Yahoo! Fire Eagle got a lot of attention when it launched back in March, and for good reason: a cross-platform system for building location data into an application? The buzz died down, though, because there weren't any cool applications using Fire Eagle. That's changing now, though, as the first wave of Fire Eagle stuff rolls out. Metosphere for the iPhone is one of the best of this bunch.
Metosphere has several uses. Like any app that takes advantage of Fire Eagle, it can update your location using your GPS or a WiFi hotspot. It also shows you nearby events on Eventful and Upcoming, and nearby Wikipedia pages. There's a map that shows you all of this, plus meetups, emergency alerts, and the best part: messages and geocaches you can create directly from Metosphere. There's no signup required, just use your existing Yahoo! ID.
Geocaching is going to be a big deal very soon, and Metosphere is a great way to play with it on a platform you already know how to use. Show it to your friends and leave each other messages at your favorite hangouts, or start a city-wide scavenger hunt. We'll keep covering new Fire Eagle tools as they advance -- that monthly renewal email is a good reminder to see what developers have been working on.
The bright developer behind Inquisitor has announced today that Yahoo! has acquired the rights to his program, which searches for and suggests results as you type. It's very similar to Spotlight except that it searches the Internet instead of your Mac's HDDs.
We worry that Yahoo! might ruin Inquisitor by preventing it from working with other search engines, but the developer insists he will remain the lead mind behind the program. He will not be working with Yahoo! as their official employee, so at least he's keeping his creative freedom. Though we don't know if the company will allow him to apply that freedom to the program since it's technically Yahoo's now.
Our suggestion, if you use Inquisitor, is to turn off the search for updates feature, which may lead you to accidentally update the program to a crippled version. If you're happy with the way Inquisitor works, there's no point in risking an update. Otherwise, don't agree to an update without researching the changes first. We wouldn't want you to restrict Safari's search bar to Yahoo. No one deserves that.
Yahoo! has partnered with McAfee to integrated the security firm's SiteAdvisor technology in Yahoo! search results. That means Yahoo! will remove some of the most dangerous sites from search results altogether, and will include highly visible warning messages on search listings that force downloads, include browser exploits, or sites that send unsolicited emails.
Google offers a similar service, through a partnership with Stop Badware. But Google doesn't check for web sites that initiated automatic downloads when you load them, or sites that include links to harmful web pages. Yahoo!'s new SearchScan feature does.
SearchScan will be turned on by default for Yahoo! users in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and Spain. You can turn it off by visiting the SearchScan settings page.
With all the talk of Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! leading nowhere, there's one important thing to keep in mind: Yahoo! never said it was looking for a buyer. Microsoft's takeover offer never quite got "hostile," but it was unsolicted nonetheless. So now that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has decided to take his ball and go home, we probably shouldn't be surprised that Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang released a statement saying "With the distraction of Microsoft's unsolicited proposal now behind us, we will be able to focus all of our energies" on other things, you know, like making the company as valuable as Yang and the shareholders told Microsoft it already is.
Kara Swisher at All Things Digital has written an interesting article choc full of information from those close to the negotiations. In a nutshell, she says that Yang was originally holding out for Microsoft to offer $40 a share, which was a good $10 or $11 higher than the value of the offer this week. Ballmer was reportedly willing to go as high as $33, while Yang was willing to come down to $37. But once Yang said that Yahoo! would respond to any proxy fight initiated by Microsoft by expanding its partnership with Google, things seemed to fall apart.
It's not clear whether Yahoo! will continue to seek more deals with companies like Google and AOL now that the Microsoft deal is no more. But this raises an interesting question: were Yang and company protecting their brand and their shareholders, or was this a dumb move from a company that's not as relevant as it once was?
Earlier today we covered how the Microsoft and Yahoo thing might actually go through, or go bust altogether. Long story short: Microsoft withdrew its offer.
Three months after everyone went bananas because Microsoft put out the bid to buy Yahoo, Ballmer finally says it's "in the best interest of Microsoft" to withdraw its bid. And probably in the best interest of, and great relief to, Yahoo product users who thought Microsoft would ravage all that was good about the services and turn Flickr into some sort of Microsoft Photo Share Premium Family Live while Yahoo Mail would spend eternity as Hot Live Yahoo Mail. Microsoft shareholders who didn't think the bid was a good idea in the first place are probably pretty happy too. And Google. And probably a lot of other people.
