Also, Carol and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hosted a conference call together this morning on our campus to discuss the agreement with media and analysts. You can check out an archive on our investor relations site. And here are a few photos of them both from just after the call.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

In two weeks, Carol will sit in conversation with Kara Swisher at the annual D: All Things Digital conference. In honor of this first public appearance, she’s agreed to an exclusive Q&A with Yodel Anecdotal. We invite you, dear reader, to submit whatever questions you’d like us to ask. We’re squeezing into her calendar so we can’t get to all of them, but we’d love your input. Fair game might be topics like “Why did you take this job?,” “What do you think needs fixing at Yahoo!,” “What’s your favorite website?,” and “Why do you like cheese so much?.”

Please submit your questions via ycorpblog [at] yahoo-inc [dot] com no later than 5pm PT next Tuesday (May 19th). We’ll post her answers on May 27th. Please include your name, city, and whether you’d prefer to be anonymous. And make it good!

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Take Mitch Spolan, for example. We have a phrase around here that describes someone who’s loyal to the core — they “bleed purple.” That’s Mitch in a nutshell. He’s a 10-year Yahoo! veteran who’s seen it all — the good, the bad, the ugly, and the awesome. And he’s embodied the definition of pride throughout. And in this presentation, Mitch gave abut 13,000 people a bevy of reasons to share that pride.

You have to forget for a moment that he’s a sales guy (he was just promoted to head of our North American field sales organization) because what you’re about to watch isn’t some guy just trying to cut a deal. This video helps you understand what it means to bleed purple.

And you’ll also learn a thing or two about measuring social impact by a factor of Obamas.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Wylie’s not some commercial voiceover talent. He’s the real deal — a true singing cowboy. He’s got the belt buckle, hat, ranch, and 20 horses to prove it. I caught up with Wylie to find out how on Earth he got his start in yodeling, how Yahoo! found him for our first ad campaign, how life has changed since then, what he’s doing now, and what it’s like to be the world’s most recognized yodeler. You can read a full transcript of the interview here. But for you multitasking, RSS feed-scanning, I-only-have-time-for-300-words-or-less types, here are some highlights:

• Wylie yodeled for brands like Mitsubishi, Taco Bell, Porsche, and Miller Light before creating his 3-note hit for Yahoo! in 1996.
• When our ad agency brought him into the recording studio, he came up with 10 different yodels of the name Yahoo! in a matter five minutes.
• Wylie yodels for a living with his “Wylie & the Wild West” band.
• Wylie’s yodeling notoriety has landed him gigs with A Prairie Home Companion, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. He has appeared on the Grand Ol Opry more than 50 times.
• Wylie trains cutting (or cattle) horses on a ranch near Dusty, Washington (population: 11).
• His dad was a Montana cowboy and ranch veterinarian and yodeled on horseback.
• Wylie learned to yodel from a reel-to-reel tape his aunt received from an Austrian ski team.
• Wylie and Yahoo! settled a lawsuit in 2002 after we inadvertently used his yodel in a national ad without the proper contract.
• Wylie toured the country as the emcee for the national Yahoo! Yodel Challenge in 2003. The winner, via write-in submission, was Taylor Ware, a 9-year-old who went on to becoming a finalist on “America’s Got Talent.”

And, yes, we’ve sent him his very own Insta-Yodel button. No home is complete without it.

Here’s Wylie in action, singing his most popular live song, about some guy who made it big by yodeling for a little Internet company in the mid-90s. And you can learn how to yodel like Wylie here.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Photo by Bill Watts

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

What’s that, you say? You don’t know Yahoo! Buzz? It’s where you go to find the Web’s most remarkable stories, determined by people like you. Chances are you’ve read one of the millions of articles that have been “buzzed up,” commented on or featured on the Yahoo! homepage and across Yahoo! sites over the past year. Since Yahoo! Buzz is open to all publishers, the site features stories from tens of thousands of sources –- from the most prolific sites, to the truly quirky.

