Here’s a video that captures just some of their stories:

Some notes on these great characters, by order of appearance:

• Sonia uses the homepage to manage her life… and admits to listening to Launchcast radio on Yahoo! Music when she’s in the shower.
• Dennis first used Yahoo! Search in grade school to look up the pink Power Ranger (he had a big crush).
• Bob lives on Yahoo! Finance and swears it helped him save his retirement funds.
• Evelyn relied on Yahoo! to stay connected to the world when she was in the Air Force, stationed in the desolate Australian outback.
• Bodhi is a California grad student from India who uses Yahoo! Messenger video chat to connect with her parents in India every night.
• Ted and Vicky used Yahoo! Messenger to court each other – much of it long distance. They also ditched their cable when discovering they could meet all their entertainment needs on Yahoo!.
• Erin is a fine art photographer who’s created a huge following on Flickr for her beautiful Polaroid photography (and scored press coverage and several commissions and exhibitions).
• Brandon is addicted to film and relies on Yahoo! Movies on his iPhone for ratings and reviews (and incidentally is one of the youngest patent holders in the US).
• Valerie used a Freecycle group on Yahoo! Groups to outfit her classroom with free stuff (including a clawfoot bathtub the kids read in).
• Larry admits to spending about two hours a day managing his teams on Yahoo! Fantasy Sports.
• Emily loves looking things up on Yahoo! Search, like where dimples come from and why the starling is the most hated bird in the world.
• Thomas gets sucked into Yahoo! News daily, digging that one minute he can read about the elections in Afghanistan and then stumble on something about the depletion of ants in the Amazon rainforest.

Connecting with real people, real users, to hear what they love, hate and need about using our products is what we’re all about. As our new brand campaign stipulates, Yahoo! is about you. All you.

Stay tuned for standalone video profiles of these great voices and more.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

My Experience on the Ybike
When I hit the dusty roads of Tanzania, “karibu” and “wow” were some of the first things I heard. “Karibu” is Swahili for “welcome” and shows everyone’s openness and goodwill at the sight of me with my purple Yahoo! bike. I could tell by the expressions on people’s faces that a “muzungo” (“white man”) on a purple cruiser was not an everyday sight — most white people arrive in four-wheel drives.

There are plenty of bicycles in Tanzania. The people who ride them — the majority of Tanzanians — cannot afford cars or motorcycles. The fancy Yahoo! bicycle with solar panels, camera and the shiny purple colour showed people that the bicycle is not just as a means of transportation for the poor.

I’m cofounder of Baisikeli (Swahili for “bicycle”), a project that makes high-quality bicycles accessible to the poorest people of Africa. These bikes have many purposes, including helping farmers increase their income by more than 100%, just by enabling them to move twice the amount of crops in half the time. We also build bicycle ambulances, which are donated to rural health care centres to enable them to provide vital access to health care in neighbour villages.

My Running Guides
The Baisikeli workshop is based in Arusha, 80 kilometres from Mt Kilimanjaro. When I first arrived from Denmark, I went out for a bike ride to get a feel for the vibes of the city. Within the first few minutes, two young boys were running next to the bike shouting “around – around!,” explaining that they were going to give me a guided tour of the neighbourhood. To be honest, I’ve had better guided tours. But taking into consideration that “around” was their only English word, the energy they put into the tour was amazing.

The Attention
A Yahoo! bike ride in Tanzania was a new experience every time. Obviously, you get a lot of attention when riding a fancy purple bicycle in Tanzania. People would often ride up alongside me and start asking questions in Swahili and show enthusiasm for both the bicycle and me. Children on the side of the road would call for siblings, who would come running out of houses, screaming euphorically at seeing the muzungo on the purple bicycle. I couldn’t help but laugh. It was great every time — seeing the small children amused by me passing by.

A boy laughing at muzungo passing by on a purple bicycle:

Uses for Bikes in Africa
Bicycles are important to Tanzanian infrastructure. They are vital in the mobility of both the population and goods. People are employed with transporting huge amounts of things like charcoal, milk or bread, traveling dozens of kilometres to the city to sell them.

Sometimes people turn their bicycles into mobile shops, so they can ride around and sell their goods. Here’s a bicycle sneaker shop:

The idea of using bicycles for varied means of transport is the foundation of Baisikeli. We design bikes based on what we observe about how they are used in society. If people can make a living transporting 100kg tomatoes, they can make an even better living transporting 200kg. As a result, our mantra is: “Bikes for a better life.”

