better with them. And, of course, he’s got a really big brain, which is incredibly helpful to me personally. He was really supportive as I came on board and we talk regularly about the company’s future and what needs to change. Working with founders isn’t a new concept for me –- when I joined Autodesk, there were eight of them!

4. AMS (United Kingdom): What is Steve Ballmer really like to negotiate with?

Sorry, I’m not going to touch that one. Maybe you should ask the aQuantive guys.

5. AMS, United Kingdom: Do you think the economic downturn is still getting worst, and will drag on for long time yet. (There does seem to be more adverts on yahoo the last month or so that is am seeing as customer, so is good for your company).

I don’t think the downturn is getting worse. But it’s not getting better at this point.

6. Aaditya Bhatia (San José, CA): This is from one of the biggest fans of Yahoo!. Google is on its way to taking over the world. What is your killer plan to save our Yahoo! and our planet?

Bottom line is we have to make Yahoo! just a terrific site for people around the world to come to –- and come back to. What most people don’t realize is that only 5% of the time people spend on the Internet is spent searching. That means 95% of the time, people are doing something else … reading, sharing, connecting, researching, watching, discovering, having fun, killing time. The better our products are and the more they help you live your life, the more likely you are to visit us again and again. And that’s what we’re focused on. But I also want to point out that Yahoo! is already really strong company –- I think with the backdrop of the last year or so, that’s gotten lost in the shuffle. We’re number one or two in about 25 categories and we reach one in every two people who go online. Not to mention that we have billions in the bank, no debt, and enviable operating cash flow in a tough economy. I don’t think that describes a company in need of “being saved.” As for the planet, we all have to work together to save it.

7. David Smith (Portland, Oregon): What is the most important user experience factor for Yahoo’s future success and why (for example accessibility, deep personalization, open data, or real-time relevance like Twitter/Facebook)?

Like I said earlier, relevance is really our secret sauce… to what’s happening with people and things that matter to you most. That means we’re either letting you personalize what you see on Yahoo! (although we know no one wants to work too hard at doing that these days) or using what we know about to surface things that match what you care about.

8. bAbel: With the newspaper industry suffering, if newspapers go down, which would affect AP and the wires, would that affect Yahoo!? If so, how?

I’m not going to speculate on the future of newspapers, but we’re obviously focused on making the best, high-quality news content available to people wherever they want to access it. With people turning more often to the Internet for news, we know that journalism will thrive online, regardless of how business models ultimately evolve. On that note, our 800 newspaper partners in the Newspaper Consortium are focused on growth and innovation, vs the doom and gloom hanging over the industry. They’re seeing revenue grow online and that’s influencing a seminal shift in their cultures and how they do business.

9. Miramon: Revenues and profits have been decreasing. Regardless of the reasons for the downturn, what is your plan for making Yahoo a vital and profitable company?

Yahoo! is already a vital and profitable company. We’re all suffering from the downturn but, frankly, we less than many companies.

10. Jen: which yahoo products do you use the most and why?

I spend most of my time on our homepage to see what’s happening in the world, Yahoo! Mail for email, and Yahoo! Finance to keep an eye on the markets.

11. Kathy (San Francisco): It’s graduation season at high schools and universities….If you were delivering a graduation speech this year, what would your key messages be to the graduates?

For the kids graduating from high school and going on to college, I would tell them to study hard, play hard, and pick good friends. Don’t hang with losers. For college grads, I would remind them that they have, for the most part, at least 40 years ahead of them to work, so they have a long time to make their way. And in the environment their facing, they need to be creative because I will guarantee that after this downturn, there will be an upturn.

12. AMS (United Kingdom): What is favourite way to spend a weekend.

Family, gardening and golf.

13. Kathy (San Francisco): If this chapter of your leadership had a soundtrack, what would it be and why?

Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”

14. Miramon: Do you agree that Parmesan is truly the king of cheeses?

Yes. And by the way, pasta is just a carrier for Parmesan.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

We recognize that for many of you around the world, the Yahoo! homepage – whether you’re seeing it on a computer or a mobile device – is Yahoo!. And we know you all have vastly different interests and “must-see” places you navigate to online. We can make our homepage better reflect this reality and, as many of you know, we’ve been hard at work on improving both our mobile and Web homepages.

