Greetings from Washington, D.C.

I had the privilege today to speak at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship.

I ultimately consider myself an entrepreneur – from the time David Filo and I started Yahoo! in a small campus trailer parked at Stanford, and even more so today. David and I had a dream fueled by the entrepreneurial spirit and a love for technology.

The gathering of delegates at the Summit represents an appreciation for the critical role entrepreneurs play in advancing the global community. The Summit follows the President’s commitment during his June 2009 speech in Cairo, and is an effort to join existing efforts and inspire new efforts to promote entrepreneurship and innovation, with a focus on Muslim-majority countries and Muslim communities around the world.

Many renowned experts in the U.S. and globally are speaking, and President Obama addresses the group this evening.

I spent most of my talk discussing what it takes for regions, countries and societies to create a “high growth entrepreneurship” environment – one that is ripe for technology entrepreneurs.  Later today, I will share a link to view my speech.

While entrepreneurship may be an individual’s pursuit, a “high growth entrepreneurship” environment where technology entrepreneurs can thrive doesn’t happen by accident.

You need to have the right foundation to enable entrepreneurship to flourish.   A foundation that includes: a commitment to research and development; investment in education (including fundamental science at the University level); access to capital funding; and a culture that encourages an entrepreneur ecosystem – from immigration and technology access to online communities and mentors who encourage our youth.

Over the years, the U.S. has addressed much of the foundational elements of high-growth entrepreneurship, and as a result, we see a steady stream of entrepreneurs, technology innovation and economic opportunities.

Let me share two powerful stats.

· According to the Kauffman Foundation, between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less. That is about 40 million jobs.

· In 2008, research from the National Venture Capital Association showed that VC backed companies in the U.S. employed 12.1 million people generating $3 trillion in revenue.  This represents the equivalent of 21% of the U.S. GDP.

But the power of the Internet, innovation and ideas, and entrepreneurship is borderless.  People around the world, especially young people, are increasingly enthusiastic about chasing new opportunities and starting their own businesses.

And for any entrepreneur, whether they’re in Cairo, Egypt or Cairo, Illinois, or India or Indonesia, the challenge becomes building the bridge and foundations that will enables high-growth entrepreneurship and technology to flourish.

The Middle East shows signs of a growing number of budding entrepreneurs.

The Silatech Index: Voice of Young Arabs study conducted with Gallup in June 2009 found that the majority of Arab youth surveyed believe entrepreneurship is the key to future job creation in the region.  Underscoring that fact was the fact that 26 percent of the young Arabs surveyed in the region were planning to start their own business within the next 12 months.

From my perspective, what is particularly encouraging about these results is how they highlight an emerging willingness to consider new approaches and pursue new ideas.

Let me share an example. The founders of Maktoob.com, a company Yahoo! acquired last year, pursued a new idea 10 years ago.  Co-founders Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury noticed there were few online services that offered content in Arabic, their native language.  In their spare time, they began to work on an email service that would support Arabic, later adding others online content services.

They were fortunate to have education, mentors (including Fadi Ghandour, a successful CEO/entrepreneur in the Middle East) and funding, which would help make this dream possible.  Samih and Hussam ultimately created the world’s largest Arab online community.  Today, with more than 19 million users in the Middle East region, Yahoo! Maktoob is committed to increasing Arabic content and helping youth and entrepreneurs in the region.

Just last week, Yahoo! Maktoob, in partnership with NGO Nahdet El Mahrousa, launched a social entrepreneurship campaign in Egypt called, “Social Innovation Starts with YOU!”.  Individuals from across Egypt will be invited to become the next social entrepreneurs of the year by developing new ideas in the fields of education, health and the environment.  Ten winners will receive monetary grants and technical and management support for three years to help bring their ideas to life.

Samih and Hussan’s journey highlights what is possible for today’s entrepreneurs.  There are plenty of other examples of successful entrepreneurs in emerging markets, and opportunities for others with a desire to create future companies or ideas  – in mobile technology, software, clean technologies, biotech or social networking, to name but a few.

In this “flat world”, there is a tremendous opportunity for countries around the globe to participate in high-growth entrepreneurship and further technology advancements. It is critical for everyone – public officials, private industry, NGOs, educational institutions, entrepreneurs and others – to help build a foundation to help support this.

Collectively, we can make an impact, and help ensure entrepreneurship and technology continues its remarkable progress in emerging economies and around the world … so that future generations will see their dreams come to life.

Jerry Yang
Co-founder, Yahoo!

As the newest Yahoo! employee, at the risk of being highly corny, I’m delighted to yodel my first purple-hued shout-out to the 600 million people and tens of thousands of advertisers and publishers who enjoy Yahoo!’s products every day.