Here are some more examples of people riding bicycles with a heavy load: a shop, two baskets balance the weight, selling ice cream, and goatskins.

Bikes for Better Health
Bicycles also mean the difference between life and death for inhabitants of rural villages — everyone from pregnant mothers to children with malaria. Twenty-five percent of children never reach the age of five. Bikes can change that. I visited a village called Intavira, 60km from the nearest city and without a proper road leading to it, to donate a bicycle ambulance. This village of 2,000 inhabitants was the largest of 20 in the area and the only source of proper health care. Sick relatives are often pulled in a wagon by cow. Now with the Baisikeli ambulance, the surrounding villages will have easier access to the clinic –- and we hope this will reduce the rate of deaths in the area.

Here’s a slideshow from my visit.

Henrik Smedegaard Mortensen
Co-Founder
Baisikli – Bikes for a better life

I’ve been on a whirlwind tour for the last six weeks, talking with everybody from executive leaders to the guys who configured my laptop. I’ve been in student mode, slowly getting smarter about what makes this place tick. And most recently, I’ve been gathering information on what it’s going to take to get Yahoo! to a great place as an organization –- and one that brings you killer products.

People here have impressed the hell out of me. They’re smart, dedicated, passionate, driven, and really nice. There’s so much great energy and frankly lots of optimism. But there’s also plenty that has bogged this company down. For starters, you’d be amazed at how complicated some things are here.

So today I’m rolling out a new management structure that I believe will make Yahoo! a lot faster on its feet. For us working at Yahoo!, it means everything gets simpler. We’ll be able to make speedier decisions, the notorious silos are gone, and we have a renewed focus on the customer. For you using Yahoo! every day, it will better enable us to deliver products that make you say, “Wow.”

I’ve noticed that a lot of us on the inside don’t spend enough time looking to the outside. That’s why I’m creating a new Customer Advocacy group. After getting a lot of angry calls at my office from frustrated customers, I realized we could do a better job of listening to and supporting you. Our Customer Care team does an incredible job with the amazing number of people who come to them, but they need better resources. So we’re investing in that. After all, you deserve the very best.

We’re also leaning on this team to make sure we’re all hearing the voice of our customers (consumers and advertisers). I’m singularly focused on providing you with awesome products. Period. The kind that get you so excited, you have to tell someone about them. Whether on your desktop, your mobile device, or even your TV.

And that takes a real understanding of what you want/need/love/hate, how you’re using our products, and what you find simple, intuitive, easy and fun. Who wants innovation for innovation’s sake if it doesn’t make your life easier, more efficient, more productive? So expect us to hear you better and take better care of you.

Finally, a note about our brand. It’s one of our biggest assets. Mention Yahoo! practically anywhere in the world, and people yodel. But in the past few years, we haven’t been as clear in showing the world what the Yahoo! brand stands for. We’re going to change that. Look for this company’s brand to kick ass again.

Big thanks to the many of you who’ve reached out with positive comments. It’s clear people want Yahoo! to succeed. I’ll try to pop by here again soon, though probably not too soon. I have a pretty long to-do list.

Carol Bartz
CEO

Now I’m co-owner of Dapple, purveyor of the first line of environmentally-friendly products that deal with baby-specific cleaning challenges. And thanks to Yahoo! Small Business, our business is skyrocketing –- even in the current economic climate.

In March, on a whim, my partner Tamar Rosenthal and I applied to Yahoo! Small Business and fwm’s “Seeds for Success” grant program and were later named one of the three finalists chosen from among 5,500 entrepreneurs. Over the last six months, we competed for the grand prize by working toward milestones with our website, sales, partnerships, PR and marketing, and more. More than 660,000 people recently cast their votes on Yahoo!. And lo and behold, we won!

It’s wild to think that just six months ago, we had no products on shelves, no retail presence. Just a few prototypes and a lot of hope. After we earned Yahoo!’s grant of $25,000 in cash and services, it was the perfect storm. We were able to produce our first two products, found small retailers in our New York City neighborhood willing to be our first test market, and built our web site. I can’t describe the kind of endless credibility the Yahoo! name gave us. We later struck deals with two major national retailers, attended trade shows, won an iParenting Media Award for best product, and got a lot of great attention from mommy bloggers. We’ve sold more than 25,000 units to date, have distribution in 300 stores and strong interest from big national chains, and now have six products in our line.