What’s new, you ask?
We recently made the new Yahoo! Mobile (http://m.yahoo.com) available on the mobile Web across more than 300 devices and as an Apple iPhone app – both are available in eight countries, with more launching soon. We’ve moved out of beta and are in the process of rolling it out as our default mobile homepage.

Like the PC homepage we’re testing, the new Yahoo! Mobile has a more feature-rich design, letting you bring together your favorite content and services from across the Web, making it more personally relevant. For example, my experience is customized with my Yahoo! Mail, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo! Messenger accounts, as well as my various stocks, favorite blog feeds, and weather from my favorite cities. The beauty of it is that you can customize the experience to exactly what you want and add anything to the page.

As for the Web, we recently started testing some new designs based on your feedback. We recognize that many of you like your homepage just the way it is, thank-you-very-much, so the overall look and feel of the page will be familiar. But take a closer look, and you’ll see that we’ve made some fundamental improvements and packed in features that are easy to use and easy to make your own – things you have told us you want.

The “My Favorites” area on the left side of the page includes an applications “dashboard” with the ability to preview, interact with or navigate to your favorite sites – whether they’re on Yahoo! or elsewhere on the Web. It’s all fully customizable.

Here’s some of what’s new and cool:

• Lots more apps: We’re testing a growing library of apps that let you get more done without leaving the page. Some of these apps include eBay and MySpace, and content sites like USA Today and NPR. We also have newly developed apps for popular Yahoo! services like Messenger, Movies and Flickr.
• Social pulse: A new Yahoo! Updates app lets you keep up with your friends’ online activities directly on the homepage – such as a recently Buzzed article or a video uploaded to YouTube.
• Easier email: We’ve separated your individual email accounts as distinct apps, rather than a combined inbox, so that it’s faster and easier to get to the exact mail you want. This was a request we heard repeatedly during testing.

What about local personalization?
As a global company, it’s critical that we create localized homepages, and we’re testing them now in France, India and the UK. While we’ll provide a consistent experience across all our global homepages in terms of design, they will be customized with information and apps that are locally relevant. For example, the new homepage in India will include a Cricket app and a whole host of others that are India-centric, while the UK site will include apps such as underground alerts, news from the BBC, and more.

This screenshot shows London Underground alerts from Transport for London:

We’re excited about the new direction of our homepages, especially because you’ve helped us build them. The designs being tested are changing frequently based on your input. Stay tuned for updates in the months ahead as we roll them out more broadly.

Tapan Bhat
SVP, Integrated Consumer Experiences, Yahoo!

It’s elementary… Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of legendary detective Sherlock Holmes, was born 150 years ago today. Holmes and his trusty sidekick, Dr. Watson, mastered the art of observation and deduction to solve crimes in 56 stories and four novels. But what we want to know is whether Mr. Spock is truly a descendant. Here’s the code we cracked this week:

