Coming off the heels of Yahoo!’s women’s slate launch, which had nearly 10 million streams in its first month, and as the top destination online for comedy with 1 billion streams of its original programming to date, Yahoo! is adding to its line-up with the Yahoo! Comedy Channel. Kicking off the Yahoo! Comedy Channel is a live free online broadcast exclusively on Yahoo! for Bill Maher’s stand-up “CrazyStupidPolitics: Bill Maher Live from Silicon Valley,” on February 23, 2012 at the San Jose Performing Arts Center.

Following Maher, the Yahoo! Comedy Channel is will include a variety of exclusive short form videos, set to go live in spring 2012, with additional big names including Mike O’Brien (lead writer on Saturday Night Live) and Seth Morris (No Strings Attached, I Love You Man, Step Brothers), licensed video content from current sponsors, and Yahoo! original programming, such as Yahoo! Studios’ Odd News and be hosted on Yahoo! Screen, the company’s revamped premium video destination. Like the female slate, the Yahoo! Comedy Channel will provide marketers with a huge opportunity to align their brand with world class content via a “Share of Voiceˇ opportunity to buy ad spots across the entire slate of shows. Progressive Insurance has already signed on as a launch sponsor.

“Bill Maher’s special is a groundbreaking event, not only for Yahoo! and Bill but for the internet as the first ever, live, free broadcast online. We are focusing on fresh, original voices like Bill and our other original programs with the Yahoo! Comedy Channel to continue to provide our consumers and advertisers with the best premium content on the Web,ˇ said Erin McPherson, vice president & head of Video at Yahoo!. “The Yahoo! Comedy Channel continues to build our leadership position and show our commitment to premium video content.ˇ

“I’m excited to be doing something new in bringing a live stand up show to a web giant like Yahoo!,ˇ said Bill Maher. “It is my goal to make people say “Oh no he di’nt” in every medium on earth.ˇ

In addition to Maher, the Yahoo! Comedy Channel is a collaborative effort between Yahoo! and top-tier production partners including Funny or Die, Broadway Video, Electus, David Morgasen and Principato-Young and more. Some of the shows in the comedy slate will include:

• CrazyStupidPolitics: Bill Maher Live from Silicon Valley – On February 23, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. PT Bill Maher will host a live comedy show exclusively broadcasted online on Yahoo!. This will be Maher’s first live online broadcast ever. For the last nineteen years, Maher has set the boundaries of where funny, political talk can go on American television. First on “Politically Incorrectˇ on Comedy Central and ABC, and for the last nine years on HBO’s “Real Time,ˇ Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him twenty-seven Emmy nominations.
• Funny Or Die Presents “First Dates with Toby Harris” (Funny or Die) – starring Seth Morris, a series that takes us on a journey of ill-fated first dates with the lovable (sometimes deplorable) and always single Toby Harris. Set with Los Angeles as a back drop, each episode centers around a different woman and issue that will leave the audience bickering amongst themselves who was right and who was wrong, and how they would have handled it better! Love him or hate him, a date with Toby is a date you will always remember.
• 7 Minutes in Heaven (Broadway Video) – Host Mike O’Brien (Saturday Night Live) invites celebrities into his closet for an intimate conversation.
• Sketchy (Principato Young/Electus) - Sketchy is a weekly video series featuring stand alone, topical comedy shorts written, directed and starring the biggest names in comedy. Created by Electus and Principato-Young Entertainment, whose roster includes Ed Helms, Justin Long, Anthony Anderson, Rob Corddry, Rob Riggle, Rachel Harris, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer and many many others.
• HACKERAZZI (David Morgasen) – From David Morgasen, the director known for classic viral videos like the “David Blaine Street Magicˇ spoofs and “Obama-McCain Dance-offˇ, as well as his work on “Jimmy Kimmel Liveˇ comes HACKERAZZI. This series is basically a wikileaks of celebrity video, including hidden-camera footage of 2012 presidential candidates. It’s the only place to see New Jersey Governor Chris Christie knocking over an 8 year-old boy at an airport Cinnabon and making off with his breakfast — or Justin Bieber bitch-slapping a sound guy while taping an anti-bullying PSA — or GOP hopeful Herman Cain’s never-before-seen audition to be “Harry Potter’sˇ Dumbledore. Using a combination of live action and state-of-the-art digital effects, HACKERAZZI attaches celebrity heads to actors, making them look very close to the real thing.