As part of our prize, we got mentoring advice from some really legendary figures through fwm (Finding What Matters). For example, fwm’s Carolyn Kepcher, of “The Apprentice” fame and Yahoo!’s program co-sponsor, helped us shore up our business plan while being a great sounding board. Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazines, taught us about breaking through closed doors “in a ladylike way” but never giving up. Brand guru David Vinjamuri helped us create thoughtful packaging (e.g., pump dispensers are far more convenient for harried moms) and branding that resonated with our customers. Beauty maven Bobbi Brown gave tips about carefully growing our business. And Scott Smigler from Yahoo! partner Exclusive Concepts helped us recognize how important a successful Web site is as part of the mix and was amazing in revamping our Yahoo! Small Business Web site.

We’ve experienced many ups and downs in our journey and we’re often humbled by the hard work and dedication of other passionate entrepreneurs. If you’re on the edge of jumping in and think you have a great idea with a lot of promise, we say “go for it!” But put on your seatbelt and hang on –- the ride is incredible. As for Dapple, we plan to use our grand prize winnings to bring you even more baby-friendly cleansing products in the near future.

Dana Rubinstein
Co-Founder, Dapple

Since one Yahoo! Mail address is in the news today, I thought this might be a good time to remind everyone about some online safety tips that will help protect your account. (In order to protect the privacy of our users, we can’t get into specific details of any of our users’ accounts — we know you’d want us to do the same for you!).

• Choose a strong password. It’s like a toothbrush – choose a good one and don’t share it. Your Yahoo! Mail password can be any length and can contain spaces, symbols, or numbers –- letting you come up with something that’s easy for you to remember but impossible for someone else to figure out.
• Avoid using a complete word from a dictionary (English or otherwise) or a name.
• Use at least 7 characters. The more the better. A long but simple password can be safer than a shorter complex one.
• Use a combination of capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and standard symbols (! @ # $ % ^ &, etc.).
• Don’t use personal information that someone could easily figure out. Avoid a password based on information easily obtained about your (a birthday, your child’s name, your phone number, school name, etc.). Don’t use a password you already use for another account, like your bank account PIN. And don’t’ use your Yahoo! ID (or other username) in any form (reversed, capitalized, doubled, etc.).
• Avoid the obvious. Attackers tend to first try repeating letters or number sequences (123456). Stay away from “test” or “password.” And when you change your password, which you should do relatively often, don’t just add a number to the end.
• Create a sign-in seal. Yahoo! and many financial institutions let you personalize your sign-in page to help you make absolutely sure you’re not falling victim to a phishing scam. See a photo of your cat Rupert? You know it’s safe to proceed.

Cybercrime is an industry-wide issue and we’ve been working with the industry in combating it (with innovations like Domain Keys). Rest assured that we take security and privacy very seriously here.

You are the first line of defense. Head over to antispam.yahoo.com and security.yahoo.com for more tips to help you protect your account, your privacy, and your identity.

John Kremer
Vice President, Yahoo! Mail

To aid you in your rating decision-making, here are some suggested criteria for selecting from one to five dots:

5 — Epic. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.
4 — That rocked. Though it could’ve used a little more je ne sais quoi.
3 — That hit the spot. Thanks.
2 — Meh.
1 — Wow. That sucked. No more of that, please.

Note that you can only rate a post once. So don’t get trigger happy. Thank you kindly.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

September 19, 2003 should be memorable as my son Davis’ fifth birthday. Instead, we remember it more clearly as the day we started the very long recovery from Hurricane Isabel, which had hit our small Virginia town the day before. We lost just about everything in the bottom three feet of our garage to floodwater.

Several months later, I read about the local Yorktown Freecycle Yahoo! group and quickly joined. I immediately saw how it could help my town in its recovery efforts (which is, I might add, STILL ongoing five years later as friends and neighbors continue to shell out to repair floors and foundations).

The group proved useful just a few days after I joined. I had posted a want for a lawnmower and within 48 hours, I heard from “uubooklady.” When she let me know that her husband had recently bought a new mower to replace their 1985 Toro and that we were welcome to it, I was elated. I’ve always been happy to use hand-me-downs, and Deron Beal’s brilliant idea to use modern technology to share belongings locally via the Freecycle Network was a perfect match for my earth-friendly leanings.