Some of you might ask why anyone would say goodbye to surfing and cycling the Central Coast of California or travelling the globe with their family to take on the job of leading products and technology at Yahoo!  My answer’s pretty easy – meet just some of the brilliant people at Yahoo! that want to change the world, and then scan the amazing list of leading products around the globe these people have delivered at scale.  When I think about what this company has meant to anyone who has used the Internet, worked in the Internet industry, or wanted to reach people across the world, there is simply none better.

From wildly popular services like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, Flickr and Yahoo!’s mobile sites and apps, to Yahoo!’s best-in-class content properties like Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! Sports, to many, many other great products across the world, Yahoo!’s product portfolio continues to be the envy of the industry.  Those incredible services and their respective audiences bring tremendous value for advertisers, which is why Yahoo! serves up 10 billion ads across its network every day and is the #1 publisher of online display advertising. How can anyone not want to be a part of that?

And that’s just what consumers and advertisers see from the outside.  Inside Yahoo!, there’s technological and scientific brilliance everywhere you look.  With 500 patents, one of the world’s largest cloud computing infrastructures, and top scientific talent across computer science, machine learning, economics and social sciences, I’m awed at the caliber of people I’m going to be working with. The intellectual horsepower doesn’t stop there – I’m looking forward to working with some of the smartest and best-in-class talent around the world in marketing, advertising sales, partnerships, programming, service engineering and operations.  The commitment Yahoos have shown over the years to delivering the best experience to both consumers and advertisers is one of the key things that attracted me here.  We’re in the business of delivering bespoke experiences to our consumers, partners and advertisers and I’m looking forward to working with all of you to build on that reality.

This week marks an exciting new journey for me personally, and I’m thrilled to be sharing my experiences and background with the world class people at Yahoo!  We have big opportunities, as well as big challenges ahead of us, and I’m getting ready to dive in and work with this great team to make Yahoo! even more central to daily online life than it has been over the past decade and a half.

My first day in the office will be May 17^th and I can’t wait to get started. Stay tuned for more as I get settled and dig in with my new team.

‘Nuff said.

-Blake Irving, EVP, Chief Product Officer, Yahoo!

We all know that the Web makes the world a much smaller place, and we have some great news to share today that will make your Web world smaller and easier, while at the same time expanding your social world online! We’re partnering with Twitter to integrate their real-time social experience into our global network.

What does this mean for you? Very soon, you will be able to see your Twitter feed on Yahoo! just as easily as you use Yahoo! to consume all of the other great content you love from across the Web. Through today’s partnership, along with our recently announced Facebook relationship, Yahoo! is giving your online social life wings to help you stay in touch with the people and things you care about most across the Web. It’s part of our strategy to ensure that Yahoo! delivers the people and things that matter most to you!

Want to see your friends’ latest Twitter posts? Or update your Twitter feed with stories and content from Yahoo!? Or check out trending topics and public updates? You no longer need to stop what you’re doing to see what’s going on with your Twitterverse — you’ll be able to do it all from Yahoo!.

As part of Yahoo!’s Open Strategy (Y!OS) to make the Web more open and relevant, we’re helping you zero in on what’s important to you:

• Coming Soon: Read your personal Twitter feeds directly from Yahoo!’s many products and properties, including the homepage, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Sports, and others — anywhere you can see Yahoo! Updates across our network.
• Coming Soon: Update your Twitter status and share content from Yahoo! in your Twitter stream — we’ve made it even easier to share what’s going on with your friends and followers on Yahoo! and Twitter.
• Coming Soon: Whenever you produce social actions on any website (like comments on articles, ratings, buzzes on Yahoo! Buzz) that you’ve allowed to appear on Yahoo! Updates, those actions can also be shared automatically with your friends on Twitter. (Pssst: Publishers and developers interested in learning more about Yahoo! Updates, including publishing directly into it or using Yahoo! Buzz or the Yahoo! Application Platform as ways of driving social traffic to your site, look here , here and here.
• Coming Soon: Yahoo! media properties like News, Finance, Entertainment, and Sports will include real-time public Twitter updates, allowing you to get a quick pulse-check on topics, trending and otherwise.
• Available Today: Yahoo! Search users will immediately see real-time Twitter results starting today.

The real-time Search integration is available immediately, with other features of the integration to be launched later this year. Go on, give it a test flight: Go to Yahoo! Search to check out how we just made your Web world smaller, yet larger at the same time.

Bryan Lamkin
SVP, Consumer Products Group, Yahoo!