Many people already turn to the Internet to watch their favorite TV shows when and where it’s convenient for them. Now Yahoo! is giving its users more of what they want. Today, Yahoo! announced it is launching its own slate of original, TV-quality web shows in tandem with the introduction of its re-vamped video destination, Yahoo! Screen.

The eight new original shows, which are aimed at a predominantly female audience, star top Hollywood talent including Judy Greer (The Descendants, Arrested Development), Niecy Nash (Reno 911, Dancing with the Stars), Cameron Mathison (All My Children, Dancing with the Stars), Morgan Spurlock (Super-Size Me, 30 Days) and others. The shows will cover a variety of lifestyle topics, such as healthy living, relationships, celebrities, entertainment, and more.

Judy Greer’s “Reluctantly Healthy” takes a lighthearted approach toward exploring how best to stay fit while managing a busy lifestyle. Niecy Nash hosts a weekly relationship show, “Let’s Talk About Love,” Cameron Mathison leads a team of experts helping men deliver memorable marriage proposals on “Ultimate Proposal,” and Morgan Spurlock stars in the “The Failure Club,” a documentary series about conquering the fear of failure.

Also premiering in the lineup is “Your Friends Will Never Believe You,” hosted by Ryan Rottman (90210, Nickelodeon’s Gigantic) where each week a different celebrity will surprise a fan in a unique manner that will literally never be believed. Chef Fabio Viviani (Top Chef Season Five, bestselling cookbook author) hosts a cooking show, “CHOW CIAO!,” featuring back-to-basics tips and Italian recipes. Viewers can get a rundown of everything going on in Hollywood that day from Kristen Aldridge on “omg! NOW!,” and in “Blue Ribbon Hunter,” chef and cookbook author Allison Fishman prepares one special recipe each week and then travels to a food festival with the goal of winning the top prize.

In addition, Yahoo! Screen is being developed to house the most comprehensive collection of premium video content on the Web and upgrades Yahoo! Video, the company’s existing video site. Yahoo! Screen adds many of the ingredients that have made Yahoo! No. 1 in nine other online categories: original programming, the best aggregated content from across the Internet, personalization technologies, and expert editors to curate the experience. Visitors to Yahoo! Screen will also find:

• Yahoo!’s entire line-up of award-winning original shows, including “Primetime in No Time,” “The Thread,” “The Daily Ticker,” and more
• Expanded library of third-party long- and short-form video from sources including: Hulu, CBS, Howcast, Turner Sports, UFC, Revision3, and more than 70 other leading video content creators
• Easy-to-navigate category pages – News, Sports, Finance, TV, Movies, Lifestyle and Comedy – featuring individual show pages and topic pages, all editorially programmed to surface the most popular and interesting videos

Check out the slate of new programming and find your favorite show of the Fall TV lineup here: http://screen.yahoo.com.

Today, the video market is crowded, chaotic and moves at a frenetic pace. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. With our scale, leading media properties and premium advertising business, Yahoo!, by all accounts, should be a leader in premium online video. After all, Yahoo! has been showing consumers what is interesting, important and entertaining online as long as any player out there. Leading in consumer media experiences is in our DNA and is our birthright.

So about that existing success: Today, Yahoo! produces and/or distributes up to 26 original video series on our network and reaches nearly 27 million people a month.* Yahoo! has ALL 10 out of the top 10 original programs on the web.* Yahoo! original programs are more visited than all of hulu.com. And recently, Yahoo! Studios received an Emmy nomination, an Edward R. Murrow award and a Webby Award for its original program “Second Act,” sponsored by General Mills.

