This morning, at a press conference in Buffalo, New York, with New York Governor David Paterson and Senator Chuck Schumer, we took another big step forward in addressing climate change. We announced plans to build one of the greenest, most energy-efficient data centers in the world.

This is significant because data centers represent the majority of our energy consumption. Keeping Yahoo! running smoothly for more than 500 million people around the world calls for a lot of server power. So we’ve made it a priority to become a leader in designing and building data centers that are environmentally sustainable, investing millions to design facilities that make the best use of the energy we consume.

Here’s what makes us so proud of our future New York data center plans. First, it will be powered by one of the cleanest utilities in the country – fed predominantly by renewable hydroelectric power from Niagara Falls. And second, a record 90% of that energy will power the servers. To put that in context, the industry average is 50% or lower, with the other half dedicated mostly to keeping the servers cool.

For data center geeks, we expect our Buffalo Lockport, NY, data center design will have an annualized average PUE (power usage effectiveness) of 1.1 or better. To achieve that, we’ve come up with a unique building design that we call the Yahoo! Computing Coop (because it looks like something chickens live in), which is angled to take advantage of Buffalo’s microclimate, using 100% outside air to cool the servers.

We’ve been pushing green data center standards since we started building our own data centers two years ago. For example, our facilities in Washington are powered by zero-carbon wind and hydroelectric sources, and we use free cooling for most of the year, dropping energy consumption by 40-50%. As we build more capacity to meet demand, we’ll continue to focus on innovations and inventions that improve energy efficiency. And we’ve been sharing best practices to encourage the entire industry to put smarter policies in play.

And we’ll continue to push ourselves hard to lower our impact. Today we’re committing to reduce the carbon intensity of our data centers by at least 40% by 2014. In other words, we’ll decrease our average electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from our data centers around the world. We’ll get there through a combination of innovative data center design, improving how we utilize our servers, cloud computing, and locating our data centers in areas where cleaner energy is available.

Reducing our carbon footprint has always been a priority and we’ve decided to focus all our energy and investment on that philosophy. We will no longer purchase carbon offsets as announced in 2007. Instead, we’ll focus our resources on reducing our carbon impact while helping the rest of the industry do the same. We believe creating highly-efficient data centers will have a greater long-term, direct impact on the environment and gives us the best opportunity to play a leadership role in addressing climate change.

So the next time you check your email, do a Yahoo! search, or get the latest environmental info on Yahoo! Green, you can feel good about putting some of the greenest data centers in the industry to work.

David Filo
Co-founder and Chief Yahoo

Every year, thousands of creative people from around the world descend on Cannes, France, to mingle, learn, and celebrate great works of advertising genius. Inspired by the film festival that Cannes is most famous for, the 56th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival is truly the meeting of the most creative minds in the business, with the goal of pushing the collective innovation envelope.

This year, delegates from 90 countries gathered to hear distinguished speakers like the UN’s Kofi Annan, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Twitter’s Biz Stone, Bob Geldof, and the heads of the world’s largest advertising agencies. And jury members judged more than 22,000 pieces of the most creative advertising from every corner of the globe. In short, it was the place to be for ad types.

Since advertising is one of our passions at Yahoo!, you can imagine we wanted to support the festival, Yahoo!-style. Our goal was to communicate that the world’s biggest ideas should live on the world’s biggest stage –- the online arena. So, Yahoo! had an innovative, local presence at the festival. Naturally, we placed ads in local media saluting the creatives, but we also deployed an awesome purple van and hit the streets with a giveaway that literally declared “Nothing Creative Happens in Penny Loafers.”

Our Mission: Project Flip Flop
How do you show the creative community that you really love them? You make them comfortable, of course! Members of Project Flip Flop canvassed the Croissette with pairs of purple Yahoo!-branded Havaianas flip flops, slipping them on the weary feet of anyone with a festival badge. Meanwhile, our purple van circled the streets and our own Purple Pedals bike rode the promenade to document the mission. By the end of the week, thousands of feet were happier.

The response was très fantastique!