When my husband Jim went to retrieve his “new” mower, lo and behold, his work colleague Ellis came pushing it out of the garage! These men worked mere feet from one another at NASA, yet they would have never made the lawnmower connection if it hadn’t been for Yahoo! Groups and the Freecycle Network.

I started FreecyclePoquoson for my own town that very week and have been happily moderating it ever since. We’ve grown to almost 600 members and we connect neighbors on a daily basis.

I’ve given away furniture, kitchen items, clothing, toys, and office supplies. I’ve received puzzles, games, craft supplies, used egg cartons (we raise hens and reuse cartons), even empty Kool-Aid Jammers (which I sew into very cool purses). I also get nearly-expired bread each week from a guy I met on Freecycle, who rescues it from grocery stores. I’m now known as “the bread lady” because I put a giant stack (we’re talking over 100 loaves) on my porch for neighbors who might be too proud to get food from the food pantry but are happy to keep it from being tossed into the landfill.

There are literally MILLIONS of similar stories about how helpful the Freecycle Network has been in people’s lives. I’ve seen time again how, while Freecycle often begins with an experience of a person receiving, it inevitably turns into discovering the joy of giving.

Freecycle, through Yahoo!, makes every day Earth Day and provides a modern, free, easy to use format to prove true the old adage, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” It sure beats spending hours having a yard sale or trolling sales!

Davis is nine now. He’s never known anything other than listing his old “stuff” on Freecycle. I don’t know when Poquoson will fully recover, but I do know that Freecycle and Yahoo! have and will continue to play an important part in the healing process… both for our community and for Mother Earth.

Traci-Dale
Yahoo! Groups user
Moderator, FreecyclePoquoson

My ego was flattered. I felt like the most important amateur photographer on Earth. Then I received an email from The Economist asking me for an Oman pic to be used in an ad. (What? I can earn money with my pics??? And they even paid!) I went to Papua New Guinea, put my pics online, received comments, faves, you know the story! GEO USA called me: “Hi, we saw your Papua pictures on Flickr. We want 12 pages for GEO Germany, OK?” (Yes, sir!)

A French editor saw my photos and asked me if I was OK making a book. (No problemo!) My book was released this Christmas and was number 10 on Amazon.fr last week! Lonely Planet, National Geographic Russia, Get Lost, UNESCO Magazine, etc. bought my pictures thru Flickr. And then, the leading French photography agency Eyedea (Rapho, HoaQI, Gamma) contacted me and signed me few weeks ago!

So, YES, Flickr works and… well, now, I must leave you cuz I have to pack my bags and go to India for one month to shoot!

I keep posting on Flickr as it remains the most powerful tool to be seen on the Web and in search engines, and I do not want to lose the direct contacts I’ve got with the world jury that comments on my stream.

Thank you, Yahoo!!

Eric LAFFORGUE
http://www.ericlafforgue.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mytripsmypics

“Hello – I wanted to leave a comment here about how Yahoo! has changed my life! I was homeless, living on $35 a week, sleeping on friends’ couches, and eating dollar menu in New York City, pursuing a career as a petite model. Without a computer of my own, I started using the Apple Store as my office in February of 2005. I organized my thoughts and experiences, struggles, and pursuits into a document that I saved to my free Yahoo! account. I am editing and publishing my memoir, Almost 5’ 4’’, which is about being the underdog in modeling and striving no matter the odds. Isobella”

But in this short email, Isobella Jade couldn’t hope to explain all the details of her one-of-a-kind story, which began when she was a struggling 19-year-old model. As a student at the New York Institute of Technology, she went from photo shoot to class to track practice to photo shoot. It was only time before Isobella’s mother found nude pictures of her daughter on the Internet. Ultimately, Isobella changed her birth name and decided to pursue modeling after graduation without looking back.

Isobella used the Net to self-promote, and decided that before her 25th birthday, she would be a published author, writing about the experiences of being an aspiring model, trying to break into the fashion industry, and being only 5’4’’ at that. Living out of a suitcase, she wrote her memoir (standing in heels between shoots) at the Apple Store on Prince St. in SoHo (check out the video they helped her make) and saved her work to her Yahoo! Mail account. And now, months shy of her self-imposed deadline, Isobella Jade’s work Almost 5’ 4’’: Confessions of an Unconventional Model is available at Borders and Amazon.com.