What we’ve found really interesting is the way people around the Web are busily interacting with the content on Yahoo! Buzz. People are voting on or commenting on stories every two seconds, and the top Yahoo! Buzz stories featured on the Yahoo! homepage to date have received well over 300 million clicks. And while Yahoo! Updates is still relatively new, we’re seeing more and more people sharing Updates from Buzz with their Yahoo! connections. So, whenever you “buzz up” a story, it shows up on Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger and other relevant places across Yahoo!, providing another way to share your interests with your connections.

Many thanks to the publishers and the community of people who helped shape the headlines for millions by participating in the first 365 days of Yahoo! Buzz. The site already has more unique monthly visitors than any other social content site in the U.S., according to comScore Media Metrix.

For a look at our editors’ favorite Buzz stories from year one, head on over to the Buzz Log.

We hope you’ll keep on buzzing with us as we watch the next year unfold online.

Brian McMullin
Product Lead, Yahoo! Buzz

Photo from Theresa Thompson

Every year, more than 12 million people reach for computer mice along with their remotes as they play fantasy football. Yahoo! Sports alone has more than four million players. That’s a lot of people demanding perfection when it comes to their league drafting process, how fast they can get their hands on data and stats, and how easily they can manage their rosters in that critical hour before the coin toss.

Though the leagues ended with the playoffs, we thought we’d give you a video look at the team of engineers that kept you on top of your game -– the people who toiled on Sunday afternoons and Monday nights to ensure that servers didn’t crash under the weight of all those stats. The team that brought you all the best new tools to help you make smarter calls. The guys (and gals) who, like you, live and breathe sports — nary a day goes by without at least one football jersey in the cube bullpen. In fact, quite a few of them have been working on Yahoo! Sports for more than ten years.

Whether you’re a Cardinals or a Steelers fan, may your guacamole be fresh, your beer plentiful, and your pizza hot. For once, Yahoo! Sports engineers will be watching the game right along with you.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Filmed and edited by Bart Bishoff, Yahoo! Broadcast Bureau

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what our users were most curious about today as they watched the swearing in of our 44th president:

• Oath of office – people were keen to read about “john roberts flub” as the Chief Justice stumbled slightly on the oath
• Aretha Franklin – that hat was on everyone’s mind; there were also questions about how old she is, along with confusion about her name (“anita franklin”)
• Joseph Lowery – people were buzzing about the Reverend and his funky benediction
• Dick Cheney wheelchair – why exactly was he in a wheelchair?
• Obama speech – because hearing it once was evidently not enough
• Inaugural lunch menu – great curiosity about what was being served to the President on this historic day
• Abraham Lincoln – searches about his bible as well as quotes that might have been invoked today
• How old is Obama - shouldn’t it be how “young” is Obama?
• Readings/music - there were spikes on particular pieces and lyrics, including misheard phrases (“air and simple gifts” and the misheard “heir and simple gifts”)
• Bush daughters’ letter to Obama daughters – interest in the advice between First Daughters
• Activities/lesson plans – parents and teachers searched for all sorts of things for kids, like coloring pages, lesson plans, activities, word searches
• Live coverage – an unprecedented global audience sought the experience live online
• Obama’s limo – there was great interest in this James Bondian machine.
• Tuskegee Airmen – people sought background on this group of World War II pilots who broke the color barrier in military aviation
• Michelle Obama dress – as usual, fashionistas wanted all the skinny on who designed Michelle’s dress (it was Isabel Toledo)

And if you get a chance, check out the Flickr Inauguration 2009 pool, which now boasts more than 4,000 images from the inaugural festivities.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Photo from erin m

I’ve always wondered what it’s like to program news content for that kind of a massive audience. (Let’s just say Yodel Anecdotal’s readership has a ways to go.) After all, you’re basically responsible for informing roughly one in every two American Internet users about what’s happening in our world…and influencing what they talk about over cube walls. What does that responsibility feel like? How do they stay on top of the fire hose of news and then decide what gets one of those precious links? Who is “they” and what prepares them for this big job? How do they know what will click? What was it like to cover this year’s Election?