• Fast Company wrote that the flip flops were the most sought after prize at Cannes;
• The Cannes Daily covered the campaign (page 12);
• A creative director from a global agency said to me, “Thanks for letting us be free!”;
• The head of marketing for one of the largest global brands in attendance asked for pairs for her children;
• Even the Twitterverse played along. One tweet suggested that we put this campaign up for a Lion next year. Another from halfway around the globe asked to add a pair to a Yahoo! footwear collection.

To see the mission in action, check out this short video (below), view our Flickr album, and see some of the images that our Purple Pedal picked up.

Creativity is the secret sauce in the best advertising and we want your Yahoo! experience to be well seasoned with it. For a look at the creativity that snagged the Lions, check out the official site at canneslions.com.

Elisa Steele
Chief Marketing Officer

Nine years ago today, the first blueprint of the human being emerged as the Human Genome Project released a first draft of a fully sequenced human genome. All hail the double helix! Since then, scientists have used it to screen for various illnesses and link genes with specific diseases. Here’s what we decoded this week:

• Toolbar tricks: Now, every browser comes with a toolbar, so why would you want the new one from Yahoo!? Does yours let you preview your email or content from more than 100 popular sites? Does it give you query suggestions as you search? Does it let you search directly within sites like Flickr or Wikipedia? I didn’t think so. Go download yourself the new Yahoo! Toolbar. It’s all about letting you do more faster. More here.
• Making the little guy feel big: If you own a small business, you know how much you covet the marketing dollars of the big dogs. Well, the playing field has officially been leveled. Our new My Display Ads let businesses of any size run affordable online display (or banner) campaigns that reach local markets on Yahoo!. How affordable? Let’s just say we can make thirty bucks go a long way. These self-service ads are easy to create – just pick from one of our 800+ templates; customize text, images, colors and add your company logo; select your target audience; and off you go. You’re guaranteed to feel embiggened. More here.
• Proud to have Pride: It’s LGBT Pride month and we’re doing it up big with this year’s Yahoo! Pride site. We’ve got news from the Advocate, a killer timeline that summarizes the last century in gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender history, and an event finder for more than 1,000 Pride events around the world. But best of all, we might be sending you and a friend to Sydney for the LGBT Mardi Gras in February. But hurry, you have to enter by July 1st (or come meet us in San Francisco this weekend to enter in person). More here.
• Dog days of summer: The race is on and you’ve got about 11 weeks to make the most of it. It’s summertime and we’ve pulled together a little helpful microsite to keep you from squandering it. Need help with travel plans? Check out articles on getaways that involve beachs, golf, family, national park, or weekend furloughs. Want great recipes? We’ve got ideas for grilling, oven-free cooking, drinks, and chill-out treats. There’s also shopping ideas, tips on keeping that lawn green, kids activities, and giving your Avatar a more sunswept look. Check it out here.

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

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of Stonewall — widely considered the birth of the modern-day LGBT civil rights movement. It’s been quite a year for Yahoo!’s tens of millions of LGBT users – as well as their countless family members, friends, and supporters.

In the last year, we’ve seen civil marriage rights for gays and lesbians both granted and subsequently taken away from Californians, while also witnessing marriage legalized in 10% of U.S. states and even more countries in Europe. We’ve also seen a further explosion in LGBT pride celebrations across the globe. This year marks the first pride celebrations in China, several countries throughout Central America, and even Tahiti. There were multiple organized events for LGBT rights in cities across India, Russia, Cuba, and nearly 100 new pride celebrations throughout Brazil. Check out the map of over 1,000 LGBT pride events across the globe at pride.yahoo.com for more info.

On the home front, we had a great time again sponsoring San Francisco’s International LGBT Film Festival this past week. In commemoration of Stonewall’s 40th birthday, we hid free Yahoo! Mail Plus and Flickr Pro packages under the seats of 40 lucky audience members at two sold-out screenings at the historic Castro Theatre. It was an amazing experience to see a packed-house of 1,400 people simultaneously shout out the classic Yahoo! yodel when the prize packages were announced. Congrats to all the winners!