And now, about the future: We are taking our success in original video and building on it, adding unique voices, known personalities and experiences you will only be able to get on Yahoo! A preview of what’s to come:

• Female-Centric Programming Slate: The television networks were not alone in announcing their fall programming line-ups this year. Yahoo!, the premier digital media company, will be launching its own first full slate of original, premium, TV-quality web shows. Each of the eight new original shows is designed to reach a predominantly female audience and will cover a variety of lifestyle topics, such as healthy living, relationships, celebrity, entertainment, and more. The programs are being produced both by our award-winning in-house Yahoo! Studios team and by leading industry partners, including Ben Silverman’s Electus, Fishbowl Media, and Morgan Spurlock. What makes these shows especially exciting is that Yahoo! is financing production and will program and promote the shows as never before. With a creative canvas that enables advertisers to reach and immerse digital video audiences with relevant messages and out-of-the-box ad formats, marketers can now participate in “share of voice” buying along with audience-focused programming. This offering complements our existing offerings in video, which include award-winning branded entertainment programs as well as inventory targeting a specific audience in an unparalleled way.

• A Decade of Difference: The Concert for the 10th Anniversary of the William J. Clinton Foundation: On October 15, 2011, Yahoo! will be the only place to watch the live concert event of the year: A Decade of Difference, The Clinton Foundation 10th Anniversary Concert event, featuring the biggest musical acts in the world, including Lady Gaga, Bono, the Edge and Usher. Yahoo! is bringing this event to a global audience in partnership with Control Room, the producers of other world-class events like LiveAid. This is sure to be an unforgettable experience and Yahoo! is the place to bring it to life for a global audience.

• Original Voices Only on Yahoo!: We are continuing to expand our content offerings by working with unique global voices and world-wide partners to bring the best premium content and original programming to Yahoo! We have some exciting upcoming projects featuring top Hollywood talent and unique storytelling we will unveil in the near future!

We will succeed, but as importantly, we will fail. The web is about experimentation, and fun. We don’t need to be anyone else—Netflix, Hulu, YouTube—there is room for all of us; we can and should be a place for premium contextualized content and video.

Erin McPherson
VP & Head of Video

* Source: comScore Media Builder Custom Report, US, August 2011, among a set including more than 75 original video programs, as custom-defined by Yahoo!, on the following properties: Yahoo!, YouTube, Hulu, MSN, AOL, Forbes, PopSugar, IGN, TMZ, New York Times, Smosh.com, ABC News, Sugar, Funny or Die, She Knows, CraveOnline.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series entitled, “In My Own Words,” that will give Yahoo employees the opportunity to share their own stories about Yahoo!. Feel like yodeling your own? Post your Yahoo! story on your social networks using the hashtag #myYahoostory.

Get ready world, the latest version of Yahoo! Mail is moving out of Beta and coming to an inbox near you! This faster, safer, and easier email experience will roll out to you and all of Yahoo! Mail’s 284-million users worldwide, offering fun, engaging and productive features consistent across PC, mobile and tablet devices. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

Prioritizes the People and Things that Matter Most: Yahoo! Mail now offers you a more personally relevant experience focused on the people and messages that matter most to you:

• Quickly view and reply to messages, photos and videos: You can instantly respond to messages from Facebook, Yahoo! Groups and webmail providers directly from your inbox with an easy reply bar.
• Conversations that matter: Yahoo! Mail prioritizes messages and contacts that matter most. Now, when you want to compose an IM, SMS or email you will find your most frequent contacts and lists readily available. And, you can store and easily search IM and SMS conversations in addition to emails. Oh and did we mention you can now chat with your Facebook friends right from within Yahoo! Mail?
• Useful applications: You can now track purchases, unsubscribe from unwanted emails or send 100mb (i.e. huge) messages right from your inbox.
• More personalized options: You can choose from many vibrant themes and stationery options to express your personality and customize how you view messages and contacts.

Read more about the new features here.

Designed for Everyone – New Accessibility Features: Yahoo! has made it a priority to make sure the latest version of Yahoo! Mail is even more accessible to people with disabilities. We are proud to say that Yahoo! Mail can be used via a keyboard only or a mouse and leverages context-sensitive instructional text to make it easier for people who use screen readers.  Learn about Yahoo! accessibility initiatives at http://accessibility.yahoo.com

Under the Hood Remodel: This is the largest redesign of Yahoo! Mail in six years, and we rebuilt it with a focus on performance to make it at least 2x faster than previous versions of Yahoo! Mail.  In addition, we upgraded our spam technology to ensure that you aren’t receiving unwanted messages. Did you know that Yahoo! Mail already blocks more than 550 billion spam messages per month? Read more about the improved performance and spam protection here.