We just announced with Microsoft that we have reached clearance for our search agreement, without restrictions, from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission.  We’ll now turn our attention to beginning the process of implementing the deal.

Here are some useful links to get more detailed information about today’s developments:

Search Alliance Official Website

Official Press Release

Yahoo! Search Blog

YDN Blog

Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog

Yahoo! Transition Center

Video: Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz discusses Yahoo! & Microsoft’s new Search Alliance: Click here

Video: Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz talks about Yahoo’s continued innovation in search: Click here

Official US DOJ Antitrust Division statement: Click here

We will continue to update Yodel with new information today and throughout the process.

Yahoo! Hong Kong conducted a survey to find out about consumer behavior and retail trends during Valentine’s Day. Incidentally, this year, the first day of Chinese New Year (CNY) also falls on 14 February. The last time these two occasions clashed was 57 years ago.

The survey was conducted with more than 1,000 respondents, 80% of which were born in the 70s or the 80s. 50% of them, who are either in a relationship or married said they will be celebrating the day with both their partner and family, while 34% chose to celebrate Valentine’s Day before or after 14 February.

Other interesting survey highlights include:

1.    52% of the respondents who have “someone special” in mind, said that they will not confess their love to that person on Valentine’s Day since it is also CNY and the “atmosphere and mood” is not quite right.

2.    Consumer confidence is growing steadily in Hong Kong and the survey shows that 66% plan to spend five to ten percent more for Valentine’s Day this year, or have the same budget as last year. 15% of the respondents plan to spend between US$250 – 650 on gifts for their partner.

3.    Nearly 50% of the female respondents prefer gifts that are more personalised, unique and practical. They also said that the most unwanted Valentine’s Day gifts include flowers, chocolates, soft toys, health and beauty products.

4.    About half of the respondents who are either in a relationship or married shared that they will use less gift packaging to be more environmentally friendly.

5.    20% of the male respondents would like to spend Valentine’s Day in ShenZhen, China while 20% of the female respondents wish to spend the day in Paris. None of the male respondents chose Paris as an option.

6.    80% of the respondents who are single revealed that they will use online match-making services like Yahoo! Personals to find a potential partner or to meet more people through social gatherings.

According to Lisa Tam, public relations manager of Yahoo! Hong Kong, VIP members of Yahoo! Personals are invited to send messages to other members in the hopes of finding someone special and stand to win prizes during this special festive season.

Internet users can also visit Yahoo! Hong Kong Auction site to purchase Valentine’s Day and CNY gifts for their loved ones.

Want to use your Yahoo! ID to tap into Arianna Huffington’s mind? How about any of the other contributors on the Huffington Post? If so, we have some good news. Starting today, you can use your Yahoo! ID to log into the Huffington Post with just a couple of clicks.

This is just one of the new features Huffington Post has enabled by tapping into our Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS) platform. Y!OS is built on the idea that Yahoo! is more fun and personally relevant when we’re open to the best of the Web and when we make it easy for you to share and connect with who matters to you on Yahoo!. And in addition to letting you use your trusted Yahoo! ID on the Huffington Post, Y!OS technology is also powering two other great new features that are live today.

The first is Yahoo! Updates. Once you’ve logged into the Huffington Post with your Yahoo! ID, you’ll also be able to automatically share the comments you make there with your friends and contacts on popular products like Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger.

The second is a new application for the Yahoo! Homepage that you can use to get a quick view into the hottest Huffington Post articles across 80 categories in a matter of seconds.

Finally, we’re also teaming up with the Huffington Post through Yahoo! News to feature and develop specialized articles, opinion pieces and reporting. Across Yahoo! we’re always looking for ways to bring you great content, whether it’s our own original reporting through our Yahoo! Newsroom Blogs, or from great sites like the Huffington Post, a leading voice in digital news.

To get started trying out these capabilities and sync up your Huffington Post and Yahoo! experiences, head over to the Huffington Post and click on the log in with Yahoo! ID button, install the new Huffington Post App on Yahoo.com or head straight to Yahoo! News.  Or better yet, try all three.

And if you run your own Web site and want to learn how to integrate with Yahoo!, check out our Yahoo! Developer Network and behind the scenes look at how Huffington Post did it. We’re excited to hear what you think.

Greg Cohn

Director of Strategy & Business Development for the Yahoo! Platform Technology Group

And once you have created your own winter wonderland, you can share it with friends and family by sending a link with Yahoo! Mail or Yahoo! Messenger, or you can post it on Facebook or Twitter.

Happy Holidays from your friends at Yahoo!