However, that was just the run-up to our big giveaway this pride season. We’re excited to announce that Yahoo! is going to send two winners on a week-long trip to the 2010 Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in beautiful Sydney, Australia, next summer (that’s February, a nice treat for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere). Mardi Gras is a spectacular citywide pride event in Sydney, and the prize-winners will arrive in time for the big parade and extravaganza. You can enter to win either online at http://pride.yahoo.com through July 1, 2009, or in person at the Yahoo! booth at the San Francisco LGBT Pride Festival this Sunday, June 28. Please come visit us near the corner of Grove and Larkin Streets on City Hall Plaza, say hi to Yahoo!, and enter for a chance to win.

Again, Yahoo! wishes you and your loved ones happy LGBT Pride 2009!

Drew Geishecker
Co-chair, Yahoo! Pride

It’s been a rough week, especially for those of us who grew up in the 1970s. First, we lost Ed McMahon, who we always hoped would show up at our doorstep with a big check. Then, came news of Farrah Fawcett, who always got the bad guy and launched a hair revolution among us. But it was the shocking news (confirmed, then unconfirmed, then finally confirmed) of Michael Jackson’s death that rattled the online world the most.

The passing of the King of Pop set multiple records across Yahoo!. On our front page, the story “Michael Jackson rushed to hospital” was the highest clicking story in our history. It generated a whopping 800,000 clicks within 10 minutes and news of his death saw 560,000 clicks in 10 minutes. Also, the news area on our front page experienced five times the amount of traffic it normally receives.

Yahoo! News set an all-time record in unique visitors with 16.4 million people, surpassing our previous record of 15.1 million visitors on election day. Four million people visited the site between 3-4pm Pacific time, setting an hourly record. We also recorded 175 million page views yesterday, our fourth highest after Inauguration Day, the day after the Inauguration, and Hurricane Ike.

In Yahoo! Music, a staggering 21,000 people left comments on a blog post about the music legend. And over on Flickr, more than 4,000 Michael Jackson-related images have been posted in the last day, including art images labeled as “in tribute” and photos of spontaneous memorials all over the world, such as this Thriller “flashdance” in San Francisco.

Also, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at our search logs, revealing what our users were most curious about as they tried to reconcile the news:

• Michael Jackson – including variations of his name and nicknames
• Photos – especially for photos of his face and how it changed throughout the years; also, searches for “plastic surgery“
• Videos – both videos of Michael Jackson and his music videos
• Music – Jackson Five music and his solo work; also searches for his albums and songs
• Songs - including lyrics, especially for hits like Thriller, Man in the Mirror, Billy Jean, and PYT
• Questions – “did Michael Jackson die?”, “who is Michael Jackson?” (!!), “when did Michael Jackson die?”, “why did Michael Jackson die?”
• Cardiac arrest – and other medical terms mentioned in the news
• People – lots of searches for Jackson family members; notable friends like Quincy Jones, Elizabeth Taylor, his lawyer; ex-wives Debbie Rowe and Lisa Marie Presley; and his children
• Elvis Presley – not just because of the Lisa Marie connection, but people want to know how old Elvis was when he died
• Places - Holmby Hills, UCLA Medical Center, Encino, and his house location
• Hoax rumors – given that TMZ.com was the first to confirm his death, people wondered if it was all true. Then came rumors of Harrison Ford and Jeff Goldblum’s deaths.
• RIP Michael Jackson – was very prominent in Twitter
• Drugs – for the pain killer Demerol and other variations/spellings
• Celebrity death in threes – because apparently people are superstitious
• How to moonwalk – because nobody did it better

And that’s just from yesterday…

Michael Jackson’s death was clearly a seminal event. And unlike in the 1970s, we all have a remarkable tool that brings the world together — informed and connected — over those “I remember when…” moments.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Image from thechorompys

Ten years ago, our cofounders and a group of employees gave all Yahoos a really unique way to give back to their communities – they established the Yahoo! Employee Foundation (YEF). Since then, it has generated some pretty impressive statistics:

• More than $8 million in grants to 275 nonprofit organizations;
• More than 225 passionate Yahoo! employees have successfully championed grants for their favorite nonprofit;
• At least 1 in 3 Yahoos in the U.S. have donated to YEF.