I took a camera backstage to answer these questions and more. Enjoy this up-close-and-personal look inside the Yahoo! Homepage newsroom.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Filmed and edited by Bart Bishoff, Yahoo! Broadcast Bureau

In contrast to breaking news, it’s a luxury to prepare for a massive news event that falls on the calendar. And like a Guitar Hero tournament, we notched up the intensity the further we went along in the rehearsal. The goal? To create a setting as dramatic as Wolf Blitzer’s call of states on CNN to ensure that everyone was as prepared as possible to program what proved to be an historic night.

After covering the 2000 and 2004 elections at the New York Times, and watching news organizations all over the country make premature (and wrong) calls, I had just one rule for our team: “Get it right.” When you are the de facto news source for over 40 million a month, you feel a tremendous responsibility when it comes to accuracy.

To strike the right balance of keeping up with network calls without distributing misinformation, we spent time with editors from the AP before the election to understand their approach toward calling results, which is part science, part art, part gut call. You might remember the AP was the only news outlet that sent Americans to bed without a new president in 2000, saying the race was too close to call.

At Yahoo! News, our editors’ roles are to program headlines from dozens of national and international newspapers, wires, and broadcast networks. But on Election Night, we took on a more pronounced mandate as news filter. For example, if a network called a critical swing state, we would wait until at least another network called the state before announcing the news in our breaking news blog and breaking news bar. After all, we were serving what turned out to a record-breaking audience — today, comScore confirmed that we attracted 7.5 million people, the largest single day of traffic in online news history, surpassing CNN.com, MSNBC.com, AOL.com and FoxNews.com. We couldn’t afford to be wrong.

Journalists are known cynics. But when Barack Obama surpassed 270 electoral votes, we all knew it was a huge moment. The newsroom suddenly got very quiet. The sense of history was palpable. I think we all felt honored to be standing there, passing that word along to our readers.

And in my eight years at the Times — where I covered 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — I was never more proud of a newsroom operation.

Richard Vega
Senior Editor, Yahoo! News

Photo from jrejtman

A few months ago I sat across the table from Charlie Todd, New York City comedian and founder of Improv Everywhere. I laughed out loud as he outlined potential outlandish and hilarious pranks created for Yahoo!’s upcoming marketing campaign.

Charlie has a long history of pulling public pranks. Among my favorites, he has sent 45 people into Best Buy dressed in blue shirts and khakis with the simple mission “help people,” he has tricked an entire audience into thinking he was Ben Folds (at a Ben Folds concert no less) and probably most famously, he orchestrated 100 people freezing in place for two minutes inside Grand Central Station.

Charlie is one of those guys who pushes the envelope and paints outside the lines. His pranks are fun, spontaneous, irreverent and daring. Since that’s pretty much how we see our brand personality, there were obvious synergies. We decided to collaborate for the campaign.

We both loved “Elevator Music.” The prank would take place in an elevator and be a progressive sing-a-long upon descent. The key was to have one person along for the ride that had no idea what was going on. The elevator is a space that has social norms and unwritten rules. When you break these norms there is nothing to do but react (or attempt to NOT react, which in itself is a great reaction). This particular elevator was in a 34-story building in downtown Manhattan.

In late August, we rode an elevator, rigged with 9 hidden cameras and microphones, up and down all day –- with actors singing a Gogol Bordello song. Unsuspecting riders reacted in ways we could never have anticipated. Most people laughed and jumped in. Some were not amused. And many were just in complete shock. Regardless of the initial reaction, as they left the elevator and went about their day, they were touched by a little purple whether they realized it or not.

You can find the final product here. Here’s an interview with Charlie about the stunt:

There are more purple pranks to come. With Charlie’s help, we have a few more purple zingers up our sleeves to be unveiled in the next month. As for the woman in the elevator, we believe she still can’t help but quietly hum “Start Wearing Purple” every time she presses the lobby button and the doors close.

