Another week, another five work days into a recession. There were a few distractions along the way, of course. From Jerry Yang and Mark Cuban to Obama Girl and Guns N’ Roses, the week’s events were enough to keep more than a few bloggers busy–at least there was something to write about other than pending economic doom.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer knocked the wind out of Yahoo’s share price again today when he dismissed the notion that Redmond might renew its bid for the foundering Internet company now that Yahoo’s $2 billion man has agreed to step down as CEO.
In the end, Jerry Yang’s decision to step down as Yahoo’s CEO was the best thing he’s ever done for the company. With Yang’s tenure at an end, Yahoo’s stock is finally beginning to recover from a nasty and overlong tailspin. Yahoo rose over 14 percent in early trading today, after Yang finally admitted he’s not the right guy to be running the company.
Safe to say that the mood of last week, with its anticipation of change, is a distant memory. A different kind of anticipation permeated the tech and online media industries, one more reminiscent of April 2001. There was news all around of layoffs, pending layoffs, bankruptcies and stock dives.
It was an eventful week–a new President-elect, Yahoo still playing the field with no takers, and the hovering recession beginning to hit a little harder, a little closer to home. It was hard to keep the storylines straight, so let’s approach it thematically.
Election 2008
Whether or not those voting machines malfunctioned or miscounted votes, Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States, much to the chagrin of comedians like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who–since the beginning of the McCain/Palin partnership–were handed once-in-a-lifetime material. Between the brilliant Saturday Night Live parody sketches of (and by) both Palin and McCain, and Obama’s victory speech, the other big winner (by a mile) was YouTube.
Shares of Yahoo are slipping deep into the mud today after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer very publicly dismissed suggestions that the company might “revisit a possible acquisition” of the much diminished Internet portal. Yahoo is trading at well below $12–$11.86–as I write this, having plummeted nearly 15 percent on Ballmer’s remarks.
Apparently Google would rather abandon its proposed advertising partnership with Yahoo than have the government dictate its terms. This morning Google walked away from the deal saying it’s not in the company’s best interests to risk the protracted legal battle brewing over it. This, not a week after Google and Yahoo submitted a revised, diminished version of the pact that the companies had hoped would appease regulators. Seems Google wasn’t quite as committed to working with Yahoo as CEO Eric Schmidt suggested.
Yahoo’s public shaming before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last November apparently had quite an effect on Internet companies cooperating with Chinese government censorship and demands for information on dissidents. Less than a year after that brutal Capitol Hill humiliation, during which Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D., Calif.) lambasted Yahoo’s leadership as moral “pygmies,” Yahoo, along with Microsoft and Google, is introducing a code of conduct that will govern their business practices in repressive countries.
The new fitness program to which Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang referred in his last all-hands memo to employees is expected to begin Tuesday. Yahoo is to report quarterly earnings tomorrow and it will announce layoffs along with them. Clearly, those Bain & Company “personal trainers” Yahoo recently hired to help it trim down and shape up are already working their magic.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
Don't miss a post! Sign up for our Daily Email and get AllThingsD.com delivered each day.
Get columns, blogs and video from D and All Things Digital on your iPhone. Download now »