Needless to say, these figures make me proud, but they don’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t give credit to the incredible generosity and compassion of Yahoos who rallied together to raise a record $2.1 million in October 2008, just one week after the Dow took the biggest tumble in nearly a decade. This is just one instance of where, in the midst of tough times, my colleagues found it in their hearts to give back to those who were less fortunate.

YEF is unique in that it is 100% run by Yahoo! employee volunteers. Yahoos donate all of the money, champion all of the grants, and organize all volunteer activities, whether building playgrounds or renovating homes. And YEF funds projects that focus on the areas of youth and education, community building and families, and the environment which are chosen by, you guessed it, our employees. One of the best parts of YEF is that by simply donating $50, an employee can champion their favorite organization for a grant of up to $40,000. That’s powerful.

We marked our 10th anniversary milestone with events in U.S. offices from Sunnyvale to New York yesterday. These celebrations were our way of thanking the donors and volunteers who have made YEF what it is today. The Yahoo! Employee Foundation brings out the best in Yahoos, empowering us to give back and make a difference, and is a huge part of why I’m proud to work for Yahoo!.

Here’s video and photos of our thank-you event at our Sunnyvale headquarters:

Rachana Choubey
President, Yahoo! Employee Foundation Board
Sr. Product Manager, Global Front Doors

Video produced and edited by Bart Bishoff, Yahoo! Broadcast Bureau

I don’t typically look at frogs as being all that intelligent or pithy but after a few years of replacing all my light bulbs with those swirly ones and dragging my recycling bins to the curb each Tuesday night (rain or shine) now I understand and appreciate what Kermit was talking about all those years; it ain’t easy being green.

It’s not that I’m lazy or don’t care. I tell my son a hundred times a day to turn his bedroom light off when he’s not in his room, my security lights are on a timer so I don’t forget to turn them off, I’ve learned how to brush my teeth with a few drops of water, I use organic cleaners, I eat organic food, etc.

But I’ve found that there just aren’t that many useful and truly ‘green’ consumer products on the market.

I’d love to own a small hybrid car but I don’t think my wife, two kids, baby, blind black lab and a I would fit very well, even though I am on a diet. I recently found some interesting looking coasters made from recycled CD’s, but just because I think it’s cool to have a Def Leppard coaster on my coffee table doesn’t really help anything, does it?

Yahoo! Green’s Make it Green campaign (launched last month) could tangibly help change all of this by inviting regular people from around the world to submit ideas that will improve our lives and ‘green up’ our planet.

You don’t have to be a scientist to enter and you don’t have to have a patented product either. That’s because Yahoo! has teamed up with the company I work for, Edison Nation. We have tons of expertise and experience reviewing products, handling intellectual property, and partnering with manufacturers and retailers to put products onto store shelves.

If your idea is selected, you will earn $2,500, a share of sales for up to twenty years and possibly be featured on PBS’ Emmy award winning invention show Everyday Edisons.

So if you think you have a great green idea, don’t delay — Make it Green ends June 30th!

Kermit and the planet thank you.

Michael Cable
Director, Edison Nation

When I describe Jelly to a friend, I usually detect a note of disbelief in their response.

“You let total strangers in your house?”

It all started a few years ago in my midtown apartment in New York City. My roommate Luke and I worked from home, and though we loved the freedom this afforded us, we missed the opportunity to brainstorm, share ideas and interact creatively with our peers. We decided to invite a friend over to work with us on the kitchen table every week or so — that friend brought another friend, and that one brought another, and another. All of a sudden, our living room was filled with 20 friends and friends of friends typing on laptops.

We’d talk about what we were working on, look for solutions to problems we were trying to solve and we’d work. Most of us were developers, designers, or entrepreneurs, some worked alone, some worked for large companies. The common thread was we all wanted more creative interaction with those in our field. Thus Jelly began and started to spread.

Jelly was on NPR, in Wired, on NPR again, on CNN, on the Today Show. People all over the world started writing in and I helped them start their own Jellies. It seemed that our needs weren’t unique; people everywhere were craving a new way to work.