“Unlike some girls scouted to model or raised around fashion and glamorous life, modeling for me started with curiosity when I discovered a free Internet modeling site and it evolved into me becoming my own business,” Isobella said when we spoke on the phone.

She said she didn’t always have Yahoo! in her life. “My first email was on AOL, but when I started going for my dream I couldn’t afford AOL. I discovered Yahoo!, and suddenly saving my work, my rejection letters, my acceptances, everything, was one less thing to worry about.”

How’s life for her now? She’s finding success as a “body parts” (think knees, shoulders, and elbows) model and getting plenty of notice, but life is still a flurry. “I’m doing more legit work now [from a shoe ad campaign to doubling for a Christina Ricci movie poster], but I’m still rushing arund,” she said.

And as for Mom? “The book captures a time when our relationship was not so great. My mother is a teacher, and it was difficult for her to cope with me pursuing a career that has to do with my body. But now our relationship is great. She’s very, very proud.”

As she should be. Congrats, Isobella!

Doreen Bloch
Yahoo! Intern

As noted on this very blog yesterday, Hastings beat out hundreds of other cities to earn the title of the “Greenest City in America” per Yahoo!’s “Be a Better Planet” promotion.

If you haven’t heard of Hastings, it is located right in the middle of the United States, is the birthplace of Kool-Aid, and also just happens to be home to every relative I have going back several generations. Initially, I was shocked to hear (overhear in the hallway actually) that Hastings was going to be victorious. But really there is nothing surprising about their big win at all. This is exactly the kind of community making exactly the kind of effort that Yahoo! hoped for when issuing our “Greenest City in America” challenge. Not to mention that people who live close to the earth may just care the most about it.

Hastings’ charge was led by the unflappable Mayor Matt Rossen and his staff. They saw an opportunity to highlight and extend an effort Hastings was already making and they aggressively set out to engage the entire community. They got the word out in a major way and via all available means: emailing the local businesses (who in turn encouraged their entire workforces to participate), leveraging local media, making numerous phone calls, even going door-to-door. With so much effort going into the “Greenest City” challenge, you might think Mayor Rossen has a lot of time on his hands. He doesn’t. For his service as mayor he receives $9,600 a year, so mayor is just one of two jobs he holds in this town.

Another Hastings resident who made time for the challenge was Jane Staley, who despite coming off a series of difficult surgeries, managed to find the strength to answer twenty-nine environmental questions on Yahoo! Answers. Jane was (and is) motivated by her desire to ensure we leave a world where “our grandkids and their grandkids can see rainforests and polar bears in their natural environments.”

Jane was one of over 2,000 Hastings residents who joined us Monday night for the “Greenest City” celebration (those 2,000 celebrators comprise nearly 10% of the entire Hastings population). It was a night of music, food (served on corn-based biodegradable plates), dignitaries, and the afore mentioned Kool-Aid (green for the occasion). It was also a night where a small team of Yahoos learned first-hand just how much this distinction meant to the town. From the marquees celebrating the victory all over town to the keys to the city we were honored to receive, it was clear this town couldn’t be prouder or more appreciative of the “Greenest City” title.

Chuck Conrad, Hastings resident and loyal Yahoo! user for 10 years, told me he had a good feeling that Hastings might win and noted that it was the topic of conversation the past few weeks. As for what this means to Hastings, he said, “We were ‘fly-over’ country before. We knew what we had here, but now hopefully other people know now, too.”

Here’s what we know Chuck: Hastings is officially the “Greenest City in America” and as such, will be receiving a quarter of a million dollars to continue greening their city. (Yeah, we initially offered up hybrid taxis but there’s not much need for taxis in this town).

To everybody in Hastings and all of the Yahoo! users who participated in the challenge, we thank you and we share your passion for protecting our planet.

Stay green!

Heidi Burgett
Yahoo! Evangelist

That’s what Jessica Greenhood recently did for her sister’s wedding. After learning her father wasn’t up for the trek from Florida to the Midwest, Jessica investigated ways to capture the nuptials for him. She had an old camcorder, but its battery was defunct. Finding a replacement battery in Miller, Kansas (pop: 12 houses), proved a distinct challenge, and a new camera was more than Jessica could afford.