Better, Richer, Advertising in Mail: Yahoo! is the market leader in delivering audiences to advertisers, and Yahoo! Mail is no different.  We bring a unique combination of Science, Art and Scale – the Science to understand and target an audience, the Art to engage them within premium content and canvases, and the Scale to reach them in meaningful numbers that drive their business.  Click here to learn more about the advertising features available in Yahoo! Mail.

Nokia Users Get Powered By Yahoo! Mail: All of these great new features and functionality will also be available for Yahoo! Mail’s global partners.  For example, Nokia email and chat services are now “Powered by Yahoo,” offering Nokia users an easier, safer and more social email and chat experience.  Take a look at the Mobile blog to find out more.

The best news:  you don’t have to wait for Yahoo! Mail to come to you. Click here to upgrade and start enjoying, in our humble opinion, the best communications experience on the web (or phone or tablet for that matter)!

Personally yours,

The Yahoo! Mail team

The addition of the IntoNow technology will enable Yahoo! to provide enhanced media experiences and video programming, bolstering its social engagement across the Yahoo! network and on all screens. IntoNow users are able to easily engage with friends around the shows they enjoy most. The application helps people discover new shows, discuss favorites with friends and learn more about them, and provides recommendations for what is currently airing based on their interests and those they are connected to. The application is also integrated with Facebook, Twitter, iTunes and Netflix to enable more sharing and information gathering.

Yahoo!’s royal wedding site will be an extension of Shine From Yahoo!, the leading Website for women’s lifestyle content, and demonstrates Yahoo!’s position as the premier Web destination for landmark global events. And speaking of global – the royal wedding site is localized and live in nine markets outside the US. We invite you to experience the royal wedding through all the features our site offers:

• Guestbook: The Royal Wedding Yahoo! Guestbook gives people a place to offer their marital advice and best wishes to Prince William and Kate Middleton, then share those wishes with users’ social networks.  Even celebrities have left messages for the couple on our guestbook!
• Photo galleries: View photos of the couple’s courtship, Kate Middleton as a child, and much more.
• Articles and blogs: The latest news on the royal wedding, plus articles on the wedding trends, fashion, the royal wedding’s participants and guests, and more.
• Wedding live stream: Watch the royal wedding live by visiting http://royalwedding.yahoo.com on April 29.
• Video:  Yahoo! will feature video from Associated Press, Reuters, and ABC News, along with original video content including a joint ABC News/Yahoo! News Web show called “Wedding Royale.” ABC News will also provide weekly flashback videos of the royal family. During the week of the wedding, Yahoo! will have a crew on the ground in London producing stories on topics people are most interested in.
• Mobile site: Yahoo! allows you to get your Royal Wedding fix anytime, anywhere, by visiting http://m.royalwedding.yahoo.com from your mobile phone.
• A chance to enter the “Live It Up Like Royalty” sweepstakes: By signing the Royal Wedding Yahoo! Guestbook or by “liking” Shine from Yahoo! on Facebook, users will automatically be entered to win a trip to Las Vegas to be treated like a king or queen.

Additionally, Flickr by Yahoo!, one of the world’s best places to post and share photos, features The Official British Monarchy Flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishmonarchy/tags/rw2011/ Join the celebration, the Yahoo! way. Cheerio!

Our friends at Chrysler have partnered with us for the entire awards show season. Check out the Yahoo! Awards Show site here: http://awards.omg.yahoo.com

Here’s a schedule of the upcoming shows:

Sunday, January 16: Golden Globes Awards

Tuesday, January 25: Academy Awards nominations

Sunday, February 13: Grammy Awards

Sunday, February 27: Academy Awards

Scroll down Santa’s Beard and see what fun surprises Yahoo! has in store for you this holiday season.  From the Gingerbread Man to a polar bear looking for warmth, Santa’s Beard is a haven for all sorts of goodness, including some fun video surprises.  And in the spirit of giving during the holiday season, you can share Santa’s Beard of Joy with friends on Facebook and Twitter!

What will you discover in Santa’s Beard of Joy?  Start exploring now at http://www.beardofjoy.com!