Now nearly 100 Jellies exist around the world. The phenomenon of Jelly caught Yahoo!’s attention over a year ago and together we created Jelly Talks, a live speaker series. Each month we host an influential speaker at a Jelly location and stream the conversation online via live webcast, allowing the global Jelly community to participate in the event. We’ve had JellyTalks speakers from Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Google, Yahoo!, and independents like Guy Kawasaki and Chris Messina talk about the latest in tech.

This Friday, June 26th, we have a special JellyTalks Q&A event with marketing guru Seth Godin (little known fact: he used to work at Yahoo!). He’ll be at Jelly New York City and live on the web starting at 11am PST. Be sure to tune in at http://jellytalks.yahoo.com. The webcast will not be archived, so don’t miss out!

Amit Gupta
Co-founder, Jelly

Do you own your own business and wish you could run banner ads online?

Beginning today, with the launch of Yahoo! My Display Ads, businesses of all sizes can easily launch display advertising campaigns on Yahoo! to reach the targeted audiences that matter to them most. The new solution is an easy and affordable way to create and run display ads on Yahoo! – even without a major ad budget. In fact, a campaign can cost you as little as $30 per day.

So, how does it work?

Let’s say you own a local boutique shop and you want to reach local-area women. With Yahoo! My Display Ads, you can build a customized ad campaign in a matter of minutes. First, choose from our more than 800 ad templates (organized by business category) and customize the text, images, colors and add your company logo —no design expertise necessary. Then, set your budget and decide who you want to target — by Yahoo! channel content, age, demographics, and location. For example, you could target females between the age of 18-24 in your city. (Keep in mind, though, that the more you target, the less potential traffic you may receive. We recommend starting broad and working your way smaller.) You can even decide whether you want to pay by how many times your ad was viewed or by how often it was clicked on. Finally, we give you daily reports on how ads are performing and let you easily adjust your campaign on the fly.

We partnered with Seattle-based AdReady to develop this service, marking the first time that businesses with ad budgets of all sizes can reach localized portions of Yahoo!’s 165 million users in the U.S. with targeted display ads. To learn more, check out mydisplayads.yahoo.com and get started!

Amanda Reierson
Director, B2B Marketing

Today I testified before the House Energy & Commerce Committee at a hearing titled “Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices and Consumers’ Expectations.” The Committee has been examining consumer privacy issues for Internet advertising and wants to understand what companies are doing to protect people.

In my remarks today (which you can find here – PDF), I conveyed Yahoo!’s long leadership on privacy matters and shared our comprehensive approach to this issue. We believe the best approach to user privacy is one that provides people with plenty of transparency, gives them a chance to opt-out of things they don’t want, and educates them about their choices, while also putting limits on how much information we hold and how long we it.

Last December we announced an industry-leading data retention policy, which the New York Times described as “…an encouraging development for the cause of Internet privacy.” We now hold your data in identifiable form for just 90 days (with some limited exceptions) — the shortest duration in the industry. And we apply it to the widest array of data, far outpacing our competitors.

Most people recognize and accept that online advertising fuels the largely free Internet economy. Their only caveat often is that if they do have advertising, they want to see ads that are relevant to their needs and interests — and I often hear from them when it’s not. We want every page on Yahoo! to be relevant and compelling both in terms of content and advertising. This marriage provides the best possible user experience and it is what Yahoo! is all about.

But we understand that not all users share the same views, so Yahoo! makes an opt out available. For most online advertising, we believe a good opt out paired with responsible data retention policies is the right default setting. It offers meaningful privacy protections while providing the best possible user experience. A good opt out needs to be prominent, readily accessible, clearly conveyed, and have options for persistency. Yahoo! has been working to ensure that our opt out is exactly that. Head to our Privacy Center for more on how to manage your preferences.

Privacy is at the core of our trusted relationship with more than 500 million users around the globe. In my more than 11 years of overseeing our policy decisions, I’ve learned that advances in consumer protection are most often driven by the industry and we hope that Congress will consider an approach that allows us to continue keeping pace with not only technology advances, but also your demands and expectations.

Anne Toth
VP Policy, Head of Privacy

Photo from kimberlyfaye