Remembering how effective her Yahoo! Messenger webcam had been for monitoring her family’s shop after-hours, she MacGyver-ed together a low-tech, low-cost solution that brought the ceremony to her father — and tears to his eyes.

“I’m a kid in a candy store with Yahoo! Messenger. I’ve been using it for years to communicate with family and friends. Everyone lives so far away — can you say big phone bill? I’ve always found it really easy to use. Even here in Kansas, where I’m on dial-up that really only gets speeds of 24.4K,” she said.

Thanks for writing with your story, Jessica. And congratulations, Naomi and Eric!

Nicki Dugan
Editor, Yodel Anecdotal

Today we unveiled a project that’s been percolating for years: A digital mosaic of our users’ lives and times in whatever form they want to submit — video, images, words, drawings, or sound. I had personally long envisioned users sharing their contributions and engaging in conversations before we’d seal everything up, maybe encase the hard drives in Lucite, and entrust it to a museum somewhere, somehow for a decade or so.

In other words, we’re creating the world’s largest Internet time capsule.

For the next month, we’ll be asking users from around the world to submit expressions around love, anger, fun, sorrow, faith, beauty, past, now, hope and “you.” They will create a massive electronic anthropology project, which we’ll open up on Yahoo!’s 25th anniversary in 2020. Our Customer Care team will review every submission — in 10 languages — truly a Herculean effort. And people will be thanked for their contribution by helping Yahoo! divvy up a $100,000 donation (courtesy of Yahoo! for Good) among seven global charitable organizations. When it closes, we will be presenting the Time Capsule content to the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings archives.

To bring it all to life, we signed Jonathan Harris again. When his design arrived, we were stunned to see a work of remarkable simplicity and universality. Jonathan explains it best in his artist statement:

“When the time capsule opens, it displays the 100 most recent contributions, which form the spinning globe. The 10 themes orbit the globe in a pinwheel pattern. At any moment, any individual tile can be clicked, causing the globe to fall away and the selected tile to expand, revealing detailed information about the tile and the person who created it… Viewers can specify the population they wish to see, exploring such demographics as “men in their 20s from New York City” and “Iraqi women who submitted drawings in response to the question: What do you love?”

So the Time Capsule is now open. Will the world love it? Ignore it? Will the Time Capsule demonstrate what separates us, or what binds us together? What will this digital mosaic reveal about our lives and these fast-moving times?

We’ll all find out together in the next 30 days.

Bill Gannon
Senior Editorial Director & Managing Editor

Founder Joshua Schachter flanked by del.icio.us birthday celebrants.

Photos by Scott Beale | Laughing Squid. More photos here.

Turns out the song is a bit autobiographical for songwriter Harry Lockwood, who’s worked at a neighboring Sunnyvale aerospace company since well before Yahoo! took up residence at the corner of Mathilda and First Avenue. I invited Harry over to Yahoo! for some free coffee and to unveil the mystery behind the Yahoo! girl (on the condition he wouldn’t write any songs about me).

Harry is a systems engineer who’d grown increasingly frustrated by the off-schedule and over-budget program he’d been working on. Every morning, he’d sit stewing at the stoplight, watching Yahoos walking blithely between buildings. “People were all in such a good mood. I just remember being in awe of them,” he recalled. When he saw a particular young woman crossing Mathilda Avenue, he said the song started developing in his head.

“I have a masters in English, and songwriting just became sort of a creative outlet for me,” he explained. Ironically his brother-in-law, Stephen Davis, a programmer for a major aerospace company in Washington, had been struggling to find lyrics for some chords he’d been playing with on his guitar. The two ran into each other at a wedding in Vegas, and their needs collided like peanut butter and chocolate.

“We wrote the whole song via the Internet. Steve would call me and say, ‘What’s Bob thinking?’ to help put him in the mood. Then he’d send me an MP3 file. I’d work on it on my end and email back some verse. It was the first song I’d ever written.” After hearing the song, Harry’s daughter asked if he was having a midlife crisis. Harry, don’t worry — we understand.