Jason Anello
Ideologist, Buzz Marketing

At least on the good days, I do recognize that being the executive producer for Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! Music is a pretty good gig. Somehow I parlayed years of pathetic low-five-figure annual incomes as a music journalist — free CDs, cool! – into a key role in what I believe to be the best video concert series on internet or television. I’m not curing cancer, nor am I paving blacktops or strapping on a tie and selling insurance; instead I’m getting away with a “grown up” vocation that somehow includes playing host to some of the biggest names in music.

But before I further this self-congratulatory drivel and come off looking like a total jerk, some perspective, please. If engaging with artists and managers and record labels requires a singular kind of finesse, working with the top-tier talent is an art unto itself. Nearly every single artist of that level is the benevolent dictator surrounded by a country full of handlers. And with them come demands and restrictions that inevitably cause a tug-of-war between what Nissan Live Sets is and how they want their artist represented within it. Some resist our quirky format (not doing a Q&A in the middle of the set, not stopping in between songs), some require audio post that perks up a flat vocal note or 30, many are nervous about how their artists, battling to mitigate the unstoppable cruelties of age, will be represented in this new HD world. To that end, camera angles and lighting are restricted and/or required to make butts smaller, wrinkles diminished, chins fewer. (And I’m not just talking about the ladies.)

And that’s but a minuscule portion of the craziness that ensues from the moment we book. But nothing is more of an adrenaline rush and reoccurring test of sanity than occurs during the typical 13-hour shoot day. When it’s crunch time, it’s a flurry of activity with a gaggle of parties demanding attention:

• VIP: “Why do those VIPs get to sit on that couch but I don’t?”
• Fan: “I want to meet Joan Jett. Here is my sob story why.”
• Mother of teen Avril Lavigne fan: “My daughter’s very upset that she can’t get an autograph.”
• Stooges manager to me: “Iggy will probably jump off the stage during ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog.’” Me to Fire/Safety officers: “Iggy will probably jump off the stage during ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog.’” Fire/Safety officers to me: “No, he can’t.” Me to Fire/Safety officers: “I’m not telling Iggy that he can’t. He’ll probably leave.”
• Macy Gray handler one hour before taping time: “We need 12 pair of black socks.”
• Velvet Revolver handler 30 min before taping time: “Scott wants makeup” (and yes we know we told you we didn’t need it).
• Snoop Dogg handler one hour before taping time: “Snoop wants McDonald’s” (and won’t eat it in his performance clothes so keep pushing that start time back).
• Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo, five hours before performance, and after weeks of discussions on how to re-jigger the room so that the band could perform a hootenanny on the general audience floor: “We’d like four individual performance risers around the room in a diamond shape instead of this one here.” Okay…

But the rewards –- yes, back to the bragging –- are tremendous. For one, there are the performances. Man, oh, man. And on a regular basis I get to interact in a respectful and professional level with some fantastic artists. Sure, some couldn’t care less, and some are complete freaks, but many, many others are genuinely appreciative of what we are doing. And then, suddenly, you find, typically after the taping when the wars are won and guards are down, where conversations turn to the silly and mundane. These are the moments to cherish, such as:

• Keeping Joni Mitchell company at her request as she smoked and shared an old memory of Bob Dylan;
• Hearing Ryan Adams share how much he hates the kind of music that he’s most known for;
• PJ Harvey confiding in me how the Q&A was the weirdest thing she’s ever done in her life;
• The shaman Carlos Santana putting his hand on my cheek and saying, “Be good, brother;”
• Buddy Guy sharing stories about his early days in Chicago and genuinely inviting me to let him show me around the Windy City;
• Talking parenthood with Trisha Yearwood;
• Hoisting a beer with many;
• Saying no to blunts from several others; and
• Watching the Pretenders get stupid drunk.

And then there was Kelly Clarkson, an artist whose music for which I must confess to have had great ambivalence before working with her. She was the friendliest, coolest, kindest of the lot, not to mention a stunningly good vocalist. After the show, several Yahoo! types were getting a photo with her. “Come join in, Neal,” one of my co-workers yelled to me. “I already got my photo with Kelly,” I countered. “Yeah, and we made out,” Kelly enthused. Yeah… so there!