• Buzzing the world: There’s news and there’s news people really care about. That’s what Yahoo! Buzz helps you filter. And now the site has made it even easier to keep tabs on what your contacts and the greater community find most interesting. As part of a fresh redesign, a new “Buzz Updates” tab surfaces the submitting, voting, and commenting activity from your friends and others. And given Yahoo! Buzz’s runaway success as the (insert shameless self-promotion) most popular social content service in the US, Yahoo! Buzz got its passport and just landed in India. Now readers all over India can keep tabs on what’s hot in everything from Bollywood to business in Bangalore. More here.
• Just tell me: The iPhone is truly the one thing I’d want on a desert isle, but let’s face it — its keyboard leaves something to be desired. That’s why Yahoo! Mobile just launched voice search for our Yahoo! Mobile iPhone app. Now you can search for anything — flight numbers, restaurants, gas stations, web sites — by just moving your mouth. You can also customize your “My Interests” tab with your voice — just click on “add anything” and say the topic you want to explore and add to your page. Our voice-enabled search is now available on more than 80 different devices/platforms – from Blackberry (including the newest ones) to Nokia to iPhone and Windows Mobile. Download the app or your update.
• Catch that play?: You can read about sports online, but it’s video that really gets the adrenaline flowing. Yahoo! Sports just revamped their video player so you can do more with the play-by-play. It now has a larger viewing window and you can watch videos in full screen. You can also share links or embed your favorite plays in your blog or what-have-you. And handy big thumbnails make it easier to browse through the video library. Check out this Lakers’ dunk. And then go get air sick.
• Group update: Six months ago, you might have noticed activity updates from your friends popping up in places like Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Profiles. They’ve included activity on Twitter, Flickr, Yahoo! Buzz, MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Music, delicious, and more. This week, Yahoo! Groups joined the fray. Now the questions, answers, advice, and photos you share with your group can also become an update for your Yahoo! connections, offering more airtime for the content you’ve created. And don’t worry — you have complete control over what you want to share. Read more here.
• Make it green: If you fancy yourself a MacGyver type and have an idea for a great new “green” gizmo, get thee to Yahoo! Green’s new “Make It Green” campaign. We’re searching for the best new green products and do-it-yourself projects so we can turn them into real products. What’s in it for you? A chance to star on the PBS TV show Everyday Edisons, a check for $2500, and the glory of knowing that your little planet-saving idea is lining the shelves of stores. Not particularly inventive? That’s ok — just go give a thumbs up to whatever idea you like best. You’ve got until June 30th. Check it out.

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Abebe Gellaw, the 2008-09 Yahoo! International Fellow at Stanford this year, is an example of how one person with a great idea can make a difference.

Abebe is an Ethiopian journalist, but the regime in his home country is too repressive to allow true journalism, so he is in exile. He had been in London for years before coming to the U.S. as the Yahoo! International Journalism Fellow at Stanford.

The Yahoo! fellowship was specifically established for people like Abebe, journalists from countries where there are strong challenges to a free press. Yahoo! and the Knight Fellowships agreed that supporting journalists who were directly or indirectly under attack should be at the top of the to-do list, and so we created the Yahoo! Fellowship in 2006, with a generous gift from Yahoo!.

Abebe is the third Yahoo! Fellow, following Imtiaz Ali, from Pakistan, and Violet Gonda, of Zimbabwe. Like Abebe, Violet was in exile, too. Abebe’s great idea is Addis Voice, a London-based website devoted to independent news about Ethiopia. It has become a trusted source of news and commentary for the Ethiopian diaspora. Here’s an interview with Abebe:

Abebe’s fellowship is ending, and we are ready to welcome Nadia Trinidad of the Philippines, one of the deadliest countries for journalists in the world. Nadia is a senior correspondent for ABS-CBN Brooadcasting Company in Manila. She will study the psychological and sociological aspects of corruption in the media. She will arrive in August.

Journalists are under attack around the world, and organizations like the Committee To Protect Journalists make sure that those attacks are brought to light. It makes me feel proud that the Knight Fellowships and Yahoo! have teamed up to provide a fellowship at Stanford every year for someone who is bearing the brunt of those attacks.

Jim Bettinger
Director, John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists
Stanford University

Filmed and edited by Bart Bishoff, Yahoo! Broadcast Bureau

Want to know what’s buzzing in Bangalore or Bollywood? Now you can, because Yahoo! Buzz is launching in India today, making it the first international version of the Web’s most visited social content service. Now, people throughout India can help bring the most buzz-worthy stories to Yahoo! India and beyond.

Today, Yahoo! Buzz in India is starting off with more than two dozen featured Indian publishers and we look forward to welcoming many more in the coming weeks and months. Since Yahoo! Buzz launched in the U.S. just over a year ago, more than 20,000 publishers from around the world have had stories “buzzed up.”

But that’s not all. We are introducing a new look for Yahoo! Buzz overall that more prominently features contributions from the site’s community. With our new “Buzz Updates” tab, we’re making it easier to follow the submitting, voting, and commenting activity of your friends and the larger Yahoo! Buzz community. And, you’ll also find it’s faster and simpler than ever to share the stories and videos you find most interesting, since we now automatically fill in the story headline and description when you submit a URL.

Take a look at the new Yahoo! Buzz:

And here’s the new Yahoo! Buzz in India:

Stay tuned for more about what’s next for Yahoo! Buzz, and in the meantime, keep buzzing and helping people find the most remarkable stories from across the Web.