The second song is by a 20-year-old singer who hails from a small town in Western Ukraine. Mika Newton came out with “Yahoo.com” (listen here) earlier this year. (Read about her here if you speak Russian) It, too, is an autobiographical song about unrequited love. During a recent visit to London, Mika befriended a local guy and spent the day sightseeing with him. Since they were living in different countries, they exchanged email addresses instead of mobile numbers. But when she returned to Ukraine, Mika had lost the piece of paper and any chance of reconnecting with him. Heartbroken, she wrote a song about this beautiful stranger. (You can guess who hosts his email account.) Here are the lyrics. Mika has toured around Ukraine singing since she was nine and is currently recording her second album in London. We hope she’ll run into her Prince Charming again.

And to round out our list of love songs, we leave you with a custom version of “A Public Affair,” the title track from Jessica Simpson’s new album. Listen carefully and see if you can identify the object of her affections.

Got a ditty? We’d love to hear it.

I just wanted to tell you how much my family has relied on our Yahoo! Group to keep us updated on where all of our displaced relatives have landed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We’ve had our group for years and it’s seen us through births, deaths, weddings, moves, graduations, and our biannual family reunions. Not until the past two weeks, however, did we realize just how much we’ve come to rely on our Message Board to keep us in the know.

We’re one of the luckier families. Although many of my relatives have lost everything they own (we hail from New Orleans and the surrounding area), no lives were lost. Everyone is accounted for (finally) and we can all breathe a little easier. Now that the scary part is over, we’re using our Message Board to help our family members find housing, jobs, and comfort.

Thank you so much for this wonderful service. Oh, I almost forgot, we’re having our next family reunion in July 2006 right here in the Bay Area. Of course we’ve been using Yahoo! to coordinate the event (it’s always a huge blast). I know this sounds crazy, but if you or someone from Yahoo! would like to stop by while the family’s here, I know we’ll want to thank you in person…

We didn’t think that sounded crazy at all! Joanna Stevens and I, both of Yahoo! Corporate Communications, were more than happy to attend the recent Smith family reunion in San Jose, California. In fact, we learned a little more about just how useful Yahoo! Groups can be. Nikki’s extended family (all four generations descending from Lena and John W.B. Smith, who had 11 children!) has been using Yahoo! Groups for many years to share photos, plan reunions, and generally keep track of each other as they scatter farther around the globe.

As soon as we arrived, Nikki gave us our very own reunion shirts (with the Smith family logo, no less) and said we could be honorary Smith Family members — yay! And then, the storytelling began, and we heard firsthand accounts from cousins Rhonda Greene and Henry Turner of the family’s experience after Hurricane Katrina.

After being stuck at the Superdome in New Orleans for over a week, Henry was finally able to make his way onto a bus heading to Dallas. Only when he got to Dallas was Henry able to call Rhonda, who lived nearby. The whole family was sick with worry about Henry by this point, and Rhonda was relieved to end their agony by posting a quick message on the family’s Yahoo! Group saying, “We found Henry!” — probably the most meaningful message ever received by the more than 100 relatives who were Group members.

After meeting everyone and taking some photos, we had a yummy lunch catered by Uncle Frank’s BBQ. The brisket, Cajun corn, and cornbread were D-licious. I love being around big, fun, welcoming families like this one. Maybe I can find a way to make it to Houston for their next reunion.

Meagan Busath
Senior PR Manager for Yahoo! Groups (among other things)

The theme of this new marketing program is “Your Yahoo! is changing.” It’s an admittedly irreverent celebration of our new Yahoo.com home page. And rather than hiring a production company, our ad agency, Ogilvy & Mather, worked with film schools around the world (including the London Film Academy, Yale, Parsons The New School in New York, and the Art Institute of California — San Francisco) to produce 11 new commercials, each with a unique take on the theme. You can check them all out here.

The film students were amazing to work with — they submitted over 100 treatments to our agency, met with our creative directors, argued with our creative directors, and ultimately proposed such amazingly creative and imaginative work that we’re using it in an ad campaign running all over the Internet right now. Here’s a fun little behind-the-scenes video on how the students used talking fruit, pirates, robots, line drawings, and longshoremen to get the point across.

Now, we’re inviting you to create your very own commercial. Click the “Make Your Own Video” link on the campaign site to download scripts, Yahoo! logos, and even our yodel. So all you budding filmmakers, ad critics, marketing skeptics, and honorary Yahoos, go ahead — give it a shot. We hope you enjoy the program and find the spots as funny, charming, and, well, odd as we do.