So what does the future look like for Microsoft? Keep going of course, says Ballmer: "While Yahoo would have accelerated our strategy, I am confident that we can continue to move forward toward our goals." And Yahoo will probably have to deal with lawsuits from disgruntled shareholders that thought this was a really good idea.
And, if the details of this drama intrigue you, read the whole "not to be" letter from Ballmer to Yang.
It looks like the acquisition talks between Microsoft and Yahoo! are back on. The other day we were picking on Microsoft for setting an ultimatum, and then letting it pass with no real consequences. But the New York Times reports that there's probably a good reason Microsoft hasn't followed through with their threat to replace Yahoo!'s board: the company actually think it can hammer out a peaceful agreement.
Sources close to the deal are saying that Microsoft is willing to raise its bid to about $33 a share. That's less than the $37 a share some Yahoo! shareholders are hoping for, but significantly higher than the $29 a share Microsoft is currently offering. If this all sounds like the two companies are squabbling over just a few bucks, keep this in mind: Every $1 per share increase raises the value of the transaction by about $1.4 billion.
It's still totally possible that this deal could fall through. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer says he's got a firm limit in mind and will not pay a penny more, while Yahoo!'s Jerry Yang says the previous offers were too low, but has not publicly stated what the right price might be. If the negotiations go nowhere, Microsoft could follow through on its threat to initiate a hostile takeover, but in the long run that could wind up costing even more money.
Several companies that broadcast internet radio streams, including RealNetworks, Yahoo!, and this blog's parent company, AOL owe ASCAP millions of dollars. That's according to a federal court in New York. While the court did not determine the exact amount of money owed, ASCAP estimates that the fees could climb as high as $100 million.
ASCAP stands for the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and the group represents over 300,000 songwriters who are currently receiving no compensation when their music is streamed by the three media companies. This despite the fact that the radio streams are supported by advertising, which means AOL, RealNetworks and Yahoo! are making at least some money through their streaming music operations.
This whole issue is separate from the dispute between the RIAA and online radio stations last year. The RIAA represents recording artists, while ASCAP covers songwriters.
OK, this is just getting silly. At this point, Microsoft has made its offer to purchase Yahoo!, been rejected, set a date in the sand, after which Microsoft would try to oust Yahoo!'s board of directors, and then let that date come and go without taking any action. And after all the tough talk, now it looks like Microsoft is finally starting to consider raising its asking price.
The problem is that Microsoft is thinking $32 or $33, which would be a nice boost from its current bid valued at $29.06 a share, while some Yahoo! shareholders are apparently holding out for $35 or more a share.
If this keeps up, we kind of expect Steve Ballmer to start shooting sptiballs at Yahoo! board members and shareholders, pulling their hair, and then threatening to take the kickball home with him so they can't play the game anymore. And then Microsoft will wind up paying $45 a share.
This blog's parent company, AOL is continuing to snatch up smaller companies like there's no tomorrow just in case there actually is no tomorrow. The latest acquisition is blog search tool Sphere, which we've covered several times in the past. While Sphere started out as a blog search engine, the company has since become a tool for bloggers and web publishers who want to show related information from other blogs on their web sites.
Sphere CEO Tony Conrad says the company's approach will remain "start up style," even after joining the AOL team, which basically means the management team will remain in place but now Sphere will have access to AOL's resources and take some marching orders from the top.
As AOL continues to make the transition from an ISP to an internet-based business, the company has been buying up properties like Bebo, Sphere, and a little company called Weblogs Inc. It's too soon to tell whether the move will be enough to save AOL. But if there's any truth to the rumors of an AOL/Yahoo! merger, that could do the trick.
Yahoo! seems to have come up with the ultimate response to Microsoft's heavy-handed attempts to purchase the internet portal. The Wall Street Journal reports that Yahoo! is in talks with Download Squad's parent company AOL over plans to merge the two companies' internet operations.
If the deal goes through, the two companies would combine their web and internet based services. AOL's old school ISP services would not be part of the deal, which would value AOL at $10 billion. Yahoo! would reportedly use some of the revenue from a merger with Time Warner/AOL to buy back a whole bunch of stock which woudl help the company fend off any further unwanted advances from Microsoft.
