As we announced in October, we’ve been aggressively managing our costs to bring them in line with the challenging economic conditions. Unfortunately, that means laying off employees –- by far the toughest part of being a manager. Here’s the email I sent to Yahoos today:

yahoos,



today, most of our layoffs in the US are happening, and they’ve been underway in other regions around the world. 



this is a tough time for all of us and i wanted to take a moment to reach out to you.
 


saying goodbye to colleagues and friends is never easy. they all are dedicated members of our yahoo! family, who worked beside us and shared our passion. 



but as you all know, we must take actions to better perform in today’s turbulent global economy. while we’ve found efficiencies in many parts of our business, laying off employees is unfortunately unavoidable. our difficult decision to let colleagues go reflects the changes we’re having to make to better align costs with revenues – something businesses in virtually every sector are also having to do. 
 


for those who are affected by these layoffs, i am extremely grateful for your contributions to yahoo!. we realize the impact this will have on you. that’s why, consistent with our past practices, we’re making every effort to support you with severance packages and other services. 
 


the reductions we’re making are very hard, but they are also very necessary — as we focus on the long-term health of our business. to those who are leaving us, i extend my heartfelt thanks on behalf of yahoos everywhere — you will be missed.



thanks,
 

jerry

Jerry Yang
Chief Yahoo and CEO

Some people find out they’re having a baby and instantly decide on the name, drawing on some beloved great aunt, celebrity du jour, or favorite city. Others agonize over baby naming books in search of just the right moniker. In naming this blog, we decided to reach out to members of the Yahoo! family for a little help. And help they did, suggesting more than 2,400 names.

The winning entry came from the mailroom. Mike Brodick, a facilities manager at our Sunnyvale headquarters, said the name rolled off his tongue when he heard of the contest. He won a spiffy digital camera for his lyricism. And so it is, we christen this blog the “Yodel Anecdotal.” (For those of you mystified by the yodel reference, that’s what we call the little tune at the end of our commercials… Ya-hooooo!) Click below to hear it.

With contests like this, you don’t often hear about names that weren’t used, so here’s a look at what didn’t fly. Top contenders included Planet Yahoo!, Exclamation Point (in honor of the punctuation mark that’s part of our trademark and continues to exasperate copy editors the world over), Yahoo! DNA, Yahoo! Insideout, Yahoology, and The 25th Letter (we’ll save you the counting — that would be the letter Y).

Other submissions fell into a number of categories. There were the nostalgic entries, including Gulliver (as in Gulliver’s Travels, which includes a race of brutes called Yahoos), Akebono (the name of Jerry and David’s first server), and The Officious Oracle (homage to Jerry and David’s original acronym, Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle — but you knew that).

There were other yodel references: Behind the Yodel; Yodelicious, The Yodelgram, The Daily Yodel (who needs that kind of pressure?), Yodelayeehoo!, and I am Yahoo!, Hear Me Yodel. We had double entendres and word plays, such as Yahoo! Ink, Yahoo! Dotcommentary, Key Words, and Yahoo! What When Where & How.

A number of suggestions played on various utterances with double o’s: Bloghoo, Hoo Ya, Yahootenanny, and Oohay. And since we like purple around here, there were the inevitable color references — Purple Planet, Purple Is the New Black, and Purple Nurple. Some poked fun at the corporate nature: Corporate Monkeys With Typewriters, Pure Cane Sugar and The Yahoo! Corporate Blog. And others capitalized on blog addictions: I Went to Work Today and All I Did Was Work on My Blog and Shouldn’t You Be Working?. We also had several with international flair: Tout le Yahoo!, Y Tu Yahoo! Tambien, Yensei, and 訝好 (or “Wow, Astonished!”).

Some sounded like something you’d hear on a rap channel: ’sup, Yahoo!?; Yo!; That Yahoo! That You Do; and Pimp My Yahoo!. Some Yahoos flaunted their (sometimes peculiar) sense of humor, with Blog Blog Who’s There, Bloggy McYahoo, and We Will, We Will Blog You. Others still have us scratching our heads: Everything by the Lederhosen, Holdmeclosertinyyahoo, I Like Purple Socks Daily, and Scrax (which is apparently the silver stuff that you scrape off lottery tickets. Please use that in a sentence today).

One of my personal favorites was Lorem Ipsum, but that may be because it was the dummy type I stared at on mockups for weeks.

Like all new parents who have to choose between so many great options, we hope this one fits. Either way, the birth announcements are in the mail and we can’t wait to watch this kid grow up.