Cheers,

Nick Chavez
Marketing Director, Advertising & Media

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UPDATE: As part of this campaign, we decided to roam our campus to find out how just how Yahoo! is changing. We discovered our fellow employees play with their Yahoo! quite often. Have a look.

Jill Gizzio, owner of Dogtoys.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, was one of Yahoo! Store’s earliest customers when the service launched in 1998. Now, semi-retired with eight employees, Jill was inspired to start her business after getting a dog for her 40th birthday. “Brownie was the craziest thing on four feet. As a puppy, everything in her sight was a toy, including — I hate to admit this — a toilet brush she ran through the whole house with.” A friend advised her to keep a full supply of toys on hand at all times, which quickly got expensive. One night, watching Brownie annihilate yet another teddy bear, Jill went online, registered the domain, and the rest is history. Dogtoys.com celebrates its 10th anniversary in November.

• Company alpha dog: Brownie, 9, a Jack Russell Terrier who’s a crazy swimmer with a great vocabulary. Jill has to spell out the words “swimming pool” whenever Brownie’s in earshot. “If she hears me, she’s out the door and into the kiddie pool.” While Brownie doesn’t have the upper paw (“She gets time-outs when she’s not behaving.”), she has to have the last say (“She always barks one last time.”).
• Hours worked a day: “In the first eight years, I worked 16 years’ worth. Eighty-hour weeks. You could be up at 11:30 on a Thursday night answering customer email, building new product into your site, etc.”
• Scariest thing about being her own boss: “The heartbreak of failure. Losing a company is like losing a lover. You give your life for it and you’re just as surprised when things don’t work out. You think, ‘But we were really happy!’”
• Best selling products: Pet blinkers, Greenies (treats), and Talking Chimp dolls.
• Most extravagant product: Walk ‘N Roll Pet Stroller

Jeannie Morris runs Morrco.com from Mansfield, Louisiana (“the boonies,” as she describes it), with her husband and daughter-in-law. Jeannie’s been a Yahoo! Store merchant since 1999 when she came across a Yahoo! ad to “build your own web site” and took the leap. She’s had about 15 dogs in her 49 years, so going the dog-supplies route was only natural. Her online-only business hit nary a speed bump during the dot.com bust. In fact, her husband had to build a warehouse behind their house to accommodate their inventory of about 8,000 products.

• Company alpha dog: Patches, 3, a “hyper” Australian Shepherd whose quirks include chasing lightning around the yard, thinking she can catch it.
• Hours worked a day: 10 now, but more like 15-18 in the early days.
• Hours she’d work to avoid working for someone else: 80 hours a week or more!
• Best selling product: Rhinestone dog collars, for small dogs. She says owners of diminutive dogs want them to look good all the time.
• Most extravagant thing she sells: Pink spiked harnesses for big dogs. Apparently a Rottweiler’s gotta look sassy when it growls.

Casey Whitcher and his wife Cynthia run GlamourDog.com from Frisco, Texas, with just two other employees. Their business targets people who spoil their pups with haute couture and accessories. Casey took the entrepreneurial plunge in 2003 after an amusing incident. You see, Casey proposed to Cynthia by giving her a toy Maltese puppy named Chanel with “Will you marry me?” engraved on her tag. But he thought Cynthia was nuts when she insisted on buying a $400 Italian leather carrier for her precious cargo. When Casey realized other dog owners actually indulged in such things, he saw a business opportunity and quit his day job as a web designer. You could say Cynthia got her way. As Casey explains, “We get the product in and everyone oohs and aahs over it. I gave up my manhood years ago.”

• Company alpha dog: Chanel, 5, a “spunky princess” who has her owners trained with commands like “Feed me,” “Let me out,” and “Play with me.” Her quirks include jumping into the closest open gym bag when she hears car keys.
• Scariest thing about being his own boss: Not having a set income and knowing that he has to live with the consequences of wrong decisions.
• Most fulfilling thing about being his own boss: Not having anyone tell him what to do.
• What would he have done differently: “We kind of winged it in the beginning. I wish I’d taken more time to learn the back end of running a business. You’re every function of a big company — CEO, accounting, HR, marketing, CFO, tech support, design, janitor — and it was hard to get up to speed on all that.”

Photo courtesy of Stewart Butterfield