The VMAs have become a cultural touchstone in the music world, dating back to 1984, when it became clear that video didn’t kill the radio star. Neither has the Internet, and Yahoo!’s collaboration with MTV further enhances the experience of celebrating favorite artists and cheering them on as they vie for their VMAs.

Are Yahoo! Searches Already Predicting the Winners?

It looks like music fans are gearing up for the VMAs because searches on Yahoo! for “VMAs 2010” are up an incredible 1743% this month. While the VMA winners will not be announced until the Sunday evening awards show, we can’t help but wonder if all these searches could be early predictors to the winners. Yahoo! has unearthed the top searched Video Music Award nominees during this year’s nomination period, and if searching is an early predictor, a sampling of the winners would be:

VIDEO OF THE YEAR: Lady Gaga, Bad Romance

BEST FEMALE VIDEO: Ke$ha, Tik Tok
BEST MALE VIDEO: Usher featuring Will.I.Am, OMG
BEST HIP HOP VIDEO: B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams, Airplanes
BEST POP VIDEO: Ke$ha, Tik Tok

BEST ROCK VIDEO: Paramore, Ignorance

Even if our predictions are not spot-on, we’re as eager to find out the winners as you are—and we’ll meet you Behind the Lens! (Don’t forget us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/yahoo_music)

This past week, 100 Girl Scouts in New York City and Los Angeles participated in Yahoo!’s Purple Acts of Kindness program. These girls were empowered to make a difference in the lives of girls and women around the world by designating $50 each to one of dozens of organizations in developing countries through Global Giving.  Girl Scouts were given the opportunity to address critical issues like youth trafficking, bonded servitude, legal defense, clean water, and support for victims of domestic violence. Check out some of their experiences below.

Troop 1350 in the Bronx

Girl Scout Seniors from the Bronx donated to several charities like one in India that teaches women to run their own businesses and another in Kenya that benefits female survivors of sex trafficking. Alessandra, who chose an organization supporting female South African refugees, said that the project helped her to “know the value of giving to ones truly in need.” Abby, Victoria, and Brianna donated money to provide affordable sanitary pads for 1,500 Ugandan girls, saying, “It was hard to think about girls missing necessary stuff like that.”

The Casa Esperanza After-School Site Program in Chatsworth, CA

Juniors and Cadettes at the Casa Esperanza Program in Chatsworth donated their money to support victims of domestic violence, building projects in developing nations, and leadership programs for vulnerable women and girls. Aurora, who gave money to train 300 destitute Kenyan girls for self-reliance, told her program leader that she “wanted to help [the girls] become more independent.” Cynthia chose to support children of domestic violence survivors simply “because they need to stop getting hit.”

Brooklyn, Troop 2696 & Inglewood, Troop 7045

The girls of Troop 2696 made a group decision and contributed their 10 gift cards totaling $500 to the Kenya Legal Defense Fund for Adolescent Girls to maximize their impact on a cause they were passionate about. The Troop 7045 Cadettes of Inglewood, California also pooled their funds to provide aid to save lives with clean water in an Indian village. Troop Leader Cynthia Herron was astounded by the project’s effect on the girls, saying, “They wanted to be a part of helping someone else’s survival. It’s not ME ME ME anymore. It’s THEY THEY THEY.”

From New York to Los Angeles, one thing remains constant – with the help of Yahoo!, Girl Scouts across the nation were given the opportunity to actively engage in helping others.  As Isabella of Eastern Los Angeles put it, “It’s a great thing that Yahoo! has allowed me to help other girls and a cause that I believe in.”

That’s why we’re rolling out a radically overhauled m.flickr.com site today. What we’re most excited about is that now –- for the first time -– you’ll actually be able to play Flickr videos back on your phone. Ever since we launched video, we’ve let you upload your “long photos” directly from your cell, but we think the playback functionality is pretty huge. It’s based on the Yahoo! Video Platform and takes advantage of its ability to serve content to a wide variety of phones, screen sizes, and video/audio codecs. We’ll be rolling video playback out over the coming weeks for handsets that support streaming video, starting with the iPhone and iPod Touch today and more to come.

