Yahoo introduced its new iOS app today, noting that the technology used to build the app was possible because of their recent acquisition of Summly. "The new Yahoo mobile app is also smarter, using Summly's natural-language algorithms and machine learning to deliver quick story summaries," said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer in a post on Yahoo's corporate blog. Yahoo gained a number of headlines when it acquired Summly less than a month ago for approximately $30 million. Most of the attention was garnered because the startup was founded by a 17 year old who based his technology on a licensing arra [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Top News | Yahoo: Mobile

Yahoo announced today that it is retiring five of its products at the end of this month, including Upcoming, Yahoo Kids and Yahoo Deals. Older versions of Yahoo Mail will be disabled as well on June 3. In an attempt to narrow their focus, Yahoo stated they wanted to put their energy into building "beautiful products," citing Yahoo Mail for iPad and Android tablets, and Yahoo Weather for iPhone, which were both introduced this week. Upcoming, Yahoo's events and calendar tool, will be cease to exist as of April 30, 2013, along with its API support. Other products scheduled to retire this m [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile | Yahoo: News

This morning, Yahoo introduced its improved Mail app for Apple and Android tablets and a new weather app for the iPhone. The Mail app is a larger, tablet-optimized version of the Mail app that was introduced for the iPhone in December. Yahoo's new mail apps put Yahoo Mail's quality and functionality on par with Google's mail apps and will help increase mobile usage and retain Yahoo Mail users. The weather app, however, is not just "workmanlike" but offers a visually rich environment and should grow usage on the iPhone. The Android version of Yahoo Weather is similarly immersive, but not [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Flickr | Yahoo: Mobile

Usage of Yahoo's various mobile apps was up about 50 percent in the first quarter of the year to more than 300 million monthly users. That's some of the mobile-related data that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer shared today on the company's Q1 earnings call. During the company's previous earnings call three months ago, Mayer said that Yahoo ended 2012 with about 200 million monthly mobile users. She called out growth in two specific Yahoo mobile apps -- Mail and Flickr -- that were relaunched right before Christmas. On Yahoo's new mobile Mail app, daily active users were up 50 percent in the firs [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Yahoo | Yahoo: Mobile

Earlier in the week, I speculated that Yahoo might be able to follow Facebook's lead and create a Home-like proprietary software layer on top of Android. But, there would be risks in doing so. An alternative way to boost mobile usage and traffic might be to deepen an existing partnership with another operating system that has massive reach: iOS. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is reporting this afternoon that Apple and Yahoo are having a conversation, with no deal imminent, to expand the amount of Yahoo content available to Siri and pre-loaded on Apple devices. According to the WSJ: But [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Apple: iPhone | Apple: Siri | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile

Facebook Home is slated for release this week, and blogs are abuzz with news that a pre-release version has leaked ahead of the official April 12 launch. It's reportedly buggy, so better to wait. Despite some early indications that Home may face an uphill climb, it could prove to be popular with die-hard Facebook users. We'll soon see. But, last week's frenzy and coverage surrounding Home got me thinking about another company with significant mobile aspirations: Yahoo. Let me qualify what I'm about to say. I'm not a developer or engineer, so I can't assess the technical challenges or fe [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Flickr | Yahoo: Mobile

Yahoo has acquired mobile app Summly, which was founded by UK teen Nick D’Aloisio. He was 15 then; he's 17 now. Summly is not unlike Zite or Flipboard. It's a mobile app that aggregates and formats news content from numerous publishers and offers elegant "summaries" of those articles. AllThingsD reported that the acquisition price was "close to $30 million." Founder D’Aloisio and the Summly team will join Yahoo. However, the Summly app will disappear, starting today. This is both an "acqu-hire" and a technology acquisition for Yahoo, which will incorporate Summly's capabilities into [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile

We've known for quite some time that Yahoo was preparing to relaunch its homepage. We saw early evidence several months ago in screenshots and even more recently "in the wild." But today, the "new Yahoo" is officially starting its rollout in the US. Overall, the new homepage has an updated but similar look, with a range of visual and structural changes. For comparison, here is an image of the "old" Yahoo homepage, which is still live for most people: Below is the new homepage (screenshot provided by Yahoo). The colors, the fonts, the icons and other elements of the page are slightly [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Top News | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile | Yahoo: News

Kara Swisher at AllThingsD, who seems to have an unlimited supply of moles and sources within Yahoo, is reporting that she's been told by someone inside the company that Yahoo's mobile ad revenues are only $125 million annually -- with most of that coming from search. According to Swisher: [D]irect mobile revenue hovers only around $125 million annually, mostly from search revenue on mobile devices. While users are consuming lots of Yahoo Web pages on their phones, which could technically boost the sales numbers higher, rendering most desktop-created ads on mobile is not the same thing as [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Flickr | Yahoo: Mobile

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer sat down with Bloomberg TV in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum, in a very interesting and far-ranging interview (embedded below), to discuss the future of Internet technology and search. Mayer spoke at length about the future of search, social, mobile and Yahoo's strategy. She also offered her first public comments about Yahoo's positioning and strategy, amid intensifying competition from a range of larger players, including Google, Amazon and Facebook. The Right CEO For Yahoo It's clear from this interview that Mayer was the right choice for the Ya [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile

At this point, you may be predictioned out. But, if you can make room for one more post about what mobile marketing holds in store for 2013 (U.S. focus), I promise to make it worth your while. Mobile has started to play a huge role in marketing over the last couple of years, and this year will be no different. In fact, I am going to be so bold as to say that this is the year that mobile finally breaks out and has that hero moment that prognosticators have been talking about for the last 10-12 years. Before I dig into my five predictions though, it is probably worth looking at a little ba [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Check-In Services | Facebook: Mobile | Foursquare | Google: Mobile | Mobile Marketing | Mobile Marketing Column | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Twitter: Mobile | Yahoo: Mobile

If you go by my Facebook and Twitter feeds, you'd think Instagram is finished -- users are packing their bags (downloading their photos using services like Instaport) and migrating to other services like Snapchat or even the venerable Flickr. This because the Facebook-owned photo-sharing service announced changes in its terms of service due to take effect in January, with some of those changes designed to allow advertisers access to the audience. Is everyone leaving Instagram before marketers get a chance to engage with them? Not likely. Since this latest Facebook-related-change panic (FR [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Acquisitions | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Instagram | Features & Analysis | Mobile Marketing | Top News | Yahoo: Flickr | Yahoo: Mobile

Yahoo's first two acquisitions in the era of CEO Marissa Mayer weren't big splashy deals as many including me had anticipated; they were modest "acqu-hires" for mobile teams. By the same token Yahoo's launch of new apps for Yahoo Mail and Flickr, yesterday and today, are similar workmanlike updates and upgrades to core Yahoo properties. Yahoo Mail is, from a traffic and monetization perspective, second only in importance to the Yahoo homepage, which is scheduled for a Mayer-inspired refresh as well. In a way it's amazing that there was no iPhone app for Yahoo Mail until yesterday. That' [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile

A couple of weeks ago Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made her first acquisition: Stamped, a mobile recommendations app/site. It turned out to be an "acqu-hire," to help build out Yahoo's mobile product and development team. Stamped itself will be shuttered. Like Stamped, Yahoo is also shuttering its Yahoo Mobile Blog. This is somewhat surprising for a company that is making mobile one of its top priorities -- if not its top priority. Mayer said the following on the Yahoo Q3 earnings call: We haven't effectively optimized our websites, we've underinvested in our mobile front-end development and we [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile

Marissa Mayer has made her first buy as Yahoo's CEO, and it's a company with strong Google connections. Yahoo announced its acquisition of Stamped, a mobile/social recommendations service. And Mayer herself shared the image above on Instagram. The acquisition is more about the "who" than the "what." Stamped launched in 2011 as the brainchild of a few ex-Googlers: Robby Stein worked at Google for four years. Bart Stein (not related) was involved in Google's Creative Lab. Paul Eastlund worked at Google for five years. The company's about us page lists 11 employees (including an intern) [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Mobile Marketing | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile

Yahoo's first company earnings report under new CEO Marissa Mayer is still in progress; as I type this, new CFO Ken Goldman is reviewing Yahoo's financials on his first day at the company. But the big focus of the call is Mayer herself -- it's her first opportunity to speak to investors and the public about her plans to revitalize one of the internet's oldest, and still most popular, destinations. She began by telling listeners, "This job is tailor-made for me," and explained that Yahoo's core components - search, advertising, mobile, news and the home page -- are the same core component [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features & Analysis | Top News | Yahoo | Yahoo: Answers | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Flickr | Yahoo: Mobile

There's a widely held belief that as part of putting her stamp on Yahoo, new CEO Marissa Mayer will make a significant acquisition very soon. The speculation has begun about who or what that acquisition will be. One very likely candidate is Foursquare. Foursquare could give a big boost to Yahoo in "SoLoMo": social, local and mobile. While Yahoo has mobile apps, it badly lags Google's efforts -- especially in local. At one time Yahoo had the leading local property online and squandered that lead through literally years of neglect. Mayer Was in Charge of Local at Google Ironically Marissa M [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Features & Analysis | Foursquare | Top News | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile

According to AllThingsD freshly minted Yahoo CEO is making some initial changes at the Sunnyvale company intended to boost morale and inject new energy into the place. Among the changes being implemented are a Friday afternoon "all-hands" meeting, free food and forthcoming reworking of the workspaces. In these moves Mayer is apparently using Google as the model. However, product changes and upgrades are coming too. AllThingsD's Kara Swisher says that her indefatigable sources at Yahoo suggest there will be an acquisition or product-related announcement coming soon, to signal Yahoo's return [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile

It was probably inevitable that Yahoo's Livestand app would be discontinued -- as was announced earlier today. Though a noble attempt, it was always a weaker product than some of its competitors, including Flipboard and Zite. Livestand was announced in November, just six months ago. Whatever strategy gave birth to Livestand, under Carol Bartz, is no longer in place at Yahoo. Blake Irving, former Yahoo Product Chief, was the one who introduced Livestand and IntoNow last year. He's no longer with the company, resigning during the short-lived Scott Thompson regime. Livestand had improve [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Mobile

It's not just Google closing products these days. Yahoo announced today that it's shutting down a full 10 of its mobile apps across both the iOS and Android platforms. The list of Yahoo mobile apps being shut down is as follows: Yahoo Meme (iPad and iPhone) Yahoo Mim (iPad) Yahoo Answers (Android) Yahoo AppSpot (Android and iPhone) Yahoo Deals (iPhone) Yahoo Finance (BlackBerry) Yahoo Movies (Android) Yahoo News (Android) Yahoo Shopping (iPhone) Yahoo Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone) I'm using the phrase "shut down" above; Yahoo says the apps will no longer be supported [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Mobile Marketing | Top News | Yahoo | Yahoo: Mobile