Build your own snowman at: snowman.yahoo.com

It’s hard to believe that just over a month ago we kicked-off our search for the next generation of Yahoo! yodelers. This casting call heard ‘round the world brought celebrities and yodelers alike to Yodel Studio recording booths in New York City, London and Mumbai, not to mention all of you who joined in from home and submitted your best (and maybe first?) yodel at http://yodelstudio.yahoo.com.

After narrowing the choices down from more than 21,000 submissions to three finalists in the US, UK and India, and a week of public voting, we have our Platinum winners. Congratulations to:

•    Tiffany Jo Allen of Tucson, AZ
•    Katherine Skene of St. Andrews, UK
•    Ankitaa Bhattacharji of Mumbai, India

We meant it when we said it that Platinum winners would have the chance to be featured on one of the world’s largest stages: the Yahoo! homepage. Go to Yahoo.com, click on the Yahoo! exclamation point at the top left of the page and you’ll hear Tiffany Jo Allen’s yodel (Soon, you’ll here the other winners on the UK and India homepages too!). For the next week, you’ll hear Tiffany Jo’s talented voice on the Yahoo! homepage.

While only three yodels are official Platinum winners, many more blew us away with their passion and creativity. Be sure to check out the honorable mentions area of http://yodelstudio.yahoo.com to experience a wide range of yodeling genius – from R&B to country duets to death metal, no musical stone was left unturned.  Thanks for sharing in this part of Yahoo! history.

Brian Mullin
Senior Director, Buzz Marketing

This Sunday, at the Internet Governance Forum’s annual meeting, Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang delivered a keynote address to discuss the impact of the Internet on people’s lives, the need to get the next billion people online and the importance of providing those next billion–in emerging markets and beyond–with locally relevant content and communications tools.

“The Internet isn’t just about getting as many people online as possible,” said Jerry Yang. “But making sure that once they’re online, they have something productive to do, something to gain, something meaningful to experience.”

The IGF meeting took place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and you can watch the full opening session and keynotes here.  Jerry’s speech starts at about 59 minutes into the opening session, directly after Tim Berners-Lee.

In addition to the IGF keynote, Jerry is meeting with customers, employees and both local and U.S. government officials while in the region.

Yahoo! recently closed the acquisition of Maktoob, the largest Arabic-language Internet site.  According to the World Bank, there are more than 320 million Arabic speakers worldwide, while less than one per cent of all online content is in Arabic.  The partnership between Maktoob and Yahoo! aims to strengthen and support Arabic content on the Internet, adapting current products to the Arabic language while also working with local developers to create new and compelling products.

Yahoo! helps you connect with the people and things that matter most to you – wherever you are, including in Times Square.  While Yahoo! is the place where your world meets the world online, over 500,000 of you take in Times Square each day and it’s become a central spot for New Yorkers and people around the world.  We and our partners at the Times Square Alliance think it’s the perfect place to bring you free WiFi service (check out the landing page here)- for  New Yawkers enjoying your cawfee breaks and out-of-towners enjoying the Big Apple. Fuggedaboutit!

And don’t worry if you don’t have a laptop in Times Square – you can also access the service from your WiFi-enabled mobile phone. All you need to do is enable the WiFi feature on your phone, open your browser and click on the “Get Started” button on the mobile landing page. This will take you to Yahoo!’s mobile homepage (http://m.yahoo.com) where you can access your favorite content and services from across the Internet.

So, if you are  in New York City or will be anytime during the next year, come down (or up, depending on where you’ll be coming from) to Times Square to chat, play, search, and enjoy whatever else you do online with free WiFi service from Yahoo! and the Times Square Alliance.  And it’s all about Y!ou (in case you hadn’t heard).

Kelly Delaney
Buzz Marketing

After handing Yahoo!’s signature yodel over to the people – you whole-heartedly responded – by uploading more than a whopping 21,000 yodels to our online Yodel Studio! Each yodel has its own personality as unique as each of you.  There are hip-hop yodels, country yodels, rock n’ roll yodels, Bollywood yodels… I think you get the point.

Out of all of the yodels submitted, who really rocked the mic?  Based on number of views, we’ve selected the top 3 yodels from each market.  Now YOU can help us choose who will go to the next level and take it PLATINUM! Vote daily for your favorites!

U.S. Finalists:

Tiffany Jo from Arizona – Yodeling since she was five years old, “I choose to participate because I enjoy singing and yodeling. I thought it would be a great opportunity to do what I love.”

Carlo from Arizona – New to yodeling but been singing for a lifetime, “I searched through most of the songs that were available to use as background music until I found the one that brought out the most emotion out of me.”