The upshot of a possible partnership or merger is that people will stop picking on AOL for copying Yahoo!'s homepage design. The downside is that a merged company could conceivably be called AOwho? OK, probably not. We for one welcome our new Yahoo! overlords anyway.
It seems Yahoo! recently lost faith in its ability to advertise, and it almost seems desperate to try something very different. In fact, the company seems so desperate in a Web-world increasingly dominated by Google, that it's going to give AdSense a shot. Yes, Yahoo! will host Google ads on its own site.
Though the mini-partnership is cute and we're sure they'd make a fun but powerful couple, don't make any assumptions about their intentions yet. As much as Google would like to get in that pair of pants, Yahoo will only support AdSense in up to 3% of all search results for now. If AdSense does what it promises to do -- make more money than Yahoo's advertising services -- the two companies should enter into a more committed relationship.
It feels like Yahoo's just giving up, but you can't blame 'em. Google's an innovative monster, and how do you compete with that? I guess if you can't beat 'em, catch a ride on their coattails.
Yahoo! will integrate IndexTools with its current analytic tools to help build the company's advertising network. The services will first be available to members of the Yahoo! ad network, but eventually the company plans to build a system that will let third party developers "monitor and optimize the traffic performance" of web applications.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of the year. The terms of the acquisition were not released.
Yahoo! Mail has been one of the most popular free web-based email services ever since its humble beginnings. Not too long ago, Yahoo! started to feel the pressure from the brazen upstart Gmail, which offers a gradually increasing mailbox limit. Not to be outdone, Yahoo! introduced an unlimited mailbox size, promising that users would "never need to delete a message again."
As many of us expected, there is a limit, and it has been found. The Wall Street Journal has found a bug in the system that renders a account inoperable if it has too many messages in one folder. According to their findings, 55,000 or so is the maximum that the system can handle. Yahoo! is working on fixing the issue (of course), but be sure to point and laugh in the mean time.
Oh, Microsoft, Yahoo!, when are you going to stop fighting and realize that you're in love with each other? Yahoo!'s board of directors has responded to a letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer demanding action within 3 weeks. In a nutshell, Ballmer told Yahoo! that if the company didn't accept Microsoft's buyout offer, Microsoft would lower its bid and try to replace the Yahoo! Board. So what does Yahoo!'s current board have to say?
I mean seriously, $31 per share? What's up with that. And have we mentioned that your stock is dropping, so your offer is worth less today then when you made the offer?
We keep launching new products like a new advertising platform that add value to our brand. And you're trying to buy us for $31 per share? Hmph.
You think you're the only one interested in taking us to the prom? We've got lots of suitors. Really.
Don't bully us.
All of which is to say that Yahoo! has not closed the door on a possible merger with Microsoft. But Microsoft's either going to have to follow through on Ballmer's threat to wage a proxy battle or raise its asking price.
OK, we know it's a long shot, but wouldn't it be great if Microsoft succeeded in its bid to buy Yahoo! and then renamed the company Microhoo? Because when you type "Microhoo" into Yahoo!'s search engine right now, one of the suggestions is "Microhoods." And given Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's recent letter to the Yahoo! Board, that seems like as accurate a description as any.
Essentially, Ballmer told the board that they've got 3 weeks to accept Microsoft's offer, currently valued at $42 billion in cash and stocks. If the board refuses, Microsoft will take the offer directly to Yahoo!'s shareholders and nominate a slate of board members to replace the current board.
The original offer was 62% higher than Yahoo!'s closing share price on January 31, one day before the offer was made. Ballmer says the goal was to facilitate a "speedy and ultimately friendly transaction." Since that hasn't happened, Ballmer indicates Microsoft might be willing to get a little less friendly, and suggests that Microsoft would drop its offer price if the company has to resort to a proxy contest.
Yahoo! Fire Eagle got a lot of attention when it launched back in March, and for good reason: a cross-platform system for building location data into an application? The buzz died down, though, because there weren't any cool applications using Fire Eagle. That's changing now, though, as the first wave of Fire Eagle stuff rolls out. Metosphere for the iPhone is one of the best of this bunch. 