The new m.flickr.com sports a sleek new interface that makes it significantly easier to view your photostream and sets, and puts recent activity (yours and your contacts’) front and center. We’ve also added a bunch of new capabilities, like letting you add contacts, favorite images, and change your privacy and permission settings –- all while you’re out walking the dog. And, in support of our “eyes of the world” vision, we’ve also added the ability to explore the latest “interestingness” photos.

iPhone users have been playing with our new mobile incarnation since we released our beta in October and now we’re expanding the experience to any smart phone that supports browsers like Webkit, Firefox Mobile, and Opera Mobile.

The mobile phone has become central to how many of our users take pictures and how they share their view of the world with the important people in their life. We think the new Flickr mobile experience reflects all the cool possibilities that today’s advanced and rich mobile web has to offer, combined with all the functionality Flickr members know and love.

So grab your phone, bookmark m.fllickr.com, and enjoy photos and videos with a big smile on that small screen.

UPDATE: Just a clarification. Video playback is available for videos uploaded yesterday onward. Over the next few months, we’ll work to make the entire catalog of videos viewable on our mobile site.

Kakul Srivastava
Flickr General Manager

• And the nominees are: It’s the final day of nominations for the Yahoo! Video Awards, so get your favorite videos into the line up. We’ve got it all — videos about zombies to Weird Al’s childhood. There are categories for all your interests including Best Indie Music Video, Best Internet Personality, Best Series, and more. And don’t worry, it’s okay to just vote. You may want to wait until Monday after all the nominees have loaded up their videos. Read more here.
• Getting foxy: Through our new friendship with FoxyTunes, we have a brand new version of FoxyTunes 2.0 for IE (freshly beta) to let you control any media player while surfing the web. What’s new? Now you can change the appearance of your FoxyTunes by installing custom skins (we’ve already got 11 skins available) and down the road you’ll be able to create your very own. We’ve even added a FoxyTunes Mini, basically a universal desktop widget that’s a customizable, collapsible, and skinnable version of its big bro. The best part — there’s a timer and alarm clock feature that lets you set your media player to your favorite song. The best part of waking up.
• Retiring in style: As Yahoo! Messenger turns 9.0, we’ve decided to retire our vintage versions (5.5 and 5.6). After April 1, if you’re using version 5.5 or 5.6, you will no longer be able to sign in. We know change is hard, so we’ve got two alternatives to help make it easier. You can download the new Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 or the 9.0 beta, or try our Yahoo! Messenger for the Web. Both options offer better protection from spam, advanced features like voice calling and SMS, and the addition of your friends on Windows Live Messenger. And rest assured, your existing friends will follow up when you make the move! For more info go here and stay dialed into what else the team’s got up their sleeve here.
• Luck of the Irish: Whether you’re Irish or not, green beer and green cheer is just around the corner. So make it official by greening your My Yahoo! page with our new St. Paddy’s themed layout (complete with shamrocks, peeking rainbow, and blue skies). Go here and click on “Seasonal,” then go with the “St. Patrick’s” option.

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

• Popcorn not included: We’ve added one more reason for you to cozy up with your sweetie. Add the My Netflix module to your My Yahoo! page and get instant access into your Netflix account without leaving your page. You can see what the “Top Rentals” are or what’s new and hot for a special evening. Or get a status update on what movies are on their way to your home. Read more here.
• New and improved: Yahoo! Video look a little different to you? Not to worry, you’re not going crazy. We’ve made some changes to make the site the one-stop shop for all video on Yahoo!, whether it’s news, sports, movies or music. You now get a wider and cinematastic (16:9 player view in fact) viewing experience, bigger files so you can upload higher quality files (up to 150 megabytes), and also curate your own video experience beyond embedding your own individual videos to your blog or site. There’s more, read about it here.
• Putting the My in MyBlogLog: Just think, how cool it would be to personalize your site with your MyBlogLog community. With the new MyBlogLog plugin you can now instantly display members from your MyBlogLog community on your site. The plugin lets you display a widget of your most active MyBlogLog members, helps you to manage a members’ list page, and view a detailed members profile page. Just think of all the social bookmarking opportunities! One caveat, the plugins only work if you’ve already got a Yahoo! API key, but not to fret if you don’t. You can apply for the beta at developer.yahoo.com/mybloglog . Check out what else the team’s brewing here.

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