From that moment on, Kelly Clarkson has always been known as “my girlfriend.”

Neal Weiss
Executive Producer, Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! Music

You might have heard — we interviewed the President. George W. Bush, in the flesh, at the White House.

And, the best part? We made history. Believe it or not, this was the first on-camera interview the President has done for an online-only entity in his entire tenure in office. As we say in the news biz — what a “get”!

The White House was kind enough to let us conduct the interview in the Roosevelt Room — the President has only done one other on-camera interview there. It’s feet from the Oval Office and is usually used as a conference room (think cabinet meetings).

The White House says “President Richard Nixon named the room in 1969 to honor Theodore Roosevelt for building the West Wing and Franklin Roosevelt for expanding it.” Teddy’s Medal of Honor and Nobel Peace Prize hang on walls a few feet away from the large picture of him at the end of the room. All fine reminders that this was an historic event.

The interview was conducted by Mike Allen, the chief political correspondent for Politico (our Election 2008 partners). Our first-class production team shot the interview. Our exec producer and vice president of original programming, Neeraj Khemlani, came with us to oversee the whole production. (He used to work at 60 Minutes. Take a look at the interview — you can tell he had a hand in it. It looked sharp!)

The idea of interviewing Mr. Bush started when our friends and partners at Politico joined forces with us to cover the 2008 campaign. Eventually, we were interviewing presidential candidates (see interviews here) with Mike Allen. Then we were writing stories on the primaries. And ultimately, we’re hosting their first-class content on our site. We wondered what big “get” we could do next — all signs pointed to the White House.

We took a good look at our audience when we decided just what we’d ask President Bush when we sat down with him. Of our 40 million users, we were pretty sure not all of them are watching Meet the Press every week. So we posed a broad range of questions, touching on everything from the war in Iraq (and why it spurred him to quit golf) to his daughter’s wedding to which Saturday Night Live comedian pulled off the best impression. (It goes without saying that as Yahoo!, we can get away with questions that are outside Tim Russert’s domain.) We even got a Dr. Evil impression out of him. We also asked questions submitted by users, like whether he felt personally misled by pre-war Iraq intelligence and what he could do about the rising price of gas.

No matter which aspect of this President people were interested in, we’re proud to have brought it to you from a special place in a special format.

Erin Green
Producer, Yahoo! News

We want to share insights into our company, our people, our culture, and the things that occupy our cluttered minds. We’ll cover emerging trends, provide some behind-the-scenes commentary, profile interesting Yahoos, spotlight our beloved users, reveal some of our quirks, tap into guest bloggers, sprinkle in some videos and photo essays, and generally think out loud (lucky you… you get to listen). You’ll hear from interns to executives. Some days we’ll be light and airy, others we’ll get serious.

Sure, we’ll touch on some Yahoo! news now and again, but we’ll try to put a new twist on things and make every visit worth the mouse-clicks. And of course the whole point of a blog is the conversation loop. So comment away — this place is an echo chamber without you.

Think of this site as the front door to our home (work with me as I posit a questionable metaphor): In our kitchen, we’ll offer you a cup of coffee and direct you to the fridge door, where we’ve displayed the things we’re most proud of. We’ll demonstrate our latest inventions from the workbench in our garage, engage in healthy debates around the dining room table (pass the pepper, please), and sink into overstuffed chairs in the living room to share some of our favorite photos. We’ll point out the shower where we do our best thinking (apologies for the visual) and the den, where we goof around. All with the goal of getting to know each other a little better. Mi casa es su casa. We’ll just call you Kramer.

On that note, since we often get requests for tours of our Sunnyvale headquarters, we’ve prepared a little virtual tour to give you a sense of a day in the life of a Yahoo. We’ve called you a cab – just hop in and come have a look around. And do stop by often — no need to ring the bell.