Christopher from Oklahoma – “What inspired my Yodel was hearing all the Yahoo! Yodels in the past, and wanting to do something a little bit different! I decided to add a little bit of ME in my Yodel!”

UK Finalists:

Katherine
Hajar
James

And representing India:

Nishant
Ankitaa
Ayesha

One winning yodel will represent each country (US, UK and India) and will be featured on one of the world’s largest stages: Yahoo!’s homepage!  So declare yourself, “rock the vote” or in this case, yodel it out – in short, vote soon as polls close on November 15 (11:59pm PT) and the winner will be announced on November 16th! What are you waiting for, vote for your favorite yodel now!

When launching the Flickr Collection, our goal was to choose photos that created a commercially viable collection, while preserving the inspirational and unexpected nature of the images that are so prevalent on Flickr. We’re proud to announce that today the collection has grown to over 60,000 images, many of which have been licensed by Getty Images’ customers from around the world.

Since the announcement of the partnership, editors at Getty Images have been busy exploring the Flickrverse to find the right photos to be part of the collection. While we know they’ve enjoyed viewing your work, with over four billion images, it can sometimes be an overwhelming experience!

In the past, the Flickr community could set their account settings to reflect that they wanted to be contacted by Getty Images, but could not proactively present a portfolio of photos for consideration. We know how eager the 40 million + Flickr members have been to showcase their work and wanted to develop a solution.

That’s why, today, we’re very excited to announce a formal Call for Artists, meaning ANY Flickr member can submit their work to be considered for the collection through the Call for Artists group on Flickr.

Detailed guidelines can be found on the group page, but here’s a quick snapshot on the process for submitting your photographs:  A submission should include exactly 10 images that represent what you consider to be the best of your work. The Getty Images creative team will evaluate submissions based on style, subject matter and technical skill. If some or all of the photos – or other images from your photostream – are selected for the Flickr Collection on Getty Images, you will receive an invitation via Flickrmail. This invitation will clearly show Getty Images’ initial selection of images and introduce the enrollment process.

When we first launched, we aimed to create a “living collection” – one that mirrored the vibrant Flickr community itself. Now, with the community’s help, the collection will continue to grow and bring a new flavor of photography to Getty Images and its customers — an authentic view into the daily lives of people around the world.

We at Getty Images truly can’t wait to review the portfolios of the accomplished and experienced photographers that contribute to Flickr. With the community’s help, the collection will better represent, what is, in effect, the world’s image library.

Andy Saunders
Vice President of Creative Imagery
Getty Images

Today is Carol’s birthday!  As you know, she’s been working overtime since she arrived at Yahoo! in January. However, we heard that when she does get some time away from work, she likes to get her hands dirty in her garden.  So, in celebration of Carol’s green thumb and purple spirit, the Yahoo! Green Team got together and planted an herb garden right here at Yahoo!’s headquarters in Sunnyvale   This is the start of Yahoo!’s first ever Purple Garden, and we’re dedicating the garden to Carol.

To get ready for this birthday dedication, a dozen or so Yahoo! gardeners gathered on a Tuesday morning several few weeks ago, ready for some gardening action. They dug into planter boxes and planted basil, thyme, oregano, cilantro, mint, parsley, dill, and purple sage.  The garden boxes were distributed around our main courtyard to soak up the sun.  Today, after a few weeks of growing, the plants were ready for their presentation to Carol!

The Purple Garden is more than just lovely landscaping.  Our café’s Catering Director (also an avid gardener) helped us to select herbs which would not only grow well in the Silicon Valley climate but also be most popular in Yahoo!’s cafés.   That’s right – the herbs in these garden boxes will be used right in our very own URL’s Café.   We’re very excited about this opportunity, especially since our café is installing a food waste dehydrator, which converts food waste back into a nitrogen-rich soil fertilizer.  We’ll be using that very fertilizer to provide nutrients back to the Purple Garden plants, giving us a small taste of the human food web right here at work.  And Yahoos can take extra nutrition home with them when they snap off a sprig of thyme or mint for use in their own home-cooked meals.

Growing an herb garden at the office is a great way to remind ourselves that the combination of good planning, hard work, and attentive dedication can reap great rewards.  Fresh, flavorful, and delicious rewards, in this case!  Happy Birthday, Carol!

Danielle Bricker

Yahoo! Green Team

]]> http://ycorpblog.com/2009/08/28/happy-birthday-carol/feed/ 20 http://ycorpblog.com/2008/12/10/tough-times/ http://ycorpblog.com/2008/12/10/tough-times/#comments Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:06:52 +0000 Jerry Yang http://ycorpblog.com/2008/12/10/tough-times/ 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

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.