ajb{log}: learn something new each day

Yahoo! AMP (Advertising Management Platform) coming in the 3rd quarter of 08. Will this be the “real” worthy Google Adwords competitor?

–aj

In case you haven’t noticed, Yahoo! recently had another redesign of its homepage. Placing the logo at the center just like the old times.

(March 25, 2008)

(October 17, 1996)

Seems a lot cleaner than the previous ones. Do you like it? I do!

–aj

Yahoo! Fire Eagle recently mailed out my beta invite to test out the service. Think of it as a twitter for your location.

I signed up for the alpha testing last January when I read about it on Yahoo! Next’s blog. Though I didn’t get to see it in alpha (didn’t matter), it’s cool to finally get a feel what Yahoo! has been up to with a "share your location" service.

Soon you can use Fire Eagle to share your location via Facebook, a badge you can place at your website/blog, and update your location on SMS.

In their own words:

Fire Eagle is a system that brokers location information. It is designed to help users safely share information about their location with sites, services and people on the Internet.

By the way, I have 4 exclusive beta invites to give out. Let me know if you want one.

–aj

From TechCrunch:

YAHOO! BOARD OF DIRECTORS SAYS MICROSOFT’S PROPOSAL SUBSTANTIALLY UNDERVALUES YAHOO!

Sunnyvale, Calif., February 11, 2008 — Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today said the Yahoo! Board of Directors has carefully reviewed Microsoft’s unsolicited proposal with Yahoo!’s management team and financial and legal advisors and has unanimously concluded that the proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo! and our stockholders.

After careful evaluation, the Board believes that Microsoft’s proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! including our global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments. The Board of Directors is continually evaluating all of its strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all stockholders.

Goldman, Sachs & Co., Lehman Brothers and Moelis & Company are acting as financial advisors to Yahoo!. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is acting as legal advisor to Yahoo!, and Munger Tolles & Olson LLP is acting as counsel to the outside directors of Yahoo!.

This is going to be a lenghty negotiation between the two camps.

–aj

I thought offering customers “Unlimited” hosting is a sign of good things to come. I was wrong. Yahoo! just emailed my billing for a domain and it also stated that they will increase their domain renewal from $9.95 to $12.95!

There is also something wrong in this billing. Read the part “…and your credit card will be charged the annual fee of 0″. Yes, you are reading it right. Zero as in zilch, nada, none. Does that mean I will not pay for this year’s renewal?

Desperate times ahead for at Yahoo I guess.

Netfirms is still $5.95! I hope it’s easy to transfer my domains.

–aj

NOTE:  *Domain .com, .net and .org sale pricing at Netfirms is $5.95 for first year. Domain will renew at $9.95 per year thereafter.

Yahoo! Web Hosting plan is now offering unlimited disk space, unlimited data transfer, unlimited email storage, and 1,000 email accounts — all for $11.95 a month.

This is shared hosting and I think it’s a pretty good deal compared to dreamers who can mess up your credit card bill.

–aj

I guess I was wrong. The rumor last May from WSJ was true after all.

$44.6 Billion. Wow. I guess the number is so big, we can’t really understand it (especially the value). Our minds are just not hard-wired to hearing such numbers.

I hope it’s good for Yahoo! employees. I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but there are lots of competing products between Yahoo and Microsoft. Someone has to go or move on.

It’s sad for the yahooeys. But I guess it’s the only way to save the company. Now, how do you yodel Microsoft? See? It didn’t sound right eh?

Do you Yahoo Microsoft?

–aj

UPDATE: Getting a lot more interesting every minute. Yahoo may consider Google alliance

Yahoo! just launched their OpenID service. 248 million users will now have the ability to login to any website that supports OpenID 2.0 authentication (link) and that my friend, is a huge boost to OpenIDs initiative.

Here’s Jeremy Zawodny and Allen Tom discussing OpenID at Yahoo.

Visit http://openid.yahoo.com now and setup your account. When I get the time, I’ll implement OpenID to all the sites I maintain. Should be a very cool addition to any site. Jump in the bandwagon now!

–aj

| View | Upload your own

Here’s a slide for more in-depth understanding on how and why Yahoo! chooses to add OpenID to their features list.

–aj

Yahoo! has a cool new project. Fire Eagle.

According to their site, Fire Eagle is a new way to share your location with friends or with other websites and services. It’s built on open APIs so that developers can build all kinds of applications that respond to your location.

Sounds really cool! Can’t wait to be a tester.

–aj