Julie Demsey
Senior Director, Product Management, Yahoo! Buzz

I wish there were a bin that just magically sorted my recycling. Or a way to convert my car into a hybrid that isn’t complicated or expensive. Or maybe a garage door opener that turns off all the power in my house when I leave.

If anyone out there has created these solutions, or has other green ideas that can improve our lives while helping the planet, we want to hear about them. We just launched Make It Green, a campaign to find the best new “green” products and do-it-yourself projects from everyday people. Make It Green is the newest addition to Yahoo! Green, the # 1 green site on the Web (Comscore, April 2009).

The best ideas will be brought to market as real products on store shelves, earning you $2,500 and a share of the sales. Plus, you could be on the PBS TV show Everyday Edisons. If you don’t have an idea (yet), you can give the “thumbs up” to your favorites to help us determine which ideas will be selected to go to market.

Some of my favorite ideas that have already been submitted include ultrasonic mosquito repellant, a solar clothes dryer, and a hybrid hair dryer. Check out the idea gallery to see other innovations. Who knows, you might get inspired enough to submit an idea of your own.

To take these products to market, we’ve partnered with Edison Nation. They have tons of expertise and experience reviewing products, handling intellectual property, and partnering with retailers to put the products onto store shelves. That’s why there’s a $10 submission fee – to help offset some of the cost of doing all that review.

We’ll also be showcasing some of the great green ideas at Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA, on May 30 and 31. The do-it-yourself community has been hacking solutions to everyday problems with everyday materials, so we’re excited to learn about those ideas, too.

With more than 500 million users, we know there’s phenomenal creativity and innovation out there. Whether you’re submitting an idea or just voting on one, we want to get great ideas in front of the right people to make a difference. So get busy – the program ends on June 30.

Oh, and by the way, our lawyers also want to make sure you understand that terms and conditions apply – see the Official Innovator Agreement (PDF) for details.

Erin Carlson
Director, Yahoo! For Good

While President Obama was inspiring university students at Notre Dame this weekend, our own Jerry Yang was doing the same at the University of Hawaii at Hilo (minus the right-to-life controversy).

Breathing inspiration into anxiety-ridden and debt-addled college graduates in the worst economy since World War II is a tall order. But Jerry reminded them of the resilient human spirit and that great things often crawl from the wreckage in the worst of times. After all, he and David Filo created Yahoo! in a downturn in the early 90s. Jerry proffered six bits of advice — ranging from not letting the headlines get the grads down to taking advantage of the incredible tools (e.g. the Internet) at their disposal to being ready to take strange roads that might not be in their master plan.

You can read the full transcript here. Or enjoy the video (Part I, Part II), courtesy of BigIslandVideoNews.com.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

There are just so many bizarre holidays today, we couldn’t just pick one. So today, extend your bed’s lifespan by honoring Flip Your Mattress Day, tackle your feline for Hug Your Cat Day, down a box of Chips Ahoy for National Chocolate Chip Day, and paint the town red for Nylon Stockings Day. (And just wait for tomorrow – it’s National Sea Monkey Day!) Here’s what we revered this week:

• Daytime drama: This whole working thing getting in the way of keeping up with great moments in soap operas, game shows, and talk shows? Yahoo! TV to the rescue with Daytime in No Time, a new daily video show that recaps the day’s most memorable daytime TV scenes in three minutes. Catch daily watercooler highlights from shows like Good Morning America, the Price is Right, the View, Rachael Ray, Ellen, and, of course, Oprah. The show follows in the footsteps of Primetime in No Time, whose late night TV recaps have earned it the distinction of the Web’s most watched original programming (~230 million streams to date!). Can’t hide the headphones from your boss? Read their daytime blog.
• Music videos get foxy: If you’ve discovered FoxyTunes, the toolbar that lets you control your tunes from within your browser, you know how excellent it is not to have to switch between apps when listening to music. Now you can use it to control YouTube music videos — from watching a single video to navigating video playlists. Do all this from the convenience of your FoxyTunes toolbar while you’re surfing in other tabs. More here.

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